How to Speak Clearly & With Confidence | Matt Abrahams

Do you ever recommend people memorize speeches? Never. The reason memorizing is so bad is it burdens your cognitive load. You've created the right way to say it and you're constantly comparing what you wanted to say to what you're actually saying. So having a roadmap, having a structure, having some familiarity with some ideas are important.

If there's certain words that you really want to get across or certain data, have a note card, read it. I'd rather you do that than put the cognitive burden on yourself of memorizing. Several people asked. about how best to communicate with people who are not very good at communicating. I would encourage people to lead with questions.

Draw the other person out. Often if you can get them talking about something that's important to them or connected to what you want, then you can engage in that conversation. So again, it's pre-work, it's thinking about what's of value. lead with questions and then as soon as the person responds give them space to tell more. My mother-in-law had a black belt in small talk.

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