Mastering Communication: Practical Strategies from Andrew Huberman and Matt Abrahams

Q: model, etc.). 4. **Prepare Key Hooks** – start with

provocative fact or question. 5. Rehearse with Real‑World Constraints – record, get feedback, practice in the actual venue if possible. 6. Plan for Anxiety – breathing, movement, cooling, and a mental cue list. 7. Create a Contingency Plan – know how to recover from tech failures or blank‑outs. 8. Reflect and Iterate – journal, review recordings, adjust heuristics.
Andrew Huberman
Summary Date: 2025-11-19 03:39:42
Open on YouTube
# Mastering Communication: Practical Strategies from Andrew Huberman and Matt Abrahams ### Why Memorizing Speeches Is Counterproductive - Memorization overloads cognitive load; you constantly compare what you intended to say with what you’re actually saying. - Use a clear roadmap: structure, key ideas, and note‑cards for exact data or phrasing. - Familiarity with the material frees mental bandwidth for connection, not recall. ### Lead with Questions to Engage Others - Ask open‑ended prompts (e.g., “Tell me more”) to draw out reticent speakers. - Give the responder space; their answers reveal what matters to them, allowing you to tailor the conversation. - This technique works for one‑on‑one chats, small groups, and larger audiences. ### Credibility Without a Credential‑Dump - Credibility comes in two flavors: career/academic (LinkedIn‑style) and "Costco" credibility—demonstrated by giving useful, relevant information. - Start with a hook: provocative statement, striking statistic, or vivid question. Save credentials for later when they reinforce your point. ### Authenticity Is Grounded in Self‑Awareness - Identify what you truly value and stand for; communicate from that place. - Authenticity is not about "being you" without preparation—it’s about introspection, then translating those core beliefs into clear, relatable language. - Avoid constantly monitoring audience judgment; it drains cognitive resources. ### Overcoming Self‑Judgment with Improvisation Exercises - Simple improv: point at objects and label them incorrectly for 15 seconds. The exercise highlights how much mental judgment we carry. - Cloud‑watching, random‑word storytelling, or describing everyday objects also disrupts over‑analysis and builds in‑the‑moment confidence. - Repetition of such drills trains the brain to stay present. ### Structuring Information for Better Recall - Humans remember stories better than bullet lists. Use a logical flow: problem → solution → benefit, or the classic "what? so what? now what?" framework. - Slides should be sparse; too much detail overwhelms visual processing and distracts from spoken content. - Visuals that are too detailed (full‑circuit diagrams) or too simplistic (bare shapes) miss the sweet spot. Aim for enough detail to support the narrative without overloading. ### Practice, Feedback, and Reflection Loop - Record yourself (audio‑only, video‑only, then both) and review three times to catch different issues. - Keep a daily communication journal: note one thing that went well and one that didn’t; review weekly to set improvement goals. - Seek trusted feedback; honest critique accelerates growth. ### Managing Anxiety and Physiological Symptoms - Physical movement (pacing, knee‑bouncing) releases excess autonomic arousal. - Breath work: long exhale > inhale slows heart rate via the vagus nerve; use it before or during a talk. - Cooling the body (holding a cold object) can reduce blushing and perspiration. - Prepare an anxiety‑management plan (breathing, grounding, tongue‑twisters) and rehearse it. ### Handling Mistakes and Blank‑Out Moments - Avoid pre‑apologizing; it primes the audience to focus on your nervousness. - If you blank, briefly retrace your last point, then ask a relevant question to buy time. - Treat the incident like a technical glitch: have a contingency plan (e.g., ask for a towel if equipment fails) and stay composed. ### Engaging the Audience Through Movement and Timing - Move purposefully: stay still for punchlines, move during transitions to signal shifts. - Break monotonic cadence with crowd work, short anecdotes, or visual changes to keep attention. - Treat a talk like an action movie—start with an engaging “action” rather than a credential roll‑call. ### Leveraging Different Communication Styles - Linear scaffolding works best for teaching complex material; non‑linear, branching anecdotes can boost engagement when used sparingly. - Tour‑guide mindset: set expectations, signal where you’re heading, and deliver a memorable “gift” (key takeaway). - Recognize neuro‑diversity and introversion as strengths; adapt your style rather than forcing a one‑size‑fits‑all approach. ### Practical Tools for Ongoing Improvement - Use heuristics consciously; they simplify decisions but can lock you into unhelpful patterns. - Role‑play scenarios (e.g., asking for a raise) to rehearse language and anticipate responses. - VR rehearsal platforms let you practice with simulated audiences and scripted interruptions. - Incorporate improv games into workshops to teach specific communication skills (e.g., handling interruptions with paraphrasing). ### Final Checklist for Any Speaking Situation 1. **Know Your Audience** – research needs, cultural context, and preferred communication channels. 2. **Define a Clear Goal** – what should they know, feel, and do? 3. **Build a Structured Narrative** – use a proven framework (problem‑solution‑benefit, 3‑question model, etc.). 4. **Prepare Key Hooks** – start with a provocative fact or question. 5. **Rehearse with Real‑World Constraints** – record, get feedback, practice in the actual venue if possible. 6. **Plan for Anxiety** – breathing, movement, cooling, and a mental cue list. 7. **Create a Contingency Plan** – know how to recover from tech failures or blank‑outs. 8. **Reflect and Iterate** – journal, review recordings, adjust heuristics. Effective communication is less about flawless memorization and more about a well‑structured, authentic message delivered with presence, curiosity, and practiced resilience. By combining clear frameworks, purposeful preparation, real‑time improvisation, and ongoing reflection, anyone can turn anxiety into confidence and make every interaction memorable.
Full Transcript

Do you ever recommend people memorize
speeches?
>> Never. The reason memorizing is so bad
is it burdens your cognitive load.
You've created the right way to say it
and you're constantly comparing what you
wanted to say to what you're actually
saying. So having a road map, having a
structure, having some familiarity with
some ideas are important. If there's
certain words that you really want to
get across or certain data, have a note
card, read it. I'd rather you do that
than put the cognitive burden on
yourself of memorizing. Several people
asked about how best to communicate with
people who are not very good at
communicating. I would encourage people
to lead with questions. Draw the other
person out. Often if you can get them
talking about something that's important
to them or connected to what you want,
then you can engage in that
conversation. So again, it's pre-work.
It's thinking about what's of value.
Lead with questions and then as soon as
the person responds, give them space to
tell more. My mother-in-law had a black
belt in small talk. She was amazing. Uh
she was from the Midwest. Every time
she'd fly out to visit, she'd come off
the plane with three new best friends.
And her secret, and you mentioned this
earlier, were three words. Tell me more.
Once somebody answers a question, give
them that space to say more. And that
really draws them out and gives you some
ideas of what's important to them so you
can latch on and talk about it more. So
lead with questions. Give space for more
communication. That's how you draw
somebody who might be reticent or not
comfortable speaking. Welcome to the
Hubberman Lab podcast where we discuss
science and science-based [music] tools
for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
of neurobiology and opthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
today is Matt Abrahams from Stanford
Graduate School of Business. Matt is an
expert in speaking and communication on
stage, online, in person, and in all
circumstances. During today's episode,
we discuss how to become a better
communicator. Everything from protocols
that work to eliminate ums, how to deal
with onstage fright, how to practice
speaking more clearly, and equally
important, how to remember important
facts and synthesize information that
you learn from others. Humans are
extremely visual and we are extremely
verbal, and what we hear sticks with us.
and how things are said matters
tremendously too. We all register
people's levels of confidence or anxiety
when they speak and that determines what
we remember and what we forget and also
what we remember and forget about them.
During today's episode, Matt explains
tools that have been proven to work that
you can practice alone or that you can
use in real time to improve your
communication skills. He also explains
what it really means to communicate
authentically. We hear about
authenticity all the time, but Matt
makes clear exactly what that is, how to
tap into it and how to deliver
information in your own unique voice. He
also offers great tools for when things
go wrong, and how to recover from those
situations with grace. Matt Abrahams is
considered one of the foremost experts
in communication, and I'm sure that
everyone, women, men, young, and old,
will benefit from what he teaches today.
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
that this podcast is separate from my
teaching and research roles at Stanford.
It is however part of my desire and
effort to bring zero cost to consumer
information about science and science
related tools to the general public. In
keeping with that theme, today's episode
does include sponsors. And now for my
discussion with Matt Abrahams. Matt
Abrahams, welcome.
>> Thanks, Andrew. I'm thrilled to be here.
>> Teach us how to communicate better, but
please do it in the context of not just
public speaking, but one-on-one
interactions,
>> spontaneous interactions, as well as
planned interactions.
Basically, I'm asking you to solve a
number of problems that people have, but
I think we often hear that one of the
major fears people have is public
speaking.
>> Yeah.
>> But I think it's highly contextual,
right? Like when we think public
speaking, we think like being forced out
on a stage to talk about a topic we
don't know or something. But what do you
think that fear of public speaking is
really about? Is it the fear of being
shamed? Of saying something stupid, of
like dissolving into a puddle of our own
tears on stage? What is it? Because some
sense it's kind of illogical.
>> Well, those of us who study this believe
it actually has an evolutionary basis.
That when our species was hanging around
in groups of about 150 people, your
relative status meant everything. And
I'm not talking about who has the fancy
car or who gets the most likes on social
media. It's who got access to resources,
food, shelter, reproduction. And if you
did something that put your status at
risk, that could be really bad news for
you. So those of us who study this
believe it's ingrained in who we are to
be very sensitive to anything that puts
our status at risk. And that can be
being up in front of a big crowd or
talking to my boss about an important
issue. All of those put us at risk. We
often hear that what is being said is
perhaps not as important as how it's
being said, right?
>> The tamber of one's voice, the eye
contact, the body language, etc.
Whenever I hear that, I often think like
it's kind of a skewed perspective. It's
got to be the the sum total of it all,
right?
>> Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, what you say
is really important. If it doesn't make
sense, if it's not logical, if it's
confusing, that puts you in a bad light.
But similarly, how you say it. If you're
confident, if you're upright, if you use
a a strong voice, that matters, too. So
those of us who do what I do are really
intent on helping people not only craft
messages that are meaningful but to
deliver them in a way that can actually
be connected, authentic and and
engaging. Both are important.
>> So when I think about online
communications and in-person
communications where somebody is on a
stage and they're um selected to give
talk about something and the expectation
is that they're going to engage us.
I like to think of this concept that a
friend told me about of you know that
the first thing we want to know as a as
an audience member is you know has this
person earned the right to have my time.
So typically people will talk about
their you know their titles and their
experience and um and so how much of the
the fear of public speaking do you think
comes from uh people's kind of need to
uh kind of explain or justify that
they've like earned the right to
actually take your time and and and talk
to you. You because you hear a lot of
filling of of credentials and things
like that. Let me just um sort of
counter that with the possibility that
came to me which is that people don't
want to hear that at all. They just want
to hear what somebody has to say,
>> right? And I I tend to agree with that.
I I coach my my students, the the the
folks I work with in the corporate world
that what's really important is
connection. So, if you can show that you
have some value to bring by getting
people engaged with your topic and
showing that there is relevance and
salience for them, that's all that
really matters. Your credibility, while
it informs what you say, doesn't need to
be the first thing you say. I'm on a
personal mission to stop presentations
and meetings from starting with people
just giving their credentials, telling
the titles of what they're saying. Get
us hooked. I tell people it's like an
action movie. How does every action
movie you've ever seen start? With
action. Do something that engages the
audience. I'm not saying crash a car and
jump out of a plane, but make a
provocative statement. Ask a question.
Give some interesting statistics. Show
what you're saying means for the people.
And then you're able to engage them in a
dialogue and that's where connection
happens. So credentiing is important but
it doesn't happen right away. You
demonstrate your credibility. I I teach
my students that there are two types of
credibility. There's your career and
college credibility. Something you'd see
in your LinkedIn profile, your resume,
and then what I call Costco credibility.
You know when you go to Costco, they
give you free samples. You try it, you
like it. Show people through the
questions you ask, through the
engagement you have, through the
relevance you bring. That's how you
build credibility.
>> I totally agree. And this raises the
issue not only of credibility but of
authenticity. We hear so much about
authenticity. Authenticity. And I've
been thinking a lot about that recently.
What is this authenticity thing? Uh,
you know, in terms of people being able
to tap into it. Um or maybe that runs
counter to authenticity, like you're not
supposed to tap into anything. You're
supposed to just be you.
>> Yeah. So I I think it comes down to
really understanding what's important to
you and what you stand for and coming
from that place. So what does that mean?
That means when you're talking about
anything on a big stage or in a
one-on-one interaction, understanding
where the value is for you and then
articulating that in as clear a way as
possible. So just be
true to your beliefs, but you have to
first understand and take the time to
think about what those are. Many of us
are nervous or so worried about getting
through all our material. We don't focus
on coming from a firm, clear, connected
place. So it really has to do with
introspection first and then you convert
that into something that's meaningful
for the audience. That's what I think
authenticity is.
>> Yeah. I feel like part of this um
authenticity thing that we're exploring
also has to do with the person
delivering the information that they're
doing it in a way where they are not
constantly monitoring
what the audience thinks of them. This
seems to be like central to effective
communication. uh that monitoring for
one's performance,
>> right,
>> and other people's perception of them,
trying to get a running score of how
well they're doing is really runs
counter to effective communication.
>> Absolutely. 100%. It is the the more we
are in our heads judging and evaluating,
the more difficult it is to be present
and connected to somebody. I do this
activity in my class on the first day
that that really shows how in our heads
we can get. I borrowed this from
improvisation. I have my students stand
up and for 15 seconds they just point at
different objects in the room and the
only rule is to call it something that
it is not. So you point at the ceiling
and you call it a car. You point at the
floor and you call it a calculator. And
for 15 seconds, this is very
challenging. I had a student once who's
pointing at a chair. Nothing's coming
out of his mouth. And I go up, I said,
"What's going on?" He said, "I'm not
being wrong enough." I gave no rubric,
no no requirements. I said, "Tell me
more." I 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." Sometimes a cat
sits on a chair. I'm not being wrong
enough. We are all on this continuum
he's on judging and evaluating. He's
clearly several standard deviations away
from most of us, but we all carry around
this judgment in our head. And what it
does is it locks us internally and not
allows us to be external. So, you're
absolutely right. And when I'm focused
on judging what I'm saying, I'm using
precious cognitive bandwidth that I
could be spending on making sure you
clearly understand my message. This is
why memorizing what you're trying to say
works against you because that precious
cognitive bandwidth trying to get it
right gets in the way of actually doing
it. So we need to train ourselves to
understand that the magic of
communication happens in the moment and
not what's happening in your head
before.
What a great exercise. Uh, do you
recommend people do that on their own if
they're
>> As long as they're not driving
[laughter] and you know who's really
good at it?
>> That's not a red light, that's a green
light. Exactly. Um, it's a one children
are fantastic at this because they don't
have the inhibitions that that that we
do. But anything that gets you to
disrupt the judgment and evaluation that
you do can be really helpful.
>> So if just a simple game like that,
other improv activities as well, it just
gets you to see here's what I'm doing.
This is my pattern, my habit. It it
identifies the heristics that we carry
around that actually get in the way of
our communication.
>> Oh, that's so cool. I sometimes like to
play the game that I played when I was a
kid where you look at clouds and you try
and see what they look like
>> and it's so much fun
>> and it's a very childlike game,
>> but it forces you to see clouds
differently. Um the contours uh become
certain things and then um it's
interesting. It almost always if you do
this with somebody else it's kind of fun
to do. Um it gives way to narration
where it looks like one cloud is eating
another cloud. You start creating this
narrative.
>> Yes.
>> Right. And um I did this recently with
someone and it was it was a lot of fun.
>> Yeah.
>> And and then at some point you're like
wow that really looks like and then you
know whatever it was that that we happen
to see. What I think enables that and
what allows you to have that fun is that
you're suspending judgment for a little
bit and you're just letting things flow
freely. And it is in doing that that you
begin to build a confidence in what
happens in the moment. A lot of my work
recently has been on spontaneous
speaking, speaking in the moment. And
you can actually prepare to be
spontaneous. If you think of an athlete,
they do a lot of drills and a lot of
repetit repetitive motions. So when
they're in the game, they can respond
appropriately. You can do the same thing
with your speaking. But part of it is
that mindset you have to take. Get out
of your own way. See what happens in the
moment. and that frees you up to do what
needs to be done when you're in that
interaction.
I'd like to take a quick break and
acknowledge our sponsor, Eight Sleep.
Eight makes smart mattress covers with
cooling, heating, and sleep tracking
capacity. One of the best ways to ensure
you get a great night's sleep is to make
sure that the temperature of your
sleeping environment is correct. And
that's because in order to fall asleep
and stay deeply asleep, your body
temperature actually has to drop by
about 1 to 3°. And in order to wake up
feeling refreshed and energized, your
body temperature actually has to
increase by about 1 to three degrees.
Eight automatically regulates the
temperature of your bed throughout the
night according to your unique needs.
I've been sleeping on an eightle
mattress cover for nearly 5 years now
and it has completely transformed and
improved the quality of my sleep. The
latest eightle model is the Pod 5. This
is what I'm now sleeping on and I
absolutely love it. It has so many
incredible features. For instance, the
Pod 5 has a feature called autopilot,
which is an AI engine that learns your
sleep patterns and then adjusts the
temperature of your sleeping environment
across different sleep stages. It'll
even elevate your head if you're
snoring, and it makes other shifts to
optimize your sleep. If you'd like to
try eight, go to eight.com/huberman
to get up to $700 off the Pod 5 Ultra.
This is eight's biggest sale of the
year. It goes from now until December
1st, 2025. Eightlee ships to many
countries worldwide, including Mexico
and the UAE. Again, that's
eight.com/huberman
to save up to $700 now through December
1st, 2025. Today's episode is also
brought to us by BetterHelp. BetterHelp
offers professional therapy with a
licensed therapist carried out entirely
online. Now, I've been doing weekly
therapy for well over 30 years, and I
found it to be an extremely important
component to my overall health. There
are essentially three things that great
therapy provides. First, it provides
good rapport with somebody that you can
trust and discuss issues with. Second of
all, it provides support in the form of
emotional support or directed guidance.
And third, expert therapy provides
useful insights. Insights that can allow
you to make changes to and improve your
life. Not just your emotional life and
your relationship life, but also your
professional life. With BetterHelp, they
make it very easy to find an expert
therapist that can help provide the
benefits that come from effective
therapy. Also, because BetterHelp is
done entirely online, it's very
timeefficient. There's no driving to a
therapist's office, looking for parking,
etc. If you'd like to try BetterHelp, go
to betterhelp.com/huberman
to get 10% off your first month. Again,
that's betterhelp.com/huberman.
when I do public lectures like or when
we do live events
>> sometimes um do some crowd work
>> where I'll just cold call for I usually
ask for a body part and I'm always
afraid of like what body [laughter]
parts come
>> and then I try and weave it to some real
neuroscience or health related fact and
it it's always a lot of fun but I I do
it as a way to break up the um the
cadence
>> sometimes I think the difficulty in
public speaking comes from the fact that
as we go out there, we we've done some
preparation. Maybe maybe we've memorized
it. I I typically don't, but we have
some sense of what we're going to say,
beginning, middle, end, etc. Uh what's
on the slides,
>> but that the the cadence can become so
regular
>> that we lose people.
>> And breaking up that cadence can be
helpful, I think. Um, and when I step
back from public speaking experiences,
both as a the speaker, but also as an
audience member, I feel like there's a
almost a songike nature to a talk,
>> right?
>> Where it has an opener and then it has
a, you know, a quicker pace and then it
repeats itself and it's got some
melodies and rhythms. And I like to
think that really effective podcasting,
not not to make ourselves conscious of
uh of what we're doing here, has some of
the same.
>> Yeah. I want to tell you a story that
relates to that. But I at some point I'm
going to shout out the word earlobe and
I want to hear how you respond to that
because I I just I I I'm amazed that you
get up and ask people to call out body
parts. Uh I did some work uh when I was
researching my recent book where I
interviewed the gentleman who's in
charge of all Lego manuals. Uh I don't
know if you've ever built Lego or not.
Yeah. Their manuals uh have no words.
>> And I was I've always been fascinated by
it. In my class, I will do a lesson
where I will bring in a Lego manual and
an IKEA manual, which is their
antithetical. And I have my students
just discuss communication as using
these as two representations of ways to
get information across. The gentleman
who runs that group shared with me that
Lego manual designers see the manual as
a story, as a narrative. All you're
doing is putting pieces together. But
what they found is if you put all the
same steps in the same order, you can
you could each step could be the same
number of moves with the same number of
pieces, people have a very different
experience than if you give some moves
that have a lot of hard detailed work,
some that are simpler, some that are
faster. So that rhythm you're talking
about builds that motivation, builds
that sense of accomplishment. They're
looking to bring emotion into the act of
building Lego models.
>> Wow.
>> Isn't that interesting? And and that
just emphasizes what you were talking
about.
>> Is it the Scandinavians that
>> It's out of Denmark. Yeah.
>> Oh, okay. My stepmom will be very
pleased that we're talking about Lego.
She's Danish.
>> Yeah.
>> Um
>> Amazing.
>> Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? And if you
can do it with a manual that has no
words, that's just has you putting
bricks together. Think about what you
could do in your communication
one-on-one or one to many. What you're
talking about, the rhythm, the patterns,
the pattern disruption, all of that can
lead to that engagement. I think about
the way that we learn things as kids
like um the ABCs. [clears throat]
>> Yeah.
>> Not just a string of letters, but it has
proidity, right? There's inflections and
um
>> ABCD. Everyone knows that, right?
>> As opposed to just A B C D. Kids don't
learn that way.
>> Absolutely. And putting things to music,
putting things visually are lots of ways
to help you remember. These days we hear
a lot about the fact that uh people want
short form content.
>> Yes.
>> And yet people I can attest listen to
long- form podcasts and are still doing
that. So I have a theory that's not
based on any data that I've seen that
people need a lot of um updating of
visual information nowadays. You know
they're they're scrolling Instagram,
they're scrolling Tik Tok, they're
they're updating ah I don't like this
YouTube video, switching to another one
very fast.
But with audio, long form continuous um
presence of the same voices or voice
works. It's very soothing and we get
into a groove with that. And I actually
played this game. I um decided to just
listen to the audio coming through on
Instagram reels and just flipped them
>> on and and by the fifth one, it was
incredibly jarring. It's really
disruptive. It's like who are these
voices and how to these voices? But the
visuals are very easy to track.
>> Interesting. Yeah. So, I think that it's
correct that we can really update and we
like the novelty of of new visual
information, but that audio content
needs to spool out over long periods of
time or else it actually is is quite
aversive to us.
>> Yeah. I heard somebody once say that the
difference of all the senses our
auditory sense requires us to slow down
more than anything else to to actually
pay attention. And I think there's
something about that slowing down that
makes us more engaged with audio. Uh,
and and I think you're right. I mean,
when you I my teaching has I'm curious
if your teaching has had to change. Uh,
as I teach younger generations of
students, I have to change things up so
much more frequently. Somebody who took
my class 15 years ago would be, "Oh my
goodness, what are you doing?" But in a
in a two-hour class, I change things up
like seven times. So, we go from a mini
lecture to watching a video to
partnering with somebody just to keep
the students engaged because that's
where they're at. they they need that
switching to help engage.
>> I teach medical students neural
development and a few other things
>> and I use slides heavily there. But what
I've realized over the years is that if
there's too much information on a slide
>> Yeah.
>> they're not going to hear anything I
say. And that if you switch a slide
>> Yeah.
>> people, as somebody who studied vision,
this makes perfect sense. People will
orient towards the new visual
information and they won't hear what
you're saying in the transition.
>> Yeah.
The other thing that I'm really obsessed
by because I got my start teaching
online uh on Instagram by doing drawings
of different aspects of the nervous
system and talking about them is that
there's this sweet spot when you're
going to teach something with a visual.
I've realized that for instance, if I
were to draw um an area of the brain or
a brain circuit accurately with a lot of
detailed information, it's too much,
right? they there's less learning in
that case as opposed to sparser
representation of the key elements. But
if I go to ball and stick model and just
triangles and and circles, it doesn't
work as well. So there's this sweet spot
where there's just enough detail but not
too much where people can hear what
you're saying, see the labels, see the
stuff, and it and it gets imprinted in
their brain. And when you look back
historically, I'm obsessed with the
history of medicine and the history of
teaching medicine. When you look at the
diagrams that were really that have
really propagated through time in the
field of medicine, they're extremely
sparse. They accurately represent just a
few elements of say the immune system
and they're not the little bubble
diagrams like I'm a macroofage, I'm a
gal cell like uh like those little
cartoons don't work right in at least in
the long run. Nor does showing all the
detail that's there and you're just like
whoa that's that's just like drinking
from a fire hose. And so the really good
teachers and anatomists uh were able to
just give the appropriate dose of
information and not anymore. Kind of
like a great chef would just have like
not overspice something and and it's not
easy. No.
>> Um is and and you sort of have to be the
teacher and the student at the same time
to be able to do this.
>> Well, I think you're hitting on what's
an essential element of any effective
communication, which is really
understanding your audience and their
needs. You know, so many of us define
success in communication is just getting
the information out. I'm successful
because what I had in mind is now out.
>> I've made that mistake many times.
>> Yeah. Right. It's it's more about what
do I need to say so that my audience
understands it better. It's not about
what I want. It's about what you need.
So, I have to do reconnaissance,
reflection, and research to really think
about how best to craft my message. Be
it a drawing or an important point I'm
trying to make through my words. You
really have to think about your
audience. And most people don't. Most
people are just so worried about getting
the content out, they don't think about
how it lands. Success is if your
audience takes what you've said and and
they're able to do something with it and
understand it. You know, the F-word of
all communication is fidelity. It's
about accuracy and clarity of
transmitting ideas. And if you're not in
sync with what your audience needs, then
you're in trouble. Most of us create one
message and just deliver it to multiple
audiences and think we've been
successful because we got it out. That's
the wrong way to think about it.
>> So, if you're willing, could we just
take a couple of minutes and explore
some of the tools and practices
>> and then go back to some of the theory
and then back to the tools and
practices. Um, I love this uh exercise
you said of like I'll point to the mug
and I'll just
>> try not to judge myself and I'll say
[clears throat] bulldog cuz that just is
kind of like where you know I'm like
Bart Simpson doing the roar shock test.
Butterfinger butter like bulldog bulldog
bulldog. But um what is that exercise
good for? And when could and should
somebody apply it on their own or with
other people?
>> That's an exercise that I use uh for for
two reasons. I use it to show that we
have a tremendous amount of judgment
that we make when we communicate.
Because if you ask somebody, why is it
so hard to call something something it's
it's not, they'll say, well, that's not
what I'm used to, or I want it to be
better than than something else I was
thinking. The other thing that I use it
for is to help elucidate how we
heruristically think in these
challenging situations. So, invariably
when I do this in my class, I'll say,
"Were you using any tools to help you
figure out what to say?" And people say,
"Yeah, I went in the category of colors
or in your case, the c category of of
species of of dog." These are
heruristics. Our brain is trying to help
us. And heristuristics are very
important. If we didn't have them, we
wouldn't be able to make decisions. But
sometimes a heruristic locks you into a
way of thinking. So let's imagine you
and I come out of a meeting and you turn
to me and you say, "Hey, Matt, how do
you think that meeting went?" I
immediately say, "Andrew wants
feedback." And I can itemize all the
things that went wrong or all the things
we could have done better. But had I
been really listening, not locked into
that heristic of feedback, I might have
noticed that you were looking down. You
were speaking more slowly and softly
than usual, maybe what you wanted in
that moment was not feedback, but what
you wanted was support because you knew
the meeting went bad. So if I lock into
a heristic too soon and not understand
that I lock into that heristic, I might
take our communication in a direction
that isn't productive or could be
harmful. The situation I just described
to you actually happened to me with a
colleague and I itemized all the things
that we did wrong. It took me six months
to repair that relationship because he
didn't want to hear what went wrong. He
knew he wanted me to give some support
in that moment. So that exercise is to
help us understand that we do a lot of
judging that we don't need to do and
that we have these heruristics or
patterns that we get into that don't
allow us to be present and respond to
what's needed.
>> Could you define heruristic? I I believe
I know what it means but so it sounds
like you mentioned heristic and pattern
is kind of synonymous but um maybe just
define it for people.
>> So to me a heruristic is a tool that we
use often unconsciously to help us
reduce the uncertainty in a particular
situation. So for example uh imagine I'm
in the grocery store and I'm trying to
pick out um the best uh tomato sauce or
the best ketchup. I might use a heristic
of which is the cheapest. How many
offerings from one brand are there? That
must be the best brand to buy. So these
are mental shortcuts that we use to help
us in uncertain situations.
I'm recalling a story where when I was a
junior professor, meaning before I had
tenure, my first graduate student who's
now a phenomenal professor in her own
lab at the University of at the
University of Utah, excuse me. Um, we
were in my office and we were talking
about something related to her first
manuscript and I went on this long
description of what we needed to do with
the analysis and this and then she sat
very quietly and then she said to me,
could you be more specific? And I
thought, oh my goodness, I just spoke
for like five minutes and I think what
she's asking is, what in the world are
you saying? Which is probably what she
was asking. She's probably going to
chuckle when she hears this, right? Um
and she had this amazing way of asking
questions like that.
>> She would say, for instance, um uh tell
me more.
>> Yeah.
>> Or
what exactly do you want me to do for
these experiments in the next couple of
weeks,
>> right?
>> And then she'd usually tell me a better
idea as all great graduate students do.
>> Um but
>> I feel like that's a bit of this. It's
it's that I was coming to it from the
perspective of um kind of a fluency of
of uh the sort of expectation that we
both were on the same page and we
weren't.
>> Not because I was the professor and she
was the student. Actually, she was
closer to the data than I was because
she collected the data, right?
>> But um that's the sort of interaction
that one-on-one you can catch and you
can course correct,
>> right? But in public speaking oftentimes
people just get off stage and they
either realize it went poorly or they
get feedback that it went poorly. My
postto advisor once said if you get
questions after a talk it means you did
well.
>> Yeah. Absolutely.
>> If you don't it means they just want to
get rid of you and have you go off
stage.
>> So so now when I get questions after a
talk I'm like okay excellent. Like that
means you [clears throat] engaged
people. They have questions.
>> Um so take note of that. If people have
questions, it's very likely you you you
bullseyed it.
>> Absolutely. And you're highlighting that
if we get into our heads, we're we're
not able to assess what's going on in
the moment. A lot of communication is
responding. And so I need to be present
enough to see how my audience is
responding. Are they looking confused?
Do they look upset? Then I can adjust
and adapt. So we have to be in that
moment enough to be present so we can
respond. and the the preparation work we
do in advance helps us be better
prepared. Now, I would argue that in the
example you just gave with your uh
former graduate student, part of the
issue that I think she might have been
having is when you relayed the
information, it was just a list or
litany of things. And our brains aren't
very good at remembering lists. I mean,
I I always will joke with my students,
when you go to the grocery store, how
many items do you need to buy before you
have to write something down? For me,
it's three. I just can't remember much
in lists. If you provide a structure to
the information, it makes it much
easier. It increases processing ability.
So, a structure is nothing more than a
logical connection of ideas. Everybody
listening has seen structure. If you've
ever watched a television ad, most ads
are in the structure of problem,
solution, benefit. There's some issue or
challenge in the world. The product or
service makes it better and you benefit
in some way. That's a structure. There's
a logical connection. It's like a story.
It's a beginning, middle, and an end.
And our brains are wired for that. We We
understand story better than just a
random list of things. I I'll joke with
my students, bullets killed. Don't put a
lot of bullet points on a slide because
you're not helping yourself. So, in that
interaction you had with your graduate
student, I wonder if she would have
understood it better had you structured
the information in a way that's logical.
A great structure for that might have
been three questions. What? So what? Now
what? Here's what I here's what I want
you to do. Here's why it's important.
Here's the next steps to help you
accomplish it. All of a sudden, it
becomes easier for me to digest and
understand. So structure is critical to
helping get messages across. Yeah.
Across those first five years of having
my lab, I learned that the best way to
interact with students and postocs, the
most effective way was to have them
stand at the whiteboard in my office
>> and write things down as we talked about
a project and the things they would
write down. We would eventually cross
some things out, maybe make some edits,
but those were the as we called the
doouts that they were going to take to
the next phase of experiments.
by putting them in control of what the
critical information was,
>> right?
>> They could also stop me and say like
what would happen here? So that's a very
dynamic interaction. It's not a typical
lecture type interaction, but I've found
that that works really well in other
types of situations too.
>> Yeah. where the person can take notes,
can ask questions about things that were
unclear, but c where I get a strong
sense of what their takeaway was and
also where I fell short or perhaps in
rare cases succeeded in communicating
what I was trying to communicate,
>> right?
>> Uh I love that you are taking the time
to have those interactions where there's
that you get feedback in real time and
there are things you can build into more
formal or bigger types of communication
situations. I can take polls. I can have
people partner or pair with each other
and share some information back. There
virtual tools allow you to to do lots of
things. People can give you reactions as
you're as you're communicating. There
are ways to get feedback in real time
that allow you to adjust and adapt, but
one, you have to build in those
opportunities in the structure, and two,
you have to be present enough to pay
attention to what's going on.
>> Do you recommend people tape themselves
giving lectures and then review those
videos? Absolutely. I I make all of my
students as part of the work that they
do, they have anytime they do a public
presentation, it could be a panel
simulation, a meeting simulation, a
speech, they digitally record themselves
and they have to watch it three times.
Once with sound only, no video, once
with video only, no sound, and then once
both together. And anybody who does this
will notice different things, both
positive and negative. I tell everybody,
it's like going to the dentist. Nobody
likes going, but everybody's really glad
they've been because you you see so much
and you learn. And I I know many great
communication teachers. The best teacher
is watching yourself communicate. I
assume you've watched yourself. Have you
learned things when you watch what you
see?
>> Yeah. I Well, yeah. I I will listen to
podcasts with guests. Yes. And I do
listen to solos to try and see where I
can improve,
>> right? uh I have one or two people who I
seek feedback from
>> and I have always done my best to
implement that feedback.
>> Um I mean I'm not going to share what
some of the the things were because some
of it some of it was subtle but but um
>> and I never would have observed in
myself and then turned out to be very
useful. I mean what when I think of
effective communication on stage or in a
podcast or in any form really I feel
like it's really about getting outside
the self judgment
>> right
>> and at the same time you have to be
connected to your audience I mean this
is especially difficult on podcasts
where it's a solo podcast I'm talking to
a camera but I just imagine it's a an
audience like a classroom
>> that's right
>> and yet hands aren't going up at least
not then they go up when we post it and
you see the comments and critiques from
time to time as well and and those are
very useful. I mean coming from the
landscape of teaching in the classroom,
large lectures, small lectures and doing
peer-reviewed science, you get a very
thick skin.
>> Yes.
>> And yet nothing quite prepares you for
being public facing. And now everybody's
public facing unless they block their
comments section. I mean, most everybody
out there, the the uh you know, the mom
posting the cake she made for her kids
and uh the kid posting the the birthday
party photo that everybody's public
facing now,
>> right?
>> And so I think it it gives people a
thicker skin, but it I think for a lot
of people it can be um it can be
damaging for them.
>> I like though that you are taking the
time to reflect and seek feedback. I
often say the only way you get better at
communication is three things.
Repetition, reflection, and feedback.
You got to practice. Nobody has ever
thought their way to better
communication. You have to do it. You
have to reflect. You know that
definition of insanity, doing the same
thing over and over again, expecting
different results. That's how many
people communicate. Every night before I
go to bed, I spend one minute writing
down what went well and what didn't go
well in my communication that day. And
every Sunday, I spend five minutes going
back over the previous week and I make a
plan for the following week. I am not
saying I'm a great communicator, but I
certainly believe I'm a better
communicator because I've been doing
that practice for years.
>> You do that every week. every day. Every
day, every day I have a journal. I write
down one or two things that I thought
went well and one or two things I did
thought didn't go well. And then I pick
one on the Sunday. I review them and it
it has helped me. And then the final
step in that is feedback. You have to
have trusted others who can give you
honest feedback. But yeah, that
reflection practice I've been doing for
a long time.
>> How long?
>> Probably
I think it was after my kids were so
probably at least 15 16 years.
>> Awesome. Well, this is why you're a
Stanford professor. This is one of the
great pleasures of being at Stanford. I
mean, we're not at Stanford at this
moment, but I have to say, I mean, there
are other great universities on the
planet, but I love it because [laughter]
everybody who's on the faculty there and
the students, I mean, the students are
really the the phenoms of the place.
Let's let's be honest, but
>> is so committed to their craft.
>> Yeah.
>> Also true elsewhere, but since
Stanford's the experience, I know it's
it's just so awesome. You teach
communication and you're taking notes on
your own communication every day and
reviewing at the end of the week,
>> correct? Fantastic. Um, yeah, I think
feedback is great. I think that, um,
being a selective filter for feedback.
>> Yes,
>> is great. I I do like to listen to other
lectures. I listen to a lot of
>> Yeah.
>> lectures that perhaps other people would
find boring based on content or
delivery. Um, and I learn a lot from
people's styles.
>> Yeah. Um, you know, it's also
interesting to pull from the
communication styles of people in really
distant genres. Um, I won't mention some
of these, but um, you know, if you look
at different fields of entertainment and
communication, some people use more
physicality,
>> some people are are more rigid. Um, I
think there's a lot to be learned from
exploring these other landscapes.
>> I 100% agree. I I'm very fortunate. the
the podcast I host, I get to interview
some of the world's best communicators,
and it is such a treat to not only
engage them in thinking through their
craft, but seeing them do it and
observing the different ways people do
things. I And it doesn't have to be
somebody who's famous or or has a whole
bunch of notoriety. Uh, one of my son's
kindergarten teachers taught me so much
about how to stay calm under pressure,
how to monitor and manage and facilitate
interaction. We just have to pay
attention to it and be open to it. Not
so that we copy, but so that we get
ideas and we see how people do things.
The way you break down complex
biological processes, I find amazing in
terms of the accessibility that you
bring to it. That's a skill that
somebody who is programming, you know,
some programmer somewhere could use to
explain to their end users how this
works. We need to borrow and understand
what people do. Uh we get caught up in
our own way of doing it and and watching
others, I think, is is a best way to do
it.
Long ago, I realized that when there's a
certain amount of energy in the body,
what we call autonomic arousal,
sympathetic tone, whatever, you know,
people say fight or flight, but when
there's a lot of energy in the body,
which is often the case when we're going
to give a talk or we're in a novel
situation, doesn't have to be on stage,
>> that allowing oneself to physically
move, to walk, to pace, to gesticulate,
>> helps uh dispel some of that energy. um
and makes it a lot easier to deliver the
information than we're want to just sit
really still and try and, you know,
funnel all that through one's mouth,
right? When we're calm, you know, and
relax, we can sit back and just move our
mouth and our eyes a little bit and our
head a little bit. So, I've seen that
some of the best public speakers know
when to pace, know when to stand rigid,
and it may be rehearsed, I don't know,
but they're they're not um running
against their natural tendency in those
moments. Um, and like there's a there's
one neuroscientist, he's actually been a
guest on this podcast before. I won't
embarrass him by saying who it is, and
he has so much mental vigor and energy.
And the first time I saw him give a talk
was actually at Harvard Medical School
for the 50th anniversary of a
foundation. And he got up there and he
grabbed the microphone and he gave the
talk like this. And I thought to myself,
he's going to eat the microphone.
He's going to eat the microphone. And he
gave the most spectacular talk and he
was funneling all his energy into that
microphone, right?
>> And I realized this guy isn't moving at
all. But I I thought it was totally
reasonable that at some point he was
just going to take a huge chunk out of
the thing. and and of course he didn't I
thought
>> wow he brought us all to that one
location now clearly he's
>> very experienced and skilled
communicator
>> but he's also an expert in that topic
and this is the thing that I always
would remind my students and posttos who
had some understandable stage fright
which is
>> there's no way that you aren't among at
least the top three people in the room
in terms of the knowledge of what you're
talking about
>> yes
>> right
probably have the most knowledge, but
maybe someone else is an expert there,
which can be a little scary, but at
least you're then you're sort of their
peer. So to remind oneself that in most
situations where we're public speaking,
you're among the top experts in that.
You spent the most time with the
material, at least compared to the
audience.
>> Well, and I would add to that that often
when we're in those situations, the
audience actually wants to learn from
us. They're there because they want to
take value from us. They're not there to
critique and judge and evaluate.
Although that can happen, people don't
like watching people fail and flail. We
we want to get some value. And if you
remind yourself that I have value to
bring and the audience wants that value,
that can reduce some of the temperature
of that. With regard to movement, I
think movement is great. You just don't
want it to be distracting. So there's
some rules or ideas around movement. So
move when appropriate during
transitions. You know, stand-up
comedians have have a rule that they try
to follow is you never want to walk
during the punch line. You want to land
the punch line. All of us when we
communicate, we have punchlines. We have
things that that really we want to have
land. Stand still during that, but as
you're doing the setup, move side to
side. When you start, come in, move
forward. So movement can can help you
with that anxiety, but it also can help
your audience understand what's what's
important and what's not important. So,
if I'm transitioning from one point to
the next and I physically move or I turn
my body at the table if I'm seated, that
signals information to you that's
helpful for you to know we're moving
from one place to the next. So, use this
need to move in a purposeful way.
>> I didn't realize that comedians don't
deliver the punchline while moving, but
now that makes perfect sense,
>> right? Cuz you're distracting your
audience. Even Chris Rock, who moves a
lot, will sometimes stop during the
punch line.
>> We've known for a long time that there
are things that we can do to improve our
sleep. And that includes things that we
can take, things like magnesium
thrienate, theanine, chamomile extract,
and glycine along with lesserk known
things like saffron and valyan root.
These are all clinically supported
ingredients that can help you fall
asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling
more refreshed. I'm excited to share
that our longtime sponsor, AG1, just
created a new product called AGZ, a
nightly drink designed to help you get
better sleep and have you wake up
feeling super refreshed. Over the past
few years, I've worked with the team at
AG1 to help create this new AGZ formula.
It has the best sleep supporting
compounds in exactly the right ratios in
one easy to drink mix. This removes all
the complexity of trying to forge the
vast landscape of supplements focused on
sleep and figuring out the right dosages
and which ones to take for you. AGZ is,
to my knowledge, the most comprehensive
sleep supplement on the market. I take
it 30 to 60 minutes before sleep. It's
delicious, by the way, and it
dramatically increases both the quality
and the depth of my sleep. I know that
both from my subjective experience of my
sleep and because I track my sleep. I'm
excited for everyone to try this new AGZ
formulation and to enjoy the benefits of
better sleep. AGZ is available in
chocolate, chocolate mint, and mixed
berry flavors. And as I mentioned
before, they're all extremely delicious.
My favorite of the three has to be, I
think, chocolate mint, but I really like
them all. If you'd like to try AGZ, go
to drinkagz.com/huberman
to get a special offer. Again, that's
drinkagz.com/huberman.
Today's episode is also brought to us by
JWVE. JWV makes medical grade red light
therapy devices. Now, if there's one
thing that I have consistently
emphasized on this podcast, it is the
incredible impact that light can have on
our biology. Now, in addition to
sunlight, red light and near infrared
light sources have been shown to have
positive effects on improving numerous
aspects of cellar and organ health,
including faster muscle recovery,
improved skin health and wound healing,
improvements in acne, reduced pain and
inflammation, even mitochondrial
function, and improving vision itself.
What sets THW lights apart and why
they're my preferred red light therapy
device is that they use clinically
proven wavelengths, meaning specific
wavelengths of red light and near
infrared light in combination to trigger
the optimal cellar adaptations.
Personally, I use the JWV whole body
panel about three to four times a week,
and I use the JWV handheld light both at
home and when I travel. Right now, JW is
having their biggest sale of the year.
From now through December 1st, 2025, you
can save up to $1,000 on select JWV
devices during their Black Friday sale.
Just go to jv.com/huberman.
That's jovv.com/huberman.
Some exclusions apply. I wonder if
you've observed in the classroom that
social media and other newer forms of
content are changing people's
expectation of how engaging something
should be because the on-ramp to social
media is a very fast one. I've never
observed anything that brings people to
focus so quickly unless it's um seeing
something really disturbing, which
nobody wants to see. But you know, if
you if you suddenly see two cars crash,
you know, you're completely focused on
that. You're not going to go back to
what you were doing, right?
>> But setting aside bad events, traumatic
events, social media has an incredibly
smooth and fast on-ramp to a focal
point, which has got you in the box.
>> Yeah.
>> A book doesn't typically do that for
people,
>> right? Uh so what's happening now um in
terms of what you observe with people's
expect audienc's expectation of how
engaging something needs to be?
>> Yeah. So I I see this play out in a
couple ways. One, when you when you
think about a multi-generational
workforce or a place where
multi-generations are together, you
know, people of our vintage, although
I'm older than you are, are expect
relationships and communication to
unfold in a certain way. And I think
younger generations expect things to be
quicker and more transactional. And when
we come together, that can breed
misunderstanding and sometimes conflict.
So I I see it play out there and I find
it really interesting and I try to coach
the the students I have that they have
to be appreciative of the ways in which
people connect and the ways in which
people expect information to come in.
You know, if if you're just going to
keep texting me things and I actually
want you to pick up the phone so I can
hear it in your own voice, that's going
to cause some some issues. So we have to
appreciate that others have different
ways of taking in information. I find
that many of the younger students that I
communicate with, it's hard for them to
do some of the initial work that we have
to do in relationship building, trust
building, uh just because they expect
things are used to things happening
really fast and a lot of communication,
a lot of connection at least at first
takes time. So it's helping people
appreciate the time spent up front can
lead to the exciting and in-depth
connection that comes later. So it is it
is changing for sure. I was trying to
think before our conversation what would
be the the one piece of advice
to give people so that they are um more
at ease with communicating in novel
environments on stage or offstage. And
what popped to mind for me was um be
friendly with people. I'm naturally
pretty friendly. Like if I'm getting a
coffee, I'll be like, "How's your day
going?" Or like I I will ask that and
I'm genuinely curious. How's your day?
Now it's rare that somebody says like,
"Today sucks." Occasionally they do.
>> Um
>> usually they say, "Oh, it's pretty good.
Like how are you doing?" But in an Uber,
for instance, I often find myself in
conversation with people. Like
conversation is pretty fluid for me. I
realize for other people it's not
>> right.
>> People won't believe this, but I'm
actually very introverted. I spend a lot
of time by myself, but I like people and
I'm reasonably friendly and they're
friendly with me. So, I I think being
friendly helps
>> you get good at communication.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh wouldn't you say?
>> Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, my answer
to that question would be curiosity. I
lead with curiosity. Ask questions,
observe things, point them out. You
know, a lot of people hate small talk
because they don't know how to do it.
But if if you lead with curiosity, if
you ask a question and you observe,
that's where I think we can can one make
it move forward in a way that's more
fluid and more comfortable for people.
And quite frankly, people are most at
ease talking about themselves. And so if
you can get people talking about
something that's important to them and
then you know there there's a whole
science behind conversation and uh
people who study conversation look at
term taking because if you think about
it, conversation is just taking turns.
There are turns that are supportive
where you say something and I support
what you say. So you might say, "Hey,
Matt, I just got back from Maui." And I
could say, "Oh, that's great. Uh,
where'd you stay? What did you do?" Or I
could say, which is the other type of
turn, which is switching. I could say,
"Oh, I just got back from Costa Rica."
And a good conversation does both. So
being curious and then managing the
switching and supporting turns allow for
that conversation not only to develop
but it allows you to get closer and more
intimate if you will that is closer in
terms of trust building and the
relationship you have.
>> Yeah. Almost always in Los Angeles, uh,
I ask my Uber driver where they're from
>> because oftentimes it seems they have
accents and I can't place the accent.
>> And almost always I learn about a great
restaurant based on their their uh their
ethnicity, right? Um,
>> I found what I think is the best
Armenian restaurant in Los Angeles as a
consequence of a great Uber ride. So
yeah, leading with curiosity. I I don't
say where's the best restaurant. Um,
right.
>> I I think it inevitably leads to food,
it seems. Um, dogs are food.
>> I'm curious about linearity versus
nonlinearities in storytelling.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, some people have a style where
>> they can spin a lot of plates
simultaneously as I imagine it. You
know, they they can start one thread,
maybe open up a couple other threads.
Some people have a very linear style.
Um, some people won't reference things
they said earlier. Some people will
constantly reference things they said
earlier. I suppose it depends. But in
general, if one is trying to communicate
information, what's best from the
standpoint of of people learning the
information? So, as a teacher, as
somebody who's trying to convey
information that's important to people,
I believe a linear approach that clearly
lays out the foundations and builds is
probably best to help people really
understand. Often in educating, you're
layering, you're scaffolding, and that
leads to a linear approach. That said,
the more spurious uh approach, the the
approach that has lots of different
avenues can be much more engaging and
can also be successful. And it really
doesn't have to be either or. I think
you can have a highlevel linear view
that you're taking your audience on that
journey, but at different points you can
branch off and and share some
interesting information.
You know, I see being a good speaker as
like being a good tour guide. And I
actually was a tour guide at one point
in my life. A good tour guide does a
really nice job of setting expectations
of where you're going. Most people won't
go on the tour if they don't know where
they're going. If I showed up and said,
"I'm your tour guide. Let's go." You
might say, "I don't know where we're
going." But if I say, "Hey, we're going
to do this and this and we're not going
to do that." Then you can relax and feel
comfortable and come with me. And I let
you know at each point where we're
moving to the next place. But along the
way, we can meander, we can wander, we
can go check out some things and come
back. So, as long as people have
directionality
and everything fits as a a larger
narrative, I think you can play with
either of these. But when it comes to
strict education, I think we've got good
evidence that a linear approach that
scaffolds is really what's most helpful.
>> Do you think that if people want to get
better at communication, they should
practice being a tour guide? I think
adopting that that that mindset that hey
taking you through my material I'm like
a tour guide. How would a tour guide
explain this? They would introduce at
the beginning set expectations. They'd
make sure that you understand why we're
moving from one place to the next and
when you're done they really want you to
take something away of value. I mean
most tour tours end up in the gift shop
right your gift to your audience is
something they can take away and do
something with. So I think using that
analogy seeing what your job is through
those that lens can be really helpful.
I'm remembering back to grade school
where we were asked to bring an object
that was really important to us and then
kids would get up in front of the
classroom and and of course what a what
a beautiful exercise for kids to yeah
>> partake in because of course they know
more about that object than anybody
>> but I remember seeing or hearing
different um styles. Uh some people get
in there and be like this is my whatever
my transformer and they're really out
there with her. this is my uh you know
my goldfish
goldfish. Um and then occasionally not
so occasionally you get this kid that
would say well this is my pen and then
and then you're like and you like speak
up and then and and they're just not
comfortable
>> sharing their their clearly
>> intimate knowledge about this object and
why it's important. They I mean you
could just tell like they're they're
closed up and so you tell them to speak
louder and then they'd speak louder. But
um I think that's a lot of people
>> like they're just not comfortable
>> projecting their thoughts out into the
room,
>> right?
>> Uh what is the quote unquote solution or
or how do we make space for these
people? I'm I'm not saying this for like
politically correct reasons, but I
wholeheartedly believe that these people
harbor tons of useful knowledge.
Absolutely.
>> Maybe they want to get that knowledge
out, but maybe that's just not the
medium for them. Yeah,
>> maybe they write or maybe they just
>> don't want to share their favorite
object. So, I'm I'm sure you encounter
people like this, but by virtue of the
fact that they're going into a
particular job or or line of work that
they they're told they have to get good
at speaking to a whole room.
>> Yeah. And I think that's unfortunate
when people say you must be better at
this. There are lots of ways to
communicate and everybody should find a
vehicle in a way that's helpful for
them. There are some roles that require
certain types of communication and if
that isn't something you're comfortable
with, maybe you look at a different
role. But I believe we can all learn our
communication
skills.
I've spent much of my career helping
people feel more comfortable and
confident speaking in front of others,
working on anxiety that goes around it,
helping people to see that there are
lots of ways to communicate. Maybe I
don't have to hold this object up and
make it about me and my object. Maybe I
tell a story about the object or I tell
a story about how I came to have the
object. So, it's less about me and it's
more about the story. If we can get
people to distance themselves sometimes
from the the fear itself and get others
engaged, it can work really well. I
coached a very senior leader at a at a
very big company everybody's familiar
with and he was really really nervous
and as he got promoted he had larger and
larger audiences and what he would do
what we worked on doing is in essence
distracting the audience right at the
beginning he would start by saying let's
watch this 30- secondond video and then
when the video was over he became a
facilitator of what just happened so
what did you think what does this mean
and he was much more comfortable
facilitating interaction than actually
being the center of attention so there
are a lot of things we can do that that
accomplish the goal of communicating the
information that's not about the
spotlight being on me communicating it.
And I want to share one example of uh or
take the the story about the kids doing
showand tell. I used to do that in my
undergraduate classes that I taught, but
I would I had a wrinkle on it. I'd have
people bring in an object and they'd
have to share it. I had them use that
what so what now what structure and then
I had them tell about an object that
they thought about bringing in but they
didn't. So then they had to say what
that object was and why they chose not
to bring it in. And that was far more
illuminating about the person. And we
talk about authenticity. People just
emoted in a way that they didn't when
they had this thing that I've I've made
sure to think about this and it's going
to make me look good and I've I've
architected my conversation about this
one object. But when they talked about
the other object, their passion came
out, their conversational nature came
out. It was really illuminating to do
that. My graduate adviser told me that
she'd much rather give a talk to an
entire room full of people or an empty
room than one person. Yeah, it's hard to
do it for one person.
>> I think she's unique in that sense. I
think most people are terrified of
giving a talk to a room full of people.
>> I'm still don't know why, but that's not
because it's easy for me. I just I'm
just I wonder what it is. I mean, you
said there's this evolutionary basis.
>> I think I think it's that I think that
the the consequences seem more real when
you're in front of more people. For me
personally, the the the group size
that's most anxietyprovoking is between
like 10 or 12. Once you get above 12,
20, 100,000 people, it becomes to me
more anonymous.
>> But it's that 10 to 12 range that's most
difficult. So, in terms of how how you
can best practice, I do, you know,
vocalizing it is the most important
part.
>> Say it out loud.
>> Say it out loud. You know, I'm amazingly
eloquent in my mind. I'm not always as
lucky when I open up my mouth. So, you
have to actually say it out loud. We
make so many assumptions in our mind uh
connect dots that when we actually speak
it we realize they don't do that.
Recording yourself obviously and
listening uh getting trusted others. You
just have to get it out. And this isn't
just for a big public speaking. I mean
this is in a high stakes interpersonal
communication. Maybe I want to ask my
boss for a raise. Maybe I have to give
some feedback to a colleague that's not
great. I have to practice this stuff and
I have to think about not only what am I
going to say, but I also have to
anticipate the responses and maybe
roleplay some of that as well. You know,
athletes do lots of drills so when
they're in the game, they can play it
well. We need to do the same thing. It
it amazes me when I work with with
senior leaders of companies and they'll
say, "Oh, I practice the presentation
once or twice and I'm ready to go." And
I think, think about a stand-up comedian
how many times they practice their
routine over and over again. How can in
just one or two times flipping through
the slides you have that content? So
getting it out, practicing it, getting
the reps, absolutely important. One
person, 10 people, nobody. It needs to
be practiced.
>> We do think we know how to say something
until reality hits us square in the
face. It's almost like if we read a word
many, many times and we think we know
how to pronounce it
>> and then at some point we're required to
pronounce it or we pronounce it
incorrectly and then we realize we've
been essentially pronouncing it in our
head. incorrectly for a very very long
time.
>> You and I talked prior and I I shared
with you I've done martial arts for a
long time and when you learn a new move,
you learn it in the air and you can
become a really great you can do that
move really well, but then when you meet
another person and have to practice that
move, that's where reality sets in. And
that's that's exactly what you're
talking about. You have to you have to
experience it in reality in the real
world and then you see where you're
really at.
>> Yeah. I'm not a martial artist, but
years ago like um spent a little time in
a boxing gym and I can tell you shadow
boxing is not the same as getting hit
and the heavy bag doesn't hit back. I
mean it has some, you know, physical
weight to it that's different than
shadow boxing, but
>> yeah,
>> it's a whole other experience.
>> Exactly.
>> Like anything,
>> it's that feedback.
>> Yeah. I've been um really intrigued by
the uh famous choreographer Twilight
Tharp. She's now in her 80s. She's
incredible.
said and written incredible things about
choreography. And um she said that she
has this practice where she'll um sort
of develop a dance routine, then go
through it in her head, then because she
was a dancer, she can try it, and then
she has people do it, and then imagine
it, and then they iterate thousands and
thousands and thousands of times before
they actually even perform it once in
front of a small audience and and not
publicly. So it's it's an incredible
thing that we would expect ourselves to
be able to like get up and communicate
information really well without having
done that.
>> One new world that I think is really
interesting with regard to this
rehearsal is there's some VR tools now
that you can actually dawn and practice
the presentation and you can see a
simulated audience and you and some of
these tools you can actually program the
audience's responses. You can say
they're favorable or they're ignoring
you. So you can desensitize yourself and
I think that's a really interesting
vehicle for people especially people who
are phobic to desensitize to to get in
the in the goggles and practice the
presentation and some of them you can
actually if you have slides you can
upload the slides and you can practice
referring to them. So I I think it's not
only in reality but in virtual reality
we can practice and prepare too. Do you
think that if somebody wants to get more
fluid at uh presenting information that
they could uh find a a friend who would
select an object in the room for them at
random and then they'd have to give a a
brief improv talk about it or something
like that just to get comfortable
>> taking on topics with some level of
fluidity.
>> Yeah, I think improvisation is is a
wonderful way to get better at
communicating because improv isn't about
being funny. Improv is about being in
the moment and responding to what's
needed. And so, yeah, doing anything
like that, you don't even need a friend.
You can just look at an object and start
talking about it. Describe it. Share a
story about it. All of that could be
useful. You could flip open a book and
pick a word and then talk about what
that word means. Those are some of those
agility drills that can help you be
better when you're put on the spot. And
and it builds a confidence, too. It's
like, I can do that. If I can do this
when I pick a random word, I can do this
when somebody asks me a question that I
know a lot about the topic on. So, it's
a way of building confidence and helping
with that in the- moment processing. I
feel like people over the age of 15 are
not
>> terribly comfortable uh embracing these
theater-like games because it seems
childlike,
>> but it's actually that childlike level
of curiosity and communication that
you're seeking when you are going to be
an effective communicator.
>> Yeah. A class I co-e at Stamford uh
through their continuing studies program
is called improvisationally speaking. I
partner with a gentleman named Adam
Tobin who's an excellent improviser and
together I bring the communication piece
and it's a way of giving people baby
steps and permission to do some of these
improv games because we directly link a
particular improv activity to a specific
communication need and when people see
that they open up. Uh at Stanford's
graduate school of business there are
several courses that bring in
improvisational
ideas into very serious things. how how
to be a manager and adapt to management
skills through improv, how to
demonstrate your status and power
through some of the things that that
improv teaches. So, taking improv or at
least understanding some of those
principles certainly can help.
>> When I think about the truly archival
important information on the internet,
very few things break through. I
sometimes play this game. I think like
what is like true legacy content on the
internet? And one of the things that
breaks through is Steve Jobs uh 2015, I
think it was, uh commencement speech at
Stanford,
>> the I have a dream speech. Obviously,
Martin Luther King, JFK said some um
some pretty important things.
>> Um those were written speeches.
>> Yeah.
>> And they're reading from a script and
they include story in many cases,
>> so it fits. And yet like the job speech
which I've listened to many times um
he's reading from a piece of paper. So
it runs counter to a lot of what we're
talking about
>> and yet it's extremely effective
communication. Why do you think those
examples let's just say JFK Martin
Luther King Steve Jobs I should probably
include a few others but those are the
ones that come to mind. Why do you think
those are at least among the most
effective um incidents of great
communication that linger in people's
minds?
>> Well, there are several factors. One, I
think, is that they're incredibly well
written. They are they are poetic. They
are aspirational. They use rhetorical
flourishes that that make them
memorable, repetition, alliteration,
things like that.
They also are in a context in in a time
when those messages were really
important and needed and though they
echo they connect at a level of what's
going on in the zeitgeist of the moment
JFK's moonshot speech Martin Luther
King's civil rights speech um Steve Jobs
I would argue what was going on in the
economy and the environment at that time
that message really resonated so I think
it's a match of context and timing it's
a match of really important
ideas presented in a really important
way with specific rhetorical flourishes
that really make them memorable. And and
I think also the the character that
those people brought to it also makes a
difference as well. I think other people
could say those words and not have the
same impact.
I'm having a hard time coming up with a
memory from the last 5 to 10 years of
really important public communication
moments. I can remember certain things
happening that were televised and
online. Um, but those were more things
that happened. I think we're getting
noisier. Not I think I know we're
getting noisier. there more messages out
there in even in the the case of Steve
Jobs which was the most recent in the
example you gave things weren't as noisy
it wasn't as crowded right and so I
think it's hard to hear those phrases or
those speeches in these environments
where there's so much noise going on
certainly when we observe traumatic
events
>> yes
>> those are flashbulb memories right I
remember the shuttle disaster yes
>> certainly 911 I think the most salient
recent one would the the assassination
assassination, excuse me, of Charlie
Kirk. Um, you know, everyone knew about
that. It was and it was and it was on
video,
>> right?
>> Right. That's so it's such a different
thing for people to see a grainy video
versus a high definition video.
>> Um,
>> which is what we see now. Um, so that in
some sense,
>> you know, it creates this different
threshold for what what's memorable,
>> right?
>> And and those are all tragic events. um
JFK's assassination, you know, it's a
grainy video and and shot at a distance
and very few things get in the in the
domain of
>> of not tragic, not traumatic uh get big
signal the noise that really lasts long.
>> I think that's true. And I think people
that we don't have the the people aren't
referring to the same channels. So
people are getting the information
differently as well and and that's also
dividing our attention. So we're not
seeing these things really bubble up.
But I do think it's also a commentary on
where we're at as a society as well. I
think it would be lovely if we heard
more and more positive
speeches that resonate with people that
were citing and quoting years from now.
>> Yeah, I think about this a lot.
>> Um, you know, I think about um the non
bad events.
>> Yeah.
>> That get big signal noise
>> and there are none come to mind right
now. Forgive me folks if I'm missing
some recent thing where some puppy did a
super cute thing, but there's so many
millions of those videos that I think
we've become saturated. It's like the uh
uh information equivalent of highly
processed food. Like our senses have
been dulled.
>> I think there's some truth in that. And
and I also think we're we're uh moving
away from traditional oration as the way
it used to be done, right? there just
aren't forums for that. Uh you can watch
some TED talks there. I mean some
amazing TED talks out there and other
talks of that caliber. Um but I don't
know that any have risen to the level
that you're referring to.
>> Yeah, I think Benet Brown's talk TED
talk on vulnerability is one of the ones
that I think is really legacy. Most
people younger than 18 probably haven't
heard it, but anyway, we'll we'll put a
link to it. And then there are a bunch
of other really great TED talks as well.
You have an amazing TED talk. I saw one
A talk online with 24 million views is
not a trivial number of views. That's
and it was a hour-long conversation
about effective communication. So
clearly people care about effective
communication.
>> Yeah.
>> Um do you think that
>> people being good at one-on-one
conversation makes them better at
onstage conversation? Or do you think
these are two completely different
skills? I get this question a lot. I
think I think there's a ven diagram.
There are people who are able to connect
one-on-one in a way that's hard to do on
a stage. A lot of it has to do with what
academics call immediacy. I'm present
with you. I'm focused. We're we're
engaged in that way. And that doesn't
necessarily translate on a big stage or
in a meeting. But some of the skills do
translate. It's having structure, having
focus in terms of a goal for what you're
saying, being able to start in a way
that's compelling. So, it's a ven
diagram. And there are people who can
command a presence on a stage and you
put them in front of one person and they
don't know how to to respond. So in
terms of messaging, I think there's a
lot of overlap. In terms of presence, I
think it really varies a lot and that
but I believe everybody can learn to be
better at communication. I wouldn't do
what I do if I didn't believe that. So
if you are good interpersonally but not
so good in front of a large group, use
the skills you have. find a path to hone
and develop those skills in a different
environment. And similarly, if you're
good on a big stage, let's take what you
do there and find avenues to help you
interpersonally, but uh they're they're
not always the same. And there are some
people who are good at both. I'm excited
to share that Matina, the Yerba Mate
drink I helped create, is now available
at Whole Food Stores nationwide.
Longtime listeners of this podcast know
that Yerba Mate is my preferred caffeine
source. It provides smooth energy
without giving you the jitters. And it
has a lot of other potential benefits,
including helping to regulate your blood
sugar, improving digestion, mild
appetite suppression, and much more.
Matina is my absolute favorite of all
the Yerba Mate brands out there, and
I've tried them all. Given my love for
Matina, I decided to become a part owner
in the business, and I helped them
create their new line of products, which
are all entirely zero sugar. These zero
sugar cold brew matina flavors are
fantastic. I drink at least three cans
of them every single day. You'll often
see them on the table during my podcast
recordings. I absolutely love the
product and I'm proud to now have it
sold at Whole Foods. So, check out
Matina at Whole Foods stores nationwide.
It's cold brewed with the absolute best
ingredients. It has zero sugar and it
tastes amazing. And if you don't have a
Whole Foods near you, you can also buy
it online at drinkmatina.com.
These days, we hear uh quite often about
um neurotypical and neuroatypical.
>> Yes. Uh and I do think there's a
distinct difference in the
conversational style, the amount of
procity. Um I don't want to say affect
because uh I have some close friends who
are neuroatypical and they tell me and I
believe them that they have every bit as
much emotion underneath their voice as
somebody who's like really you know
really um you know sharing that emotion
in in these inflections of voice and and
their bodily movements. Do you think
that we need to adjust our kind of
concept of what effective communication
is based on this what seems to be an
expansion of at least the understanding
of neurotypical neuroatypical?
>> Yeah, I I I certainly don't mean to
conflate neurodeiversity and
introversion and extroversion. But the
question you're asking to me is I I hear
it as a similar way. Is is there one
right way to communicate or one better
way? And people who don't communicate
that way are they at a disadvantage? Uh
I think there are expectations for what
effective communication is but I think
it is a we can expand it and and there
is value for people
regardless of if it's neurodiversity or
introversion for example extraversion
tends to get rewarded just because you
get you hear it you see it but the I I
think there are things that we can learn
from people who are neurodeiverse that
can help to really connect and and be
better communicators so too in the way
that folks who are highly the
introverted communicate can help. There
is certainly no one right way to
communicate. There are better ways and
worse ways. And regardless of where you
are in terms of introversion,
extroversion, neurodeiversity, you can
communicate effectively. Play to your
strengths. There are things that
introverts do that are amazing that
really help move communication forward.
People with certain types of
neurodeiversity in terms of the
creativity or the level of detail with
which they communicate can be really
helpful. We just have to find those
advantages and and lean into them to
help.
>> I find that when it comes to podcast
guests,
>> yeah,
>> if somebody wrote a book at some point,
they tend to be pretty comfortable
podcasting independent of whether
they've been on a lot of podcasts
before,
>> which raises the question, is the
practice of writing out one's thoughts
by hand or typing them out an effective
way to prepare to speak or just get
better at speaking generally? And I do
understand that eventually you got to if
you want to get better at push-ups, you
got to do push-ups. If you want to get
speaking, you have to speak.
>> But do you think writing and
transferring ideas onto paper helps
people become better communicators?
>> Short answer is yes. But I think it's a
two-part process. The first part is the
thought process that goes into what
you're going to write. Having written
some books, I know you're you're writing
a book, you you think differently about
your content. You have to think about
the audience. You have to think about
how do these pieces fit together? or is
there a scaffolding that's needed? So,
it's the thought process that helps, but
then the actual putting pen to paper,
fingers on keyboards, when you have to
make word choice, when you have to think
about the syntax, the grammar, you are
more intimately involved with your
content than you are when you're just
thinking about the ideas. So, so I think
at both levels, it's helping you hone
your message. I'm a very nervous writer.
I'm not a very nervous speaker. I I am
very nervous about what I write, but I'm
a better editor than I am writer. And
that editing process really trains your
brain to be ready to respond to
questions, to focus information. And so
I think each of those steps, the
ideation, the actual crafting, and then
the editing prepare you to communicate
better. And all of us can use different
parts of those. You don't have to write
a book to be able to use those skills to
speak better.
I used to prepare my scientific talks by
building the slidesh
>> and I required that there be nothing
else going on in the room because in my
head I'm thinking about what I'm going
to say as I build the slide. So the
building of the slides oneself.
>> Yeah.
>> Including sometimes the illustrations
etc was an important part of preparing
the talk.
>> Right.
>> I find that if I can just cut and paste
figures it's much worse.
>> Yeah. I call it a franken deck. people
like uh uh accumulate different slides
and slam them all together like
Frankenstein was an amalgamation.
There's no story there. There's no
thought process that ties it all
together. So the slide was the
manifestation of your thought process
>> and that's why I think it was so useful
to you.
>> Can I share a story?
>> Sure.
>> You're the guest, but I I really want
your thoughts on this.
>> Uh we have a colleague at Stanford. I
his name escapes me, forgive me, but
years ago we were um we were Pew
Fellows, which was this group where you
know Congratulations. Thank you. I I
still don't know how it happened for me,
but it happened.
>> Anyway, we had to give our talks the
fourth year
>> and you know, talk about being in a room
full of people where you're like, whoa,
this is a serious. It's people from all
around the the the country and you know,
and it's not just neuroscience. And so,
you know, you're humbled to be there. I
don't care how good you are.
many people in the room are going to be
better than you. There's this one guy,
he's now a faculty member at Stanford,
and for his talk, he got up there and he
said, "Rather than show you a bunch of
data, I'm going to play you a movie and
a song
>> and he put up this video of these oil
droplets bumping into one another." And
the sound or the song corresponded to
the oil droplets bumping into one
another. And my first thought was, "This
guy's crazy." Like, he's legitimately
crazy
>> or he just kind of doesn't care.
This is pretty cool.
Um,
but then he went on to give a talk about
how he was using sound in order to
develop novel molecules. He went on to
win a MacArthur Genius Award. He's built
$1 microscopes in centrifuges that
they're using in Africa to diagnose
diseases in areas that have very little
funding. He's one of those.
>> Yes.
>> And I remember thinking
like, wow, like this guy is incredible.
>> Yeah.
>> Just spectacular levels of
>> [snorts]
>> uh communication ability. He I think he
actually is a genius. You know, the
these genius awards. It's kind of a
funny name, right? Um
>> and and I realiz
>> I would know I never got one. What's
that?
>> I never got one. I didn't get her. And I
think some people that get them are
geniuses and I think some are not
frankly you know and and um
>> but that talk was really
>> it wasn't just humbling. It was really
eye opening for me
>> because it made me realize that if
somebody
>> has true command of the material and
they believe in their own unique vision
enough
>> that you really can use something as uh
what seems as vague as a bunch of oil
droplets bumping into I mean it was
pretty but it looked like a lava lamp
frankly and some music but it was the
perfect bringaround because it it was
such high signal to noise
>> and hats off to him. He's amazing. If
people try to do that and it doesn't
work, yeah,
>> it fails spectacularly. If it works, it
succeeds spectacularly.
So, do you think, you know, there's
something to, you know,
whether or not we should stay
conventional or we should try hooks like
that? I never once thought I should do
something like that when giving a talk,
>> but it was I mean, you can probably tell
by the way I'm relaying the story. it
still sits in my body as one of the more
fantastic experiences in my entire
academic career. So I was like that was
incredible and I'll never forget it. I I
think what that particular talk did is
it violated expectations and in so doing
it made it stand out. Should people test
boundaries and push things in
communication? I think they should, but
I think we need to be a little
thoughtful about that and perhaps AB
test them, run them by some other
people, say, "I'm thinking of doing
this. What do you think?" And make sure
that the risk you're taking is
calculated. I have this conversation all
the time with my students and and the
people I coach around humor. Now, I'm
not saying telling a joke is similar to
your experience, but it involves risk.
And if it works, humor is an amazing way
to connect. But if it fails, it's a
great way to disconnect. So, you have to
think it through. You have to understand
the costs and the benefits and I think
test it out on a few people and then see
what happens. It sounds like this person
did uh not only violated expectations
but they were able to give you a
visceral experience of what it was that
they were studying. So it wasn't just a
concept which many of these you and I
both attend lots of academic talks. I
mean it can get very theoretical, very
conceptual, but made it very tangible
and because of that that was helpful to
the goal that they were trying to
achieve. So I often challenge people,
how could you communicate this
information in a way that really gets
people engaged and involved? Could you
do something on a whiteboard? Could you
use an analogy? Is there a story you
could tell or a question you can ask
rather than just detailing the
information? So do something that
violates an expectation but in line with
and supports the goal that you have.
>> Do you think that some introspection
about who one is is helpful? You know
like I couldn't give that talk even if I
had half the knowledge I couldn't give
that talk like I can give the talk that
I give. Um, and sometimes I wonder
whether even if a talk is very dry, it
works because the person is dry
>> or if somebody has more theatrical, it
works because the person is theatrical
outside of the talk. This kind of brings
us back to authenticity. Sometimes I
wonder if people just need to figure out
who they are and how they process
information in the world and just try
and share that the same way that a
musician would share their song or um an
artist would share their visual art or
um or some other form of art because
that's the filter that they experience
the world through. Yeah, I think a lot
of times we we want to hear things
because we want to access these other
portals that we can't get to.
>> I think understanding what works for you
and where your strengths are is
absolutely important. But at the same
time, you don't know where some of those
strengths are if you don't try other
things. And that's why coming back to
this notion of improv as a one example,
you don't know until you do it where
your comfort levels are and where those
boundaries are. And you might learn that
there's some things you can do really
well that would help you be a better
communicator. So absolutely
investigating what works for you and
leveraging that is important, but also
expand a little bit to see where you can
grow. I think the work you do, the work
I try to do in terms of podcasting and
writing and teaching, we're trying to
expose people to more information that
they could then adapt and adopt so that
they can perhaps expand the way they
communicate, they research, whatever it
is. So, I think you do have to
absolutely play to your strengths, but
you have to explore what those strengths
might be as well. I'd hate for everybody
just to do only what they're good at.
>> Can we talk about uh damage control?
[laughter] Yes.
>> Uh you know I I do think having coached
students and postocs through public
speaking and having seen one complete
meltdown. I I this person is now a
professor. He's doing incredible work.
He's you know he's went on to get a job
and everything but during a practice
talk
>> in front in front of a small number of
people. It was like total meltdown.
Total meltdown. No recovery. just we had
to just delay and do it another time
despite
>> so he he literally just stopped talking
walked off the
>> he froze and and he apologized and then
we said no it's fine I mean it was a
small venue and then we tried to you
know encourage him along and and maybe
he hadn't slept well he had a lot going
on but it ended with him sitting on the
side of the stage asking everyone to
please leave
>> oh okay
>> it was so it was heavy you know it was
heavy and it was very important for us
to all get back in the room again and
and he did that and then he went on the
job market and he got a position and
he's tenure faculty member someplace now
so
uh he recovered himself is you know we
all have bad days but I think hearing
that some people are probably like oh my
goodness
>> right
>> um what to do if one does forget what
they're trying to say on stage or
>> right
>> um just choke
>> you know I I recommend if people are
nervous that they actually have some
outlet for that movement as I talked
about before pacing or even bouncing
one's knee behind the podium very
effective at dispelling energy and
getting one to relax it I just think
it's a a use it's been a useful tool for
me and and I think for others have
suggested too as well. But how bad do
you think it is if somebody suddenly
stops on stage and just says sorry I
lost my train of thought and goes back
to it? Do you think it humanizes them or
do you think that it actually is deadly
for the message?
Like with my students I have to say it
depends. It depends on the circumstance
that you're in. I do believe that
audiences are more forgiving. What I
advise the people I teach and coach to
do in those moments is instead of
saying, "Oh, I forgot what I want to
say." Why not say, "I get sometimes so
passionate about what I say, I get a
little ahead of myself,"
which is likely true, and use that as a
as a reason to reset. Let me share with
you what I advise people to do to avoid
blanking out and then what to do if you
do blank out. First and foremost, avoid
memorizing. Memorizing invites blanking
out. So, let's not memorize. Let's have
a clear structure, a road map, but we
don't know every word that we're going
to say
rational. The fear of blanking out leads
and increases the likelihood of blanking
out. So,
let's not worry about blanking out as
much as we do. How do we do that? We
rationalize. I ask everybody to think
about what is the likelihood in this
upcoming communication, whatever it is,
one-on-one big presentation, that you'll
blank out. Most people say maybe 20%.
Well, that means 80% of the time you're
not going to blink out. I'm not a
betting person. I'd take those odds. So,
realizing that it's not as likely to
happen, that's step one. Step two, ask
yourself, if it were to happen, what's
the worst thing that would happened for
me? Well, it would be incredibly
embarrassing. It would be awkward, and
it might have some short-term
implications. But who in their life
hasn't been embarrassed, been in
situations that are awkward, and had
short-term implications? So, when you
put it in that context, all of a sudden,
blanking out isn't as likely as you
think. and it's not as bad as you think.
That reduces the stress you have about
doing it, which reduces the likelihood.
So, by not memorizing and rationalizing,
you can actually reduce the likelihood
of blanking out. Now, let's say the
worst happens. You blank out. You You
don't know what to say. First and best
thing to do is just what you do if you
lose your phone or lose your keys.
Retrace your steps. Repeat what you just
said. Most of us can remember what we
just said. And then that gets us back on
track. If that doesn't work, the final
rip cord I think you can pull is to
distract your audience. What does that
mean? Ask a question. This will happen
to me. There'll be I teach the same
class a lot. Sometimes I can't remember,
did I say this this time? I just need a
moment to think. I'll just pause and
I'll ask my students a question. They
don't they think that's logical. Anybody
can come up with a question. If you ever
hear me, anybody listening, if you ever
hear me say, I want to pause for a
moment and think, have you think about
how what we've just discussed can be
applied to your life, that means I have
forgotten what I want to say next. In my
mind, I'm what the heck do I say next?
Most of the people in my audience are
like, how would I apply that in my life?
That's great. It gives me that fraction
of a second. Gives me that sense of
control. Most of us can leverage a
question to buy us that time. So, let's
not say, "Oh my goodness, I forgotten.
It's the worst thing ever. I get
passionate sometimes. Sometimes I can't
I get ahead of myself. Give me a moment
or just ask a question. It's similar to
I advise people who are nervous speakers
never to say, "Oh, excuse me. I'm so
nervous." A lot of people try to
pre-apologize for their nervousness. And
all they do is prime us to pay attention
to everything they do that's nervous.
So, let's not call attention to the
mistakes we make. Let's just do what we
can to get through them. And that's
going to help.
>> Great advice that I'm sure will help a
lot of people.
>> I hope so. The most spectacular example
of a recovery I've ever seen was
actually a job talk at Stanford.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know if I should include this
person's name. He's now a professor at
UNCC Chapel Hill, but he could have been
a faculty member at Stanford because
[laughter] of I think the data, but also
what happened was he spilled water into
his laptop during the talk.
>> You know, they have that podium,
everyone's given water in case you get
thirsty. Keep the water below, folks.
And he he spilled it. But the way he
handled it was so cool.
>> What'd he do?
>> It spilled.
He didn't say anything. He took the
bottle, put the cap back on, put it
underneath, reached underneath. There
was no towel. He said, "Uh, could
somebody perhaps get me a paper towel or
a towel?" They brought him a towel. He
spped up whatever moisture was on his
laptop. He said nothing the entire time.
This is Mark Zilka. He's a total badass.
Um, and then he went back and finished
his talk.
>> Yeah.
>> I was like,
>> that was awesome.
>> Composed under pressure. That was
awesome. You know, contingency planning
is a really important part of all
communication is thinking about what
what could happen that would lead this
conversation or communication in one
direction or the other, positive or
negative. How would I respond? It makes
sense. You know, when you plan a trip, a
vacation, you you think about what
happens if the flight's delayed? What
happens if the room isn't ready? We
should do that in our communication as
well. Not to script it out, but just to
be ready. So, I think everybody
listening now, what would you do if your
technology didn't work in that moment?
Think about it. And then when it
happens, you you've got that recovery
plan and that you just build that
confidence. Perhaps he had thought about
what happens if I can't use my tech. And
that's what helped him be calm.
>> Incidentally, he works on pain.
>> [laughter]
>> I don't know what that's word, but it
was just an awesome display of of calm
under pressure or something under
pressure. I I think it it was the fact
that he just kept things moving forward
>> and stood in silence. The the ability to
stand in silence in front of people
demonstrates confidence in so many ways.
And so the fact that he was able to take
care of business in silence, I think
added to that.
>> I feel like when people get nervous,
their um voice gets up into their heads.
>> Yeah. they start going up on their
tiptoes and they start esphixxiating
themselves by speaking much higher than
their natural tone of voice is.
>> Um so sometimes I
encourage people to um
>> slow down.
>> Yeah.
>> And try and drop their voice down
further into their throat and chest a
little bit.
>> Right.
>> Um it can be artificial like there's one
very salient example of a former CEO
>> uh who perhaps didn't have the voice
that they spoke with. Um but um but
assuming it's still your voice.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. Oh, absolutely. Uh you taught me
when you were a guest on my show uh a
lot about breath and how breath can
impact not only your confidence and the
anxiety you feel, but how doing breath
breath work can really help you still
your your whole body and allow your
natural voice to come out. Because when
we get anxious, we breathe shallow. Less
air is being pushed out. It's being
pushed out faster. Our voice starts
sounding like this. And sometimes this
is actually really appropriate. If I'm
really excited about something, I should
sound like this. But I want it under my
control. So breath work and having an
authentic natural voice is really
important. You one thing you might find
interesting that's come out in the
literature since the last time we spoke
is that while the physiological side
double inhale long exhale is still the
best way to calm down quickly turns out
that all exhale emphasized breathing
slows the heart down
>> just subtly but significantly enough
that it helps you calm down. So if
people can't remember like what breath
work to do physiological side, just
emphasize an exhale. Extend it. Make it
a little bit more vigorous. If you need
to be covert about it, maybe just extend
it a little bit. Maybe walk back to the
podium or away and do that long exhale.
That seems to really make a big
difference because you're offloading
carbon dioxide. But also there's this
pathway through the vagus nerve that
literally slows your heart rate down
when you exhale. It's pretty spectacular
that we have these mechanisms in us. You
know,
>> I think it's fantastic. And I and I give
credit to you. Every single lecture I
give when I talk about anxiety, I talk
about what you shared with me. It's all
about the exhale. And I will always say
the rule of thumb and then I'll joke the
rule of lung is you want your exhale to
always be longer than your inhale to
help you calm down. And people have
found that liberating. So I appreciate
that you shared that with me and know
that others are taking advantage of
that.
>> You're welcome. And it came from a place
of need that I came across those tools.
Uh because I think that we can prepare,
prepare, prepare,
>> but it's the knowledge that things
happen in the moment that we can't
control.
>> That's right. I mean, that's the really
scary thing.
>> That's right. And if you think about it,
most of our communication is that it's
spontaneous. We don't know what's going
to happen. I mean, a lot of what you and
I have been talking about is is planned
communication. It's the presentation,
the pitch, the meeting with agenda, but
most of our communication is
spontaneous. We don't know how it's
going to unfold. You ask me a question,
I don't know what that question is. I
don't even know if I know the answer.
You ask me for feedback, I make a
mistake, I have to fix it. Most of our
communication is spontaneous. And
getting comfortable with that discomfort
of not knowing how this will transpire
is a big part of the mindset shift that
you have to have to do better in
spontaneous speaking.
>> Beta blockers, yes, beta blockers, no.
So, I have a heart condition and I take
beta blockers regularly and I see how it
slows down your thinking in your body.
I'm not a fan. I think cognitive
behavioral ways of managing anxiety much
better. Now, there are pe I'm not a
medical doctor, obviously. Uh there are
some people for whom beta blockers might
work, but I I actively discourage people
if they're just wanting to take it to
manage anxiety. I think there's so many
other things we can do first before you
have to go to there. But I I my
experience has been it makes me fuzzy
and I'm not as quick,
>> which makes sense because you're not
getting as much oxygenated blood to your
brain.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Getting a great night's sleep the
night before clearly helps.
What do you do or recommend for people
that get a lousy night's sleep the night
before?
>> Well, I wish I I I would like to ask you
that question. I am an awful sleeper. I
am a really good Let's fix that today
because I am a lousy sleeper. Uh
absolutely it is better to get a good
night's sleep than it is to stay up all
night cramming.
>> I tell everybody to train for a big
communication event like you would train
for a sporting event. You need to eat
well. I call it communication hygiene.
You need to eat well, sleep well,
exercise. Um, it is much better to stay
on routine than to deviate from your
routine. Uh, there is some research
around caffeine consumption. Caffeine
consumption is actually really good when
you're ideuliating for creativity. When
you actually go to present, uh, you
shouldn't deviate from whatever your
standard protocol is for caffeine. You
shouldn't all of a sudden go cold
turkey. But taking additional caffeine
because you didn't sleep well the night
before can just agitate you during the
presentation and communication. So, uh,
getting a good night's sleep is great. I
am not the best person to give advice on
how to do it.
>> Well, we could have a long discussion
about this [clears throat]
some of it for for afterwards. I would
say the um
>> couple of things that have helped me
over the years traveling to give talks
both for the podcast and academic stuff,
etc. is
>> if you're going to stay in a hotel,
>> Yeah.
>> pull the plug on the alarm clock in the
hotel. Use your phone instead. put on
airplane mode. Use that one. Why?
Because I've been woken up many times at
4 in the morning because someone prior
to me had set the alarm clock.
>> That just happened the other week.
>> I always unplug that. I actually cover
all the bright lights in the room. I put
a towel by the by the door crack. You
want to get I mean, an eye mask is
ideal.
>> Um
>> I try to ask for a room away from the
elevator because that'll keep you up all
night.
>> Yes. Um those are just some of the like
zerocost things that are very helpful.
But the number one thing to recover
sleep that you didn't get is this
non-sleep deep rest aka yoga nidra
practice. Yoga nidra is the thousands of
year old uh practice of doing long
exhale breathing. Uh it's a 10 to 30
minute practice. We can provide some
links to scripts for these that are
excellent. Uh where you're slowing your
heart rate down. You're doing a body
scan. But the goal during yoga nidra is
to stay awake with your body relaxed.
And it teaches you how to fall asleep
more easily.
>> I would argue based on experience that
yoga nidra and ndr, which is essentially
the same thing, but we've removed the
intentions and I just call it non-sleep
deep breaths. These are zerocost scripts
out there. My voice, other people's
voice, also teaches you how to be very
alert and very relaxed in your body at
the same time, which is a very valuable
skill for a lot of different venues,
including public speaking. Um, so it
will get you better at falling and
falling back asleep. So I can send some
to
>> Awesome. I I I I'm going to take partake
as soon as we're done.
>> Yeah. And of course, you're not drinking
much caffeine, right? You said you have
you only I do one cup of tea a day.
>> So it can't be overconumption of
caffeine.
>> No, it's my I I I get in my head and I
think too much.
>> Your forebrain's working too hard.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yoga nidra will help
with that because the essence of yoga
nidra and NSDR, forgive me, but is it
works so well and it's zero cost. So,
it's one of these things like I'm not
trying to pitch anything, you know,
where you have to go pay for something.
I didn't develop it. It's been around
for a long time. There's this
instruction in yoga nidra that's also in
these NSTRs where you teach yourself to
move your brain from a state of thinking
and doing to just being and feeling to
literally get out of thought.
>> Right?
>> And to do that is very difficult unless
you give your brain enough to do. And
this is why NSDR instructs you to do a
kind of focused body scan and relaxation
because if you just try and not think,
it doesn't work,
>> right?
>> Um,
>> you think about not thinking.
>> Yeah. There's also some really
interesting data on the vestibular
system in falling asleep. I'll share
this now. Just you can try it. I did
this last night. I woke up at once in
the middle of the night. Keep your eyes
closed.
>> If you have to get up and use the
restroom, do that first. But keep your
eyes closed and move your eyes slowly
from side to side. This is not um uh
EMDR. Uh but move your eyes from side to
side. Then move them up with your
eyelids still closed down. Roll them
left or counterclockwise. Roll them
right clockwise. And then try and cross
them a little bit like stare at the
bridge of your nose and exhale. Now this
might sound crazy. It sounds completely
wacky, right?
>> But what it does is it takes you your
vestibular system into a state. We know
this based on data that
mimics the state you're trying to
achieve, which is that you need to
forget about your body's position.
>> Oh,
>> you can't fall asleep if you're thinking
about your body position. In fact, one
of the prerequisites to falling asleep
is forgetting about that, which is why
there are now also data showing that
rocking back and forth,
>> the reason it's effective at making
babies and adults fall asleep, they have
beds that actually rock from side to
side, is because you forget about your
body position when your whole body is in
motion.
>> So, try this and I think you'll find
that it will greatly facilitate falling
or falling back asleep.
>> Absolutely. Tonight, tonight I'm putting
in practice. This is this I get I get
free free consulting here. Thank you.
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Cuz I think that a a
decent night's sleep the night before is
great. Otherwise, do NSDR in the morning
or before a talk um if you can. Um I
think anything to bring your level of
autonomic arousal down if you're if
you're sleepd deprived.
>> Yeah.
>> Can help bring more ease to the the
public speaking.
>> Something else that I really encourage
people to do to help is to have
conversation prior to whatever the big
communication is.
>> This is huge. Yeah.
>> To to connect with people, have
conversation. Whenever I do a keynote,
whenever I'm doing a big presentation, I
will always be talking to people.
Sometimes I have to go find them because
I'm behind stage and I got to wait to
the big introduction. I'll go find
somebody and just have a conversation.
That focus and present orientation that
it brings and just that act of speaking.
I am so amazed at, you know, anybody who
does any athletics or music, you know,
you should warm up first, but people
don't warm up before they speak. They
think they can go from silence to
brilliance without it. Having a
communication with somebody as mundane
as you want it can really help. Did do
you use this technique? It looked like
it resonated with you.
>> Absolutely. Um because I've often and I
still spend a lot of time preparing for
podcasts and doing things in isolation.
>> Right.
>> And I've noticed that if I do that for
too long and then I go like to the
corner cafe that the conversation with
the barista feels like like what is
going on here? It really because you're
in your head.
>> Yeah. uh then it starts to feel like
relief and then you your brain shifts to
a different state. A long time ago I
realized that having some form of
communication in route to a talk or
something can be very helpful.
>> I've found and I'd be curious what you
think that um part of that is the
speaking part of it is also the taking
turns piece because we're going to be
speaking. generally just us speaking,
but that really getting into a
conversation where I listen to what's
coming back forces me to also um
practice withholding speech.
>> Yes.
>> Because I feel like a lot of bad talks
are when people are just kind of fire
hosing or they're adding little elements
to the sentences where they don't need
them
>> and it's it's just nervous. It's just
nervousness,
>> right? Filling the space.
>> Filling the space.
>> So there's some like you said w you need
to warm up,
>> right? and and that that turn taking
that switching I is engaging for the
brain. I would suggest though that when
you are up on a stage giving a big
presentation leading a big meeting you
can actually engage in dialogue. It's
not just calling on people but you can
ask them. You can say imagine what it
would be like if and now you're
imagining it. We are in a communicate
you you're responding even though I'm
not hearing it. I can use an analogy or
tell a story. We are communicating
taking turns in essence. you're just not
responding vocally to me. So, a big
challenge is to be engaging. And there
there's several ways to do it. There's
physical engagement, getting people
doing something. There's mental
engagement, using analogy, stories,
questions. There's linguistic
engagement, taking people into the
future or the past by saying, "Picture
this," or, "Imagine how it used to be."
Those are ways of getting a dialogue
going even though the other person isn't
speaking back versus just me
broadcasting information.
I'd like to take a quick break and
acknowledge one of our sponsors,
Function. Last year, I became a Function
member after searching for the most
comprehensive approach to lab testing.
Function provides over 100 advanced lab
tests that give you a key snapshot of
your entire bodily health. This snapshot
offers you with insights on your heart
health, hormone health, immune
functioning, nutrient levels, and much
more. They've also recently added tests
for toxins such as BPA exposure from
harmful plastics and tests for PASES or
forever chemicals. Function not only
provides testing of over 100 biomarkers
key to your physical and mental health,
but it also analyzes these results and
provides insights from top doctors who
are expert in the relevant areas. For
example, in one of my first tests with
function, I learned that I had elevated
levels of mercury in my blood. function
not only helped me detect that, but
offered insights into how best to reduce
my mercury levels, which included
limiting my tuna consumption. I'd been
eating a lot of tuna while also making
an effort to eat more leafy greens and
supplementing with knack and
acetylcysteine, both of which can
support glutathione production and
detoxification. And I should say by
taking a second function test, that
approach worked. Comprehensive blood
testing is vitally important. There's so
many things related to your mental and
physical health that can only be
detected in a blood test. The problem is
blood testing has always been very
expensive and complicated. In contrast,
I've been super impressed by Function's
simplicity and at the level of cost. It
is very affordable. As a consequence, I
decided to join their scientific
advisory board and I'm thrilled that
they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd
like to try Function, you can go to
functionhealth.com/huberman.
Function currently has a wait list of
over 250,000 people, but they're
offering early access to Huberman
podcast listeners. Again, that's
functionhealth.com/huberman
to get early access to function. I'd
love your thoughts on an experience that
I've had where that I think many people
have um
where one of the most terrifying things
is when you are in a small room, maybe
10, 15, 20 people, they say we're going
to go around the table, introduce
yourself, who you are,
>> right? like I want to go first because
if I have to hear people
>> right
>> go and then it's coming around. I don't
know why but some circuit must ramp up
where I as soon as I start speaking I'm
like hearing my own voice and I don't
have any problem public speaking in case
people haven't noticed but there's
something about that anticipation
>> right
>> without it being my turn to speak that
makes it such like really awkward
>> and then I realized at some point if I
just focus off myself and just really
listen to what people are saying when it
comes around you just say I'm Andrew or
you're whoever and then you share the
information that needs to be shared. But
if I'm anticipating having to speak,
it's like terrifying.
>> Yeah. It's that buildup because it's
getting closer and closer and closer and
and the anxiety that you're feeling is
getting stronger and stronger. I I don't
like go around the room and introduce
yourself. If there's a need for people
to do that, I will always have people
partner up or get in groups of three and
then have somebody introduce somebody
else. It's just much easier.
I do exactly and I coach exactly what
you what you do. I tell people, listen
to everybody else and think to yourself
a question you would ask them based on
what they've said because that causes
you really to focus on what they're
saying. So, you're not getting into your
head and you're not really living at the
the peak all the anxiety feelings you're
having. Now, to help people introduce
themselves, I have a way I like to teach
people to introduce themselves. Don't
start with your name. Start with
something you care about, you're
passionate about, something that
interests you, and then say who you are
for two reasons. There's actually a
third. First is you're going to stand
out because nobody does this. So people
are actually going to remember you.
Second, if you start with something
you're passionate about, you care about,
you can use emotion and inflect your
voice. It's very hard to inflect your
voice when you say your name. And then
finally, if you're a non-native speaker
or you're speaking to non-native
speakers who might have an accent,
hearing something in advance primes our
brain to say, "Oh, that's how that
person speaks." So we'll actually pay
attention and understand their name
more. I don't know about you, but when
people with accents introduce themselves
to me, sometimes it's hard for me to
remember their name because my brain's
trying to get used to that's how they
speak. So, you're helping everybody. So,
when I introduce myself, I don't say,
"I'm Matt Abrahams." I say, "I'm
somebody who's passionate about
communication. My name's Matt Abrahams."
And then I'll say something else.
>> You'll do this at a party uh or social.
So, I envision what you were saying is
more like a meeting, not at a party.
Yeah. But even even at a party, I I
might say I might talk about the the
environment first or connect myself to
the environment before I say my name.
>> Yeah. But I think leading with something
that you care about or concerned about
or something in the environment before
you say your name is a much better way
to introduce yourself. It can't be too
long, but it can really help.
>> Try it next time you introduce yourself.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Know that's a it's an
interesting one. I I miss having a dog
because the dog could absorb a lot of
the awkwardness.
>> Oh, yeah. He was just so handsome.
People had to look at them.
>> Having having a young child does the
same thing.
>> Yeah. Like kids are are a wonderful
bridge to to all sorts of things.
>> But you can find those bridges in lots
of things. Yeah. A now dear close friend
of mine I met waiting in line. I was at
a conference, you know, these academic
conferences. We were at some buffet line
and I didn't know anybody. I was sent by
my department and there's this guy
standing next to me. It was we were
standing too close where you know we
kind of had to talk and I just look
around the room and I noticed that lots
of people were wearing different shades
of blue and I just say did I miss the
the memo about wearing blue and he looks
around and he said yeah that's weird and
we started a conversation there. I
didn't need a dog. I didn't need a kid.
I just made an observation and that
broke the ice enough for us to talk and
now we're good friends. Whenever I
travel to where he is I visit. Whenever
he's out here he visits. So we put a lot
of pressure on ourselves around this
initiation of communication and just
being inquisitive and commenting on
something in the environment can help.
Can we do the British windup? [laughter]
A lot of people won't know what that is.
That there's this like much older lady
that lives in my neighborhood and she
has this little tiny dog.
>> Yeah.
>> And I figure if I just walk over to her,
she's going to like be a little scared,
but like she I see her often. And so I I
did do a windup. I walked over to her
and I said, "Wait, is that the
>> dog that mauled that kid over in
Englewood?" And she was like,
>> "You're pulling my leg." And then, you
know, we become friends, right? No, cuz
I'm not going to just walk up to her
like, "Hey, can you kind of like someone
looming on you, right?" You know, it's
like a little scary, right? Um, so I I
stole the wine. I guess they call it in
Britain, I think they call it a windup,
right? So, I wasn't trying to be funny.
I just I really like this lady and and
her dog is super cute and clearly I need
to get another dog. Um,
>> if one thing has come from this
interview, it's Andrew needs another
dog.
>> Thanks to you, many, many more things
[clears throat] have come from this uh
interview. Far more utility as well. But
I mean, I don't suggest anyone smoke.
But I think um back in the day, this was
the whole thing of people like buming a
smoke. They'd take breaks. I you I
worked a job where I did some packaging
and building of like scooters and wagons
at a toy store in downtown Palo Alto.
And uh on breaks you'd go into the alley
and like there were people working at
the bakery next door and you'd you'd
strike up a conversation. I didn't
smoke, but you'd strike up a
conversation and then you'd get to know
somebody, right?
>> Uh by name,
>> right?
>> Uh but nowadays people are often in
their phones.
>> We use the phone as a pacifier and as a
way of of not having to engage. Uh I I I
have encouraged my two kids uh to help
them get out of this cycle to to to show
something that you're looking at at the
phone. Invite some hey this is pretty
cool. What do you think? Check out this
meme. So it's a use the phone as you're
saying that cigarettes used to serve as
a way to initiate conversation as long
as it's appropriate. And it's funny I
know exactly the toy store you're
talking about because I know that bakery
no longer exists but I used to go there
all the time.
>> They closed Prolific Oven.
>> Yeah. It's gone.
>> It's now a great restaurant by the way.
I guess we can say cuz they they both it
was Palo Alto and Sport World. It was
one of the oldest businesses. They had a
skateboard shop in the back, but prior
to working in the skateboard shop. I wor
I sold shoes and I uh used to build
wagons. A radio flyer wagons and and
tricycles and stuff.
>> I used to go there as a kid because you
we not only would get a toy, but we'd
get to have a treat, too.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Those were fun outings.
>> Yeah, that place was cool. It was a
familyowned. Yeah, it's a
>> um All right. Well, now we're taking
people down memory lane here, but if in
downtown Palo Alto,
>> uh, you can check it out. I think the I
think the sign is still there, but it
might be. Yeah. And and that that
actually brings up something useful. I
mean, I had jobs where I was a they
didn't call it a barista then, but, I
worked at a muffin shop around the
corner, which then got me that job. I
think from conversation across the
counter. I think my niece worked a job
selling frozen yogurt before she went
off to college recently. So,
>> get a job. Yeah. you know, as a kid, get
a job where you interact with people.
>> Having a job uh where you're in customer
service as a kid is so educational for
so many reasons. Communication being an
important one. You learn how to
communicate with a lot of different
people. You learn how to be in service
of other people's needs in that moment.
I think it's it's wonderful. I uh my
first job and a job I had a lot during
high school, I worked at an athletic
club folding towels and when people
would come in, I would give them the
towel and we'd have some small talk. It
taught me to be very comfortable. I had
to announce I mean this sounds so silly
but I the gym is closing in 30 minutes
but as a high school student I had to
say that with a hundred people in the
gym that was nerve-wracking but that was
part of my desensitization.
So cool. Yeah. I think that um I I don't
want to sound old because I I am old.
I'm 50 now. Uh if I feel good I feel
good. I'm going to go another 50 years.
That's the goal. Hopefully healthy all
along. But I think being a camp
counselor
>> Oh, yeah.
>> is the perfect example of um doing
something you barely understand how to
do and having to project confidence
doing it. I mean, they teach you a few
things. At least when I did it, it's
like suddenly you're like in charge of
all these lives. I mean, it's you think
about it, it's pretty wild. But, you
know,
>> by the second session, you're you're in
a groove. Like you're telling people
what to do, when to listen, letting
them, you know, do what they want when
they want. you you can't use um you know
harsh forms of communication. You need
to be you know but you need to keep them
safe. So you need to like use your voice
appropriately. Um
>> you know raise it when it's necessary if
somebody's in danger that kind of thing.
So doing that sort of thing I think is
how we learn how to communicate.
>> Oh absolutely. And and unfortunately
some of those opportunities and jobs are
changing and we have to find other
vehicles to help people. I when I left
high-tech, I taught high school for two
years before I graduated to to do what
I'm doing now. And I learned so much
about communication teaching 14, 15 year
olds that I never learned working in
adults running organizations like I did.
So getting these opportunities is
precious yet we don't have a lot of
those opportunities. One thing I think
we can all do with the younger
generation and even colleagues we have
is role model and talk through some of
the things that we're thinking about in
terms of our communication. So I with my
children will often say I have to have a
difficult conversation tomorrow with a
colleague or with a boss and I'm really
worried about this or I'm thinking about
saying it this way. We don't often get
meta about our communication and yet
they're learnings that we can pass along
and you know you you saw it I see it
where where we're both affiliated with
our teaching. I mean people are
brilliant and they're really good
communicators but they don't weren't
always that way. They had to learn and
they had to do it. And when you start
talking to people which I have the
advantage of doing is asking them how
did you get to do that? What do you do?
There's so much richness in that. And I
think we just have to open up that
conversation, role model it, but also
talk about it with the younger people in
your life, the people you're trying to
uh build up, and that'll really help.
>> Do you think by virtue of the pandemic
and the lockdowns and social media that
there is a swath of people right now who
um really don't know how to engage the
same way that
>> um people even younger than them do. So,
this isn't an agist thing. It's really
that they missed out on an opportunity
uh to engage there. What is it? The Gen
Z stare. Is that a real thing?
>> I don't know about the Gen Z stair, but
I do think there there are critical
periods in development. Uh not just in
we that generation of kids lost a
critical development. Uh one of my sons
was in high school and high school is a
is a great place to learn about yourself
and about communication. And if you're
doing it through a screen, that's a very
different experience. Now, I think he's
a very good communicator, but they they
they missed on an opportunity. A lot of
how you learn is by testing and trying
things out. And if you lost a couple
years of that testing puts you at a
disadvantage. I know because of what I
do, we can build that back and learn it.
But there are there is a whole swath of
people who had to struggle in a way most
of us didn't.
My graduate adviser who I really admire
very much. She's passed away but I have
always admired her was once described by
somebody I think quite aptly as quiet
but not shy.
>> And I realize it's a very powerful
phenotype. And I mention it because some
people listening to this conversation
might think, you know, I'm just not that
chatty. Like I just I'm right.
>> But they're not necessarily shy. like
they're perfectly happy to be in
conversation and and be quiet until
there's something that they want to say
and sometimes she wouldn't say anything
and sometimes she would say things and
indeed she was very very smart but she's
also very at ease. So I came to learn
that there are people who are quiet but
not shy
>> and I think that's a phenotype we don't
often acknowledge when we hear about
introverted extroverted my father was
exactly that way. My father uh most
intelligent person I've ever known. He
was very quiet, but he wasn't shy. And
if he had something to say, he would say
it. And it would often be very profound.
And it it was the way he lived in the
world. And people people appreciated it.
And and he leaned into it. He had
opportunities to speak and would sit
back. And I learned a lot from him that
sometimes the most effective
communication is to just listen and be
present. Uh so I I agree that there that
there are people who who have a lot of
value to add and they just might be
reticent in the moment and I don't think
there's anything wrong with that. We
need lots of we need diversity not only
of ideas and opinions but diversity in
the way we communicate. We hold in this
in our culture this notion that the the
extroverted confident person is the is
the right way to communicate and that's
not always true. You can get into a lot
of trouble, especially extroverts who
who speak first and think second.
>> Especially nowadays where everything is
recorded. Yeah.
>> People will say stupid things that they
wish they hadn't said. I mean, chairs of
departments, fortunately, not at
Stanford, but chairs of major university
departments have gotten themselves fired
by being too loose with their thumbs on
what was formerly called Twitter. I know
at least one prominent example. You just
go like, "What were you thinking?"
>> Right? And apparently
>> they weren't filtering well enough.
>> Brilliant people.
>> And and it wasn't even something that
like it was clear they really believed.
They just said something really
offensive and really stupid. And
>> it's like at least at that time it was
sufficient for them to lose their
position.
>> Yeah. I wasn't into anything nefarious
or bad. I was a good kid growing up. But
I can't imagine growing up with
everything being recorded.
>> Yeah. It's probably a tense time for a
lot of people, but people seem to be
vocalizing and sharing more as opposed
to less,
>> right?
>> Although I I suppose there's a sampling
bias because we're not hearing from the
from the quiet ones without social media
accounts. I feel like almost everyone
has that social media account. Now,
>> what I do admire about all of this
social media is how
people who are younger than I am, at
least are able to manage their presence
in so many different domains. I can
barely show up, you know, dressed
appropriately for a conversation.
They're able to manage their presence on
different platforms, some virtually,
some in person. And that's an art.
That's a skill to be able to to be able
to project yourself in different ways in
different venues. And and again, I'm not
saying be disingenuous or inauthentic,
but there's a skill there. You know, I I
coach a lot of senior leaders who I
would I I'm trying to coach to really be
mindful of your presence, how you show
up, what it means. And I see in my
students who are generally in their mid
to late 20s who this comes easy to them.
This is just something they know how to
do. So the I'm not bashing social media
ever, but I do think that there's some
skills that come with it that that
others could benefit from.
>> Maybe that's why the younger generation
is so much better at it, cuz I see my
peers from high school. I see I see
people 10 years 20 years older than I am
that seem to have an immense need to be
seen on social media. It's part of my
job which is why I do it. But prior to
that I didn't really have social media
accounts or didn't use them. But in any
case, there's no judgment from me on
that. I just I agree it's it's a lot of
cognitive load.
>> It is. But they they are able to switch
in and out of those of that in a way
that that is hard for me and certainly
hard for some of the people I work with.
I'm curious about martial arts and
running. Um, but as in particular
martial arts, do you think that playing
a sport or engaging in martial arts can
actually teach you how to be more
comfortable in your physical body in a
way that transfers to public speaking,
one-on-one communication, small group
communication, just presence, posture,
stance.
>> I enjoyed the question. Thank you. I
don't often talk about my martial arts.
I' I've been doing it over 40 years and
it's it's a very much a part of who I am
and I absolutely think what I've learned
in the martial arts have helped me do
better at what I do and I think what I
do have has helped me be better in the
martial arts. There is a presence and a
connection that you need to have to do
martial arts well especially when you're
working with somebody else. uh it gives
a kind of confidence that I know I can
handle myself in circum in
circumstances. I don't expect to be
attacked, but I know that in a situation
where things go sideways that I can have
some presence about myself. And that
confidence is invaluable in everything I
do. And martial arts is really a form of
communication. I'm observing what my
opponent or that my training partner is
doing. I am trying to connect and
anticipate the next move but not get
locked into it. It it really trains your
brain and your body to be responsive and
to be open. You know, people focus a lot
on the marshall, but the art side is
really what as I get older is what
really attracts me. Art is about
expression, style, connection, and that
to me uh as I've matured in my training
has really become this new wealth of
knowledge. You know, somebody said
you've been studying the same thing for
40 years. It's not the same thing. It
changes. It's multiple levels and ways
of uncovering. So, I think it's great. I
think everybody should have some
physical activity they do that helps
them in whatever professional activity
or their personal lives. You you can
learn so much about yourself and how to
connect with others. I think there's
tremendous learning in uh for lack of a
better term, exercise,
>> but there's something unique about
martial arts or a sport. Not to say that
running isn't a sport. It can be. Or
that resistance training isn't a sport.
It can be. But I think if people are
just exercising and only viewing it
through that lens,
>> that um they're not gleaning the full
benefit. I actually try and make my
resistance training sessions a sort of
meditation.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't allow myself to text or in most
cases
uh bring in too much other information.
I'll listen to music or a podcast. Yeah,
>> but I'm careful with that. I want to
focus on what I'm doing. And I think
it's great practice for cognitive
pursuits. My running is my meditation. I
I really when I run, I I might listen to
something, but I really meditate. I find
I'm very creative as a result of it. And
uh when I don't do it, I miss it. One
area that I like about the martial arts,
at least in the styles I've trained in,
they vary in terms of their activities.
So some of the stuff is completely
spontaneous. You're sparring. It's it's
spontaneous. There's some rules, but
you're sparring. And in the style I
train there there are things called
katas or forms where essentially a
pre-arranged dance of moves long longer
everything is scripted. Uh and then
there in my style we do these things
called self-defense techniques where you
practice certain moves to get out of
each of those is training you a
different way of thinking and being just
like there different ways of thinking
and being in communication. Sometimes
it's completely spontaneous. Sometimes
I'm giving prepared remarks. Sometimes
it's Q&A where I'm saying some things
I've prepared but others I haven't. So
finding vehicles to help you train in
different ways uh crossraining if you
will for your communication can really
help.
>> Fantastic. And I I really like this idea
that we need to consider the uh the
different styles of different audiences.
>> Yeah.
>> Along those lines, I solicited for
questions uh from the audience on social
media and there's some terrific
questions here. Great. Uh, terrific
because I know they relate to questions
that many other people are sure to have
as well. Uh, to kick it off,
somebody asked, "Why do you think women
apologize before sharing their opinions?
What should they do instead? Do you
observe this?" I see this often.
Apologizing is a way of trying to
connect,
yet I think it can backfire. So instead
of saying I'm sorry or I didn't do work,
start with something that you're
confident in. And if you do need to
apologize because there's something you
didn't do or you need to do, have that
come later. The way you start an
interaction sets the tone for the whole
interaction. And if I start by putting
myself one down because I apolog I'm not
prepared or I should have done this
differently. Then our interaction is
going to be very different. So start
with something that you're comfortable
with and confident in and then if you
need to apologize, apologize later. It
really makes a big difference.
>> I'm going to layer in an additional
question. I've seen people give talks
that begin with
I didn't sleep that well last night or
I'm jetlagged so forgive me if I blank
blank and blank. Basically trying to
preload the talk with um maybe a buffer
so that if they make a mistake they're
more protected. I it drives me crazy but
maybe I'm just crazy.
>> No, it bothers me too. You know, Andrew,
my wife taught me a long time ago I
can't pre-apologize. And that's what
people are trying to do, right? So, and
all you do in those circumstances is
prime people to pay attention to
whatever it is you're doing. So, if I
say, "I didn't sleep well." Then people
are going to be looking, oh, he's
stuttering over his words. He's
stumbling. You know, you want people to
focus on your message. Don't
pre-apologize. Just get to what you're
doing. And if something comes up, you
get to decide in the moment, do I
address it or do I just keep going?
>> How to communicate well across cultures
and accents. You talked a little bit
about this earlier, but maybe we could
uh revisit that.
>> So, culture and context loom large in
all communication. Uh we have to think
and when I talk about culture, I'm not
just talking about country of origin.
Different organizations have different
cultures. Different departments within
organizations have cultures. Different
generations have have different
cultures. So, we just have to be
sensitive to that. Uh our messages have
to play differently. So, whenever we
communicate, we have to think about who
we're communicating to in the context
and culture in which we're
communicating.
We live in a diverse society, in a
diverse world where we hear lots of
viewpoints, lots of people from
different places. Accents loom large. On
my show, Think Fast Talks Smart, I
interviewed a lot of people who are
experts in non-native speaking. And what
they all tell me is the goal of a
non-native speaker is not to sound like
a native speaker. It's impossible. It
can't be. You're not a native speaker.
Rather, focus on getting your message
across. Take the pressure off of
yourself. So, what does that mean? That
means I might make my point and then
what I do is I repeat it with a story or
I give an example or I tell an analogy.
It's about getting the point across, not
about worrying about am I using exactly
the right word and the right syntax. And
the reality is, I don't know about you,
but a lot of native speakers of English,
they don't speak English so well either
themselves. So I think if it's all about
getting your point across and using
repetition and other tools to help
>> how to deal with interrupting.
We have a colleague at Stanford by the
way that told me if they interrupt it's
a sign of interest which helped the
interactions. But the question here is
how should we handle interruptions?
We still want to make the interrupter
feel heard in most cases, but sometimes
it can be distracting. Two ways. First,
set expectations upfront. Setting
boundaries can be helpful. So, if I'm
going into a situation, I might say, I
want to spend the first 5 minutes laying
the foundation to what I'm going to say,
and then I'd love to take your
questions. So, if the person does
interrupt, they're violating an
expectation that was set. And that puts
you in a better position to maybe shut
it down. You can say, "Thank you. I hear
you're really anxious. I really want to
get through this material. So, setting
boundaries can help. I believe one of
the most useful communication tools is
paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is where you
take what somebody has said, you
synthesize it, and you distill it down
to something important. If somebody
interrupts you, you can take the floor
back by paraphrasing what they've said
and moving back on. So if I'm talking
about the financial implications of
something and you come in and give me
your opinion, you interrupt me, I can
say cost is really important. And in
fact, I just took it back from you. If
you are somebody who wants to just share
your overwhelming knowledge and you
you're one of those people who bloiates,
I can stop that by interrupting with a
paraphrase. I can say that point you
just made about X really important.
We're going to talk about that next on
the agenda. I think paraphrasing is the
most polite way to get control back, be
it from an interrupter or somebody who's
just talking too much. It can feel
uncomfortable to interrupt somebody with
a paraphrase, but if you're in front of
a room of people or a meeting, not doing
it is actually more rude to the other
people than it is being rude to the
person who spoke. So paraphrasing, I
think, gets you out of those
circumstances.
>> Someone said, "How do I prepare for a
speech?" that I think there's a lot
[laughter] there's a lot that goes into
that, but perhaps there's a shorter
answer um that you could give us a you
know a sort of key
key bins of preparation.
>> Absolutely. Let me give you top a few
top things. First and foremost, you have
to think about who is the audience I'm
speaking to. What's important and
relevant to them related to the topic I
want to speak on. All of us when we
communicate suffer from the curse of
knowledge and the curse of passion. We
know a lot about what we're saying and
we care a lot about it and because of
that we can make assumptions, start too
deep, etc. First, think about your
audience relative to your topic. That's
number one. Number two, come up with a
clear goal. Many of us take our audience
on a journey of our discovery of what we
want to say as we're saying it. We we
don't have a clear path. To me, a goal
has three parts: information, emotion,
and action. What do I want them to know?
How do I want them to feel? And what do
I want them to do? Once you have an
understanding of your audience and your
goal, then apply a structure. Don't just
list and itemize information. Problem,
solution, benefit, past, present,
future, what, so what now. There myriad
structures. If you do that, you will
have content that's meaningful to your
audience and increases the likelihood of
fidelity of the communication. Then you
have to practice. It's not enough to
have a good message. You have to
practice the delivery. If you do those
things, you will give better talks. You
will have better conversations and
better meetings. I was thinking about
something a few moments ago for people
that are afraid of public speaking
because they might choke or dissolve
into a puddle of their own tears on
stage or or freeze or whatever. Um, do
you think it's useful? I would think it
would be useful to try and think about
what you want to happen as opposed to
what you don't want to happen. That's
right. That's right. A lot of people
envision the worst and they self-create
that. Right. It's a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Imagine what the potential
could be. Set yourself for that positive
expectation. And it doesn't have to be
this is going to be the best
communication ever. Just be I'm going to
add value. People are going to learn
something. People will prevent people
won't make a mistake that I'm advising
them to avoid. Just have a a positive
outcome in mind and that can really
help. So thinking about what value is in
it for you and for your audience before
you communicate can really make a big
difference.
>> A few people asked questions uh that
relate to interpersonal relations that
you may be equipped to uh solve for
them. But like how should I win an
argument without losing somebody? I
think that's a is that a different
podcast?
>> That that would be a whole different
podcast. Here's what I'll tell you
though. Listening is important. A lot of
our arguments are over things that that
really don't exist. When I've been I've
done some mediation work in my life and
the number one thing I make people do
when I'm I bring two people who disagree
together is I make each listen to the
other and often the argument disappears.
People didn't realize that. And the
second bit of advice, I learned this
from two friends of mine and my wife and
I deploy this a lot. When we are set up
to have a disagreement, we each declare
how important whatever the issue is to
us is because we assume, you know, if
I'm really passionate about something, I
assume when we're arguing that you're
equally as passionate. But that's not
always true. But if I come at you with
my full passion and you're not as
passionate, I'm going to make you more
passionate. So all of a sudden, we're
fighting. So if I want to go out to
Chinese food, my wife wants to go out to
Mexican food, I might say, for me,
Chinese food is an eight because I
really have been craving it. She says
Mexican food for me is a three today.
There's no fight. There's no argument.
But if she says it's an eight and I have
say it's an eight, then we have the
issue. So understanding the
prioritization and really listening to
understand what's involved, you can
mitigate a lot of the conflict that
you're having.
>> Somebody asked, "How do I get rid of
filler words, um, like, etc."
>> I had a guest on my show. She's a psycho
linguist, and she helped me realize that
filler words are not bad. Filler words
are actually helpful. They do things for
us. They they save the space. So if I'm
not done talking and I don't want others
to interrupt, I say ama. There's
research in the child development
literature that says when we speak to
kids, before we say a new term or give a
new idea, we will often preface it with
a filler word. Um uh we signal what's
coming next is important. And I think
that's why it drives us nuts. Uh when
somebody says so many filler words
because we've been trained as kids that
something important follows it and when
all that follows it is another um we get
frustrated. So the goal is not to
eliminate these. The goal is to make
them not distracting. In fact,
playwrights and screenwriters will
actually add filler words to make it
sound human.
The best way I know to reduce filler
words, especially the ones that are most
annoying, and those are the ones that
sit in silence. So I'm done speaking. um
and then I start speaking again. Those
are the ones that really stand out is a
breath technique. I learned this from
somebody who has been teaching
communication skills for a long, long
time. His name is Jerry Weissman and
it's called landing phrases.
When we speak, we need to be pushing air
out.
If I am inhaling, I can't speak. I
invite everybody listening and watching
to try to say um while inhaling. You
can't do it. So if I train myself at the
end of my sentences and phrases to land
the phrase to be out of breath, I have
to inhale. Not only can I not say um I
can't say anything, I build in a pause.
So as you speak, train yourself to land.
And the reason I call it landing a
phrase, it's like a gymnast who does all
those flips and twirls and then they
stick the landing. So at the end of each
of my phrases, I'm completely out of
breath. I inhale and then I start
speaking again. You can reduce
significantly the filler words. Now, you
have to practice this. And the way I
teach everybody to practice, look at
your calendar or schedule every day. And
once a day, read out loud everything on
your schedule. And at the end of each
one, land the phrase. So, I might say,
"Going to lunch with Andrew, working out
at the gym, seeing my son for dinner."
At the end of each one of those phrases,
I've landed my my phrase. I'm out of
breath. I'm training myself how to do
that. You'll get rid of many of your
filler words.
>> Fantastic.
I'm going to try to do that.
You don't have many filler words.
>> I have to check some recordings of the
podcast. [laughter]
Someone wants to know how to tell a
story without turning it into a sermon.
>> Like how to know when it's going on too
long.
>> There are two ways to answer that
question. One is about time. How long
does it take? My mother has a wonderful
saying. She likes to say, "Tell the
time, don't build the clock." Many of us
are clock builders when we communicate.
We say much more than we need to. So if
you have to tell a story, think about
what's the most critical few. In the
military, they talk about bottom line up
front. Get that bottom line up there. So
don't say more than you need to. The
other part is you have to make the story
engaging and relevant to the people
you're talking to. A lot of people have
such a preamble to get to the start. A
colleague of mine likes to talk about
parachuting in. Just jump right in and
then build the the rest of the story. A
lot of us, well, it was a rainy day and
then it was this and it was that was
that and you just get to the story
first. So, if you parachute in and you
remind yourself to be concise and clear,
you're going to tell more engaging and
better stories. Several people asked how
to ask for a raise. [laughter]
>> There are several characteristics I'd
like people to think about when you ask
for something that you want, especially
from a boss or an authority figure.
First, think about context.
Look at your boss's schedule before you
ask for a raise. Are you the fifth
meeting in a row before you go in? Maybe
it's better to go tomorrow when you're
early. So, context matters. People I
have a colleague who studied parole
decisions judges make and he found that
that decisions are different before
lunch and after lunch even though the
cases are the same. When you ask, you
have to you have to think about that.
Second, when positioning yourself, think
about from your boss's perspective, what
are the criteria they would think about
in terms of giving a raise. Often we
come and say, "Well, I've done this.
I've done this. I've done this and this
colleague got that. Think about what
value you have brought to them. So
approach it from their perspective and
think about how you can position it so
that you are demonstrating your value
again from their perspective. And you
should practice. You should you should
roleplay. Talk to other people. Say I'm
thinking of saying this just so the
words come out instead of just thinking
in your head what you want to say.
Several people asked about how best to
communicate with people who are not very
good at communicating. That's a hard
one. Uh I would encourage people to lead
with questions. Draw the other person
out often. If you can get them talking
about something that's important to them
or connected to what you want, then you
can engage in that conversation. So
again, it's pre-work. It's thinking
about what's of value. lead with
questions and then as soon as the person
responds, give them space to tell more.
My mother-in-law had a black belt in
small talk. She was amazing. Uh she was
from the Midwest. Every time she'd fly
out to visit, she'd come off the plane
with three new best friends. And her
secret, and you mentioned this earlier,
were three words. Tell me more. Once
somebody answers a question, give them
that space to say more. And that really
draws them out and gives you some ideas
of what's important to them so you can
latch on and talk about it more. So lead
with questions, give space for more
communication. That's how you draw
somebody who might be reticent or not
comfortable speaking.
>> Do you ever recommend people memorize
speeches?
>> Never. Uh there are times where I
recommend being very familiar with how
you start. Commencing is the part the
point where people are most nervous
about speaking is about 30 seconds
before in about a minute into what
they're doing. So you can be very
familiar, but the reason memorizing is
so bad is it burdens your cognitive
load. You've created the right way to
say it and you're constantly comparing
what you wanted to say to what you're
actually saying. So having a road map,
having a structure, having some
familiarity with some ideas are
important. If there's certain words that
you really want to get across or certain
data, have a note card, read it. I'd
rather you do that than put the
cognitive burden on yourself of
memorizing.
We talked a little bit about this
earlier, but maybe we can just recap and
add it anything that you want to the
question that's very common here, which
is how to reduce pre-talk anxiety.
>> And it could be public speaking or it
could be one-on-one communication.
>> We could talk a lot about this and when
you were on my show, Andrew, we talked
about some of the biological things you
can do. When it comes to managing
anxiety, you have to manage both
symptoms and sources. The symptoms are
the things you physiologically
experience. You have shared great advice
on breathing etc. I'll give one example.
When I get really nervous, I persspire
and blush. A great way to manage that is
to cool yourself down. The reason you're
persspiring and blushing is your heart
rate's going up, your body's tensing up.
It's like when you exercise, the palms
of your hand are thermore regulators for
your body. Anybody who's ever held warm
coffee or tea on a cold morning has felt
themselves warm up. I will always hold
something cold before I speak and it
helps cool me down. I blush and
persspire less. So there are things we
can do to manage physical symptoms. The
breath work that you talk about is
really helpful. But we also have to
think about sources, the things that
initiate and exacerbate our anxiety.
I'll give one example. Many of us are
made nervous by the goal that we have. I
advocate for having a goal when you
communicate, but sometimes that goal
makes us nervous. My students are afraid
they're not going to get a good grade.
The entrepreneurs I coach are afraid
they're not going to get funding. Uh the
people listening might be afraid their
boss isn't going to support their idea.
So, we're made nervous by a potential
negative future outcome. So, the way to
counteract that is to become
presoriented. Lots of ways to do that.
You can do deep breathing. You can walk
around the building, have a conversation
with somebody. I tell people, do what
athletes do. Listen to a song or a
playlist. That helps you get focused.
Start at 100 and count backwards by a
challenging numbers. Try 17s.
Really have to focus and be present
oriented. My favorite way, and this is
going to sound really silly. I like to
say tongue twisters out loud. You can't
say a tongue twister, right, and not be
present oriented. And it warms up your
voice. It's an opportunity to warm up.
So before I ever do any of my podcast
interviews or a big talk, I will say a
tongue twister out loud three times fast
and it gets me present and warms me up.
So to manage anxiety, you have to manage
symptoms and some of the things that
initiate and exacerbate. There are a
whole bunch of those. And if you do it,
you begin to create for yourself an
anxiety management plan and you can
invoke that plan. And actually just
having that plan helps reduce the
anxiety you have. The very first thing
we do in my strategic communication
class is we have our students create an
anxiety management plan. And not only
does it help them in the course, I have
students years later say, "My
grandmother passed away. I use the
anxiety management plan to help with the
eulogy or I'm doing a best man toast and
I'm using it." Giving yourself tools to
help manage anxiety is one of the
biggest gifts you can give to yourself.
>> Fantastic.
These are incredible
bits and frankly entire meals of advice
uh for people. Public communication and
just one-on-one communication and
everything in between is so important.
And people really carry around a lot of
fear and anxiety about them. But you've
given us a ton of practical tools and I
know these are time- tested and there
are data on many of them and the real
world data are really what count the
most.
>> So I want to thank you for coming here
today to share them with us. Also for
the books that you've written. We'll put
links to those in the show note captions
and uh that you continue to get out
there and on here as a public educator.
you know, there are many many people and
books uh talking about these topics, but
you've clearly thrown yourself into
these as like the guy who's really
tackling them for the greater good. So,
I really appreciate the breadth and
specificity of what you've shared, and I
know everyone else will as well, and I
know that they're going to apply them.
So, my goal was to do this outro without
saying um once. I guess I just said um.
>> You did it well. Thank you. Very fluent.
>> Come back again.
>> I'd love to. Thank you.
>> Thank you for joining me for today's
discussion with Matt Abrahams. To learn
more about his work and to find links to
the various resources we discussed,
please see the show note caption. If
you're learning from andor enjoying this
podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube
channel. That's a terrific zerocost way
to support us. In addition, please
follow the podcast by clicking the
follow button on both Spotify and Apple.
And on both Spotify and Apple, you can
leave us up to a fivestar review. And
you can now leave us comments at both
Spotify and Apple. Please also check out
the sponsors mentioned at the beginning
and throughout today's episode. That's
the best way to support this podcast. If
you have questions for me or comments
about the podcast or guests or topics
that you'd like me to consider for the
Huberman Lab podcast, please put those
in the comment section on YouTube. I do
read all the comments. For those of you
that haven't heard, I have a new book
coming out. It's my very first book.
It's entitled Protocols: An Operating
Manual for the Human Body. This is a
book that I've been working on for more
than 5 years and that's based on more
than 30 years of research and experience
and it covers protocols for everything
from sleep to exercise to stress control
protocols related to focus and
motivation and of course I provide the
scientific substantiation for the
protocols that are included. The book is
now available by pre-sale at
protocolsbook.com.
There you can find links to various
vendors. You can pick the one that you
like best. Again, the book is called
Protocols, an operating manual for the
human body. And if you're not already
following me on social media, I am
Huberman Lab on all social media
platforms. So that's Instagram, X,
Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on
all those platforms, I discuss science
and science related tools, some of which
overlaps with the content of the
Hubberman Lab podcast, but much of which
is distinct from the information on the
Hubberman Lab podcast. Again, it's
Huberman Lab on all social media
platforms. And if you haven't already
subscribed to our neural network
newsletter, the neural network
newsletter is a zerocost monthly
newsletter that includes podcast
summaries as well as what we call
protocols in the form of 1 to three page
PDFs that cover everything from how to
optimize your sleep, how to optimize
dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We
have a foundational fitness protocol
that covers cardiovascular training and
resistance training. All of that is
available completely zero cost. You
simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the
menu tab in the top right corner, scroll
down to newsletter, and enter your
email. And I should emphasize that we do
not share your email with anybody. Thank
you once again for joining me for
today's discussion with Matt Abrahams.
And last, but certainly not least, thank
you for your [music] interest in
science.
Summary

Share This Summary

Embed This Summary

Stay Updated!
