#948 - Matt Abrahams - The Secret To Becoming A Confident Speaker

25:37And the more confident you are in asking what may on the surface seem like stupid questions, it's also, I think, very endearing because it allows the person opposite. Yeah, okay, don't worry. I got you. I got everyone wants to look after someone. What are you doing by asking them a simple question? You're kind of pedestalizing them in a little bit of a way, which makes them feel good. Allow me to explain what the word verbose means to you. Allow me to, you know, descend to the depths of a mere muggle like yourself. So yeah, I think, I think that's a cool way to do it. And you are masterful at it.

26:12I mean, I've watched your show and you do a really good job of asking important questions. Now, I didn't just say you're stupid because I don't think your questions are stupid questions. What I think they are is they are questions that you have, but they also represent questions that most people have. And a good communicator will appreciate that not only because you're doing your end of the interaction, you're showing your interest, but you're actually, if somebody really takes a moment to reflect, you're helping me as the communicator get better. You're actually giving me input and insight that will make me better because the next time I introduce this concept, I'm going to define the word verbose before I use it.

26:49Exactly. Yeah, there's some unsubstantiated claims, some gap in the narrative. Well, why is that there? Well, it's because you thought that you'd explained it, but a person that's a good avatar for everyone else you're ever going to speak to for the rest of your life comes in waving a flag with a question mark on it and you go, ah, actually, yeah, look, there may be some fledgling podcasters or YouTubers or whatever, listening, the best. Again, another framework that I think about a lot when it comes to the show is if you have a question about a thing, some non -zero minority or maybe even significant majority of people are also thinking that same thing.

27:29Like you're not, you're lovely and you are a precious snowflake who deserves all the fruits that the world can offer you. But you're not that unique, Right? Your inquiries, your curiosity, your questions are probably going to be pretty close to the bull's eye for everybody else's thinking, especially if you are the sort of person who is like your audience and most people are like their audience, whether that's the community that you work in, you're presenting at a conference somewhere, whether that's doing things on social media, like people resonate with people like them. So if you think a thing, They are probably, I was wondering that question too about the future of climate change or whatever it might be.

28:13I think the two most valuable skills of any conversationalist, but especially people who do what you do and what I do on my podcast is the ability to ask questions and being willing to ask questions that are pretty rudimentary and the ability to paraphrase. To demonstrate, I heard you and here's what I took away from you and I think if you can do those two things, you are a good conversationalist, You set up the other person to be successful. And if you do what you and I do in terms of podcasting, etc., you help others learn as well. So those are two critical skills. I totally agree with you. I've heard it be described as being an essentializer.

28:49So somebody goes, you know, I speak to real smart people sometimes, as well as... Well, you're not doing that right now. Ah, you have to... Way, way, way to calm and comfort them. Look, I wish that I could go back and tell a younger version of me that asking stupid questions is always allowed and that it is endearing and it does help your guest feel comfortable. So if there's ever, actually, that's a good point. Let's say that someone isn't a podcaster. What are some of your favorite conversational questions or frameworks for questions to build connection between someone and somebody else? Absolutely.

29:37I want to start. I'll answer that question by starting with the approach I think we need to take. I learned this from a guest on my podcast, think Fast Talk Smart. Her name is Rachel Greenwald. Fastening person. She's an academic and a matchmaker, really interesting person. What she said when you're having conversation, it's about being interested, not being interesting. Many of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to say something really interesting, insightful, and that can make it very challenging and make it very self -focused, and communication should be other -focused. So rather than think about what's the right thing to say to unlock this conversation, just be interested in what's happening around you or something you know about the person.

30:17I like to give this example. I was at a conference. We went and heard all these people speak and then it was time for dinner and there was a you know a cocktail party afterwards or whatever. And I'm waiting in line lots of people in line. There's this guy standing next to me have no idea who he is and I look around the room and everybody's dressed in blue. It's not uniforms. It's just coincidental. I turned to the guy and I said I missed the memo on blue and he looks around said the same thing. That was all it took. We had a very engaging conversation. We left the color blue almost instantly found lots of things in common and we've now become close friends when I traveled to his part of the world, I visit him, he visits me.

30:51All you have to do is be interested and observe. It's about being outside yourself, not inside yourself. And if you do that, it changes the dynamic. The analogy I like to use is it's not like tennis or volleyball where you're trying to spike or ace the ball over the net. It's like that game of hacky sack where you've got that beanbag and the whole idea is to serve it to the other person so they can serve it back to you. And if you do that, your conversation will be better. So we ratchet down the pressure and we make it easier to be interested. Can I read you a short essay that I wrote about this a couple of months ago?

31:21I would love to hear it, yes. Okay. Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill's mother once dined with both Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his rival William Gladstone and consecutive knights. When asked about her impressions of the two men, she said, When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England, but when I was sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling like I was the cleverest woman. Most people think that they want to be charismatic. They want their energy to be compelling in their stories to be electric, to walk into a room and everyone be impressed.

31:49But when I think about the friends I love and want to spend the most time with, they don't have charisma. They have reverse charisma. Why do certain people make us feel boring but others do not? Why do we feel followed stories and inspiration around some, but around others we have nothing to say? We tend to assess people based on how interesting they are, but thereby miss a much more important issue, how interesting they make us feel. How engaged is this person? How much of us can they tolerate? How much of our reality can they handle without disediting ourselves? How encouraging and reassuring are they?

32:19How much do they make us want to dig deeper and talk more? How comfortably can we sit in silence without needing to fill it? Basically, how much of us do they get? And if it's not a lot, then we will inevitably be cautious. A person feels interesting precisely to the extent that they have become familiar and at ease with the things that are extreme, sad, dark, agonizing and shameful, and if they're at home with their own strangeness, then they can make us feel at home with ours. Where they have gone, we can follow what they have felt safe exploring in themselves. We will be able to safely unpack around them.

32:53Architecting your charisma is a nebulous, scrappy task that pick a partist gave themselves existential crises by failing at achieving. Building your reverse charisma is something that anyone can do by becoming curious, patient, and engaging. Some people feel interesting. Some people make us feel interesting. There's a place for both, but on average, our favorite people are the latter, not the former. Not only is that incredibly well -written, thank you for sharing that. But it highlights exactly what we were talking about. And what you're really identifying there is this notion of immediacy. And in some cases, people would call it intimacy.

33:27It's not the romantic, sexual kind of intimacy. But there's a genuine desire to connect. And that's a lot of what intimacy in immediacy or about. There's an invitation that's made that's beyond me. It's inviting you to be your best self. And I really like how you captured that. Thank you for sharing that. My pleasure. Will Stoll, do you know him? He wrote the science of storytelling, the status game. So he was on the show yesterday, his new book, A Story is a Deal. And he was talking about characters and heroes. And I said, okay, so how do you write a character or a hero that is popular that, you know, goes down well?

34:08And he said, well, people think that they need a character to be likeable. They don't. People resonate with characters they identify with, with people that they like. And I thought that was such a lovely distinction. And, you know, it's not too dissimilar to the reverse charisma idea, right? Don't come and be impressive, coming and connect with me. Right, but underlying what you said, underlying what he said is this notion of, you have to know and understand who you're speaking to, because you can't connect or relate to them, or put a character forward that might connect and relate to them without understanding who they are.

34:44We walk around so internally focused that we are missing an opportunity to connect with others and to really think about what's important and what's needed for them in the moment. And it takes a little bit of reconnaissance, reflection, and research to think about who you're speaking to, writing for, etc. But when you do it, you can unlock that reverse charisma. You can help people identify. You can connect better. This episode is brought to you by Inkogni. If you've ever typed your name into Google and found your info on some weird website that you've never heard of, that's not a fluke. Data brokers and people search sites, collect your personal information like your name, address phone number, buying habits, your income, your medical history, and they sell it without your consent.

35:23And there are hundreds of them, which is why I partnered with Incogni. It finds these bad actors and gets your info removed from their databases automatically. You don't have to email anyone, fill out forms or jump through hoops, they handle the entire process for you and keep going as new brokers pop up. Best of all, you can cancel it anytime and they offer a 30 -day money back guarantee. So you can buy it completely risk -free, use it for 29 days. If you don't like it for any reason, I'll just give you your money back. Right now, you can get a 60 % discount on an annual plan by going to the link in the description below are heading to incogni .com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom, a checkout.

35:57That's i n c o g and i .com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. Yeah, I imagine even a lot of what we've talked about today is intention, right? Intention, not intention, that too much, God, the what was the book that advised people to use the first name of the person they're speaking to is how to win friends and influence people. Yeah, the male Carnegie definitely talked about that, yes. Yeah, and you know, I'm just using it as an example that's pretty obvious that I've done my research. I know that Matt, Matt, you're into a weekend long distance cycling and pottery and you know, Matt, Matt, I must have, Matt, I must have told you, You said, dude, shut the fuck up.

36:44Like it just feels so, you know, contrived. But then again, if you're just, you know, chirping on, you haven't applied, or if you rated your message to the audience also, all of this stuff is intention, structure, but spontaneous, spontaneity. Yes. I talk a lot about attention and intention. You have to pay attention. You have to do your work. And then from there, clearly create your intention so that you can connect, engage, and be successful in your communication. When I say no, your audience, it doesn't mean to then just broadcast your audience everything you know about them. It means to deeply think about and convey information that's relevant to them.

37:26A great way to do that is just to ask questions and let them tell you and have them help you. Communication is truly bidirectional. It's not one way. What is some of the most surprising stats, data, studies that you've come across with regards to this area of communication? I imagine everybody is so inside of the woodland that they can't see any of the trees with regards to this. I imagine there must be some wild stats from conversation analysis and stuff like that that really brings home the things that you've been saying so far. Well, let me tell you two things that come to mind. So academics have identified this theory they call the spotlight effect.

38:09So we all walk around carrying this spotlight that we see shining on us. And we think everybody else is following that light. So they're all looking at us in the spotlight. But the reality is we're all walking around with our own spotlights. There's a New Yorker cartoon where you literally see like you know in hospitals where people carry around those IV bags when they walk around. It's a cartoon that shows people walking around with their own spotlights. And the point is this, in the research bears this out, we are so self -focused and worried about how others see us that we're not spending enough of our attention to others.

38:42So the fear is unfounded. The spotlight effect is saying our concern about others' perceptions of us is unfounded. The other piece that I think is interesting based on what we've said, people who study conversations look at term -taking. And there are really two types of terms. Because if you think about it, a conversation is, I speak, you speak, etc. We're turn taking. There are two types of turns. There are supporting turns, and then there are turns that shift, shifting turns. So a supporting turn might be that you tell me you just came back from Hawaii. You took a vacation to Hawaii. And I, a supporting turn would say, oh, what island did you visit?

39:15Or I could use a shifting turn where I say, oh, I just got back from Costa Rica. Do you see how that shifts the topic? What the research shows is that many of us use more shifting turns than supportive turns, but the research also shows when you use more supporting turns, you actually endear connecting, get deeper with the person. So the advice that many of us who study this suggest is you'd like at least two -thirds to three -quarters of your conversational turns to be supporting and then the rest to be shifting. If you do all shifting, then you look distancing and like you don't care in your narcissist and if all you do is supportive turns, it looks like you don't want to talk about yourself at all and you're hiding something.

39:56So you want this nice blend. So between the spotlight effect and the shifting and supporting turn taking, I think those are some topics that people might not think about it might might be counterintuitive. Yeah, it definitely feels more like a dance than a battle when you're talking about support done as opposed to shifting turns. I mean, you'll know this from doing your show that you, I don't use notes to keep track of what's been said. And if you've got a particularly meandering guest and the, you know, that they can talk, you've got, you know, ten different branches open. I don't like open loops.

40:35I'm like the, I'm like patient zero for the zygonic effect. So all I want to do is I've got, you know, this, my RAM, my mental RAM is slowly being consumed by why I must remember to speak to him about his mother and what was that thing about past that there's a story about France in the 1800s like okay like hold on to all of these things yeah exactly and then I'm like okay so we're just gonna go back to this thing and then we just go back to that thing and we'll just go back to this thing but that's I suppose aggressive shifting turns even within someone's own store oh I must tell you about this like you've managed to you haven't stopped and you've gone in three different directions I don't know whether you know who Rory Sutherland is he's the vice German of Ogilvy trying to have a conversation with Rory is like an unstoppable force meeting, an immovable object or something, but he's both of them.

41:18I'm like, okay, you're just having a war against yourself. But his degrees are delightful. I cite some of the stories, but you're, yes, yes. So, you're a human. So, you must, in those circumstances, if somebody is of that way, structure helps number one. And number two, when you're in those circumstances, and I've had this happen on my podcast, that's where I paraphrase. I interrupt, I highlight something important, they say, I'll say, oh, that point you just made really important leads me to this because it's the politeest way I know. To short circuit where that's going because it's super complex and confusing for me and I can only imagine those listening are going to find it difficult as well.

41:57So I feel obligated to bring it back to some core point that people can take away. Okay. Mm, okay. What's your advice for people who feel like they overuse filler woods? Ah. So, a couple of things here. This comes up often. Filler words, ums us likes, I mean, these are normal and natural part of speech. In fact, there's some good research that says when kids are younger, parents will often insert a filler word, not strategically, it's just habitual, before they say something that's important or new to the kid. So we have actually learned as young children that when you hear a filler word something important is following it and the problem is if what the important thing following it is another um or uh then we become very distracted so the goal is not eliminating these.

42:46However we want to make sure that they we don't have so many that they are interrupted that they they distract. So it's hard to do, but the single best way to get rid of the filler words that are most annoying and those are the ones that come between thoughts. So when I'm done speaking, and then I start speaking again, that one sits out there and is very distracted. You can reduce these or eliminate them by controlling your breath. Try this for me. Do this activity for me if you're willing to play along. I'd like you to say the word um while exhaling. So we'll do it together on the count of three.

43:19Let's both say I'm while pushing air out ready one two three. Um, now I want you to do the same thing while inhaling ready one two three. Can't do it. You can't do it. You can't speak while inhaling. It's speaking as an exit only event. So here's the magic trick. If at the end of my sentences and phrases, I train myself to be completely out of breath. I must inhale before I can say something else. You've got no fuel for the um. That's exactly right. and you build in a pause while you're taking the breath and pauses are good. So, this is not easy. The way you practice this is reciting lists of things.

43:55So I instruct my students, the people I coach, look at your diary or calendar, whatever you call it. Most of us refer to it multiple times a day. One of those times a day you look at it simply speak out loud what's on your schedule. And at the end of each item that you speak, land the phrase, be out of breath. So I might say doing lunch with Chris Recording a podcast with whoever and at the end I'm completely out of breath and I begin to train myself to land my phrases think of a gymnast who sticks their landing And when you do that you take you literally take the oxygen out of the ability to say filler words It takes a little bit of practice But if you do it you will reduce them and you will reduce the distractions that too many ums and us cause What is the evidence around?

44:45rated likeability, authenticity, expertise, prestige, status of people who use UMS as likes versus pauses, length of pauses, that sort of stuff. I know that there's a big body of literature around this. I just don't know the literature. Yeah, so there is a threshold for most people where a certain number of UMS and UMS is acceptable, and then you cross over it. If you look, so, and I can't remember the exact number of how many most of us have, but in a given two -minute, five -minute interaction, there are multiple that we typically do in conversation. And that does not impact our liking, our status, our perceptions that others have.

45:24But when you, when you two X that multiply that twice over, then it becomes very distracting. And interestingly, it's where they come as well. So if I start with, um, versus in the midst of speaking, um, and I keep speaking, or at the end, it has different perceptions. So it's not just the number, it's where they're happening. The ones in the midst of communication are the least bothersome. The ones at the end of communication before the next part starts are the most bothersome. So if you're going to work on these, it's not about eliminating period, but it's not about managing all of them. Focus on the ones that come at the end of your senses.

46:04Those are the most bothersome to people. What about like? Like seems to be peppered more akin to a shotgun than a Paws a breath a pending loading screen. So neurolinguists geek out on the word like and like is used for so many purposes and the younger you are the more Conversant you are in using like and And like can signal, I like something, like can say, I have something to say, like it replaces the word says or said and it serves a lot of purposes. Depending on the research I am aware of, based on your age, it differentially bothers you. So people who are of my vintage tend to be bothered more by the word like than somebody perhaps of your vintage or even younger, right?

46:55So it's what you grow up being a custom too. And, again, language evolves, and it's evolving that like is becoming much more acceptable, and people are using it more. For me personally, it is annoying, and I have two kids that are of the generation where it's not, and we spend a lot of time like talking about like. And so, it's a tricky thing. We're in the midst of an evolution on that term, and those old funny studies like myself are going to be on the losing end of it. Interesting. I get the sense that it is here to stay. Yes. I think it's definitely serving a purpose in that regard, helping people to approximate their conclusions or their proclamations about things.

47:49It's close to this. It's similar to this. It is a thing that's appropriating this. I wonder where that comes from. I suppose it's not in precision, but it's giving you a little bit more room with vagueness in that kind of way. And I wonder whether there's a concern about being fully seen, whether as you've got more slow life strategy because you don't see it written all that much. Yeah, and that's somebody's quoting dialogue, that's correct. Yeah, so it's not part of, I don't even know if this is the right word, but sort of the syntax of how sentences are structured given the time to craft them, which makes me think it's an artifact of the way that our brains are processing stuff and it's kind of like an accent in a way.

48:44It's really interesting that you say that. I'm going to suggest you have a conversation with a woman named Valerie Friedland. She's a linguist and she studies things like this. She's been on show. Oh, yeah, she's wonderful. So you know Valerie. So she would be more qualified than I, but I do think it is serving a communicative, it's serving multiple communicative functions that we used to do in other ways. And I do agree with you that it is as language becomes less formal, words like like and other types of contractions are becoming more commonplace. And I think it's fascinating. We're also seeing it at least in written text with emojis and other graphics that are serving a similar purpose.

49:25I saw a new story where a judge had to interpret it. Yes. The meaning of an emoji. Yeah. Because these things have, like, articulatory validity in and of themselves, you know, they are not just wind addressing, they actually mean a thing. Yeah. So does a thumbs up on a contract? Represents. And they're there. Yeah. I mean, that's right. That's that's the question. It is. And I actually think with the evolution of language from my perspective that at some point things like that will be the case. It's the 2025 equivalent of that's a verbally binding contract. That's an emoji binding contract. That's right.

50:12That's right. Thumbs up. Interesting. But that's what makes communication so exciting is that it's ever evolving, right? And it's, to me, I find that really exciting. It's not stagnant. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Function. Did you know that your annual physical only screens for around 20 biomarkers, which leaves a ton of gaps when it comes to understanding your health, which is why I partnered with function, they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one, and then they've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it into a simple dashboard and give you actionable recommendations to improve your health and lifespan.

50:50They track everything from your heart health to your hormone levels and your thyroid get your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with function it is only $499 and for the first thousand modern wisdom listeners you get $100 off, making it only $399 bucks. So right now you can get the exact same blood panels that I get and save $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to function health .com slash modern wisdom that's function health .com slash modern wisdom. Right is confidence overrated when it comes to speaking do you think? I think confidence is essential.

51:24It's hardwired in us to pay attention to those that are confident and those that aren't. Now, when we talk about confidence, I'm not talking about over -indexing and being arrogant or super -overconfident. I teach it one of the world's best business schools. We spend a lot of time talking about arrogance. It's not about that, but it is about having confidence not only in yourself, but in the messages that you communicate. And finding that nice balance of managing the anxiety, the passion that you have, that really makes a difference. Those are ingredients that go into charisma. We really don't know what charisma is, but having confidence in yourself and in your content is an important part of that.

52:05How much of it is feeling confident and how much of it is saying the things that portray confidence? That's a great question, and it's one that I don't think we have a good answer to. confident people act confidently. If you act confidently, you can actually become confident. So it's a mix. Certainly we are good at detecting people who are putting on errors. So it has to be authentic and it has to become from a place of knowing who you are. We are very good at detecting people who are putting on those errors. But it's hard to disentangle those two. What you do and how you do it are mixed barriers.

52:44Yeah, why you're motivated to do it, how authentic is this? You know, it's the classic Charlottes and Traveling salesperson, you know, the slight guy at your front door. Certainly, in my experience, you can sort of fake it until you make it and then make it until you leave it as this process as it goes around. But I wonder how much really trying to reinforce identification is more important than likability and connection is more important than charisma. If someone walks out on stage and they're a little, they call out the elephant in the room. It is so hot in here, I'm just going to sweat through my shirt through the entirety of this.

53:37The sweat now is no longer a big deal. Everyone's laughing about it. Anyone else in here hot? Yeah, I'm dying too. Right. And a way you go. I think the other side of this, we're talking about some of those tensions that exist. Yeah. Another tension here is the sort of not performative fool, but the performative nervousness. You know, the overregging of this sympathy vote, the kind of myth -ematidum type thing. It's been a long day preparing for this, guys. You know, it's going to be a little bit of a tough one. And after a while, you think, okay, you've drained my sympathy tank and you're now getting into my manipulation radar.

54:17Yeah. I 100 % agree with that. What we know from research is if somebody who comes out and says, oh, I'm so nervous, please forgive me. what we're hoping for is that people will give you a little bit of a pass lower their bar. But in fact, all you do is over sensitize them to pay attention to anything you do that's Oh, no. That's your nervous. So you're actually working against yourself. So I often advise people to connect with your audience, but don't pre -apologize. My wife long time ago disabused me of the ability to pre -apologize. So don't do it. Just come out and start the talk. Now if there is something in the room in the space, I do agree.

54:55if it's super hot in there, acknowledge it. Don't try to pretend. But don't pre -apologize for being nervous. That just sets you up for failure. Very interesting. One thing we maybe haven't gone through the biomechanics of the mouth and tongue, getting that actually going. What are your favorite methods? Someone's got five minutes before they need to go out on stage. They haven't done my favorite hack, which is to just have a ton of friends backstage age and warm up by doing, what is an effective way that somebody can solo that way to a mobile mouth and tongue? I agree with you. That's the best way for me is to talk to other people.

55:42What I do when I don't have that opportunity, I say tongue twisters. I say the same tongue twister three times out loud. It warms up my voice and it also helps me get present -oriented. Remember being present oriented allows you to connect gets you out of your head. So I will say in fact I said before you and I connected today. I said my favorite one. I Slit a sheet a sheet. I slit and on that slitted sheet. I sit and I say it three times fast And in the challenge and saying that one is if you say it wrong you say a naughty word and so I I Forces me to focus Warming up is important anybody who does a sport anybody who exercises you know that warming up is important you need to warm up your voice.

56:22We have this idea that we can go from silence to brilliance easily and that's not the case. Yeah, it's the more that I've worked with the speech coach Miles for a long time now and he's obsessed with the articulation of the mouth and the way the air tongue and the mouth works. Yep. And the level of, how would you say, oral gymnastics that he's got me to jump through in an attempt to try and get me ready for TED Talks and live shows and all sorts of things. I really love that. I guess we've gone from important presentation, meaningful connection and then the dreaded lowest end of the funnel, the front door, small talk.

57:08What can people do to make small talk feel a bit more meaningful, less painful, stuff like that. Yeah, so again, I think it starts with being interested, not interesting. I think we should give ourselves a goal for small talk. Am I here just to pass the time? Am I here to learn something new? Am I here to make some connections in the short term or the long term? So making small talk purposeful is a way to make it more enjoyable and to help you focus your way through it. Now, I'm not saying that small talk becomes strategic communication and we're trying to manipulate people towards our point of view, but many of us don't like it because of its ambiguity, and you can give it some purpose and some meaning.

57:49And one, two of the big things that caused people concern is how do I start it and how do I end it? We talked about ways to start through observation, through questions. A great way to end, again, coming from this Rachel Greenwald woman was this notion, she calls it waving the white flag, not for surrender, but at the end of an auto race, they'll wave the white flag to signal the last lap. So when I want to get out of a small talk situation rather than rely on biology, which is what most of us do, or I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I have to go to the bathroom. Instead, you say something like, I've really enjoyed this conversation.

58:22In a few minutes, I'm going to go talk to folks over there, but before I leave, and then you ask one more question or dive into one more topic. So you're signaling the conversation is coming to an end, so everybody knows it, and then you have a little bit more of engagement, and then you separate. So everybody's prepared, nobody's surprised, everybody can figure out what they're going to do next. So if you know how to get into it, if you have a purpose for doing it and you know how to get out of it, all of a sudden, small talk becomes a place where big things can happen and it can help us to feel good about it and enjoy it.

58:52I spoke to Will yesterday about his favorite and worst apologies of all time and he actually used the CEO of Domino's. Apparently there was this thing happened in 2007 and these couple of workers had put a video of them picking their nose and putting it on Domino's pizza and it was a catastrophe and all this stuff happened. And he explained that, what in your experience are the key ingredients of a meaningful apology? First is acknowledgement. You have to acknowledge what was done. You have to demonstrate I get it. I overspoke when you were speaking or I inserted myself too quickly into the conversation, so acknowledge it.

59:36Then express that you have an appreciation for the feeling that the other person might have said. So we don't apologize for how we made someone feel. We apologize for what we did. And then you have to make a mend. You have to say what I'll do. So I might say I'm very sorry that I interrupted you in that meeting. I can imagine that felt diminishing and put you in a bad light. I am going to not only wait till you're done communicating in future meetings, but I'm going to paraphrase what you said before I contribute my part. That's a complete apology. Now, somebody might not be happy with it. They might not like the action that you set forth in your immense piece, but that to me is a complete apology.

1:00:19Yeah. I have definitely managed to get it wrong. A number of times in both of us. Dude, we're human. Yeah. There's a defensiveness that comes through with that. Let's bring this one home, dude. I think this kind of conversational analysis and advice is super practical and you're awesome. And that was a two to fours through all of the big questions everyone's got. So where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all the things that you've got going on. Well, first and foremost, thank you. I really enjoy the conversation and your ability to dive deep and then bring it up to the high level is masterful.

1:00:52I'd love for people to listen to Think Fast Talk Smart. It's all about communication, 20 -minute episodes. You can find them anywhere, including YouTube. FasterSmartr .io. A place to go, to find me, and if you're on LinkedIn, do a lot of work on LinkedIn and the other socials too. Thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate you. Thank you.