Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

“Rather than trying to eliminate your nerves entirely, build your own anxiety management plan so you're prepared when they inevitably creep in.”
Around Halloween, few things feel scarier than being put on the spot to speak in front of others. Your heart races, your palms sweat, and suddenly the words you planned to say disappear. But while communication anxiety can be frightening, it doesn't have to haunt you. In this special Halloween Rethinks episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Matt Abrahams revisits research-backed strategies for managing speaking anxiety, featuring insights from experts including Andrew Huberman, Kelly McGonigal, and Alison Wood Brooks. Through the ABCs of anxiety management, Matt shares practical techniques for managing your emotions, calming your body, and reframing your thoughts. With a few tricks up your sleeve, you can take the fright out of public speaking and treat yourself to more confident communication.

Takeaways: 
  • Anxiety doesn't have to be the enemy of confident communication. Acknowledging your nerves as normal and reframing them as excitement or a sign that you care can help you approach speaking situations with a more positive mindset.
  • Managing speaking anxiety starts with having a plan. Combining emotional, physical, and mental techniques into a personalized anxiety management plan can help you feel more comfortable, prepared, and confident under pressure.

Activity:
  • Build your anxiety management plan. Create your own three-step plan for managing speaking anxiety using the ABCs: one technique to reframe your emotions, one to calm your body, and one to redirect negative thoughts. Test your plan before your next presentation or important conversation, and adjust it based on what works best for you.

Episode Reference Links:
Connect:

 Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (02:41) - Managing Negative Feelings
  • (04:07) - Reframing Anxiety
  • (05:03) - Managing Physical Symptoms
  • (05:40) - Breathing Techniques
  • (06:25) - Physical Strategies for Anxiety
  • (07:30) - Warming Up to Speak
  • (08:31) - Managing Your Mindset
  • (11:02) - Turning Anxiety Into Excitement
  • (12:20) - Creating an Anxiety Management Plan
  • (14:33) - Testing and Refining Your Plan
  • (15:22) - Conclusion

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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
Alia Crum
Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University
Guest
Alison Wood Brooks
Professor at Harvard Business School; Author
Guest
Andrew Huberman
Professor and Neuroscientist at Stanford University and Host of the Huberman Lab podcast
Guest
Christian Wheeler
The StrataCom Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing
Guest
Jeffrey Pfeffer
Professor, Stanford University
Guest
Kelly McGonigal
Dept. of Psychology at Stanford University and Health, Wellness and Fitness Consultant

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.

Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Monday and Thursday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our Newsletter at fastersmarter.io.

At this time of year around Halloween,
few things feel scarier than being put

on the spot to speak in front of others.

Your heart races, your palms sweat, and
suddenly the words you planned disappear.

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

Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this special Holidays
Rethinks episode of Think

Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

Communication anxiety can be frightening,
but it doesn't have to haunt you.

In this episode, we're revisiting
practical, research—backed techniques for

managing the fear of anxiety that can get
in the way of confident communication.

So instead of letting speaking anxiety
spook you, let's learn how to manage it.

We'll provide you with some tricks so you
can treat yourself to confident speaking.

When it comes to effective
communication, confidence is key.

I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach
Strategic Communication at Stanford

Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Quick Thinks episode
of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

Confident communication boils
down to a simple equation.

Confidence equals competence.

The more confident you are,
the more competent and credible

your audience will see you as.

Of course, you can take this to
an extreme, and I am certainly not

suggesting that we all be overconfident
or arrogant when we interact with others.

Believe me, I work and teach in Silicon
Valley, and I spend a lot of time talking

about confidence versus arrogance.

Now, the biggest barrier to
confident communication is anxiety.

Most people, upwards of seventy-five
percent of people, feel anxious in

high-stakes communication situations,
be it written or spoken, in person

or virtual, with large audiences or
small, synchronous or asynchronous.

Whew.

I think I covered all the bases there.

Today, with the help of clips from
experts from previous Think Fast,

Talk Smart episodes, I hope to
provide you with several communication

anxiety management techniques to
help you feel more comfortable and

confident when you communicate.

As a guide to help us learn these
techniques, we'll be talking about

the ABC's of anxiety management.

That stands for affective,
behavioral, and cognitive.

Affective symptoms relate to how
we feel and respond when stressed

or under pressure to perform well.

Many of us feel intensely
negative when we find ourselves in

high-stakes communication situations.

We often feel that once these
negative feelings starts, we

can't do much to stop them.

It feels like a train
has left the station.

Yet there are a few things we can do.

For example, we can use techniques that
come from the study of mindfulness that

encourage us to acknowledge unhelpful
or negative feelings that arise and

remind ourselves that feeling anxious
and speaking is completely normal.

In fact, it is unnormal
not to feel nervous.

Also, these negative
feelings do not define us.

As Professor Christian Wheeler shares
in episode 18 when he talks about

his class on spontaneous management.

A lot of people feel anxious, you
know, even giving a, a planned scripted

presentation in front of others.

And how much worse is that when you're
dealing with circumstances that you

can't completely control, such as an,
a question and answer session that, uh,

goes differently than you anticipated,
or, or just being asked to make

spontaneous remarks about something.

Sometimes when we get in these situations,
we can get a little anxious, and then

we get anxious about being anxious.

We feel bad about being anxious, and
that's, that's where the problem starts.

There's nothing wrong with,
with being uncomfortable.

The problem is with your
discomfort at being uncomfortable.

And so we work on exercises,
teaching people to, to be in that

situation and to respond in that
situation with a sense of calm.

They can acknowledge that, that
they feel a little bit anxious, but

they're not gonna dwell on it, and
they're going to trust their minds

to bubble up the necessary responses
that they have in that moment.

By becoming aware of your feelings and
how they impact you, you create a sense

of agency, which provides you with
the ability to reframe your negative

thoughts in a more positive way.

Another effective technique comes from
Stanford lecturer and award-winning author

Kelly McGonigal, who in episode 69 shares
how she sees her anxiety as a signal.

What I have come to value about
anxiety is it's a sign that I care.

So, you know, for example, when I
start to feel anxious now, I will

say to myself, "My heart is in it."
The purpose of any really interesting

communication should be for the other
person to have interesting thoughts

in their own head about your work.

It's not to convince them that
your work is right or important or

that you know everything about it.

They are having their own interesting
spontaneous thoughts and questions.

That's the measure of success.

Beyond affective experiences of
anxiety that we can address through

acknowledging and reframing our fear
and reminding ourselves that it is

normal and natural, we need also to
address behavioral symptoms and sources.

Behavioral experiences, as the
name suggests, relate to behaviors

such as rapid heart rate, sweating,
stuttering, and oh so many more.

One tried and true method to
address behavioral anxiety

issues is deep breathing.

Andrew Huberman, host of the Huberman
Lab podcast, in episode 66 shared

his thoughts on controlling our
autonomic nervous system and breathing.

There are direct control points through
which we can control the autonomic

nervous system, meaning that we can
dial down the level of alertness

or increase the level of calmness.

When you are stressed, you
are breathing less deeply.

The most common, the most common
advice is to take a deep breath.

It turns out that's
exactly the wrong advice.

Oh, no.

The exhale emphasized breathing leads
to much more rapid activation of the

calming arm of the nervous system.

And the, it turns out you
don't just want to exhale.

You want to do a double inhale.

So inhale through the nose,
and then before you exhale,

sneak in a little bit more air.

And then do a long exhale.

And you do this just one to three times.

Breathing in this manner slows down your
heart rate, slows down your speaking

rate, and can help you feel calmer.

Here are a few other quick tips
to reduce some of the behavioral

symptoms many of us experience.

When we get shaky, that's adrenaline
trying to move us from threat to safety.

Use big, broad gestures or step towards
your audience if you're in person.

That movement will help
the shakiness abate.

Some of us, like myself,
sweat when we get nervous.

That's your core body
temperature going up.

Your blood is pumping faster,
your vessels are tightening.

This causes your blood pressure to go up.

It's like you're exercising.

By cooling ourselves down, we can
reduce the blushing and sweating.

A great way to do this is simply
to hold a cold bottle of water

or glass of water in your hands.

This reduces your core body temperature.

We've all done this in reverse on a
cold morning if we've held a warm cup of

coffee or tea and felt it warming us up.

Some of us get dry mouth.

A great way to reverse that is to suck
a lozenge, chew some gum, or drink

some warm water right before you speak.

Finally, GSB Professor Jeffrey
Pfeffer in episode 34 reminds us

that it is important to do physical
warmups to calm ourselves down.

Well, I think, you know, when I have
Bill English and Susi Damilano, who are

co-founders and, of the San Francisco
Playhouse, come and teach my session

on acting with power, uh, they give
the students fabulous advice, which I

will pass on on their behalf, uh, to
your listeners, and that is to warm up.

So they talk about getting your
voice warmed up, getting your body

warmed up, obviously not in public.

You know, Matt, you're gonna go play
football before you play, particularly

given our ages, uh, but even before,
before you went on the football field, you

would probably do some stretches and some
exercises to warm up, and the same advice

holds for speech and, and communication.

You want to warm up so that when you
enter the moment, you are as relaxed

and as ready to go as you can be.

The many people I teach and coach find
these behavioral hacks super helpful.

Beyond effective and behavioral,
the third category that we

need to address is cognitive.

Cognitive symptoms affect our
brain's ability to function smoothly.

We become flustered or forgetting
what we intended to say.

Additionally, we fall victim to all of the
bad things we say to ourselves, something

academics call negative self-talk.

We can do several things
to help avoid these issues.

Here is advice from Stanford
Professor Alia Crum in episode 40,

followed immediately by guidance from
Harvard Business School Professor

Alison Wood Brooks in episode 73.

Most people have the mindset
that stressful situations

are inherently debilitating.

They're going to ultimately
make us sick, make us struggle,

make us crumble under pressure.

And when you look at the truth about
stress, which is like most things,

very complicated, you realize that
that is a simplified assumption.

It's not necessarily wrong, but
it's only one way of viewing stress.

And you start to realize that the
true nature of stress is more complex.

And in fact, there's a whole other
side of stress that reveals to us that

the body's stress response, the mind's
stress response, was not designed to be

debilitating, but instead designed to be,
uh, to help us elevate our performance and

behavior to meet the demands we're facing.

There's a whole side of stress that
shows that it can have enhancing

qualities on our cognitive functioning,
our physical health, and on how we

behave and interact with others.

And so our work is not necessarily
to find out the truth of stress, what

is or what isn't, but to look at how
our mindsets, the core assumptions

we make about it, shape how we
respond in stressful situations.

And what we've shown is that if we can
get people to open their minds to this

notion that stress can be enhancing,
that stress can help you rise to a

newer level of understanding, can
deepen your connection with others,

can make us even physiologically grow
tougher and stronger, having that focus

shifts our attention and behaviors in
ways that make that mindset more true.

So we tried a very simple coping
strategy, a very simple intervention.

And the question was: Can people reframe
their anxious feelings as excitement?

And it's a really simple idea, but
the reason that it works is because

when we feel anxious, we have this
crazy instinct that we should try

and calm down, like really powerful.

Everybody feels like they should
calm down when they're anxious.

And that's hard, right?

Like that, that would require that we
mitigate the physiological signs of

anxiety, so your racing heart, sweaty
palms, spiked cortisol in your body.

You're trying to like push
those down, as well as move from

the negative valence, right?

Like a negative emotion like anxiety, and
move into the positive zone of calmness.

And that two-step move, reducing
the physiological signals and

moving from negative to positive,
it's pretty much impossible.

It's very, very hard, especially
the physiological component of it.

So instead, what reframing as
excitement does is it allows you

to stay in that high arousal zone.

You're not trying to combat your
automatic physiological processes, but

instead you're just doing this mental
reframe from negative to positive.

Both Alia and Alison point to
how our mindset affects how

we feel about our anxiety.

By changing our mindset, what
we focus on, we can feel less

nervous and perhaps even excited.

Further, we can refocus our negative
self-talk by adopting positive

affirmations like, "I have value
to add," and, "I've got this."

These mantras redirect our thoughts
and help us to be more positive

in how we approach our speaking.

With this understanding of effective
behavioral and cognitive techniques,

now we need to put these into
action and create what I call an

anxiety management plan, or AMP.

For decades now, I've encouraged my
students and people I coach to create

a personalized anxiety management
plan that they can leverage whenever

they're put on the spot to speak.

Having a plan handy helps you
manage both the symptoms and sources

that make anxiety challenging.

An AMP serves as a recipe you can
follow to calm yourself down so

you can communicate at your best.

I hear from students from years ago
who share how they are all still

using their AMP's to help them.

In fact, just the other week, I heard
from a student who leveraged his plan

to help him deliver what he called a
killer toast for his brother's wedding.

I have found that the best anxiety
management plans consist of three to

five techniques that you think will help
you feel more comfortable and confident

in your high-stakes communication.

Try to pick examples from each
of the effective behavioral and

cognitive categories to make
sure you cover all the bases.

I still get nervous in certain situations.

In fact, I was recently in Australia
presenting in front of many distinguished

Stanford alumni, and I freaked out a bit.

Luckily, I used my anxiety
management plan to calm myself down.

My plan consists of three steps.

From an effective point of view,
I reminded myself that it's normal

to be anxious in these situations,
and it reminded me that I really

care about what I'm saying.

From a behavioral perspective, I
held a cold bottle of water to help

reduce my sweating and blushing.

And then finally, from a
cognitive perspective, I said to

myself, "I have value to bring."

This plan helped me to feel
more comfortable and to

deliver a good communication.

Once you have a plan, you
next need to test it out.

Your plan is really a set of hypotheses.

Some may turn out to be
helpful and others less so.

Simply iterate and adjust until
you find what works for you.

The bottom line is this: there
are many things we can do to help

ourselves feel more comfortable, calm,
and confident when we communicate.

This helps us do better, and it helps
our audience to focus more clearly

on what we're saying without being
distracted by our anxiety signals.

I encourage all of you to create your
own anxiety management plans based on the

ABC's of anxiety management, and I look
forward to hearing about your success.

Thank you for joining us for this
special Halloween Rethinks episode of

Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

The one thing I hope you take
away is that communication anxiety

doesn't have to be so scary.

Rather than trying to eliminate
your nerves entirely, build your own

anxiety management plan so you're
prepared when they inevitably creep in.

With the right tools and a little
practice, you can keep communication

anxiety from haunting you the
next time you're put on the spot.