 Well, welcome to the show, Matt. So great to have you. Great to be here. So excited for our conversation. I know a lot of our listeners and clients believe they're smart, but unfortunately, there are moments in their life where anxiety gets the best of them, whether it's a job interview, a first date, or speaking on stage, and your book is all around talking smarter. What is the anxiety spiral and why does it trip us up in these really important moments? Anxiety looms large in all communication. Planned communication such as a presentation, a pitch, a meeting with an agenda, but where we really get wrapped up is in these spontaneous moments when we communicate on the spot. Somebody asks a question, asks for feedback. We have to make small talk or introduce ourselves. In that moment, we feel like we are being judged and evaluated. We're striving to do it right, and that puts so much pressure on ourselves that we really end up not doing what we're trying to do very well at all. So anxiety looms large. It's inherent in how we want to come off to other people. And the good news is we can learn to manage it, but for many of us, it's a big challenge. For our clients, one of the first things that we put them through in our programs is to understand their triggers that push that anxiety. And in the book, you talked and narrowed it down to three areas where we're effective. Effective, behavioral and cognitively. Could you explain that to our audience, please? Absolutely. So when it comes to our anxiety, there's the ABCs of how they manifest. So there's the affect, how we feel. There's the behavioral, what happens in our bodies. And then there's the cognitive, what it is we're doing and we're thinking. So we can attack all three of these to learn to manage our anxiety. And the key there is manage. I don't believe we can ever truly overcome. I think there's always a circumstance where people will feel nervous. In fact, 85% of people report feeling anxious and high stakes communication. And I think the other 15% are lying. So when it comes to managing each of those, we have to manage each in turn. So effective is how we emotionally feel. We get really stressed out when we're anxious. And there's some techniques that come from mindfulness that can help us. When we begin to feel that stress, we need to recognize it's normal and natural. Most people feel it. In fact, anxiety can help us focus. So we need to do what I call greeting that anxiety, acknowledge it. And in so doing, we take some of the teeth out of it and we can do something in that moment, like walk around the building, take some deep breaths. So there are things that we can do if we greet it rather than trying to run from it and prevent ourselves from experiencing it. Behaviorally, the B in the ABCs, that's where we get the shakes. That's where we speak fast. We hear the rapid heart. We feel the rapid heartbeat. We can do things to reduce that as well. So if you're somebody who gets really shaky, purposeful movement can help reduce that. You're giving that adrenaline a place to go. And cognitively, many of us say all these negative things to ourselves. Like, I'm going to fail. I can't believe I didn't prepare. Why is AJ not doing this? Why am I doing it? And if we can flip that and if we can say, hey, I'm here in service of my audience. I have value to bring. We can reduce some of that cognitive noise. So we can tackle the ABCs in turn to feel more confident. You know, when I hear people who listen to our podcasts or when I tell people what I do, the common refrain I hear is, oh, I don't, I don't experience any of those things, but I know people who do. Now either A, you're lying or you haven't put yourself outside of your comfort zone to where you're in the unknown to fill these behaviors. Sure, you could sit on the couch and you could say, oh, I know all the concepts from the art of Trump podcast because I listened to you guys all the time. Yeah, but are you using them and are you brave enough to put yourself in a position to use those where these effects will happen? Absolutely. You know, part of getting better at communication, which is all about connection is to put yourself out there and you have to put yourself out there. And when you do, we have this natural concern and anxiety that arises. But again, the good thing is we can learn to manage it and we can do it incrementally. It's not like a light switch. So you don't have to throw yourself into the deep end. You can do things gradually to help yourself feel more comfortable and confident. I think another big piece to this is of those ABCs, we're feeling very strongly internally and we're recognizing the tremors. We're understanding the emotions that are bubbling up. But one of the first exercises we do with our clients is we actually film them. And once you see for yourself that your tremble isn't nearly as bad as you think it is based on the shakes or that hot flash or that excitement or that anxiety is not manifesting in a negative way in your face that the audience is picking up on, you can also start to relax and understand that, hey, I can focus outward instead of inward where the battle in the struggle is happening. And that is how I can start to break through my communication and move beyond all of that anxiety that I'm feeling. I love that. And when I work with my clients and my students, I absolutely use digital recording. What you're highlighting there, AJ, is the perception gap, what we call the real versus feel, right? So I'm privy to a whole bunch of internal information. I know what's going on in terms of my heart rate, my breathing. I know what I wanted to say instead of what I am saying. And you as my audience, you don't know that. You only see what you see. So when my students, I make my students watch their digital recordings three times, once with sound only, once with video only, and once together. And every single one of them comes away with the realization you just shared, hey, I look more confident than I felt. And when they do that, then they can free themselves up to actually really connect. So I love that you do that. And a lot of those things are exaggerated when you're in that state. So the pauses seem forever. The bomb jokes seem miserable. Everything's just coming apart. Right, absolutely. And we have this notion that everybody wants us to fail or is looking for all of our flaws. In fact, everybody really wants you to succeed. If you're in my audience when I'm doing a presentation or in my class when I'm teaching or in my meeting that I'm presenting in, you know, you're there because you want to get some value from me. You're not sitting there waiting to see me screw up. So if we take some of that pressure off, it can really help. I think another big fallacy that a lot of us have is, well, if I just prescript it and I just follow a recipe, then I won't have any of this stress and anxiety, but actually scripting things is worse for you than getting comfortable with this unknown and having frameworks to rely on in the spontaneity of communication. You're highlighting one of the big counterintuitive notions in the work I do and the book I wrote is that scripting actually works against you, but some preparation can help you. So we have to find that fine line. Let me explain quickly why scripting is problematic. When you create a script, you create the right way to do it. And many of us want to do our communication right. We want to be perfect or as perfect as we can be. And that gets in the way of us actually doing it well at all. Think of it this way. Your brain is a little bit like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but when you're on your laptop or on your phone and you have lots of apps and windows open, it's not performing as well, right? You're really taxing it. The same is true when I'm speaking. If I have a script I'm constantly comparing to and judging and evaluating, it means I have less cognitive bandwidth to focus on what I'm actually saying. So in the book and in my classes, I have this saying I tell all my students and that is maximize mediocrity and you should see their jaws drop. What? Why should I be mediocre? But here's the truth in this. If we dial down that volume of that judging and evaluating that following of the script, we actually then free up resources to actually be better at our communication. So on the last part of the first class where I say maximize mediocrity, I come back to that and I say maximize mediocrity so you can achieve greatness. I just talked with somebody yesterday who gave me this great statement and he said, so what you're talking about is clearing your cognitive cash. Yes, we just have to clear that out, be focused on connecting. It's about connection, not perfection. And that's what makes us feel more comfortable in that moment and breaks us away from that script. And I think therein lies one of the biggest issues that a lot of people recognize is if you're in an analytical job and that job puts food on the table or roof over your head and clothes on your back and you do well at that job. You're trained to be analytical and so your mindset is always problem-solution oriented and looking for weak points, well, that's what you're going to see and that's how you're going to vision interactions. In order to connect, we have to be present. That cashier needs to be cleared. We need to be having our empathy taking over and feeling those emotions that are in that moment because that's the part that connects us. If we're on our head and we're listening for problems so we can find solutions, we're not present. You're 100% correct. Connection happens in the present moment. We have to be there for the folks we're talking to and we have to be audience centric. So it's not about us. It's really about what's going on for them. The word communication, its origin is to make common and in order to make something common, you have to connect. You have to appreciate the other person's perspective and you also imply in that, John, this notion of listening. It's, you know, as I do more of this on the podcast I host, Think Fast Talk Smart, we talk a lot about, it's all about communication and the two things that have become clear across all our episodes is you have to focus on your audience and you have to listen. And if you can do both those things, you will improve your communication and your connection. Now with this, there's a closed offness that happens when that anxiety strikes, where we turn inward with our attention, but it's actually openness that we need to find the commonalities with the other person that we're interacting with and that communication. There has to be an openness to the audience if we're on stage. So how can we make that shift in our mindset to be more open if we have a tendency to close ourselves off in those tense moments? Yeah. So I spent a lot of time talking about mindset in this methodology in this book and you're absolutely right. Anxiety turns us inward. So we need to focus outwardly and there are several things we can do. First, we have to realize that when we are put on the spot, we tend to get very defensive and that defensiveness closes us down both physically. We make ourselves tighter. Mentally, we begin focusing on defending ourselves in our point of view. And if we can reframe this as actually an opportunity where there's an opportunity to connect, to expand, to learn, it totally changes everything. We open up. Our responses become longer. Our tone is collaborative. So the trickers of the question is, how do you do that? Well, I itemize several different mindset shifts and it gives specific activities people can do. For example, I'm a huge fan of Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset. And one of the big pieces of that is this notion of not yet. If I go into these circumstances where I feel people are threatening and challenging me and I want to do it really well and it doesn't go as well as I want, rather than beating myself up, saying, I'm not worthy. I'm never going to get good at this. Remind yourself of not yet. Perhaps not yet, but in the future, maybe. And what are the steps that I can take? So these situations become motivational. They become opportunities for you to learn. And when we see it that way, it completely changes. Similarly, we can adopt a yes and mindset. I am sure you're familiar with improvisation. Many of the rules that apply, I love them. Yes, and so when I'm even in disagreement, if you give me a challenging question rather than getting defensive and say, oh, you're a mean person for doing that, I can think about where are there areas of commonality. You're challenging me, which means you actually care about this topic too. We have something in common. We both care about it. Let's dive into that. Yes, and then the last one I'll share comes from the world of basketball. Mike Shashevsky, former basketball college basketball coach, Coach K, inculcated this value in all of his players and it's turned out in all sports and it's this notion of next play. When we have a negative experience where we feel defensive, we tend to ruminate in that moment. And that means we miss what's happening immediately after. If I'm an athlete, a basketball player and I should make a shot and it doesn't go in, if I sit there going, oh, that's a crappy shot. I wish I would have done better. The next play is happening. The other team is already down the court scoring. I need to just put pause on that thought, go and play and then reflect later. Reflection is good, rumination is not. So we get to this positive mindset where we see ourselves as other focused by seeing these things as opportunities and allowing ourselves to follow some of these tools like not yet yes and and next play. I want to follow up there on the yes and piece as well. We all do it. And I certainly know when I fight myself cognitively when writing to somebody or talking to somebody and they asked me to do something. And it may be aligned with my values and there's no reason in the world that I should be saying no. It should be a yes all the way. However, to give myself space to back out, right? There is a well, I got to see or but or there needs to be something there. So I have an escape and and noticing that you can correct it in that moment because you're like, well, this is aligned with my values. So it should be yes. And regardless of what's going on inside because I'm doing something new, it's a novel to me. So there's going to be some hesitation. I have to brave that and walk into it anyway. And when you fight that, so if you're texting somebody and it's like, yes, but I got to check on my calendar and but just by saying yes. Well, now there's a commitment made and now my brain goes into preparing for the adventure rather than figuring out how I'm getting out of it and our audience. I hear it a lot in the questions that we get asked of why am I not doing this or why am I stuck or why have I plateaued while you're in the habit of saying yes and leaving putting an excuse on the table. And when that anxiety hits, you have your excuse to back out. But by saying yes, you're now getting prepared mentally, physically for the adventure and for the commitment of change, which is the most important aspect of this. We hear it all the time. How do I fix this? How do I change? I've recognized this pattern. It's been going on forever. And guess what? It's going to continue going on forever until you say yes and let's go. I really love how you articulated that so many of us are held back by our fear or the chance to change seems scary or uncomfortable. And so we give ourselves these outs and I like what you said. Sometimes the best way to do something is to start it and then after you've started it, then you go ahead and you find ways to be successful. So it's having that leap of faith, giving yourself the permission to do that is so important and it's baby steps. It can be incremental. You know, if you want to be an amazing communicator, you don't start by getting on a Ted stage or something of that. You start by going to Toastmasters. I know with all of this, there's obviously us wanting to present and talk smart and allow the other person to see our side. But then the other piece to this is we have to be better listeners and engaging in communication. Oftentimes when we're thinking about our calendar, the notifications on our phone, what we else we have to do later that day, we remove ourselves from being curious and being great listeners. So it's not just about talking smarter. It's also about recognizing that other people want to talk smart too with you and you have to listen to what they're saying. So how do we deal with all the distractions that's going on, the attention span shrinkage when it comes to mastering communication? Listening is so important, AJ. We really do have to listen better and it is through that listening that we really connect and we set ourselves up for success. Most of us are not good listeners. We listen just enough to get the gist of what somebody is saying and then we start judging and evaluating and planning and that's disconnecting. So I encourage people when they listen to listen intently for what's the bottom line. When I listen for the bottom line, not the top line, but the bottom line, it forces me to listen. I heard this gentleman. He's a professor. Give a presentation. I have to go find his name. He teaches music theory in jazz and he said of his teacher, the person who taught him jazz, he said the person instructed him to listen until you sweat and I love that analogy. When we listen, we need to listen that intently because that's where we really learn and in the methodology I teach and in the book, I borrow a framework from a colleague of mine at the business school. His name is Collins Dobbs and the framework is three things pace space grace to be a better listener. We have to slow things down as you alluded to AJ. Our attention is constantly pulled in different directions. People are very busy. I have to slow down. You cannot listen well fast. You have to slow down. We have to then give ourselves space. Sometimes this is physical space moved to a place where you can literally hear, but the other more important space is the mental space. We have to clear the decks. We have to be present and really focus and then finally is grace and grace is giving ourselves permission, not just to listen to the words that are spoken, but how they're said in the context in which they're said and also to listen to our intuition because as you're saying things, it resonates with me or it brings up a red flag and I need to listen to that as well. Let me give you an example in a spontaneous speaking situation where if you don't listen well, you can do damage. Imagine the three of us come out of a meeting and John turns to me and says, Matt, how do you think that meeting went? And I say, Oh, John wants feedback. All right. Here's what you did wrong. Here's what we could do better. This is what we need to think about next time. But had I really listened, I would have noticed that John came out the back door and Asia and I came out the front door. John was looking down and speaking more quietly than usual. Had I listened well, I would have realized John didn't want feedback. He wanted support and by my itemizing all the things that went wrong, I am actually doing a disservice in that moment and perhaps long term to our relationship. So you have to listen with pace, space, grace. Listen for the bottom line and that will help. Now I have to tell both of you. My wife gets really upset when I teach listening skills because she says, I need to practice what I teach. So we're all a work in progress and we all I'm sure AJ's heard that too from his common thread here with that, you know, a lot of times with that problem solution mindset that we're carrying over from our career, we will approach communication in the same manner of like, Oh, my wife has a problem. Let's get to solution. When in actuality, it's more around validating that person's emotion. So like your example where his body language a bit down, he was asking a question, but he wasn't looking for feedback. He was looking for emotional support. If we're just looking at the information that's being exchanged, not the emotional context, not the unsaid of the fact that Johnny went out the back door instead of the front door. Well, it's going to be very hard for us to then actually meet in a space where Johnny feels heard and validated and he enjoyed that communication and we actually move that relationship deeper beyond the surface level chit chat. You're absolutely right. And this is again, it brings us back to this notion of mindset being receptive, looking for connection. It's it really changes the way you approach not just other people, but life in general. I think with that framework, grace is for ourselves, give ourselves a bit of grace recognizing that we are easily distracted and maybe we aren't as great of listeners as we'd like to be and also give other people grace. They're going to be making mistakes. They're going to be putting their foot in their mouth. They might be tripping over their words and that's OK to let's try to meet in the middle instead of being so judgmental of others. Absolutely. Amen to what you said. Yes. It's about coming to the communication in a humble manner in a place of receptiveness and support. And that's what really helps bring people closer together and allows us to learn and grow. Now, one of the skills that we focus on with our clients is storytelling because it's a great opportunity for us to build a connection. But also there are structures that we can rely on in storytelling that allow things and frameworks that allow things to move a lot smoother. So how do you approach storytelling and why is it so important to be a great storyteller when you want to talk smarter? Story is critical. And by story, what I mean is a logical connection of ideas. Our brains in my work, I've interviewed lots of neuroscientists and they all tell me our brains are wired for story. Our brains are not wired for just lists of information. We need to package things up to help our audience digest what we say. A story is just a logical connection of ideas and there are many frameworks that we can use that help us tell our stories. A framework is a recipe and if I have the recipe and I'll tell you both, I'm not a very good cook, but I'm a much better cook when I follow a recipe. If I have a recipe, it gives me a place to start and a place to end. It helps me focus. One of the biggest challenges of speaking in the moment or speaking in general is we say more than we need to. A structure helps us figure out what to say and again, this is a counter intuitive notion. I'm talking about speaking spontaneously yet at the same time saying structure and I always like to refer to athletics. If you are an athlete, you do lots of drills. You follow drills in a patterned way so that when you're in the moment performing your sport, you actually can do so very freely and in an agile way. So lots of structures exist. Let me give you a very simple one and then if you'll allow me, I want to give you my favorite. Yeah, a very simple structure that many people are aware of. You've already referred to it as a mindset, but people use it as a way of communicating. If I'm trying to persuade you or pitch, I might say, here's a problem you have. Here's a solution on how to address it and here are the benefits. If you've ever watched an advertisement, an advertisement does that. Here's this problem or opportunity. Here's how our tool service products or solves it. And then here's how you benefit. If I have to persuade you in the moment, I can think of what's the problem from your perspective. How does my offering solve it? And then what are the benefits? Helps me with half the burden of what I have to do when I have to communicate. I have to figure out what to say and how to say it. The structure tells you how to say it. Again, reducing your cognitive load. So many of us are familiar with that one. I want to share my favorite though. It's three simple questions. What so what now what By answering these three simple questions, you have a logical tight, clear, concise response. It could be an update you're giving. It could be feedback you're delivering. It could be the way you structure and email by talking about the what that's your idea, your product, your service, your belief, your feedback. The so what is why is it important and relevant to the person you're talking to? And then the now what is what comes next? Maybe it's I'll take your questions or let me show you a demonstration or can we set up another meeting? So what so what now? What is a very simple way to structure our content? And I'll let you in on a little secret and you might have caught it. Many of my responses to your questions and our discussion have been in this structure. I don't know what you're going to ask me, but I know how I'm going to respond. I'm going to tell you what my answer is, why I think it's important and then give people ideas about how they can use it or benefit from it. So it's a great way to package information and tell the stories that we want to tell. And logically, the other person can follow along and there's nothing worse than when you're sitting on the other side of a story that has no payoff. That's meandering around useless details and not moving the conversation forward. You're absolutely right. It packages it up so somebody can digest it and it helps you prioritize what to say. So it's a win-win. And quite frankly, in many of our circumstances where we communicate, we want the person to take what we've told them and do something with it. So by making it easier for them, it helps think of a job interview. It is in my best interest to package my information up nicely so you can turn around and talk to your other colleagues who helped make the hiring decision about me. If I just ramble lots of information, you're like, I don't remember anything specific about the person, but if I can package it up and you can tell my story for me, then I've won. Well, if it was just about random information, your resume would be enough to get the job, right? That's true. That's exactly right. But it is stories that we hold on to and when our clients come to us, they go, I want to be more memorable. And it's like, well, we have to work on your storytelling because every potential question of you is an opportunity to share another part of your story. And if that person walks away feeling like they understand your story, they're going to be more excited about seeing you again, more interested in building a relationship and more interested in helping you on that journey or story that you shared with them. You're absolutely right. And I encourage people to think through the stories about themselves and the stories that they want to reveal. In my MBA class, I teach at Stanford. We have our students each prepare one of five types of stories that they can tell so they can practice and think about it. So there's the crucible story where you've been really tested. There's the pie in the face story where you've embarrassed yourself. There's the learning story where you learn something really important. So we should each think about what are these stories about ourselves that reveal important information? And how do we tell it in a way that can really connect to other people in a structured way? And there's so many opportunities that most people will default to simple answers. What do you do? I work in finance. Well, if you have an opportunity to share a bit of a story of why you work in finance and what about finance you actually love? That's going to make you more memorable in that client pitch meeting or in that job interview situation than just saying I work in finance. And oftentimes we just have these responses hardwired that we just default to to move past small talk to move past these opportunities for connection. And we're blind to it. We don't even realize that we're doing it but actually disconnects the other person from wanting to get to know you more. Those of us who study this kind of thing we call these heuristics. These are mental shortcuts that help us. So, you know, if one of you comes to me and tells me about how you're struggling with something or you had a rough day my natural heuristic because I need to respond. I'm not just going to stare blankly at you. I'll say something like it is what it is. Well, I just missed a phenomenal opportunity to demonstrate my compassion, my caring for you to help. But when I just heuristically need jerk respond, it is what it is or some other trite saying I miss out on it. So you're right. Absolutely. We have to lean into these opportunities to connect to share our stories because that's really where the human making common of communication happens. Now that first opportunity is small talk and I know a lot of our listeners dread it to the point of sometimes even avoiding it because of those heuristics, right? They've been in situations where people default to one word answers or just generic responses. I had a great day. It's okay. I work in finance and of course that's a boring interaction. You remember that and then you want to avoid more of those boring interactions. But unfortunately, small talk actually serves a very important tool in building connection. It allows us to find commonality. It also shows how open we are to connection in the first place. So it's not to be avoided. How can we strengthen our small talk skills to be more impactful in those opportunities? I so agree with you that small talk is a wonderful opportunity to connect to learn to to learn about yourself and others to extend potential for the future. I think what we need to do is we need to rebrand small talk big good things happen in small talk. But many of us just it has a bad rap and we don't want to deal with it. So I have a couple ideas about how to make small talk better. The first comes from a colleague. Her name is Rachel Greenwald. She's fascinating. She's a matchmaker and an academic really interesting. And she has this great saying it's the goal of small talk is to be interested, not interesting. A lot of us put so much pressure on ourselves to be super interesting. It's almost like we're playing tennis and we want to ace the ball over the net. We want to land it. So we score and that doesn't set us up for success rather. I think small talk should be seen as hacky sack. You know that little beanbag game where the goal is for each of us to just keep it off the ground in the way that we succeed is if I set you up when I pass it to you so you can more easily get it and pass it back to me. So be interested, not interesting. Ask questions. Be curious. Follow up on things people say. That's how you get small talk moving forward. Highlight and comment on things in the environment. We put so much pressure on ourselves to start these things in an amazing way and we have to avoid the doom loop. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? Now we're nowhere better off, right? So comment on something in the environment. Comment on a shared experience. If you're going to some chit chat cocktail party after some corporate event, you know, where there was a keynote speaker, go up to somebody and talk about the keynote speaker. Talk about the environment. I was in one of these events once. I was writing the chapter of my book on small talk. So I said, I'm going to challenge myself and I went up to somebody I didn't know and I looked around the room and everybody was wearing different color blue. It was like this blue smurf fest and I looked at the person and I said, did you know, did I miss the memo? Everybody's wearing blue and the person looked around said, oh my goodness, you're right. And we had a delightful conversation simply because I picked up something in the moment. So how you start them, start with curiosity, comment on something you have in common and that sets you off well and then be curious. My mother-in-law has a black belt in small talk and she does it with three simple words. Tell me more. When somebody says something, she'll just say, tell me more and that gives the person permission to give more information. It demonstrates my interest. I can find more commonality. Let me see if you'll allow me. I want to share one more trick. I think was small talk. How do you get out of it? How do you get out of the conversation? Most of us rely on biology. I got to go to the bathroom. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I had this. This was awful. I wanted to get out once a long time ago. I said to this person, oh, I need to go to the bathroom. The person looked at me said, me too. And now all of a sudden our conversation continued for an extra 20 minutes in an awkward bathroom situation. We need to end them. And Rachel Greenwall again, taught me this great technique. She calls it the white flag. Not white flag I surrender, but white flag like an auto racing. They wave the white flag before the last lap. So what you do in a conversation is you say, in a few minutes, I want to go talk to those people over there. But before I leave, I'm curious about so you ask one more question or dive deeper. And then once that wraps up, you say, thank you so much. I learned so much from you. I'm going to go talk to my friends over there. Because you've signaled you're leaving soon. Everybody, the separation happens peacefully. Everybody feels okay about it. The other person's already prepared for their exit. I love this way. I do it all the time. It works beautifully. So we have to think a small talk is a big opportunity. We have to be curious, lead with questions, be interested, not interesting. Now a pattern we've recognized with our clients around the curiosity front is they can oftentimes become too curious to the point of not divulging or sharing anything about themselves. And we created a conversation formula for these moments so that much like your tennis example, you're not just sitting there waiting for the ball back, but instead you're volleying it back to the other person so you can have a great rally conversationally. So we like to buffer all of our curious questions with statements about ourselves, whether we relate to that person shared their answer or we don't, we express that too. And we found that oftentimes when we're in these situations, maybe you're not into the same things. Maybe you haven't been to that place. You haven't eaten that cuisine. You don't enjoy watching that sport and we hold back and we clam up and we don't say anything in that moment. And the other person takes that silence as judgment or us not being open. In actuality, you saying, Hey, I've actually never had that cuisine. I've never tried sushi or I've actually never been into NFL. Why are you such a big football fan? Did you learn about it growing up? Was your parent a big football fan? These are great ways for you to at least share something in that small talk. So the other person doesn't feel all the pressure of your question after question after question that interrogation will often leave the other person to take less interest in you and look to wave the white flag sooner. Two comments that come to mind. One, when you're listening to ask questions, it changes the way you connect with somebody. When I'm just listening to get my point out, that's very different than when I'm listening to to understand what motivates you. So I love that you you're encouraging people to do that. And then from a more academic point of view, people who study conversation look at different types of turn taking in the two major categories. They look at our supportive turns and switching turns. So a supportive turn is where I take your topic you're presenting on and I ask more about it. So let's say, AJ, you come to me and say, Hey, I'm so excited. I just got back from a trip to Hawaii. A supporting response would be, Oh really? What island did you go to? What did you do? A switching response would be like, Oh, I just got back from Costa Rica. Both are important because as you said, if I only do supporting responses, you feel interrogated. You feel like I'm hiding something. So I occasionally have to do a shifting response to allow myself to share information about me. The magic number seems to be two-thirds supporting one-third shifting in conversation. So it's not about all or none. It's about managing between the two. Yeah. And I love that idea because it's it's simple for you to understand. There are moments where you want to share more and take a little bit of the spotlight and then also recognize that being interested in the other person means not taking the spotlight. And we never like being in conversations with people who immediately switch back to themselves and talk about how amazing Costa Rica was when you just got back from Hawaii and you're probably excited to share your trip. Absolutely. That's right. And it's being sensitive to that and being open and notice that the risk that we run in doing that though is we have to we were giving away some of our control in that moment because we don't know where the other person is going but in that is where that magic happened. So we have to get more comfortable with. I don't know where this conversation is going. It might bring up something great. It might bring up something that's a little awkward but we have to gain comfort with that. When you're meeting somebody new there's going to be small talk taking place and no matter who it is there is tension and pressure on meeting somebody for the first time. So acknowledging that you want to be respectful of where pressure goes. So if you just get on the question train and because you were told hey find out about the other person that's a great way to go about it. Oh great. I'll just keep asking questions. Well every time that you ask a question you're put more and more pressure on the other person and eventually the pressure gets to such a degree they're trying to find a way out. They don't realize that they're getting the question train. All they know is it's uncomfortable and they're going to have to leave that interaction due to being uncomfortable. Now if you're an introvert or you don't like small talk much and that person immediately is looking for an exit then you're going to take that frustration either it's that person's a jerk or I fail and suck at small talk and I'm never going to do it again. Both are wrong. Right. It's like this is why the question answer statement formula is so important because it allows you to as AJ was saying and to follow that back and forth. You're right. And the one thing I really like to highlight there because you made a really important point when we communicate we're not just communicating information we're communicating emotion and we often fixate on hey am I saying the right thing are these the right words is this moving the conversation in the right direction and we don't think about how is that making the person feel because you could be doing all the right things but really making somebody uncomfortable so we have to manage both the feelings that we're communicating that's why tone is important that's why pausing is important that's why listening and paraphrasing are important because that's where we communicate the emotion in the interest that helps us move the conversation forward so we have two channels going simultaneously and we have to pay attention to both you mentioned something very important there that I also want to shine a light on when we ruminate on these things it's always about the words that we used but we can't put ourselves back in that moment to understand the emotions that are flying so your reflection is is off it's highly distorted due to not being in that moment to understand the atmosphere emotional atmosphere that is that is going on so I mean that plays a large role as well so and if you had a bad joke or you said something that was that maybe you think was offensive all you remember is the words that were exchanged you don't remember the emotions that were in that room and and what was going on and how people were were feeling so it's difficult to reflect in that manner if you if you can't have an understanding of that emotional atmosphere absolutely and and that you're right when we reflect we we we distort lots of things and certainly we certainly let go of the emotion and we don't often pay attention to the context either right we just remember the words and in a lot of what happens that helps us do well or not so well is the context that's going on and so we need to broaden our reflection and actually when I encourage people and teach people to reflect I ask questions like how are you feeling how do you think the other person was feeling what was going on in the environment at the time was it loud was it noisy where people rushing by and that helps people get a better perspective of what might influence what worked and what didn't work so well this is why we do the video work as well and when we're watching it back those moments that were recorded where they're in the moment they're discussing and maybe the interaction completely collapsed on itself and then we're watching it back and they're like I don't understand how it collapsed and nothing nothing happened they're like well yeah that was your anxiety getting the best of you in that moment and you surrendering to it right and here's what we're going to do to work beyond that and to and to navigate that and improve for next time right and and that brings up this notion of failure and mistakes and and I have a perspective on mistake I mean we've all heard mistakes are how we learn and if you watch kids they make lots of mistakes and they learn I like to see mistakes as mist takes you know when you film a TV show or a movie and they have that clapboard they go take one take two you know what they're doing there is they're trying to optimize something each take is not wrong they're not bad they're just trying it a little differently so when we do that reflection you're talking about instead of saying oh man I did it wrong to say ah that's one way of doing it I bet you I can do it another way that might have a different outcome and that's why a movie director will say do it standing do it sitting do it with this emotion try it with that emotion and that's what we all have to do that's how learning helps us rather than reflecting and say oh my goodness I was awful I have lots of people I coach and I teach where that reflection sends them into this doom loop where they just get into the spiral of I can't do this I'm not good at this and I really try to help them reframe and say no this is just a missed take next time you'll take it differently take two let's try it and the big problem there is we only remember the really amazing moments and the mistakes the awful moments the failures when in actuality most of the communication in this podcast with our friends and family the people we love is in the middle it's not failure and it's not 100% perfect so what do we do in those moments where it is high stakes but we do make a mistake we put our foot in our mouth we misstate something we're in a job interview we're feeling the pressure and the anxiety and we don't say exactly what we want to say or we don't talk smarter so a few things to think about in that moment you have to make some really quick decisions one is is it significant enough that I have to acknowledge it sometimes we don't say the right thing and we just keep going and that's fine the reality is most people are aren't listening as well as we'd like them to and maybe they miss it so sometimes highlighting the thing actually makes it worse than the actual act so we have to make that calculus very quickly is this significant or not if it is something that is significant let's say you're in a job interview and you answer a question and it doesn't come out right and there's really one thing you wanted to add more you can say you know I want to go back to that question because I really think this is important for me to share with you so you redirect and you but you do so by explaining the value it has for the other person so it's not like oh I'm just correcting a mistake I made it's like I think you really should know that this is important and that way people are more likely to say oh you're you've got my best interest in mind please do tell me sometimes we make a mistake that we need to apologize for and I spend some time in the book talking about an apology so we certainly don't want to offend somebody put somebody in an awkward position so sometimes what we have to do in those moments is actually apologize and when we apologize we have to be specific about what we're apologizing for often people apologize for how we made people feel like I'm sorry that you feel bad no no I'm sorry that I interrupted you and made it awkward for you because you were saying something important there's a difference there so we have to when we apologize apologize for the specific act not how we made someone feel so I really think we have three choices to make and and in that moment we have to decide which of those we follow one is to ignore it the other is to circle back but do so by highlighting relevance for the person you're you're doing that with and then finally is the apology yeah and I think it's so important that we recognize the apology is not about the outcome but our action and our role in that outcome 100% it was so great having you Matt we love asking every guest what their X factor is what do you think makes you unique and extraordinary I think I'm on that path I don't think I'm there by any means but for me I think it's my curiosity it is it is my curiosity about how people can connect better I am tenaciously curious I am very much interested in helping other people and those two go nicely together and and I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts and to explore these topics with you I love the conversation we had today likewise and I know our audience will enjoy your podcast and book where can they find out more about the work you do thank you so matt abrahams.com has everything I do I would love for people if they like your podcast I think they'll like think fast talk smart the book is think faster talk smarter I'm not very creative with names and I do a lot of work on LinkedIn and would love to see people there as well all right thank you very much Matt thank you