283. Ask Matt Anything: Authenticity, Anxiety, and Answering Well

Simple strategies to think faster, stay authentic, and communicate with confidence. How do you stay genuine without sounding rehearsed? What helps when your thoughts are moving faster than your words? And how can you handle high-pressure moments with more ease? Strong communication isn’t about having the right lines ready—it’s about being present enough to respond with clarity. In the moment, it’s easy to rush, overthink, or lose your structure. But with the right tools, you can slow down, connect, and communicate with intention. In this Ask Matt Anything episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart https://www.fastersmarter.io/, Matt Abrahams shares insights from a live session with the Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community http://fastersmarter.io/learning. Through real audience questions, he outlines practical ways to manage nerves, adapt to different situations, and build communication habits that last. Episode Reference Links: Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community http://fastersmarter.io/learning Connect: Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium https://www.fastersmarter.io/premium/Email Questions & Feedback >>> [email protected] Transcripts >>>Think Fast Talk Smart Website https://www.fastersmarter.io/communication-strategies-authenticity/Newsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>>FasterSmarter.io http://fastersmarter.io/Think Fast Talk Smart >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/think-fast-talk-smart/,Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thinkfasttalksmart/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6caGRBUYZCmgDGM2RK6mxKB9jG_ccmm3Matt Abrahams >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams/ Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (00:53) - Email Small Talk (03:30) - Slowing Down Your Thinking (05:40) - Controlling Speaking Pace (07:47) - Authenticity vs. Adapting (10:59) - Scripted Talks (13:51) - Handling No Questions (17:26) - Conclusion ******** Thank you to our sponsors. These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost. Learn more about how Notion https://www.notion.com/?utm_source=podcasts&utm_medium=thinkfast can support your business at notion.com/thinkfast. https://www.notion.com/?utm_source=podcasts&utm_medium=thinkfast Join our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be. https://learning.fastersmarter.io/?redirect_from=podpage

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Matt Abrahams?

  In the moment, conflict is difficult for everyone. In our October newsletter, out now, you will learn ways to help yourself handle these challenges better. Not only do you get specific advice, we're also providing an infographic to help you remember. Find our newsletter on the Think Fast, Talk Smart LinkedIn page or at fastersmarter.io under Resources. Let's flip the script. Instead of asking questions, today I'm going to answer some. I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Quick Think's Ask Matt Anything episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

• 0:42Matt Abrahams?

  One of the many, many things I love about our Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community is interacting with our members. I do this through posts, comments, and discussions, along with our author talks and AMAs, Ask Matt Anythings. Today, I'm sharing a portion of our recent learning community AMA. Listen in to learn about authenticity, anxiety management, and answering questions well. And consider joining the learning community at fastersmarter.io/learning to ask your questions live. So let's jump right in. Chris, what's your question, please?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Question, Matt. So I do a lot of email correspondence, and the nature of my job is people are trying to sell me things all the time. And there's one introduction that people often use to an email that I just don't like it, and I really try to avoid it. It's people saying, "I hope you're doing well." I know you understand what I'm talking about, but I understand why it's there, but it's soft language. It's an empty gesture because it doesn't matter. And so I found myself, when I compose an email, I just skip anything like that and go straight to business. What are your thoughts on that and your experience with that?

• 1:51Matt Abrahams?

  It's funny that you bring that up, Chris. So Glenn Cramond, who was one of our early guests, he is a colleague of mine at the business school. He teaches a course on writing. He is an editor at the New York Times. He has exactly the same pet peeve. He does not like the superfluous nature of that. And I agree, it's trite now that people do it. However, I do like the notion of trying to connect first before jumping into an ask. I think in some cases, it can be a little off-putting if you just jump in straight away and say, I need this. I think other modes of communication are more for that type of transactional, get to the point. I'm thinking of Slack or even texting.

• 2:32Matt Abrahams?

  Email to me feels slightly more formal and that's why I like to start with some kind of connection. I'll perhaps say hello. I might comment on the day. I might say, I hope that your Tuesday is going well. I might comment on something I know that the person has done. If I have some connection with them, I might say, you know, how was your kid's basketball game? I know the last time we spoke, you mentioned it. So for me personally, it's a little hard on email to jump right in with the ask. That said, I totally appreciate your point and using something trite, I think can be difficult. Do you use it? Chris, I'm gonna put a question to you. Do you use any kind of affectation? Or do you just jump straight in?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  I think I usually just say, I'd like to share this with you. Or I was thinking of you and this, this is what I would like to share with you.

• 3:22Matt Abrahams?

  Excellent. Yeah, so you do, you do connect a little bit. I mean, we have a lot of research. We have a lot of research that says, connect first really helps. It builds some warmth and relationship. In an email, I think, just as I would say if a phone call or a remote call like this, there is some time that I think should be reserved for connecting first. But something trite such as, hope you are well, is a bit much. Other questions that you might have.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Jofan. I'm from Germany.

• 3:55Matt Abrahams?

  Oh, welcome.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I'm from India. Whenever I try to speak something impromptu, it just seems like I'm speaking too fast. And then there is this mess in my head that I'm trying to string it through. So do you have any suggestions or any helpful tips that I can follow?

• 4:11Matt Abrahams?

  Thank you for the question. So Jofan, you're asking, when speaking, your brain is working really fast. You're thinking of a lot of things. And sometimes when you end up speaking, then you end up speaking fast. And how are there ways to slow that down? So there's several things to do. First, we feel this intense pressure in the moment, as you mentioned, to respond right away. And we don't have to. You can take a pause. You can actually ask for it. You can say, let me think about that for a moment. Or perhaps you could ask a follow-on question to get the other person responding so you can collect your thoughts. Or any of you who've listened to the show know that I am a huge fan of paraphrasing, extracting a key essence. All three of those buy you a little bit of time so that you can collect your thoughts

• 4:55Matt Abrahams?

  so you don't feel as rushed. Because when we feel rushed, we begin to think faster, we get a little nervous and anxious. So that's just giving yourself time. Second, slowing yourself down, taking a deep breath. When we get very anxious, we breathe shallow, we start thinking quickly and we speak quickly. So taking a deep breath slows down the autonomic nervous system, slows down your breath rate so you'll speak more slowly. And it can actually slow down your thought process because you're calming yourself down. Mentally, what I encourage you to do when you get in those moments is to think to yourself, what's the bottom line of what I want to say? Anchor yourself. A lot of us in those moments, we think a lot of thoughts all at once and it can get

• 5:40Matt Abrahams?

  jumbled and that jumbled nature makes us think quicker because we're trying to figure things out. Just say to yourself, what's the bottom line of my response? What's the bottom line of my thought or feeling? Ground yourself there and then build your response from that point. And as you know, I'm a big fan of structure. This might be where what, so what, now what, then comes in once I have bottom line.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  When you are saying to slow down while speaking. So I believe I am a fast speaker and probably it's for the good or maybe for the worst, but I feel comfortable when I'm speaking fast. So do you have any ideas or suggestions how I can really improve to slow down speaking? Or am I really fighting against my instinct?

• 6:22Matt Abrahams?

  Many of us speak faster than we want to, or in some cases should. Speaking quickly boils down to breath. Your voice is a wind instrument, just like a flute, a clarinet, a saxophone. So breath is really critical. So there are three things I recommend to people to help slow down. First, breathe more deeply. When you breathe deeply, you are actually slowing down your speaking rate because it just takes longer to do. When I breathe shallow, I speak really quickly because I'm breathing fast. So when I take a deep breath, I slow down. So first, if you know you're going into an interaction where you're likely to speak quickly and you want to speak slower, take a deep belly breath.

• 7:07Matt Abrahams?

  Second, gesture more slowly. I bet you gesture quickly. Most people who speak fast, gesture fast. We sync up our gesture rate and our speaking rate. So another thing you can do to slow yourself down is to gesture more slowly. The slower I gesture, the slower I speak. So low, slow breathing, slower gestures. And then the final bit of advice is a mental idea, which is imagine that everyone you are speaking to is not native to the language you are speaking. So if I believe everybody I'm talking to is newer to the language that I'm speaking, in my case, English, by nature, we tend to slow down.

• 7:49Matt Abrahams?

  So breathe more slowly, deeper, gesture more slowly, and remind yourself that everybody you're speaking to is new to the language you're speaking. And those three things in some combination will help slow down your speaking rate. Hopefully, that was helpful. Yulia, I'd love to hear your question, please.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me here. First, I'd like to thank you so much, Matt, for the wisdom that you are sharing. And my question is the following. All of us have, by nature, we have specific kind of way how we communicate. Some of us are more soft-spoken, some of us are more direct. I believe that all communicators, all good communicators, have to have a wide repertoire or like a tool that can be applied in different occasions and with different people. So how can we develop this ability to adapt to different people who may not necessarily appreciate our nature, the way we are?

• 8:48Matt Abrahams?

  What I hear in your question, Yulia, is really talking about authenticity, who we really are in our approach, and thinking about the expectations that others have. I will always argue that we should be true to ourselves. Being disingenuous, faking it, that's not how we want to come off. It doesn't feel good, and often it can get us in trouble. That said, there are certain expectations in certain communication situations where we might have to adjust and adapt. So some of you, for your work, for example, have to speak in a very formal way, giving presentations or in meetings. And that might not be comfortable or what is typical in your more conversational approach. So certainly, our authenticity has to meet reality.

• 9:31Matt Abrahams?

  I am not saying to, again, be disingenuous, but we have to be responsive. Our goal is to serve the audiences that we speak to. The single best thing you can do to help understand and be authentic is to take the time to really reflect on what's important for you and where your strengths are and your areas to strengthen. Every night before I go to bed, I journal. And part of that journaling is to reflect on something that went well that day in my communication and something that I'd like to improve from that day. And every Sunday, I come back and look at what I've written for the previous week and make a plan for the subsequent week. And I've been doing that for decades.

• 10:14Matt Abrahams?

  And that helps me to really not only develop my skills, but to really best understand what's important to me in communication and how I can lean into those things. Be authentic, understand what's important to you and how you want to show up so that you feel comfortable in yourself doing that. But at the same time, think about the expectations of the situation and what would help. So for example, part of who I am is I'm very curious, so I like to ask lots of questions. You all have heard me ask lots of questions. But sometimes there are situations where asking questions is not what the circumstance or context demands, and I need to adjust and adapt while still staying true to my curiosity

• 10:59Matt Abrahams?

  and who I am. So it's first about discovering what's important to you. The reflection activity I do every evening might help as part of that. And then it's being aware of what's expected in the situation and the context.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Thank you. I appreciate it, Matt.

• 11:14Matt Abrahams?

  Other questions that some of you might have. Would love to take one or two more questions before I wrap things up.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  I'm giving a talk for the Alzheimer's Association, which I do as a volunteer. And it's scripted, it's very, it has these speaker notes and it's specific information that they kind of stand by. So I'm just kind of struggling with like these speaker notes that are, you know, it's like I'm either reading it and so I'm kind of struggling with, do I just stand in front of these people and read it?

• 11:40Matt Abrahams?

  There are times when all of us have to communicate where we are expected to say certain things. Think of a company executive who, because of the media, because of investors, needs to say something exactly the right way because they can get in trouble. I don't think your situation is that defined, but they do want you to get certain information across. So I would, as best I could, if I were in your shoes, find a way to integrate that information into a way that's true and authentic for me that's comfortable. So maybe I don't use every word that they say, but I get the general idea across. And if you can embed that in a truth for you, a story that's relevant to you, an experience

• 12:20Matt Abrahams?

  that you've had, that makes it easier. So a way that I coach executives to deal with the problem that you're having, so let's say their legal department sends the paragraph, you have to say this. I will have them read it a couple times so they're familiar with what it says. And then I'll say, put the paragraph aside and just speak what you remember of it. And as they're doing that, we're recording it and we do it a couple times and we begin to see their natural way of saying it. So they're not memorizing it, they're just saying, here's the way they've internalized it. And then they share it. And then what we do from that is we create bullet points. So it's not a paragraph, but we create a few bullet points that are enough to trigger them to help. What I do personally, what works for

• 13:05Matt Abrahams?

  me, and this might work for you, Elizabeth, is I turn things into questions. For some reason, my brain is better able to remember content.

• 13:14Matt Abrahams?

  When I remind myself that I'm answering a question rather than relaying information, even if the information is the same. So instead of saying, I want to cover these two points, I say, I'm going to answer these two questions. And I frame it as a question that I am answering. It takes some of the pressure off and for some reason I am able to get the information across in a more clear, concise and accurate way. So my two bits of advice to you in your situation is to speak it out loud a couple of times, reading it, and then record yourself saying it without looking at the manuscript. See where you land and then create an outline from that. And maybe also think, if somebody asked me the question, what does this organization

• 13:58Matt Abrahams?

  do or how can you support this organization? Just answer those questions and see how close you come to the manuscript they gave you. My hunch, if you're like me, is you'll come pretty close when you frame it as a question. I hope there was something in there that could be helpful.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. Thanks.

• 14:12Matt Abrahams?

  Excellent.

• 14:13Speaker 05

  I had a question, something that you did there with concluding and saying like, any questions? I feel like that's oftentimes sort of a panic stage of a presentation where my mind starts racing about if there are no questions, how I'm going to kind of ad lib to fill the awkward silence and then also fight off concerns like, okay, are there not questions? Because either I delivered something completely nonsensical or it was so dull that it didn't prompt any questions. And then I think also the start of presentations are the places where I feel like I struggle the most. And of course with the start, it sort of sets the tone for the rest of things to follow. So I'm curious about if you have tips on that.

• 14:58Matt Abrahams?

  Many of us are most nervous when we start a communication, be it a meeting, a presentation, even a social interaction. So the advice I give to people, one is to get present and collect your thoughts, deep breathing, focusing on your goal. But I also like to have people distract their audiences. Get them doing something so their attention isn't just focused on you. How do you do that? Well, you don't want the distraction to be off topic. Do something that gets them engaged. So for example, take a poll, if you're in front of a large group, how many of you have? Show a video clip. I've worked with a very senior leader at a company you all know. He's very nervous when he speaks, especially at the beginning. So all he does is say, "Good morning, everyone. Let's watch this video."

• 15:42Matt Abrahams?

  And he has a video clip that's very brief. And then when the video's over, he just asks people to comment on it. So when you take a poll, when you show a video, when you put up a provocative image, slide, whatever, you take people's attention away from you. And if you immediately ask a question on the response, then you are in a different role. You are now a facilitator, not a presenter. And for many of us, we are much more comfortable in that situation. So I challenge all of you to think about, "How can I start in a way that invites people to engage? So their attention is not just on me, it's on the activity, whatever that was." So that's how I recommend you start in a way that can reduce some of that awkwardness and nervousness. Now, on the other side of the equation,

• 16:26Matt Abrahams?

  when you go to call for questions, and there are no questions, first you have to wait. Pausing is appropriate. There are lots of reasons people don't ask questions right away. Maybe they're nervous and they're trying to muster their courage. Maybe they're thinking of their answer or their question first. Maybe they're just trying to see what types of questions get asked. So you have to pause. And then if no questions come in, ask yourself a question. I am a big fan of what I call a backpocket question. So if nobody asks a question, I might say, "A question I'm often asked is..." So you see, I'm about to ask myself a question. Now, obviously, I should know the answer to my question. That could really be helpful to making sure that the dead air is filled.

• 17:10Matt Abrahams?

  And you'd be amazed that when you answer that question, how easily you get the second question. So it's all about getting your audience engaged in some activity upfront. So it changes your role from presenter to facilitator. And in the end, you have to pause when you call for questions. And then if no questions come in, ask yourself a question. And just by knowing that you have those tools, it reduces your anxiety, because you know you can handle both of those situations. So I encourage all of you to try one or both of those in a lower-stakes situation, not a super-high-stakes one, to see the value. And that'll even build your confidence even farther.

• 17:48Matt Abrahams?

  Thank you for joining us for this Quick Thinks Ask Matt Anything episode. To join our next AMA Live, sign up for our Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community at fastersmarter.io/learning. This episode was produced by Catherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder, with thanks to Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also, follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter. Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes and much more at fastersmarter.io/premium.

• 18:33Matt Abrahams?

  You'll also find value by joining our Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community at fastersmarter.io/learning. You'll find video lessons, learning quests, discussion boards, an AI coach, and book club opportunities. Again, that's fastersmarter.io/learning to become part of our Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community.

• 18:55Matt Abrahams?

  Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you for listening. It really means a lot to hear how people all over the world are using these ideas in their own lives. It inspires me and the whole team that brings you this show. If you want more episodes and resources, feel free to follow, subscribe, and explore past conversations. We're grateful for your support of Think Fast, Talk Smart.