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As the year draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on all the amazing advice we've heard on Think Fast, Talk Smart.
Today I want to share with you my top 10 bits of advice that I am directly applying to my life.
My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.
Allow me to share with you the top 10 bits of advice that I personally have been applying in my life.
I'm going to list these in the order in which they aired.
I'll share the episode number and the guest's names so you can take advantage of these learnings as well.
Let's get started with takeaway number one from episode 80 with Jonah Berger.
Verbs 10 Nounds. I love language and persuasion.
And when Jonah talked about the persuasive impact of turning verbs into nouns, I was fascinated.
He used the example of trying to get people to vote more.
It turns out asking people to vote is not as effective as asking people to become a voter.
Similarly, asking people to help is not as effective as asking people to be a helper.
Often we describe ourselves using an adjective or again a verb.
We say I am hard working.
Well, that's good. But let me say, imagine I told you about two people, someone who runs and someone who is a runner.
And so rather than talking about yourself as hard working, talk about yourself as a hard worker, rather than talking about yourself as creative, you're a creator.
If we're trying to get someone to help us out, rather than asking them for help, asking them to be a helper, makes them more likely to agree to help us.
Similarly, when we're trying to get someone to vote, asking to be a voter, rather than asking to vote, makes them more likely to go along.
Seeing ourselves as a voter or a helper makes us more likely to act.
Simple refraising of a message can help us achieve our persuasive goals.
When I talk to my kids about being careful driving, I now talk to them about being safe drivers, rather than asking them to drive safely.
Take away number two. From episode 89 with Rachel Greenwald, be interested, not interesting.
Small talk and chit chat can be very stressful for even the most extroverted of us.
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be engaging and interesting.
As Rachel suggests, we can reduce this pressure and enjoy our conversations more if we are curious and ask questions to demonstrate our interest.
Start and the ending are the toughest part.
If you're someone that struggles with initiating small talk, it's probably because you're worried about finding that intriguing question like we were just talking about.
If that's your obstacle, then I'd say just forget about asking a question entirely.
Take that pressure away.
Instead, think about simply making an observation about something in your environment.
An observation is essentially a bid for connection and it can create a feeling of instant familiarity, like sort of a conspiratorial vibe just between two people.
I love this advice and I've used it ever since I learned it.
I'll often start small talk by asking about something I notice about the other person or something we share in common.
At a recent cocktail party, I asked a few folks I was in line with if they had ever seen such elaborate flower decorations.
This turned into a great conversation about global warming and tropical plants.
I ended up setting up a future coffee conversation with two of these people.
Take away number three, episode 92 with Dan Pink.
Talk like a human. When we speak, we often use jargon, acronyms, and cryptic language that gets in the way of understanding.
We all suffer from the curse of knowledge or the curse of passion.
We know too much and care too much about some of the things we talk about, which leads us to use convoluted language.
The only antidote to the curse of knowledge and curse of passion is empathy.
I do think that there are some principles of that realm that we can extract for other realms.
So one of them would be audience first.
You got to think about the audience.
What do they know? What don't they know?
What do they care about?
Don't they care about? Understanding what others know and need to know.
This will lead us to clearer, less acronym and jargon-filled communication.
In preparation to give an important keynote, I recorded a practice session and found three terms that were really overly complex.
I changed them and found my audience much more easily understood what I was trying to say.
Take away number four, episode 95 with Vanessa Patrick, empowered refusal.
Saying no is not a rejection of others or their ideas, but rather a demonstration of our own beliefs.
It's a way of living our values by setting boundaries.
Art stands for awareness, rules, doctrines and totality of self.
I propose that the first competency that we need to invest in, if we want to become more effective in saying no, is deep in self-awareness.
To invest in self-awareness helps us shift between the good for me activities and the not good for me activities and helps us decide what to say yes to and what to say no to.
The second competency is to make rules not decisions based on that self-knowledge.
So once we have the self-knowledge and can identify what we care about, what we believe in, what we stand for, it helps us to make simple rules that guide our actions and decisions.
When we lean on what I call personal policies, that we can establish to communicate our no response, we yield from being brazen and frustrated when someone makes an ask of us to being much more calm and choosy and empowered.
When we come across with much more conviction and determination.
I struggle to say no to opportunities in people all the time, which sometimes means I get spread thin and can't fulfill my obligations fully or benefit completely from the opportunities.
As a result of Vanessa's guidance, I have more carefully defined my values and goals and now reflect on new opportunities through the lens of these values and goals.
The result is I'm saying no more often, but to the things I say yes to, I am more engaged, less pressured and hopefully more helpful.
Take away number five, episode 103 with Carmine Gallo.
Be a translator. One of the best analogies for an effective communicator is to be a translator.
You're often speaking, depending on your field, in a very different language.
Even if you're speaking to someone who's speaking the same language, that's not the point.
You're using words and complexity and jargon and shortcuts, abbreviations and acronyms that your listener doesn't understand simply because they're not in the same field.
Carmine helped remind me that the pre-work to translate effectively really makes a difference.
I now go out of my way to do some online research about my audiences and ask others who know them.
This helps me prepare relevant content.
Take away six, episode 104 with Katie Milkman, Temptation Bundling.
Katie defines Temptation Bundling as motivating yourself by combining something you enjoy with something you might struggle with doing or need a little bit more effort to complete.
We need a way to make it more enjoyable to pursue our goals.
And I've studied one tactic for that, which I call Temptation Bundling, which is linking something that would otherwise feel like a chore with a source of temptation and pleasure and instant gratification.
So for podcast listeners, maybe you love listening to podcasts.
What if you only let yourself listen to your favorite podcasts while you're working out or doing household chores or some other activity that would otherwise be a source of pain?
And we can think about other ways of Temptation Bundling, right?
You only get to go to your favorite restaurant that has unhealthy burgers.
You crave when spending time with a difficult mentee.
When we Temptation Bundle, we seem to improve the rate at which we engage in these behaviors that otherwise would feel like drudgery.
There are many things in my life that I find hard to initiate or sustain.
I now use Temptation Bundling to help me get through them.
Grading is something that can be very taxing on me.
So I do Temptation Bundling now.
I reward myself with M&Ms after I grade 10 of my students assignments.
This actually helps me be excited about grading and it gives me a little sugar push to get through the work.
Take away number seven, episode 105 with Kim Scott.
When someone gets furious, you should get curious.
Yet one challenge I have faced in fear facing is when someone I provide constructive feedback to gets upset.
I often get defensive or back away from my feedback.
Kim's advice is to get curious.
And to what they're saying and ask questions to better understand what might be leading to their response.
And one of the things that I try to tell myself in those moments is when furious, get curious.
I like to say. Someone's mad.
I'm getting mad back. I try to take a deep breath.
If I have a bottle of water, I'll unscrew the top, take a sip of water.
I try to figure out what has gone wrong here.
Why is this person so upset?
And don't blame yourself.
This approach has really paid off for me.
I had a student who was quite upset with some feedback I provided.
Rather than getting defensive and say, because I said so, I asked a few probing questions that revealed some insightful information that led to a great discussion in learning opportunity not just for the student, but for me as well.
We parted ways happily, and the student thanked me for my input.
Take away number eight, episode 109 with Francis Fry.
Emotion really makes us absorbative.
First of all, I will just say that we think that emotions are underused.
And there's almost like, I've heard so many people give advice, you know, don't be so emotional like contain your emotions.
And I find that to not be correct in most instances.
I want people to bring more emotion.
Emotion is like the sanding that we can then come and paint on top of.
Emotion really makes us absorbative.
Often when we communicate, we lead with facts and logic.
Francis reminds us that emotions matter.
We all can benefit from bringing emotion into our communication.
Even if you're dealing with bits and bites, chemicals and compounds, if you are saving money, saving time, saving trees, or saving lives, there is emotion you can rely on.
I like to start my communication by asking what if you could to bring emotion to the forefront of my audience's mind.
Take away number nine, episode 113 with Patrick McGinnis, FOMO types.
I am someone who has long suffered from FOMO, fear of missing out.
I can remember back in high school wondering what events I was missing out on, what activities could I or should I be doing.
Today, I work hard to focus on being present when I am in conversations, less I wonder if there is something better happening elsewhere in the room.
We must ask ourselves, it's a pretty basic set of questions.
Things like, is that thing as good as it looks?
Can I afford to do that? Do I have time to do that?
What are the trade-offs I must make to do that?
Then we must dig into that thing and replace the fear with facts so that we can make a decision based on data, not emotion.
That's how you attack the aspirational FOMO.
On the herd FOMO, that's a question of motivation.
The question you must ask yourself is, why?
Why do I want this thing?
Is this something I truly want?
Do I have agency or am I simply following the crowd?
Patrick really helped me think more deeply about my FOMO.
And he identified the two types and reflecting on these types, I am now better able to ask questions of myself that quiet my FOMO.
For example, when I question, is there a better opportunity elsewhere, I reflect on what value I can gain from where I am right now.
I also ask, what is the downside of the thing I aspire to?
This has helped me to be more present and fulfilled and to worry less.
Take away number 10, episode 114 with Julian Treasurer.
What is the listening I am speaking into?
Two of the most common bits of advice on the podcast is to know your audience and listen intently.
Julian combined these in my favorite quote from the year.
What is the listening I am speaking into?
For me, this is a reminder that we must always be in service of our audience and their needs.
When I prepare a talk or this podcast, I will now ask this question and then adjust my language and focus.
This comes from my observation that every human being is listening is unique.
It is as unique as your finger prints are.
The reason for that is that we listen through a set of filters and those filters develop as we grow and mature in life and we have experiences.
So they start with things like the language we learn to speak, the culture we are born into which might be family, it might be tribe or group, it might be local, it might be city, it might be region, it might be national, whatever it is, it might be all of those things.
There is a culture we are born into and these things shape our listening and then you have the values, attitudes and beliefs that you gather along the way from parents, teachers, friends, role models and you pick some up.
You discard others and the ones you have picked up will be the different from the ones I have picked up.
Taken together, these 10 tips have really helped me this year to be a better, more attentive, present oriented communicator.
I hope they will help you as well.
Looking forward to another great year of Think Fast, TalkSmart, the podcast, where we will learn many more tips to help us hone and develop our communication.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, TalkSmart, the podcast from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
This episode was produced by Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos and me, Matt Abrahams.
Our music was provided by Floyd Wander.
For more information and episodes, find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
