Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Matt Abrahams: Spontaneous Speaking for Entrepreneurs, How to Communicate Confidently On the Spot | Human Behavior | E330
Mon, 20 Jan 2025
From kindergarten through university, teachers always called on Matt Abrahams first because his last name came first alphabetically. This forced him to think on his feet regularly and, over time, shaped him into a master of spontaneous communication. In this episode, Matt shares practical tips for speaking confidently on the spot as an entrepreneur, managing anxiety, and mastering techniques for effective small talk, networking, and negotiation. In this episode, Hala and Matt will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:35) Why Public Speaking Terrifies Most (03:31) How We Communicate: Then vs. Now (06:42) The Key to Navigating Small Talk (11:04) Embracing Mediocrity to Communicate Like a Pro (14:25) The 6 Steps to Thinking Faster, Talking Smarter (18:12) Managing Anxiety in Critical Moments (27:46) Balancing Active Listening and Sharing (32:14) Structures for Speaking Spontaneously (42:22) The Impact of Using Fewer Words (44:11) Reading the Room and Winning Negotiations (49:06) Networking with Confidence (53:20) How Body Language Amplifies Your Message Matt Abrahams is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches Strategic Communication and Effective Virtual Presenting. He is the author of Speaking Up Without Freaking Out and Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and hosts the popular Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast. Matt has helped individuals deliver impactful presentations, from IPO roadshows to Nobel Prize speeches, TED Talks, and World Economic Forum sessions. He also consults for the United Nations and advises Fortune 100 companies. Resources Mentioned: Matt’s Book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter: amzn.to/3PyVXtS Matt’s Podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart: fastersmarter.io Sponsored By: OpenPhone - Get 20% off 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/PROFITING Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://www.youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at https://www.airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://www.rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - Get a $75 job credit at indeed.com/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new All Show Keywords: Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset. Human Behavior & Psychology Psychology, Mindset, Habits, Positivity, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Human Nature, Human Psychology, Critical Thinking, Robert Greene, Chris Voss, Robert Cialdini
Chapter 1: Why is public speaking so terrifying?
People would rather be standing on the precipice of a 30-story building covered in snakes and spiders rather than giving a presentation. Quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying. We can prepare to be spontaneous. All communication, planned or spontaneous, needs to be goal-driven.
How can we get over our nerves when we're feeling especially self-conscious?
When it comes to managing anxiety, you really have to... The single best thing you can do in small talk is just be curious.
When we're negotiating or trying to convince even our partner of something, how should we communicate?
Chapter 2: How can we navigate small talk effectively?
First and foremost, we have to...
Yeah, fam. So what do you think? It's a simple question, but one that a lot of us struggle with, especially if you hate being put on the spot, whether at work or at Thanksgiving dinner. But in today's business world, the ability to speak spontaneously is more crucial than ever.
Whether you're navigating a job interview, negotiating a deal, pitching an idea, or simply engaging in small talk, you need to be able to communicate effectively and comfortably. To help us master this skill, I'm thrilled to welcome Matt Abrahams, a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Matt is the author of the book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, the host of the podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, and he's dedicated his career to helping individuals master the art of spontaneous communication. So let's get started and learn how to think faster and talk smarter. Matt, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
Hala, I am so excited to be here with you. Thank you.
I am so excited too because I'm so fascinated by communication and human behavior. They're two of my favorite topics and you are just such an incredible expert in this area. So I can't wait to jump right in. We've all heard that old statistic that most people fear public speaking more than death. And that's just the regular planned public speaking.
But it also sounds like based on your research that many of us also fear impromptu spontaneous speaking even more. So just how scary is public speaking and spontaneous speaking to the average person? And why do you think that's the case?
It is really terrifying. People would rather be standing on the precipice of a 30-story building covered in snakes and spiders rather than giving a presentation. Up to 85% of people report feeling nervous in high-stakes communication situations. Quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying. This is something that's just innate to being human.
Those of us who study it have found it across all cultures. It tends to start around the same time. Young teens are when our anxiety around speaking in front of others really takes off. And you're right. It's not just planned communication. It's also in the moment spontaneous speaking, which if you think about it is most of our communication. So it's part of being human.
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Chapter 3: What are the six steps to spontaneous speaking?
We feel threatened by the opportunity to be up in front of others. Those of us who study it think it has an evolutionary origin to it. When our species was evolving, we would hang out in groups of about 150 people, and your relative status in that group meant everything. And when I say status, I don't just mean who's driving a fancy car, who has the most social media followings.
I mean access to resources like food, shelter, reproduction. So anything you did that put your status at risk would cause anxiety. And getting up in front of others was exactly that. So it is ubiquitous, yet it is something we can learn to manage.
But now in modern days, why is spontaneous speaking so important?
Yeah, well, because things come at us so fast and furiously. Think about it. We are bombarded with information all the time. People are asking us questions. People are asking us for feedback. We make mistakes. We have to correct. Things go wrong. We have to apologize. We're in a situation where we have to make small talk.
Chapter 4: How can we manage anxiety during presentations?
The interactions that we're having, both in person and virtually, require us to speak spontaneously and to shift very quickly as we do it.
And do you feel like the internet and things like AI and all this technology that's going on, do you feel like that's hurting our communication skills as younger people?
I don't know if I would say hurting. It's definitely changing and challenging it. There are more ways to communicate, and some of those ways are actually really helpful to us. We can be more efficient in our communication. We can spend more time with it because of tools that help us get messages out more quickly. At the same time, we miss the opportunity to connect.
So I am an optimist when it comes to technology and communication, but we do have to adjust and adapt. And the big thing we have to remind ourselves is in the workforce we have multiple generations and some of the generations, more likely the younger generations, are more comfortable and used to using technology and those of my generation or older aren't.
We're in this transition phase and we all just have to remember that we're all learning and we learn at a different pace. But I do think technology can help us communicate, we just have to leverage it appropriately.
Do you feel like older generations, like boomers and maybe Gen X, that they're better at spontaneous communication? Or do you feel like it's the same across the board?
The need to communicate spontaneously, I think, is the same. I actually think that all generations struggle, but for different reasons. Younger generations, in my observation, tend to struggle with the connection piece. A lot of spontaneous communication is about connection.
Older generations, my generation and even older, tend to struggle with the speed of communication because a lot of spontaneous speaking happens immediately and it happens quickly. So I think everybody struggles a little bit, but the reasons they struggle differ based on just their experience and how they grew up communicating. That all said, we can learn to do this better.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, this is something we can actually improve. It's not this just natural born skill and you have it or you don't. Can you share the story of how you got better at spontaneous speaking?
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Chapter 5: What role does body language play in communication?
Chapter 6: How can we improve our networking skills?
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of being curious in conversations?
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Could you go over that at a high level for us?
Absolutely. Let me introduce the method. It really divides into M&M, my favorite candies. It's about mindset and messaging. The first four steps are all about mindset. When it comes to communication in general, but specifically spontaneous speaking, anxiety looms large. We started by talking about that. Most people are nervous. Most people are really nervous in spontaneous situations.
So step number one is learning to manage that anxiety. Once we've managed that anxiety, the next thing we have to do is we need to do exactly what we talked about, not get in that mindset of I have to be perfect. So we have to focus our efforts on just getting the idea across. It's about connection, not perfection. Third, we have to see these situations as opportunities, not threats.
Many of us see speaking in front of others as a threat, and we have to reframe that as an opportunity that can really help us to be successful. And then the final step of mindset has to do with listening. And many people are like, what? Listening is important? You're talking about speaking? No, you have to listen. You have to be able to focus on what is needed in the moment. It is critical.
So we start with anxiety. We move to how we focus on connection, not perfection. It's about opportunities, not threats. And then it's about listening. Then we transition to messaging. The final two steps are about messaging. When we communicate, we must leverage structure. Many of us just take the audience on our journey of our discovery of what we wanna say as we're saying it.
In other words, we ramble, we list, we itemize. It's very hard for others to remember lists of information. And then the final step is we have to be concise and clear. Many of us say much more than we need to say. My mother has this wonderful saying, tell the time, don't build the clock. Many of us when we speak say more than we need to. So the last two steps are about structure and being concise.
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Chapter 8: How can we prepare to speak spontaneously?
Oh my gosh, that was such good advice. And I don't do this on purpose. I never did it on purpose, but because I go speak at so many podcast conferences, what happens is I'm preparing these awesome presentations and I'm pulling all this data. And then the whole time, I'm just touting what I learned in my presentation to everybody when I'm doing small talk. And that's my theme. And I never realized-
that I'm actually doing that, but didn't realize that I was doing that. So that's just such a cool tip, especially for people who might not be doing a presentation to treat it like you would. So I love that. So in your book, you talk about an NPR journalist who has a killer last question that she likes to ask her interviewees. Can you tell us about this killer last question and why it works?
This is Deborah Schifrin you're talking about. Deborah is also a colleague at Stanford. And before I tell you the question, her goal is to give people an opportunity to say more. So a lot of us in our dialogue, we ask a question, they respond, we ask a question. But if you actually pause for a moment and you ask people and you just give them an opportunity to say more.
So not only does she say, is there anything else you'd like to say? Her magic question is, is there anything more you'd like to add? She also builds in a pause. So when somebody is done answering a question, if you pause just a little bit before you ask the next question or comment on it, you give people space. We are so busy and our attention is so pulled in different directions.
Space to say more is a gift. And so if you allow people more space, you actually show that you care, that you want to learn more and that you want to connect. So I encourage all of you when you are having deep, meaningful conversations or want to have deep, meaningful relationships,
Pause a little bit, give people space, and really listen to what they say, and it will transform those relationships.
So we're going to get meta again. Is there anything important that I neglected to ask?
Oh, well, thank you for that opportunity. I think one of the things we did not talk about that is important for us to think about is not just what you say, but how you say it. We need to be thinking about our body and our voices when we communicate. So it's not just feeling comfortable and confident speaking in the moment, it is appearing comfortable and confident.
So let me share just a couple bits of advice about what we can do with our body and our voices. First and foremost, you want to be big. Many of us, when we get nervous or are feeling threatened, we make ourselves small. So the best thing you can do is take your shoulder blades and just pull them down. Make yourself broad. I'm not pushing my elbows back. I'm not puffing my chest out.
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