This year, for Christmas, I received a book as a gift: «Think faster, talk smarter» by Matt Abrahams. It happens sometimes, when I engage in a smalltalk, and the discussion doesn’t flow, and then you just think of the ways to wrap up. In his book, Matt teaches how to be less stressed in this and other situations, when you are on the spot.
Briefly, the book consists of two parts: theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part a set of good practices (I intend this pun 🤓) are introduced. In the practical part Matt pictures some real life situations, and how he was thinking to perform better in these situations.
Coincidentally, I read «The Charisma Myth» by Olivia Fox Cabane around Christmas a year before. Now it occurs to me, that, maybe 🤔, dark winters in Norway combined with festive times around Christmas emphasize the importance of social interaction skills. I personally liked this book more. When reading it, it felt less as a manual and had more focus on life experience stories.
In this blog post I will share an interpretation of thoughts from these books that resonated with me. Here goes:
Keeping the ball up – I really like this analogy, which compares the conversation to a ball, and the two people talking are compared to players motivated in keeping this ball in the air.
This way of thinking reframes the stressful situation of self-blaming into a friendly, cooperative game. Indeed, most of the conversations are not a competition, it is a joint effort to keep the conversation flowing.
Shifting the context to a point of view, from where the situation doesn’t look so dramatic – is another technique to reduce the anxiety. “Keeping the ball up” is one of examples of application of such shifting.
Physical comfort – when taken care of, helps eliminate the background noise of thoughts, otherwise humming in our head and distracting us from focusing on the actual conversation. It can be a part of why one can get exhausted from the conversation – because ignoring the noise costs energy.
Mantra, or more generally, a ritual that you can execute beforehand helps to set your mind to positive thinking, success and direct your focus.
In her book, Olivia suggests examples of motivational sayings that you could repeat several times in your head. In my experience, making a pause and asking myself “Am I comfortable? Is there anything that distracts me now?”, and then possibly resolving or containing the discomfort helps me focus.
Staying focused is another point, more relevant to giving speeches, when you have time to prepare. Having a clear picture of what you want to say, even if you deviate from it on the way, provides you with a baseline to come back to – a safety net. A number of template structures were provided by Matt to get inspired from.
Tension arises if the discussion doesn’t resolve. When you wander around instead of making a point, or when you don’t exactly know what you want to say. Tension is not always bad. When applied properly it keeps the audience interested.
I believe, tension, the way it was introduced above, is similar to the one in music. When the melody wants to resolve to the root but doesn’t. Composers apply this trick consciously to make the piece more interesting. We can do the same in the conversation, but the balance is important.
I didn’t master these tools yet, but being equipped is the first step!