How to speak more confidently and persuasively

Matt Abrahams, a Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer, author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter and Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, and host of Think Fast, Talk Smart, joins Lenny Rachitsky to discuss managing speaking anxiety and getting better at spontaneous speaking. They cover practical techniques like visualization, reframing anxiety as excitement, breathing, and structures for feedback, Q&A, toasts, small talk, and apologies.

01Key learnings

• Visualize the whole experience, from walking to the stage to stepping off, including the audience responding well, to desensitize yourself before speaking.
• Prepare in order to be spontaneous; practice is what makes improvisation and on-the-spot speaking go well, as it does in athletics and jazz.
• Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull: just answer the question and stop judging every word, which frees up mental bandwidth.
• Reframe physical arousal as excitement rather than anxiety, since the body's response is nearly identical and labeling it positively helps you relax and come across better.
• Use a short personal mantra such as 'I have value to add' to drown out negative self-talk before speaking.
• Make the exhale longer than the inhale, roughly a 'rule of lung' of a 3-count in and 6-count out, to activate relaxation.
• Use structures like What, So What, Now What, or Problem-Solution-Benefit so that on-the-spot answers have a ready recipe to follow.
• Practice on-the-spot skills through repetition, reflection, and feedback, and join groups like Toastmasters or improv classes to get reps.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.