Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques - 313. Hold the Headline: How Curiosity Cuts Through Complexity

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

"The dumbest thing you can be is a know-it-all."Curiosity isn't about having all the answers—it's about asking better questions. Journalist and podcast host Nayeema Raza believes the strongest communicators balance confidence with openness, using curiosity to better understand people, ideas, and the world around them. In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Raza joins Matt Abrahams to explore how to make complex ideas accessible, ask questions that spark meaningful conversations, and communicate with both confidence and humility. From writing punchier questions to embracing uncertainty, she shares practical strategies for becoming a more thoughtful and engaging communicator.Key Takeaways:Confidence grows through curiosity. The strongest communicators stay open to new ideas, ask thoughtful questions, and leave room to learn rather than assuming they have all the answers.Simple questions create meaningful conversations. Clear, concise questions—and a focus on what matters most—help make complex ideas more accessible and engaging.Activity:Write better questions. Take an upcoming meeting, interview, or one-on-one and rewrite three of your questions so each is nine words or fewer. Focus on making them clear, direct, and curiosity-driven.Episode Reference Links:Nayeema RazaNayeema’s Ted TalkSmart Girl, Dumb QuestionsConnect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> [e-mail] Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (00:57) - Simplifying Complexity (02:11) - Better Questions (06:03) - Confidence vs. Certainty (07:24) - Interview Nerves (10:14) - Prepare to Improvise (11:02) - Going Independent (13:59) - Curiosity in the Digital Age (16:59) - Staying Relevant (21:01) - The Final Three Questions (25:57) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.With LinkedIn Hiring Pro, you can hire with confidence, knowing you're getting the best talent for your needs. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com/fast

Hi, Matt here. To make sure you never miss an episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, follow or subscribe wherever you listen or watch our show. Please consider sharing it with your friends, family, and coworkers. Finally, consider giving us a five-star rating and positive review. This helps more people find our show. Now a word from our sponsors. Their support covers the cost of production, allowing us to bring you this episode free of charge. Zoom, where conversations turn into results.

We all know how valuable Zuzzi. can be for our conversations, our meetings, for connecting. But now Zoom puts your tasks on autopilot with their new Zoom mate. Zoom analyzes, learns, and acts on your conversations to help you complete your work, like building a deck, drafting a proposal, logging a ticket, updating your CRM. All of this is done automatically, but at your discretion. Most work platforms help you communicate. Some help you organize.

But Zoom turns conversations into outcomes. Zoom ahead. Curiosity and chemistry are critical to successful communication. My name's Matt Abrams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I'm excited to speak with Naima Raza. Naima is a journalist, producer, and creator.

She was the co-host and executive producer of the hit podcast On with Kara Swisher. She now hosts her own podcast, Smart Girl. dumb questions. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and New York Magazine, and she's produced documentary films that bridge complex geopolitical issues with accessible human narratives. Naimo, thank you for being here, and welcome to the Spotify studios in New York. It's awesome to be with you and continue with the conversations we've had on the phone and on email in person. Thank you so much for having me. I love your show, and I'm so thrilled to be part of it. Excellent. Should we get started? Yes, let's jump in. So if you look at your career from

management consultant to journalist to podcast. You've changed a lot. Yes, and you missed documentary filmmaking. Oh, I did. I did. That's true. That's true. And now Ted Speaker. Yes. And for people listening, I'm not old. I just want you to know when I'm young still. That's right. You're very young and very hip. In all of those roles, actually, you've had to synthesize complex information and make it accessible to people. What kind of tools and frameworks do you use to help make that content easily understood. So much of it has to do with how I grew up. I grew up in Indonesia and Sudan. I'm Pakistani born in D.C. My entire life, I've been what's called the technical term as a third culture kid in environments where I didn't necessarily always speak the language. Didn't always,

and so I learned to speak body language and read what was happening. And I think sometimes we get caught up in the details of a moment, but when I'm making a film or a podcast or telling a story or making a slide, I think part of the gift of how I grew up is being able to focus on that big picture and think about what the message is that's coming across, both as I'm receiving it and as I'm kind of projecting it. One of the things I have found so useful in the way you communicate and break things down is you make it relevant. So you connect it to the people who are listening, which I think really helps.

Do you do that consciously or is that just something that happens? I think that it's something that I've become conscious of and I do increasingly. So I think that that my kind of superpower as a communicator is the ability to bring some levity to topics of gravity and to bring some gravity to topics of levity. And what I mean by that is, you know, if you're talking about the world today, politics, war, et cetera, oh my God, it can be such a bummer. And you just want to have a little bit of sense that the world continues that we, and so I think confusing some comedy into that and levity into that while, you know, not discounting the gravity of the situation. One of, I think, the best ways that I've learned to condense information is in

the business of headline writing, which is a very fraught enterprise these days. But you want to write a headline when you're writing at the New York Times or elsewhere, and we have a lot of conversation about what the headline should be. You want it to grab people's attention, but you want it to be faithful to the story. I don't think want it to be. be polarizing, but you do want it to be provocative. And so I think as I started doing a lot of headline writing, I decided that the best questions I've ever been asked in my life are nine words or less. Interesting, huh. And I think that's the same, because if you think about conversation or you have, someone's cutting through like right now and blah, blah, blah, blah, you're hearing this.

Then I say, how do we solve that? That's what you hear. That's what we digest. So I think there's something about this punchy, direct question that can really help cut through the noise. Sometimes you're asking that to somebody because you're interviewing them. Sometimes you're asking that to yourself, to get yourself to be a better communicator and understander and interpreter of what's going on. I really like this idea of thinking about your important communication as a headline. Now, most of us aren't writing headlines for news outlets, but we do write emails with subject lines. We do name our meetings. We do put titles. on slides. And that advice, I think, applies there as well. And if, and keeping, I'm going to try the

nine word rule and see if we can, if that applies in the work I do. But I absolutely like that idea. I think it's particularly useful for questions. Yes. Particularly useful for questions. It's thinking about the emotion as well as the content and breaking it down. And those are all, I think, the right ingredients for helping make complex information more accessible. And I appreciate that you do that and continue to do that. We'll be right back to finish our conversation. But first, a quick word from one of our sponsors. Their support allows us to bring you this show free of charge.

One of my favorite things about this show is hearing from listeners all over the world. Communication connects us. And the more people you can communicate with, the bigger your world becomes. So many of you are collaborating internationally, working across cultures, or simply trying to connect more deeply with people around the world. That's one reason I've been thinking more and more about language learning. Babel focuses on helping you have real conversations with real people, not just memorized vocabulary. Their lessons are designed by more than 200 language experts and built around practical communication skills you can actually use in everyday life.

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millennials for folks of my generation. Do you like that role? Do you have certain things you bring to that role? I mean, I think every type of communication is a moment of translation as well. I mean, I think now that I'm in the host seat and kind of star of my own show, I still think of myself as being the advocate. Even the title, Smart Girl, Dumb Questions. It's around the kind of confidence to be curious. And I think about that a lot, Matt, with your work, because you write a lot about confidence and the ability to communicate from that position. But I think we have conflated confidence and certainty a little bit. Tell me more about that. You want to be confident enough that there is some space left in your opinion to consider how other people think, to consider new information

and to digest that and kind of update your own worldview with that new information. Not so confident in your opinion that you cannot hear anything else that you shut down. the kind of first. And so I think, you know, like I said, in the TED talk I just gave, it's like, the dumbest thing you can be is a know-it-all. And I've seen that play out. You make a really useful distinction there between confidence we have in our ability to communicate and confidence in the things we are communicating. And I absolutely agree that that confidence in what we're saying, there needs to be some room for creativity, for openness, because if we're sure of ourselves, so much that we don't bring in other opinions, you know, than we are being, as you said, dumb and being a know-it-all.

So I'm curious, you certainly are confident in your opinions and ideas. Do you still get nervous when you interview people and when you're interacting? And if so, how do you manage that? No, of course I do. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I mean, I think you're nervous because any time you film or make something, and I learned this is a documentary filmmaker when I was doing this film on the band Sublime,

at Tribeca in 2019, like when you're in the edit room and you're and you're, you ask the editor, well, why don't we have that? And it's like, well, because you didn't get it while you're producing the. So it's that scarcity of time when you're in conversation with someone that puts the pressure on. It's not who they are. I actually don't be, I actually, I think I give more reverence on my show when I interview two 11 year old or two doormen than when I interview Neil deGrasse Tyson or Mark Cuban. But I get nervous about how little time there is and whether I can do everything that I want to do. That's what I feel that same way when especially in this capacity is people are gifting you their time and I want to I get nervous that I'm not going to make it a good experience

for them or get as much out of it. But I try I think it's you're doing an amazing amazing job. I feel very much like this is worthwhile use of time and hope everyone listening and watching does too. I think people really want to be understood. Part of the gift that we have as hosts is helping understand people. Sometimes people don't necessarily fully understand themselves and you're kind of unpacking and translating that. But I think if you enter in the conversation good faith and you're really trying to understand someone, then the conversation is often, if not always, a success. And it's that approach that I think can help calm some of those nerves, knowing that I'm here to really listen, to allow the person to be heard. When you get out of yourself and realize

you're in service of other people, you can really reduce that anxiety. By the way, every time I stop recording. I'm always like, that was terrible. Doesn't matter what I do. Do you have that or do you have more confidence on the other end? I, interesting. I do have that. I don't think that was terrible. I think that could have been better. Yes, that's actually what I should say. I don't think it was terrible. Yeah. I'm just, oh, that that could have been better. And not on the guest's part, but it's usually my part. I could have done this or I should have done that. Yeah, I have a friend who talks about how we shouldn't should all over ourselves and I unfortunately still do. It's just, your ability to be in the moment is just difficult for all of us.

No, absolutely. But when you can get in that present moment, when you can be in service of others, I think the anxiety abates, the confidence builds. But that's where I think preparation and the right amount of preparation is so important because I have found that I do really well with improv. I host a debate sometimes at the comedy seller in New York City for open to debate on NPR. And I love that environment because when you have an intellectual threesome with two people on stage fighting with each other or sparring with each other and you're moderating. You never know what's going to happen. I like the idea of an intellectual thruple. Exactly. Intellectual thruple. So I think I like to be prepared enough

that I have a map and then absolutely prepared to throw it away. And I find when I'm overprepared and I have script, it really doesn't serve. If it's like 30 questions, it doesn't serve me. If it's 10, it's perfect. Right. Absolutely. A lot of the work I've done around spontaneous speaking, is preparing to be spontaneous. There's a whole bunch of stuff we can do as you're talking about. And there's that sweet spot where it's just enough to give you the confidence in the directionality, but not so much that it's scripted. And finding that, everybody has to find their own sweet spot for that.

But once you do, it really helps. You left your roles at the New York Times and Vox, which are two traditional media examples, to strike out on your own. I'm curious to get your thoughts as a creator in what's different. doing the work you do as an individual creator versus working for a more traditional media outlet. Yeah, a lot more risk, a lot more reward. That's the simple headline of it. And a lot of work.

A lot of work. I think the hardest thing has been you care so much about your own thing. I cared so much about other people's things. I cared about Sway at the New York Times. I cared about On with Keraswisher. And I cared about mixed signals, which I co-hosted at Semaphore with Ben Smith, my former colleague from the New York Times as well. But it's a gift to be able to put all that care into something that you want to build and you think deserves to be in the world. And then the challenge becomes finding other people who care about it as much as you do.

I have a great team. So I have found that. And people like Destam, my producer, Melissa, Johnny Simon, who engineers our content. I mean, I found people who really care about it so much so that sometimes I'll be like, can we get this out early? And they're like, it's not going to be as good. And I appreciate that they. Yeah, that feedback. That feedback loop or, you know.

But I think, okay, this is a very hard question for me because I also worry about a world in which we're all just broadcasting and projecting and everyone has their own channels and everyone has to be a creator and everyone. And that's what we're being told now. Right. What does eight billion channels look like and who the heck is left to watch? No wonder everything matters. Right. It's only in the first second, you know? So I think about it a lot.

I think I only did this show because I felt. I felt I had something to say or a, not even something to say, I felt I had a tone that I didn't find in the world. Oh, interesting. I felt that I found people who were very angry, who are very certain, who were very unplug, disinterested, but I wasn't finding that intersection of, okay, I want to be informed about the world and thoughtful about not the day-to-day news, but these big ideas, capitalism, hyper-independence, individualization, the shifting world order.

But I want to talk about it in ways that really impact my own life, and I want to do it with a sense of comedy. And the best thing I could find was comedians who would do this. But, you know, I think there is a missing middle of can you be much more entertaining than legacy media, much more factual in the average kind of podcast bro or chick, and, you know, more useful than yesterday's news. The purpose-driven approach stands out in what you just said is, is it's not just about getting information out. It's having a purpose behind that information. I have worked very hard on

thinking about the purpose of this show, and you've clearly thought about yours. And I think part of the advice I would give to anybody who starts or down this path of being a creator is really know your purpose, really figure out what's motivating you because it's hard work and that purpose can really get you through some of that. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about your TED Talk that just came out. It was, it's very brief, but very effective. perspective. Talk to us about the idea of being curious in the modern age. One, it was such an honor and privilege to be invited to give a TED talk. I wasn't expecting it. I'd done something at the comedy seller and some of the editors at TED and Ignite were there and asked me to do this talk.

I wanted to give a voice to two 11-year-olds I'd interviewed on my show. And I had asked them, how does life on screens feel different to real life? Because I keep seeing kids. I don't have kids yet, but I see kids at airports, et cetera, just on FaceTime not speaking to each other. Have you seen this? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked them why that happens and how that feels different to real life.

And Sophie, then 11, now 12, says, you know, it just feels so much more together when you're with them on FaceTime. That blew my mind. And I said, what do you mean? Like even more than real life? And Sophie responds, yeah, because when you're on FaceTime, you're doing stuff together. You're playing together. You're doing homework together. You're doing Roblox together.

But nowadays, when you're in real life, everyone's just on their phone. Right. And I thought that was such an insight that our ability to be present in a physical world has been completely distracted by these devices. And our ability to be present on them because their full screen experiences is gone up. And that just made me think a lot about what else we were disconnected from, our own curiosities, because we don't sit and wonder, we just ask the question and then know the answer and then project that answer out in conversation. And so that's really where the talk started from. And

it kind of takes a personal turn of how I learned those lessons. But it was a gift to be able to share a little bit about how you think in the world works and also to be able to share those kids' perspectives, which really caused a gasp in the room. Right. When I watched the talk and heard it. And I'd actually seen your interview with them. It really is. You shake your head and go, what? wait, hold on. But in that moment, it makes you curious. And you do a really nice job in the talk of not only advocating for the curiosities that you do, but the way in which you deliver it makes us curious. And it's a nice example, and I encourage everybody to watch and listen to it, of how delivery reinforces the message in a very positive way. So I- Because it's playful. Because it's

playful and it's curious and it we see ourselves in many of the things that you mention but we don't feel bad about ourselves for it. We say, oh, okay, that's who I am, but I can do this other thing. So it's empowering in a way. And I think a lot of that is not just the wordplay, but how you deliver it. And making content accessible in that way, not just making sure we understand it, but making us feel okay about it. I thought it was really well done. You're a great question. I'm going to ask you a question. I may or may not answer it, but go ahead. I'll ask you. Yes. Okay. I feel as a millennial, life is being co-opted by Gen Z now. Yeah. We love them. And Gen Alpha, increasingly. And I'm curious how you think about staying relevant as you age. Yeah. So I think a lot about aging and relevance as I'm getting older and as I am seeing the impact I can have and what it means. I think it's all about, to your point, curiosity and listening. I have an amazing, job. I get to work with mid-20 folks who are going to just change the world in amazing ways.

And that helps me feel excited. It helps me feel relevant. And a lot of what I do is listen. I'm curious and ask questions. And those help me feel like I'm adding value. When I get the opportunity to work with my students or younger people and really listen, synthesize, and ask questions. That really brings joy to me and hopefully relevance. Do you feel like we're losing wisdom? I think wisdom is changing. I think the fact that so much information is now available that wisdom and access to information are very connected, but lived experience, intuition, gut feeling, that's not captured in an LLM. And I fear that people are just not curious or seeking wisdom. They're just seeking information. So are we losing it? No, I still think it's there. I just don't think,

I fear that people aren't searching for it. That is one of the things I worry about. In our culture, I think we're very interested in what's new, what's fresh, what's cool. And I think that, look, I don't think I'm not advocating for a gerontocracy. I think that, you know, people who are, you know, boomers and beyond probably don't need to be kind of controlling Capitol Hill anymore. But I do think that there is a wisdom of that experience that is not being translated as much in our current world. And I sometimes worry about that. You know, to me, wisdom, there is, wisdom is associated with experience. So the older you are, in theory, the more wisdom you have. But I have met very wise younger people as well.

And so we, I think just this notion of being open, being curious, listening makes you available to wisdom. And some of the most insightful things I've learned. Like, you did from 11-year-olds. I mean, what insight, what wisdom there in that conversation. So, well, thank you for asking me a question. Thank you. Yeah, that was okay. You know, there is no right, there is no wrong. Before we get started, a quick reminder to make sure you're following our show in whatever app you're listening to. This is the best way to help our show grow and to make sure you never miss an episode. And now a word from our sponsors. Their support helps us bring you this show free of charge. Over the course of my career, I've had the

privilege of working with some truly amazing coaches. And I've also spent years coaching others. And I can tell you firsthand, coaching makes a real difference. That's why I really appreciate what Strawberry.me is doing. Strawberry.comme makes coaching more accessible, affordable, and global. Whether you want to become a stronger communicator, a more confident leader, or simply more intentional in your career, having the right coach in your corner can make an enormous difference. Visit strawberry.me slash smart and take 50% off of your first session and make sure you let them know Matt sent you. And now back to our conversation. So before we end, I'd like to ask three questions. One I make up just for you and then the other two I've been asking everybody as long as the show's

been on. Are you willing to do that? Yes, of course. Does that count as a question? That's a warm up. Don't use one of your three on that. Okay, I won't. No, it's not like wishes of a genie. So to get very serious, by coincidence, the day we are recording is the anniversary of your father's passing. You wrote a very touching and personal article in the New York Times about your father. What is one lesson you wish people would take away from your father's life and his wisdom? Thank you for asking and for bringing him up and helping me remember him on this day.

I'll give you two. One is from my dad and one is from what I've learned from the experience of losing. him. I think the lesson I learned from my dad really was to be present and to not let the other, may I swear for a second? You can. The other shit get in the way. My dad was the kind

guy who never held a grudge. Literally somebody would be upset with him and not wanting to talk to him and my dad would call his brother every Sunday to ask how he's doing. And he would wear you down. He really didn't believe in holding a grudge because at the end of the day he would say, well, what I'm going to do? He's my brother. he's my friend, you know, and he had that ability to, in a world where I think we're often,

think we don't, we want to cut people out of our life because of how they feel about an opinion politically, how they feel about something, how they showed up on that random Tuesday when we had something important, he had that ability to really hold people's slander and, and to maintain relationships and give great forgiveness. So that's what I've learned. And how I translate that lesson and think into my own life is that when you lose something, someone, it's often possible to get caught up and I should have, as your friend said, you know, should all over yourself. And I think that because he lived that way, I've been able to release some of the, you know, oh, I should have, you know, in the pandemic, why didn't I go

quarantine my parents' house instead of going out with friends to, you know, all that kind of of stuff. And I've learned that you really kind of have the ability to keep people alive and to keep having memories and meaning making in relationships that are gone. That's so true. We can keep the memory of people alive through how we talk about them and the meaning we make in our own lives. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being here on a tough day. Question number two, who's a communicator you admire and why? You know, I think Kendrick Lamar. Tell me more about that. People said Kendrick before on the show. You were the first to say Kendrick Lamar. I think that he's just so poetic. His lyrics are really spot on. They're catchy. I think this about a lot of a kind of rapper's song, right? But the ability to poetically, succinctly, and emotionally talk about very difficult things, I think is reflected in Kendrick's work. And if you read it, like, I mean, he's kind of like check off, you know. Like, if you read it, you find it extremely deep and meaningful.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And a lot of people don't think about the communicative power of that genre. And I appreciate you highlighting that. Final question. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? I love that. You know I'm going to say it's on brand, but number one, curiosity. Yes. Number two, chemistry. Okay.

Being able to cultivate, create, and create that chemistry through pauses, through play, through jokes, through language, all the ways that you can kind of make sure that communication is, you know, at least two-way. not an intellectual trouble or beyond. And number three, I'm going to say, a sense of what's not in the room, a sense of what's missing, so that you can expand a conversation, a communication, so that you can leave a conversation and think about how to take it beyond this world and just, it can be more aware, I think. That last point about awareness about what's not present really allows for conversation and communication to expand and extend. And I think that's really powerful.

And I appreciate the notion of chemistry, connection, building that, having that as intention and, of course, curiosity. Well, thank you for your time and for being so forthright and open and sharing with us how we can all be better translators and more curious in our lives. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I love your show.

And I love the work that you do. And I love how global it is. I just want to say you were reaching people all over. the world who this is a global challenge. You are doing a great job of helping people succeed in their own languages in English and just in everything they do. So thank you. Well, thank you. Best of luck to you as well. Thanks. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. To hear more interesting and insightful episodes like this one, be sure to check out our back catalog of episodes in your favorite player or at Faster Smarter.io. This episode was

produced by Catherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is by Floyd Wonder with special thanks to the team at Spotify Studios in New York City and Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. And check out FasterSmartter.com for deep dive videos, English language learning content and our newsletter. Please consider joining the Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community at FasterSmartr.io slash learning. You'll find video lessons, learning quests, discussion boards, my AI coach and book club opportunities. Again, that's faster, smarter.io slash learning to be part of the Think Fast Talk Smart Learning community.

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