The Action Catalyst
Connection Over Perfection, with Matt Abrahams (Communication, Speaking, Behavior, Business)
Tue, 11 Jun 2024
Matt Abrahams, host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart business show from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as an acclaimed Strategic Communication lecturer, and author of the new book Think Faster, Talk Smarter, explains why his name, in some way, led to his life’s work, and shares the secrets to spontaneous speaking, the construction of conversation, speaking up without freaking out, controlling your actual BODY during discussion, how to get out of a conversation you DON’T want to be in and how to answer a question you don’t have the answer to, listening to what’s NOT said, daring to be dull and maximizing your mediocrity, finding the third side of a coin, and the role of martial arts in all of this.
Full Episode
Many of us, when we're put on the spot, we want to give the best answer. We want to be the most interesting person in small talk. And that puts a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves and makes it actually less likely we will achieve those goals. So we have to switch from perfection to connection. It's about structure, it's about focus, and it's about accessibility.
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Today's guest is Matt Abrahams, the host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart business podcast from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. as well as an acclaimed strategic communication lecturer and author of the new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, which focuses on actionable skills to help even the most anxious speaker under the most frantic circumstances communicate successfully.
Well, thank you for being here. We're super excited to have you. Yes. There is a lot that I want to talk about, but let me just start kind of a bigger picture and then we'll come down a little bit. So in reading a little bit about your background, I want to start with something about your name being later in the alphabet that has led to your life's work.
Yeah, not later in the alphabet, earlier in the alphabet. Earlier, okay. With the last name Abrahams, A-B, I always went first in school. I always knew where I would sit. I always knew who was going first. I was a high school teacher for a couple years, and I understand that for high school and elementary school teachers, it's really easy just to organize your life alphabetically.
But what that meant is I was always dealing with spontaneous speaking. And my latest work is really all about how to be a better spontaneous speaker. And it's something that I've been developing, some because of my last name and some because of circumstances I found myself in, really did initiate this interest in this notion of how do we speak better in the moment.
And if you think about it, most of our communication... is spontaneous. It's not planned. Somebody asks a question, ask for feedback, you're making small talk. And so we need to learn how to do this better so we can be more effective in these circumstances.
So you remember being called on, Matt, you get to go first.
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