In this episode, Charles explores the art of effective communication with Matt Abrahams, a Stanford educator, communication expert, and host of the "Think Fast Talk Smart" podcast. Drawing from his decades of martial arts training and extensive teaching experience, Matt reveals how mastering communication is similar to mastering any skill - it requires structure, practice, and the right mindset. Matt challenges common communication myths, proving that being a great communicator isn't about natural talent but about developing specific, learnable skills. He and Charles dive deep into why most people overcomplicate their communication, how traditional presentation methods often fail, and why connection matters more than perfection. Throughout the conversation, Matt shares his battle-tested "What, So What, Now What" framework, demonstrating how this simple structure can transform any communication scenario - from high-stakes presentations to everyday conversations. He explains how he's helped thousands of professionals, from Stanford students to Fortune 500 executives, develop the confidence to communicate effectively in spontaneous situations. Whether you're a business leader, educator, or professional looking to improve your communication skills, this episode offers practical strategies you can implement immediately to think faster and talk smarter. Key Takeaways: * The "What, So What, Now What" framework for structuring any message * Why standing meetings dramatically improve efficiency and engagement * How focusing on being interested rather than interesting transforms communication * The power of structure over memorization in spontaneous speaking Head over to podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 4:45 - The Three W's Framework: Matt reveals his powerful "What, So What, Now What" structure that transforms any communication from confusing to crystal clear. 10:01 - Revolutionizing Q&A Sessions: Learn why saying "good question" kills engagement and discover better ways to handle audience interactions authentically. 14:01 - Making Communication Work: Matt shares practical strategies to execute effective communication, moving beyond theory to real-world application. 20:01 - The Power of Connection: Discover how to expand your interaction scope and build genuine rapport, even in virtual environments. 27:08 - Breaking Down Complex Ideas: Learn Matt's proven techniques for making sophisticated concepts accessible to any audience. 34:11 - Connection Over Perfection: Matt debunks the myth of perfect communication and reveals why authentic connection matters more than flawless delivery. 38:10 - The Stand-Up Revolution: How eliminating meeting tables and implementing stand-up meetings can dramatically improve efficiency and engagement.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of 'Think Fast, Talk Smart' with Matt Abrahams?
Drawing from his extensive background in martial arts and teaching, Matt shares invaluable insights on how to become a more confident and impactful communicator. From tackling the challenges of spontaneous speaking to understanding the power of structure in communication, Matt reveals practical strategies that can help anyone improve their communication skills.
He introduces his what-so-what-now-what framework and explains why being interested is more important than being interesting. Matt challenges common communication myths, explaining why perfection shouldn't be the goal and how anxiety about public speaking can be transformed into positive energy.
Drawing from both his academic expertise and real-world experience, coaching executives, he offers actionable advice for everyone from students to seasoned professionals – Whether you're preparing for a crucial presentation, looking to improve your everyday interactions, or seeking to become a more effective leader, this episode provides the tools and mindset shifts you need.
Matt's approach combines scholarly insight with practical application, showing how small changes in how we communicate can lead to significant improvements in our personal and professional lives. Get ready to think faster and talk smarter. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it.
On every episode we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive 7, 8 or 9 figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. Alright everybody, welcome back to the show. I am ecstatic to have Matt on.
Matt, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Charles, I'm thrilled to be with you. Thank you.
Very excited. There are so many things you do as far as, you know, you have a book, you've got a podcast. It's all about how to communicate better. And we're in a society now where it's all about social media and we have all these abilities to communicate, but people don't effectively communicate all over the board. So being able to have this conversation with you to help us get there is important.
I think one of the things that most people don't know about you is you're very heavy into martial arts. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
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Chapter 2: How can martial arts principles enhance communication skills?
I was in a new environment and it really helped and I've really connected with it. And for many decades I've studied the martial arts.
What specific martial arts are you into on a high level?
Well, you know, if your listeners know a lot about arts. So I started very young. The very first exposure I had to the martial arts was through Judo. I took a class on Judo. My cousin, my older cousin, who I've always looked up for, he has opened my eyes to so many things. I vividly remember as a 10-year-old going to McDonald's with him. He was babysitting me or something.
And he ordered two hamburgers. Oh my goodness, you can have two. I thought it was one hamburger, one fry, one drink. Opened my mind to possibilities of the world. But he had studied a Japanese style called Gojon-ryu and really got very interested in it. There were no local karate studios where I grew up. So I started in Kenpo and have stayed with the same place for decades.
Along the way, I've studied other styles, Kodan-kan-jujitsu, Tai-chi, Qigong, Bagua. Und auch andere Stile. Meine zwei Kinder haben Martial-Arts studiert, unterschiedliche Arten auf Grundlage. Und also viel Aufmerksamkeit zu vielen verschiedenen Arten.
Ich liebe es, dass du das, was du in der Kunstwelt gemacht hast, in das, was du lernst und wie du es im Klassenraum teilst. Denn du hast Tausende und Tausende von Leuten gelernt, nicht nur im akademischen Weltraum, sondern auch im professionellen Weltraum. Und es gibt diese Strukturen, die wir in Kimpo sprechen. Es gibt fünf Schläge und es gibt zwischendurch gebranchen.
Und es gibt all diese Dinge, die Leute, wenn sie wissen, dass die Kimpo-Hörer jetzt sagen, oh mein Gott, ja, sie sprechen darüber. Für alle anderen ist es so, was zur Hölle? Also mehr Homework für euch, um mitzuteilen. A lot of what you do is structures and it helps people remember things and it helps you to think faster and to respond smarter and to do all these things on a high level.
One of them that you do is called the three what's. Could you walk me through what that is, what the three what's are?
Yeah, I love that you're connecting the martial arts, or at least the form that I study, to the communication. Because one of the things that really draws me to Kenpo is there's a science behind it. And there are a lot of structures. It's a series of movements that combine together. It's like music, where you put different notes together to form chords. Those chords form the music.
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Chapter 3: What is the 'What, So What, Now What' communication framework?
Und in Wahrheit ist es ein Set von Fähigkeiten, die man trainieren, lernen und entwickeln kann, sodass man sie, wenn man im Moment ist, erzeugen kann. Und ich benutze Athletik, Athleten als ein tolles Beispiel immer. Athleten trainieren, trainieren, vorbereiten, sodass sie dann ihr spontanes Spiel spielen können. Und wir können alle das Gleiche tun.
Nun, einige von uns, durch die Wahrheit unserer Persönlichkeit, durch die Wahrheit unserer Erfahrung, könnten ein bisschen vor anderen beginnen. Du weißt, mein letzter Name ist Abrahams. Mein ganzes Leben lang bin ich immer zuerst gegangen. Just because teachers always sat us alphabetically. So I had a little bit of a leg up, just because I was always used to being called on spontaneously.
But that doesn't mean I was great at it, and nor does it mean I couldn't get better at it. The same thing is true with everybody. We can practice and get better at our communication in general, but especially spontaneous speaking.
I think that practice, just like martial arts or physical activity, that practice over and over and over again makes the spontaneous seem like it was actually, oh, it just happened, it was spontaneous. It reminds me of Larry Bird. For those of you who are old enough to know who Larry Bird is, he would sit there and he was just phenomenal. He was the...
He was the Steve Curry before there was a Steve Curry, for those who are catching up. He would shoot a hundred shots. And if he didn't make all 100 in a row, he would start over from the beginning. So that when he was and he went out and he practiced on the court, but like, oh my God, he's such a good shooter. That was not by accident.
That took an immense amount of kind of repetition over and over and over and over again. You have a couple pet peeves and one of them, I think your number one pet peeve is something I do all the time. So I'm going to be selfish here and I'm going to steal time on the podcast and do it.
At the end of what I'm communicating, because I'm one of those individuals who does have a little bit of diarrhea of the mouth, I rapid fire information out. There's a lot that comes out all the time. I always try and check in with my audience and I do something that is just, it's just ineffective. There's just no way around it. I say, does that make sense?
And I know it's your pet peeve and it's something that I've been working on. I'm like, does that resonate? Can I go over anything more? How does someone who has this issue, me, how do we go through that and create a more effective way to kind of resonate with our audience?
So, thank you for disclosing. It is something that does bother me. Your intent is wonderful. And I want to reward the intent. I just want to change the behavior. At the end of you communicating, answering a question, giving information, you want to check in to make sure that you served your audience well. Did they understand what you were saying? Did you answer their question?
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Chapter 4: Why is practice crucial for spontaneous speaking?
Und ich denke, dass die Praxis, die Bewegungen über und über und über wieder zu machen, dich ermöglicht, wie du sagst, schnell zu denken, smart zu denken. Think faster, think smarter. It's all connected to it. I liked how you talked about an idea, and I'll give homework to the listeners. He did a little bit of an identity hold when he sat there and said, good question, or do you understand?
He did a little bit of an identity hold there. So for those of you playing at home, we'll talk about identity holds later if you want, but I love how you did that. One of the things that we're running into, and people don't understand it on a high enough level, if you want to think faster and you want to talk smarter, we're in an age where communication is rapid firing.
And one of the things you did in your book, which is excellent, is you gave tasks at the end. Yet, much like people who have ever stood in front of classes, who have ever taught anything, who ever shared information, when you assign homework, for lack of a better term, It doesn't get executed on it. We know that if I write a book, the majority of the population is not going to go past page 14.
There's not. You've been doing this a long time. You've been teaching on an exceptionally high level. You teach at Stanford, which is amazing. You've done it professionally. What are some of the secrets that, okay, yeah, I'm thinking faster. I'm talking smarter, but how do I effectively execute? How do I effectively, how do I execute more effectively in my life?
What are some of the things that you've done in that environment that can people can use?
Yeah. So thank you for noticing that in the book. I believe the best way to learn communication is to do communication. You don't just read about it. You have to experience it. Am Ende des Buches gibt es einen QR-Code, der Leute zu Videos bringt. Und in Wahrheit, als Bescheid, war die einzige Grund, warum mein Publisher mich ermutigt hat, den Buch zu schreiben, weil davon.
Ich habe ihnen gesagt, ich will kein Buch über Kommunikation im Moment schreiben, weil man es haben muss. Es ist nicht etwas, was man lesen kann. Und sie haben mir einen Kochbuch gesendet. I said, why the heck are you sending me a cookbook? They said, look at the QR codes. And I said, I get it now. You can actually see and do the communication. And that's important.
So to get to your question, which is very specific about how do we actually in our own lives develop these skills? And how as a teacher do I encourage people to do so? So it's about two things. First, making it bite size. It can be very intimidating to walk into a small talk situation or go into a big Q&A situation. But there are little
incremental steps you can take that can help build up to that let me give one example let's say you know you're going to give a big presentation and q a is going to come and that q a is intimidating for many reasons well first you do some mental practice you think about what are the questions i might get what are some answers i could give again not to memorize but just just to sort of warm up you know if you're a golfer you take plenty plenty of swings before you actually go out on the course so it's warming up
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Chapter 5: How do you effectively engage an audience during presentations?
Wir wissen, dass es eine berühmte Studie gibt, wo, wenn jemand sehr hyper ist, und du sprichst ein bisschen ruhiger, wirst du in ihre Aufmerksamkeit locken. Sie sind wie, was ist da los? Also, die Tonalität, die Kadenz, diese sind wirklich wichtig.
Wenn du da sitzt und lernst, die höheren Dinge, wenn du mit den Profis sprichst, und vielleicht kommunizieren sie mit einem Abgeordneten, oder sie bekommen VCs-Fundierung, oder solche Dinge.
Was sind die Schwierigkeiten, die sie haben, außer den täglichen Unwissenheiten, von denen die Menschen überrascht werden, dass die harten Billionäre viele Unwissenheiten haben, wie die Leute, die nicht diese Art von Geld machen. Es ist universal, wie viel Geld du in der Bank hast, ändert nicht den Wert der Sicherheit oder Unwissenheit, die du als Individuum über dich selbst hast.
Trust me, we all get embarrassed. Still, when I walk on stage, my right knee always shakes. It just is what it is. It reminds me that I'm still alive. I get nervous. It happens. When you're coaching these individuals, what are some of the things that have been the most effective to help them? And if you could give an example, that would be amazing, as I just put you on the spot.
Ja, nein, ich bin froh, das zu tun. Also, es gibt mehrere Dinge, die ich sagen möchte. Zuerst, wenn es um Tonalität geht, sind unsere Gehirne für Neuheiten, für Dinge, die sich verändern. Alles, was das Gleiche bleibt, stoppen wir, darauf zu achten. Also, Variationen in Rate, in Ton, in Volumen, das kann wirklich helfen, Menschen engagiert zu machen.
Wiederum, es muss authentisch sein, nicht skriptiert, aber es kann definitiv helfen. You are absolutely right. It does not matter your status in life. Imposter syndrome looms large for all of us, myself included. And I see it all the time in the executives I coach, in the students I teach, in my friends, in my family, in myself. It's ubiquitous.
Some of the big things that people struggle with, the more senior they get, is how do I make my thoughts, my goals, my mission, my vision, my values accessible to other people? We marinate in them. We live in them. We suffer the curse of knowledge and the curse of passion. And you don't just have to be an executive to suffer from those. All of us do.
What is very hard is how do I take what I know, what I'm passionate about and make it accessible to other people? And beyond making it accessible, how do I make it motivational and inspirational? Leaders struggle with that. They have the passion. They have the vision.
How do I make that accessible to somebody who hasn't had my life experience or the amount of time I've spent at the holistic level looking at all of this? Das ist ein großer Herausforderung. Und das ist eine Herausforderung, die ich verbringe. Ich begrüße diese Herausforderung, weil ich es wirklich lustig finde. Es ist ein Puzzle zu lösen.
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Chapter 6: How can virtual communication be made more engaging?
Kannst du mir ein bisschen mehr über deinen Podcast erzählen?
Well, thank you. The podcast is called Think Fast, Talk Smart. The book is a derivative, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. There will be no Think Fastest or Talk Smartest. We're done with that. The podcast is all about communication skills and helping people employ those skills in their careers and in their lives. 20-minute episodes, bite-sized.
We've won lots of prestigious awards, but the most important award I think we've won is Best Dog Walking Podcast because it's relevant, people can apply it, and it takes 20 minutes. And we bring in experts, both practitioners and academics, to talk about specific skills. We just had somebody on who talks about gathering and how to run meetings and other types of gatherings effectively.
We've talked about negotiation and influence and just confidence and communication. It really is an opportunity for people to hone and develop their skills. And selfishly, it's a wonderful opportunity for me to learn everything. und um meine eigenen Fähigkeiten zu entwickeln. Und letztendlich bin ich ein unendlicher Student.
Also, wie du gelernt hast, Charles, ein Podcast zu hosten, erlaubt dir eine tolle Möglichkeit, von anderen tollen Leuten zu lernen.
Das ist der Grund, warum ich einen Podcast mache. Jeder denkt, es ist für den monetären Wert. Ich sage, nein, ich bekomme Zugang zu Individuen, die ich nie haben würde. Und wir können Gespräche haben, wo ich zurückkomme und ich denke darüber nach und schuhe darauf. Es ist absolut ein Glück und ein Geschenk.
Wenn sie dir diese kleinen Tipps geben, kannst du dir Dinge aus deinen Podcasts, Gästen oder Insights vorstellen, die sie gegeben haben, die den Ballgame wirklich verändert haben? Ich werde es versuchen, ein konkretes Beispiel dafür zu geben, für etwas, das mir auf den Kopf kam. Ja, bitte. Jemand kam rein und sagte, löse den Tisch aus deiner Meeting-Ruhe.
Ich sage, ich bin sorry, dass ich den Tisch aus deiner Meeting-Ruhe löse. Jeder muss stehen. Aber zuerst musst du einen Debrief machen, der einen kleinen Dokument hat, den jeder durchführen kann, den jeder aufgehoben hat. And then you've got a 10 minute meeting.
And by making everyone stand these 45 minute to three hour meetings, all of a sudden turned down to these 15 minute meetings and things are getting done more effectively. Cause I'm all about efficiency. It's probably my favorite thing in the world outside of maybe ice cream, but working on getting rid of that. Um, they got rid of the meeting tables. And it was just this simple thing.
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