How to think faster and talk smarter, with Matt Abrahams

0:00On Masters of Scale, we talk a lot about inflection points, those moments when a technology stops being optional and starts being fundamental. AI presents one of those moments, and behind every breakthrough, whether it's medical research or education or even cinematic visual effects, there's infrastructure most people never see. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave is building that foundation. It provides a purpose-built AI cloud designed specifically for pioneers at leading AI labs and enterprises ready to power the biggest ideas and the boldest ambitions. Ready for anything. Ready for AI.

0:44To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com slash ready for anything. Startups grow in unpredictable ways, but your infrastructure shouldn't. Deal scales with you from employee one to employee 1 ,000. Deal's real-time payroll engine cuts weeks-long cycles down to minutes. And their global experts keep you compliant as you expand. Plus, startups can tap into perks like up to$25 ,000 in deal credits and support programs designed specifically for high-growth teams. Deal is the fastest way to hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Deal, your forever people platform.

1:24Visit deel.com slash mos to learn more and book a demo.

1:55Matt Abrahams knows what it takes to win over a crowd, close a deal, and inspire a team. It's not enough to have a great product or a terrific idea. You need to be a brilliant communicator as well. Neuroscience has taught us emotion gets into our brains differently than information. Gets in faster, stays longer, motivates behavior. So do I want people excited or concerned? Do I want them to have FOMO, fear of missing out, or be validated, or just be confident? Think about that emotion.

2:53you and much, much more.

2:59Matt, welcome to Masters of Scale. I'm thrilled to be here, Jeff. Thank you. We're thrilled to have you. I just want to start by asking you, how do you describe what you do? So fundamentally, I'm somebody who's really passionate about communication. And really, what I think I do is I help people to hone and develop their communication skills. And a lot of that is really just asking people to turn habits into choices. Most people communicate out of habit. And my job, I think, is to expose them to different opportunities, tools, and techniques, and then ask them to consider in their situations they find themselves in to try a different technique out.

3:33What led you to choose to really specialize in this and to teach others how to be great at this? The teaching bug, I think, is just inside of me inherently. I've always loved teaching. I've had lots of opportunities to teach. After graduate school, I worked in the corporate world for a while. I had to pay off some loans. And I just saw the impact that good communication could have on somebody's career and a company's trajectory and how bad communication got in the way. And so when the opportunity presented itself to do some teaching in this, actually here at Stanford through their continuing studies program, I fell in love with it and I saw the impact it had and I really enjoyed learning from my students and have never turned back.

4:10I started my career as a public defender, not the obvious place to start for what I do now. And I'll never forget, we had one lawyer who quite experienced and doing this for decades who told us that they went into the restroom and threw up every single day before court. And it really just struck me as like that you've got literally decades of experience and you're still showing up with that level of nerve. As you work with people on communication, particularly on public communication, how common is this, this like nervousness? And what do you help people understand that they can do to be less nervous, to walk in with more confidence in these rooms?

4:49So anxiety around communication looms large. We have some evidence that suggests up to 85 % of people feel anxiety. And quite frankly, I think the other 15 % are lying. Those of us who study it have found it in every culture we've studied. We find it develops around the same time, around when kids become early teenagers is when it really becomes more prominent and stays that way. So we believe it's part of the human condition. There's an evolutionary explanation for it. Your relative status in a group matters a lot. Not today, and I'm not talking who drives the fanciest car and has the most social media likes, but when we were a species hanging out in groups of 150 people during our early evolution, your relative status meant everything.

5:33And it meant access to resources like food, reproduction. And if you did anything that jeopardized that, it could have quite a significant impact. So it's wired into us. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't learn to manage it. I spend a lot of my time helping people learn to manage anxiety. And you can do it both by focusing on the symptoms and the sources, but it is ubiquitous and it is something we have to work at. But over time, we can manage it. I don't think we can ever truly overcome it, as your example shows. Having anxiety tells us that what What we're doing is important, gives us energy, helps us focus, but we have to manage it so it doesn't manage us.

6:12Are there truths about managing anxiety that apply to 90x percent of the population or is it really specific to the individual? Everybody is different in terms of what their triggers might be or where the sources are, but there are some things you can do that seem to work for most people. I'll give you a few examples. Deep belly breathing really can help. It slows down your autonomic nervous system. It slows down your breath rate. It lowers your breathing so that your voice sounds more normal. So breath work seems to be really important. And what's key is the exhalation. It's not the inhale. It's the exhale.

6:49So I like to joke the rule of thumb or rule of lung is you want your exhale to be twice as long as your inhale. And if you do a few of those breaths, just two or three, you'll actually really feel different and better. The other thing that gets a lot of people is shakiness. That's adrenaline. Adrenaline's role is to move us from threat to safety. So if you move with purpose, you can give that adrenaline a place to go. So if you're standing up in front of a room, step towards the audience with a welcoming gesture. If you're sitting like this, lean forward, gesture broadly. That gives the shakiness a place to go.

7:20And for most people, those two things alone can help many of the symptoms abate. A lot of people just get inside themselves when they get nervous. They get very still. And then somehow, magically, they expect to be able to go from silence to brilliance. But if you watch athletes, actors, dancers, there's always movement. There's always warming up that goes on. So my anxiety management plan, and I encourage all of my students and everybody that I coach to develop their own unique plan. I do three things. First, I take some deep belly breaths. Second, I do my best to interact with somebody, to have a conversation.

7:53It gets me focused. If it's somebody who's part of the audience, even better, because I realize these are normal human beings who want to learn something from me rather than judges who are there to evaluate. And then I say tongue twisters. Tongue twisters. I know it sounds silly, but what it does is it warms up my voice and you can't say a tongue twister right and not be in the present moment. Nobody ever sees me do this, but it's a way that I warm up. In fact, before we started today, I excused myself and did a few tongue twisters to get myself ready. Do you have a favorite one? I do. But I'll only share it with you if you do it with me.

8:25I'll do it with you. Sure. Okay. Now, the reason I like this one is it's short and if you say it wrong, you say a dirty word. Okay. All right. I slid a sheet. I slid a sheet. A sheet I slit. A sheet I slid. And on that slitted sheet I sit. And on that slitted sheet I sit. See where the naughty word comes? Right at the end. Yeah, exactly. You want to slip an H in there. That's exactly right. And I'll do that three times and it gets me present focused and it warms me up. Amazing. I like to say there are only three ways to get good at communication. Repetition, reflection, and feedback. And repetition.

8:51Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You got to do it a couple times. So you got to, but nobody ever got good at speaking by thinking about it. You have to do it. That's where Toastmasters, taking classes, those things really help. You have to reflect. Most people are just so glad to be done with it, they move on. You know, there's that definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again. Every night before I go to bed, I spend one minute writing down one thing that went well in my communication and one thing that didn't each day. And on Sunday, I spend five minutes going back and reflecting, and I make a plan to address an issue each week.

9:23I'm not saying I'm a great communicator. I am certainly a better communicator because I do that reflection. And then you have to get feedback. We are not the best judges of our communication. I make my MBA students digitally record themselves and they watch. It's painful. It's the worst. But they learn so much. I tell everybody it's like going to the dentist. We don't like going, but we're really glad we've been. And not only do they watch it and listen once, they then watch it without sound and then they listen without video. So they're seeing the different channels and that actually highlights more of what they're working on.

9:53Given how central communication is to everything, right? To relationship building, to presentations. Why don't we spend more time teaching this, especially starting early? Why isn't this more core to our curricula? So I'm heartened, at least here in the United States, that we're seeing a bit more of that. I look at what my kids went through and I have a young nephew and what he's going through, much different than what you and I went through. We're of the same vintage. So I think there is a recognition that communication is important. Coordination of activity is important. I think part of it is that we just do it naturally.

10:31And most people by the age of one are communicating in some way, and we just feel like it's just something we do. But when you think about the impact communication can have, it becomes very clear that it's something we should study and look at. You know, when I talk to people who've graduated from our MBA program, one of the things they will say is either they're so thankful they took communication training because they see how valuable it is in their work life, or they really wish they would have taken more. So it's one of these things where we take it for granted, but then when we get exposed to it, we really see the value that it brings.

11:03Yeah. And my rabbi, Rabbi Sharon Browse wrote a book a couple of years ago called The Amen Effect. It's a beautiful book, but there's a little anecdote in the book about going to the grocery store and going to the self-checkout and looking up and seeing the person working at a cash register and going over, switching, going over and having that moment of human interaction and it completely changing her day as a consequence. As you're engaging with college students, what are you asking them to do, encouraging them to do in their daily lives where they can practice being better communicators and in the process perhaps build more community, build more civility, more connection?

11:41So a few things. One, I ask them just to observe others' communication and see what is it that people are doing. We can be so internal focused that we don't see that, you know, that person pauses before they speak. And that gives a little extra space for the other person to complete their thought. Or like my mother-in-law would do, she was a black belt in small talk, and she would just say, tell me more. And just noticing the subtle little things that people do to encourage communication or shut down communication. So part of it is observation. The other part is really helping people listen better.

12:15Most of us are not good listeners. So really teaching listening skills, which force people to be more present and connective. And then paraphrasing skills. So it's not enough just to get your point across, but when you hear somebody else's point, demonstrate that you heard that point. So giving them tools and techniques and then encouraging them to practice and then come back and reflect and report out. And it's amazing where students will say, I learned so much more from this person I was getting to know because I listened and I paraphrased and I gave the other person the confidence to say more.

12:47So it's helping them, scaffolding them to a point where that they can feel more connected and comfortable doing those things. Still ahead, more with Matt Abrahams on how to craft the perfect pitch.

13:13AI breakthroughs are quickly reshaping every industry around the world. Healthcare, education, science, entertainment, and beyond. But true global scale only happens when the underlying infrastructure can maintain pace with the rapid speed of innovation. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave is a purpose-built cloud made for the real demands of today's most complex AI models, bringing the pace, performance, and partnership leading pioneers need to continue pushing boundaries. Ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com slash ready for anything.

13:56When you have a creative vision, you want total control from the first frame to the final render, which is why so many creative teams are using LTX2 from Lightrix. LTX2 is a next-generation open-source AI engine for audio and video built for teams who need production-ready quality and total control. It runs end-to-end creative workflows directly on your own device with 4K video, synchronized sound, and full creative flexibility. No bandwidth limits, no data leaving your machine, just the freedom to generate high-fidelity video with synchronized audio at roughly one-eighth the cost and one-seventh the rendering time of comparable tools.

14:40Start creating at ltx.io slash model. Hi, I'm PJ Vogt. My podcast Search Engine has a new two-part series for you. Of all the new technologies coming out of AI, the most transformative one might be driverless cars. They're already on the road in 10 American cities, and they're quickly coming to more. We tell the story of how we got here. The secret team at Google that spent 15 years building what might be the safest vehicle on the road, and we cover the fights brewing in blue cities, where unions and politicians are working to keep those cars off the streets. Listen to Search Engine wherever you get your podcasts.

15:18Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and much more on our YouTube channel. And be sure to check out the link in our show notes to subscribe to our newsletter. I wanted to run Matt through a set of scenarios you might be facing and see how we can get better at communicating in each one of them. We started with pitching a new startup concept. when someone's taking an idea out to market and raising money for the first time we're trying to persuade an advisor to come on what are the mistakes that you most commonly see and where are the opportunities to get better that that are just the the lowest hanging fruit to coach people up on so you and i both know guy kawasaki so the first mistake people make is they take too long right i love his jet fighter versus a big boeing analogy it takes a long time for a big plane to take off.

16:09You need to take off quickly. So a lot of people got to get to the punch first. I like to tell people you should start pitches and presentations like an action movie. There's something there right away. A lot of people have long preambles. You need to get yourself into the audience's perspective. This is a fundamental tenet. I host a podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, all about communication. The number one bit of advice across hundreds of guests is always know your audience. A lot of people craft a pitch and that same pitch they give everywhere, you have to adjust and adapt. What's relevant and salient to the people you're talking to?

16:43You also need to focus on benefits and salience, not features and functions. That's many people get so immersed in what's going on. My mother has a saying, I think everybody should live by. It applies to pitches. Tell the time, don't build the clock. Many people say much more than they need to get to the punchline more quickly. And then finally, show, don't tell. Show what this means. Don't just tell us all the different features and function. What does this look like? If you can demonstrate it, demonstrate it, but help us in our mind, see what it is. If you can do those things, you will engage people more.

17:20And then there's one thing that I'd love to get your opinion on. When I see pitches, a lot of people put their bios and their experience upfront. I'm not a big fan of that. I want people to tell me what the idea is, what the value is, and then let me know who you are versus who are you up front. I don't know if you have an opinion on that. Everybody I talk to thinks the bio company slide needs to go in a different place. Well, there's a fundamental tension for me in a lot of these conversations that are pitch conversations ultimately. because yes, jet fighter, get to it, be adept. By the way, as a way to get a meeting, I often say, look, can we please set 30 minutes or an hour?

18:03But if in five or 10 minutes, you don't think this is gonna be valuable for you, kick me out and I will with a smile, shake your hand and give you 45, 50 minutes back in your day. Because if in five minutes, we're not in it, it's probably not gonna happen anyway, most likely. But the tension for me, And I learned this, my first job in the private sector was at MySpace, of all places. And ultimately, I was overseeing the sales function. And I hired an absolutely incredible sales leader, a guy named Andy Whedland, who I went out on a sales call with. And we sat down and he didn't pull up a deck and he didn't start by saying what we're here to talk about.

18:40He started by asking them how they were doing and what was keeping them up at night. Yeah. and got them talking about their problems. And five, six, seven minutes in, he's completely adjusted the conversation to speak to what their needs are. And so that tension is often you walk in the room and you don't know your audience as well as you should. So how do you get them in conversation so you can learn what you're actually, what you want to be speaking to? I think you ask questions. You do your homework, you do your cyber stalking, You're checking out their LinkedIn profiles. You're looking at their blog posts and sub stacks.

19:19But you come in inquisitive. I think curiosity is the best place to come in in most communication, especially in pitching situations. You reflect what you're hearing. That's where paraphrasing comes in. And you're watching for nonverbals. And you're trying to see how are they responding and reacting. Nonverbals are not always the most accurate, but paying attention can be very helpful. and then start down a path and test and check and see if this is of value to them. One of the things you said that I really want to emphasize is setting expectations at the beginning of the meeting when you said, hey, if we're not connecting in 10 minutes, most people don't do a good job of expectation setting leading up to meetings and events.

19:55I'll give you an example. I think the single best expectation setting tool for communication that we seldom use is the calendar invite. We all send invites out with URLs. You can do so much in a calendar invite to set expectations. I challenge you, the next time you schedule a meeting, don't put the word meeting in the title. It forces you to make it something that's more active and engaging. Put your expectations, your goals, maybe even your behaviors that you want people to have or the tools you intend to use in the meeting in the invite. So people come in ready to go. I put in every invite I have for every meeting I run, either a question that we're going to start with discussing or a challenge that I want us to address.

20:33Most people start meetings by reviewing the previous meeting, which I think is ludicrous. Most people don't like going to meetings. So I'm going to start this meeting by reminding you about the previous meeting you didn't want to be in. Let's do something active to get engaged. And then if we have to talk about the previous meeting. So expectation setting is critical. In the moment, determining who your audience is and what you can do to help them is critical. But it involves listening and being silent. And many of us, because we're excited, we're nervous, that's hard for us to do. To your point, most of us hate meetings.

21:03They're a time suck. It feels like I only need to be here for five or ten minutes. We've set it for half an hour, an hour. What, especially focusing on an internal meeting, what makes for a great meeting? I think a good meeting is where people feel that value has been provided to them and that they've had an opportunity to contribute and be heard. And that boils down to a lot of the pre-work that has to be done. Do you actually need the meeting? Meetings are often band-aids for bigger problems. When I come in and do some of my consulting work, one of the first things I'll do is a communication audit.

21:35and I look for the number of meetings that people have and how many people and who are those people in those meetings. And it's often a canary in the coal mine for a bigger, more challenging issue. So crafting purposeful meetings that have a clear goal. If there's not a need for a meeting, don't do it. Meetings don't have to be 30 minutes and 60 minutes. They can be 17 minutes. Take meetings outside, walk. There are lots of evidence that there are ways to be more productive in meetings. So really being value-driven, having expectations, maybe even seeding some ideas with people to contribute. So if I have a big meeting coming up, I might come to you and I say, I know you're really passionate about this.

22:13I'd love to make sure you bring up the points you're concerned with, giving people permission to contribute. So there's a lot of work that goes into a meeting before it happens. I actually think facilitation, leading meetings, moderating panels, anytime you're facilitating others communicating what you're doing right now, I think it's the hardest communication skill because you have to manage so much simultaneously. Why is it so hard? Well, in this case, it's just you and me, but imagine a meeting where there are multiple opinions. I've got time. I've got goals. I've got to make sure that this connects to something else.

22:44There's a lot going on that I have to navigate through and make people feel psychologically safe, make sure people are contributing. I should be paraphrasing and connecting. There's just a lot going on at the same time. And that's why many people find it very difficult. So a good meeting is a meeting that's well thought through and that people feel like they have presence and are getting value from it. Some of the biggest mistakes people make is they don't plan. They don't listen. They don't connect the dots of what they're trying to accomplish to what has been accomplished, what needs to be accomplished.

23:17And they schedule too many meetings or spend too much time in the meeting. So it really, if you are mindful of the experience and plan it, you can actually have people excited to come to meetings. Yeah. You said earlier that repetition is one of the core elements of effective communication. And I think for so many leaders, they get tired of hearing themselves say the same thing over and over again. And I'll never forget Jeff Wiener said, until I start hearing my team say it back to me, I know I haven't said it enough. But there is that tension of like, I know you all have heard me say this 37 times.