May 22, 2025 • 47 mins
Why does saying the wrong thing make you a better communicator? How do we manage stress in any form of talking? How does martial arts make you better at communicating? How do you communicate with a Gen Z audience?
This week, we talk to Matt Abrahams, a lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB), where he teaches popular classes in strategic communication and effective virtual presenting. Matt hosts the award-winning Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast, and is the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Hello, hello, welcome, welcome to the linen suit and Plastic
Tie podcast. This is the podcast where we
work to dissect, analyze, investigate, explore the
amazing, the epic, the are inspiring, the cool, the
impressive, the inspiring power of storytelling and learn how to
harness that power in your everyday lives.
(00:27):
I'm going. And I'm Kevin, and that was
inspiring twice. So yes, it is doubly inspiring.
Actually the first time was awe inspiring and the second time
was just generic inspiring whichmeans different things.
So one inspires awe and one justgenerally inspires.
Anyways, I was watching this master class the other day with
(00:47):
a professor from Northwestern and she was talking about how
one way to de stress after a long day is to sit and watch an
hour long narrative form of story time.
Because we have been using TikTok and YouTube choice in
these these formats so much. It's actually causing more
anxiety for when you kind of siton a couch and rot.
(01:09):
And I'm it's just fascinating because I was saying I said this
to you cab the other day. We've gotten to a point in
society where we're now being told them one of the ways we can
de stress and D connect is just sit and watch a full narrative
hour long television show. Like it's no longer turn off all
technology, go outside. I'm sure that's better.
But she's like, I know you feel like relaxing and sitting on
(01:29):
your couch and scrolling throughTikTok.
It's not watch a full narrative form.
We're now at a point where people are like, well, you know,
for your own mental health. Watch an hour of Sopranos.
Yeah, it's a pretty funny narrative that the best way to
unwind from being distracted is paying attention.
(01:49):
A little counterintuitive. The best relaxation thing you
can do for yourself is to focus on something.
Focus on thing you enjoy, though.
Focus is not the enemy of relaxation.
If you are mindlessly scrolling on your couch and you're not
feeling more relaxed, odds are it's because you're not actually
focusing on something. So it's better to put down the
phone and turn on the televisionshow and watch an hour long
(02:12):
narrative because you can focus in on that and disconnect while
focusing on something. That disconnecting while jumping
from fame to fame, that's where your mind gets more exhausted.
Yeah, and we actually talk quitea bit about an aspect of paying
attention this season on the show.
When we kicked off our season premiere with Professor Allison,
(02:35):
with Brooks about talking, we talked about how the biggest
enemy to having a good conversation is distraction is
not paying attention. And there's something that
happened to us as well is we're not actively listening and
paying attention to what the other person is saying.
(02:56):
You know, you're not going to drive the concept conversation.
Well, we're not going to be goodhosts.
We're not going to be able to know how to ask the next best
follow up question to what our guest is just talking about.
And I think I've seen it with myself sometimes where I'll be
talking to someone and if they don't get to their point in a
minute, I'm like kind of like, OK, come on.
Like, well, I'm like, if this minute didn't serve me or help
(03:18):
this conversation sometimes. And my brain can sometimes be
like, OK, what are we doing? Because with TikTok, as we get
into social media, as you build different Tik Toks, you watch
all these videos on, OK, this iswhere you put the hook.
This is where you engage. And this is where you tell the
story. Bam, one TikTok, one minute, you
one TikTok one minute. And you just did this whole
journey, right? And it's it's a psychological
trick to get people liking content, moving through, seeing
(03:40):
a bunch of different stuff. But at the same time, in life,
things take longer than a minute.
And if we shorten our attention spans too much, our
conversations are going to become very difficult.
And so I think this is the thingwith communication and this is
the thing with we're constantly talking about consumer diversity
of storytelling. If you want to tell any stories
(04:01):
to agenda the audience, they areodds are on TikTok.
And you have to understand that platform to connect with them,
but also take the time to consume different forms of
storytelling. I love going to the movies,
turning off the phone, experiencing a cinema.
I have to remind myself having my phone off and watching a full
movie is healthy. Going to kickbox for an hour is
(04:22):
healthy. The stories you consume matter,
but also the story, the ways youconsume.
Storytelling matters. Just diversify your palate and
try different things and you canfind ways to live a healthier
life. Expand your attention span and
overall connective audiences differently.
And to explore how to better payattention and engage in a
(04:46):
conversation better. This week we are talking with
yet another expert in how to talk.
We are talking with Professor Matt Abrams from Stanford
Graduate School of Business. He teaches a very successful MBA
class about how to talk better because that is obviously a
(05:07):
focus of Business School students, but obviously the
world at large because we as humans need to talk or
communicate. And Matt hosts a podcast called
Thinkfast Talk Smart, which further explores this topic.
Also, a book that stems from histeachings, Think Faster, Talk
(05:28):
Smarter. So we're going to learn about
how do you get yourself to pay attention better, to talk
better? How does doing the wrong thing
actually helps you communicate better?
What does martial arts have to do in you becoming a better
communicator? So without further ado, let's
get into it. Hello, how do you do?
(05:53):
Sit down, gather around. We've got stories about stories
that'll. Make you a dream.
Of wonder Amnesty The ride can be dry.
Better dressed for the time withthe Lin Minsuk and blasting tie.
Lin Minsuk and blasting TIE now here's Goriven Gavin.
(06:21):
Kick us off. Can you tell us a little bit
about yourself? What is your story?
Yeah, so I'm somebody who is passionate about communication.
As long as I can remember, it's been something that's really
been interesting to me and a significant part of my life.
My father was a lawyer where clear, concise communication was
really important. My mother was a an elementary
(06:44):
school teacher, later in Englishas a second language teacher,
where creativity, engagement, really empowering people through
language and communication. And it's something that I just
soaked into me. I'm I'm somebody who's really
passionate about it. Went to to university, I studied
psychology, discovered communication as a field, got a
graduate degree in that worked in high tech for about a decade
(07:07):
and saw the impact of effective communication and not effective
communication and storytelling. And then had the opportunity to
come back to my true passion, which is teaching.
And I've been teaching ever since.
And today I teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
I've been there 15 years. I teach strategic communication
and a large part of what we do is help our students feel more
comfortable and confident telling their own stories and
(07:29):
helping craft the of the businesses that they end up
working for and running. I love that for this season
we're spending so much time exploring communications, of
course, and the kind of studyingto language itself.
English is my second language, so English as second language
learning is a big part of my life.
Are there anything from observing how your mother went
(07:53):
about her work in ESL teaching that really influenced you?
That you can identify, whether explicitly or implicitly.
Yeah, so I am very interested innon-native speaking.
Many of the people who listen tomy podcast, Think Fast Talk
Smart, are non-native speakers. I've had several guests on who
are experts in that. And to synthesize what my
(08:14):
mother, I observed my mother teach and what I've heard from
these experts, it really boils down to just a few things.
One, don't try to be a native speaker.
The pressure we put on ourselvesto speak that other language as
if we were native actually worksagainst us, and it's a cognitive
load issue. The goal of all communication,
this doesn't matter if you're speaking in your native tongue
(08:35):
or one that's newer to you, is to connect with your audience,
to get information across. The definition of communication
in its origins is the word to make common.
So communication is all about making common and connecting.
So rather than focusing on saying it exactly right or the
way a native speaker would say it, focus on just getting the
(08:55):
point across, which means you might repeat yourself.
You might say it once and then tell a story or say it once and
use an analogy. And I saw my mother, who was
expert at demonstrating this, but also encouraged her students
to do it. And the thing that it did is it
takes the pressure off. So the number one rule is, is
just focus on connecting rather than sounding like a native
(09:16):
speaker. And then the next thing is
observation. You know, we learn a lot about
our communication by observing others.
If you want to be a good writer,read a lot of people who've
written well. If you want to become a good
speaker, observe. And it's not just what people
say or when they say it, but it's also the context.
One of the hardest things to learn, as you well know, in any
language, is, is the contextual meaning of words.
(09:38):
For example, if you're going to the doctor and the doctor says
how are you doing? That means one thing.
If you're at a party or at a barand somebody says how are you
doing? That could mean something very
different. So the contextual learnings are
hard, and you get that through observation.
You know, something you talk about a lot in your podcast, in
your book, in your teachings is this idea of perfection, right?
(10:02):
This idea that we are kind of chasing perfection in
communication and in story time,and that's causing all this
undue pressure. You, you obviously work in a
very ambitious, strong driving community.
How do you tackle perfectionism and communication?
How do you get people to break down that built up story in the
(10:23):
head about everything has to be perfect?
Yeah. And that's a great question.
So I like to say connection overperfection.
So one of the things that drivesus is we want to get our message
across. When you communicate, you have
something to get across. And we put a lot of pressure on
ourselves to say it the right way, as if there is a right way.
(10:45):
I mean, the reality is I've beenstudying this and doing this
work for decades. There is no one right way to
communicate. There are better ways and worse
ways. And when we put that pressure on
ourselves to do it right, whatever that is, we get in our
own way. It's a cognitive bandwidth
issue. You know, on your laptop, your
tablet, your phone, if you have multiple apps or Windows open,
(11:06):
each one of those individual apps or, or windows is
performing less well because theothers are open.
It's taking some of that CPU bandwidth.
Your brain's the same way. If I have a script that I've
memorized or there's a certain way, I want to say this, this
part I am judging as I'm saying it.
So I have less bandwidth available.
(11:26):
So it's important rather again, to say it's about just getting
the point across. I just want to get the
information so the other person learns it.
And when I do that, that's success.
Success is not saying it exactlythe right way.
Now, there are circumstances I, I realize this, where you do
have to say things exactly right.
If you're doing something in a negotiation, if you're in the
(11:48):
legal world, yes, there is a waythat it must be said, but that's
not most of our communication. That's a strict subset of our
communication. If you'll allow me.
I want to share a story about how much we judge ourselves and
get in our own way. I do this game.
I borrowed it from improvisation.
I Co teach a class at Stanford'scontinuing studies with a a
(12:08):
gentleman who's an expert improviser and a screenwriter
who teaches screen writing at Stanford.
His name's Adam Tobin and Adam taught me this game.
It's called Shout the Wrong name.
And any of your listeners, viewers can can play this game
for 15 seconds wherever you are.Just point at different objects
in the room and just call them something different.
So if I point at the ceiling, I might call it a car, I might
(12:31):
call it a lemon. It does not matter.
Just call it something other than what it is.
And I do this in one of the first activities in my class I
teach because the students come to realize just how much they
judge themselves. I had a student once playing
this game. The only rule is point to
something and call it something it is not.
And I had a student who is pointing at a chair and nothing
(12:53):
was coming out of his mouth. And I went to him.
I said, what's going on? He said, I'm not being wrong
enough. And I thought that was weird
because I never assigned a rubric of wrongness and
rightness. I just say, call it the wrong
name. And I said, tell me more.
And he said, well, I was going to call the chair a cat, but a
cat has four legs and a chair has four legs.
I'm not being wrong enough. And then he said sometimes cats
(13:15):
sit on chairs. I'm not being wrong enough.
And I tell this story because itgives an example of how much we
judge and evaluate and strive todo it right.
He was doing this so much he couldn't do it at all.
He completely failed at the activity because he was trying
to do it right. So the whole idea here is to
(13:35):
dial down the volume on that perfectionism and really just
try to connect and do what's needed in the moment.
I'm certainly not saying don't judge what you say.
We need to think about it. But most of us are running
around with that setting at 11 when we could bring it down to a
three or four and survive just fine.
Sorry, you got me on a on a topic I'm really passionate
about. So I went on a little more than
(13:56):
probably I should have. No, no, I mean, we we love a
tangent here, but no, no, I think Kevin I huge
perfectionist, right for two people who that was one of our
biggest struggles of starting the show is because we knew it
was going to be bad, but we justhad to start.
And so this is something we lovetalking about because it's a
story, right? Perfectionism is just a story
we're telling ourselves that it needs to be a way to be quote,
(14:20):
UN quote, successful. So we love talking about.
And I think with that, though, it's pretty natural when you're
trying to do achieve that doing the wrong thing kind of goal.
Yeah, there's a certain level ofanxiety that comes with that,
obviously, because, you know, wealways at least want to try to
(14:42):
do things right. How do we navigate that anxiety
then is unnecessarily a bad thing?
How do we leverage that? Yeah.
So anxiety is normal and natural.
Those of us who study it, and I've done research in this and
many others, do we believe it's part of being human?
It is normal and natural to be nervous when you speak in high
(15:03):
stakes situations. In fact, 85% of people report
being nervous in those circumstances.
And quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying.
I think we could create a situation that makes them
nervous, too. We see this anxiety across
cultures, so it's not just here in the US, and we see it develop
at a pretty particular time in children's development into
(15:25):
young adults around the tween years is when anxiety around
speaking in front of others really amps up in most people.
So this leads us to think it's just innate.
It's part of being human, but that doesn't mean we can't learn
to manage it. You can manage it and you should
because it helps you and it helps your audience when you see
a nervous speaker. Let me ask you this, how do you
(15:45):
both feel when you see somebody nervous speaking?
How's that make you feel? I think as someone who struggles
with anxiety in immense ways, I think there's a lot of empathy
for me. I feel nervous for the person
and I'm just like sitting there like I really wanted to go well
for that person. Yeah, absolutely.
So you feel that second hand anxiety, right?
(16:07):
And, and in essence, I, I love that you're empathetic, which is
great and many of us are. But what's happening is you're
being distracted by that person's nervousness.
And if the goal is to connect and to actually land the
message, me making you nervous as my audience is not helping
me. So we need to learn to manage
it, not just to help ourselves because if it doesn't feel good
to be nervous and it can be distracting to ourselves, but
(16:28):
it's also distracting to the other person.
So there are things we can do tomanage our anxiety and it's a 2
pronged approach. You have to manage symptoms and
sources. Symptoms are the things that we
physiologically feel, rapid heart rate, shaky hands, dry
mouth, sweaty brow. And then there's sources, things
that initiate and exacerbate. We've talked about one of the
sources already, perfectionism. There are other sources as well,
(16:51):
like the goal you have. Many of the people I coach are
nervous because of the goal theyhave when they communicate.
My students want to get a good grade.
The salesperson wants to close the deal.
You might want to get your project supported.
And what makes you nervous is the potential of not achieving
it. And there's some things we can
do to manage against that sourceof your fear.
(17:13):
So if the goal is causing you tobe nervous, a goal is nothing
more than a future state. So getting yourself present
oriented by definition should sort circuit the long term goal.
So being present helps. So how do you get present?
Do something physical. Walk around the building, listen
to a song or a playlist like athletes do before they perform.
(17:33):
Start at 100 and count backwardsby a challenging number like
seventeens. That gets you present oriented.
I say tongue twisters before I start speaking.
That gets me present oriented. You can't say a tongue twister,
right? Not be in the present moment and
it warms up your voice. Before we logged on today, I
said a tongue twister a few times just to warm up.
(17:53):
So things you can do to manage sources and there are many
things you can do to manage symptoms.
The single best one is to do deep breathing and focus on the
exhalation. All of the magic happens on the
exhale. So the rule of thumb, or I like
to joke, the rule of lung, is you want your exhale to be twice
as long as your inhale. If you do those things, you can
begin to feel more confident. I love that Kevin knows this and
(18:15):
I think it's made it into the show a couple times, but I do a
version of Sharpay's vocal exercises from High School
Musical before we start every one of these shows.
Ron though, it's I'm not actually doing the vocal
exercise, I'm just doing the sounds.
But it's just a way to like shock your system and get you
presents. That's one thing I love about
your work as well as I take mindfulness very seriously and I
(18:35):
take, yes, how I do with my anxiety very seriously.
And you talk about it as such. Key tools in communication.
Mindfulness is really important.Being present is important.
If communication is about connection, the only way to
connect is to be present while you're having that
communication. And many of us live in our
heads, myself included, right thinking about did I say the
(18:59):
right thing? What could I say better?
What am I going to have for lunch?
What's next? All of this lives in our head
and gets in the way of us effectively communicating.
And there's actually some reallyinteresting mindfulness based
anxiety management techniques. A great one is this, when you
begin to feel nervous, say to yourself, this is me feeling
(19:19):
nervous. And what this does is it builds
distance between you and your experience of nervousness.
You are separating yourself fromthat.
And when you do that, you give yourself space.
You can say, this is me feeling nervous.
It makes sense. I'm nervous.
I'm on a podcast with some really impressive people.
Others, I don't know are going to hear this.
Anybody in this circumstance is likely to feel nervous.
(19:41):
And that space I gave myself by saying this is me feeling
nervous allows me then to have that rationalization and perhaps
to do something about it. So mindfulness is a wonderful
practice for life in general, but especially around helping
manage anxiety and have deeper connections, yeah.
I love these very actionable approaches you're talking about,
(20:04):
and I think it ties so much to what we talked about on this
show as well about internal storytelling.
When you're feeling the anxiety,the stress, these are all very
simple things you can do to reframe the narrative of your
experience right now to be like.Oh you know this is normal.
Or I can get myself engaged and think about this experience in a
(20:30):
different light that is going tode stress myself and keep myself
more present. So that's why I want to jump on
that really quickly. The framing that we have of
these events, especially around anxiety, really, really
important. A a friend and colleague at what
I like to say is the Stanford ofthe East.
She's at Harvard's Business School.
(20:51):
Allison Woods Brooks, phenomenalperson, great research.
A while back she did research that said, if you think about
it, the physiological experiencewe have of anxiety is very
similar, if not identical to thephysiological experience we have
of excitement. So if you can reframe your
anxieties, excitement and say toyourself, Hey, what I'm feeling
now is the excitement I have to get this information out totally
(21:15):
changes one, how you feel you, you get more into it versus, you
know, being negative about what's happening to you.
And people who redo this reframing end up communicating
better with more energy. People remember it more people
find the experience more positive.
So you're absolutely right. The stories we tell ourselves,
(21:35):
the approaches we take, fundamentally impact not just
how we feel, but how those who hear us and learn from us feel
as well. Yeah, we love Allison on the
show. We kicked off season 5 of her.
Great, amazing. He's fantastic, amazing
professor, amazing person. But I, I love that.
I love this idea of framing and the stories we're telling
ourselves and how we approach a situation.
(21:57):
It really effects our entire mindset.
Like this is a big part of the show is that storytelling is how
we view the world. It's not just what we'd say to
the world, it's how we connect with it.
And it's the same thing with communication.
When you start this class and you teach so many students to
get in touch, so many different lives, what do you think is the
biggest unlock? Like I'm sure people come in
(22:18):
thinking, oh, I'm going to be able to give a better Ted talk.
What do you think? Do they actually get out of
becoming better communicators? Ironically, when when they come
to the class to become better communicators, they actually
learn about themselves more. I I think the two things that
surprised my students the most is the self learning that they
they come away with. They think it's all about
(22:39):
messaging and when I'm going to broadcast to the world.
But if they actually end up learning a lot about themselves
and how their internal communication works, and people
come away with an understanding of how critical listening is in
communication, you know, you take a communication class,
especially a strategic communication class, and you
think it's all going to be aboutthat broadcast and what's coming
(22:59):
out. But in fact, what makes you an
effective strategic communicatoris your ability to listen and
target your messages appropriately.
And that's really where the value can come.
Can you touch upon a little bit more what's the difference
between strategic communication and communication?
What's the difference between strategic communication and
communication in general? Yeah, so at some level all
(23:22):
communication is strategic. When I refer to strategic
communication, I mean it is specific goal based
communication that's trying to have impact in terms of changing
attitudes, behaviors, outcomes for people.
So at the highest level, any communication is strategic
because there's something motivating it.
But the class is very focused onpurposeful goal driven
(23:45):
communication in service of yourown goals or the goals of some
organization, be it a company ora group.
And that's the distinction we make.
So under the rubric of strategiccommunication that I teach, it's
things like branding, crisis management, how do we assimilate
multiple organizations during a merger, acquisition.
(24:05):
That's the kind of thing that we're I'm talking about.
How do we get better at listening?
You brought up this concept. It's obviously very important.
We talked about this with Allison as well and you know,
for us, at least for me, sometimes I get so bogged down
or just tunnel vision on what I want to say next that I just
(24:29):
stopped listening. Yeah, there are a whole bunch of
barriers to listening and and I encourage everybody listening to
this to listen to what Allison said because she's phenomenal
and I'm sure had lots of insights.
I love when she talks about whatshe calls long term listening.
So after this conversation we have today, if I see you again,
bringing up something that we talked about today later is a
(24:51):
great way to demonstrate I listened.
I care and I want to connect. But the reality is there are
lots of barriers to listening and I have to share with you.
My wife thinks I'm a fraud when I teach listening because she
thinks I could do a lot better at it.
And I and I agree, we all can't.So let me talk about the
barriers first and then I'll share with you some ways to get
better. There are three primary barriers
(25:12):
to listening in the way I look at the world.
They all start with the letter Pphysical, physiological, and
psychological. A physical barrier is it's just
loud. The older I get, the louder
places become. When I go to a restaurant or
some kind of public space, it's loud and it's hard for me to
hear. So that's one barrier. 2 is
physiological. When we're tired, we're hungry,
(25:33):
we're nervous, we're hangry. That gets in the way of
listening. The physiological needs we have
in that moment can interfere with our ability to really
listen. And then finally, our
psychological, and you alluded to those when you were asking
the question. It's the judging, the
evaluating, the rehearsing that gets in the way of us truly
listening. So because of those barriers, we
(25:54):
listen primarily for just the top line.
You know, we just get some gist of what somebody is saying and
then we fixate, or that's all wemove forward from.
A better way to learn to listen is to listen as if you had to
paraphrase. So when you listen to
paraphrase, that is to take whatthe person said and repeat it in
your own words. And I'm not saying you actually
(26:16):
have to utter the paraphrase, although that can help.
And Allison's research shows that when you actually
paraphrase, you demonstrate connection and listening and
build trust in a way that you don't if you just nod your head
and go, uh huh, uh huh. But if you listen to paraphrase,
listen for that bottom line. It causes you to focus, to be
more present and to be more deeply connected to the person
(26:39):
that you're speaking to. So if you really want to
practice becoming a better listener, practice paraphrasing.
So I encourage my students afterthey leave class, after they
read something, I assign them toread after they listen to your
podcast, my podcast. I I ask them, take 10 seconds
and think about what's the bottom line of what I just
heard? And if you do that kind of drill
(27:00):
over and over, you train your brain to listen differently than
what most of us do. And in so doing, we become
better at communication. With YouTube becoming the norm,
TikTok, the short form content, it's kind of like we're skipping
to the bottom line, which is making longer term content
harder to consume because we're getting trained to like just
(27:23):
paraphrase it for us, right? Even with tools like AI.
So I think it's so important that we do these practices so
that we are still engaged in longer form storytelling.
I think that's such an importanttool.
Yeah, in some of us who teach narrative storytelling, we worry
about some of the things that you're talking about.
I mean, is this all becoming just a quick dopamine hit?
(27:45):
And people are becoming trained that a story is a quick hit And
I think there's a place for that, but there's also a place
for a deeper, more slow buildingnarrative.
I don't think it's either or. I think it's a blend of both.
But certainly we are seeing an onslaught of of the shorter form
storytelling. Through your very long tenure
(28:06):
teaching communication, Yeah. I mean, I mostly speak to, you
know, your decorate experience in teaching.
But something I'm very curious about is throughout our tenure
of teaching communications to students, have you seen that
general trend of technology, social media in the world affect
(28:30):
the student body or audience that you're teaching to over
time? 100% absolutely.
Technology has had a tremendous impact on communication, and I
don't think it's necessarily bad, just the last 15 years at
Stanford Business School and I talked communication long before
that in many other places. But the advent of technology
changed things fundamentally. I mean, I remember when e-mail
(28:52):
started and how that changed things.
Certainly texting and SMS changethe way that we communicated.
Emojis change the way we communicated and how people
respond. The pandemic made virtual
communication, what we're doing right now, a mainstay, and now
AI and short form video. So yes, it's a constant
evolution and that's good. Communication needs to evolve to
(29:13):
meet the times. What we all have to do is become
multilingual, though. We have to be able to understand
the different tools and we have to understand the different
people have different perspectives.
I, I do some consulting and I gointo organizations where we have
multi generations within an organization.
And people who are my age or older are so frustrated at the
the new hires who are much younger and they just go around,
(29:36):
pick up the phone and call me. Don't send me 3 texts on it or
send it on Slack. Call me, right.
And the younger kids are like, it's a waste of time.
I got to, you know, connect withthis.
I got to talk. I just want the answer, you
know, So we have to become multilingual in the technology,
but also have an appreciation for the people and what they're
(29:56):
comfortable with. So yes, the answer is
absolutely. I've seen a change in my
students. It is not necessarily a bad
change. It's when we have to adjust and
adapt to. I will tell you the big thing
that's changed over them all my years of teaching, attention
span for sure. I, I am finding that I need to
change things up in my classes much more frequently than I used
(30:19):
to, you know, say a decade ago. And again, I'm not saying
necessarily that's a bad thing. I think I am a better teacher
because I have to think this way, but it is definitely a
dramatic difference. You know, it's, it's so
important. I know there's that common joke
that our generation hates talking on the phone, right?
We're all afraid of it. It gives us too much anxiety.
(30:41):
Yeah, I did an interview with a Korean podcaster.
My book was translated. My recent book was translated
into Korean. And she told me in Korea, at the
college level, they teach a class on how to make phone calls
because the students didn't knowhow to do it.
Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's, I mean, maybe we
need that in the States too, to be honest.
Yeah, it's. It's so it's such a interesting
(31:04):
lens to look at it this how we are changing how we communicate,
we are changing the platforms. How do we still have deep
conversations when so much is test based or even Snapchat
based? Yeah, it's a purposeful act.
We have to remind ourselves thatas human beings, we are designed
to connect. There are people who argue that
(31:24):
we developed the ability to communicate as a way of building
empathy or showing empathy. That communication is nothing
more than a tool for expressed empathy.
And for our species, empathy is really important.
And when you think about that, that dramatically changes the
way you approach your communication.
If you think about the way I really connect, demonstrate
(31:47):
caring, learn from others is through communication is just to
remind yourself that the number of friends you have on social
media or the number of followersyou have, that can feel really
good, but that's not a connection in the way that human
beings were designed to connect.I'm often asked what are my
thoughts about AI and communication and and I have
(32:08):
lots of thoughts. I don't have one thought, but
one thing I I am fairly confident in is this connection
that I'm talking about, this empathy that's going to be
really, really hard to be replicated through AIA.
Lot of other things AI can do I think are amazing and will be
very helpful to communication. Some probably detrimental, but
this fundamental ability to connect in a way that humans can
(32:32):
and should is something that's unique to communication, and we
just have to remind ourselves ofthat.
Yeah. You.
Teach and communicate through somany different mediums now, not
only from your lecturing, but also you've given talks and you
have a podcast and of course written your book as well.
(32:53):
Do you think those communicating, engaging through
those different platforms major better storyteller or
communicator? Thank you for that question.
I certainly have multi channels of communication out there and
I'm fundamentally driven to helppeople hone and develop their
communication skills as I am trying to do.
And so having a multi channel approach be at the podcast, the
(33:17):
books, the teaching, the coaching, all of that is in
service of that goal, a fundamental truism of
communication. And it and it is the number one
bit of advice that we have heardacross all 200 episodes of Think
Fast, Talk Smart, my podcast is that you have to take your
audience into account. It's not about what you want to
(33:39):
say, it's about what your audience needs to hear.
And I try to live that through the different channels I use to
communicate. So a short form video could have
the very same message that one of my long lectures has, but the
way it's framed, the way it's delivered, the emphasis on
certain things, visual, verbal, whatever need to be taken into
account. So it is critical in any
(34:02):
communication that we think about what the audience needs
and what's important to them andhow the channel through which
you're communicating it will help achieve that goal.
So every time I communicate, I think about it.
So when we got together and I thought, OK, is this a video
podcast? Is this just an audio podcast?
All of that is impacting what I choose to say and how I choose
(34:24):
to say it, as it should for everybody.
The the the message and the audience are critical.
Yeah, I I love that. And I think that's what
storytelling really comes into play, right?
How do we tailor some of the audience?
And I know on your show you've talked to a lot of really
interesting storytellers. You did this series on non
traditional storytellers and reach out to some Highwood
people. What are some of the biggest
(34:45):
like storytelling lessons you try to apply in your work, in
your teaching, in your part? Thank you for that.
I see my job as you are doing a great job of as being a
translator. It's really to to take the ideas
of people who are very knowledgeable, much more
knowledgeable than I, and translate them not word for
word, but into how can you take this knowledge and apply it.
(35:09):
And if that's my goal, then I have to listen really well.
I have to really focus on what'sbeing said and think about how
can that be related in a way that's meaningful.
So sometimes I'll talk with a a very astute, deep academic whose
ideas are amazing, but what doesit mean?
(35:30):
How do we apply it? So I try to come up with a
recipe or some suggestions. In other cases, something
somebody says, I might have a direct application and I try to
extend it perhaps to other situations.
So I was talking to somebody about negotiation, but the
concept applied to conflict management and persuasion.
So I see myself first and foremost as a translator and
(35:51):
then in the storytelling I use, I really try to be engaging.
I believe attention is the most precious commodity we have in
the world today, and I feel partof my job is to help people
engage. And to me, engagement is
sustained attention. So I can get your attention
pretty quickly. But can I keep it?
(36:11):
So as I tell my stories, I try to engage and there's several
techniques I try to use, and I think everybody can benefit from
physical techniques. Anything that gets people doing
something. Where the body goes, the brain
follows. So when I speak, I might take a
poll, for example, I might ask people to turn to each other.
I might ask them to watch something.
All of that gets people focused and engaged.
(36:35):
I might ask questions or use analogies.
That's another way. That's a cognitive engagement
technique. I might use language.
I love what I call time travelling language.
Rather than telling you something, I could say, picture
this. What if we could imagine what it
would be like if that language, it gets people seeing it in
(36:55):
their mind's eyes. So when I tell stories, I see
myself as a translator and I tryto be engaging so people are
more likely to remember what I say.
That's my goal. 2nd to last question, how does communication
translate to martial arts or vice versa?
I don't that's a huge part of what you do as well.
(37:17):
It's on your website, on your profile.
Lots of hear more about it. So I have been doing martial
arts for longer than neither of you have been around decades
now, and it's a true passion of mine.
If you think about it, the martial arts are more than what
you see in an MMA fight or some Jackie Chan Bruce Lee movie,
(37:40):
although I find that fascinating.
It's really about a way of being.
It's about being present. It's about paying attention to
the other person, seeing what's needed in the moment.
It's a lot of the same skills and the life lessons that I
struggle with outside of the karate mat play out when I'm
(38:02):
inside the the Dojo, the studio learning.
So to me, at a higher level, it's all the same thing.
You can think about a fight, youcan think about working these
skills as a form of communication, right?
People are signaling certain things by what they do with
their body or their approach, just like we do in
(38:24):
communication. So to me, I really see the
higher order principles. Taking my class at Stanford and
taking a class for me in the karate studio, we're really
talking about the same principles, but how they play
out are very different. Now, I will tell you this, the
lessons you learn in the karate studio have direct impact.
When you make a mistake, you feel it.
(38:45):
You know, I might say something wrong and the repercussions
might not happen for a few weeksat work, but in the karate
studio I end up putting ice on the wrong choice.
So to me, it's one in the same thing.
And the martial arts have alwaysgiven me a refuge.
I think everybody needs to have some kind of physical activity
that we do to get us out of our head.
Could be walking in the park, playing a musical instrument,
(39:07):
whatever, but I think having some physical outlet is just
healthy and the martial arts have been 1 for me.
Matt, we have learned so many great stories and profound
insights from you today For our final closing question, we
(39:28):
called it the Suspenders. This is where we ask you just a
random fun question. You can give us any answer you
feel like The question of the day is what is the best piece of
advice that you have never received?
Oh I like it. The best piece of advice I have
never received. I'm going to think about this
for a second. So I've never been told to talk
(39:54):
more, and I think there is valuein exploring concepts in
different ways. And I try to be very precise in
my communication, although your listeners to this might say he
rambles all over the place, but nobody's ever said to me say
(40:16):
more. And I think that's for many
people, that's useful advice. And in fact, one of the great
ways to get to connect to somebody is to simply say, tell
me more. And nobody has ever said that to
me. Absolutely love it.
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
It's an amazing conversation. I really appreciate the
opportunity. Keep up the good work.
You're doing a valuable service to people.
(40:48):
Welcome back to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
where we dissect and analyze theamazing storytelling lessons
that we got from this week's at Split Storyteller.
And this week we had the amazing, popular, impactful, and
very impressive Stanford Business School professor Matt
Abrams. You know, Kevin, one of the
things Matt talked about that really dinged with me is the
(41:10):
conversation between how perfectionism and anxiety
manifests in communication. You know, you and I are both.
I don't even want to call us recovering perfectionists
because we're not recovering that well.
Like, like we just got back froma wedding this weekend.
And the first thing I thought when we got back was, did we do
it perfectly? You can't attend the wedding
perfectly. That doesn't make any sense.
(41:31):
Until we find the perfect way toattend a wedding.
Until we find it. Yeah.
And then we ruminate over how wedidn't meet that standard.
But. Exactly.
And this happens with communication and Matt talks
about how anxiety is necessary. It can be powerful even.
But the most important thing youcan do in conversation, in
storytelling, the stories you tell each other, the stories you
tell ourselves is address professionism and anxiety and
(41:54):
understand what they are and take a second be present and
mindful of them. And this where mindfulness comes
in and just shake it out and understand, one, everyone feels
it, it's actually super universal.
And two, the best thing you can do is just find some ways to
kind of shake it out and be present in the moment and
understand everyone feels anxious.
Everyone struggles with professionism in some way.
(42:16):
And the best thing you can do isjust do it and just try your
best. Yeah, and Matt and his peers
actually instruct students to play this game where they
intentionally say the wrong thing so they can stretch
themselves in that other directions to combat this
feeling of chasing perfectionism, doing the perfect
(42:38):
thing or saying the right thing.Because it does help us to
realize in the vast majority of circumstances it doesn't matter
that much. Even if you slip up, say the non
accurate thing, most of the timeis doesn't matter.
And that should be how we carry with our day-to-day
(42:58):
conversations. And another thing that was
really insightful was his observations of different
generations of students. What is unique about their
characteristics as listeners to his lectures?
He talks about obviously with the rise of social media, short
(43:19):
form content consumption, these later generations of students
have more of a shorter attentionspan, which obviously becomes a
challenge for educators. But from that, instead of just
pointing out the problem, he's actively trying to meet the
students where they're at to adjust his teaching strategies.
(43:41):
Which is something we also talked quite a bit about in
storytelling, is that you need to take into account who your
audience is. What are their preferences?
How do you adjust the message and stories you want to tell in
a way that they can best consume?
As a storyteller, you can't always put all the blame on your
(44:01):
audience because you have a responsibility to get your
message across. I will go one step further.
You can't put any blame on your audience, right?
Your audience owes you nothing. They are giving you their time
and you're the one on stage and your job is to connect with
them. Your job is to make it feel like
when they leave that hour that it was wasn't a waste of their
time or their money, that they got something.
(44:23):
It wasn't just them accomplishing the act of going
to your class, right? So to do that, you have to
understand them. You have to connect them.
You have to go on TikTok and understand how they're
consuming. Even if you think it's wrong,
even if you think it's bad for them by understand them,
understanding why they're doing certain things, understand how
to connect to them. Then you can educate them.
Then you can impart their wisdom.
(44:44):
Then you can make a joke that lands right because you took the
time to understand your audience.
And one of the biggest ways you can do that understand your
audience is another thing we talked to Matt about.
You can listen and paraphrase and practice how to listen and
paraphrase. And by doing that you will
withstand your attention. By doing that, you will
understand your audience better.Even if it's the same story over
(45:05):
2 hours. By taking the time to engage, by
listening to the whole story, you can have a rich and
different experience. It's the thing about story time.
You have to take the time to listen to your audience and you
have to practice doing that. And one of the best ways to do
that is for listening and paraphrasing back so they feel
(45:25):
hood and you're making sure you're really getting the
message. Paraphrasing is a great
storytelling practice because you're listening to a story and
then you're distilling what is the most crucial piece of
information from what the other person just said.
Not only does it help you practice active listening, which
is great for obviously many different things, but it helps
(45:48):
you understand how to better consume and understand a story
yourself. So definitely encourage everyone
to listen more and paraphrase more to everyone you talk to.
But this has been another great episode of the Lenin Suit and
Plastic Thai Podcast. We're super thankful for
Professor Matt Abrams for comingto the show and sharing his
(46:11):
stories and insights. If you like this episode, well,
make sure you like this episode and follow us.
Subscribe where we listen or watch our podcast, leave us
comments and review Spotify Apple podcast.
You'll see what our five star show takes one click.
It helps us grow the show immensely.
(46:33):
So super grateful when you do that and follow us on Instagram,
TikTok at LSBT pod, LinkedIn, Lenin student classic time.
Yeah, I just want to hype on that again, if you're listening
on Spotify, listening on Apple Podcasts, or watching on
YouTube, we're still fairly new on all those platforms.
So we're at a point where literally every single review
(46:55):
counts. Every single review helps more
people find the show, helps us grow the show, helps us get more
guests. So if you're thinking, oh, you
know, they don't need my review,we do.
So if you're on Spotify, take a second, leave a review.
If you're on Apple podcast, take5 seconds to leave the review.
The hard part about leaving reviews is listening to the
episode, and you've always done that.
So leave a review or comment on YouTube, share the episode, and
(47:19):
it'll just help us make better content for you.
But thank you for listening. We really appreciate your time,
and we're going to keep being here on this mission to unlock
the power of story time.
Hello, hello, welcome, welcome to the linen suit and Plastic
Tie podcast. This is the podcast where we
work to dissect, analyze, investigate, explore the
amazing, the epic, the are inspiring, the cool, the
impressive, the inspiring power of storytelling and learn how to
harness that power in your everyday lives.
(00:27):
I'm going. And I'm Kevin, and that was
inspiring twice. So yes, it is doubly inspiring.
Actually the first time was awe inspiring and the second time
was just generic inspiring whichmeans different things.
So one inspires awe and one justgenerally inspires.
Anyways, I was watching this master class the other day with
(00:47):
a professor from Northwestern and she was talking about how
one way to de stress after a long day is to sit and watch an
hour long narrative form of story time.
Because we have been using TikTok and YouTube choice in
these these formats so much. It's actually causing more
anxiety for when you kind of siton a couch and rot.
(01:09):
And I'm it's just fascinating because I was saying I said this
to you cab the other day. We've gotten to a point in
society where we're now being told them one of the ways we can
de stress and D connect is just sit and watch a full narrative
hour long television show. Like it's no longer turn off all
technology, go outside. I'm sure that's better.
But she's like, I know you feel like relaxing and sitting on
(01:29):
your couch and scrolling throughTikTok.
It's not watch a full narrative form.
We're now at a point where people are like, well, you know,
for your own mental health. Watch an hour of Sopranos.
Yeah, it's a pretty funny narrative that the best way to
unwind from being distracted is paying attention.
(01:49):
A little counterintuitive. The best relaxation thing you
can do for yourself is to focus on something.
Focus on thing you enjoy, though.
Focus is not the enemy of relaxation.
If you are mindlessly scrolling on your couch and you're not
feeling more relaxed, odds are it's because you're not actually
focusing on something. So it's better to put down the
phone and turn on the televisionshow and watch an hour long
(02:12):
narrative because you can focus in on that and disconnect while
focusing on something. That disconnecting while jumping
from fame to fame, that's where your mind gets more exhausted.
Yeah, and we actually talk quitea bit about an aspect of paying
attention this season on the show.
When we kicked off our season premiere with Professor Allison,
(02:35):
with Brooks about talking, we talked about how the biggest
enemy to having a good conversation is distraction is
not paying attention. And there's something that
happened to us as well is we're not actively listening and
paying attention to what the other person is saying.
(02:56):
You know, you're not going to drive the concept conversation.
Well, we're not going to be goodhosts.
We're not going to be able to know how to ask the next best
follow up question to what our guest is just talking about.
And I think I've seen it with myself sometimes where I'll be
talking to someone and if they don't get to their point in a
minute, I'm like kind of like, OK, come on.
Like, well, I'm like, if this minute didn't serve me or help
(03:18):
this conversation sometimes. And my brain can sometimes be
like, OK, what are we doing? Because with TikTok, as we get
into social media, as you build different Tik Toks, you watch
all these videos on, OK, this iswhere you put the hook.
This is where you engage. And this is where you tell the
story. Bam, one TikTok, one minute, you
one TikTok one minute. And you just did this whole
journey, right? And it's it's a psychological
trick to get people liking content, moving through, seeing
(03:40):
a bunch of different stuff. But at the same time, in life,
things take longer than a minute.
And if we shorten our attention spans too much, our
conversations are going to become very difficult.
And so I think this is the thingwith communication and this is
the thing with we're constantly talking about consumer diversity
of storytelling. If you want to tell any stories
(04:01):
to agenda the audience, they areodds are on TikTok.
And you have to understand that platform to connect with them,
but also take the time to consume different forms of
storytelling. I love going to the movies,
turning off the phone, experiencing a cinema.
I have to remind myself having my phone off and watching a full
movie is healthy. Going to kickbox for an hour is
(04:22):
healthy. The stories you consume matter,
but also the story, the ways youconsume.
Storytelling matters. Just diversify your palate and
try different things and you canfind ways to live a healthier
life. Expand your attention span and
overall connective audiences differently.
And to explore how to better payattention and engage in a
(04:46):
conversation better. This week we are talking with
yet another expert in how to talk.
We are talking with Professor Matt Abrams from Stanford
Graduate School of Business. He teaches a very successful MBA
class about how to talk better because that is obviously a
(05:07):
focus of Business School students, but obviously the
world at large because we as humans need to talk or
communicate. And Matt hosts a podcast called
Thinkfast Talk Smart, which further explores this topic.
Also, a book that stems from histeachings, Think Faster, Talk
(05:28):
Smarter. So we're going to learn about
how do you get yourself to pay attention better, to talk
better? How does doing the wrong thing
actually helps you communicate better?
What does martial arts have to do in you becoming a better
communicator? So without further ado, let's
get into it. Hello, how do you do?
(05:53):
Sit down, gather around. We've got stories about stories
that'll. Make you a dream.
Of wonder Amnesty The ride can be dry.
Better dressed for the time withthe Lin Minsuk and blasting tie.
Lin Minsuk and blasting TIE now here's Goriven Gavin.
(06:21):
Kick us off. Can you tell us a little bit
about yourself? What is your story?
Yeah, so I'm somebody who is passionate about communication.
As long as I can remember, it's been something that's really
been interesting to me and a significant part of my life.
My father was a lawyer where clear, concise communication was
really important. My mother was a an elementary
(06:44):
school teacher, later in Englishas a second language teacher,
where creativity, engagement, really empowering people through
language and communication. And it's something that I just
soaked into me. I'm I'm somebody who's really
passionate about it. Went to to university, I studied
psychology, discovered communication as a field, got a
graduate degree in that worked in high tech for about a decade
(07:07):
and saw the impact of effective communication and not effective
communication and storytelling. And then had the opportunity to
come back to my true passion, which is teaching.
And I've been teaching ever since.
And today I teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
I've been there 15 years. I teach strategic communication
and a large part of what we do is help our students feel more
comfortable and confident telling their own stories and
(07:29):
helping craft the of the businesses that they end up
working for and running. I love that for this season
we're spending so much time exploring communications, of
course, and the kind of studyingto language itself.
English is my second language, so English as second language
learning is a big part of my life.
Are there anything from observing how your mother went
(07:53):
about her work in ESL teaching that really influenced you?
That you can identify, whether explicitly or implicitly.
Yeah, so I am very interested innon-native speaking.
Many of the people who listen tomy podcast, Think Fast Talk
Smart, are non-native speakers. I've had several guests on who
are experts in that. And to synthesize what my
(08:14):
mother, I observed my mother teach and what I've heard from
these experts, it really boils down to just a few things.
One, don't try to be a native speaker.
The pressure we put on ourselvesto speak that other language as
if we were native actually worksagainst us, and it's a cognitive
load issue. The goal of all communication,
this doesn't matter if you're speaking in your native tongue
(08:35):
or one that's newer to you, is to connect with your audience,
to get information across. The definition of communication
in its origins is the word to make common.
So communication is all about making common and connecting.
So rather than focusing on saying it exactly right or the
way a native speaker would say it, focus on just getting the
(08:55):
point across, which means you might repeat yourself.
You might say it once and then tell a story or say it once and
use an analogy. And I saw my mother, who was
expert at demonstrating this, but also encouraged her students
to do it. And the thing that it did is it
takes the pressure off. So the number one rule is, is
just focus on connecting rather than sounding like a native
(09:16):
speaker. And then the next thing is
observation. You know, we learn a lot about
our communication by observing others.
If you want to be a good writer,read a lot of people who've
written well. If you want to become a good
speaker, observe. And it's not just what people
say or when they say it, but it's also the context.
One of the hardest things to learn, as you well know, in any
language, is, is the contextual meaning of words.
(09:38):
For example, if you're going to the doctor and the doctor says
how are you doing? That means one thing.
If you're at a party or at a barand somebody says how are you
doing? That could mean something very
different. So the contextual learnings are
hard, and you get that through observation.
You know, something you talk about a lot in your podcast, in
your book, in your teachings is this idea of perfection, right?
(10:02):
This idea that we are kind of chasing perfection in
communication and in story time,and that's causing all this
undue pressure. You, you obviously work in a
very ambitious, strong driving community.
How do you tackle perfectionism and communication?
How do you get people to break down that built up story in the
(10:23):
head about everything has to be perfect?
Yeah. And that's a great question.
So I like to say connection overperfection.
So one of the things that drivesus is we want to get our message
across. When you communicate, you have
something to get across. And we put a lot of pressure on
ourselves to say it the right way, as if there is a right way.
(10:45):
I mean, the reality is I've beenstudying this and doing this
work for decades. There is no one right way to
communicate. There are better ways and worse
ways. And when we put that pressure on
ourselves to do it right, whatever that is, we get in our
own way. It's a cognitive bandwidth
issue. You know, on your laptop, your
tablet, your phone, if you have multiple apps or Windows open,
(11:06):
each one of those individual apps or, or windows is
performing less well because theothers are open.
It's taking some of that CPU bandwidth.
Your brain's the same way. If I have a script that I've
memorized or there's a certain way, I want to say this, this
part I am judging as I'm saying it.
So I have less bandwidth available.
(11:26):
So it's important rather again, to say it's about just getting
the point across. I just want to get the
information so the other person learns it.
And when I do that, that's success.
Success is not saying it exactlythe right way.
Now, there are circumstances I, I realize this, where you do
have to say things exactly right.
If you're doing something in a negotiation, if you're in the
(11:48):
legal world, yes, there is a waythat it must be said, but that's
not most of our communication. That's a strict subset of our
communication. If you'll allow me.
I want to share a story about how much we judge ourselves and
get in our own way. I do this game.
I borrowed it from improvisation.
I Co teach a class at Stanford'scontinuing studies with a a
(12:08):
gentleman who's an expert improviser and a screenwriter
who teaches screen writing at Stanford.
His name's Adam Tobin and Adam taught me this game.
It's called Shout the Wrong name.
And any of your listeners, viewers can can play this game
for 15 seconds wherever you are.Just point at different objects
in the room and just call them something different.
So if I point at the ceiling, I might call it a car, I might
(12:31):
call it a lemon. It does not matter.
Just call it something other than what it is.
And I do this in one of the first activities in my class I
teach because the students come to realize just how much they
judge themselves. I had a student once playing
this game. The only rule is point to
something and call it something it is not.
And I had a student who is pointing at a chair and nothing
(12:53):
was coming out of his mouth. And I went to him.
I said, what's going on? He said, I'm not being wrong
enough. And I thought that was weird
because I never assigned a rubric of wrongness and
rightness. I just say, call it the wrong
name. And I said, tell me more.
And he said, well, I was going to call the chair a cat, but a
cat has four legs and a chair has four legs.
I'm not being wrong enough. And then he said sometimes cats
(13:15):
sit on chairs. I'm not being wrong enough.
And I tell this story because itgives an example of how much we
judge and evaluate and strive todo it right.
He was doing this so much he couldn't do it at all.
He completely failed at the activity because he was trying
to do it right. So the whole idea here is to
(13:35):
dial down the volume on that perfectionism and really just
try to connect and do what's needed in the moment.
I'm certainly not saying don't judge what you say.
We need to think about it. But most of us are running
around with that setting at 11 when we could bring it down to a
three or four and survive just fine.
Sorry, you got me on a on a topic I'm really passionate
about. So I went on a little more than
(13:56):
probably I should have. No, no, I mean, we we love a
tangent here, but no, no, I think Kevin I huge
perfectionist, right for two people who that was one of our
biggest struggles of starting the show is because we knew it
was going to be bad, but we justhad to start.
And so this is something we lovetalking about because it's a
story, right? Perfectionism is just a story
we're telling ourselves that it needs to be a way to be quote,
(14:20):
UN quote, successful. So we love talking about.
And I think with that, though, it's pretty natural when you're
trying to do achieve that doing the wrong thing kind of goal.
Yeah, there's a certain level ofanxiety that comes with that,
obviously, because, you know, wealways at least want to try to
(14:42):
do things right. How do we navigate that anxiety
then is unnecessarily a bad thing?
How do we leverage that? Yeah.
So anxiety is normal and natural.
Those of us who study it, and I've done research in this and
many others, do we believe it's part of being human?
It is normal and natural to be nervous when you speak in high
(15:03):
stakes situations. In fact, 85% of people report
being nervous in those circumstances.
And quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying.
I think we could create a situation that makes them
nervous, too. We see this anxiety across
cultures, so it's not just here in the US, and we see it develop
at a pretty particular time in children's development into
(15:25):
young adults around the tween years is when anxiety around
speaking in front of others really amps up in most people.
So this leads us to think it's just innate.
It's part of being human, but that doesn't mean we can't learn
to manage it. You can manage it and you should
because it helps you and it helps your audience when you see
a nervous speaker. Let me ask you this, how do you
(15:45):
both feel when you see somebody nervous speaking?
How's that make you feel? I think as someone who struggles
with anxiety in immense ways, I think there's a lot of empathy
for me. I feel nervous for the person
and I'm just like sitting there like I really wanted to go well
for that person. Yeah, absolutely.
So you feel that second hand anxiety, right?
(16:07):
And, and in essence, I, I love that you're empathetic, which is
great and many of us are. But what's happening is you're
being distracted by that person's nervousness.
And if the goal is to connect and to actually land the
message, me making you nervous as my audience is not helping
me. So we need to learn to manage
it, not just to help ourselves because if it doesn't feel good
to be nervous and it can be distracting to ourselves, but
(16:28):
it's also distracting to the other person.
So there are things we can do tomanage our anxiety and it's a 2
pronged approach. You have to manage symptoms and
sources. Symptoms are the things that we
physiologically feel, rapid heart rate, shaky hands, dry
mouth, sweaty brow. And then there's sources, things
that initiate and exacerbate. We've talked about one of the
sources already, perfectionism. There are other sources as well,
(16:51):
like the goal you have. Many of the people I coach are
nervous because of the goal theyhave when they communicate.
My students want to get a good grade.
The salesperson wants to close the deal.
You might want to get your project supported.
And what makes you nervous is the potential of not achieving
it. And there's some things we can
do to manage against that sourceof your fear.
(17:13):
So if the goal is causing you tobe nervous, a goal is nothing
more than a future state. So getting yourself present
oriented by definition should sort circuit the long term goal.
So being present helps. So how do you get present?
Do something physical. Walk around the building, listen
to a song or a playlist like athletes do before they perform.
(17:33):
Start at 100 and count backwardsby a challenging number like
seventeens. That gets you present oriented.
I say tongue twisters before I start speaking.
That gets me present oriented. You can't say a tongue twister,
right? Not be in the present moment and
it warms up your voice. Before we logged on today, I
said a tongue twister a few times just to warm up.
(17:53):
So things you can do to manage sources and there are many
things you can do to manage symptoms.
The single best one is to do deep breathing and focus on the
exhalation. All of the magic happens on the
exhale. So the rule of thumb, or I like
to joke, the rule of lung, is you want your exhale to be twice
as long as your inhale. If you do those things, you can
begin to feel more confident. I love that Kevin knows this and
(18:15):
I think it's made it into the show a couple times, but I do a
version of Sharpay's vocal exercises from High School
Musical before we start every one of these shows.
Ron though, it's I'm not actually doing the vocal
exercise, I'm just doing the sounds.
But it's just a way to like shock your system and get you
presents. That's one thing I love about
your work as well as I take mindfulness very seriously and I
(18:35):
take, yes, how I do with my anxiety very seriously.
And you talk about it as such. Key tools in communication.
Mindfulness is really important.Being present is important.
If communication is about connection, the only way to
connect is to be present while you're having that
communication. And many of us live in our
heads, myself included, right thinking about did I say the
(18:59):
right thing? What could I say better?
What am I going to have for lunch?
What's next? All of this lives in our head
and gets in the way of us effectively communicating.
And there's actually some reallyinteresting mindfulness based
anxiety management techniques. A great one is this, when you
begin to feel nervous, say to yourself, this is me feeling
(19:19):
nervous. And what this does is it builds
distance between you and your experience of nervousness.
You are separating yourself fromthat.
And when you do that, you give yourself space.
You can say, this is me feeling nervous.
It makes sense. I'm nervous.
I'm on a podcast with some really impressive people.
Others, I don't know are going to hear this.
Anybody in this circumstance is likely to feel nervous.
(19:41):
And that space I gave myself by saying this is me feeling
nervous allows me then to have that rationalization and perhaps
to do something about it. So mindfulness is a wonderful
practice for life in general, but especially around helping
manage anxiety and have deeper connections, yeah.
I love these very actionable approaches you're talking about,
(20:04):
and I think it ties so much to what we talked about on this
show as well about internal storytelling.
When you're feeling the anxiety,the stress, these are all very
simple things you can do to reframe the narrative of your
experience right now to be like.Oh you know this is normal.
Or I can get myself engaged and think about this experience in a
(20:30):
different light that is going tode stress myself and keep myself
more present. So that's why I want to jump on
that really quickly. The framing that we have of
these events, especially around anxiety, really, really
important. A a friend and colleague at what
I like to say is the Stanford ofthe East.
She's at Harvard's Business School.
(20:51):
Allison Woods Brooks, phenomenalperson, great research.
A while back she did research that said, if you think about
it, the physiological experiencewe have of anxiety is very
similar, if not identical to thephysiological experience we have
of excitement. So if you can reframe your
anxieties, excitement and say toyourself, Hey, what I'm feeling
now is the excitement I have to get this information out totally
(21:15):
changes one, how you feel you, you get more into it versus, you
know, being negative about what's happening to you.
And people who redo this reframing end up communicating
better with more energy. People remember it more people
find the experience more positive.
So you're absolutely right. The stories we tell ourselves,
(21:35):
the approaches we take, fundamentally impact not just
how we feel, but how those who hear us and learn from us feel
as well. Yeah, we love Allison on the
show. We kicked off season 5 of her.
Great, amazing. He's fantastic, amazing
professor, amazing person. But I, I love that.
I love this idea of framing and the stories we're telling
ourselves and how we approach a situation.
(21:57):
It really effects our entire mindset.
Like this is a big part of the show is that storytelling is how
we view the world. It's not just what we'd say to
the world, it's how we connect with it.
And it's the same thing with communication.
When you start this class and you teach so many students to
get in touch, so many different lives, what do you think is the
biggest unlock? Like I'm sure people come in
(22:18):
thinking, oh, I'm going to be able to give a better Ted talk.
What do you think? Do they actually get out of
becoming better communicators? Ironically, when when they come
to the class to become better communicators, they actually
learn about themselves more. I I think the two things that
surprised my students the most is the self learning that they
they come away with. They think it's all about
(22:39):
messaging and when I'm going to broadcast to the world.
But if they actually end up learning a lot about themselves
and how their internal communication works, and people
come away with an understanding of how critical listening is in
communication, you know, you take a communication class,
especially a strategic communication class, and you
think it's all going to be aboutthat broadcast and what's coming
(22:59):
out. But in fact, what makes you an
effective strategic communicatoris your ability to listen and
target your messages appropriately.
And that's really where the value can come.
Can you touch upon a little bit more what's the difference
between strategic communication and communication?
What's the difference between strategic communication and
communication in general? Yeah, so at some level all
(23:22):
communication is strategic. When I refer to strategic
communication, I mean it is specific goal based
communication that's trying to have impact in terms of changing
attitudes, behaviors, outcomes for people.
So at the highest level, any communication is strategic
because there's something motivating it.
But the class is very focused onpurposeful goal driven
(23:45):
communication in service of yourown goals or the goals of some
organization, be it a company ora group.
And that's the distinction we make.
So under the rubric of strategiccommunication that I teach, it's
things like branding, crisis management, how do we assimilate
multiple organizations during a merger, acquisition.
(24:05):
That's the kind of thing that we're I'm talking about.
How do we get better at listening?
You brought up this concept. It's obviously very important.
We talked about this with Allison as well and you know,
for us, at least for me, sometimes I get so bogged down
or just tunnel vision on what I want to say next that I just
(24:29):
stopped listening. Yeah, there are a whole bunch of
barriers to listening and and I encourage everybody listening to
this to listen to what Allison said because she's phenomenal
and I'm sure had lots of insights.
I love when she talks about whatshe calls long term listening.
So after this conversation we have today, if I see you again,
bringing up something that we talked about today later is a
(24:51):
great way to demonstrate I listened.
I care and I want to connect. But the reality is there are
lots of barriers to listening and I have to share with you.
My wife thinks I'm a fraud when I teach listening because she
thinks I could do a lot better at it.
And I and I agree, we all can't.So let me talk about the
barriers first and then I'll share with you some ways to get
better. There are three primary barriers
(25:12):
to listening in the way I look at the world.
They all start with the letter Pphysical, physiological, and
psychological. A physical barrier is it's just
loud. The older I get, the louder
places become. When I go to a restaurant or
some kind of public space, it's loud and it's hard for me to
hear. So that's one barrier. 2 is
physiological. When we're tired, we're hungry,
(25:33):
we're nervous, we're hangry. That gets in the way of
listening. The physiological needs we have
in that moment can interfere with our ability to really
listen. And then finally, our
psychological, and you alluded to those when you were asking
the question. It's the judging, the
evaluating, the rehearsing that gets in the way of us truly
listening. So because of those barriers, we
(25:54):
listen primarily for just the top line.
You know, we just get some gist of what somebody is saying and
then we fixate, or that's all wemove forward from.
A better way to learn to listen is to listen as if you had to
paraphrase. So when you listen to
paraphrase, that is to take whatthe person said and repeat it in
your own words. And I'm not saying you actually
(26:16):
have to utter the paraphrase, although that can help.
And Allison's research shows that when you actually
paraphrase, you demonstrate connection and listening and
build trust in a way that you don't if you just nod your head
and go, uh huh, uh huh. But if you listen to paraphrase,
listen for that bottom line. It causes you to focus, to be
more present and to be more deeply connected to the person
(26:39):
that you're speaking to. So if you really want to
practice becoming a better listener, practice paraphrasing.
So I encourage my students afterthey leave class, after they
read something, I assign them toread after they listen to your
podcast, my podcast. I I ask them, take 10 seconds
and think about what's the bottom line of what I just
heard? And if you do that kind of drill
(27:00):
over and over, you train your brain to listen differently than
what most of us do. And in so doing, we become
better at communication. With YouTube becoming the norm,
TikTok, the short form content, it's kind of like we're skipping
to the bottom line, which is making longer term content
harder to consume because we're getting trained to like just
(27:23):
paraphrase it for us, right? Even with tools like AI.
So I think it's so important that we do these practices so
that we are still engaged in longer form storytelling.
I think that's such an importanttool.
Yeah, in some of us who teach narrative storytelling, we worry
about some of the things that you're talking about.
I mean, is this all becoming just a quick dopamine hit?
(27:45):
And people are becoming trained that a story is a quick hit And
I think there's a place for that, but there's also a place
for a deeper, more slow buildingnarrative.
I don't think it's either or. I think it's a blend of both.
But certainly we are seeing an onslaught of of the shorter form
storytelling. Through your very long tenure
(28:06):
teaching communication, Yeah. I mean, I mostly speak to, you
know, your decorate experience in teaching.
But something I'm very curious about is throughout our tenure
of teaching communications to students, have you seen that
general trend of technology, social media in the world affect
(28:30):
the student body or audience that you're teaching to over
time? 100% absolutely.
Technology has had a tremendous impact on communication, and I
don't think it's necessarily bad, just the last 15 years at
Stanford Business School and I talked communication long before
that in many other places. But the advent of technology
changed things fundamentally. I mean, I remember when e-mail
(28:52):
started and how that changed things.
Certainly texting and SMS changethe way that we communicated.
Emojis change the way we communicated and how people
respond. The pandemic made virtual
communication, what we're doing right now, a mainstay, and now
AI and short form video. So yes, it's a constant
evolution and that's good. Communication needs to evolve to
(29:13):
meet the times. What we all have to do is become
multilingual, though. We have to be able to understand
the different tools and we have to understand the different
people have different perspectives.
I, I do some consulting and I gointo organizations where we have
multi generations within an organization.
And people who are my age or older are so frustrated at the
the new hires who are much younger and they just go around,
(29:36):
pick up the phone and call me. Don't send me 3 texts on it or
send it on Slack. Call me, right.
And the younger kids are like, it's a waste of time.
I got to, you know, connect withthis.
I got to talk. I just want the answer, you
know, So we have to become multilingual in the technology,
but also have an appreciation for the people and what they're
(29:56):
comfortable with. So yes, the answer is
absolutely. I've seen a change in my
students. It is not necessarily a bad
change. It's when we have to adjust and
adapt to. I will tell you the big thing
that's changed over them all my years of teaching, attention
span for sure. I, I am finding that I need to
change things up in my classes much more frequently than I used
(30:19):
to, you know, say a decade ago. And again, I'm not saying
necessarily that's a bad thing. I think I am a better teacher
because I have to think this way, but it is definitely a
dramatic difference. You know, it's, it's so
important. I know there's that common joke
that our generation hates talking on the phone, right?
We're all afraid of it. It gives us too much anxiety.
(30:41):
Yeah, I did an interview with a Korean podcaster.
My book was translated. My recent book was translated
into Korean. And she told me in Korea, at the
college level, they teach a class on how to make phone calls
because the students didn't knowhow to do it.
Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it's, I mean, maybe we
need that in the States too, to be honest.
Yeah, it's. It's so it's such a interesting
(31:04):
lens to look at it this how we are changing how we communicate,
we are changing the platforms. How do we still have deep
conversations when so much is test based or even Snapchat
based? Yeah, it's a purposeful act.
We have to remind ourselves thatas human beings, we are designed
to connect. There are people who argue that
(31:24):
we developed the ability to communicate as a way of building
empathy or showing empathy. That communication is nothing
more than a tool for expressed empathy.
And for our species, empathy is really important.
And when you think about that, that dramatically changes the
way you approach your communication.
If you think about the way I really connect, demonstrate
(31:47):
caring, learn from others is through communication is just to
remind yourself that the number of friends you have on social
media or the number of followersyou have, that can feel really
good, but that's not a connection in the way that human
beings were designed to connect.I'm often asked what are my
thoughts about AI and communication and and I have
(32:08):
lots of thoughts. I don't have one thought, but
one thing I I am fairly confident in is this connection
that I'm talking about, this empathy that's going to be
really, really hard to be replicated through AIA.
Lot of other things AI can do I think are amazing and will be
very helpful to communication. Some probably detrimental, but
this fundamental ability to connect in a way that humans can
(32:32):
and should is something that's unique to communication, and we
just have to remind ourselves ofthat.
Yeah. You.
Teach and communicate through somany different mediums now, not
only from your lecturing, but also you've given talks and you
have a podcast and of course written your book as well.
(32:53):
Do you think those communicating, engaging through
those different platforms major better storyteller or
communicator? Thank you for that question.
I certainly have multi channels of communication out there and
I'm fundamentally driven to helppeople hone and develop their
communication skills as I am trying to do.
And so having a multi channel approach be at the podcast, the
(33:17):
books, the teaching, the coaching, all of that is in
service of that goal, a fundamental truism of
communication. And it and it is the number one
bit of advice that we have heardacross all 200 episodes of Think
Fast, Talk Smart, my podcast is that you have to take your
audience into account. It's not about what you want to
(33:39):
say, it's about what your audience needs to hear.
And I try to live that through the different channels I use to
communicate. So a short form video could have
the very same message that one of my long lectures has, but the
way it's framed, the way it's delivered, the emphasis on
certain things, visual, verbal, whatever need to be taken into
account. So it is critical in any
(34:02):
communication that we think about what the audience needs
and what's important to them andhow the channel through which
you're communicating it will help achieve that goal.
So every time I communicate, I think about it.
So when we got together and I thought, OK, is this a video
podcast? Is this just an audio podcast?
All of that is impacting what I choose to say and how I choose
(34:24):
to say it, as it should for everybody.
The the the message and the audience are critical.
Yeah, I I love that. And I think that's what
storytelling really comes into play, right?
How do we tailor some of the audience?
And I know on your show you've talked to a lot of really
interesting storytellers. You did this series on non
traditional storytellers and reach out to some Highwood
people. What are some of the biggest
(34:45):
like storytelling lessons you try to apply in your work, in
your teaching, in your part? Thank you for that.
I see my job as you are doing a great job of as being a
translator. It's really to to take the ideas
of people who are very knowledgeable, much more
knowledgeable than I, and translate them not word for
word, but into how can you take this knowledge and apply it.
(35:09):
And if that's my goal, then I have to listen really well.
I have to really focus on what'sbeing said and think about how
can that be related in a way that's meaningful.
So sometimes I'll talk with a a very astute, deep academic whose
ideas are amazing, but what doesit mean?
(35:30):
How do we apply it? So I try to come up with a
recipe or some suggestions. In other cases, something
somebody says, I might have a direct application and I try to
extend it perhaps to other situations.
So I was talking to somebody about negotiation, but the
concept applied to conflict management and persuasion.
So I see myself first and foremost as a translator and
(35:51):
then in the storytelling I use, I really try to be engaging.
I believe attention is the most precious commodity we have in
the world today, and I feel partof my job is to help people
engage. And to me, engagement is
sustained attention. So I can get your attention
pretty quickly. But can I keep it?
(36:11):
So as I tell my stories, I try to engage and there's several
techniques I try to use, and I think everybody can benefit from
physical techniques. Anything that gets people doing
something. Where the body goes, the brain
follows. So when I speak, I might take a
poll, for example, I might ask people to turn to each other.
I might ask them to watch something.
All of that gets people focused and engaged.
(36:35):
I might ask questions or use analogies.
That's another way. That's a cognitive engagement
technique. I might use language.
I love what I call time travelling language.
Rather than telling you something, I could say, picture
this. What if we could imagine what it
would be like if that language, it gets people seeing it in
(36:55):
their mind's eyes. So when I tell stories, I see
myself as a translator and I tryto be engaging so people are
more likely to remember what I say.
That's my goal. 2nd to last question, how does communication
translate to martial arts or vice versa?
I don't that's a huge part of what you do as well.
(37:17):
It's on your website, on your profile.
Lots of hear more about it. So I have been doing martial
arts for longer than neither of you have been around decades
now, and it's a true passion of mine.
If you think about it, the martial arts are more than what
you see in an MMA fight or some Jackie Chan Bruce Lee movie,
(37:40):
although I find that fascinating.
It's really about a way of being.
It's about being present. It's about paying attention to
the other person, seeing what's needed in the moment.
It's a lot of the same skills and the life lessons that I
struggle with outside of the karate mat play out when I'm
(38:02):
inside the the Dojo, the studio learning.
So to me, at a higher level, it's all the same thing.
You can think about a fight, youcan think about working these
skills as a form of communication, right?
People are signaling certain things by what they do with
their body or their approach, just like we do in
(38:24):
communication. So to me, I really see the
higher order principles. Taking my class at Stanford and
taking a class for me in the karate studio, we're really
talking about the same principles, but how they play
out are very different. Now, I will tell you this, the
lessons you learn in the karate studio have direct impact.
When you make a mistake, you feel it.
(38:45):
You know, I might say something wrong and the repercussions
might not happen for a few weeksat work, but in the karate
studio I end up putting ice on the wrong choice.
So to me, it's one in the same thing.
And the martial arts have alwaysgiven me a refuge.
I think everybody needs to have some kind of physical activity
that we do to get us out of our head.
Could be walking in the park, playing a musical instrument,
(39:07):
whatever, but I think having some physical outlet is just
healthy and the martial arts have been 1 for me.
Matt, we have learned so many great stories and profound
insights from you today For our final closing question, we
(39:28):
called it the Suspenders. This is where we ask you just a
random fun question. You can give us any answer you
feel like The question of the day is what is the best piece of
advice that you have never received?
Oh I like it. The best piece of advice I have
never received. I'm going to think about this
for a second. So I've never been told to talk
(39:54):
more, and I think there is valuein exploring concepts in
different ways. And I try to be very precise in
my communication, although your listeners to this might say he
rambles all over the place, but nobody's ever said to me say
(40:16):
more. And I think that's for many
people, that's useful advice. And in fact, one of the great
ways to get to connect to somebody is to simply say, tell
me more. And nobody has ever said that to
me. Absolutely love it.
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
It's an amazing conversation. I really appreciate the
opportunity. Keep up the good work.
You're doing a valuable service to people.
(40:48):
Welcome back to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
where we dissect and analyze theamazing storytelling lessons
that we got from this week's at Split Storyteller.
And this week we had the amazing, popular, impactful, and
very impressive Stanford Business School professor Matt
Abrams. You know, Kevin, one of the
things Matt talked about that really dinged with me is the
(41:10):
conversation between how perfectionism and anxiety
manifests in communication. You know, you and I are both.
I don't even want to call us recovering perfectionists
because we're not recovering that well.
Like, like we just got back froma wedding this weekend.
And the first thing I thought when we got back was, did we do
it perfectly? You can't attend the wedding
perfectly. That doesn't make any sense.
(41:31):
Until we find the perfect way toattend a wedding.
Until we find it. Yeah.
And then we ruminate over how wedidn't meet that standard.
But. Exactly.
And this happens with communication and Matt talks
about how anxiety is necessary. It can be powerful even.
But the most important thing youcan do in conversation, in
storytelling, the stories you tell each other, the stories you
tell ourselves is address professionism and anxiety and
(41:54):
understand what they are and take a second be present and
mindful of them. And this where mindfulness comes
in and just shake it out and understand, one, everyone feels
it, it's actually super universal.
And two, the best thing you can do is just find some ways to
kind of shake it out and be present in the moment and
understand everyone feels anxious.
Everyone struggles with professionism in some way.
(42:16):
And the best thing you can do isjust do it and just try your
best. Yeah, and Matt and his peers
actually instruct students to play this game where they
intentionally say the wrong thing so they can stretch
themselves in that other directions to combat this
feeling of chasing perfectionism, doing the perfect
(42:38):
thing or saying the right thing.Because it does help us to
realize in the vast majority of circumstances it doesn't matter
that much. Even if you slip up, say the non
accurate thing, most of the timeis doesn't matter.
And that should be how we carry with our day-to-day
(42:58):
conversations. And another thing that was
really insightful was his observations of different
generations of students. What is unique about their
characteristics as listeners to his lectures?
He talks about obviously with the rise of social media, short
(43:19):
form content consumption, these later generations of students
have more of a shorter attentionspan, which obviously becomes a
challenge for educators. But from that, instead of just
pointing out the problem, he's actively trying to meet the
students where they're at to adjust his teaching strategies.
(43:41):
Which is something we also talked quite a bit about in
storytelling, is that you need to take into account who your
audience is. What are their preferences?
How do you adjust the message and stories you want to tell in
a way that they can best consume?
As a storyteller, you can't always put all the blame on your
(44:01):
audience because you have a responsibility to get your
message across. I will go one step further.
You can't put any blame on your audience, right?
Your audience owes you nothing. They are giving you their time
and you're the one on stage and your job is to connect with
them. Your job is to make it feel like
when they leave that hour that it was wasn't a waste of their
time or their money, that they got something.
(44:23):
It wasn't just them accomplishing the act of going
to your class, right? So to do that, you have to
understand them. You have to connect them.
You have to go on TikTok and understand how they're
consuming. Even if you think it's wrong,
even if you think it's bad for them by understand them,
understanding why they're doing certain things, understand how
to connect to them. Then you can educate them.
Then you can impart their wisdom.
(44:44):
Then you can make a joke that lands right because you took the
time to understand your audience.
And one of the biggest ways you can do that understand your
audience is another thing we talked to Matt about.
You can listen and paraphrase and practice how to listen and
paraphrase. And by doing that you will
withstand your attention. By doing that, you will
understand your audience better.Even if it's the same story over
(45:05):
2 hours. By taking the time to engage, by
listening to the whole story, you can have a rich and
different experience. It's the thing about story time.
You have to take the time to listen to your audience and you
have to practice doing that. And one of the best ways to do
that is for listening and paraphrasing back so they feel
(45:25):
hood and you're making sure you're really getting the
message. Paraphrasing is a great
storytelling practice because you're listening to a story and
then you're distilling what is the most crucial piece of
information from what the other person just said.
Not only does it help you practice active listening, which
is great for obviously many different things, but it helps
(45:48):
you understand how to better consume and understand a story
yourself. So definitely encourage everyone
to listen more and paraphrase more to everyone you talk to.
But this has been another great episode of the Lenin Suit and
Plastic Thai Podcast. We're super thankful for
Professor Matt Abrams for comingto the show and sharing his
(46:11):
stories and insights. If you like this episode, well,
make sure you like this episode and follow us.
Subscribe where we listen or watch our podcast, leave us
comments and review Spotify Apple podcast.
You'll see what our five star show takes one click.
It helps us grow the show immensely.
(46:33):
So super grateful when you do that and follow us on Instagram,
TikTok at LSBT pod, LinkedIn, Lenin student classic time.
Yeah, I just want to hype on that again, if you're listening
on Spotify, listening on Apple Podcasts, or watching on
YouTube, we're still fairly new on all those platforms.
So we're at a point where literally every single review
(46:55):
counts. Every single review helps more
people find the show, helps us grow the show, helps us get more
guests. So if you're thinking, oh, you
know, they don't need my review,we do.
So if you're on Spotify, take a second, leave a review.
If you're on Apple podcast, take5 seconds to leave the review.
The hard part about leaving reviews is listening to the
episode, and you've always done that.
So leave a review or comment on YouTube, share the episode, and
(47:19):
it'll just help us make better content for you.
But thank you for listening. We really appreciate your time,
and we're going to keep being here on this mission to unlock
the power of story time.
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