Talk Smarter, Game Better: Mastering the Game of Communication

Tom Leonard 

I'm Tom Leonard. I'm the host of the Gamers Change Lives podcast, where we talk about how e-sports can create jobs anywhere in the world. And in the first season, we talked about jobs. In the second season, we talked about follow the money, where we talked about investment, we talked about sponsorship. And now in season three, we're talking about business basics, e-sports 101. Really excited today to have Matt Abrahams here. He's a senior, he's a lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, specializing in strategic communication. And that's where I went to school many, many years ago. I graduated, so I've been a long time fan of his podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart. He's also coming out with a new book called Think Faster, Talk Smarter. And that's what we wanted to talk about today. Welcome, Matt.

Matt 

Thanks, Tom. Glad to be here.

Tom Leonard 

I really appreciate it because one of the things that you're just learning more about your book that's coming out here shortly is you're talking about is to develop the life changing ability to excel in spontaneous communication situations. It's like thinking on your feet. It's I do not know anyone that could not use some guidance there or some boundaries. So that that's what is really going to be interesting I think. And later in the conversation I'm going to put you on spot and I'm going to see how you think on your feet. Is that okay?

Matt

Challenge accepted, Tom.

Tom Leonard 

Great, great. And also maybe it'll keep the audience here to wait for that part later in the conversation. Can you talk about first about your background? Are you a video gamer?

Matt 

So I am an old, old school video gamer, Tom. I think you and I might be of the same vintage. I still have my Atari 2600 and I dare anybody to beat me in Space Invaders. And, and if funny, if funny, the timing of this, I am actively working to, I just found all my old games to, to plug it in, uh, to my, my home entertainment system, so I hope to be playing those games soon. So yes, I do enjoy games. I am the father of two gamers who are quite into it. One aspires to be a professional gamer, but I think most teenagers do. But I'm very familiar not just with what's happening in my house, but many of my MBA students are interested in e-sports and have looked at it as an interesting career path for themselves.

Tom Leonard 

Can I ask you about how do you approach it with your kids? Because so many times we talk to people around the world and we usually talk about how it's important. A lot of times it's the kids explaining to the parents, hey, this can be more than just playing a game. It can actually lead to real employment. So how is a parent, how do you approach that there? Just curious.

Matt 

Yeah, well, I'd love to hear the best practices you have learned over the years. So I encourage my kids to get excited about something that they're passionate about in terms of career. So part of what I talk about with them when it comes to video gaming is what is it that you really like about this? What is it that you find valuable? And they'll say things like, I really like the intensity, the focus. I like the energy they'll say, I like the collaboration. They mostly play collaborative games where they're in teams and they like the collaboration. They like the strategy in some of the games they play. So as a parent, I'm like, these are wonderful. These are skills that I want you to take on. So I try to highlight that. I see that people can make a living at it. I see that people enjoy it. So I support it. I am also with teenagers and trying to help them be realistic, that not everybody can succeed and that you need to be thinking more broadly as well. So I'm not the kind of parent who says, absolutely, you should not do this, this is ridiculous. But I'm also trying to be realistic, just as when my kids were much younger, they wanted to be NBA stars. And I said, great, play basketball, practice, study. The reality is not everybody who wants to be an NBA star becomes one. So I'm trying to use that same mentality as I approach it. But I also, in my work at the business school, I see people who are in this industry doing quite well in lots of different ways. So I see it as a viable alternative. I just am not saying, you know. So I guess I'm saying I'm in the middle there where I'm trying to encourage them to follow their passion, but I'm also trying to help them be realistic.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes, we talk to Gerald Solomon, who is the head of NACEF, North American Scholastic E-Sports Association. Probably mangling the name there. But what he comes from a nonprofit background. And what they do is they do training around the world. And his philosophy there was go where the kids are, go where the crowd is to be talking about e-sports. And he uses e-sports as a way to talk about life. Life stories, life experiences. It's not just learning how to play the game, but how to use it just like you're describing it. That is this person we just talked to just last week, and I'm going to bring this up because I hope she does it. Jadesola from Nigeria, and she works with parents. She has a conference with over 6000 parents and kids in Lagos talking about esports and video games. And she was encouraged to do a webinar series where kids talk to their parents about esports. And so it's like the kids educating their parents about it. And it just, it could be a really clever type of conversation because she's also very talented and she can make things interesting.

Matt 

Mm-hmm. So Tom, if I can continue on that, I think it's a fascinating conversation because it's a conversation where the kids have more status and power relating to the topic than the adults. And that's not often where the kids have expertise and the parents don't. So from a communication point of view, which is what I study and I'm fascinated by, I think it's really interesting. And if she were to do it, part of what I would do as an educator is help equip the kids with the skills so that they can communicate in a way the parents can understand because...

Tom Leonard 

Absolutely.

Matt 

I think that's great. I always look for opportunities where there are power status differentials and how can we equip those who have the lowest power and status to communicate more effectively. And typically children in their conversations with their parents, lots of status power differences. And yet in this case, the kids know a heck of a lot more and it's an interesting opportunity. So I find that fascinating and I'd love to hear more about it as it develops.

Tom Leonard 

We'll definitely keep you in touch there because it is an interesting dynamic, just like you're talking about there. Want to talk a little bit about, what was your journey like to the GSB? Because everyone has, what I always find an interesting journey. So what led you to the Stanford GSB?

Matt 

Yeah, so I was an undergrad at Stanford, so I have affinity for the place and I am somebody who is passionate about communication and I have learned in my career, Tom, to try not to say no to opportunity and I was teaching in the Stanford Continuing Studies Program for a long, long time. And this is a program that's opened up to anybody in the world, so your listeners can enroll in Continuing Studies courses. They have many virtual courses. They have courses offered in person on campus. These are not courses that are credits to the university. It's not like you're a student at the university, you're just a community member taking classes. And they're taught by Stanford professors, faculty, and community members. And I'd been teaching for a while and I had some business school students from the business school who were students at the business school, but also staff from the business school take my classes in communication. And at the time, the business school was redesigning their communication curriculum. And the people who took my class said, oh my goodness, this is exactly what we're trying to build out at the school, will you come talk to us? And again, not saying no, or trying not to say no often, it led to a great connection that led to what I've been doing now for 13 years, 14 years. So for me, it was serendipity, but it was again, being in the right place with the background that I had, teaching things that were in need at that moment.

Tom Leonard 

When I was there years ago, everyone wanted to be an investment banker. It's like that was the career path out of the GSB, which I did not follow. I went into retail instead and onto a couple of other things. But a couple of years ago, the Dean came here to LA to talk to alumni. And he was talking about how everyone now wants to be an entrepreneur. And so I'm just curious how you see teaching entrepreneurship there as changing over time. I mean, back when I was there, we had one course on entrepreneurship, I mean, which was really fascinating. And now I forget the name of the instructor, but it was just like, well, yeah, okay, we'll stick this on here sort of thing. But I'm interested in the evolution, how you see teaching about entrepreneurship now versus maybe when you first started there.

Matt 

Yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Matt 

Yeah.

Matt 

So I'm laughing because there are so many opportunities for students to learn about entrepreneurship now that is very different from your experience. In fact, there's this whole offering called Startup Garage. It's a two quarter year long course where students actually create things. I mean, it's not just learning about, they actually incubate and so it's very different. So, entrepreneurship is something that many students study, not all. There are still those who want to go into investment banking. People are into social change and other things. And that's why I like teaching there, because of the diversity of areas of interest of the students, and the students are just phenomenal. It is, you know, to answer your question, how has it changed? One is just more intense focus on it. Two is collaborations with the external community. Stanford being based in Silicon Valley, literally five minutes from Sandhill Road, one of the biggest investment roads, I think, in the world. So there's a lot of collaboration. There's a lot of integration of ideas. So that's definitely changed over time. And the appreciation of the value of entrepreneurship, not just from a financial point of view, but from a social change point of view, you know, how entrepreneurs can actually lead to social change. And so that's also become very prominent. And so I personally enjoy it. I enjoy the diversity of interests of the students and entrepreneurship is something that I find fascinating on my own and love helping equip people to do better at it through their communication.

Tom Leonard 

Because you're really involved in the future. I always think, whenever I talk to teachers here, I'm always thinking, you're really training students for a career in the future, down the road. So it's like, so you can teach people how to do things right now. But how do you prepare people for what's gonna show up in 2030 that we don't even think of today? How do you train people to be able to deal with that kind of change in a positive way.

Matt 

So again, I'll talk mostly from my worldview, which is communication. A lot of what I teach and those who do what I do teach is frameworks and ways of thinking and levels of comfort and identifying what's important to you and authenticity. And while modalities will change, we've seen generative AI be very disruptive in the world of communication, but those who are embracing it are those who understand their perspective, what's important to them, have an authentic voice, are able to be flexible and adapt. So part of what I'm doing is teaching very specific best practices around communication that are contextually and time-based and bound. But at the same time, we're also teaching more fundamental principles around being agile, being focused, being confident, being authentic. And those foundational skills, I hope, and have seen in the past, at least in my career, have been able to translate as we have seen things change. I mean, you and I, again, are of a similar vintage. You know, a lot has changed in the communication world. Social media, generative AI, I mean, all of this mobile, you know, and yet the foundational principles that I hope to inculcate in my students are what are helping them to survive those changes.

Tom Leonard 

Do you find that your students are embracing change?

Matt 

Absolutely. I mean, of course, there's a selection bias here, right? I mean, at Stanford's Business School, people who are coming there are people who are about disruption, about change. You know, the motto of the school has got change in it. And the business school has change built into it. So, yes, my students embrace change. I certainly am not seeing hesitancy or resistance in what I do with my students.

Tom Leonard 

I want to talk a little bit more about entrepreneurship because that's really our audience. The other thing that I always hear you talking about is know your audience. And one of the things, and I have a couple of questions on that in a minute, but our audience here are entrepreneurs around the world. We don't have the largest audience out there, but we have a really great community, people that are interested in how can they build their business better out there. 

Matt 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tom Leonard 

Could you talk a little bit about some of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make in their communication and how can they correct that?

Matt 

There's several things that come to mind. First, you've already shared a lot of problem that entrepreneurs have in their communication is they focus on what they want to say. I've got this great idea or this disruptive product or service, and they don't think about what does the audience need to hear relative to that information. So it's about being audience-centric. So you have to do reconnaissance, reflection, and research about who your audience is, what's important to them, what's salient, what's relevant. So it's less about what you want to say, it's more about what they need to hear. I would say that's the foundational problem. The second big problem is entrepreneurs typically have spent a lot of time really analyzing the issues, understanding the problems and challenges, and they often relay way too much information, often too deep, at least at first, for the audience. It's overwhelming, it's not necessarily interesting. You know, Tom, my mother has this saying, I know she didn't create it, I don't know who created it. But I share this with all my students, especially those who are entrepreneurs, which is: Tell me the time. Don't build me the clock. Many entrepreneurs are clock builders.

Tom Leonard 

Oh that's really good. Can you repeat that?

Matt 

Yeah, tell me the time, don't build me the clock. Many entrepreneurs give way too much detail. And all I need is to know the time and then you can dive deeper. I might ask you to tell me more about how the clock is built. But the second big mistake I see is people just go into way too much detail, way too quickly. It's overwhelming. So it's all about clarity, concision and focus, right? So you have to really, again, know your audience and then structure a message. That's my third point that is clear and concise and at appropriate depth. Many of us list off information. A good entrepreneur thinks that their job is to create a deck that has lots of bullet points to get information across. And that's not the way our brains work. Our brains are designed for story, for structure. So the top three are know your audience, structure your content in a way that's reasonable, and then finally provide only the amount of information the person needs at that time. If entrepreneurs or anybody does that, were to do that. Their communication will be more clear, more understandable, and more memorable.

Tom Leonard 

And one of the things that's always important is to be a good listener.

Matt 

Oh yes.

Tom Leonard 

In media because how many times because I'm doing it right now it's like I'm listening but I'm thinking of the next thing that I'm going to say and it's like that that's one of the faults that need to need to be corrected there for so many people

Matt 

That's exactly right. Listening is critical. The more I do my work on communication, the more I do with my Think Fast Talk Smart podcast, and I have experts in communication on, the more critical it is that I have learned to focus on listening. And what helps me when I do what you're doing, that is host a podcast, or when I try to be a good parent, a good spouse, is when I listen, I am listening for what's the bottom line? What's the key thing being communicated here? And I find for me that helps me focus in a way that gets around what you just said, which is judging, evaluating, rehearsing what I'm going to say next. If I stay present and I'm thinking to myself, what's the bottom line? What is this person really saying? That helps me focus and listen in a very different way. And it goes against my normal intuition, which is just to listen enough to begin to respond. So that helps me. I don't know if it'll help you or help your listeners, but it really matters to me.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, I remember doing active listening at Stanford Business School in the negotiations class. And it was just like, yeah, it just it's like, wow, it's stuck, you know, stuck with me all these decades later sort of thing. I also liked your recent episode on touchy feely. Which was, of course, a class. And one of the things that I remember, and it kind of comes down to communication.

Matt 

Yeah. Uh huh.

Tom Leonard 

That's the one class I can remember after all these decades. I have more concrete memories of specific classes, events, people, students from that class than any other class ever. And in your conversation, it finally came around to people remember how you make them feel. And it's like that class had more feelings involved with it than anything else. And the negotiation class was also along that same line. And it's like, you know, the other stuff stuck with me, I think, but I can't remember specifics. But I can remember about that. And is that kind of what you find with other people?

Matt 

That's right. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So a couple things I'll say here. One, there's a class called Interpersonal Dynamics at Stanford's Business School. That's the formal name. All the students call it Touchy Feely. The purpose of the class, and it's the most popular class at the business school, the purpose of the class is to help people better understand themselves and how they relate to others. And they do it by having very, very concrete, specific, experiential learning. Some of it incredibly positive, some of it incredibly reflective, some of it negative, and it really lasts, and people take the lessons as you're saying. And you're exactly right, the emotional experience. If you can, in your communication, help people have an emotional experience, they're going to remember it better. We know from neuroscience that our brains process emotion differently than information. There's a whole different pathway to get emotion into our brains. It's more impactful.

We remember it more and we're more likely to act on it. So good entrepreneurs think about, how can I tap into people's emotion in a legitimate, appropriate way? And if you can get people excited, concerned, fear of missing out, you can have a much bigger impact on your audience. And I'm glad that you still remember the lessons from Touchy Feely all these years later. They are the ones that I think matter a lot. I think what other teachers teach is really important, but how you are in the world and howa you interact with others I think is critical to success.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, yes. In making a connection between emotion and residents, how you actually take in the information, the communication is another reason why I really think Jada Solo with Solo with her with kids interviewing their parents on a webinar format. It's like you're going to be riveted because you're going to want to see how that like you're seeing that dynamic works out and you're going to have emotion that's like those kids that could be my kid talking to me sort of thing. And it's like, yeah, I'm selling this one.

Matt 

Absolutely, there's that connection. I think it's a great idea. I'd love to see how it plays out. I think empowering children, period, but empowering children to talk to their parents is fascinating.

Tom Leonard 

It could be anywhere in the world. I mean, you could really expand it beyond just her local community where she can do it so well and go out there. Back on knowing your audience out there, how do you do that? Because a lot of people say, oh, yeah, I need to know my audience. But let's say if you're an entrepreneur and you are an e-sports entrepreneur, you're looking to do sponsorship. You need a sponsor for your for your team, for your tournament. And you're going to be you know, looking for people who are going to be sponsors. How do you do? How do you research who those who that audience is going to be?

Matt 

So I think there's some key ways to do research. One is to first see what's out there. You have to understand the pool of possibility. So look at other teams and who's sponsoring them. Look at others who are playing in this arena. By that I mean, are there adjacent potential sponsors and think about, so if you're doing esports, maybe you look at things like. And I don't know the right name for these, but you know, the, the X games where they're adventure sports, I don't know, you know, where they're physical, maybe companies that do that might be right. So you start thinking about the pool of possible sponsors. I'm a big fan of cyber stalking. And by that, I mean, get on social media, look at who's saying, what about what? Look at people's bios, their company bios, their LinkedIn profiles, see what interests them. That's an area of learning more about who to target talk to people who do something similar. So you have to do a lot of legwork. It's not easy, but look at and follow what other people are doing. And that can be really helpful to figuring out who the right people are. And once you understand who those people are, then I think there are four essential questions you have to ask yourself when you do audience analysis. First is, when I approach these people, how much do they know about the topic I'm presenting? Do they know a lot or a little? And if they know a lot, I come in at a very different level than if they know a little. I might have to scaffold their knowledge. What are their likely attitudes to be? Are they, are they likely to be favorable or unfavorable? Because that's going to affect how I approach them. Third, and perhaps most important, Tom, is this notion of resistance, concern, and hesitation. Where might they have resistance? What can I do to try to reduce or acknowledge that resistance? And then finally, is there something that motivates and excites them that I can tap into? So once you identify the target audience, and the ways I suggested are how you can do that, then you have to get those four questions answered. What do they know? What are their attitudes? Where is their resistance? And what motivates them? And with that information, then I can target messages appropriately.

Tom Leonard 

And what I hear you say is be curious. It's like if you're if you're well, you're probably in the wrong business. If you aren't curious about who it is that you want to be doing business with. I mean, you should be in another line of work. If that doesn't just emanate from you.

Matt 

Oh, absolutely. I would add something to curiosity. I think that's absolutely right. You have to be curious, you have to be open, and you have to be collaborative. Those, I think, are the three major ingredients. Because I can be curious, but if I'm not open to your point of view, then that's a problem. And if I'm not willing to work with you, that's the collaboration piece, that can also be problematic. So I think curiosity, openness, and collaboration are essential ingredients to any entrepreneur, regardless of if it's esports or not.

Tom Leonard 

How do you become more open to collaboration?

Matt 

Yeah, that's a great question because you risk a lot when you collaborate, right? You lose some of that control. I know we're going to talk about the new book I've got. But one of the things that really led to LPPPP that is I did a deep dive into the world of improvisation. And most people think improv is of like comedy. It's people being funny. And it is that's a part of it. But improv at its core is really about collaboration. It's about risk-taking, it's about learning how to be comfortable in uncertain circumstances. And I learned a lot about collaboration through my exploration personally, meaning me doing it. I've also taught with experts of improv and I've done a lot of reading and research. And collaboration is critical, but in order to collaborate well, you have to put your ego aside, recognize that there are people who can help you and do better and that creative innovative solutions come when more diverse opinions are contributing to it. But that's a leap of faith and opening up yourself to doing that. Most of the courses I teach are collaborative. I always have a co-instructor because I learn more. It, it, it's great for me. And I think the students get a lot of value out of it as well. So I am a very collaborative person, but it is hard. And I encourage people to reflect on their lives when they have had the biggest impact, learn the most grown the most. My hunch is there was somebody else there. So if you're an athlete and you did great in your sport, there was a coach who was helping you collaborate, right? If you have grown in your career, whatever that is, there was a boss, a mentor, or somebody who helped or collaborated in most cases. So recognizing that and then saying, hey, that helped me, maybe being more open in these other circumstances will help me as well.

Tom Leonard 

Yet to be able to be that open, you've got to have a certain sort of confidence in what it is that you're doing. Could you talk a little bit about how culture impacts communication? I'm not sure. And I meant to remember what her name was, but I read a book recently called Culture Map. And where she talks about how along these eight criteria, how different cultures around the world, how that how it impacts their communication. And I thought that was just fascinating. It's like, you know, if you're Japanese, you have a different outlook than if you're we talk to you. For example, we talked to Eniola Edun from Nigeria on here, who's doing great things in creating esports tournaments. And we talked to Chantice Ortega and from the Philippines on and Chantel was talking about what it was like in the Philippines as a female esports entrepreneur. And Yolo was just like, wow, that just sounds so good. She's like, I wish that could be the way that it is here. So can you talk maybe a little bit about how you deal with culture differences in the kind of communication that you teach out there?

Matt

Right. So culture looms large in all of our interactions, regardless of its communication or anything. I will point people to one of my colleagues, her name is Michelle Gelfand, I interview her twice actually on my podcast. She studies culture and she talks about what she defines as loose cultures versus tight cultures. So culture can be sliced in lots of different ways. I'm not familiar with the book you talked about, but it sounds like it makes a lot of sense to me. When it comes to thinking about your audience, you have to think about the culture and context in which you're communicating and the impact of the words you're saying and the way in which you're saying them could have. So culture does lots of things. It, it, one level, it sets our expectations for what's appropriate for what's expected. In other ways, it focuses us on what and how we should say those things. So you have to be sensitive to the cultures in which you're communicating. And many of us, because this is just ingrained in us, we just communicate the way we do and that can get us in trouble. And so we have to think about what could be expected in the circumstance. We need to do our research. What is it that is typical? I'll give you a quick example. When I was in grad school, I did an internship at a very prominent movie studio. And I worked with the person who was in charge. And he at the time was meeting with a delegation from Japan. And in Japan in particular, there's a ritual around how one presents business cards, at least at the time. I see you nodding, so you're familiar with it. Right, you hold the card in both hands, you present it to the person facing the person, they are to take the card, look at it, put it down in a place where it's recognized. So my boss collects all of them, stuffs it in his wallet, and then sits down and starts the meeting. As here in the United States, business cards, I mean, if people use them anymore, but back in the day, you know, that's what we did. You put them all in your pocket, you look at them later, you put them in your Rolodex, whatever. Two very different approaches. He was, in a way, offending people. The looks in the room were that of confusion and other things. Now, of course, he was so prominent, it didn't really affect him but certainly somebody who did not have the reputation and background of him, it could have been detrimental. So I use that simply as an example of we have to appreciate and understand. And in all of us come from different cultures, we communicate with different cultures. And by the way, to me, Tom, culture just doesn't mean place of origin. You and I have a different culture than my teenage kids, right? And there are different rules and about how their communication in our sense. So my kids in talking to me, if they get a text message, they will stop talking to me, they will respond to the text and then they will come back to talking to me. Now I find that incredibly offensive. Their peers don't even blink an eye, right? That's just in their culture, that's acceptable. So I'm certainly not saying teenagers and people from different countries are similar, but all I'm saying is culture is much more than place of origin. Organizations have culture. There's a culture at Stanford that's very different than cultures at other academic institutions. Your firm has a different culture than other people's firms. And so we just have to be open to that and we have to appreciate it. And then we have to make conscious choices to adjust our communication. I might choose not to conform to some rule that you have in your company, but I wanna do it consciously knowing that there might be repercussions versus just accidentally doing it. So this is a long-winded answer to simply say, culture is important, we have to pay attention to it, and we have to think about it.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah, awareness is not given. It's something that you have to work at. Yeah, because I remember, well, when I was at the business school there for my summer, I wanted to, there was a woman who was in the Sloan program at the time who was with USAID in Thailand. So I said, can I come work for you? She said, sure. So I spent the summer in Thailand and that's where the business cards were like, yeah, that was an important aspect.

Matt 

Yes, absolutely. 

Tom Leonard 

And also, just the whole idea that confrontation was frowned on. You never confronted anyone, you know, individually or even never in front of a group. I mean, that was just that that's the last time that person will ever do anything for you for sure. 

Matt 

Oh yeah. Right. And imagine, I can imagine how hard that was for you, because here in the United States, you know, it's just part of our culture that standing up for your position is expected. In fact, that's part of your job responsibility, right? So I can imagine how difficult that was for you and for others who came from a different culture to, to be in a situation where something happened that you had a strong opinion on, you had to work very differently. So you're absolutely right, that we have to be aware and then adjust based on that.

Tom Leonard 

Hey, I'm going to talk about your book here because that was that it's something that I'm really fascinated with and something that the premise is something as I said, something every podcaster should be looking into. It's how do you think fast? How do you think quicker on your feet? Think think thinking faster. Yes. So can you talk a little bit about what the book about and why did you write it?

Matt 

Yes. Think faster, talk smarter. So if you think about it, Tom, most of our communication is unplanned. Yet, if we learned anything in school or in business about how to communicate, it was always around planned communication. It's like create your deck, prepare your room, coordinate with others. Yet, most of the communication we have at work and in our personal lives is spontaneous. Somebody asks you a question, somebody asks you for feedback. You make a mistake, you have to fix it. These are all things that happen in the moment. And I want to help people in those situations. Given that you graduated from Stanford's business school, there's a Stanford business school origin to my interest in this. A few years after I started there, the deans came to me and said, we have a problem. The problem is this, and you'll remember these situations, Tom. Our students who are very bright and very well educated and very well prepared are panicking in cold call situations. And for those of your listeners who don't remember what a cold call is, that's where the mean evil professor looks at you and says, "Tom, what do you think?" And you have to respond in that moment. And that's very off-putting and hard. And so they asked me as the communication guy at the business school, they said, "'Can you help us figure out a way to do this?' And that's when I started my deep dive. And in doing that, Tom, just very quickly, I'll share a personal story. My last name is Abraham's. It starts with A-B. My entire life, I have been spontaneously speaking. All through school, I always knew where I sat. Front seat, first row because everybody's alphabetical. And whenever the teacher had you do anything, they would start with the person sitting in the front. So my whole life has been spontaneously speaking. And I never really made that connection until I started trying to think about how to help others spontaneously speak. So that was the origin story of the interest. And this is pervasive. All of us find ourselves in situations where we have to speak spontaneously. So the book. Yeah, absolutely.

Tom Leonard 

Sorry, sir, can I interrupt you there? Just for a second, sorry. Because you brought back another really strong memory from business school because very first finance class and the professor was world known. I mean, he was, he was, he was, everyone was just like, oh my gosh, we get to be in his class sort of thing. Very first day, he calls on me to explain something that was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that day that I had not read. It's just.

Matt 

Yeah, sure.

Tom Leonard 

It's just like, you're just, just exactly know when you're describing that I'm just like

Matt 

Yeah. And I bet you when you think about that, you go back to that anxiety you felt. I mean, that's a very visceral experience. It's like I call that a I call it a holy crap moment. It's like, oh, my goodness. I the spotlights on me. Yeah. And that doesn't feel very good. Right. And and those kind of situations happen a lot. I'm sorry that happened to you. But you know what? You somehow managed to be very successful despite that event.

Tom Leonard 

Still is.

Oh no.

Tom Leonard 

One of the things is every day after that, I read the Wall Street Journal before I went to his class. It did what he wanted to do.

Matt 

Yeah, absolutely. I personally am not a big fan of cold calling because of that. I think I don't want students to fear my class, but it certainly is a way to get people to learn something. So I essentially created a methodology. All Stanford MBA students have a chance to go through that methodology before they graduate. It really divides into two major categories. There's mindset, and then there's messaging. And there's six steps, four of the steps fit under the mindset part. That's what I delineate in the book. And then there are two steps that are in the messaging part. So let me just give you a little taste of this. So many of us see spontaneous speaking in the moment as a threat, a challenge, something to defend against rather than as an opportunity. When, when I tell you, Tom, that, Hey, I'm going to ask you several questions at the end of your presentation. If you're like most people, you're not like, oh, yay, exciting. I'm most people like, oh, no, I hope I have the answers. I hope I didn't say something to screw up. So we see it as a threat or a challenge. So if we can begin to re-envision our spontaneous speaking, less as a threat and more as an opportunity, and there are a whole slew of techniques we can go through to help with that mindset shift that sets us up for more success. Now, when it comes to messaging, we've already talked about being concise and focused, that's really important. And there's certain ways we can do that through the structure of the messaging that we use through what we think about the audience, how we establish goals. So the whole book is really this process that you can learn with, and I'm a very applied person, so the book lists very specific tactics and tasks you can do. There's several points where I say, stop reading right now and go try this, and then come back to the book, because I believe communication is something you learn by doing, and so I encourage people to put these things into practice. So that's where this all came from, and that's what the whole process is about.

Tom Leonard 

Yes. Are there specific skills that you go through that someone can, maybe you could describe a few of them. So someone's like, okay, you know, I could really use this kind of training. It's like, what are the kinds of skills that are going to be showing up there?

Matt 

Absolutely. So the very first step in the whole process is managing anxiety. Because as you just shared, Tom, uh, when you're put on the spot, it can be very anxiety provoking. So there's certain skills you can do. Let me give you three. One, take a deep breath. When you take a deep breath, you slow your whole autonomic nervous system down. That helps you calm down so you can think clearly. Remind yourself that you have value to bring to these interactions. Most of the time we are asked to speak spontaneously are situations where people see us as having value. We forget that. We think, oh, I better get this right, versus there's value I have. So this mindset shifts. So it's just simply saying to yourself, while you're taking a deep breath, I have some value to bring here. That's a very tactical thing we can do. And then the third thing that you can do is, in that moment, think about what's the most valuable thing I can say that will help this audience. It goes back to knowing your audience. There are lots of things I can say. What do I think's the most important in this moment for this audience? So those are very tactical things we can do from a message perspective. I'm sorry, from a mindset perspective. From a message perspective, we need to be thinking about how can I package up this information so people learn it and understand it? And I list several structures people can use. My favorite structure in the whole world is three simple questions. What, so what, now what? If I answer those three questions and

Tom Leonard 

Wait, can you repeat that? That's really good.

Matt 

Yeah. What? So what? Now what? So what is the information you're saying? So what is why it's important? Now what can you do with it? In fact, Tom, most of the answers to your questions you've asked, I've used this structure. I'll give you my answer. That's my what. I'll then tell you why it's important. And then I'll tell you what you can do with it. And so knowing that structure is a very tactical, the practical thing you can do can help. There are things we can do to calm ourselves down, taking a deep breath, reminding ourselves we have value, and then we can leverage structure to also help. And so these are, in the book and in life, these are the things that help you manage these spontaneous speaking situations.

Tom Leonard 

The great thing is, as I'm thinking about this, is you need to practice this, to make it come naturally, but you get an opportunity to do this like 400 times a day. You can do this on the smallest little conversation that you have where you're asked to think on your feet. So there's no shortage of opportunities to practice it.

Matt 

Yes. Oh absolutely. In fact, one of the great uses of generative AI, like ChatGPT, and others, is just type in, give me questions on X, and then just practice answering the questions. So yes, there are lots of ways to find opportunities to practice.

Tom Leonard 

That's really good because that's really low risk, low anxiety there to start out sort of thing. Yeah, to figure that thing out. So one of the things, so I promised a little test here at the end or near the end and what I wanted to do, I'm going to ask you a question to kind of put you on the spot, so to speak, which I don't think is going to be any kind of issue with you. I want to hear your answer, but then I want to hear more about how you develop that answer. So what is it that went into your mind? And maybe it goes back to your structure that you're just talking about, but it's like, so that not just giving the answer, but also explaining how you came to that answer.

Matt 

Right. Yeah, you're essentially asking me to do, one of the key things I teach my students in my strategic communication class is what we call metacognition, how to be thinking about your thinking or how to be thinking about your communication. So I will try to respond to whatever spontaneous prompt you give me and then I will try to share my meta thoughts about it.

Tom Leonard 

Here's my question. Now from this short conversation, can you give me three specific improvements that I can make to my interviewing skills to improve this podcast?

Matt 

Certainly, and I'll start by recommending or recognizing the things that I think you do well. You are a very good listener. And that's demonstrated through paraphrasing. You are able to extract a key idea and summarize it. And that is a true talent, and it is a result of good listening. You can't do that if you don't listen well. One of the things that I would recommend, I'm going to give three recommendations. First, there is a skill to bridging and linking of ideas. And there are themes that have come through what we've been talking about. And you've done a good job of highlighting some of those themes, but trying to bridge them and carry them through, I think is a skill that is one I would recommend that you work on. It's one I work on all the time, and I still am struggling with in the work I do in my podcast and other things. So that's the first, is this notion of bridging and linking. Third, or second, I guess I should learn to count. Second, you are very animated in your facial expressions as I'm talking to you, and I know your audience doesn't get to see you. And I would encourage you to think about ways of sharing that, because to me, it's very inviting. And I'm wondering if there are ways you can use that linguistically to do that. So I'm really excited about that. That makes me really curious. Do you hear those words that reflect the physical, the nonverbal emotion that you're conveying, which to me is very delightful. I mean, it's, as I've gone on talking, you've been nodding and you've been smiling and that encourages me to talk more. So I'm wondering, are there ways you can do that through language? And then finally, the, you did a very nice job in the pre-conversations we had, the emails we exchanged and when we first started before we hit record, I would encourage you to.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Matt 

pull in some of that content to this conversation and any conversation you have, just to give a little bit of a ramp up to the conversation. I felt like we started a little colder than we needed to. So three things I just suggested that you would work on, but certainly you are very good at what you do and I'm very impressed with your listening. So let me pause and see if you have questions on what I said and I hope I answered the question the way you wanted me to.

Tom Leonard 

No, that's exactly, everything that you're talking about there, I understand. I understand what it is that you're saying. And I recognize that there are. That's why, hey, I get to have someone from Stanford tell me how to be a better communicator. It's like, I'm not going to miss this opportunity here. So that's really good. But I understand what it is that you're talking about, the kind of recommendations you're making there.

Matt 

Well, you're already very good. You're already good. Sure. Well, thank you.

Tom Leonard 

So I think that you're on the money.

Matt 

Let me give you my metacognition on this. So when you ask the question, I didn't know you were gonna ask that question. So I have a rule that when I give feedback, I always try to pick something positive first because I wanna demonstrate that I care for the person. And I always make sure that my positive feedback is of the same caliber and content, it's congruent with the constructive feedback. Right, if I said, hey, Tom, you've got a really nice shirt on, and by the way, you really suck at this, right? All of a sudden that's not congruent, right? 

Tom Leonard 

I saw that.

Matt 

I looked for something which I believed to be true. You are very good at paraphrasing, very good at listening. And then I gave three constructive bits of feedback that I think are on par. I think they're the same caliber. And what I thought to myself was there are three areas I wanna give feedback on. I wanna give feedback on content. I wanna give feedback on nonverbal presence. And I wanna give feedback on context. So that was the structure I used. I used those three. And all I had to do was then plug in my feedback. So for me, this was very easy to do because I said, okay, this is a feedback question. When I give feedback, I always start positive in a congruent way. And because it was about communication, I know that when I give feedback on communication, I talk about content, non-verbals, and context. So for me, this was very easy. I just plugged it into the structure, and that's the power of structure.

Tom Leonard 

Yeah.

Matt 

When I have to communicate, I have two fundamental tasks. I have to think about what to say and how to say it. Structure is the how to say it. I'm gonna say it in this way. So all I have to think about is how to plug it in. Think of it this way, Tom. It's like cooking a meal. The structure is the recipe. All I need to do is figure out which ingredients, in which order I'm gonna put into that recipe. Much easier to cook, at least for me, when I have a recipe. And that's exactly what I deployed in answering that question. So that's the meta of what was going on in that moment.

Tom Leonard 

Great. No, no, I really appreciate that. I appreciate the thought that you put into that. It also leads me back, which keeps coming to my mind is when you're talking about your work with improv and your work. I always thought I was always really jealous of people here in LA who took acting lessons. And even especially people who were not in the act, who were not going to be actors, but they were taking acting lessons. I thought that is so smart because how much of your business life are you acting? I mean, in the sense that it's part of the communication style out there. So I think the whole improv thing I'm going to look into, because I think that's, that's really interesting.

Matt 

Can I share a life-changing book on improv for me personally? It's a book called Improv Wisdom, written by Patricia Ryan Madsen. I happen to know Patricia. Very short book. And the reason I recommend it is, again, when people hear acting in improv, they think very different than what it really is. And what Patricia does is she highlights in Improv Wisdom specific tenets of improv that apply directly to life. So it's not about getting up on a stage.

Tom Leonard 

Yes.

Matt 

It's great. It's a short book and I highly recommend that you read it. I think there are lots of principles from acting and improv that influence communication every day. When we think of acting, we think about taking on somebody else who are not and that's not what I... that's not the lesson I want people to take. I think authenticity is really important, but good actors bring their authentic selves to their role and they think they learn about presence. They learn about how to respond under pressure and in improv there are lots of rules, and do what needs to be done, et cetera. All of those are helpful rules for managing, for living your life, for being an entrepreneur. So I encourage you to look into that. And that book is a great soft start into it.

Tom Leonard 

Great, great. A couple of other questions here, so don't take your whole day. But on your podcast, one of the things I know is, and I think maybe you referenced this earlier, is you ask three questions at the end of every episode. And like I said before, I think things with you do things intentionally. It's not just by accident. Why do you ask those questions? And why do you ask those particular questions?

Matt 

Sure. So it's interesting, we just talked about acting. There was a television show called Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton. He's now passed. And he would end every show with eight or nine questions that he would ask all these very famous actors. And I was always excited to hear the answers to those questions. And there's a curiosity because you get, everybody's different, but when you ask the same questions, you get some sort of insight and it makes you think and it gives you perspective. So that was one of the big motivators for that. And the three questions are questions that I'm very interested in for people. My three questions have to do with communication and somebody people admire as a communicator. Now as a podcast host, you'll appreciate this. You then get the opportunity to do lots of interesting things when you have multiple people giving you similar information. You can mash it up. You can create different. There are lots of content interesting things you can do when you have lots of people commenting on exactly the same thing. It was born out of my own personal curiosity and seeing the power of that. Second, I was genuinely curious about people's answers. And third, it gives you some interesting things you can do across guests when you're hosting a podcast. So we spent a lot of time thinking about those questions and I have enjoyed asking those questions.

Tom Leonard 

And also one of the things I notice is that you can tell that the guests have prepared.

Matt 

Yeah, it's not a spontaneous, the goal is not to put people on the spot. I tell everybody those three questions and to prepare them, you know, so it's, that's not my goal. My goal is I really want to hear their answers. So I should, I hope they think about it.

Tom Leonard 

The other thing I noticed, when you get to that part of your podcast and you announce that you're going to ask the three questions, you always ask for permission. Why do you ask for permission?

Matt 

Yes. One, I think it's polite. Two, I think it prepares the person. And as I shared with you, and it's interesting, you're the first person ever to notice this and to ask it. And I do it intentionally. I think, again, it puts us in a better relationship. So rather than, I don't like cold calling on people. I don't like putting people on the spot. So I like to ask people for permission before I ask these questions, which are very personal. If you notice at the beginning of every podcast, I will also tell the person, Hey, let's get started. Are you ready to go? So I try to put the person into a position where they have power. I mean, clearly if somebody says, no, I don't want to do this. It's not going to go anywhere, but it's still a perfunctory, uh, sort of cordial way, and I do that all the time. Um, in the work we do. I do.

Tom Leonard 

No, I figured that there was a reason behind it there, besides just being polite, which is never a bad thing.

Matt 

Well, and it's very perceptive of you. You know, I've done a lot of these, you're the first person ever to notice that and ask and it is a strategic thing I do. And so thank you for even noticing it.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, and I'm going to start looking at the beginning when you're asking for, are you ready to go? That's another great thing. Hey, I'm going to wrap this up here. I really appreciate you taking some time here talking about. One of the reasons that I was really interested in having you on here is because we talked to so many e-sports entrepreneurs. We talked about people who are running e-sports organizations all over the world. And you don't fit that category. But last season, we had Jeremy Utley from the D School there at Stanford when he put had his book, Idea Flow, come out. And one of the things that he was talking about, which I am a huge believer in, is getting divergent voices in your life. It's like if you're if you're always in this silo and I think e-sports, people are very prone to that. It's like they only are surrounding themselves with e-sports people. It's like so. So it's good to have a divergent, divergent voices like yours to come in and talk about communication, which is something that everyone does every day.

Matt 

You know, Tom, Jeremy is a friend. He's a neighbor and his ideas and the passion with which he delivers them. I really respect. So I'm glad you got a chance to talk to him. He's a great guy.

Tom Leonard 

He was the whole concept of idea flow, of how to generate more ideas in your in your life. 

Matt 

And I think what Jeremy and I do complement each other, because once you have those ideas, you then have to communicate them in a way that others can get excited about and motivated by.

Tom Leonard 

Yes, because one of the things that wasn't necessarily the strength of the conversation with Jeremy was the communication side of it. It's like, yeah, you get the ideas, but then exactly, you need to be able to do something with it. Thanks again for your time here. And thanks for everyone for listening to the Gamers Change Lives podcast. Play games, create jobs, change lives. Thanks, Matt.

Matt 

Thank you, it was a great time, Tom.