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Matt Abrahams: When we communicate, we not
only communicate our ideas, we communicate

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our identity My name is Matt Abrahams,
and I teach Strategic Communication at

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Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Welcome to Think Fast,
Talk Smart, the podcast.

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Today, I look forward to
speaking with Peter Novak.

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Peter is a former vice provost at
the University of San Francisco

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and former dean at Yale University.

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He is the founder of the
Strictly Speaking group.

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Peter leverages his doctorate
and background in linguistics and

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acting to help non-native speakers
master clear communication.

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He has an award-winning LinkedIn
learning course on public speaking

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for non-native English speakers.

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Welcome, Peter.

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I am really excited to bring you to the
show and to share what you've shared

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with my students here with everybody.

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Thanks for joining.

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Peter Novak: Thanks so much.

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I've been so looking forward
to this conversation.

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Matt Abrahams: Shall we get started?

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Peter Novak: Absolutely.

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Matt Abrahams: Great.

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On the show, we've often spoken
about how word choice affects the

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strength of our messages and the
impressions people form of us.

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Your work highlights the impact accents
can have on people's perceptions.

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Can you share a bit about this?

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And please make sure you define what
you mean by accent bias, because

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I think this is really important
for what we'll talk about today.

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Peter Novak: Absolutely.

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Let me start with the
definition of accent bias.

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So accent bias is essentially that
reflex that we have to trust people who

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sound like us, and this happens a lot
with people who are the in-group and

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people who are part of the out-group.

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And the idea of accent bias, of who's
in and who's out, and what that means,

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it really affects the workplace.

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It can affect hiring decisions,
it can affect promotion decisions.

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It often affects how people
feel about leadership qualities.

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And so all of these aspects of
accent bias creep into our workplace

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without us really understanding
or knowing the full impact of it.

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Matt Abrahams: And we could have our
career and our trajectories be affected

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by something we don't even know.

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Have you found that there are
advantages to having an accent, or

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that non-native speakers bring to
their communication maybe through the

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focus of the specific words or the
way they speak versus those who don't

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have an accent in a given environment?

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Peter Novak: Or who don't have the accent
of the majority in the specific group?

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Absolutely, and I love the framing of
this question around the advantages

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that non-native speakers have, because
so often they come to the table

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thinking it's a disadvantage to have
an accent when they're speaking.

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And so I think what's fun about
that is that when you think about

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multilingual speakers, seventy-five
percent of people in the US and

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Canada and Australia and Great
Britain don't speak another language.

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And so when you've got multilingual
speakers, their skills in being able

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to code switch between language and
cultures, in being able to be more

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intentional, which is part of your
question, I think, about that focus

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that they have about the language choice
that they're having, is really profound.

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And I think it's up to native speakers
to recognize that non-native speakers

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are doing a hell of a lot more work in
the workplace than native speakers are.

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We tend to take our proficiency
in English for granted.

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We don't think about how we use it.

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We don't think about ways to use it
more clearly for non-native speakers.

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And I like to say, remember Ginger
Rogers and Fred Astaire, the

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dancers from the 1940s and '50s.

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Everyone said that Ginger Rogers
did everything Fred Astaire did,

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only backwards and in high heels.

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And in many ways, that's what
non-native speakers are doing, too.

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They are in the moment involved sometimes
in translating what was said into their

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first language, oftentimes, translating
what they want to say from their first

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language or another language, thinking
about tone, thinking about word choice,

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thinking about all these other things
that native speakers don't have to.

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And I think we need to give them credit
for that and then create the structures

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around that that enable a greater
linguistic flexibility in the workplace.

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Matt Abrahams: And just recognizing
that the difference even exists

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and that you should take the
time to reflect and accommodate.

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I have found that the folks I know who
speak multiple languages, some of whom

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who have accents and some who don't,
their ability to listen and discern

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subtlety is far superior to mine.

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Really interesting.

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I have heard you say in my class and
in things you've written, "It's not

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an accent, it's an identity." What do
you mean by this, and how can it help

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someone who is concerned about their
accent to reframe it in this way?

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Peter Novak: Sure.

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You know, language carries with
it culture, it carries identity,

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it carries individual stories.

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And so why would we want
to try and fix that?

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There's no reason to really fix that.

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The goal, actually, is clarity.

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And I think sometimes, there was a
great episode of Modern Family with

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Eva Longoria, was that, who, who said,
"Do you even know how smart I am in

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Spanish?" And this is what happens.

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If you ask a multilingual speaker, do they
feel like different personality traits

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emerge with the different languages that
they speak, they will say, "Absolutely.

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I am so much funnier in my first language,
and I don't have access to the same

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type of comedy in English or in a second
language that I do in my first." And so

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really, there's this interesting part
of identity that shifts because of the

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different languages that we speak, and
I think that needs to be celebrated.

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It needs to be brought into the
workspace a lot more than it normally is.

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Matt Abrahams: You just reminded me,
I was coaching a very senior leader

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who was a native French speaker.

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In English, he was a little more stilted,
a little more buttoned up, but when I

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actually had him say the same thing in
French, he became much more lively, much

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more connected, and we were able to use
that as a tool, as a guide to allow him

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to feel more free speaking in English.

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It really is interesting
how we have these different

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compartmentalizations based on language.

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Before I ask you to share some specific
techniques that those with accents can

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take to feel more confident in their
communication, I'd love to ask you to

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define some foundational principles
that I know you refer back to.

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And in fact, these principles apply not
just to people who are speaking in a

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language other than their native language.

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They, they apply to all of us.

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So can you help us understand what
you mean by processing fluency,

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intelligibility, and comprehensibility?

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Peter Novak: Absolutely.

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So in a nutshell, processing
fluency is the ease with

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which we understand something.

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And I think the goal of every
speaker is to try and make what

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they say as easy as possible to
understand for the listener, for your

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audience, whoever that audience is.

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And it really means getting to know
your audience as well as possible.

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And processing fluency
is essentially that.

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Processing disfluency is anything
that gets in the way of that

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message being understood.

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That could be content, right?

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You ramble or you don't
have a good structure.

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Or it could be delivery, right?

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Things that make it difficult for
people to hear and understand.

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And that brings us to the linguistic
ideas around intelligibility

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and comprehensibility.

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Intelligibility is how much
I understand of what you say.

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Comprehensibility is how hard I
have to work to understand you.

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It's the effort that I put
in to understanding you.

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Let me put this into an example.

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Let's say you're on a Zoom call and
it's a little glitchy on the other end.

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But maybe you understand what the
person said, but still there was,

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"I'm losing you a little bit," and
so you have to work harder to do it.

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That's the difference between
intelligibility and comprehensibility.

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And the best part about this is
that there were major studies done

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20 years ago and more that say
that people who speak English as a

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second, third, or fourth language can
improve both their intelligibility

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and their comprehensibility with
no noticeable shift in accent.

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And so there are some really
interesting things to focus on to

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help you do that without worrying
about what your accent really is.

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Matt Abrahams: So processing
fluency is the ease with which

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we take in the information.

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And there's a whole bunch of things
we can do, making sure we know our

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audience so it's easier for them.

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We're using relevant concepts and
ideas that they can connect to.

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Structuring the information,
making it more concise.

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And then intelligibility is the
understanding, and the comprehensibility

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is how hard we work to understand.

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And anything we can do to reduce
comprehensibility, I would assume,

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helps with processing fluency.

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Excellent.

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So let's get very tactical and practical.

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What are some techniques and approaches
you recommend to help people who want to

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work on their accents or increase their
intelligibility while not increasing the

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comprehensibility of what they're saying?

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Peter Novak: Well, they want to do both.

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They want to have both
high intelligibility and

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high comprehensibility.

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And so what I would say is
that the goal is clarity.

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That's number one.

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First and foremost, the goal is clarity.

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Matt Abrahams: So clarity of meaning.

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Peter Novak: Clarity of meaning, right,
and then clarity also of delivery.

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Matt Abrahams: Got it.

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So I clearly understood you,
but I also clearly heard you.

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Peter Novak: That's right.

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Matt Abrahams: Okay.

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Very good.

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Peter Novak: And so there was an
interesting study from McGill University

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in Canada, and basically it said this:
Your car breaks down in a city that you

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don't know very well, and your phone
is out of juice, and so you're trying

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to find a garage that you can go to.

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And so you ask the first person,
they tell you to go one direction.

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You ask a second person.

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The first person is a native
speaker, sounds like you.

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You ask a second person, they tell you
to go in the opposite direction, and

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they have an out-group speech or accent.

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That's right.

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Foreign or something you don't recognize.

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Who are you going to trust more?

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And in essence, the study found that you
trust people who sound like you more.

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That's what accent bias is.

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However, if the person who speaks with
a different accent than your own speaks

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with confidence, then it reduces that gap.

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And so the question becomes,
what does speaking in English

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with confidence actually mean?

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What are people who speak English as
their first language listening for

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that tells us that person is confident?

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And so we know this.

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We know what some of those
elements are, and some of them

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are all related to prosody.

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So prosody is an element of speech
that thinks about the musicality of

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the language, which thinks about volume
and pacing and the power that you

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lend to certain words and inflection.

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It's all of the things outside of the
words and the sentences that carry

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meaning that we often don't think about.

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Matt Abrahams: When we had Lerone Martin
on talking about Martin Luther King Jr.,

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we talked a lot about prosody and, and how
he was able to leverage that as part of

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the, one of the many things that made his
orations really powerful and meaningful.

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Peter Novak: And every language
has its own musicality.

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So the biggest return on investment
is understanding and really

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working on prosody of the language.

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Not individual words, not individual
phrases, and if you've got the

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pronunciation just right, you don't
need to worry about any of that.

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It's really more about the paralinguistic
features outside the language itself

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that carry more meaning, that make us
relate better when we're communicating.

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Matt Abrahams: Can you give me an
example or two of maybe an activity

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or a thing you would coach people
to do to really touch on that?

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Peter Novak: Sure.

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And I'm gonna give some advice
that is often the opposite of

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what a lot of speech coaches give.

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And that is, if you're giving a
presentation or if you're talking over

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Zoom even, to prepare by recording
yourself into a speech-to-text app.

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And that speech-to-text app will give
you a transcript of what you're saying.

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So you just have to rehearse it
once, and then all of a sudden you've

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got a script of what you're doing.

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You can then put it
through AI if you want.

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You can put it through AI and say, "I
need this to sound like me still, so

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keep my syntax, keep the way that it…"
So that it sounds authentic to you.

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And once you have a script, you score it.

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And one of the best techniques that I can
think of is to underline what are called

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content or focus words in a sentence.

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If I have the sentence for you, "I
never said you should have hired

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him." If I stress a different
word, it means something different.

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I never said you should hire him.

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I never said you should hire him, right?

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I never said you should hire him.

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I never said you should hire him, right?

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Every time you say the sentence
and you put a stress on a different

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word, it changes the context.

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And if you look at your words and your
sentences in your prepared speech, and

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you start to underline or bold just those
three or four content words per second

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and focus on those words, the meaning
of what you're going to say will come

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across regardless of anything else.

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And so if you're stressing just those
words, all of a sudden you get a really

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clear picture of what's being said.

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So that's one thing that you can do to
score your script for what are called

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operative or focus words or content words.

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The second thing is to put in slash
marks for small pauses, because people

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forget to pause when they're speaking.

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And oftentimes non-native speakers
get told to slow down when that's

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not always the best advice.

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What's more helpful is to take a sentence
and divide it into thought clusters,

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groups of speech that have complete
meanings on their own but don't often

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have the punctuation to make you pause.

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And these are simple phrases in a
sentence like even when I was just

00:13:16.513 --> 00:13:20.683
saying a thought group is a group of
words that has a complete set meaning on

00:13:20.684 --> 00:13:22.703
its own that we don't give meaning to.

00:13:22.824 --> 00:13:26.463
And so when you break up a sentence
into those thought groups, it becomes

00:13:26.513 --> 00:13:28.093
easier to understand and follow.

00:13:28.373 --> 00:13:31.603
And so putting those slash marks
into a script can help do that.

00:13:31.864 --> 00:13:36.893
And then the third way that you can really
help is to provide intonation assistance

00:13:36.913 --> 00:13:41.983
in a script, in a scoring a script,
using downward inflections, which words

00:13:41.983 --> 00:13:46.674
to focus on in different ways, how to
use inflections and we have three basic

00:13:46.784 --> 00:13:52.133
inflections in English: the upward, where
I'm asking a question; the downward, where

00:13:52.133 --> 00:13:56.653
I'm making a statement, and we do that in
two different ways; and then the sustained

00:13:56.653 --> 00:14:01.356
inflection, which I really like, which
is so, it's all on one note, and you're

00:14:01.356 --> 00:14:03.466
waiting for me to either go up or down.

00:14:03.736 --> 00:14:07.326
When you learn to incorporate
some of those inflections, you're

00:14:07.326 --> 00:14:11.276
really tapping into, I think, the
power of the language in ways that

00:14:11.286 --> 00:14:12.506
native speakers are listening to.

00:14:12.975 --> 00:14:16.366
Matt Abrahams: Paralanguage, the
things that happen around the

00:14:16.366 --> 00:14:20.526
words are so powerful in so many
ways, and I love these activities.

00:14:20.925 --> 00:14:27.425
Using a script as a tool to
help you plan and prepare your

00:14:27.446 --> 00:14:29.736
paralanguage, I think is beautiful.

00:14:29.835 --> 00:14:33.215
I love this idea of getting a
transcript of what you're saying.

00:14:33.215 --> 00:14:36.245
Not to say that you're going to say
it exactly that way, but to begin

00:14:36.246 --> 00:14:40.775
to look at what are those words of
inflection, of focus of that vocal

00:14:40.776 --> 00:14:42.575
highlighting that need to stand out.

00:14:42.746 --> 00:14:46.366
And this is a tool that I think will help
everybody, not just non-native speakers.

00:14:46.645 --> 00:14:51.776
Thinking about clustering of the key
concepts and how to punctuate them in

00:14:51.776 --> 00:14:53.466
terms of pace and rate, really important.

00:14:53.466 --> 00:14:57.915
In fact, I believe they found some
versions of the Declaration of

00:14:57.915 --> 00:15:01.836
Independence that had weird marks
on them that they finally concluded

00:15:01.836 --> 00:15:04.255
were actually marks for oration.

00:15:04.255 --> 00:15:07.565
That, that when people would read
it, because so much of the population

00:15:07.565 --> 00:15:09.456
at the time was not able to read.

00:15:09.876 --> 00:15:12.655
So giving yourself these little
cues and clues of what to do.

00:15:12.766 --> 00:15:17.145
And then finally thinking about
how you end phrases and words.

00:15:17.175 --> 00:15:19.485
Many of us will swallow
what we say and get quiet.

00:15:19.766 --> 00:15:22.445
Some people have uptalk where
everything sounds like a question.

00:15:22.455 --> 00:15:26.656
And just it being able to strategically
think about it as a question,

00:15:26.656 --> 00:15:28.306
although I believe I know the answer.

00:15:28.755 --> 00:15:32.535
The more you do this, the more it becomes
a habit where you don't need to do it.

00:15:32.605 --> 00:15:33.035
Peter Novak: That's right.

00:15:33.385 --> 00:15:35.685
Matt Abrahams: You have
extensive training in phonetics.

00:15:35.866 --> 00:15:39.566
For our listeners who feel their
voice doesn't always carry authority,

00:15:39.805 --> 00:15:43.665
whether native speaker or not, what
are some vocal adjustments that we

00:15:43.665 --> 00:15:48.336
can make to come across with the
gravitas and clarity that we look for?

00:15:48.485 --> 00:15:50.595
Peter Novak: There are so many
different things that we can do.

00:15:50.605 --> 00:15:53.835
First and foremost, one of the
things that I recommend is to really

00:15:53.875 --> 00:15:58.865
understand, that I talked about earlier,
intonation, how we end sentences.

00:15:59.185 --> 00:16:00.815
In English, we do that in two ways.

00:16:00.836 --> 00:16:05.266
One is we either step down, like
on the words, "I'm a professor,"

00:16:05.605 --> 00:16:08.955
where you notice we go up on the
penultimate sound and then come down.

00:16:08.965 --> 00:16:14.305
"I'm a professor. I teach math."
And so we either step down or we

00:16:14.305 --> 00:16:16.745
glide down at the ends of sentences.

00:16:17.397 --> 00:16:21.157
And oftentimes people will
swallow their last few words.

00:16:21.458 --> 00:16:24.867
They don't end with strength, and
let me talk about what that means.

00:16:25.137 --> 00:16:30.957
And so if you combine the strong
downward inflection in speaking with

00:16:31.037 --> 00:16:36.428
slowing down your last few words
when you're done speaking, it signals

00:16:36.428 --> 00:16:37.857
that you've completed your thought.

00:16:38.348 --> 00:16:42.667
It signals a strength in the end of
your communication, and you can use

00:16:42.667 --> 00:16:46.507
it almost any time you're finished
speaking to make sure that people

00:16:46.507 --> 00:16:48.968
know you've finished speaking.

00:16:48.968 --> 00:16:51.208
And it works really, really well.

00:16:51.208 --> 00:16:54.907
And you can either score that on a
script that you've got for text, or you

00:16:54.907 --> 00:16:59.957
can think about ending just by slowing
down and using that downward inflection.

00:17:00.347 --> 00:17:03.457
Matt Abrahams: I love that technique,
and I loved how you role modeled it.

00:17:03.457 --> 00:17:03.957
Thank you.

00:17:04.218 --> 00:17:08.598
And we can all record ourselves on
audio voice memo and listen to hear

00:17:08.598 --> 00:17:12.308
how we're doing it and to become more
sensitive to what others are doing.

00:17:12.647 --> 00:17:16.297
We can work on these skills
through reading out loud.

00:17:16.307 --> 00:17:20.058
I often encourage people reading
out loud allows you to focus on how

00:17:20.058 --> 00:17:22.207
you're saying something because the
words are right in front of you.

00:17:22.207 --> 00:17:24.447
So I'm not saying reading your
script to give a presentation.

00:17:24.447 --> 00:17:26.498
I'm saying just read your emails out loud.

00:17:26.498 --> 00:17:29.688
Read anything and notice how you
can do that to train your brain

00:17:30.127 --> 00:17:31.517
to be more comfortable doing it.

00:17:32.137 --> 00:17:35.568
Behind all of it, I believe, is also
this notion of breath and breath control.

00:17:35.907 --> 00:17:38.227
You know, when we get nervous,
we breathe shallow and up.

00:17:38.227 --> 00:17:42.377
So we have to remind ourselves that
your voice is a wind instrument and that

00:17:42.387 --> 00:17:44.528
you have to have the breath behind it.

00:17:44.528 --> 00:17:48.608
So I often tell people we need to build
vocal stamina through breathwork as

00:17:48.608 --> 00:17:52.767
well, which could be reading out loud,
just becoming aware of where it is.

00:17:53.067 --> 00:17:55.227
You have provided so
much rich information.

00:17:55.227 --> 00:17:55.717
Thank you.

00:17:56.846 --> 00:17:58.566
Before we end, I'd like to
ask you three questions.

00:17:58.566 --> 00:18:01.316
One I make up just for you, and two I've
been asking everybody for a long time.

00:18:01.316 --> 00:18:01.876
Are you up for that?

00:18:02.066 --> 00:18:02.466
Peter Novak: You bet.

00:18:02.676 --> 00:18:03.256
Matt Abrahams: Excellent.

00:18:03.656 --> 00:18:07.026
You created a national curriculum
regarding alcohol abuse and

00:18:07.026 --> 00:18:10.666
sexual violence prevention that
reached over a million students.

00:18:11.166 --> 00:18:14.395
When you're communicating about
such sensitive, high-stakes, and

00:18:14.395 --> 00:18:19.225
emotionally charged topics, how do
you balance clarity with the necessity

00:18:19.276 --> 00:18:22.015
of being empathetic and concerned?

00:18:22.475 --> 00:18:25.705
A lot of us are in situations
where we have to talk about

00:18:25.705 --> 00:18:26.796
emotionally charged issues.

00:18:26.796 --> 00:18:28.636
What advice do you have that
came from that experience?

00:18:28.645 --> 00:18:31.455
And by the way, thank you for
creating a curriculum like that.

00:18:31.456 --> 00:18:31.996
Peter Novak: It, it's my pleasure.

00:18:31.996 --> 00:18:35.235
I was, uh, the Stanford graduate students
actually took our program, which is

00:18:35.245 --> 00:18:39.305
great, and it was throughout, I think,
over now 2,000 universities have used it.

00:18:39.735 --> 00:18:42.495
And it was deeply important
work for me, but you're right,

00:18:42.765 --> 00:18:44.975
it is very emotionally charged.

00:18:45.206 --> 00:18:48.715
And so what you have to create first
and foremost is a psychologically safe

00:18:48.715 --> 00:18:52.785
space for people to be able to speak,
and that requires a great empathy and

00:18:52.785 --> 00:18:54.836
understanding what happens with trauma.

00:18:55.135 --> 00:18:58.765
Once you've created a psychologically
safe space, the goal is to not

00:18:58.776 --> 00:19:03.596
re-traumatize with your language or
to re-traumatize by asking people to

00:19:03.636 --> 00:19:08.055
contribute their story when they don't
feel psychologically safe to do so, and

00:19:08.055 --> 00:19:13.146
to build in a system of the way that you
communicate that has its foundation in

00:19:13.146 --> 00:19:15.205
trauma-informed ways of communicating.

00:19:15.365 --> 00:19:20.805
And I think that's an incredibly helpful
tool that has empathy at its core and that

00:19:20.805 --> 00:19:24.495
really helps us understand communicating
on a very human-to-human level.

00:19:24.886 --> 00:19:27.755
Matt Abrahams: So it starts with
empathy, which builds to psychological

00:19:27.755 --> 00:19:33.588
safety that then requires some
intentional thought about how to allow

00:19:33.598 --> 00:19:36.308
for the kind of dialogue that needs
to happen in these emotionally charged

00:19:36.308 --> 00:19:40.248
situations without retriggering or
causing people to become defensive.

00:19:40.518 --> 00:19:41.758
Tricky, but possible.

00:19:41.758 --> 00:19:44.258
Peter Novak: Tricky, but possible,
and you also have to build the

00:19:44.258 --> 00:19:48.268
structure of all of that into your
policies, into your procedures.

00:19:48.268 --> 00:19:51.847
So it's not just the one-on-one
communication, it's also the

00:19:51.847 --> 00:19:54.257
larger support structure also
needs to be framed that way.

00:19:54.688 --> 00:19:56.758
Matt Abrahams: I like to talk a
lot about people, process, and

00:19:56.758 --> 00:19:59.437
infrastructure, and you need all
three of those to come together when

00:19:59.438 --> 00:20:00.987
you have emotionally charged issues.

00:20:01.298 --> 00:20:04.867
Question number two, who's a
communicator that you admire and why?

00:20:05.227 --> 00:20:06.598
Peter Novak: I love Trevor Noah.

00:20:07.027 --> 00:20:14.198
I think his cultural discussions,
his ability to see different cultural

00:20:14.198 --> 00:20:18.697
dynamics and how they manifest, not only
from his native country and the way he

00:20:18.698 --> 00:20:23.497
speaks, but to the US and to Europe and
to every place that he tours and bring,

00:20:23.497 --> 00:20:27.468
he brings different stories, and he does
it in a way that is enlightening, that

00:20:27.468 --> 00:20:32.448
is approachable, that is funny, and he
has a lot of humility, believe it or not,

00:20:32.457 --> 00:20:34.017
in the way that he communicates, too.

00:20:34.207 --> 00:20:36.337
And so he's one of my
favorite people to listen to.

00:20:36.558 --> 00:20:38.358
He's got some great
stories around accents.

00:20:38.358 --> 00:20:41.947
He does take on some accents sometimes
and talks about them, but he's

00:20:41.947 --> 00:20:47.107
got some really profound things to
say around language and accent and

00:20:47.108 --> 00:20:51.977
accessibility and what is considered
a standard sound and what isn't.

00:20:52.197 --> 00:20:53.717
There is no standard for English.

00:20:53.877 --> 00:20:58.377
There are world Englishes, and I think
Trevor Noah gets to that really clearly.

00:20:58.758 --> 00:21:02.447
Matt Abrahams: He is a very engaging
speaker, great storyteller, and he

00:21:02.447 --> 00:21:05.627
does a really nice job with some
of these paralanguage clues and

00:21:05.627 --> 00:21:06.948
cues that you're talking about.

00:21:07.348 --> 00:21:10.698
Final question, what are the first
three ingredients that go into a

00:21:10.698 --> 00:21:12.778
successful communication recipe?

00:21:13.167 --> 00:21:17.197
Peter Novak: The first is comfort,
feeling comfortable in being able to,

00:21:17.197 --> 00:21:19.987
and that's where the psychological
safety, I think, comes in as well.

00:21:20.358 --> 00:21:23.417
The second would be conversational,
and this is all delivery, by the way.

00:21:23.417 --> 00:21:24.367
This isn't content.

00:21:24.367 --> 00:21:25.837
This is delivery, I would say.

00:21:26.207 --> 00:21:29.147
So the second part is really
making it sound conversational,

00:21:29.148 --> 00:21:32.767
like you're actually talking to
someone, not talking at someone.

00:21:33.207 --> 00:21:39.367
And the third, I would say, is conviction,
or people will say confidence, but

00:21:39.377 --> 00:21:43.587
having the passion behind what it is
that you're saying so that you're making

00:21:43.588 --> 00:21:45.207
a connection that is important to you.

00:21:45.868 --> 00:21:47.727
Matt Abrahams: I love things
that are easy to remember.

00:21:47.767 --> 00:21:51.437
The three C's: comfort,
conversational, conviction.

00:21:51.927 --> 00:21:55.477
And those are all helped by the
techniques that you have taught us

00:21:55.508 --> 00:21:57.367
and that you teach on a regular basis.

00:21:57.737 --> 00:21:59.378
Peter, thank you so much for your time.

00:21:59.437 --> 00:22:03.437
I appreciate you highlighting
the value that people who speak

00:22:03.487 --> 00:22:07.197
another language bring and the tools
that can help all of us feel more

00:22:07.198 --> 00:22:09.238
comfortable in our communication.

00:22:09.357 --> 00:22:09.707
Thank you.

00:22:10.157 --> 00:22:10.918
Peter Novak: Thank you so much, Matt.

00:22:10.918 --> 00:22:11.817
It was great being here.

00:22:13.344 --> 00:22:15.364
Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining
us for another episode of Think

00:22:15.364 --> 00:22:17.074
Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

00:22:17.394 --> 00:22:20.224
To learn more about communication
best practices, please listen

00:22:20.224 --> 00:22:22.354
to episode 82 with Nancy Duarte.

00:22:22.814 --> 00:22:27.373
This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

00:22:27.674 --> 00:22:30.164
Our music is from Floyd
Wonder, with special thanks

00:22:30.164 --> 00:22:31.764
to the Podium Podcast Company.

00:22:32.134 --> 00:22:34.894
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