Something You Should Know - Interesting Secrets of Great Entrepreneurs & How to Speak in Public Like a Pro

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Birds are building nests and laying eggs all over the place this time of year. And you have probably heard that if a baby bird falls out of the nest you shouldn’t put it back because the mother will abandon the baby. Is that true? Listen to hear the surprising answer. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2287/if-you-handle-baby-birds-will-their-parents-shun-them Almost everyone dreams of being a successful entrepreneur. So, what separates the good entrepreneurs from the truly great ones? That is what Christopher Lochhead set out to discover. Christopher is a CEO marketing coach, speaker and author of the book Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets (https://amzn.to/3bQYzxJ). Listen as he explains how really successful business owners position their ideas and products to dominate the competition. Speaking in front of people is scary for almost everyone. Yet it is also absolutely necessary for pretty much all of us whether at school or in a meeting or giving a formal speech. Since we will all be called on to speak, why not arm yourself with some skills that will make you less nervous and perform better? Here with some help to do that is Matt Abrahams . He is a lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business – he is the host of the podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/think-fast-talk-smart-podcast) and author of the book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out (https://amzn.to/3eZyKO1). His company, Bold Echo can be found at www.boldecho.com  How many times have you heard that staring at a computer screen for too long is bad for your eyes? So, what does that mean - “bad for our our eyes”? Listen as I explain what research has shown about computer use and your eyesight. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/are-computer-screens-really-ruiningour-eyes_us_58b08e8de4b0a8a9b782192a This Week's Sponsors -The Zebra. Compare and save money on car insurance. Go to www.TheZebra.com/sysk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, if you see a baby bird fall out of the nest, should you put it back or leave it alone? Then, what we can all learn from some of the most successful entrepreneurs. For example, Sarah Blakely, who's the founder of Spanx. what we can all learn from some of the most successful entrepreneurs. For example, Sarah Blakely, who's the founder of Spanx.

When she created Spanx, which is now a multi-billion dollar company, she didn't say this is underwear 2.0. She said it's a new category called shapewear. Also, does staring at a computer screen really damage your eyes? And we all have to speak in front of a group at some point. How can we do it better and be less nervous? The reality is this. In my three decades of doing the work that I do,

everybody has some anxiety around speaking. Some learn to hide it better. Some learn to channel it better. But there's very little research to say that there are some people who are just less nervous. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today.

Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. This episode is being published in the spring, and with spring, you probably have noticed there are more birds making nests and laying eggs and having babies. We've got two new nests in our yard that have just shown up in the last couple of weeks. And you've probably heard that if a baby falls out of the nest, you shouldn't put it back because the mother will smell your scent

and then ignore or reject the baby bird. Well, that's actually wrong. Birds have a terrible sense of smell. What birds will do is abandon a nest if you disturb it, especially early in the incubation process. The longer a bird stays in a nest, the less likely she is to abandon it. There are a few other issues here, though. First of all, birds carry disease, and handling them can make you sick. Secondly, disturbing a bird's nest is actually a federal crime, although it's unlikely anyone's ever been prosecuted for it.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects virtually all native birds, except for the kind we eat, like turkey, ducks, and pheasants. In fact, technically, cat owners could be prosecuted if their cat kills a native bird. And cats kill about a billion U.S. birds a year. And bird lovers hate that. And that is something you should know. There are successful entrepreneurs, and then there are the super successful entrepreneurs. Think Mark

Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the usual list of extraordinarily successful entrepreneurs. So what separates the good ones from these great ones? Well, in many cases, it is something called market category design. It's really quite fascinating, and here to discuss it is Christopher Lockhead. He is one of the authors of a new book called Play Bigger, which is the result of some serious research on the topic. Hi, Christopher. Welcome. Excellent. Well, it's my pleasure to be here, Mike. So explain what category market design is and where it comes from.

Traditionally, innovators, when they come up with something new that they want to unleash on the world, traditionally they do two things. They build what they hope is a legendary product and a legendary company deliver that product and they launch it into the world. And they hope that the world sort of figures it out, that they understand this innovation. And what we discovered is the greatest innovators and entrepreneurs over time don't do just two things. They do a third thing, which is they design a product company and a market category.

And so by doing that third thing, they materially increase the likelihood that they're going to succeed. And so ultimately, that's what it is to play bigger. And who do we know that we would know does this? So a great example would be somebody like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. As you may know, there were many social networks at the time that Facebook launched. And today, there's only one. And so the question is, why did Facebook win where MySpace and Tribe and so many others failed? And the reason for it is

the magic combination, we call it the magic triangle of all three of those things, right product, right company, and right market category. And specifically, Zuckerberg taught us to accept the definition of what a social network should be that was in alignment with his point of view. And when we accepted his point of view, we all logged on to Facebook and forgot about MySpace. And that's really what legendary innovators do. They design a category by teaching you and I to think about a problem and a solution the way they do. And if we accept their point of view, then ta-da, a new market emerges. Do you think that's deliberate? I mean, did Mark Zuckerberg sit down and think, well, now I've got to teach people about my market category?

Or is this Monday morning quarterbacking and saying, oh, see what he did? By accident, he just kind of stumbled into this. Well, certainly some entrepreneurs and innovators stumble into it by accident. If you had asked Zuckerberg at the time, are you doing category design? Of course, he probably would have said no. He might not know what category design is. But what we discovered is that the legendary entrepreneurs have a natural intuition about the market. Jobs, Steve Jobs, is another great example, where they understood that for their innovation to take flight,

the world needed to see things the way they did. So, for example, in 2001, Bill Gates launched the tablet PC. And he did what most entrepreneurs do, which is they say, hey, look, isn't this a cool new product or technology? And they have essentially a features discussion with the world. And if the world connects the dots between those features, a benefit, and most importantly, a problem that they want solved and they buy the product. The problem, however, is that more often than not the world doesn't connect those dots as they didn't in 2001. And then in 2009 when Jobs launched the iPad, which was another tablet computer, he did something different. He stood on stage and he said, we believe there's room for a third category of device,

and now let me tell you why. And he shared his point of view about why there was a problem that wasn't being solved by a laptop or a smartphone that needed to be solved by a tablet. And when you and I accepted his definition, his point of view, we all stood in line to buy iPads in a way that we didn't when Gates did a similar thing, but he didn't condition the market to think about it in a new way. Even though the iPad and the Microsoft tablet more or less did the same things. Exactly. And you could argue that the iPad was a better product, and maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but essentially designed to do a very similar thing and solve a very similar problem.

However, the world didn't understand why it needed a tablet PC because Gates didn't teach us, and Jobs did. And so what many entrepreneurs forget is that in order to buy a solution, the world needs to relate to and understand a problem. And interestingly enough, once you and I as consumers get what the problem is, we rush to the solution. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. So if, in fact, people are conditioning the market, that's really a marketing strategy.

It's not so much about the product. It's about how you condition your buyer. Exactly, Mike. And the thing that is unique, however, from traditional marketing, marketers have to understand that in order to do marketing, a market must exist. So if it's an existing market, by definition, it was designed by someone else. And so if we're launching a product or service into an existing market that was designed and created by someone else, we're at a disadvantage. In the research for our book, Play Bigger, we did an analysis of every venture-backed technology company founded in the

United States since 2000. And we asked the following. We asked, what percentage of market cap goes to the leader, the category king? That is to say, what percentage of the total value in the market goes to the leader? And what we discovered is that number 76%. So in the technology industry, it's a winner-take-all game with the leader getting two-thirds of the economics. And so the question is, how do you become that leader? And what we discovered is the way that legendary entrepreneurs, Benioff at salesforce.com, Jobs and Zuckerberg, who we've talked about, Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, what these legendary entrepreneurs do is something different than just marketing. When you're marketing, whether you realize it or not, you're fighting for share in an existing space.

What these legends do is they create their own category. They create the market itself, and they drive you and I to think about things the way they do. And when we do that, we stop doing what we used to do, drive to Blockbuster, and we start doing something new, log on to Netflix. And what Reed Hastings didn't do was say to the world, we've got a better blockbuster. He said, we have something different, something unique. Yeah, but what if you're wrong? I mean, I imagine a lot of people create categories that suck.

Well, yeah, they do. And those categories don't go anywhere. And of course, you can be wrong. The question, however, is if you're entering an existing space, particularly in the technology industry, we know you're fighting for 25% of the market. And so by definition, you're setting yourself up to fail. So yes, category design

can fail, i.e. the category never takes off. But what's worse, failing in a category that you try to dominate as your own or starting off knowing at best you're going to get 25% of the market cap of the space. But what do you But what is it that these guys have, what is it that they know that makes it likely that people will buy into this? Or is it the case where, before Steve Jobs talked about his new category for the iPad, he bombed at a bunch of other things?

And it's just luck of the draw that eventually he threw enough stuff on the wall and something stuck. Well, luck plays, of course, has an impact in everything. But if you look at the career of a job, clearly it was more than just luck. And so what we discovered in our research was that the legendary entrepreneurs have a natural intuition about how to teach you and I to look at something differently. And I use different on purpose. So for example, Sarah Blakely, who's the founder of Spanx, when she created Spanx, which is now a multi-billion dollar value company, she didn't say this is underwear 2.0. She said it's a new category called shapewear.

And when, in this case, women understood the problem that shapewear solves, which is to make you look good under tight-fitting clothing, and how that's distinct from lingerie or other forms of underwear, the market got it, and pow, Sarah created a billion-dollar-plus company out of thin air. But the reason she created that was the market understood why, and I'm going to use this word on purpose, shapewear was different from traditional underwear. And that's really the thing that legendary entrepreneurs do. The conversation

they have with the marketplace is predicated on a unique point of view, which is predicated on an insight. And then they explain to us why their product is different than what came before. And you and I understand and relate to different, better than what most entrepreneurs do, which is they scream, look at my new carbodigulator. It's better than what came before. And, you know, the people at Pepsi have proven to us that you can scream better for 100 years and the world doesn't believe you because Coke is still the leader. And the reason Coke is still the leader is because you and I accept Coke as the company that was the category designer, if you will, of what cola soda should be. The question I often have when I hear explanations like this, where it's always Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the Spanx lady is, as you say, these are legendary entrepreneurs. And most of us, by definition, are not going to be legendary entrepreneurs.

And so then I wonder, is there really something here to emulate, or is this really something in their DNA to marvel at, but good luck trying to do it yourself? Exactly. It's like, well, you know, I enjoy playing basketball, but I'm not going to be Steph Curry. Exactly. That's the question, Mike, that we have spent the better part of our lives trying to analyze and understand. And many of us, myself included, do not have the natural market intuition to understand product category and company the way a jobs did. However, what we have tried to do is say, okay, let's try to unpack what these legends did intuitively, or if you will, implicitly, and learn how you and I can do it explicitly. And so the work of Play Bigger, the book, is really exactly that. We did over a hundred

interviews. We did three quarters of a million dollars in data science research to understand exactly the question that you asked and to break down what are the things that the legends did intuitively that you and I can learn and take and apply to our own businesses and ultimately that's what this new management discipline category design is all about. I'm talking with Christopher Lockhead. He is author of the book, Think Big. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network

called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman

who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show

one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to continue our conversation, I understand how great it is to create a category and to have your own category rather than compete in an existing category, but most businesses are already in

a category. If you're a dry cleaner, you're a dry cleaner. You can call it something else and give it some other spiffy name, but you're still a dry cleaner. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. It turns out that small businesses can do category design as well. One of my personal favorite examples is there's a famous deli in Montreal where I grew up called Walensky's, created by the patriarch of the family, who's now no longer with us, Mo Walensky. His family continues the tradition to this day. It's a small local deli, and they make what a lot of people would call a bologna sandwich. And on a Wednesday afternoon in February, when it's really cold in Montreal, there's a long line out the door to get a Willenski special. And you could argue part of it is the product. People love the sandwich. But more importantly, Mo and his family over time

created a distinct position in the world with a one location, unique deli that delivers a completely different experience. And so you could open a generic deli and just say all the same things and do all the same things that everybody else does. Or in the case of Walensky's, you can create a category of one. And when the world understands why your sandwich is different than everyone else's, they'll line up. And so it's even possible for a small local business, an individual contributor, or even you and I in our own careers to distinguish ourselves in a way

that we stand out and we, if you will, create a category of one that only we can fulfill. And whether that's you and your personal career or a small local deli like Winsky's or ultimately Facebook, Uber, Salesforce.com, the principles of how you stand out around solving a problem, evangelizing that problem, and having the world understand why solving that problem makes a difference, that thinking that underlies the strategies behind category design applies to an individual, a small business, or someone who's aspiring to be the next Steve Jobs. People buy things, though, not because they're different, but because they serve a purpose,

right? Well, yes, but if the things that existed today served the same purpose, there would be no need for the new thing. And so what causes you and I, Mike, to say, oh, this new product serves an important purpose is when we understand how it's different and how it can either solve a problem that we know we have or a problem that we didn't know that we had in a compelling way such that we gravitate towards it. Yeah, okay, but then who has to come up with the problem? In other words, does the person creating the category say, here's this new category and here's the problem that this solves,

or here's the new category, and now you guys figure out which problem of yours this will solve and see if it doesn't work? The greatest category designers are much more explicit about it. So, for example, Henry Ford, when he launches the automobile, he doesn't call it the automobile. He doesn't evangelize its features. He calls it the horseless carriage. So he's describing it by what it's not in the context of what the market already understands. And he begins to evangelize the power of a carriage without a horse. And it's only when you and I understand that that we can accept the notion of an automobile.

And so we like to say, Mike, the greater the innovation, the more the market education. In hindsight, you would think, well, of course the market would gravitate towards the horseless carriage. But as we know, less than 2% of startups in our country are ever successful. And roughly 50% of the Fortune 500 turns over every 20 to 25 years. And the reason is companies fail to have their innovations or new products adopted in the market. And the reason for that is the market doesn't understand how they're meaningfully different from what came before. And that's really where category design begins to play. It's category design, if you will, gets the market to come to you. Most companies have what they call

a go-to market strategy. Category design is an approach for getting the market to come to you and to create pull where none existed before. And how much different does the new category have to be for people to see it as a new category? Can it just be a little different, or does it have to be, is it black or white, all or nothing? The world has to believe it's meaningfully different. You can have an argument about whether or not it is or it isn't from a quote-unquote reality point of view, but as you know, perception becomes reality. discussion about that. But you and I and the world recognized it as a distinct innovation, solving a distinct problem that created a whole new market category. So the ultimate test is, does the world agree with you that it's different? And sometimes you can build a billion-dollar business around a very small difference. And it's a matter of whether or not that the world accepts that difference as important and valuable. And matter of whether or not that the world accepts that difference

as important and valuable. And that's ultimately the job of the category designer. But is there a concern here that when you try to deconstruct after the fact that somebody's done this, that it's kind of like, you know, a famous chef makes his soup, and then you try to pick it apart and figure out how he makes it, but you never quite really get it because you can't, because he is who he is. He's, in this discussion, it's Steve Jobs, it's Mark Zuckerberg. Those people are who they are and you can try to deconstruct what they did, but the secret sauce is still going to be missing. Well, I'm not a doctor, but here's what I know.

When they do an autopsy on a human being, they don't find an organ in there called business talent or category design. So on one hand, Steve Jobs was no different than you and I. He was just a human being. On the other hand, it would certainly be irresponsible to say that there wasn't something magic about him and about many of these entrepreneurs that we're talking about. The question is, if that's not a natural intuitive skill for you, is it something you can learn?

So I love to play guitar. I'm not Eddie Van Halen, and I'm certainly not Les Paul, the creator of the electric guitar. But if you sit me down and you're patient with me, you can teach me to play guitar, even though my level of natural talent is different from a master, if you will. And so what category design is about is teaching those of us who are not necessarily intuitive, what's really going on, and try to emulate it. The other interesting thing, Mike, that we found when we share this, because category design is really like a secret black art that's been practiced in Silicon Valley for a long time that people were not explicit about.

When we share it with some of these legends that we've been talking about, what they say is, wow, you have, you have, I could never have explained this myself. I sort of, you know, Picasso can't tell you how he creates that painting, but when they, when they hear about it and when they read it in the book, what they realize is, ah, yes, of course, that's what I was doing. And so if you're natural about it, then you're natural about it, and that's a great skill that you have. If you're not, you want to learn about it. But even the people who are natural about it, when they begin to study it, they get even better at it.

And so category design is like anything. Even if you have a natural capability, if you learn more about it, you're going to get better. If you practice it more, you're going to get better. And if you're somebody who wants to build a great business and you're maybe more naturally a product-oriented person, then all the more reason you should study the category component of this. Yeah, great.

But aren't there plenty of business categories? You mentioned Coke and Pepsi. And, yeah, Coke is number one, but Pepsi's done okay at number two, and Avis did okay at number two, and that there are plenty of categories where a little competition is just what's needed, and you may not be number one, but you'll do just fine. Yeah, and you certainly see that outside of the technology space. Tech is our area of expertise because all four of us co-authors of Play Bigger come from the technology industry. What we know in the tech industry is what I mentioned earlier around the data science research we did. One company takes two-thirds of the economics, and that's not always true outside of the tech industry. However, if you start to look at the modern world,

there's an eerie, uncanny, winner-take-all dynamic emerging in lots of markets. So, for example, the company that created 5-Hour Energy Living Essentials, not only did they create a new product, they created it as a new category. They didn't call it a soft drink. They didn't call it a sports drink. They called it an energy shot. And that market today is roughly a $2 billion category. And they are their private company, so it's hard to know for sure. But if you read some of the industry reports, they have somewhere around $1.8 billion of that market category that they created. And so this winner-take-all dynamic that we see in the tech world is applying in more industries outside of the tech world. In some of them, you can have a great living by being number two or number three.

What we know is planning for that, particularly if you're launching something new, is a grave mistake. Well, and our big hope, Mike, is that more and more entrepreneurs and innovators in the world begin adopting category design. Stanford has already begun teaching category design. And we believe as more people get trained in category design, we'll see an increase in uptick, or said in a different way, more great innovations will find their place in the world as opposed to being left on the cutting room floor. And ultimately, that's why we decided to take this,

if you will, secret black art of category design that's been practicing in Silicon Valley for a long time, and if you will, give it to the world in this book. Well, great, Christopher. This has been really interesting. Christopher Lockhead has been my guest. He is author of the book Play Bigger, and you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes for this episode.

Thank you, Christopher. Thank you so much, Mike. It's been a pleasure being with you. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice.

Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown'm megan the magical millennial and i'm the dapper danielle on every episode of our fun and family-friendly show we count down our top 10 lists of all things disney there is nothing we don't cover we are

famous for rabbit holes disney themed games and fun facts you didn't know you needed but you definitely need in your life so if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Remember in school when the teacher would call on you cold? You didn't raise your hand. You would just get chosen to answer a question or speak and share your opinion on what the teacher was talking about. It was terrifying for most of us. Being forced to speak in front of others has always terrified people,

whether you're speaking with a small group or in a meeting or giving a formal speech. Speaking is scary, and yet it's so essential for everyone. We all have to do it, and we like to try to do it well. Listen for the next few minutes, and I think you'll have some tools to help. My guest is Matt Abrahams. Matt is a lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He's host of the podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart. And he's author of the book book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out.

Hi, Matt. So why is that such a universally terrifying experience to be called on to speak before a group spontaneously like that? Why do we fear it so much? Well, being put on the spot is never fun. All eyes turn to you. People are listening to see how you respond. It invites a fight or flight response under pressure, under the gun right now. So cold calling is really tough. And that's why as a professor, I certainly don't do that. I believe you invite people, you prepare people, and then you get them at their best. It is interesting, though, that we don't like being called on, we don't like the spotlight on us, we don't like to be asked to say something for fear of what? What's the worst that could happen?

I guess you make a fool of yourself and then you feel like a fool, but it almost seems out of balance. Like, even if you don't know the answer, what's the harm? No one's going to remember this in five minutes. So the rationalization you're doing makes perfect sense. And for many people, when I walk them through that as my students or the people I coach, they get it. Personally, and there are several academics that agree that, you know, this is an evolutionary thing. And we know that because it affects almost everyone across cultures. And it really boils down to this.

Engrained in us through evolution is a desire to be very sensitive to our relative status among other people. And I'm not talking about, you know, who drives the fancy car, who gets the most likes on social media. I'm talking about status in terms of where you are in a social hierarchy. And when our species was evolving, being at the bottom of that hierarchy was not a good thing. If you're at the top of the hierarchy, you get access to resources and you're likely to survive. And being asked to speak in front of others where you could potentially embarrass yourself, do something that causes others to think poorly of you, reduces that status. So I think we're fighting against innate biology, and rationalization is one of many tools that can help people feel more comfortable and confident, and there are lots of tools, but that's what we're fighting against.

And even when you're told, okay, you're going to present at the meeting tomorrow, or you're going to get up in a week and speak to the class, or you're going to even give a speech to the PTA or something, even when you're not put on the spot in the sense that we were talking about a minute ago, it's still terrifying. And you've got all the time in the world to prepare. I think it's still born from the same place, but then we begin layering on top of it all of the potential calamities that could happen. What if I am not as effective? What are people going to think in the long term? What happens if I don't get what I want? So all of a sudden, we take something that's very innate and biological and layer on all of these cognitive risks that we create. And all of a sudden, this anxiety becomes very real. And in some people's

case, it prevents them from actually being successful in communicating at all. And that's why we have to learn to manage this type of anxiety. Well, it is interesting when you think about the fact that when you're in the audience and somebody else has to do that, you're rooting for them. You want them to do well. You're very forgiving as an audience. But when you're up there, you think everybody's just ripping apart every little flaw in you. That's right. Your perception of the experience is distorted by your anxiety. You are highly sensitive to, and it becomes very salient, the evaluation and judging

that people do. You become highly aware of all the other pressures in terms of time and others that need to speak. So your perception becomes very warped, and part of the way of managing anxiety is to change the way you approach the situation. And yet, there's always those guys, those people in the class, those people who seem to not have quite the reaction, that they seem to handle it better. Do you think there are just some people who this is easier for or what? So I firmly believe that everybody can be made to feel nervous in certain situations. I do think that with practice and experience, it becomes more manageable. But the reality is this, in my three decades of doing the work that I do, everybody has some anxiety around speaking. Some learn to hide it better.

Some learn to channel it better. Some approach it better. And all of us can do that over time. But there's very little research to say that there are some people who are just less nervous. What we do know is people who are more extroverted tend to be a little less nervous than those who are introverted, but even extroverts get quite nervous. And so what is it that you tell your students? What is it that people need to understand to handle this better, feel more confident, turn off all the bells that are ringing in your head that your head's about to explode? How do you begin this? Well, first and foremost, you begin by saying this is something that can

be managed. It's something that you have the ability to control and work on. A lot of us feel that we just get swept away. And then looking at the research and studies that people have done, I try to bring folks real world applied research that can help. So for example, mindfulness teaches us that when you have a negative emotion like anxiety, you should greet it and not run from it. Most of us make ourselves even more nervous when we begin to feel nervous because we start to think, oh my goodness, I'm nervous. They're going to see I'm nervous. I can't believe I'm in this situation. And rather you can short circuit all of that just by giving yourself permission to feel the anxiety. It's normal and natural.

Another thing to focus on is being very present oriented. Be in the moment. Most of our anxiety, at least cognitively, comes from our concern about future negative consequences. I'm not going to get the raise. I'm not going to get the grade. I'm not going to get the funding. So instead of fixating on the future, become present-oriented so that you can be in the moment and with your audience. So you can do that in lots of ways. You can interact with them before you speak, and that helps you be present-oriented. You can listen to a song or a playlist like athletes do. You can start at 100 and count backwards by 17.

That gets you in the present moment. Lots of ways to get present oriented. And then the final way that I'll mention here, and there are many others, is to change the evaluative situation you're in. So give your audience something else to do rather than focusing on you. So if you're running a meeting, start with a question and have people answering the question. If you're giving a presentation, start with a short video clip or some provocative idea or poll. And that takes people's attention away from you, puts it on something else that's in service of what you're trying to achieve, and it gives you that fraction of a second or two to take a deep breath and calm yourself down. So the reality is there are many things we can do to manage anxiety. We just have to give ourselves the opportunity to work on it. You said a moment ago that so you're nervous and then you realize you're nervous

and that makes you more nervous and you need to stop that. But by saying what to yourself, specifically the words? By giving yourself permission and saying, hey, it makes sense that I'm nervous. I'm doing something of consequence, something that's important. So literally say to yourself, it makes sense that I'm nervous. I'm doing something of consequence, something that's important. So literally say to yourself, it makes sense that I'm nervous. I'm doing something that's important. And other people in this situation would feel the same anxiety. So by normalizing it and giving yourself permission rather than beating yourself up for it or giving yourself all the reasons why you're not the right person to be speaking at this time,

or you're not prepared, cancel all that negative self-talk, and just allow yourself permission to feel that anxiety, and then do something about it. Take a deep breath, walk around the building, review your notes, become proactive rather than just passive. It's my experience, and you tell me if this is true for everybody or most people, is that when you speak in front of other people, it's not the whole thing that's so terrifying. It's the first few minutes that very quickly you tend to, well, unless you do a bad job, you tend to settle in. Yes? For most people, anxiety peaks the first minute before and the minute during some high-stakes communication, giving a presentation, running a meeting, even in interpersonal situations. That said, people can still run high with anxiety, and then it tends to peak again, although not as high, towards the end. People begin to get worried like, oh, no, we're transitioning to Q&A or what comes next?

I'm going to see people's responses. So you're right, it tends to be at the beginning, but we also see a little bit of a peak towards the end. And there are a lot of things you can do to try to mitigate that initial anxiety. Taking a deep breath, like engaging your audience in some activity, reminding yourself that you're in service of your audience, that they're here to listen and learn from you rather than to sit there and judge and evaluate. So a lot of it has to do with the approach you take to the anxiety. So let's assume for the moment that we've gotten past the anxiety part of the problem here. Now, what is it you're going to talk about? How do you say it? And what do you hope that people get from it? To give you a guideline or a map of how you

address some of those issues, first and foremost, you have to think about who is it that I am speaking to. Each audience is different. They have different needs, expectations, attitudes. You have to reflect on who they are. You then have to think about what am I trying to achieve? What is the best goal given what I know about my audience? And to my mind, all high stakes communication must be goal driven. And you have to ask yourself three questions to help define a goal. What is it I want my audience to know when I'm done? How do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do? And that serves as your map for what it is you'll say. It also serves as a way to assess your success. The number one thing I hear from people when I say, how do you know if you were successful in

your communication or not? They tell me, I got through it. As if survival is the best success, Patrick. And in fact, it's not. So having a goal allows you to assess your success. And then the last thing I'll share is once you've thought about your audience, you have a goal based on that audience. You must structure your communication. I am sure you and everybody listening have heard people who just ramble on and on. That is boring, disengaging, and cognitively demanding to pay attention and understand what they're saying.

Structured information is much easier to process, to remember, and understand what they're saying. Structured information is much easier to process, to remember, and to act on. So those are the three foundational principles for any kind of strategic communication, audience, goal, and structure. I remember hearing, and I don't remember exactly what the number was, but it was pretty low, that you can expect the audience after you've spoken to them to remember something like maybe 10% of what you said. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the number is very low, but there are some things you can do to increase that percentage. And they're not that difficult by making the topic relevant to your audience and highlighting that relevance by changing up the way you support the argument. So not just saying from your perspective,

not just throwing data at people, but leveraging testimonials from people that others respect, telling stories. Stories can be very powerful as long as they're concise and clear. So there are things you can do to up the likelihood that people will retain what you're saying and ultimately act on. Some people are pretty good at speaking off the cuff spontaneously, you know, in a group, but some people are not. And how can you better arm yourself for those situations when, you know, at a meeting, well, let's get your ideas and you don't have any. And I mean, how do you arm yourself? Well, maybe have some ideas, but you know what I mean? How do you prep for that? The big challenge that people have is actually themselves.

We get in our own way. And by that, what I mean is we're prejudging and pre-evaluating what we're saying before we say it. And we are striving to be successful. We want to give the right answer, the best response, and that pressure we put on ourselves to do just that gets in the way of us being able to do it. So one of the first things I work on with people is just letting go. Just do what needs to be done. If somebody asks you a question, just answer the question. Don't put pressure on yourself to give the best, most amazing answer. And in so doing, by reducing that pressure you put on yourself, you are able to actually give a better answer. So it starts by helping ourselves get out of our own way. That's the first step. And that, by the way, I think is the hardest step because all of us have been successful in what we do in our lives

by judging, evaluating, planning, and that helps us. But in some circumstances, it actually gets in the way. So I'm not saying that it's either or, I'm saying it's a blend of both, but we have to strengthen those other spontaneous, just do it muscles versus the planning, thoughtful muscles that we already have. That's the biggest challenge. And once you get through that, the rest of it, while not easy, becomes easier. And what's the rest of it? So the next step after you have gotten out of your own way is to make sure you understand what is being expected of you. So it's actually listening. And I find that my students and the people I coach see it as a little strange that to become effective at speaking, you actually

need to listen first. So you need to understand what is truly being asked of you in the moment. So if your boss, for example, asks you for feedback, you need to think, what is it that he or she is really looking for? I have to listen to understand. Are they looking for me to reinforce a point they made? Are they looking for me to assert some new idea? So you have to listen and suss out what's required. A lot of us jump to respond too quickly. And many of us have been in that situation where we're actually answering a question

and midway through think, what the heck am I saying? And where is this going? If you take the time to reflect and really listen up front, you are able to respond in a more concise, clear, and relevant way. Just as everybody has had the universal experience of being called on in class and not knowing the answer, I think also everybody's had the universal experience of having said something and later saying, oh, why didn't I say that other thing? Is there some way to maybe mitigate that? Like time to actually prepare what it is we're saying. We wait until the last minute or we're too busy or creating slides instead of really thinking about what we want to say. If we prepare and practice, we can actually mitigate some of that, oh, I should have said it this way or I could have done it that way. Now by practice, I certainly don't mean memorize, but I do mean run yourself through. And I don't know about you, but in my mind, I'm amazingly eloquent. It's only when I open my mouth that I run into trouble. So we actually have to vocalize, speak out the things that we're practicing and preparing to say. And I have noticed in my own life and the life of my students and the people I coach, that with that level of preparation, there is less regret over, oh, I could have, should have, would have said it that way.

So preparation, I think, is the key to that. What other things do you find or people tell you or the research says it really trips people up or makes them scared or whatever the problem is that we haven't talked about? So there are a few things that come to mind. First is this notion of perfectionism. People really want to get it right. And getting it right actually gets in the way of just getting it done. So allowing yourself to just reflect on what needs to be done

and not being perfect about it is okay. Because if you listen to most speakers, they're not perfect. In fact, somebody who sounds perfect is fake. It doesn't sound real. So perfectionism, the desire to get it right, gets in the way. Another thing that gets in the way, these happen to all start with the letter P, is procrastination. When you get nervous about something, you don't like how that feels, so you want to put it off. So you don't end up doing what needs to be done. So perfectionism and procrastination are two big challenges. And then the final one also that

starts with P, at least I use PowerPoint, but it really slides of any kind. A lot of us feel like we're making progress on our content by simply generating slides. Slides are useful and slides are important, but you have to have story first before you create slides. So one of the things that contributes to people's anxiety is they don't spend enough time on creating the content. Rather, they're creating slides and they think they're making progress. That's the insidious nature of this is you think you're making progress and you might have beautiful slides, but if you haven't thought of the talk track, you haven't thought of the logical organization and structure and how it applies to your audience, it's hard to deliver a good presentation no matter how good your slides

are. So the three things I think that get in the way a lot for people are perfectionism, procrastination, and slides or PowerPoint. I think sometimes people wish that if they had to speak that they wouldn't be so nervous, but maybe not being nervous isn't really a realistic goal because, I mean, I've heard even very famous speakers, performers say they get nervous before they speak or perform. It's just part of the process, and it's not necessarily something to get rid of. I actually love hearing that people are nervous when they speak because to me that means they care. It means that this is something that's significant and important.

But again, there are techniques and I've spent a lot of my life trying to help people learn to manage it so they can be successful. Because at the end of the day, there are people who have important ideas, important thoughts and perspectives to share. And if anxiety is preventing them from doing it, I think all of us miss out. And so we do need to encourage all of us to start managing our anxiety. And that's the issue, isn't it? It's all about anxiety. Great advice, Matt.

Matt Abrahams has been my guest. Matt lectures at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He is the host of the podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart. And he's the author of the book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. He also has a consulting practice to help people be better speakers called Bold Echo. There's a link to his book, his TED Talk, his podcast, and his consulting firm in the show notes. Hey, thanks, Matt. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. Have a good one. For a long time, people have suggested that staring at a computer screen is bad for your eyes. Well, is it really? What we do know is that spending a lot of time in front of any digital device can cause computer vision syndrome. Bad lighting, screen glare, and poor posture make it even worse.

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While research continues, the recommendation is to follow what eye doctors call the 20-20-20 rule. That is, take a 20-second break to look at something 20 feet away every 20 minutes, and also get out into natural light. And that is something you should know. I'll bet you know somebody who would enjoy listening to this podcast, so please take a moment and share it. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

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