Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How To Be Better At Small Talk And Public Speaking With Matt Abrahams
It was 6th grade when my mom forced me to go to a forensics practice. I was so stubborn and angry that I sat in the back of the class with my arms folded, praying for the clock to speed up. Since then I’ve very slowly become more and more comfortable with public speaking, however, I am far from great.
In an effort to become better at public speaking and my arch nemesis, small talk, I reached out to Matt Abrahams for some tips. Matt Abrahams is a Stanford lecturer, podcast host, and communication expert.. He also recently published Think Faster, Think Smarter. which,
“provides tangible, actionable skills to help even the most anxious of speakers succeed when speaking spontaneously. Abrahams provides science-based strategies for managing anxiety, responding to the mood of the room, and making content concise, relevant, compelling, and memorable.”
In this interview, you’ll learn strategies to master small talk, ways to manage public speaking anxiety, what word structures are and the best ways to use them, and modern strategies to get rid of those annoying filler words.
5 Questions With Matt Abrahams
1. Public speaking and anxiety often go hand in hand. What tips and strategies can you recommend for this common fear?
There are two ways to manage speaking anxiety: you have to manage symptoms and sources. This is a very real fear most people experience it and it is cross-cultural and across ages.
Symptoms are the things that we physiologically experience mentally experience it is caused by the threat that we feel when we are speaking in front of others it invokes the fight or flight response. The single best thing you can do to manage the symptoms is deep belly breathing, the kind you would do if you've ever done yoga or tai chi. You want to fill your abdomen or belly with air and make sure that you exhale twice as long as you inhale. That will slow down the heart rate and slow down the breathing rate which will slow down the speaking rate. If you're somebody you get shaky, you want to make sure that you move in a positive way. The shakiness is caused by adrenaline. The adrenaline’s goal is to move from threat to safety so if you step toward your audience with big broad gestures in a logical way then it helps.
Symptoms are only one part of the equation, sources are the other. Sources are the things that initiate and exacerbate anxiety. We need to deal with those. The most common one that I deal with has to do with goal. Many of us are made nervous by the goal that we have we want to do well. Maybe we want to get funding and for an entrepreneur or support if we're a manager and so what's making us nervous, it’s a potential negative future outcome The way to manage that is to become very present-oriented. You can do that by doing something physical like exercise, talking to people, or listening to a song or a playlist like an athlete. I like to say tongue twisters.
So through managing symptoms and sources, we can do better at our anxiety.
Related: 3 Breathwork Exercises for Stress & Anxiety
2. I've learned to be better at small talk through my daily patient interactions in the clinic but I am not so great in unfamiliar situations. What are some ways to improve at chit-chat and even enjoy it more?
The biggest thing is to realize small talk is valuable a colleague of mine Rachel Greenwald likes to say “It is about being interested, not interesting.” This means the best way to have small talk and to enjoy it is to be curious and to ask questions, comment on things in the environment, or shared experiences. This makes it easier for you and it takes the pressure off.
3. In your book, Talk Faster, Think Smarter, you talk about the use of word structures for different situations. Could you provide an example of a structure and explain how it can be applied?
Structure is very important. Our brains are wired for structure, not lists or bullet points. A structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas: a beginning, a middle, and an end.
My favorite structure, because it is very useful and easy to remember, is three simple questions: What? So what? Now what?
You start by describing what it is you're talking about—your product, your service, your idea, your feedback, your update.
You talk about why it's important to your audience. That's the So what?.
Then the Now what? is what comes next. What they can do with it. It might be let's schedule a meeting, let me take your questions, come on back to the back office, let me show you a demonstration.
What? So what? Now what? is a great way to package up information for your audience. And it's helpful for you as it helps you prioritize what you say.
4. I'm a decent listener but my skills plummet the more long-winded the person is. What are some skills to be a better listener?
In terms of listening to a long-winded person, the first think I would say is you've got to stop them from talking. A great way to do that is to paraphrase. Extract something of value they've said, interrupt them by highlighting it, say thank you for saying it, add value, and then move on to a different topic. So you can stop somebody who talks a lot by just interrupting them with a paraphrase.
To be a better listener, we need to listen for the bottom line. What's the key reason or message that somebody has? Most of us just listen to focus on the high-level meaning before we start judging and evaluating. We have to be present-oriented we have to give ourselves permission to listen well and then we need to listen for the bottom line.
5. "Ums," "uhs," "likes," and "you knows" are filler words that can ruin a good conversation or speech. What are some strategies to break this habit?
The goal is not to eliminate them they're normal and natural it's to make sure they are not distracting. The way that we do that is by becoming aware that we are saying them. You can do that by using your voice memo and listening. There are apps you can use there's one for the phone called Like So there's one for Teams and Zoom called poised.com and they plug in and help you count. The other thing you can do is join Toastmasters. They actually go after filler words really well.
And then you can monitor your breathing. If you breathe very rapidly you tend to have more filler words. So, if you breathe low and slow it will help.
