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Coming up next on Passion Struck.
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If you know anything about television and movies, you know that when they film them, they do multiple takes of the same scene.
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In fact, they have that clapboard, take one, take two.
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No take is wrong, they re just looking and exploring for different ways of doing it.
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So when you do something and you don t feel good about it, just say, take two, we re gonna do it again differently next time.
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That wasn t bad or wrong, it s now we re gonna try it differently.
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Welcome to Passion Struck.
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Hi, I m your host, Jon R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
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Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
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If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
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We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
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Now, let s go out there and become Passion Struck.
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in the world.
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If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here.
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Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that.
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We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we organize in convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
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Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
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And if you re not aware, throughout 2024, we are conducting a weekly challenge to help inspire you to become passionstruck.
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We release a new challenge every week in our newsletter, which goes out to over 30,000 people in our community.
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Just go to PassionStruck.com to sign up.
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In case you missed it, earlier this week, I interviewed Dan Harris.
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From global conflict zones to an unexpected on-air panic attack on Good Morning America, former ABC News anchor Dan Harris embarked on a transformative journey.
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Discover how meditation turned his life around, leading to the best-selling book, 10% Happier, a popular podcast, and his meditation app of the same name.
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I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews.
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And if you love today s episode, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families.
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I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners.
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Now, let s talk about today s episode.
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Picture this.
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You re in a crucial meeting and suddenly all eyes are on you, expecting a compelling answer to a question.
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that you didn t see coming.
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Or perhaps you re at a networking event and you need to make a lasting impression, but the right words seem just out of reach.
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Let s face it, we ve all been there.
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The unexpected question in a meeting, the impromptu toast at a gathering, the sudden need to articulate our thoughts clearly and persuasively.
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It s not just about public speaking, it s about those everyday moments that catch us off guard and demand that we communicate effectively.
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And that s exactly what we re gonna discuss today.
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I m absolutely thrilled to have Matt Abrahams with us.
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Matt isn t just a revered Stanford lecturer and the engaging host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast.
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He s a lifeline for anyone who s ever felt the panic of being put on the spot.
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In our episode, we discuss his new enlightening book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and we delve into the art of spontaneous communication.
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With his unique blend of practical advice and science-based strategies, Matt offers a treasure trove of tips to help even the most anxious speakers shine in the moment.
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From managing anxiety and responding to the mood of the room to making content concise, relevant, and memorable, Matt covers it all.
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So whether you re facing a potential client meeting, navigating a job interview, or simply want to be more persuasive and effective in your everyday interactions, this episode is for you.
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Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
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Now, let that journey begin.
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I am absolutely thrilled and honored today to have Matt Abrahams on PassionStruck.
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Welcome, Matt.
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Thanks, John.
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I am super excited as well.
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I first wanted to congratulate you both on your amazing book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, which just came out in September, and also your amazing podcast.
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And I myself have found both so useful.
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So congratulations.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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I m so glad that you find value in both of those.
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Matt, you speak a lot in public, whether you re teaching MBAs at Stanford or hosting your podcast, which I just mentioned, and yet I understand you still get nervous.
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You call it getting the ABCs.
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Can you explain?
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Sure, yeah.
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Anxiety is something that I ve been dealing with and managing my entire life.
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I will say it s getting better, and the situations in which it rears its ugly head, they re fewer and farther between.
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So when it comes to looking at anxiety, we can categorize the different types of anxiety into the ABCs.
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There s affective anxiety.
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That s how it makes us feel.
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Many of us have a negative association with anxiety.
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There are behavioral
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implications of anxiety.
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We might sweat, we might shake, we might speak quickly.
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And then they re cognitive.
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The C is cognitive, which has to do with how we see the situation.
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Do we see it as an opportunity?
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Do we see it as a threat?
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So when it comes to managing anxiety, and I spend a lot of time in the new book, in my previous book, Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, was all about
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managing the different types of anxiety.
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So we have to come up with techniques to address the A, B, and C, the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components.
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Yes, and I have my own book coming out, and one of the chapters I wrote was becoming an anxiety optimizer.
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So I think we both see the need for this.
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Absolutely.
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And I love that you call it an anxiety optimizer.
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Anxiety actually does good things for us.
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It shows us that we care.
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It helps us focus.
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It gives us energy.
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But I like to say we want to manage it so it doesn t manage us.
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So I encourage all of my students, all of the people I coach, to develop an anxiety management plan.
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It s a set of techniques that you can deploy before, during, and after speaking to help yourself feel more comfortable and confident in those situations.
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Let s just take that one step further.
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Oftentimes people feel like they re going to be the most nervous at the beginning of the speech.
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However, I have found myself in situations where I m in that messy middle and all of a sudden I m trying to go through my memory exercises to stay on track for where I m going and something distracts me and all of a sudden I lose my place and then anxiety hits you like a ton of bricks.
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And I think it s something that other people face as well.
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And then there s also when you come to the end of a speech and you re looking for the right way to close it out and you just can t come up with it in that second.
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And so let s talk about that messy middle because I think people put too much emphasis at times on when they first get on stage rather than the middle of their speeches when they really need to be honing in and optimizing that anxiety.
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Well, you re right.
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And a lot of people do put a lot of effort right at the beginning.
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And there s good reason for that.
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Most people are most nervous right at the beginning.
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So it makes sense to have some strategies and plans to help you get through that.
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But you re absolutely right.
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The number one fear people report to me is the fear of blanking out in the midst of a presentation.
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And that s what you re talking about, that messy middle where all of a sudden it s like, what do I do next?
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So a couple of suggestions.
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First has to do with how you actually design your presentations, your meetings,
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you need to have a structure, a plan.
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And a structure gives you a roadmap.
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So the most common structure people are familiar with is problem, solution, benefit.
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If you ve ever seen an advertisement on television, you ve seen this structure.
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There s a challenge or issue, here s how we address it and resolve it, and here are the benefits.
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If you have that structure and you re in the midst of giving a presentation and you blank out or you can t figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be, remind yourself of that roadmap, that structure.
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I ve just covered problem.
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I know solution always follows it.
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So having that roadmap can help get you literally back on track.
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It s like your GPS.
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Two other things you can do in that moment.
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One is go back to go forward.
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If we lose our keys, we retrace our steps.
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If you re in the midst of presenting and you lose your way, repeat what you just said, perhaps not in exactly the same way you said it, but it will often get you back on track.
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When we can t remember where to go next, we often can remember where we ve been.
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And if that doesn t work, simply pause and ask your audience a question.
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Don t admit you ve forgotten where you re going or you re a little bit confused.
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Just pause for a moment and put forth a question that engages your audience.
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And that just gives you that fraction of a second to collect your thoughts.
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For example, when I teach the same strategic communication class twice a quarter every quarter, and I ve done that for 13 years, I sometimes
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I sometimes can t remember, did I say this in that class?
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Where was this going?
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I ll just pause, and I ll simply say to my students, how can we apply what we ve just learned to what s coming up next for you?
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And many of us can ask a similar question.
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And my students don t think, oh, Matt forgot, or is lost, or is nervous.
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They think, how could I apply this?
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So give yourself a little bit of space by asking a question, repeat yourself, and leverage a structure.
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And that can help you in that messy middle.
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I personally think that a class like yours should be in every single curriculum that there is because learning how to speak is one of the most important things we can possibly do.
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I think we should have a similar one on learning how to write proficiently and to craft succinct answers.
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Well, I m going to jump into the book and I always love quotes in books and you start yours with a quote from Maya Angelou and you say in her quote that there s no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.
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Does that hold personal significance for you?
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It certainly does.
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One, I m a huge fan of Maya Angelou.
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Her work has been very meaningful in my life and I ve seen it be meaningful in the life of others.
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One of the foundational mistakes I made and many of the people that I coach make is we focus so much on what it is we re saying and not on how we re making people feel.
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We have known for millennia that emotion matters.
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Neuroscience has taught us a lot recently about the impact of emotion, how it gets into our brains differently than information, how it really resonates and can motivate action and help us remember.
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And that quote is just so eloquent in really highlighting that idea.
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One of the things I spend a lot of time with my students and the people I coach
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is this notion of invoking emotion.
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And we do it through storytelling, through personal disclosure, through analogies, through imagery sometimes.
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So it really does resonate with me.
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And when I talk to those I teach and coach, they see the value in it as well.
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So another thing that you bring up in the book is the question, what do you think?
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I wanted to ask a different question or explore a different question that we re often asked, which is, what do you do?
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In both of these questions, it s something that we ve all been called upon to ask.
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We often know it s coming, yet depending on the situation we find ourselves in, we can feel downright terrified in the way that we re answering it.
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Why is that?
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Well, so I start the book out with an example of the simple question, what do you think, and the myriad situations in which we get asked that be it in an elevator with our boss be it in a classroom with a professor, that question invokes fear in a lot of us because it puts us on the spot.
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And I agree, what do you do we get asked that all the time as well.
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In those moments where people put us on the spot, the anxiety comes from several places.
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One, we want to give the right answer, as if there is a right answer there.
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We want to be our best selves.
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And we want to also overcome or try to overcome the anxiety that we feel in those moments.
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So these are crucible moments when people put us on the spot, be it asking a question, asking us for feedback, asking us to introduce ourselves.
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These spontaneous speaking situations inherently invoke emotion and set high expectations in ourselves.
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And that s what makes them so challenging.
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Well, they are very challenging.
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And I think Hillary Swain gave one of the best answers to the question, what do you do on a podcast?
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I was listening to, and she said, ultimately I m a storyteller.
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I tell stories to my kids the way and other relatives and the way I m expressing myself.
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When I m an actor, I express myself by telling a story.
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I do the same thing when I m a producer, a director, and that s what I love to do.
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But we all have our unique way of answering that depending on the audience that we re in.
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And I personally have found spontaneous speaking is something that hasn t come natural to me.
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I remember when I was in college, I had this roommate where he was Mr. One-liner.
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You could say anything to him and he was just so quick in his responses.
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They were witty.
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They were funny.
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He would engage you.
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And for me, I remember just standing there with a blank stare and it was really challenging.
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And this is something that you cover yourself.
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Why do you believe spontaneous speaking is such a crucial skill and why do so many people like myself find it challenging?
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So it is a crucial skill because if you think about it, most of our communication is spontaneous.
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It happens in the moment.
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It is rare that you prepare the presentation, create the agenda for the meeting.
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It s more often than not.
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In the moment, people ask you questions, you have small talk, you have to apologize, you make a mistake or technology doesn t work.
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A lot of our communication happens in the moment.
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And so it s critically important that we take time to learn to do it better.
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Now, the book and the methodology the book is based on has several counterintuitive notions.
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One is that we can all get better at this.
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Just as you said, John, there are some people who seem to be more natural at it.
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It could be by experience, by practice, by nature in terms of just personality.
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But all of us can improve.
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We can all get better at our spontaneous speaking.
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The reason we re nervous about it is it really puts us on the spot.
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We feel challenged.
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We feel that we have to do well.
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The spotlight is on us.
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And there are many things we can do that can help.
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Methodology has six steps.
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The first four are about mindset, how we can just prepare ourselves
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better to do well in these circumstances.
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And the last two, the ones that are really about how we respond to those spontaneous speaking situations.
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So it s really about mindset and messaging to help ourselves improve.
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And the reality is all of us can get better at it.
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And that leads me to the topic of
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I think that there s this common myth that the most compelling communicators that we see always express themselves perfectly.
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You see someone like President Obama or Oprah or Seth Godin, or let s just Jay Shetty, who always seem to have it together, particularly in the context of spontaneous communication, but that s really not the case.
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Can you explain?
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We see these people who do really well in their communication and we hold them up as exemplars of what good communication is.
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Many of these folks are coached and have practiced and have worked.
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Just like an athlete, you can do a lot of training in advance to prepare you for these moments of spontaneity.
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And many of the people we hold up as great speakers do that.
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I think there s a disconnect though when we look at speakers, political candidates, thought leaders, actors and actresses.
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This is not only part of their profession, but the type of communication that they re doing
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is different than this in the moment spontaneous speaking.
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So we hold up as a goal something that it s different than what we re finding ourselves doing.
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And it s a little unrealistic.
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So part of the mindset shifts is to really set our expectations for what is good spontaneous speaking and what is good spontaneous speaking for us.
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And that can really help take some of the pressure off.
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Matt, one of the things I have found when I have made mistakes in my past, whether it was answering someone spontaneously or giving a speech, is that I ended up starting from the wrong place.
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Why is this such a common mistake that people make?
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Yeah, so when we re in the midst of spontaneous speaking we often jump in too quickly, and we gravitate towards one nugget or piece of what it is somebody is saying.
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So first we need to remind ourselves that we can take a beat, we can pause for a second.
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Silence is okay.
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Or we could ask a clarifying question to give ourselves a little bit more space and to help us focus, or we could paraphrase I m a huge fan of paraphrasing where I repeat in my own words or extract the key gist of what you re saying, and repeat that one to verify what you and I are talking about.
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but two, again, to give myself a little bit of space.
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So part of the problem is we act too quickly.
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The other part is that we lock in on one thing that connects with us rather than listening and observing what s really needed in the moment.
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One of the six steps in the methodology is really to listen.
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Listen to what is said, how it is said, the context in which it is said.
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And this allows us to respond in a more nuanced and often appropriate way.
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So I encourage everybody to give yourself permission to take that pause to give yourself time to collect your thoughts, it doesn t have to be very long and a clarifying question or paraphrasing
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you do that so you can actually answer in a really nuanced, detailed, appropriate way.
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I think that s great advice and sometimes those pauses can feel like they re an eternity and yet they re only a couple of seconds.
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So I think we really need to give ourselves some grace when we re in those situations
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And it s something that I found in improv class that it s okay to have maybe a momentary pause where you re trying to collect your thoughts before you re-engage in the conversation.
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Because if not, you can throw the whole thing off kilter.
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Absolutely.
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I love that you re doing improv.
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So many principles from improvisation apply to speaking in the moment.
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This notion of being present.
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Improv has these wonderful sayings.
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Do what s needed.
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Don t just do something, stand there.
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And the most famous of all, yes and.
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These principles are amazing principles for spontaneous speaking, but also just for living life.
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So I love that you re doing improv.
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I hope you re enjoying it and learning from it.
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I am enjoying it very much.
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And one of the things I loved that we didn t do was going around the room and getting everyone s bio.
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So you hear how incredible the other people are around you, because I think that would make it even more intimidating.
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But in my class, it was actually taught
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by a woman who s been in 20 or 30 films herself.
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And we had another actor who would come in during them, who s actually been in the Hunger Games and other major motion pictures.
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And it was just so fun to be able to do these roles and to be able to feel comfortable even with people like that, because you just allowed yourself to have fun.
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And that to me was one of the biggest things I learned
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was just be playful, just be yourself.
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And that there doesn t have to be a right answer.
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It s just learning how to communicate and how to bounce off what another person is saying.
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And so for me, it was extremely beneficial.
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However, Matt, there was one moment that I could not believe that this occurred.
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So it just so happened that a really good friend of mine s 18 or 19 year old daughter was in the class with us.
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And she and I get called upon to do a scene together.
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And there s this young gentleman out in the audience when we ask, what topic do you want to hear about?
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And he s the first person who speaks.
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He s never been in the class before.
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And he says, I want you to do a scenario that the two of you are a couple and you want to bring a third person into the relationship.
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And
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I am just hearing this and my whole stomach just drops and I can see that she s completely turning white.
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And now I know I ve got to completely salvage this situation because she s not going to be able to do it.
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So other than that, it was very, very enjoyable, but I did manage to work our way out of it.
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You have to finish the story, John.
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What did you do?
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I kind of shifted it.
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That question was never on the table to begin with.
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making a statement to her and she goes, no, that would never be on the table in our relationship.
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And so we kind of just diffused it very quickly and were able to turn it into, but if it was on the table, this is how we would approach it.
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Love it.
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Love it.
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So what I like there is you just responded in the moment and your partner, she said, yes, and you took it forward.
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So instead of getting inside yourself and say, oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing.
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This is awkward for all these reasons.
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You just said, of course, we d never do that.
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And she jumped right on board.
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Love it.
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That s a great story.
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Well, thank you.
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I think one of the things that I have found the most advantageous thing that I ve ever learned is to change my perspective when I m communicating.
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I think a lot of people see communication as adversarial, me against them.
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And to me, you really have to be a perspective harnesser at times.
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You need to harness the opportunity to change your perspective to see the interactions that you re having as an opportunity and not a threat.
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How does someone go about doing that?
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I love that you are employing that in your own life.
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I have a whole chapter on that I call it mind your mindset, and there are four techniques that I recommend that people use to change their perspective of spontaneous speaking from being one of threat and challenge to one of opportunity.
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Many of us see when we get asked a question, or for feedback, or for small talk, we want to give the right answer.
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We want to give the best feedback.
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We want to be the most interesting person in the room.
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And that puts a lot of pressure on ourselves.
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So we get very defensive.
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And when we get defensive, we retreat.
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We make ourselves small.
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Our responses are shorter.
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Our tone is curt.
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When we see it as an opportunity, it actually opens us up.
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Physically, we re bigger.
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Our answers are longer.
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Our tone is more engaging.
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So four ways to do that, or four techniques that can get us into that mindset.
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The first comes from the amazing work of Carol Dweck on growth mindset.
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Carol teaches at Stanford.
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Her work is really powerful.
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In her work, she talks about this notion of not yet.
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So when something doesn t go the way you want, it s not because you aren t able to do it.
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It s just not
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yet.
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Perhaps you haven t practiced or you don t have the skills or haven t had the mentoring.
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So rather than getting down on ourselves or saying that this isn t for us, we see it as an opportunity to learn and to grow.
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So we simply say, not yet.
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The second technique we ve already talked about, which is this notion of yes and that comes from improv.
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So when you re in conflict or when you find challenge, try to connect to something where there is common ground.
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Say yes and.
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So if somebody asks you a very challenging question,
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The fact that person cares and you care about the issue is a place you can go to explore, to connect, and to collaborate.
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So you don t have to agree, but you can at least see that the two of you see eye to eye on the importance of this issue.
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So we ve got not yet, yes, Anne.
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And then the third comes from the world of sport, basketball.
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Mike Krzyzewski, longtime basketball coach, Coach K, just retired.
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He inculcated this view in not just basketball, but in all sports now of next,
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play.
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Many of us, when we do something that we don t feel good about in our communication, we ruminate, we beat ourselves up over it, we get really down.
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And if you do the same thing in a sport, you actually miss out on what comes next.
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So if you re a basketball player and you miss a shot, and in that moment you start ruminating and saying, I should have made that shot, I practiced so much.
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The other players are down the court scoring already and you re not participating in the defense.
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So when something doesn t go the way we want, we simply say next play and move on.
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We don t ruminate in the moment.
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We reflect later.
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Reflection is an important skill, but not in the moment.
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So we start with not yet, we move to yes and, next play, and then finally, I view mistakes differently.
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Mistakes aren t something that s bad or a failure.
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In fact, we learn from them.
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Many know that.
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But I call them missed takes.
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If you know anything about television and movies, you know that when they film them, they do multiple takes of the same scene.
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In fact, they have that clapboard, take one, take two.
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No take is wrong.
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They re just looking and exploring for different ways of doing it.
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So when you do something and you don t feel good about it, just say, take two.
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We re going to do it again differently next time.
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That wasn t bad or wrong.
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It s now we re going to try it differently.
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So these four steps.
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can actually change the way we see our communication to being more opportunistic and less about threat and challenge.
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And I encourage everybody to try one or two of them.
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It doesn t have to be all four to help you feel better about your spontaneous speaking.
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Matt, I ve been recently reading The Miracle Morning by Al Arad.
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In the beginning chapters of the book, he s talking a lot about mediocrity and how he wants to encourage people to get over their mediocrity and that his miracle morning is a great way to do it.
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Your chapter two focuses on maximizing mediocrity.
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Could you explain this concept and how it applies to spontaneous communication?
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Yes, as I alluded to earlier, many of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves in our spontaneous communication and planned presentation to do it right.
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We want to be perfect.
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And the reality is this striving to be right, to be perfect, actually gets in the way of us doing it well at all.
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And to start with, we have to understand there is no right way to communicate.
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There are better ways and worse ways, but there is no one right way.
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And when we strive for that perfection, we actually make it very unlikely that we re going to do well at all and here s why we re using precious cognitive bandwidth to focus on judging and evaluating what we re saying, as we re saying it.
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computer.
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It s not a great analogy, but it works for this.
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If you have too many windows open or a lot of apps open on your phone, your central processing unit, your CPU, is performing less well with each one of those apps or windows because it s stretched thin.
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When I am speaking and I am judging and evaluating intensely what I am saying, I am reducing that bandwidth I have to actually focus on what I m saying.
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So by turning that volume down, we can actually do better.
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So I tell my students and the people I coach to maximize mediocrity.
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And John, let me tell you, my Stanford MBA students, their jaws drop.
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They have never been told in their lives to be mediocre.
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But they understand what I m talking about.
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The pressure they put on themselves actually makes it less likely that they ll do well.
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So the full saying, I tell them, is maximize your mediocrity so you can achieve communication greatness.
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When we focus on connection and what we re saying rather than perfection, we actually end up doing better.
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And in fact, you ve probably learned this in improvisation.
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They have a saying, dare to be dull.
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Just get it done.
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Do what s needed in the moment.
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And by doing so, you free up cognitive resources to do it really well.
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So that s how mediocrity factors in, I think, to spontaneous speaking.
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Yeah, to me and improv, it was difficult enough to try to just respond to the person.
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But when you start having to bring in names, relationships, actions that you re doing prompts that you re showing and other things, and then trying to do the whole
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scene, that s when, to me, it took on a completely different level.
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One of the most important things I discovered as I was doing it is you have to remain 100% present in everything that s going on because if you fail to listen, you re going to be completely out of sync with what s going on.
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I myself, I think a lot of times do a good job listening.
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But one of the things I really struggle with is I ve had a really long day at work.
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My mind is probably going a million miles per second on what I didn t get done, what I need to do tomorrow.
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But it s also in that point of shutting down as well.
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And this is the point when
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I find myself and many of us find ourselves now having to interact with our kids or our spouse or loved one and we end up just tuning out.
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How do we do a better job of staying in that moment and doing active listening and what role does that actually play in enhancing our skill set when it comes to spontaneous speaking?
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Being present is critical because you notice things in the moment, and you re able to respond.
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And I talk a lot about listening.
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In order to listen well, and we don t, most of us listen just enough to get the gist of what somebody is saying, and then we begin rehearsing and practicing and evaluating.
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In fact, I heard somebody the other day say many of us approach listening just as waiting our turn to speak.
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But when you really focus on listening, the bottom line of what someone is saying, not the top line, it requires that you be very present.
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And I borrow a framework from a colleague of mine.
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His name is Collins Dobbs.
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He teaches a course at Stanford s Business School on crucial critical conversations.
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And he uses this framework to help with those.
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And it works beautifully for listening.
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And it s three things, pace, space, grace.
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In order to listen better, you have to slow down.
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As you mentioned, our lives move very quickly and we re remembering what we did or didn t do or worried about what comes next.
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We have to slow down.
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And when we slow down, we can listen better and be more present.
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That s pace.
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We also have to give ourselves space, physical space, the environment we re in, but also mental space.
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I have to dedicate in this moment to really focusing and listening to what you re saying.
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And then finally, grace.
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Grace is really all about permission.
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Permission to hear what you re saying, but also how you re saying it, where you re saying it, when you re saying it, and grace to listen to the intuition that your information brings up for me.
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So we can be more present, be more connected, see the nuance in the circumstance by listening for the bottom line, not the top line, and practicing pace, space, and grace.
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And Matt, I want to turn to your chapter six.
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Last year, one of my favorite episodes that I did was an interview with Don Duponti, and he spent a decade plus as a monk.
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And during our discussion, he told the audience that the most important thing he learned during that tenure was the importance of unwavering focus.
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and that it is one of the things that most of us do not perfect, and yet if you could perfect it, it would lead to so much success in so many areas of our life.
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Why do you call focus the F word of spontaneous speaking?
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Well, I m talking about focus a little differently than the focus you just mentioned, but I do call it the F word.
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Focus is really critical.
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As I mentioned just a few moments ago, things are moving very quickly and there s a lot going on.
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Many of us are multitasking.
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We need to focus our messages to help people get them.
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I believe the most precious commodity we have in the world today is attention.
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And getting people s attention is hard, but sustaining it is even harder.
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And I call sustained attention engagement.
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How do we engage people?
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And we do it by focusing our communication.
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So how do we focus?
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First and foremost, we really have to think about how are our messages relevant to our audience?
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If the audience feels it s relevant, salient, important for them, they will pay attention.
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So we have to focus our messages on what s relevant for them, which means in the moment, or if it s a planned presentation or meeting, we have to do reconnaissance, reflection, and research to understand what s important to our audience.
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Second, we need to think about our goal.
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Goal also helps us focus.
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So a goal to me has three parts, information, emotion, and action.
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What do I want the audience to know?
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How do I want them to feel?
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We talked about that a little bit ago.
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And what do I want them to do?
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Most communication is action-driven.
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If I know my know, feel, and do and what s relevant for my audience, I can actually focus my message so they will pay more attention and it will be more concise.
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Many of us, especially when we speak spontaneously, take our audiences on a journey of our discovery of what it is we re saying as we re saying it, and we end up saying way more than we need to.
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My mother has this saying, I know she didn t create it, but it really is meaningful for me.
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Tell the time, don t build the clock.
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Many of us in our speaking are not focused and we become clock builders.
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So focus is all about getting attention and engagement so we can get our information across.
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Okay.
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And Matt, I want to spend a little bit of time on the application of some of these principles.
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So one of the things that I know I always hate being called upon to do is tributes or introductions or toasts.
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And I remember at Thanksgiving, someone asked me to give a prayer and a toast at the table.
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And all of a sudden I just went blank.
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How can you learn to create toasts, tributes, and introductions that are both memorable and impactful?
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Absolutely.
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And this is something many of us are called upon.
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In fact, toasts and tributes are some of the most frequent spontaneous speaking situations we find ourselves in.
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Like any spontaneous speaking situation, I believe having a structure will help.
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We mentioned structure earlier.
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Structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas.
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It s not a list.
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It is a logical ordering, a story, a narrative, a framework, if you will.
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And in my book, the second part of the book, there are two parts.
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The first part is the methodology.
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The second part takes very specific spontaneous speaking situations and gives advice based on academic research for achieving those things like answering questions, making small talk, apologizing.
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And toasts and tributes are one of those.
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So the first thing we need to think about is how we frame, or at least mentally see, what a toast is.
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To me, a toast or a tribute is a gift.
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Just like a physical gift you give to somebody, a toast or tribute is a gift.
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And when we give gifts, we think about, what would the person like?
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How do I package it in a way that would be received well?
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So when we envision it as a gift, it really helps frame what we re doing.
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In terms of specifically structuring a toast, I believe the best toasts follow a very simple structure and it s easy to
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You have to remember it s called what w h a t it s an acronym.
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The what the W and what is why are we here, you define the importance or significance of this event.
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The H is how are you connected to the event?
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Now, sometimes you have to declare this, other times you don t.
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So if you re leading a team and you re celebrating the launch of the team s product or service, you don t have to say, and as the leader of the team, everybody in the room knows who you are.
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But if you re speaking at a wedding, it might be useful for you to share that I ve known the groom or the bride for this many years, and that s why I m up here speaking.
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So you start by, why are we here?
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That s the W. How am I connected?
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And then A stands for anecdote.
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And you give an anecdote or two, a story or two, something that s relevant, something that s meaningful.
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It needs to be accessible and appropriate.
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We ve all heard the toast that such insider information that nobody gets it.
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And then finally, the T is actually the gratitude, the thanks and the toast itself.
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So you might say cheers or thank you to all of you for that hard work.
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So by following the structure, it shares with you how you will give the toast.
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So you only have to think about what you say within that structure.
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So it makes it easier for you.
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And rather than getting nervous saying, where do I start?
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How do I do it?
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I m going to say why we re here, how I m connected, tell a story, and give the gratitude.
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And that helps you get through.
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giving a toast, and that a structure of any type helps you get through spontaneous speaking situations.
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And I m going to give you another scenario.
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So regardless of what your profession, oftentimes you re talking to someone and you want to share with them what you do in a succinct way.
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In my scenario, it could be I m an author and a podcaster.
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What are the key elements for giving someone a spontaneous answer or spontaneous direction when you re trying to elicit a response from them or seek ways that they might be able to help you or engage with you when you re faced with that scenario?
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When you are trying to answer a question or relay information, it s important, again, to package information up clearly and concisely.
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We can do a lot of work in advance of these situations.
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So if I anticipate that I will be in a situation where I m going to get asked questions or be in a sustained conversation where I m going to be asked to contribute in a meaningful way, I can do some pre-work.
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not memorizing answers, not scripting things out.
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But I can think about what are important themes that I want to get across?
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What are some ways I could support those themes with stories or statistics or maybe third-party testimonials?
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So I can do a lot of stockpiling in advance.
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And when you do that type of preparation, much like an athlete does lots of drills in advance of going into the game, it equips you with the tools you need in the moment.
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And if you can combine that with a particular structure
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or framework, then it s like being a chef.
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You have a recipe and you have your ingredients prepared, then you can put them together in a way that makes logical sense.
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So if you re put on the spot to answer questions, I have another structure that I really like.
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It s the A-D structure for adding
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value.
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You answer the question clearly and concisely.
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You give a detailed example that supports that answer.
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And then you describe the value or relevance to the person for that answer.
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So if you were interviewing me for a job, let s say, John, you wanted to interview me to be a podcast host or a lecturer of communication, you might say, what s your experience?
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So I would say I have over 25 years of experience teaching communication skills.
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That s my answer.
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I ve taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in the corporate world as well as in the academic world and I host a podcast or have hosted a podcast for over three years.
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That s my detailed example.
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What this means is I can come in and tailor my material to be very specific to your students or to your guests.
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That s the relevance.
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So by answering the question, giving a detailed example, and explaining the relevance, I can give you an answer that is one, focused and concise, and two, something that you can remember and act upon.
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So by doing prep work up front,
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stockpiling and thinking it through without memorizing and having a structure, I can get through those situations that you described.
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And I just want to flip it.
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in a different way.
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And just this past week, I was doing a podcast interview and I was actually asked a question that I didn t have the answer for.
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I was completely unprepared to have to address this.
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And I think we ve all found ourselves in those spots.
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What s the best approach to deal with that situation?
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Absolutely, we all do.
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So in those moments where we don t know the answer,
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The best thing to do is to say, I don t know.
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But I m going to follow up with you.
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And here s what I m going to do to learn that information.
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So you commit to following up.
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You share how you re going to get the information and when you ll follow up by.
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And if you have a hunch or an inkling, then you can share that.
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You can say, my hunch is it s this.
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There s actually some interesting research that says when you answer a question that way, that is say, I don t know, but I m going to follow up.
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And here I have a hunch.
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your credibility is actually enhanced almost as much if not more than had you actually just answered the question because you re demonstrating tenacity creativity, the ability to go figure things out so many of us feel really badly when we can t answer a question.
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In fact,
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it actually can help you as long as you follow up in the way that you promised.
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Now, I m not suggesting by any means that you purposely say you don t know an answer that you know the answer to, but we put ourselves under a lot of pressure when we don t know the answer, and it s okay.
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It s okay not to know the answer.
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That s something I learned very well when I was at the Naval Academy.
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You didn t have an answer?
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I ll find out, sir.
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And then you do.
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You follow up right away.
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Exactly.
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And then I had one last thing I wanted to ask you, and this is more a future exploration.
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AI is becoming a bigger component of all of our lives and in communication.
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How do you see generative AI influencing our communication skills?
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That is a very complicated question and a question that I am very intrigued by.
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I am still trying to figure out my position on AI.
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I am very optimistic in general as a person by temperament, and I think that AI offers and affords us lots of opportunities.
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Let me share with you ways that I am using it or asking my students to use it, and then I ll share a few concerns I have.
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First and foremost, when AI first came out, ChatGPT first came out for my podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, we said, Oh, this is going to revolutionize communication.
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We need to do something on it.
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We started doing research and we just decided to interview ChatGPT.
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So this is again, when it first came out, we typed in questions and then we did a text to voice thing.
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So I interviewed it and I asked, you know, how are you going to help us with communication?
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And it gave us a lot of interesting insights.
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Here s how I m using it.
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So in terms of spontaneous speaking, imagine you re preparing for a job interview.
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You could type into a generative AI tool the job and role and company and say, craft five questions for me based on the role I m applying for.
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And then you can immediately just practice answering them, not to memorize your answer, but just as a way to get the reps in.
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We all get better when we practice.
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For as a teacher, I give lots of examples to my students.
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And it takes a lot of time to create those examples.
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I ve used generative AI to help me create more examples.
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So instead of having two in my course, I now have five or six that AI has helped me create.
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For my students who are non-native English speakers, AI is a very helpful tool to helping them see other alternative ways of speaking.
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So I see value in it.
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I see that it can help in many ways.
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I am concerned.
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I m concerned about veracity.
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I am concerned about people not doing the thought process that s required for communication.
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I see the biggest challenge, at least currently with AI, is communication is all about connection.
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How do we connect with somebody?
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And AI is not a connective thing.
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It can t connect.
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So when I interviewed ChatGPT a while back, that s one of the things it said.
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It says, I will not be able ever to communicate such that I can establish the connections that human beings can do.
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I m not worried about ChatGPT replacing everything we do because it won t be able to connect in the way that we do.
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But I do think it has value.
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So I don t have a definitive position on it.
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I m still exploring it.
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I do.
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I m very curious and optimistic though.
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Okay.
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And then lastly, Matt, I always like to end on this question.
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If there were one or two major takeaways that you hope the audience would get from either reading your book or today s interview, what would they be?
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Well, thank you for that opportunity and thank you for the conversation.
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I ve enjoyed it.
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First and foremost, we can all get better at our communication, especially spontaneous communication.
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We can be more confident.
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We can be more connected and clear when we do it.
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And second, I want people to really feel encouraged to take the time to work on their communication skills.
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Communication matters in every facet of your life.
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And if you develop it a little bit, you will reap the benefits and the people that you interact with and connect with will as well.
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So we can all get better and we should all focus on communication.
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And hopefully today in our conversation, John, people are taking away some skills and ideas that will help.
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Well, I felt you gave some great advice today and I m so appreciative you came here, Matt.
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If someone wants to learn more about you, what s the best way for them to get in touch?
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Well, I invite everybody to just like John s wonderful podcast, take a listen to Think Fast, Talk Smart.
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You can go to mattabrahams.com and find a tremendous amount of resources I ve posted there.
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And finally, I m a big user of LinkedIn and I m happy to connect with people that way as well.
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Thank you, John, for that opportunity.
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Thank you, Matt, so much for being here.
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It was such an honor to have you.
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Thank you.
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I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Matt Abrahams, and I wanted to thank Matt, Simon, and Schuster for the honor and privilege of having them appear on today s show.
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Links to all things Matt will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com.
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Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show.
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All proceeds go to supporting the show.
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Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at John R. Miles and our Clips channel at passionstruckclips.
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Please go check it out and subscribe.
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Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.
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You can find me in all the social platforms at John R. Miles.
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You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter, where in it, I have tidbits of useful information, as well as weekly challenges that are all aimed at helping you on this journey to becoming Passionstruck.
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And you can join over 30,000 other people in the community who are doing these things to improve their life.
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I also want to tell you about an exciting new episode that I ve got coming up with Jason Redman, a former Navy SEAL, turned his battlefield experiences into lessons of overcoming adversity, as well as achieving personal triumph.
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Redman shares his journey from the front lines of combat to the forefront of inspiring change.
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Discover how to embrace challenges, lead with courage, and live a life marked by perseverance and success.
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What I ve come to find is that the most elite performers
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they re always taking small incremental steps to be better.
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So I like using running as an example.
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If you re running eight minute miles and you want to get to a seven minute mile, you re not going to say, if I ve been running consistent eight minute miles, I m not going to go out and run a seven minute mile tomorrow.
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Instead, maybe it s, hey, over the next three months, I m going to cut 15 seconds off my mile time to get to 745.
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So we lay out a plan, maybe it s a six week plan, whatever it is, we re drawing this down.
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While we re doing it, we re getting up into the zone of discomfort.
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After a while, now that becomes the new comfort zone, your new comfort zone becomes 745.
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And now we push it just a little further.
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So that s how I do it.
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And that s worked for me in my life.
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And I think that s how you manage that fear, that anxiety, that change.
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The fee for the show is that you share it when you find something useful or interesting.
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If you know someone would like to understand how to communicate better, especially in those difficult situations, then definitely share today s episode with Matt Abrahams with them.
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The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about.
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In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
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Until next time, go out there and become Passion Striker.