Transcript of The Secret To Becoming A Confident Speaker: Matt Abrahams

Whatever. Why is it that people feel that way? In your understanding of the literature, what’s going on inside of the mouth and the brain and the tongue? Yeah, give me a breakdown.

The Evolutionary Basis of Speaking Anxiety

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah, so you hit it on the head. It’s part of being human to be concerned about being up in front of other people. We see it in every culture that’s been studied. It tends to start around the same time. Right. As kids are entering their early teens is where we really see spikes in anxiety. And this spans culture. It has to do with status and not the status of who drives the fanciest car, who has the most likes on social media. It’s all about your relative status in a group.

And as we were evolving, we would hang out in groups of around 150 people. And your status in that group mattered a lot. It meant you got access to resources, reproduction, food, shelter. And if your status was low, you didn’t have any of that. It was literally a matter of life and death. So it was critical to not do anything that jeopardized your status, like making a mistake or a fool of yourself in front of others. And we carry that with us now, even though it’s part of who we are, we can go about doing things to manage that anxiety so we can be successful.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, why do you think it is that good? Ability to public speak would be an adaptive skill. When someone’s put on the spot tribally, you know, it doesn’t really relate to your capacity to bring down a deer or to gather berries. I doesn’t necessarily really even relate that much to being pro social in terms of what you can contribute. It kind of appears pro social in that most people who are good at talking to people develop the ability of being good at talking to people. So they’re around people a lot. And presumably the people that are around people a lot on assholes. But I’m just trying to work out, you know, is it simple that language is a crucial sort of vector that humans use to communicate? Is it as simple as that?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Well, I’d ask you to take a step back and say, what purpose does communication serve? And when you think about that, communication is operationalized empathy. And empathy is critical to our species survival. One of the things that differentiates us is the ability to collaborate and connect with other people. And anything that helps us to do that gives us an evolutionary advantage. So collaboration, connection are important. Empathy drives that. And there are people who study what I study who would argue that our ability to communicate verbally and non verbally is the result of that drive towards empathy. So it’s solving a problem. So I actually believe that communication is critical for survival.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Operationalized empathy. Mm, interesting. Okay, so we are ancestrally justified in our fears around communication.

MATT ABRAHAMS: I don’t know if I use the word justified, but certainly it’s ingrained.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, yeah, yeah. Yep, well established. It’s a. An illustrious history of. We are the sons and daughters of nervous public speakers.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Fair.

Managing Speaking Anxiety

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: How do you advise somebody who’s got the presentation to give who’s on a first date or a second date or best man speech or whatever, the terrifying opportunity to make words come out of your face of choice. What do you suggest that people do to gain control of their system and to operate more effectively?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Well, when it comes to managing anxiety, you have to take a two pronged approach. You have to manage both symptoms and sources. So let me ask you, when you get nervous speaking in front of others, what happens to you? Symptomatically, for me, I blush and I sweat. That’s the big sign for me. What happens for you?

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I. Before I go out on stage, I tend to be very quiet and closed off. So I sort of like My body language isn’t all that great sometimes, especially if I’m not feeling sort of super, super in the zone and heart rate seems to be high. A lot of rumination in the mind, a lot of sort of self referential thinking.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: And I found that at least in my best estimation, most of that can go away if I just have tons of people backstage that I can talk to about interesting conversations.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yes.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: And if I play a couple of my favorite songs and sing to them out loud before I walk out on stage, that’s my two pronged approach.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Perfect. So you are already jumping ahead to some of the remedies for this. So it’s very normal and natural to go inward, both mentally start ruminating. And sometimes we’ll say pretty mean things to ourselves, like I should have prepared more, I don’t deserve to be here, et cetera. But also physically closing down. And you have identified some ways to help.

So let me give some real quick ways of managing sources, symptoms and then we can talk about sources. So taking deep belly breaths and what’s most important is the exhale, not the inhale. So if you’ve ever done yoga, tai chi, meditation, qigong, those deep belly breaths, and you want your exhale to be twice as long as your inhale. And if you do two or three of those, you slow down your autonomic nervous system, that rapid heart rate you talked about, that will slow down if you do what you’re doing, which is getting present oriented.

When you’re in the moment, you are by definition not worried about the future. One of the sources of anxiety is our worry about not being successful. And we can short circuit that by being present. So talking to other people, engaging in meaningful conversation, helps you be present oriented. Listening to a song or a playlist helps you be present oriented.

In my case, when I blush and I sweat, that’s the core body temperature going up. Your heart’s beating faster, your body’s tensing up, you’re pushing more blood through tighter tubes. So just like when you exercise, you turn red and you sweat. So we have to cool ourselves down. And the way you cool yourself down is holding something cold in the palms of your hand. The palms of your hand are thermoregulators for your body. So if you cool yourself down, you’ll blush and sweat less. If you take deep breaths, your your heart rate will slow down. If you get present oriented, it’ll also bring you into a place where you can do it more confidently. So several techniques there you’re already employing many that work for lots of people.

Why We Choke Under Pressure

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Is this the same reason that people choke when they’re put on the spot, or is there a slightly different mechanism dynamic going on?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Slightly different mechanism, slightly different source. Many of us, when we communicate because we’re nervous about it and want to show ourselves as best we can, we over rehearse, we over practice, and your brain is like a computer. It’s not a perfect analogy, but you only have so much limited cognitive bandwidth. You know, on your laptop or your phone, when you have lots of Windows and apps open, each one of those is behaving a little more slowly because the others are open.

The same with your brain. If I am judging and evaluating what I’m saying, while I’m saying it to a high degree, I have less cognitive resource to actually do what I’m doing. That’s why memorizing is so bad. When you memorize, you’ve created the perfect way to say it, and you’re constantly comparing what you’re saying to what you memorize, reducing the bandwidth you have. So it’s not about saying it right. There is no right. There’s only better or worse.

So I like to tell my students, I like to tell everybody, it’s about connection, not perfection. Just connect. Get the idea across. Rather than trying to say it exactly the right way. The desire to say it right leads to choking because you’ve exhausted your cognitive bandwidth.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, how do you overcome that perfectionism trap?

The Power of Structure in Communication

MATT ABRAHAMS: Several ways. One, remind yourself the goal of communication is to connect, to get the point across. It’s not about you, it’s about your audience. So we have to think about what’s relevant for them. When we remind ourselves that we’re in service of our audience, we have value to bring. It takes that spotlight off of us and shines it on our audience. So that reduces the pressure, frees up more cognitive bandwidth when it comes to memorizing.

In particular, I am a huge fan of structure. Structure is a logical connection of ideas. It’s a roadmap. One of the very common structures many of your listeners, I’m sure you’re familiar with, is problem, solution, benefit. I tell you about a problem, I tell you how I solve it, and I tell you how you benefit. That structure provides a roadmap for me so I don’t have to memorize every word in what I’m saying. I just remind myself that I explain the problem. Once I explain the problem, I explain how I expect to solve it and then the benefit you have. So I take the pressure off of having to say it word for word the right way and just have a general map to get me through it.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, so structure can liberate people to be more spontaneous in that way?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Absolutely, 100%. Not just in my opinion, in the research and in what I’ve seen happen for many, many people.

Finding the Right Balance in Preparation

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay. Is there a time where less preparation could actually make you better? In some cases? Is there such a thing as over preparation?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Sure. Just like in a sport where you can over prepare, overpreparation gets you in the wrong headspace as well. Finding that sweet spot is important, but the most important thing is the type of preparation. So if I’m just practicing the same thing over and over again, so I’m memorizing, we’ve already talked about how that’s not helpful. But if I’m thinking about ways, different ways of saying it, practicing different ways of saying it, I’m actually building and preparing well.

Think of an athlete who does a whole bunch of drills. The drill every time is not always the same, but it’s in the same circumstance or dealing with the same situation. So when that situation presents itself, they are well prepared to deal with it. So it’s how you prepare that’s the biggest barrier to success. Preparation is critical.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. Give me a better way to prepare because people will say, this is the gold standard for my, for my best man’s speech script. Word for word. This is how I’m going to say it. That’s. That’s not good. But no, no preparation and just Harry Mack freestyle rapping. It also probably high risk, high risk strategy.

MATT ABRAHAMS: I would love to see you rap a best man speech, so I’d love to see that.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I did one, I did one a couple of weeks. I did my first one a couple of months ago. No rapping involved, but it did go well.

How to Practice Effectively

MATT ABRAHAMS: So let me give you two different situations. In the situation of a tribute, like you were giving – a best man’s toast is an example of a tribute. Having a structure is key. You want to make sure there’s a logical ordering. You want to make sure the content is relevant, not hidden information in too much detail. You don’t want it to be a roast, you want it to truly be a toast.

And when you practice, go through it a couple times and then break it down into piece parts. So if it’s a two, three minute thing, break it down by minute and practice each section separately, not together. And when you do that, you give the attention that’s warranted for preparation. But you don’t get locked into that particular order.

So let’s say in your best man’s toast that you gave, there was one anecdote you told, or maybe two anecdotes. Practice those separately occasionally and then put it all together once or twice. And that lets you kick the tires on all the parts and give the attention needed without following and falling into that pattern where you can become over rehearsed.

I’ll give you another example. I am often asked by people, how do I handle challenging questions? Maybe it’s a job interview. High stakes communication. Q and A. Afterwards you can practice using generative AI. Go to it, say you’re this audience, whatever it is, ask me three questions on these topics. It’ll spit out some questions and you practice answering. So it’s different questions, but you’re going through the motions of answering. Just like a basketball player practices shots from different places, but they’re always shooting. You can do the same thing. So those are two different examples of how you can practice and prepare in a way that sets you up for success rather than over preparing, which can set you up for failure.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Right. Okay. Are polished speakers less trusted in that way?

Finding the Balance Between Preparation and Authenticity

MATT ABRAHAMS: So trust is tricky, right? When it comes to polish, you want to be fluent, you want to be connected and engaging, but not over rehearsed. In the academic world, we call this immediacy. In the common vernacular, it’s charisma, connection. It’s about being present and feeling like the person is there and really connecting with you, not just going through the words that they’re saying.

And that connection comes from your as the communicator, your mindset. It’s about me connecting to you, but it’s also me observing what’s going on and adjusting and adapting as needed. So if you look perplexed or you look engaged, I adjust and adapt my communication. So what we’re having in that moment is immediate and that’s what gives that feeling that leads to trust and connection.

So you need to be prepared in practice so you can actually be present. If you’re in your head trying to figure out what the heck I’m going to say next, that pulls you away. But if you’re too over rehearsed, then that also gets in the way. So it’s tricky. But you can be over practiced and over polished for sure.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. Delicate balance. How do people avoid rambling? Get to the point faster. You mentioned my favourite word when it comes to communication is precision. Sort of not using more, not using less, not being excessively verbose, not being too complex, not being too simple, it’s precise. It’s this. You said what you meant to say.

The Art of Concise Communication

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah. You say precise, I say concise. In many ways I think they’re synonymous. I talk a lot about concision, just in the way you’re talking about precision.

So a couple suggestions. One, my mother has this great advice and all of us, I think should live by this advice. Tell the time, don’t build the clock. Many of us, when we communicate, we take our audiences on the journey of our discovery of what we’re thinking about and want to say as we’re saying it. We say too much.

So how do you focus? Couple things. One, you think about what’s most relevant to your audience. If you focus on their relevance, that’ll help you focus your message. Second, I believe all high stakes communication, I don’t care if it’s one on one big presentation, written, spoken, does not matter, must be goal driven. A goal has three parts, information, emotion and action. So I think to myself, what do I want them to know, how do I want them to feel and what do I want them to do? Know, feel, do. And that again, helps me focus.

So if I take the time to think about what’s relevant to the audience, have a clear goal, and then leverage a structure, all of those help me be more concise, precise and accessible. And those are three key ingredients to being good at communicating.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Can you give me an example of someone building the clock versus telling the time with that three step process? A bad example and a good example.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Well, I ask anybody to think about a recent meeting that they’ve been in where somebody waxed poetic about the deep history of something before they talked about what it was that they actually need people to do or what they’re currently building. That’s a great example.

Many people in technology, many faculty members, many of my peers, not to throw them under the bus. We say more than we need to because we are trying to build our credibility, demonstrate we know our stuff inside and out. But what’s important for the audience is just the bottom line, telling the time.

So in the military, they have this notion of bluff, bottom line up front. Tell us what’s important. And if people want to learn more or know more, they’re going to ask questions. You’re in service of your audience. The goal is not to demonstrate how much you know, it’s to give them what they need. So examples are rampant all over the place. Hopefully I’m being a good example of being focused, concise and precise. But you can tell me.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: You certainly are. This is like speed running a conversation masterclass. One of the temptations that I certainly had on the show for a good while, if I’m speaking, I’ve made a career out of being the most stupid person in the room across, you know, every time that we talk, and that is fine. I bring someone on who’s spent their entire life dedicated to a topic, and I’ve read the book, so I’m always going to be holding onto their coattails.

And I think one of the ways that you can try and compensate for that is by using sort of overly complex language. You know, let me signal to you just how… Let me bring up the reticular activating system as it pertains to… Anytime that you… Hey, dude, let me tell you. Anytime that you drop the word pertains, you’ve gone too far. Let me tell you, you’ve gone too far.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Right.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: That’s the canary in the coal mine.

MATT ABRAHAMS: But I…

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Increasingly, over time, I’m now trying to get my language back to that level of precision as simple as possible, but no simpler than that. And that’s a nice way, I think, to think about. But the temptations are… My point is, the temptation is there whether you’re a dusty academic with an unpronounceable surname or, you know, some noob that’s trying to learn something for the first time. Oh, allow me. Allow my prestige to come out front. Allow my language and allow my stories. Let me take you on a journey about this.

The Danger of Jargon and Complexity

MATT ABRAHAMS: Exactly, exactly. It’s a way of distancing yourself, if you really think about it. All of that puts distance between you and your audience. And communication. The word communication comes from the same root as to make common. Communication is about making something common and connected.

You know, I have a colleague at the business school, his name is Huggy Rao, and he talks about jargon monoxide. It suffocates the communication. And you want to avoid using technical terms, acronyms, et cetera, because it gets in the way of what you’re trying to do, which is connect, build trust, and enhance understanding. So I 100% agree with you that there’s an urge to do that. But that urge, I think, is driven by the wanting to distance ourselves rather than to engage.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, let’s get out of presentation mode and into conversation mode. How can people be faster on their feet and more spontaneous? Unfortunately, not all of the conversations. In fact, very few of the times that we do speak are prepared. Most of it is us. Freestyle rapping without the rapping.

Mastering Spontaneous Communication

MATT ABRAHAMS: So, yeah, spontaneous speaking, you’re right. If you think about it, it’s giving feedback, answering questions, fixing your mistakes, making small talk. So part of it is preparing to be spontaneous. So you have to do your reps just like an athlete, just like a musician. You have to practice, and you have to think about what’s going on. So it’s not just about practicing. You have to reflect.

So you have to have some tools in the toolkit. One, you have to be able to very quickly connect with the people that you’re talking to. So you have to understand what’s important to them, what’s relevant for them. And once you do that, that helps you hone. And as you engage in that communication, you might adjust your hypothesis. I might have gone in thinking, hey, this is what’s really important to them. As I hear them respond to me, oh, all of a sudden, this. So we have to have that flexibility, but we start from somewhere.

You have to be able to leverage structure, because in a structure, it helps me respond to you. I’m a lousy cook, but I made a better cook by following a recipe. So having a structure helps you. And there are lots of structures. My favorite in the whole world is three simple questions. What? So what? Now what?

If you ask me a question, I can answer the question by saying, what? That’s my answer. So what? Here’s why it’s important to you, and now what? Here’s what you can do with it. In fact, many of my answers to your question so far have done exactly that I’ve used, what? so what? now what?

If you ask me for feedback, you say, hey, Matt, how’d that meeting go? I can say I thought that meeting went really well. Except when you talked about the implementation plan. That’s the what? When you talk about the information plan, you talked quickly and didn’t give as much detail. And when you do that, people think you’re nervous, are not prepared. That’s the so what? Next time, slow down and add these two bits of information. That’s the now what? So by having a structure and by really figuring out what’s important in this moment, I have the ability to adjust and adapt.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, the thing that happened, that was salient. The implication of that thing happening.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yep.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: And a solution in future to try and avoid the thing from happening. Or I guess the reverse of that. A great thing that happened. The implication of this great thing happening, and please do it again more in future. I thought that that was totally awesome.

MATT ABRAHAMS: That’s a great way to give feedback. Absolutely. What, so what now? What if you think about it that way and this structure can be used, I call it the Swiss army knife of structures because you can use it in so many ways. Many of the things I’ve explained, when I’ve explained a principle to you, I said what the principle is, why it’s important and how it plays out. It’s just a useful place to start from. Not everything you say has to be in that structure, but knowing you can default to that frees up your resources to really connect and engage.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What about people that feel like the words sort of get stuck in their brain or their throat or their tongue and I want to be nimble with the way that I’m back and forth, but for some reason it just, it doesn’t seem to come out the way I want.

Overcoming Communication Blocks

MATT ABRAHAMS: So I have a couple thoughts here. One, with enough time, people often can fix that problem. There is a built in desire in spontaneous communication to respond immediately. It’s okay to take a beat. Somebody asks you a question, you can say, let me think about that for a second. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s not our first instinct though.

Or I can ask a question, a follow up question, a clarifying question that gives me time. I can paraphrase what you said. Again, building in time and the ability, using questions and paraphrasing are also other tools you can use, not just to buy time, but if I’m in an interaction where I’m feeling a little tongue tied and not sure what to say, I can contribute a question or just paraphrase what’s been going on in the interaction.

That’s a very… Either of those are meaningful contributions that don’t require the same level of risk in deep thinking that actually speaking in the moment does. So if you’re part of a meeting and you feel like I want to contribute, but I just don’t know what to say, just ask a question or just paraphrase. So what we’ve really been talking about for the last few minutes is this. That’s an incredibly helpful step in communication and it gives you time and builds courage to actually say more meaningful things.

The Art of Asking Questions

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I found, I mean, you’ll be episode 940 or something on the show in the last seven years. So I’ve spent a lot of time, again being the most stupid person in the room and having to ask questions. And certainly for me, one of the most effective mindsets to be in is that there is no such thing as a stupid question. And it does sound kind of trite. But if you’re not sure, it’s not your job to be sure. This person that’s trying to explain this thing to you, it is their job to convince, explain, elaborate, to the point where you feel. Huh, I get it now. It’s not your job to arrive at their conclusion. That’s their job to get you to arrive at the conclusion. So, yeah, when I’m in a conversation, I’m. I don’t understand that. Hey.

MATT ABRAHAMS: What?

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Sorry, I’m going to have to interrupt because I don’t understand the word that you just meant.

MATT ABRAHAMS: That’s right.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: And the more confident you are in asking what may, on the surface seem like stupid questions, it’s also, I think, very endearing because it allows the person opposite. Yeah, okay. Don’t worry, I got you. I got. Everyone wants to look after someone. What are you doing? By asking them a simple question, you’re kind of pedestalizing them in a little bit of a way, which makes them feel good. Allow me. Allow me to explain what the word verbose means to you. Allow me to, you know, descend to the depths of a mere Muggle like yourself. So, yeah, I think. I think that’s a cool way to do it.

MATT ABRAHAMS: And you are masterful at it. I mean, I’ve watched your show, and you do a really good job of asking important questions. Now, I didn’t just say you’re stupid, because I don’t think your questions are stupid questions. What I think they are is they are questions that you have, but they also represent questions that most people have. And a good communicator will appreciate that, not only because you’re doing your end of the interaction, you’re showing your interest, but you’re actually. If somebody really takes a moment to reflect, you’re helping me as the communicator get better. You’re actually giving me input and insight that will make me better. Because the next time I introduce this concept, I’m going to define the word verbose before I use it.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Exactly. Yeah, there’s some unsubstantiated claims, some gap in the narrative. Well, why is that there? Well, it’s because you thought that you’d explained it. But person, that’s a good avatar for everyone else you’re ever going to speak to for the rest of your life. Comes in waving a flag with a question mark on it, and you go, ah, actually. And yeah, look, you know, there may be some fledgling podcasters or YouTubers or whatever listening the best again, another framework that I think about a lot when it comes to the show is if you have a question about a thing, some non zero minority or maybe even significant majority of people are also thinking that same thing. Like, you’re not. You’re lovely and you are a precious snowflake who deserves all the fruits that the world can offer you. But you’re not that unique.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Right?

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Your inquiries, your curiosity, your questions are probably going to be pretty close to the bullseye of what everybody else is thinking, especially if you are the sort of person who is like your audience and most people are like their audience, whether that’s the community that you work in, you’re presenting at a conference somewhere, whether that’s doing things on social media like people resonate with people like them. So if you think a thing, they are probably. Huh. I was wondering that question too, about the future of climate change or whatever it might be.

Key Conversational Skills

MATT ABRAHAMS: Right. I think the two most valuable skills of any conversationalist, but especially people who do what you do and what I do on my podcast, is the ability to ask questions and being willing to ask questions that are pretty rudimentary and the ability to paraphrase, to demonstrate. I heard you and here’s what I took away from you. And I think if you can do those two things, you are a good conversationalist. You set up the other person to be successful. And if you do what you and I do in terms of podcasting, etc, you help others learn as well. So those are two critical skills. I totally agree with you.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I’ve heard it be described as being an essentializer. So yeah, somebody goes, I speak to real smart people sometimes as well as.

MATT ABRAHAMS: But you’re not doing that right now.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Way, way, way too calm and confident. That. Look, I wish that. I wish that I could go back and tell a younger version of me that asking stupid questions is always allowed and that it is endearing and it does help your guests feel comfortable. So if there’s ever actually. That’s a good point. Let’s say that someone isn’t a podcaster. What are some of your favorite conversational questions or frameworks for questions to build connection between someone and somebody else?

Being Interested vs. Being Interesting

MATT ABRAHAMS: Absolutely. I want to start. I’ll answer that question by starting with the approach I think we need to take. And I learned this from a guest on my podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart. Her name’s Rachel Greenwald. Fascinating person. She’s an activist, academic, and a matchmaker. Really interesting person. And what she said, when you’re having conversation, it’s about being interested, not being interesting. Many of Us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to say something really interesting, insightful, and that that can make it very challenging and make it very self focused and communication should be other focused.

So rather than think about what’s the right thing to say to unlock this conversation, just be interested in what’s happening around you or something, you know, about the person. I like to give this example. I was at a conference, we went and heard all these people speak, and then it was time for dinner and there was a cocktail party afterwards or whatever. And I’m waiting in line, lots of people in line. There’s this guy standing next to me, have no idea who he is. And I look around the room and everybody’s dressed in blue. It’s not uniforms, it’s just coincidental. I turn to the guy and say, I missed the memo on blue. And he looks around, said the same thing.

That was all it took. We had a very engaging conversation. We left the color blue almost instantly, found lots of things in common, and we’ve now become close friends. When I travel to his part of the world, I visit him, he visits me. All you have to do is be interested and observe. It’s about being outside yourself, not inside yourself. And if you do that, it changes the dynamic. The analogy I like to use is it’s not like tennis or volleyball where you’re trying to spike or ace the ball over the net. It’s like that game of Hacky Sack where you’ve got that beanbag and the whole idea is to serve it to the other person so they can serve it back to you. And if you do that, your conversation will be better. So we ratchet down the pressure and we make it easier to be interested.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Can I read you a short essay that I wrote about this a couple of months ago?

MATT ABRAHAMS: I would love to hear it. Yes.

Reverse Charisma

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay. Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill’s mother, once dined with both Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his rival William Gladstone, on consecutive nights. When asked about her impressions of the two men, she said, when I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I was sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling like I was the cleverest woman.

Most people think that they want to be charismatic. They want their energy to be compelling and their stories to be electric, to walk into a room and everyone be impressed. But when I think about the friends I love and want to spend the most time with, they don’t have charisma. They have Reverse charisma.

Why do certain people make us feel boring, but others do not? Why do we feel full of stories and inspiration around some who but around others, we have nothing to say. We tend to assess people based on how interesting they are, but thereby miss a much more important issue. How interesting they make us feel? How engaged is this person? How much of us can they tolerate? How much of our reality can they handle without us editing ourselves? How encouraging and reassuring are they? How much do they make us want to dig deeper and talk more? How comfortably can we sit in silence without needing to fill it? Basically, how much of us do they get? And if it’s not a lot, then we will inevitably be cautious.

A person feels interesting precisely to the extent that they have become familiar and at ease with the things that are extreme, sad, dark, agonizing and shameful. And if they’re at home with their own strangeness, then they can make us feel at home with ours. Where they have gone, we can follow. What they have felt safe exploring in themselves. We will be able to safely unpack around them.

Architecting your charisma is a nebulous, scrappy task that pickup artists gave themselves existential crises by failing at achieving. Building your reverse charisma is something that anyone can do by becoming curious, patient, and engaging. Some people feel interesting, Some people make us feel interesting. There’s a place for both. But on average, our favorite people are the latter, not the former.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Not only is that incredibly well written. Thank you for sharing that.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MATT ABRAHAMS: But it highlights exactly what we were talking about and what you’re really identifying. There is this notion of immediacy, and in some cases people would call it intimacy. It’s not the romantic sexual kind of intimacy, but there’s a genuine desire to connect. And that’s a lot of what intimacy and immediacy are about. There’s an invitation that’s made that’s beyond me. It’s inviting you to be your best self. And I really like how you captured that. Thank you for sharing that.

Connection Over Impression

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Oh, my pleasure. Will Storr, do you know him? He wrote the Science of Storytelling, the Status Game. So he was on the show yesterday. His new book, A Story is a Deal. And he was talking about characters and heroes. And I said, okay, so how do you write a character or a hero that is popular, that goes down well? And he said, well, people think that they need a character to be likable. They don’t. People resonate with characters they identify with, with people that they like. And I thought that was such a Lovely distinction and you know, is not too dissimilar to the reverse charisma idea.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Right.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Don’t come in and be impressive, come in and connect with me.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Right. But underlying what you said, underlying what he said is this notion of you have to know and understand who you’re speaking to because you can’t connect or relate to them or put a character forward that might connect and relate to them without understanding who they are. We walk around so internally focused that we are missing an opportunity to connect with others and to really think about what’s important and what’s needed for them in the moment. And it takes a little bit of reconnaissance, reflection and research to think about who you’re speaking to, writing for, etc. But when you do it, you can unlock that reverse charisma. You can help people identify, you can connect better.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. I imagine even a lot of what we’ve talked about today is intention. Right. In tension, not intention. That too much. God.

MATT ABRAHAMS: The.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What was the book that advised people to use the first name of the person they’re speaking to? Is it how to Win Friends and Influence People?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah, Dale Carnegie definitely talked about that.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yes. Yeah. And you know, I’m just using it as an example. That’s pretty obvious that I’ve done my research. I know that, that. Matt, Matt, you’re into weekend long distance cycling and, and, and pottery and you know, Matt, Matt, I must have. Matt, I must have told you. It’s like, dude, shut the fuck. Like it just feels so, you know, contrived. But then again, if you’re just, you know, chirping on, you haven’t applied or curated your message to the audience. Also, all of this stuff is intention. Structure, but spontaneity.

MATT ABRAHAMS: I talk a lot about attention and intention. You have to pay attention, you have to do your work and then from there clearly create your intention so that you can connect, engage and be successful in your communication. When I say know your audience, it doesn’t mean to then just broadcast to your audience everything you know about them. It means to deeply think about and convey information that’s relevant to them. And a great way to do that is just to ask questions and let them tell you and have them help you. You know, communication is truly bidirectional. It’s not one way.

The Secret To Becoming A Confident Speaker

# Surprising Communication Research

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What are some of the most surprising sort of stats, data studies that you’ve come across with regards to this area of communication? I imagine everybody is so inside of the woodland that they can’t see any of the trees with regards to this. But I imagine there must be some wild stats from conversation analysis and stuff like that that really sort of brings home the things that you’ve been saying so far.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Well, let me tell you two things that come to mind. So academics have identified this theory they call the spotlight effect. So we all walk around carrying this spotlight that we see shining on us and we think everybody else is following that light. So they’re all looking at us in the spotlight. But the reality is we’re all walking around with our own spotlights. There’s a New Yorker cartoon where you literally see like you know, in hospitals where people carry around those IV bags when they walk around. It’s a cartoon that shows people walking around with their own spotlights.

And the point is this, and the research bears this out. We are so self focused and worried about how others see us that we’re not spending enough of our attention to others. So the fear is unfounded. The spotlight effect is saying our concern about others perceptions of us is unfounded.

The other piece that I think is interesting based on what we’ve said. People who study conversations look at turn taking and there are really two types of turns. Because if you think about it, a conversation is I speak, you speak, etc. We’re turn taking. There are two types of turns. There are supporting turns and then there are turns that shift shifting turns.

So a supporting turn might be that you tell me you just came back from Hawaii, you took a vacation to Hawaii, and I a supporting turn would say, oh, what island did you visit? Or I could use a shifting turn where I say oh, I just got back from Costa Rica. Do you see how that shifts the topic?

What the research shows is that many of us use more shifting turns than supportive turns. But the research also shows when you use more supporting turns, you actually endear, connect and get deeper with the person. So the advice that many of us who study this suggest is you’d like at least 2/3 to 3/4 of your conversational turns to be supporting and then the rest to be shifting. If you do all shifting, then you look distancing and like you don’t care and you’re a narcissist. And if all you do is supportive turns, it looks like you don’t want to talk about yourself at all and you’re hiding something. So you want this nice blend. So between the spotlight effect and the shifting and supporting turn taking, I think those are some topics that people might not think about and might be counterintuitive.

# Conversation as a Dance

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah, it definitely feels more like a dance than a battle. When you’re talking about support as opposed to shifting turns. I mean, you’ll know this from doing your show that you. I don’t use notes to keep track of what’s been said. And if you’ve got a particularly meandering guest and they can talk, you’ve got 10 different branches open. I don’t like open loops. I’m like the. I’m like patient zero for the zygonic effect. So all I want. All I want to do is. I’ve got, you know, this. My ram, my mental RAM is slowly being consumed by what I must remember to speak to him about his mother. And what was that thing about pasta? There’s a story about France in the 1800s. Like, okay, hold on to all of these things. Yeah, exactly. And I’m like, okay, so we’re just going to go back to this thing, and then we just go back to that thing, and we just go back to this thing. But that’s, I suppose, aggressive shifting turns, even within someone’s own story. Oh, I must tell you about this. Like, you’ve managed to. You haven’t stopped, and you’ve gone in three different directions. I don’t know whether you know who Rory Sutherland is. He’s the vice chairman of Ogilvy. Trying to have a conversation with Rory is like an unstoppable force, meaning an immovable object or something. I’m like. But he’s both of them. I’m like, okay, you’re just having a war against yourself.

MATT ABRAHAMS: But his stories are delightful. I cite some of the stories, but you’re right.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yes, yes, spectacular human.

MATT ABRAHAMS: So you. You must, in those circumstances. I mean, if somebody is of that way. Structure helps, number one. And number two, when you’re in those circumstances, and I’ve had this happen on my podcast. That’s where I paraphrase, I interrupt, I highlight something important. They say, I’ll say, oh, that point you just made, really important leads me to this, because it’s the politest way I know to short circuit where that’s going because it’s. It’s super complex and confusing for me. And I can only imagine those listening are going to find it difficult as well. So I feel obligated to bring it back to some core point that people can take away.

# Managing Filler Words

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Okay, what’s your advice for people who feel like they overuse filler words?

MATT ABRAHAMS: Ah, so a couple things here. This comes up often. Filler words, ums, uhs, likes. I means these are normal and natural part of speech. In fact, there’s some good research that says when kids are younger, parents will often insert a filler word. Not strategically, it’s just habitual before they say something that’s important or new to the kid. So we have actually learned as young children that when you hear a filler word, something important is following it. And the problem is if what the important thing following it is another, or then we become very distracted.

So the goal is not eliminating these. However, we want to make sure that we don’t have so many that they are interruptive, that they. They distract. So this the. It’s hard to do, but the single best way to get rid of the filler words that are most annoying, and those are the ones that come between thoughts. So when I’m done speaking and then I start speaking again, that one sits out there and is very distracted.

You can reduce these or eliminate them by controlling your breath. Try this for me. Do this activity for me. If you’re willing to play along, I’d like you to say the word while exhaling. So we’ll do it together. On the count of three, let’s both say while pushing air out. Ready? One, two, three. Now I want you to do the same thing while inhaling. Ready? One, two, three. Can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t speak while inhaling. Speaking is an exit only event.

So here’s the magic trick. If at the end of my sentences and phrases, I train myself to be completely out of breath, I must inhale before I can say something else.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: You’ve got no fuel for the.

MATT ABRAHAMS: That’s exactly right. And you build in a pause while you’re taking the breath. And pauses are good. So this is not easy. The way you practice. This is reciting lists of things. So I instruct my students, the people I coach. Look at your diary, your calendar, whatever you call it. Most of us refer to it multiple times a day. One of those times a day, you look at it simply speak out loud what’s on your schedule. And at the end of each item that you speak, land the phrase be out of breath.

So I might say doing lunch with Chris, recording a podcast with whoever, and at the end, I’m completely out of breath and I begin to train myself to land my phrases. Think of a gymnast who sticks their landing. And when you do that, you take, you literally take the oxygen out of the ability to say filler words. It takes a little bit of practice, but if you do it, you will reduce them and you will reduce the distractions. That too many ums and uhs.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Cause what is the evidence around rated likability, authenticity, expertise, prestige, status of people who use ums, ers, likes versus pauses, length of pauses, that sort of stuff. I know that there’s a big body of literature around this, I just don’t know the literature.

MATT ABRAHAMS: So there is a threshold for most people where a certain number of ums and uhs is acceptable. And then you cross over it if you look so, and I can’t remember the exact number of how many most of us have, but in a given 2 minute, 5 minute interaction there are multiple that we typically do in conversation and that does not impact our liking, our status, our perceptions that others have. But when you do, when you two x that, multiply that twice over, then it becomes very distracting.

And interestingly, it’s where they come as well. So if I start with versus in the midst of speaking and I keep speaking, or at the end, it has different perceptions. So it’s not just the number, it’s where they’re happening. The ones in the midst of communication are the least bothersome. The ones at the end of communication, before the next part starts, are the most bothersome. So if you’re going to work on these, it’s not about eliminating period, but it’s not about managing all of them. Focus on the ones that come at the end of your sentences. Those are the most bothersome to people.

# The Evolution of Language

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What about like? Like seems to be peppered more akin to a shotgun than a pause, a breath. Yes, a pending loading screen.

MATT ABRAHAMS: So neuro linguists geek out on the word like. Like is used for so many purposes. And the younger you are, the more conversant you are in using like. And like can signal I like something like can say I have something to say. Like. It replaces the word says or said. And it serves a lot of purposes, depending on the research I am aware of, based on your age, it differentially bothers you.

So people who are of my vintage tend to be bothered more by the word like than somebody perhaps of your vintage or even younger. Right. So it’s what you grow up being accustomed to. And again, language evolves and it’s evolving that like is becoming much more acceptable and people are using it more. For me personally, it is annoying. And I have two kids that are of the generation where it’s not. And we spend a lot of time like talking about like. And so it’s a tricky thing. We’re in the midst of an evolution on that term and those old fuddy duddies like myself are going to be on the losing end of it.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Interesting. I get the sense that it is here to stay. I think it’s definitely serving a purpose in that regard. Helping people to approximate their conclusions or their proclamations about things. It’s close to this. It’s similar to this. It is a thing that’s. That’s appropriating this. That. I wonder where that comes from. That. I suppose it’s not imprecision, but it’s giving you a little bit more room with vagueness in that kind of way. And I wonder whether there’s a concern about being fully seen there. Whether as you’ve got more slow life strategy because you don’t see it written all that much.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah. Unless somebody’s quoting dialogue. That’s correct.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. So it’s not part of. I don’t even know if this is the right word, but sort of the syntax of how sentences are structured given the time to craft them. Which makes me think it’s an artifact of the way that our brains are processing stuff. And it’s kind of like an accent in a way.

MATT ABRAHAMS: It’s really interesting that you say that. I’m going to suggest you have a conversation with a woman named Valerie Friedland. She’s a linguist and she studies things like this.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: She’s been on the show. She was great.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah, she’s wonderful. So you know Valerie. So she’s. She would be more qualified than I. But I do think it is serving a communicative function. It’s serving multiple communicative functions that we used to do in other ways. And I do agree with you that it is. As language becomes less formal, words like. Like. And other types of contractions are becoming more commonplace. And I think it’s fascinating. We’re also seeing it, at least in written text with emojis and other graphics that are serving a similar purpose.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I. I saw a news story where a judge had to interpret the meaning of an emoji.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Because these things have like articulatory validity in and of themselves. You know, they are not just window dressing. They actually mean a thing.

MATT ABRAHAMS: So does a thumbs up on a contract. I mean, that’s right. That’s the question. It is. And I actually think with the evolution of language from my perspective, that at some point things like that will be the case.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: It’s the 2025 equivalent of. That’s a verbally binding contract. That’s an emoji binding contract.

MATT ABRAHAMS: That’s right. Thumbs up. Interesting. Yeah, but that’s what. That’s what makes communication so exciting is that it’s ever evolving. Right. And to me, I find that really exciting. It’s not stagnant.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Right. Is confidence overrated when it comes to speaking, do you think?

The Importance of Confidence

MATT ABRAHAMS: I think confidence is essential. It’s hardwired in us to pay attention to those that are confident and those that aren’t. Now, when we talk about confidence, I’m not talking about over indexing and being arrogant or super overconfident. You know, I teach at one of the world’s best business schools. We spend a lot of time talking about arrogance. It’s not about that, but it is about having confidence not only in yourself, but in the messages that you communicate. And finding that nice balance of managing the anxiety, the passion that you have that really makes a difference. Those are ingredients that go into charisma. We really don’t know what charisma is. But having confidence in yourself and in your content is an important part of that.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: How much of it is feeling confident and how much of it is saying the things that portray confidence?

MATT ABRAHAMS: That’s a great question, and it’s one that I don’t think we have a good answer to. You know, confident people act confidently. If you act confidently, you can actually become confident. So it’s a mix. Certainly we are good at detecting people who are putting on errors. So it has to be authentic and it has to become from a place of knowing who you are. We are very good at detecting people who are putting on those errors. But it’s hard to disentangle those two. What you do and how you do it are mixed very fast.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Why you’re motivated to do it. How authentic is this? It’s the classic charlatan, traveling salesperson, the slick guy at your front door. Certainly in my experience, you can sort of fake it until you make it and then make it until you believe it as this process, as it goes around. But I wonder how much really trying to reinforce identification is more important than likability and connection is more important than charisma. That if someone walks out on stage and they’re a little. They call out the elephant in the room like, dude, it is. It is so hot in here. I’m just going to sweat through my shirt through the entirety of this thing. The sweat now is no longer a big deal. Everyone’s laughing about it. Anyone else in here hot? Yeah, I’m dying too. And away you go. I think the other side of this, we’re talking about some of those tensions that exist. Another tension here is the sort of not performative fool. But the performative nervousness, you know, the over egging of, of this sympathy vote, the kind of myth of martyrdom type thing. It’s been a long day preparing for this, guys. You know, it’s going to be a little bit of a tough one. And after a while you think, okay, you’ve drained my sympathy tank and you’re now getting into my manipulation radar.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah, I 100% agree with that. What we know from research is if somebody comes out and says, oh, I’m so nervous, please forgive me. What, what we’re hoping for is that people will give you a little bit of a pass, lower their bar, but in fact, all you do is over sensitize them to pay attention to anything you do. That confirms that you’re nervous. So, so you’re actually working against yourself. So I often advise people to connect with your audience, but don’t pre apologize. My wife, long time ago disabused me of the ability to pre apologize. So, you know, don’t do it. Just come out and start the talk now. If there is something in the room, in the space, I do agree. If it’s super hot in there, acknowledge it. Don’t try to pretend, but don’t pre apologize for being nervous. That just sets you up for failure.

Warming Up Before Speaking

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Very interesting. One thing we maybe haven’t gone through, the biomechanics of the mouth and tongue getting that actually going. What are your favorite methods? Someone’s got five minutes before they need to go out on stage. They haven’t done my favorite hack, which is to just have a ton of friends backstage and yes, warm up by doing what is an effective way that somebody can solo their way to a mobile mouth and tongue.

MATT ABRAHAMS: I agree with you. The best way for me is to talk to other people. What I do when I don’t have that opportunity, I say tongue twisters. I say the same tongue twister three times out loud. It warms up my voice and it also helps me get present oriented. Remember, being present oriented allows you to connect, gets you out of your head. So I will say, in fact, I said before you and I connected today, I said my favorite one, I slit a sheet, A sheet I slit. And on that slitted sheet I sit and I say it three times fast. And the challenge in saying that one is if you say it wrong, you say a naughty word. And so it forces me to focus. Warming up is important. Anybody who does a sport, anybody who exercises, you know that warming up is important. You need to warm up your voice. We have this idea that we can go from silence to brilliance easily, and that’s not the case.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah, it’s the more that. I’ve worked with a speech coach, Miles, for a long time now, and he’s obsessed with the articulation of the mouth and the way the tongue and the mouth works and the level of, how would you say, oral gymnastics that he’s got me to jump through in an attempt to try and get me ready for TED Talks and live shows and all sorts of things. I really love that. I guess we’ve gone from important presentation, meaningful connection, and then the dreaded lowest end of the funnel, the. The front door. Small talk. What can people do to make small talk feel a bit more meaningful, less painful. Stuff like that?

Making Small Talk Meaningful

MATT ABRAHAMS: Yeah. So again, I think it starts with being interested, not interesting. I think we should give ourselves a goal for small talk. Am I here just to pass the time? Am I here to learn something new? Am I here to make some connections in the short term or the long term? So making small talk purposeful is a way to make it more enjoyable and to help you focus your way through it. Now, I’m not saying that small talk becomes strategic communication, and we’re trying to manipulate people towards our point of view, but many of us don’t like it because of its ambiguity. And you can give it some purpose and some meaning.

And one two of the big things that cause people concern is how do I start it and how do I end it? We talked about ways to start through observation, through questions. A great way to end, again, coming from this Rachel Greenwald woman, was this notion, she calls it waving the white flag. Not for surrender, but at the end of an auto race, they’ll wave the white flag to signal the last lap. So when I want to get out of a small talk situation, rather than rely on biology, which is what most of us do, oh, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I have to go to the bathroom. Instead, you say something like, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. In a few minutes, I’m going to go talk to folks over there, but before I leave, and then you ask one more question or dive into one more topic, so you’re signaling the conversation is coming to an end. So everybody knows it, and then you have a little bit more of engagement, and then you separate. So everybody’s prepared, nobody’s surprised. Everybody can figure out what they’re going to do next. So if you know how to get into it, if you have a purpose for doing it and you know how to get out of it, all of a sudden, small talk becomes a place where big things can happen and it can help us to feel good about it and enjoy it.

The Art of a Meaningful Apology

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: I spoke to Will yesterday about his favorite and worst apologies of all time, and he actually used the CEO of Domino’s. Apparently, there was this thing, it happened 2007, and these couple of workers had put a video of them picking their nose and putting it on Domino’s Pizza, and it was a catastrophe. And all this stuff happened. And he explained that. What, in your experience are the key ingredients of a meaningful apology?

MATT ABRAHAMS: First is acknowledgement. You have to acknowledge what was done. You have to demonstrate. I get it. I overspoke when you were speaking or I inserted myself too quickly into the conversation. So acknowledge it. Then express that you have an appreciation for the feeling that the other person might have said. So we don’t apologize for how we made someone feel. We apologize for what we did. And then you have to make amends. You have to say what I’ll do.

So I might say I’m very sorry that I interrupted you in that meeting. I can imagine that felt diminishing and put you in a bad light. I am going to not only wait till you’re done communicating in future meetings, but I’m going to paraphrase what you said before I contribute my part. That’s a complete apology. Now, somebody might not be happy with it. They might not like the action that you’ve set for forth in your amends piece, but that to me, is a complete apology.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah, I have definitely managed to get it wrong a number of times in both.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Me too. We’re human.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Yeah. There’s a defensiveness that comes through with that. Matt. Let’s bring this one home, dude. I think this kind of conversational analysis and advice is super practical and you’re awesome. And that was a tour de force through all of the big questions everyone’s got. So where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all the things that you’ve got going on.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Well, first and foremost, thank you. I really enjoy the conversation and your ability to dive deep and then bring it up to the high level is masterful. I’d love for people to listen, to think fast, talk smart. It’s all about communication. 20 minute episodes, you can find them anywhere, including YouTube, fastersmarter, IO place to go to find me. And if you’re on LinkedIn, do a lot of work on LinkedIn and the other socials too. Thank you for this opportunity.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Heck, yeah. Matt, I appreciate you. Thank you.

MATT ABRAHAMS: Thank you.

CHRIS WILLIAMSON: Congratulations. You made it to the end of the episode. And if you want more, well, why don’t you press right here 1.

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