Transcript for:
استراتيجيات التواصل مع مات أبراهامز

hello listeners welcome to this new episode of the podcast how are you doing today I hope you're doing fine out there in podcast land I'm very happy because today I have the opportunity to talk to Matt Abrahams on my podcast Matt is an expert in communication and he has some very helpful insights and techniques which can help us all to become better speakers in fact Matt has devoted much of his professional life to researching and understanding this subject uh spoken communication how to communicate effectively so he should have some very insightful things to say to us I'm going to talk to him a little bit later today so listeners do you know Matt Abrahams have you ever heard of him you might have read one of his books you might have heard his podcast you might have seen his Ted X talk on YouTube or one of his other presentations here's a bit of background information about Matt so that you know who you're going to listen to and what we're going to talk about so um first of all Matt Abrahams is a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business in California this is quite a prestigious University and uh Matt gives lectures there on the subject of organizational behavior which sounds pretty cool doesn't it organizational is this like how people organize themselves well not EX exactly but it's kind of that organizational behavior is the study of the way in which people interact with each other the sort of interpersonal dynamics that go on between people and so this is linked to the ways in which we interact and communicate with each other it's related to psychology Behavioral Studies maybe a bit of linguistics Matt is also an expert consultant in communication skills which means that he works with private clients and helps them with their communication skills especially with presentation skills and he's helped people to prepare for things like Nobel Prize presentations TED Talks World economic Forum presentations and more and as well as helping other people to do really good presentations Matt is an excellent presenter himself he's an experienced keynote speaker his presentation about communication techniques on the Stanford Graduate School of Business YouTube channel has had over 34 million views okay and it's no surprise because it's an excellent video it's an excellent presentation a sort of masterclass in presentation skills is that an overstatement not really you should see it it's really good I'll put a link in the description so on top of all of those things Matt has a podcast about communication which is called think fast talk smart and his second book which was recently published is called think faster talk smarter how to speak successfully when you're put on the spot okay and in fact that's really what we're going to talk about in this episode I'm going to ask Matt to give his comments his insights and his useful advice for how to do exactly that how to speak spontaneously when you're put on the spot that's the idea so let's now talk to Matt and we're going to time travel a little bit now because I'm recording this introduction in the middle of the afternoon and I'll be talking to Matt in the evening so let's time travel to the evening of today when no doubt the sun will have gone down a little bit because that's what happens in the evening I'm sure you've noticed anyway enough waffle from me let's now meet Matt and talk to him about communication techniques here we go hello Matt very nice to meet you and very nice to have you on my podcast how are you today I am doing fantastically well thank you and Luke it's great to be with you yeah great you're in California how's California today I am we're having a we're having sort of a misty cold morning not very typical for this time of year but uh I I'm enjoying being hunkered down and all cozy to talk with you yeah perfect perfect conditions so Matt so this is a podcast for Learners of English okay and I was just wondering like do you H do you ever have you ever worked with people who um speak English uh as a second language or a foreign language absolutely all the time and my mother taught English as a second language for about 15 to 20 years oh really so this is yes yes to adults and this is so this is something I'm very familiar with I would say on average about half of my students I teach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business about half of my students uh English is not their first language so I am very well uh experienced in in working with people and being around people for whom English is not their first language what do you find is the sort of challenge that um they experience then with uh communicating you know through speaking two two challenges uh one is anxiety most of us get nervous speaking period but I think those are who are non-native speakers have an added pressure sometimes that they put on themselves because they they want to say it right whatever that right is uh in terms of grammar language syntax context all of that and and so anxiety is a big a big pressure that they put on themselves um and then I think there's also just this notion of um comfort and and many of my non-native speakers uh just want to be comfortable in in their interactions and sometimes that can be a challenge for them I'll tell you this my non-native speaking students tend to do better than my native speaking students routinely and it's because they focus on their communication with an intent that native speakers don't I'm not saying native speakers are lazy although that might be the case in some situations it's just that the non-native speakers really appreciate the importance of of their communication and they really invest a lot and as somebody who teaches communication skills I see the benefits of that all the time yeah very interesting yes of course Learners of English have got that added challenge of having to control the language that they're dealing with and anxiety can really sort of um exacerbate those those issues you know it can really sort of like affect people um but yeah on the other hand I guess um Learners of English apply themselves so much more to communication think about it a lot more you know and strategize about it a lot more and actually that might even be an advantage in in a way as you said yeah absolutely absolutely some of the best advice that I ever heard given to a non-native speaker so I host a podcast myself and I had somebody on talking about this topic and the best advice he said is the goal of a non-native speaker should not be to sound like a native speaker the goal should be to just communicate their ideas and when you take that pressure off to sound like a native speaker and just get your information across it makes it easier for you and I I really appreciated that advice and I think that advice translates in many ways if if we just focus on getting it done rather than doing it perfectly that helps yeah yeah absolutely um so in your book which is uh convenient conveniently placed on the shelf behind you there yes there it is folks um so in in your book you you kind of uh you you talk about speaking successfully and it's it's a it's a sort of a remedy for situations when people feel very challenged by having to speak spontaneously so what what kind of challenges are you referring to what are the challenges in spontaneous speaking Yeah so first let me Define what I mean by spontaneous speaking it's the majority of the communication we do you know the planned presentations the pitches the meetings with agendas are are far less frequent than the questions I'm answering the feedback I'm giving the small talk I'm making the introductions I'm doing so a lot of our communication in our personal and professional lives is spontaneous and so the challenges are many one we've talked about anxiety two this no of trying to do it right uh many of us see these situations as threats and challenges where I have to defend myself uh so there are a lot of things that we can do to reframe these to help ourselves feel more comfortable and confident in these moments and and another big challenge is that that people feel like I'm just not that person I was not born with the ability to speak well in the moment and and that is absolutely not true we can all learn to be better in the moment communic ators talking about anxiety and speaking sort of nervousness and stress um what happens to us why do we feel so stressed about public speaking and even not even doing a presentation just in a meeting or something when it's your turn to speak what is it that makes us feel so uncomfortable about this kind of situation yeah regardless of the language if you're an expert in the language or not a big thing that those of us who study this believe that it is hardwired into being human to be nervous when we speak in front of others and so we are we are addressing the biolog what biology has built into us when we put ourselves in front of others we are risking our reputation and our status relative to others and that can make us very nervous now the nice thing is is there are things that we can do to manage that anxiety so just because it's innate it's part of Being Human doesn't mean we can't manage it so there are things we can do to manage both the symptoms that's what we physically feel that rapid heart rate the shakiness uh and other things but also the things that make us nervous in the first place like trying to be perfect or seeing it as a threat or a challenge so the good news is there are things we can do the bad news is it's part of who we are regardless of the language we're speaking in interestingly people who are non-native speakers and in all my work with them some tell me that they're more nervous speaking in their native language than they are in their uh adopted language uh simply because they they put less pressure on themselves they know it's newer so they can make more mistakes and hey you know it's because it's new to me but they actually feel more nervous speaking in their native tongue so people are all over the place when it comes to anxiety though the reality is though that we can do things to manage it what kind of things can we do yeah well so so there we go so for many of the symptoms the first and best thing we can do is to take some deep belly breaths the kind of breath you would take if you've ever done Tai Chi or yoga where you really fill your lower abdomen many of us when we get nervous our heart starts beating fast we start breathing shallow this is totally normal this is your body responding to a threat your body is trying to oxygenate itself so it can fight or flee and so if we take low slow deep breaths we can actually reduce the heart rate and the rapid breathing so we can feel more present and calm if you're somebody who gets shaky that's adrenaline adrenaline's purpose is to move you from threat to safety so moving in a purposeful way not pacing back and forth or swaying side to side but stepping towards your audience if you're standing or gesturing more broadly those types of movements help that adrenaline dissipate and make you look more confident uh if you're like me I perspire and blush I don't know Luke what happens to you when you get nervous in front of people I blush as as video viewers can no doubt see yeah I've always blushed and I've been living with this for for years uh back to even the days of school so I'd be in class and uh the teacher would ask me to to uh answer a question and I'd just go bright red and the worst thing about it is when I know that I'm going red that makes it go that makes me go even more red so it's just totally ridiculous so yeah I blush that's what happens to me it's same thing with me and so let me give you this technique and you'll let me know and let your listeners know if this actually helps the reason we're turning red and we're P we're perspiring we're sweating is because our core body temperature is going up if you think about it your heart speeding faster your body is tensing up so you're pushing more blood through tighter tubes your blood pressure is going up it's just like your exercising you're getting hotter and then when we get hot we turn red and we perspire so we need to cool ourselves down and the single best way to cool yourself down believe it or not it's going to be silly is to hold something cold in the palms of your hand when you hold something cold it cools you down uh in on a warm on a cold morning have you ever held warm tea or coffee in a mug and felt it warming you up yes we're just doing exactly the reverse so by holding some I do this all the time before I get nervous getting up in front of people I'll hold a cold bottle of water it reduces the sweating and the blushing I encourage you to try it and I'm going to be very curious to hear if it helps you I'm doing it right now listeners there you go there you go there you go uh we'll see if it actually makes a difference to me right now but uh yeah okay that's a good tip that's a very good tip so we're talking about situations listeners right where I suppose it might be before you have to do a presentation or any of those moments where you know that you're going to be put on the spot um I mean and and indeed while it's happening too um so yeah you said moving purposefully so if I so before I have to do something stressful like for example if I have to do a presentation or if I'm teaching some high pressured lesson or I'm doing standup because I do that too I oh wow yeah get very nervous before certain standup shows yes depending on the context right but I find uh that it's it's really a a big deal trying to manage the the stress and trying to stay loose and I find that uh yeah my body posture makes a huge difference I feel like I want to kind of sit down and kind of go into a ball and look at my notes and things like that and kind of like protect myself but I really have to try and force myself to stand up and sort of open myself up and I found over the years that that really helps does that sort of ring true with the with what you say absolutely so there there is um so you're actually highlighting a a contentious bit of research oh really so uh so I will I will share with you the results and then let you know that there these results are debated and then the bottom line of what I'm going to say is if it works for you do it don't worry about what academics say about it okay so um for a long time we have known that when people are big with their bodies they are seen as more confident nervous people make themselves smaller they Retreat so if you take a bigger body position bigger body posture you look more confident and the easiest way to do this is to take your shoulder blades and just pull them down do you notice how I'm just getting broader I'm not puffing my chest out but if I just stand bigger you will think I'm more confident now the controversy comes from there's some work that was done on power posing that is how you hold your body in one of these big postures that said that if you do that for just a little bit you'll begin to feel more confident so it's not that others see you as more it's you yourself begin to feel that way right that research has been called into question it's been hard to replicate the bottom line here is if you doing something that takes a big posture makes you feel more confident by all means do it let's not worry about what academic journals say about it the point is how you hold your body conveys meaning for others and for yourself and as such we should get ourselves into postures that make us feel better and more powerful yeah absolutely okay you talked about emphasis on Perfection this is one of the things that sort of um causes people trouble when they are speaking spontaneously we want to be perfect we want to do it right um how what's a way that we can avoid putting this kind of pressure on ourselves yeah so this is a big one especially for non-native speakers remember I said we have to deal with symptoms and sources so one of the sources of our anxiety is we want to do it right and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do it right now I am here to tell you as somebody who's been studying communication for almost three decades there is no right way to communicate there are better ways and worse ways but there is no one right way and to put pressure on ourselves to be right actually reduces the likelihood that we will do it well at all and I want to do a little tangent here because it's related many non-native speakers when they're doing a plan presentation will memorize because they feel like I've written it out this is the right way to say it I'm going to memorize it for the same reason trying to be right memorization doesn't help here's why your brain is like a computer it's not a Perfect Analogy but it works you only have so much bandwidth that you can use think about this if you have a laptop and you have lots of windows open or you're on your phone and you have lots of apps running every one of those windows and apps is running a little bit less well because all of the other ones are open so what we need to do is we need to reduce our Focus on thinking about am I saying it right or am I saying the words exactly as I memorize them by dialing that down a little bit you increase the resources you have to actually focus on what you're saying so the way we reduce the pressure of perfection is to focus on connection if I focus on connecting to my audience getting my message across not am I saying it the right way you actually have more resources to do it better so it's like closing down a lot of those windows and apps so that everything else performs better so I like to tell my students not only focus on connection not Perfection but just strive for mediocrity the goal is Medi be mediocre because when you take that pressure off to be great you actually do better so we can achieve Greatness by just starting out trying to be mediocre it sounds counterintuitive but it works I'm very happy to hear that because you know that that's very reassuring Matt because uh you've just pretty much described my general approach you know no I'm joking I suppose but um yeah okay um what about mindset the way we we think about um situations yeah how does that come into it absolutely so having a a an opportunistic mindset really matters many of us go into these circumstances feeling like we're under threat that this is a test so when somebody asks me a question or asks or feedback I'm being tested and I need to pass the test so we get very defensive we get very inside ourselves when in fact if we see these just as opportunities to connect to learn to collaborate it changes everything so how do we do that right it's one thing for me to say just see it as an opportunity great but how do I do that so in the book I talk about four different mindset shifts let me just share a couple of them not all four we unless you want so the the first of these is this notion that comes from Carol DW's work on growth mindset she's become very famous for this approach growth mindset is very powerful when we have something to learn we can approach it as I am able to learn this information it is possible or we can say to ourselves this just isn't for me I'm not that person I am who I am and I can't change the I can't change piece is a fixed mindset the opportunity to to grow and to expand is a growth mindset as part of what her research shows simply adopting this Mantra of not yet can be very powerful so if I'm in a communication situation that doesn't go well rather than saying to myself oh I'm doomed I'll never be good at this I'm just not that kind of person I say to myself not yet I'm just I just haven't learned those skills I haven't gotten that feedback so by adopting this notion of not yet I can learn this it helps you have a much more positive mindset and you actually end up doing better you know my mother who taught ESL for for almost two decades she used to her superpower in teaching ESL was not teaching the grammar and the vocabulary and all of that it was really encouraging her students to want to learn and to take the risks and to do the repetition so this not yet mindset can free you up to really become more present and to do better and then the the second one I'll share many of us fear making mistakes yet we know that we learn through making mistakes that's how we learn so I like to reframe what a mistake is to me a mistake is just like what you see in movies and televisions when they when they film them they they do different takes a take is simply one version of it a director will ask the actors to do it this way and then they'll do a take they literally have that CL board take one and then the director say okay now do it this way take two take one or take two is not wrong or or better they're just different so if I if I say something and it doesn't go the way I want I just say to myself take two I'm going to say it again so if I'm trying to explain something to you and it doesn't work maybe I just try it again but this time I tell a story because that might be a different take on what I'm trying to say so if we adopt a mindset of not yet I can learn this I just haven't yet and missed takes are just opportunities to do it again differently then you can fundamentally feel better about what you do and ultimately get better at it yeah that's that's that's perfect for language learning because there are just so many mistakes involved you know oh absolutely yeah lot a lot of people just are completely sort of phobic of making mistakes which is natural I suppose but it really prevents them from getting anywhere so you've got to embrace them haven't you I suppose uh absolutely at least not run away from them or or or beat yourself up over them say oh my goodness I'm a bad person mistakes are part of learning mistakes are are are helpful in fact um I'm gonna I'm not going to have this quote correct but uh I don't know if you're familiar with who yoyo ma is I see some musical instruments before so amazing amazing chist right uh he has this quote and I'm not going to say it right but it goes something like this where he says music doesn't come alive for me until I make my first mistake now I want you so what's so impactful for me of this is that one yoyo ma makes mistakes two he actually looks for them and Embraces them and if somebody who is at that that height in his career still makes mistakes and can embrace them I can certainly make mistakes and embrace them because I am nowhere near his ability in anything in my life so so that just helps me it just helps with perspective taking that's good that's that's great to know that yeah that y y ma makes mistakes makes makes us all feel a bit more human exactly exactly um what role does listening take in in all of this because we're talking about uh being a better speaker and stuff but is it all just about speaking no not at all listening is critical part of it listen to be a good spontaneous speaker you have to be in the moment and you have to be responsive to what is needed and the only way to assess what's needed is to listen we most of us are not good listeners uh we we listen just enough to get the idea of what somebody's saying and then we begin practicing and rehearsing and judging so we need to be more present we need to listen for the bottom line not the top line so we need to be saying to ourselves what is this person really trying to say how would I summarize it and then actually sometimes speaking that summary in other words what we call paraphrasing can be really helpful because it it does two things one it validates I heard what you really meant and two it feels nice to be listened to and when somebody paraphrases and you do an excellent job by the way of paraphrasing thank you it makes you feel valid it makes you feel good so so listening is critical because in listening I understand better what you need in the moment yes absolutely um okay structure I'm by the way listeners I keep sort of giving um Matt these prompts because you know this is I'm basically going through the contents page P of his book here that's basically what I'm doing um I mean Matt is like the ideal guest all I need to do is just like throw him a word and he'll just give us the perfect answer it's it's fantastic well I I'm not looking for the perfect answer but uh thank you um there is so much that I can say about structure and for Learners of a language non-native speakers structure is really a huge unlock it has the potential to do a lot so I'm going to spend a few moments on this if you don't mind so many of us when we speak we just List information and this is very hard for our brains to take in non-native speakers suffer more from this than most people because if I just list a whole bunch of information that is overwhelming not only are all people bad at taking in lists but taking in a list that's not in a language that's my native language is even harder so we can help everybody not just non-native speakers if we package our information up in a logical way to me a structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas anybody who has ever watched a television advertisement has seen what I mean by a structure most TV advertisements follow a structure of problem solution benefit they they suggest there's some challenge or problem in the in the world your dis aren't as clean as you'd like them um you're you're not uh you're not as healthy as you'd like to be these are problems they then offer products and services that fix those problems and then they share with you or tell you the benefit that's a structure problem solution benefit what a structure does is it helps the person hearing it to digest it because it's packaged nicely and logically and our brains are wired for that and it helps me as the communicator to prioritize what I'm saying in a way that will make it easier for you so there are many structures that exist that can help us to communicate more effectively I'll give you my favorite and this one I like because you can use it in so many ways it is three simple questions what so what now what what is the information that you're sharing it could be your update if you're at a meeting when you're updating people it could be your feedback if somebody's asked you for feedback it could be your answer if somebody's asked you a question the so what is why is it important to the people you're talking to and the now what is what comes next afterwards so just by answering those questions what so what now what you package your information up and make it easy for others to use now I'm going to take a quick time out Luke I just used what so what now what to answer your question about a structure I told you what structures were why they're important and I gave you examples of ones you can use that's what so what now what in use so if your listeners said hey Matt's answer sounded really packaged well I understood it that's because I simply put it in a structure so what can people kind of yeah take this structure when they are in various situations right they can kind of prepare themselves or just at least think in these terms uh for presentations or those moments in meetings when you have to do something or any situation where you've got to just share information does it I guess does it become a habit do you think the way if people do it again and again does it just sort of like slot into a sort of a habit of behavior yes absolutely and and that's exactly how you get better at it you have to practice um just like an athlete just like a musician the only way you get good at it is by practicing it and then when you practice it it becomes very natural so if you want to learn the structure I just shared what so what now what here's what I challenge you to do when you are done listening to Luke's podcast or my podcast or whatever I want you to stop and I want you to say what was that about why is it important to me and what can I do with that information in other words just ask yourself what so what now what we know from research that by doing this little bit of reflection you will remember the content better we remember content better that we think about in question after the fact the other thing you're doing is you're drilling the structure so it becomes more natural for you so if you do this for a week after you read things or listen to things a couple times a day all of the sudden this structure becomes very natural for you so I encourage everybody listening to just practice this and you'll see the benefits of doing it right like what did I just hear why is that important what can I do with it next more or less what so what now what that's right great um there's like a million things I could ask you Matt um you know while I Was preparing for this interview uh I sort of you know checked out some of your presentations on YouTube You've Got you've got one uh which is on the um Stanford Graduate School of Business uh YouTube channel it's got do you know how many views it's got it has a lot it has a lot I I've lost count but it's got a few million it's about 34 million at this moment oh my goodness yes yes and do you know what the top comment is is under the video I don't I haven't looked at it in a long time okay I've got to I've got to read it out to you I can't remember it ver but let me just try and find it hold on just bear with me a second okay so here's here's one of the top comments 21,000 likes it says he never uses umwell a for 50 minutes incredible that's really interesting yeah and there are 279 replies to that the first reply says yes he did check it out 16 minutes and 6 seconds and I I checked 16 minutes and six seconds and this is what happened the uh creative arts department literally a microsc of the uh creative department just between two words so I found that to be quite funny so so what I find fascinating is that people that that many people actually looked at it anyway that's interesting well I mean it's true uh how do you manage to do that because that's a that's a thing that lots of people have in their first language second language which whichever language it is little fillers and things like that have you have you always just been able to kind of speak so fluently without those little sounds and why do we make those sounds anyway yes so lots of questions there so the answer to your first question is no I've not I I've not always been able to do that nor do I always never say them you will hear me say ums and US probably as part of this that we're doing MH we say them for so I I interviewed somebody who is a neurolinguist her name is Valerie friedin fascinating person uh and and see I just did one she helped me understand that these serve a purpose when parents are teaching children language they will often use some filler and it depends on cultures different cultures have different fillers so for example in the United States we tend to say uh or um in Asian cultures they will often say a or o but they're filling the same purpose it's just the sound is different yeah we will you alert a young child that what's about to come is a new word or something you should pay attention to so when I say um and then I say something new to a child they are trained that when I hear the um I should pay a special attention to it so it serves a purpose it also as adult serves a purpose to hold the floor so if I'm done speaking but I want to say something else if I pause you might think I'm done so you start but if I stop speaking and go um you know it's I still want to speak so ums and Oz actually fill purposes the problem is when they get distracting so the goal is not eliminating them all in fact people who write screenplays for televisions and movies put filler words in because they learn that if they don't all the it doesn't sound real it sounds it sounds fake so again the goal is not eliminating these the goal is to reduce them so they're not distracting and the first and best way to do this is just to become aware you can't change something you don't know you're doing so how do we become aware well you can record yourself and listen you can ask others to inform you you can actually buy apps there are apps for your phone that will actually keep track of the number of ums and O that you say so it actually uh law it it actually keeps track and will buzz or beep every time you say one so they're tools that build some awareness so we just need to be aware of doing it and then we can begin to change it okay very interesting another question for you about uh the future of communication um do you think that the way that we communicate with each other is going to change um I mean obviously it has changed a lot over the last whatever it is 20 30 years since the internet got involved and we started doing things like this talking through you know platforms like Zoom or other other software um and that's obviously changed the way we communicate quite a lot but what about the future Matt do do do you see any sort of uh things on the horizon yeah so so technology is absolutely going to impact and change the way that we communicate it already has uh the biggest change that I think is is starting now I mean it's started a little bit ago is the notion of generative AI things like chat GPT and others uh this is fundamentally changing how we communicate how we craft what we say I am an optimist in terms of in general and so I think that this will bring to us some interesting uh and useful uh tools that we can use I am concerned I'm concerned about the truthfulness of what's there I'm uh you know how we can manipulate some of the things but I do think for example for a non-native speaker generative AI can be really helpful and I see this with my students where they will write something or prepare an outline or have a structure and then they'll run it through chat GPT not to see what's the right way but just to to get help with some of the grammar or addiction or to give them different ideas and approaches to how they can use it or how they can say what they want to say I also encourage my students to use it for example before they have a Q&A session in my class go to a generative AI say I'm giving a presentation on this what are three or four questions I might get and then practice answering the questions not to memorize the answers but just to get some of those repetitions so communication is Ever Changing technology is is highly involved in it and we need to be thinking about ways uh to address and adjust it to our communication to it so can actually take the benefit and avoid some of the the negative consequences have you ever had a conversation with chat GPT or something similar and how did it go yeah so on my podcast when chat GPT first started coming out we knew we wanted to do an episode on it and we were talking and and all of a sudden we just said hey why don't we just interview it and this is before it had its own voice generated thing yeah so we would type in prompts and then we would get its output and run it through a text to voice thing and it was was a fascinating conversation uh one of the questions I asked is will you replace the need for human communication and it came back unequivocally and said no the thing that humans have that that I chat gbt speaking don't is the ability to connect humans have this ability to connect and feel a sense of belonging that technology does not and perhaps never will and maybe hopefully never will the ability to connect in that way and I found that very insightful and actually very reassuring yes yeah absolutely um final thing so going back to your presentations and you know I'm I'm flattering You Again by saying how how good they are but um we talked about learning from failure I'm just wondering if like back in the day if you've ever had any failures have you ever had sort of like a presentation that went horribly wrong or something like that cuz you know again as a as a standard comedian I love uh stories of when people have a terrible time in front of an audience you know like all comedians have got stories of of that and it's quite often quite interesting to to listen to them but anyway have you ever sort of had a horrible presentation or something that went wrong all the time Luke all the time there there yes things go wrong all the time I misspeak I say the wrong thing I misunderstand I answer a question I thought was asked when it really wasn't this this happens to me quite frequently it happens to many people but I try to see them as opportunities to learn I try to adjust and adapt they are fewer and farther between than they used to be but uh we are all we we all make mistakes we all have have struggles the the challenge is to to just persist and to reflect and learn from them you know at the end of every day I spend a minute thinking about one or two things that went well in my communication during the day and one or two things I'd like to strengthen and I actually document them and at the end of every week on Sundays I'll go back and look for the course of the whole week and I'll say okay this coming week I'm going to really try to work on this so I'm looking for patterns so it is through committed dedicated work on improving that I do think I've gotten better but it doesn't mean I'm still not making mistakes and issues very interesting Matt very encouraging as well and um also sort of reassuring in many ways and I think that uh I hope and believe my audience will really enjoy listening to you um thank you so much for your time uh just remind everyone again uh if they want to find out more about the things you have to say what should they do excellent so I can be found most easily at Matt abrams.com I have a whole bunch of resources there I host a podcast think fast talk smart for every episode we release English language learning content we take a noun a verb a scriptor and one idiom for every episode so if you're a non-native speaker you can go check that out on a site called faster smarter. you listen to the episode then you go find this and hopefully it will help so there are lots of things that that I hope I'm doing to help people who are learning English and to help people communicate better in general fantastic okay well brilliant I'll let you get back to your uh Misty Californian morning thank you and it was really really nice to speak to you thank you so much Luke it was a true pleasure keep up the work you're doing it's very helpful thanks very much I will okay well have a lovely day you as well thank you okay so that was my conversation with Matt Abrahams and I want to say thanks again to Matt for taking the time to do that episode with me very nice to talk to him and so it's the next day now right the next day after I recorded that and I've just uh been through the episode edited it together put the video stuff together you know edited the video and audio and stuff like that audio sounds great video looks good except my my bright red face uh if if you've been watching the video you probably I don't know you probably noticed that I shouldn't make a big deal out of it because it doesn't it doesn't matter at all but I couldn't help noticing that as I was editing it it's like oh my God I was I just went bright red during that conversation we talked about it a bit of course you know and that's kind of like all part of what this was about right this episode was about that uh these sorts of responses um to all sorts of situations speaking situations it's just totally normal and human and natural to uh uh have certain responses maybe I felt a little bit nervous during that conversation I mean I shouldn't I didn't really want to or didn't even think it was necessary but maybe I just thought that uh I don't know what it was but clearly I just felt some some level of anxiety which um turned into my face sort of glowing up like a beacon but anyway it doesn't matter I might talk about that a bit later about things like blushing and other responses we have to little bits of social anxiety not that not that Matt gave me any reason to be anxious he was a very uh warm very relaxed and very personable guest and it was a pleasure to talk to him now what I thought I would do here at the end of the episode is just kind of reflect on some of the things that Matt said and maybe just kind of um summarize some of those things because there was a lot of really really good useful advice in there right um lots of stuff in fact that he talked about uh you know we went through certain points like for example um what were the what were the basic points that we went went through um anxiety and speaking right nervousness stress um we feel anxious when we are put on the spot and we have to speak spontaneously this could be in situations where we have to talk to a room full of people doing a presentation or when you're in a meeting and the boss asks you to give your opinion or you find yourself in a lift with some of your managers or something and you have to kind of make a bit of small talk or many other different situations that we can just feel lot of anxiety and uh Matt talked about how this is a normal human response um he mentioned the fight the the fight or flight mechanism have you heard of this before fight or flight it's a sort of normal human response to moments of stress or moments that we perceive to be stressful or maybe threatening and the idea that if we um talk in front of everyone that we will expose ourselves and we feel naturally quite threatened by this and the body has a natural response which is to go into the fight or flight mechanism basically your body is like right come on then get ready to fight get ready to defend yourself and flight means running away okay uh to fly I mean not literally fly with wings it's just another way of saying run away um like when gandal in Lord of the Rings um CU of course everyone you're all familiar with the with the entire uh script of The Lord of the Rings films when he's just been uh when he's about to fall into that Chasm because of the big balrog he turns to them he's like hanging onto the cliff and he says fly you fools meaning run away okay random Lord of the Rings reference what happened I don't know some of you will be like yeah right got it anyway fight or flight so basically your body's like right get ready for a fight or get ready to run away one or one or the other it's a survival thing isn't it and so your your body gets flooded with adrenaline your heart starts beating faster and other things happen like you can get sweaty Palms you know the palms of your hands um you can get um uh other things you uh what else happens you start to get hot you might go red in the face because of all the blood pumping through your system um you might get a lot of nervous energy those sorts of things those are natural responses and so um Matt talked about the importance of doing things like using breathing and breathing in the right way and considering your posture and doing things like holding on to a cold bottle of water because it can help to reduce your body temperature little tricks like that which can help you manage your anxiety preparation also helps a bit which to manage your anxiety he talked about our emphasis on Perfection the fact that we all we all impose this pressure on ourselves to be perfect we want everything to be done perfectly okay but uh this is not always the uh most useful thing that we can do why do we put so much pressure on ourselves how can we avoid putting so much pressure on ourselves and Matt advises accepting imperfections or mistakes and focusing instead of focusing on being perfect focusing on making genuine meaningful human connections so this is basically connection not Perfection where have we heard that before of course we've heard that from all ears English this is their Mantra and it's true we need to try and remember that don't worry too much about being perfect all the time instead focus on making a human connection now you might think to yourself but Luke I'm learning English I want to be able to do it correctly which is of course absolutely fair and you know it's a it's a reasonable thing to do you know you study English you study the the grammar and the vocabulary and the pronunciation and stuff like that so that you can speak and use the language in the way that it's supposed to be used without making glaring errors or without you know without without making a bad impression or without being uh incoherent right but you got to keep these things in Balance it's good to work on your accuracy and work on your grammatical and phological accuracy and and to practice to get that level of control over English the syntax the Lexus the phology all of that stuff it's good to practice and improve your ability to do all those things as much as possible but then when you're in a real world situation you do also have to learn to kind of put that stuff away you know and try not to let that blind you or try not to let that affect you too much and you have to I guess you have to think to yourself right I've done my homework I've done my preparation I've done all my controlled practice I've studied the the grammar and stuff but now I need to actually I need to focus on actually communicating with these people or with this person and making a connection with them so I've got to try and put the grammar to one side now and trust and hope that the controlled practice I've done is going to pay off now but but we shouldn't be um overly uh distracted by a sort of desire to be perfect uh in the language that we're using um right instead we should try to focus on making connections with the people we're talking to uh because ultimately this is the most important thing um Matt talked about mindset so just our attitude the way we think about speaking situations and uh many of us view speaking situations as very high stakes right high stakes so uh you you stand to to win or lose a huge amount like your whole um reputation is on the line or something like that that we put tremendous value uh on these situations and as a result you know the anxiety levels start to to go up so how can we actually change the way we think about these things well Matt encourages us us to shift our mindset shift the way that we see these things completely and instead of seeing these things as like high-risk situations or big challenges we should see them as sort of like opportunities really opportunities to share ideas with people to connect with others rather than seeing them as a performance that's a really good bit of advice and you know I have to think about these things we all have to think about these things Matt thinks about these things and uses these techniques himself and he's been doing this for decades which is probably one of the reasons why he is so good at what he does right U he certainly kind of practices what he preaches meaning that he uses all these techniques and has applied all of this advice and knowledge to himself and the results are that he is very sort of uh um clear and um engaging and warm and um Pleasant to listen to and informative and useful and he gets straight to the point you know he's a very effective Communicator so I have to think about these things too that sometimes for example if I'm talking to a classroom of people or if I'm doing this if I'm talking to a camera on my own in my room and thinking to myself the stuff that's being recorded right now on this device in front of me this is going to be converted into a thing that will go online that tens of thousands of people are going to watch right and you start to get into that mindset of feeling judged you know you become aware that people are going to be judging me and what are they going to say about me and does you know uh what about the way I look today and what are people going to say you know you start to get caught in that kind of cycle of thinking but instead of seeing this as a performance I have to remember what I'm doing which is that I'm communicating these ideas to you and that's got to be the primary thought in my mind that's my primary motivation is to get across my ideas and focus on sharing ideas with you and forget about the the idea of this being a performance okay um Matt also talked about the idea of mistakes and he called them missed takes instead as if it's like you're making a film and you do one version and the director says okay let's try that again take two and you get a chance to do it again in a slightly different way that we should see mistakes as opportunities to try it again to improve to do it differently and this of course as we know relates to to language learning because we have to try and see mistakes as being uh opportunities to learn opportunities to try it again and get it better and no one ever got anything right first time you know uh so you can't really expect to just uh I mean the classic the classic mistake where people study English study study study until they feel like right now I'm ready to actually use the language and then they expect themselves to just use it flawlessly doesn't like that doesn't work like that you have to you have to make loads of mistakes first and learn from them and see them as chances rather than see them as these terrible things that you have to avoid because if you make a mistake you'll lose face uh not really it's it's never really as bad as that um listening uh Matt talked about the importance of listening um is this all about just being a better speaker sometimes in communication we focus too much on ourselves and uh our productive speaking right but actually a successful interaction action is largely about listening and we do a lot more listening than we do speaking in fact so we've got to remember the value of listening this is crucial effective communication involves active listening and understanding others and active listening really relates to really trying to pay attention not just to the words that someone is saying but the intention behind those words where are they really coming from what are they really trying to say what is the bottom line that's what Matt says what's the bottom line of what this person is saying so the bottom line this idea comes from the idea of the the balance sheet in accounting right in business you got a profit and loss account and um basically the bottom line refers to the profit that is made uh by a company after all its business has been done and the bottom line is ultimately the most important thing for a business to consider yes so this is the bottom line but also the bottom line now has sort of become an idiom to mean the ultimate sort of main most important factor so um we have to just think about what's the bottom line of what this person is saying what's the real intention or feeling Behind these words what does someone really want is this person looking for a solution are they looking for my advice or do they want my um my sympathy do they want to be reassured you know um so it's really about paying attention not just to the things that people are saying but the intention behind what they're saying and active listening also is a is about um showing the other person that you're listening so it's no good actually it's it's that you got to perform the thing that you're doing as well I mean I've said it's not a performance but H how can I put this so if you're listening to someone and you're really paying attention that's fine okay but you that other person has to know that you're listening as well and this is where you use your body language you've got to really sort of like lean in uh pay attention to the person make eye contact with them obviously there's cultural things related to eye contact but in any case you've got to show that person that you're listening that person has to be really aware that you're listening and you do that by you know telling them in non-verbal ways that you're listening so you you know you make eye contact as much as it's appropriate you nod your head uh you you know you make all the right body language and then you uh respond to the things they've said paraphrasing for example repeating back to them the the the point that they've just made um so that's the importance of listening and then Matt also talked about structure and this doesn't mean grammatical structure but just sort of like structuring our behavior when we communicate and using certain structures can really help us to I guess break through that slightly chaotic feeling which can happen when we get into that anxious state right of oh God what am I going to say oh I'm going to say it wrong breaking through that with a kind of Dependable simple easy to follow structure that you use every time right um on when you have to deliver information and Matt's favorite one was what so what now what okay uh what so what now what so the what is basically what what was that about and in and I'll I'll do a what so what now what in a moment but what meaning what is this about or what what was that about so what means why is it important and now what is basically what can I what can you do what can we do what can I do with that information so what is it why is it important what can we do with it okay so eventually what so what now what the what is that that was Matt Abrahams um a expert in communication telling us about um ways in which we can become better communicators especially in spontaneous speaking situations um this is obviously important for everyone I mean it's clear isn't it he's really nailed it he's really nailed this very important thing that affects all of us it's obvious why it's important to us because we all uh have to to deal with these situations and we care a lot about them and now what what can you do with this information well um you can go and try and apply some of those ideas you can actually try and apply them um in your first language but also in situations when you use English and by I guess breaking through some of that anxiety uh changing your mindset into a more positive growth oriented mindset when you speak English you can give yourself a chance you know you can kind of um create conditions for yourself in which you are able to give your English a chance and allow all the work you've done already to kind of shine through okay um I wanted to talk about blushing because it happened to me H yeah um I think what one of the things that happened there is that it was the evening okay and um I had kind of been running around all evening I've gone to pick up my son and then been stressing out trying to get the dinner ready everything sort of had to happen all at the right time and then I rushed over here to get ready for the interview and then during the interview I was like okay you know don't know why just bit of anxiety it it's more of it was excitement as much as anything else but I do blush I just it happens to me just all the time and it's always happened to me and I don't really care to be honest I don't really care anymore I mean it's it's slightly annoying but you know what are you going to do there's not really anything I can do about it except doing the things that Matt suggested which I've always tried to do breathing trying to uh take the right mindset not taking not taking myself too seriously um you know um but I've always lived with that as I said at school but also as a teacher and I remember I had a class of student once and we went to the pub afterwards and a couple of the girls um in the class came up to me and they told me that they they were one of them was Japanese one of them was Korean right and they were like oh why do you blush so much I was like I don't know it's just I don't know why it just happens to me maybe it's my complexion or something like that I don't know I find some people blush more easily than others anyway I don't know and I was like oh yeah it's a bit embarrassing and they said oh no we found it really adorable we found it really cute which obviously made me blush as well but they said to they said to me you know what we we actually kept trying to make you blush during lessons that uh we would uh ask you questions we'd ask you questions to try and make you blush and it would always work so they would ask me qu I don't know what I can't remember what they would ask me about now but they'd probably ask me some some personal question or something then they then they'd have fun watching me blush but anyway does it happen to you does it does it happen to you at all do you ever kind of go a bit red in the face and as I said before the stupid thing about it is when you start to blush you know that it's happening you can feel you can feel your face warming up and then that doesn't help because then you're like the fact that you're blushing makes you blush even more cuz you're oh God I'm blushing aren't I oh God oh dear I'm blushing again and then that makes it worse so you know I thought that I would say a few things about blushing just in case it happens to you too maybe this can help and I actually I asked Microsoft co-pilot for some suggestions so this is another um piece of generative AI software that's available this is Microsoft co-pilot which actually uses chat GPT for or a version of chat GPT 4 to generate its responses so you've got chat GPT 3 which is the free one and chat GPT 4 which is uh you which is one you pay for and then there's a version of chat GPT 4 which is used for Microsoft co-pilot and you can just use Microsoft co-pilot free just Google Microsoft co-pilot or search Bing for Microsoft co-pilot and you can just use it it's it's virtually the same as J chat GP works in the same way so I asked co-pilot one one of the things I like about Microsoft co-pilot is that it gives you um references for the information it's given you it gives you a number of references at the bottom website links where it got the information it's presenting which I like I like the fact that it's giving you references chat GPT doesn't do that so this is what I asked co-pilot basically I said I can't remember this The Prompt it was something like can you suggest some some some uh ways to deal with blushing in in public and this is what co-pilot came up with blushing during public speaking can be quite common and sometimes distressing however there are strategies you can employ to manage it effectively first of all acceptance and perspective Embrace blushing as a natural physiological response understand it happens to many people even experienced speakers so basically it's just normal it just means I'm a human being so there you go just in case you needed any uh confirmation that I was a human and not some sort of super Advanced AI powered Android or some or a kind of uh AI generated English teacher not yet that's not me yet but of course you know the thing is about that is that in the future when AI when generative AI is really Advanced it will it will do things like that it'll when when I don't know how many years time this will be let's say in 10 years time when you can just go on to you know teacher aite teer.com and where you've you've you've got your your account and you've designed your own teacher so that they look a certain way they have a certain accent and they wear certain clothes and blah blah blah they've you know when you've designed your teacher and you go into to the your portal in your virtual classroom and you can just talk to your teacher and you've decided that you want it to look like Luke from Luke's English podcast and um maybe you even you've even included blush response you've tiped the box that says blush response I'm sure that AI eventually will will be able to do all these things right it'll it'll make its um it'll make its uh how how are we going to call its avatars it'll make its avatars as human as possible I suppose if we want them to be and that no doubt will in in include some sort of blush simulator plugin for it anyway so it's a natural human response so there you go just means I'm a human and next bit of advice um is don't let it distract you if you're not bothered by your blushing the chances are the audience won't be either so I don't know if I'm doing that to be honest by talking about about it um by addressing it directly does this this probably means that everyone's going to now think about it a lot more than they should and they'll be writing comments about it like they do about my beard which is kind of you know probably because I talk about it if I just never mentioned it people would probably wouldn't really talk about it that much but obviously I I I bring so much attention to it but anyway I've never talked about blushing before have I really it's never really much of a problem it only seems to happen on the podcast in the evening when I do podcasts in the evening and when when the sun has gone down and when I've got a light shining on me so I have one of those I can't show it because it's PL it's it's connected but I've got one of those like those LED bright white lights and it's a bit too bright it like shines in my face and like reflects off my face and probably lights up my it's exacerbates any kind of facial blushing that happens at all it's like really an oppressively bright light it's not the most flattering light in the world um so anyway how did I end up talking about the light I don't know but that's one of the reasons it doesn't happen a lot but it happens yeah in the evening for some reason if I do a podcast in the evening and I've got the bright light in my face like for example when I spoke to Steve Koffman same exact thing happened if you see that video I'm all red in the face in that one as well maybe it's when I speak to older experienced well well-known experienced older um uh gentlemen from uh North America who have a reputation for uh being sort of experts in their field related to communication it's only in those situations that I blush I don't know why um now when I spoke to Lucy from English with Lucy I also blushed in that one because I was aware that you know this is English with Lucy with 10 million followers or whatever it is on YouTube oh whoa anyway mindset shift this is the next thing that Microsoft co-pilot came up with um avoid Panic basically don't panic if you panic about blushing it might actually increase the amount of blushing which is easier said than done you know it's definitely easier said than done next thing is to normalize it okay just it's just normal remind yourself that blushing isn't a big deal it's just the the way your face reacts and doesn't Define your professionalism and you know again this is another reason why I love audio content because you just don't need to worry about all these peripheral uh un unimportant uh frankly quite trivial details which I have decided to spend ages talking about anyway uh what else focus on content remember that audiences care more about your message than the color of your face and I just want to remind some people in the comments section who this does not apply to because there are some people out there who for some reason the the the the color or um condition of my face is the most important thing uh for example whether I have a beard or no or no beard that's not important don't worry about all that stuff okay just let's focus on the things that are being said not the the the the the way the chin looks where those things are coming from H um so focus on con content uh other people see you from the outside and their attention is on what you're saying the vast majority of the time humor and self-awareness if you feel comfortable with the audience playfully acknowledge your blushing it can help ease nervousness and make it less noticeable that's hopefully what I did in this uh episode most people won't pay a much attention to minor blushing um breathing and relaxation practice deep slow breathing it signals your brain to relax this thing about breathing is actually a good one and we know don't we that we have to breathe from our diaphragm which is that sort of uh large muscle inside under our lungs which goes down and expands when we take deep breaths and we have to breathe deeply sort of letting our stomach kind of expand that's when you get those deep breaths but I saw um Matt Abraham's mentioning breathing in another uh episode of someone else's show or YouTube video or something and he was saying that actually when when you're deep breathing the way to do it is to Exhale cuz once you you start with the exhale start with the exhale which allows you to then take a deep breath so that's a good thing to remember you start with an exhale and then deep then breathe in but you know to to an extent there's no escaping sometimes there's no escaping those moments when you feel a little bit um nervous I think the main thing is not to worry about it too much you know and if you need to kind of take a deep breath you just take a deep breath everyone knows what it's like it's fine um regulate temperature uh another bit of advice stay cool heat can trigger blushing so dress in layers to adjust if needed basically in the middle of your presentation just whip your top off to reveal um a little skimpy t-shirt that won't be embarrassing at all um eye contact and makeup uh maintain eye contact with your audience it shifts Focus away from your face all right and consider using makeup to minimize visible redness if it bothers you that I can't do that I can't do that because I'd have to be an expert I have to be an absolute expert at makeup to be able to uh cover up my blushing I think it would be obvious or just you know simply wear a mask which is not that's not constructive advice Luke um the main thing is it's fine don't worry about it it happens to me it happens to loads of people if it happens to you too welcome to the club okay you're you're part of a an illustrious exclusive Club of fellow human beings and if you don't blush how does public speaking or sort of social anxiety around speaking how does it affect you leave your comments in the comments section I'd love to know how does that sort of situation affect you what happens to you when you are put on the spot and you have to speak spontaneously whether it's in English or in your native language and all these responses are completely natural most people won't judge you based on it we normally will judge ourselves a bit more harshly than others and that's when the problems start when we start to beat ourselves up or Panic about it or judge ourselves too harshly that's when things become a problem really we need to just give ourselves a break and just focus on the message focus on making the connection and just focus on the enthusiasm that you have for your subject okay you can find some links and stuff uh that a lot of that information will be on the page for this episode on my website including summaries of the things that Matt Abrams was talking about links to his podcast which is very interesting indeed um and you know one of the things that I really like about Matt abrams' stuff is that it's all based on Research it's based on academic research so there's real substance to the things that he says and the advice he gives and in in episodes of his podcast he talks to um academics from different fields um you know like neurologists and all all sorts of other people he talks to them and draws conclusions from the their findings um in order to make more comments and give more tips about successful communication very interesting to listen to him so you'll find links to his podcast a link to his book uh which is called think faster talk smarter that's the book and think fast talk smart is the podcast as well and you'll also find a link to his Stanford graduate business school presentation which is the one that's got 34 million views and the one where he only goes uh once for a split second I'm I'm sure he does it more than that actually on that subject it's impressive that he can do that but I should say that I think that that presentation and in fact a lot of the things frankly that he says in this episode I think those are things he said lots and lots of times before if you think about it it's stuff that he knows incredibly well he's written a book on the subject he's done like many many different presentations and interviews where he's given the same points so he's very very well practiced at giving those points and when I asked him about something outside of that he did to be fair uh make some of those little noises like um and uh noises you know because that's just a normal feature of spontaneous speech and when you look at for example you know those keynote speeches by Steve Jobs or Ted Talks those are not very realistic or Fair representations of spoken English okay and those sorts of things do set a slightly unrealistic precedent for what natural spontaneous speech is because like Steve Jobs doing a presentation that is not spontaneous speech he has he he he prepared those presentations uh down to the minute detail and did them again and again and again okay uh and that's how he was able to deliver that information so smoothly so so flawlessly and it's true for the the people who do TED talks and those other big high high-profile presentations they don't go um and uh because they have practiced and practiced and practiced those presentations again and again same thing is true for standup comedy specials when you see Ricky javase on Netflix and it looks like it's all spontaneous it looks like he's just giving a sort of stream of conscious ious monologue being naturally funny with a joke every 10 10 seconds but he's done that show he's done that hour or that 2hour show again and again and again in different cities in different countries again and again and again before filming it plus the the the video is edited those Ted Talk videos are edited as well to clean them up to to make them as sort of perfect as possible so don't judge yourself too harshly and don't use those sorts of standards uh don't set that kind of standard for yourself uh when it comes to just speaking in a more uh spontaneous way and also realize the the value of of preparation and practice and how that how much that can help Okay I'm going to end the episode now thank you so much for listening thank you for watching everybody have a lovely day afternoon morning evening night and I will speak to you again on this podcast soon but for now it's time to say goodbye bye bye Bard Bard bard