Dare to Be Dull: A Stanford Communication Teacher's Playbook for Calmer, Sharper Speaking

Abrahams dismisses the old advice to imagine the audience in their underwear. He says nobody finds that comforting, but the idea underneath it has value, because visualisation is a tool of desensitisation. The trick is to picture yourself in the space and the audience responding to what you say, much as a pilot uses a flight simulator.

He traces the technique to some of the oldest research on speaking anxiety, from the University of Oregon in the 1980s. A good session starts with deep breathing, then a picture of the actual room and the people you will speak to. You imagine the whole sequence, including walking up, delivering the talk, seeing it well received and stepping off. Abrahams notes that athletes do this all the time, and virtual reality tools can now simulate audiences of a chosen size, even distracted ones.

The point, he says, is that the event is no longer new and novel, which gives you a sense of agency. Rachitsky says he used this before a TEDx talk and that it need not take long: five minutes of calming down and picturing the scene, ideally repeated a couple of times. Abrahams adds that any distance you put between yourself and the anxiety helps.

Abrahams draws "dare to be dull" from improvisation, which he says is about being present, collaborative and open rather than funny. When we speak spontaneously we want the best answer, the right feedback and the most interesting small talk. That pressure taxes our cognitive bandwidth.

He compares the brain to a CPU: a laptop with many windows open runs every app worse. If you judge everything you say against some standard of perfection, you have little bandwidth left for the message and for connecting with the audience. So he suggests you just answer the question, give the feedback or engage in the small talk. That dials down self-evaluation, and you usually do quite a good job.

Rachitsky adds that the same applies to prepared talks. Start with something good enough, let people learn from it, and editing will make it great. Abrahams agrees that we are often our own biggest impediment to good communication because of the anxiety we bring.

Abrahams credits Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School for the reframing research. The body has essentially one arousal response, with a faster heartbeat, shallow breathing and shakiness, whether you are anxious or excited. What differs is the label. Winning the lottery and being told to give a surprise presentation cause the same physiology, but we read one as positive.

So when you notice the symptoms, tell yourself that this is exciting, you get to share your view and show your value. Seeing it positively relaxes you, and her research found people were perceived as communicating better. Rachitsky says he has used this and that it works despite sounding trivial.

Abrahams also recommends a short mantra to replace the negative chatter of "I'm not prepared" or "I'm an imposter". His own is "I have value to bring", since people who invite us to speak want to hear from us. Others include "you've got this" or "I know my stuff", and one senior leader he coached uses "last time this went well" to counter catastrophising. He suggests writing the mantra on a sticky note or scheduling it to pop up on your phone a minute or two before you speak.

Rachitsky shares a related trick from writer Julia Cameron's teaching, which is to name your inner critic and talk back to it, and his is called Jim. Abrahams says there is good evidence for personifying what challenges us and then conversing with it.

Abrahams stresses that many people feel alone in their nerves because they see colleagues and TED speakers who seem effortless, without seeing the work behind it. He tells of a stranger at San Francisco airport who said his book on speaking anxiety was incredibly helpful even though he never read it. Just knowing that such a book existed showed him the problem was common. Abrahams says that those who study this believe nervousness about speaking in front of others is innate to being human.

He tells Rachitsky that anxiety is not a light switch but a process that eases over time. Since most people are more comfortable in conversation than in presenting, you can reframe a presentation as a conversation, even with yourself. For instance, open with "I have three questions to answer today" and then answer them.

Another approach is to distract. He coached a senior Google leader who opened every presentation with "Good morning, let's watch this video", showing a 30-second clip and then facilitating a discussion before easing into his content. A question, a story or something to read can similarly take attention off you briefly. Abrahams says most people are most nervous in the minute before speaking and the first minute of speaking, so getting through that stretch matters most.

Rachitsky relays a point from another guest, Johnny Miller, that most neural traffic runs from body to brain, so a nervous body makes a nervous mind. Abrahams calls this embodied cognition and describes a study, which he thinks was at Duke, in which people holding a cold drink rated others as colder and more aloof than people holding a warm one. What our body feels, he says, our minds think.

On breathing, Abrahams says deep belly breathing slows the heart rate, steadies the voice and reduces shakiness. What matters most is that the exhale is longer than the inhale, and he jokingly calls his guideline the "rule of lung". Breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in, such as a three count in and a six count out. Doing so also keeps you in the present rather than catastrophising about the future.

To get present, Abrahams says tongue twisters are a favourite because you cannot say them right unless you are focused on the moment, and they warm up your voice. He walks Rachitsky through his favourite, "I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit, and on that slitted sheet I sit". He adds that research suggests swearing, in private, releases neurochemicals that blunt anxiety and even pain.

Abrahams says spontaneous speaking dwarfs planned presentations in our working lives, and everyone can improve at it rather than relying on a born gift of gab. The counterintuitive principle is that you must prepare to be spontaneous, as athletes and jazz musicians do. Improvement comes from working on both mindset and the messaging, through structure and focus.

Under pressure, most people spew lists of information, but our brains are wired for story and logical connection, not lists. A structure is just a beginning, a middle and an end, and the advertising pattern of problem, solution, benefit is one example. Having one ready halves your burden, because it settles how you will say it and leaves only what to say, like cooking with a recipe.

Two of his favourites are PREP (point, reason, example, point restated) and What? So what? Now what?, which suits product teams giving a feature description or a standup update. He recommends giving each structure a catchy name and practising by applying it to a podcast you just heard or by dissecting the structure of others' talks. The way to improve is repetition, reflection and feedback, and he says there is no shortcut.

For practice outside work, he recommends Toastmasters, which gives you the reps, and improvisation classes, as well as open-enrolment university courses. Rachitsky notes that Toastmasters has "table topics", which are impromptu 60-second talks, and that you can start by just being a timer. Abrahams adds that his books include "try this" exercises and a QR code linking to videos.

Abrahams argues small talk needs rebranding, since friendships and big things often start there. The best advice he heard came from podcast guest Rachel Greenwald, an academic and matchmaker: be interested, not interesting. He likens small talk to Hacky Sack, where the goal is to set the other person up to succeed, not to spike the ball.

He adds two rules. First, depth of disclosure should be balanced over time, because reciprocity means a deeply personal share is awkward if the other person offers only their favourite colour. But do not disclose too much too fast. Second, use more supporting responses ("Did you get to any beaches?") than shifting ones ("I went to Hawaii"), while keeping some shifting responses so you also share.

Rachitsky says the balance matters because he sometimes just keeps asking questions, which gets strange. Abrahams, who dislikes manipulation, says classic advice such as that in *How to Win Friends and Influence People* is useful only if applied authentically. Both agree that sharing about yourself draws out better conversations, as it does in podcast interviews.

Abrahams defines feedback as an opportunity to problem solve, apart from inexcusable behaviour that must simply be shut down. That means inviting the other person to work on the issue with you rather than bestowing your opinion. He is a fan of Kim Scott's *Radical Candor* and says his added value is structure, which helps you formulate your thoughts and helps the other person digest them.

His simplest structure is What? So what? Now what?. In his example, he tells a colleague that he sped through the implementation plan without detail, that this can make people think you are unprepared, and that next time slowing down and adding two or three data points would help. His fuller version in the book is the 4 Is: information, impact on you, invitation and implications.

He illustrates the 4 Is with a late employee. You state that this is the third time they arrived late, say you feel the meeting is not being prioritised, invite them to suggest how to come prepared, and explain the benefit of finishing the project on time. Abrahams says tone and directness can vary, and the advice is to pick one or two structures you can default to when put on the spot.

Abrahams says toasts and tributes, including workplace ones like congratulating a team or marking a retirement, are by one statistic he recalls the most frequent public speaking event. His acronym WHAT stands for why we are here, how you are connected to the event, an anecdote, and thanks. Whether to include the first two depends on context. At an all-hands you might need to say why everyone is there, but at a wedding you do not.

The anecdote should be relevant to everyone, with no insider knowledge, and concise. The content of the tribute can sit in the opening or inside the anecdote. Nobody ever complains that a toast was too brief, he says, but he suggests testing a draft with a few people, which he calls "minimally viable communication".

On emotion, Abrahams shares that he gave the eulogy for his father and wrote an article about the experience. Emotion connects with the audience but can also overshadow you as the speaker. He recommends conveying it through anecdotes, because telling a sad story is better than saying you are sad. He cites a cartoonist's rule of thumb: show, don't tell.

Abrahams says to see Q&A as an opportunity, even when a questioner is hostile. He has two pet peeves: saying "good question" to everything, and ending with "does that make sense?", which can make people doubt that you do. He suggests asking instead whether you answered the question or if they want a follow-up.

His structure for answers is ADD: answer concisely, give a detailed example, then describe the relevance. In a role-play of a hiring interview, he turns "how many students have you taught?" into an answer about experience: 25 years and thousands of students, in both academic and corporate settings, which lets him tailor material to the dean's students. People will not always connect the dots, so you must do it for them, and he suggests rewriting company FAQs in this form.

For apologies, he says you need to actually take the time to apologise, and to apologise for the transgression, not for how someone feels. His AAA is acknowledge what you did, appreciate the impact it had, and make amends. If you interrupted someone, you would say so, recognise they may have felt unheard, and promise to wait and paraphrase them before adding your point.

Closing, Abrahams says that everyone can get better at communication and that it takes initiative, grace and compassion. It is not just about finding your voice but sharing it with others.