How to Communicate with Confidence in Any Situation | Matthew Matheson

Cold open

(Trailer montage assembled from clips taken from later in the episode, running under music. These lines legitimately appear again in the body below.)

00:00:00 Matthew Matheson: Good communication is at the foundation of any relationship.

00:00:03 Aleksandra King: If you want to quickly show value, you improve your communication skills.

00:00:07 Matthew Matheson: Very much so.

00:00:08 Aleksandra King: The first 10 seconds of a talk– what mistake do people make?

00:00:11 Matthew Matheson: The most common, I think, is– I've been doing this work now for many years.

00:00:17 Aleksandra King: Do you rehearse to the mirror?

00:00:18 Matthew Matheson: I generally say no. Let go of trying to be an expert in the content and move to just embodying delivery. Even people that think that they're great communicators might not be so great. You can almost make anything sound compelling. Conscious bodily action– and that's what builds confidence, not thinking. Anything that is spoken is meant to be said.

00:00:36 Aleksandra King: Now you're speaking like a marketer.

00:00:37 Matthew Matheson: Three Ps: pose, pause, pounce.

00:00:40 Aleksandra King: What's your three-second hook formula for an opening line?

00:00:43 Matthew Matheson: Start with a question. When someone lies to us, we instinctively know they're lying.

00:00:47 Aleksandra King: Yes. When you are afraid, how can you still maintain some level of authority?

00:00:52 Matthew Matheson: Slow down.

00:00:53 Aleksandra King: You're losing them, they're slipping away, they're not listening to you. What can you quickly do to get them back? Oh, I love that, that's powerful. 24 hours to prepare. Yeah, they said you're doing this tomorrow. What do you do?

00:01:03 Matthew Matheson: Don't write scripts.

00:01:04 Aleksandra King: Where does real confidence come from?

00:01:05 Matthew Matheson: Being comfortable saying what you really want to say. Your closing is the second biggest risk area after your opening.

Episode

00:01:14 Aleksandra King: Matthew Matheson. Matt– what do you prefer for me to call you?

00:01:18 Matthew Matheson: I have no preference, really. Most people call me Matt, but some people call me Matthew.

00:01:22 Aleksandra King: That's only if you're in trouble with a parent, like that.

00:01:23 Matthew Matheson: That's it, yeah. [laughter] "Tidy your room." But no, we're adults now.

00:01:27 Aleksandra King: Okay, Matt. Matt, it's lovely to have you here.

00:01:30 Matthew Matheson: Likewise.

00:01:30 Aleksandra King: I've done quite a few of these where I get public speakers on, communications experts, because I feel that it is one– communication is one of the most important skills in business. That is just a fact. Would you agree?

00:01:45 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, 100%. And I go further and say without good communication skills, it's not just business but also personal life, the whole lot. Good communication is at the foundation of any relationship, professional or personal.

00:01:57 Aleksandra King: I would say 100%. And Warren Buffett agrees.

00:02:01 Matthew Matheson: Yes, he does, yeah.

00:02:03 Aleksandra King: You should invest in yourself and learn how to communicate. So that's what this pod is about. We're going to learn, we're going to improve our communication skills here, and we're going to learn from the expert, because you are very well trained in the field and you've worked with lots and lots of different types of people. So can you just tell the audience, for those who don't know, who have you worked with and how have you helped them?

00:02:26 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, so I've been doing this work now for– oh gosh, I'm showing my age a little bit– 10 to 15 years, I would say.

00:02:31 Aleksandra King: Experience.

00:02:32 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, I think so.

00:02:33 Aleksandra King: Very experienced.

00:02:34 Matthew Matheson: All sorts. And I work with people from individuals who come to me that are, I guess, crippled with anxiety and don't know where to start, right the way through to the corporates. So the World Health Organization, BBC, O2, big teams, the lot. So some of them individual one-to-one, some of them teams and groups.

00:02:55 Aleksandra King: Okay, yeah, so the experience is there for sure. So a lot of these questions are for– well, some of these are for stage, when you're on a stage and you have to do a presentation or you have to stand up in front of everyone and say something. But also we have questions in here that are just for pure communications, or communicating in a small team, or even communicating online in a Zoom call or Google Meet or whatever it might be. But let's start with the first thing– when one opens their mouth.

00:03:28 Matthew Matheson: Mhm.

00:03:28 Aleksandra King: The first 10 seconds of a talk– what mistake do people make? [laughter]

00:03:35 Matthew Matheson: The first– I think, I mean, probably many, but the most common–

00:03:39 Aleksandra King: Yeah, the most common.

00:03:39 Matthew Matheson: I think is not having the audience with you from the get-go. So starting before they are with you. So you have some people– whenever you have someone starting a talk, whether they're coming from someone before, or people have come from their breakfast, from their lunch, or whatever it is, there's a transition time that takes place. If you don't deal with that transition time, some people will be with you, some still won't.

00:04:02 Aleksandra King: Okay, so give us an example. So is this like if, let's just say, you've just joined a Zoom call– and is this the small talk bit, to bring people–

00:04:14 Matthew Matheson: So there's different ways of doing it. So if we're talking Zoom, that's the first one. It would be like, right, get your cameras on, ask a question and get them to forcefully interact with you. So put something in the chat, give me a thumbs up, whatever it is, so you know everybody's present. If you're in a room, how do you make sure everybody moves from drinking their coffee or checking their phone or reading the programme to engaging with you? And it could be how you use your voice and project it, or my favourite is an engagement. It's like, right, everybody in the room, I just want your attention right now. Like they say– ooh, everyone's heads comes up, they're contracted into you, then you can go. If you start soft, you kind of have to slowly get people on board with you, whereas you want them there from the get-go.

00:04:58 Aleksandra King: That's a really good tip.

00:04:59 Matthew Matheson: Yes.

00:04:59 Aleksandra King: So you're almost like– you're engineering, you're preparing. You're preparing but you don't dive in, you're just preparing first, then you dive in.

00:05:06 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, you need them with you. I often say it's a bit like a DJ. It's like you need to get their attention from the get-go, and once they're with you and they're bought in, then they'll follow you. But what you don't want to be doing is kind of like picking people up as you go, because that's just going to build your anxiety, because you're going to notice some people aren't with you, some with you. Yeah, so as quickly as possible engage them in whatever way it feels good.

00:05:28 Aleksandra King: Did you like what I did then with you? Because you came in and I was like, oh, would you– do you need to go to the bathroom, do you need to do this, do you want some water? And then I was like, right, now that we're sitting down, right, here's your mic, this is the distance, there's the cameras, that one's on me, that one's on you.

00:05:41 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:42 Aleksandra King: And then I was– was that kind of a–

00:05:45 Matthew Matheson: That was good, it was warm. Yeah, you arrived, the first thing you do is say hello and you give me a hug.

00:05:49 Aleksandra King: Oh yeah.

00:05:50 Matthew Matheson: And then ask me how I was, and yeah–

00:05:52 Aleksandra King: Icebreaker.

00:05:53 Matthew Matheson: That was it, an icebreaker. [laughter]

00:05:54 Aleksandra King: Definitely.

00:05:55 Matthew Matheson: Although I never know with the hugs, it's–

00:05:57 Aleksandra King: I like a hug.

00:05:58 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, I'm a hugger.

00:06:00 Aleksandra King: I'm a hugger, I like it.

00:06:01 Matthew Matheson: Definitely.

00:06:01 Aleksandra King: I can't help it, I'm hugging clients all the time. [laughter]

00:06:04 Matthew Matheson: It's a sign of a good relationship.

00:06:07 Aleksandra King: Yeah, because you– I mean, I get excited to see people, and I can't help it. It's one of those things. Okay, so let's say you're about to do that talk.

00:06:19 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:06:20 Aleksandra King: You're starting to get scared.

00:06:22 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:06:22 Aleksandra King: What do you do?

00:06:24 Matthew Matheson: So are we talking beforehand or during?

00:06:26 Aleksandra King: It's like a little bit before. You're doing the warm-up but you're like, oh no, oh gosh.

00:06:31 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:06:31 Aleksandra King: So I think– do I have to do this?

00:06:33 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, "do I have to do this, I'm about to speak." Often it's yes. So what's going on there is like your nervous system is trying to protect you. And let's categorise the brain into two parts. You've got your amygdala, which is what they call the reptile part of your brain, which is "must protect you", and this is where your fight or flight, freeze comes in. Then you've got your logical brain. Now, your amygdala works faster than your logical brain.

00:06:56 Aleksandra King: Okay.

00:06:56 Matthew Matheson: So it is telling you, I'm under threat, even though your logical brain is going, I'm talking to 10 people, why are you feeling like this? So the first thing is to go, it's okay, your body's just doing what it does. And a big part of this work is accepting that our nervous system is going to do something, rather than trying to eradicate the function of our nervous system. So once you become at peace with it, you can manage it and process your nerves. So that's the first thing. The second thing is slow down. When our nervous system takes over, everything speeds up. We talk faster, we move faster, we think faster, because we're in that kind of like "must rescue myself" mode.

00:07:36 Aleksandra King: Yeah, definitely.

00:07:38 Matthew Matheson: So slow right down beforehand, and even if that just means closing your eyes for 5 minutes and breathing slowly to regulate that nervous system, do it. So slow down as well.

00:07:51 Aleksandra King: Okay. What about– okay, but you're scared because you don't want to mess up, you don't want to say silly things, you don't want to be asked questions that are ones you can't answer and that might trip you up, and all that sort of thing. So the fears can actually be valid as well.

00:08:07 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:08:08 Aleksandra King: And I suppose you get nervous because you care.

00:08:12 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:08:13 Aleksandra King: So it's all quite normal, isn't it?

00:08:14 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, very much so. Often say that your nervous system is telling you that you care about what's going on. So use that as a cue rather than a problem, to do a good job.

00:08:23 Aleksandra King: Yeah, because you want to do a good job, and that is a good thing. That in itself should–

00:08:26 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, it's top class.

00:08:29 Aleksandra King: Okay. How do you stop rambling?

00:08:34 Matthew Matheson: Get comfortable with silence. Silence is power in public speaking. [laughter]

00:08:43 Aleksandra King: Silence is power. Right, okay.

00:08:46 Matthew Matheson: And then a purely practical tip that anyone can try, that comes from the world of improvisation, is called– play a game called time machine. So I would give you a piece of content. I might say– talk about– this is something you could do on your own, right, as a way to train yourself on this. I'd say talk about who you are and what you do for 1 minute, and you would monologue for 1 minute. And then I would say to you, right, now do it in 30 seconds. You will double your speed. And then I say, now do it in 20 seconds. And at that point what will probably happen is you'll start cutting out content. And then I'll say, do it in 15 seconds, then do it in 10 seconds, then in five. And then I'll say, do it in two seconds. And you really get down to the nub of the content. So if you have a history of waffling, that's a great exercise to train your brain to get used to cutting through, rather than speeding up or writing more.

00:09:38 Aleksandra King: I have terrific guests on here, but some of them do go into a lot of detail, and then I find myself interrupting because I– [clears throat] [cough] [laughter]

00:09:49 Matthew Matheson: Amazing. Can I just say that?

00:09:54 Aleksandra King: But you have some big– they've got these big minds and they want to carry on and on, but they're not aware of the fact that you can only speak for a certain amount, and then you– yeah, right.

00:10:05 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, it's understanding the context of where you're speaking and who to and what about. And I call this like the scaffolding, and it's like, okay, what's the point I need to get across? Is this a long-form conversation or is it not? What's the purpose of this content afterwards? And that can then inform how you speak. Because we could all talk about what we love for hours, and talk for ourselves for hours, but it may be that we have 45 minutes on a podcast and X number of questions, and it's like, right, we don't want a 5-minute answer for each one.

00:10:37 Aleksandra King: Yes.

00:10:37 Matthew Matheson: So thinking about the scaffolding around it.

00:10:39 Aleksandra King: Yes, although sometimes it's good because you have to have– so it is measuring the moment and seeing how much you should be giving to that moment. But at the same time there's a level of training, and it is training. It really, really is training. It's what you were talking about– that it's a masterclass. And it's genius what you do, really. That's clever, because taking your message down from 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, whatever, all the way down to two seconds– you have to really understand how to do that. And that is training. It's communications training. And that's what people don't really value– that "oh, that's just fluffy stuff, I just have to worry about maths, or I have to worry about whatever it might be, my job." But it's how you do your job, and how you communicate doing your job. Yeah, that's actually a really, really clever thing. But a lot of people that come on don't have that training, and they're really not aware of that at all. There's not really that concept. And it's just a skill that's very neglected, but it's an area for– if you want to quickly show value, you improve your communication skills and you get training.

00:11:57 Matthew Matheson: Very much so. And you've hit the nail on the head about the training piece. I call it somatising your content. So it's like you can think about your content in your head for as long as you want, but until you actually express it through your mouth and your body, you're not going to move along the confidence level or the skill level. And this is the trap people fall into, is they'll spend 3 weeks working on a PowerPoint presentation and then do a quick run-through the night before to somatise it, and it'll feel weird because they haven't brought all three online together at the same time. And that's the training piece. It's just getting into your body with it and exploring it, being playful with it as well.

00:12:34 Aleksandra King: Mhm. When I was little I was privileged enough to do Toastmasters.

00:12:39 Matthew Matheson: Oh wow, amazing. Okay, great.

00:12:41 Aleksandra King: Yes, and in Toastmasters they do something similar to what you've said here, probably not as deep and not as thorough. But they did say to us, for example, get up, talk about nails, nails, for 3 minutes. And you've got a room full of people and they're all looking at you and you've got to make it interesting. But what they had as well, which was cool, was they had a traffic light system. So green light, you're still talking within your time frame, and then it went to orange where you're running out of time, and then it's like two and a half minutes or something.

00:13:14 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah.

00:13:15 Aleksandra King: And they had all of that. And it trained you to talk about pretty much anything, to structure it, to have a beginning, a middle and an end. So people have this whole that's presented, but at the same time trying to make them want to listen to you. And also it's a topic you want to ramble on, because what on earth are you [clears throat] going to talk about with nails? But actually there's so many different types of nails, right? Nails, nails. And you can just think– and yeah, it teaches you– you know, impromptu, and you have prepared speech, you have unprepared speech, prepared reading, you have unprepared reading, poetry, all of these things. But these are skills and you learn them and you practise them. And even people that think that they're great communicators might not be so great.

00:14:01 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah. It reminds me, there's another training aid I use from time to time called– you might come across it– called PowerPoint Karaoke.

00:14:09 Aleksandra King: I haven't, actually.

00:14:10 Matthew Matheson: Okay, so you know the website SlideShare.net. Okay, so basically it's got thousands, if not millions, of PowerPoints people have uploaded. And you can do this as a personal training aid, or you can do it in your team as an activity. But you essentially chuck a random search into SlideShare, whatever PowerPoint comes up, open it, and then you have to present it. So it could be any industry. So for example I could [laughter] perhaps get, let's say, the history of cameras, and then I have to convincingly present it even though I don't know what's on each slide, what the content is. And it's a real– like, the shift comes when you let go of trying to be an expert in the content and move to just embodying delivery.

00:14:52 Aleksandra King: Oh wow.

00:14:52 Matthew Matheson: And then once you kind of get into that, you can almost make anything sound compelling, as long as you really authentically do it. Embody– let go of the content and embody the delivery.

00:15:04 Aleksandra King: That's it, yeah. So getting out of the head and into the body. [sighs] I love that, I love that. Okay.

00:15:11 Matthew Matheson: It's great fun as well.

00:15:12 Aleksandra King: Yeah, yeah. So how much– because you will know with the podcast, we discussed the sort of content that we'd cover and I didn't want you to prepare under any circumstances.

00:15:25 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, you made that very clear.

00:15:26 Aleksandra King: I made it very clear. [laughter] Because I'm doing the little tricks they do in TV production. I've been on a few TV productions now, I've been on The Apprentice and A Place in the Sun: Home or Away, and they always want that spontaneous reaction. So sometimes they might have to do retakes, but they really want to have your facial expressions and everything, because that's the juice that delivers to the audience. So how much then, realistically– you're going into a meeting, or you're going onto stage, you're going to present to all these people, you've got to convince them– how much preparation do you do, rehearsal do you do? Where do you draw the line for that sort of thing?

00:16:03 Matthew Matheson: So there's a scale, and I always say– so there's a process I take people through for how to prepare and how to rehearse, and it's called From Card to Clarity. So I say you don't do it on a computer, you do it on index cards. But there's two variables in the process, and number one is how much rehearsal you do, and then number two is how much feedback you get from other people before you go into that meeting or that presentation. And to answer your question, which is how much preparation should they do– it's driven by two things, both of them are risk factors. So number one, how much external risk is there on this? For example PR, financial, etc, etc. So who are the people you're speaking to and how big a gig is this? And then number two is internal risk. So what's your nervous system telling you? And if your nervous system is high, your adrenaline is running, or the external risk is high, or both are high, then that's an indicator of where you should be on your scale of how prepared you are.

00:17:05 Aleksandra King: Mhm, that makes sense. So pretty prepared if you're– if [laughter] it's a big ticket gig you need to prepare. And it needs to be conscious action, not just thought.

00:17:14 Matthew Matheson: Conscious bodily action– and that's what builds confidence, not thinking.

00:17:19 Aleksandra King: So preparing the content as much as you can so you understand it, you're not saying things that are legally incorrect or financially incorrect, all that sort of thing. Get your information right, but then also work on yourself to be prepared.

00:17:34 Matthew Matheson: Yeah. So for me– okay, so there's a couple of things there. So with the kind of legal, financial thing, so we're kind of moving into the area of scripting content here. I actually, generally speaking as a rule of thumb, think scripts are bad things, because anything that is written is meant to be read, and anything that is spoken is meant to be said. And when you're communicating normally you're in a space of speaking, and you want to be like that when you're presenting, unless we're in areas such as law, academia, then you may need to move into script.

00:18:07 Aleksandra King: Yeah, this is more of a script area. But there are still spaces where actually it can be too scripted. Depends what you're doing. If you're rolling out laws and bits and pieces, citing research, like, you've got to get that right, especially with media hawks all over you. I'm not going to mention politicians' names because you [laughter] get into trouble, but they have these little arguments with each other about who uses a teleprompter and who doesn't, and when it's put– so "I can do it without a teleprompter, you can't", and it's like– yeah.

00:18:37 Matthew Matheson: So the thing I like about teleprompters, and the way I think they should be used, actually comes in the second half of that word– prompt. Prompt. It's like "tele", you're going to look at something, "prompt", you should be able to just glance at it and move. And I say generally speaking that's how you should operate, is with any notes that you have, whether they're on the notes side of your presentation view in PowerPoint, or you have them in physical form, they should be glanceable, not readable. Glanceable. And the way for them to become glanceable is for you to have learned them. So I suggest– rather than creating a script and then script and then trying to distil it, I say to people flip that and start with the helicopter view. What are the key content heartbeats you want to present? And then explore them through your speech and boil them down to key prompts, so that you could stand up, take a glance at that and then riff it for a minute. But you need to have done that enough in advance, know your content well enough that you're not going to cycle off for 7 minutes. So this is where the control piece comes in, the brevity piece comes in, and the silence piece, where you can slow down and ground. Does that make sense?

00:19:51 Aleksandra King: Yeah, it does make total sense. Total sense. And you can have those on a teleprompter, you can have them on a tablet, you can have them as a little– like you say, a little card.

00:19:59 Matthew Matheson: I like cards because they don't make noise when you–

00:20:01 Aleksandra King: Because if you're nervous and the paper's going here, paper's no good.

00:20:04 Matthew Matheson: No, doesn't work. Smart cards– rule of threes, no more than three prompts per card. Because once you move to four, your brain processes it differently and you're kind of searching for something, whereas three you can glance and go back.

00:20:17 Aleksandra King: Yeah, yeah. Now you're speaking like a marketer.

00:20:21 Matthew Matheson: I've spent years working in digital agencies and the likes, because my early career– so maybe there's something there.

00:20:28 Aleksandra King: Yeah, because you want– three is a memorable, it's digestible.

00:20:32 Matthew Matheson: Yeah. And the same goes for everyone creating all these busy PowerPoint slides. Rule of threes. Don't overwhelm by PowerPoint. PowerPoint's nice for images, graphs, to visually explain things or to really highlight something.

00:20:47 Aleksandra King: But yes, reading the PowerPoints is a tragedy.

00:20:51 Matthew Matheson: Mhm, never do it.

00:20:53 Aleksandra King: Yeah, never do it. Never, ever, ever read your PowerPoint. And also sometimes I find one of the classic mistakes people make is when they go through a PowerPoint they just go through it, and they don't check in with their audience. As you would– or when you're on a stage you would feel whether they're listening to you, you would see whether they're– but also when you're on that screen, you're all on screens, you should be looking at who's actually [sighs and gasps]– or, you know, who's tuning in, who's tuning out.

00:21:24 Matthew Matheson: Besides, is that like you say– is that clear, are you with me? Right. Like, so there's a rule that I like for online meetings, which is a tactic, one of many you can use, which I call the three Ps.

00:21:35 Aleksandra King: Okay.

00:21:35 Matthew Matheson: Pose, pause, pounce.

00:21:37 Aleksandra King: Okay, explain. Sounds a lot more aggressive than what it is.

00:21:39 Matthew Matheson: But it's not. The idea is that you pose a question to everybody in the Zoom room, and you tell them that in a moment, after a pause, you're going to request someone to speak or feedback. So you're posing the question, you're pausing, and then you're kind of pouncing on someone to then give it. So "pounce" makes it sound really aggressive and you're putting people on the spot. It works nice as alliteration of three Ps, but the principle is there's a question you're giving them, and you're going to be seeking feedback from everybody, and you put a pause in between. And then that's the– how to catch the yawns. It's like, okay, throw in an engagement tactic immediately as soon as you see people switching off. And it's really simple. I think for online pieces there should be an interaction of some sort every three to five minutes, even if that's a micro check-in. Put it in the chat. Is everyone with me? Give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down so I can understand where you're at. I've noticed four cameras are off, are you still with me? And just constant check-ins all the way through so that people recontract with you.

00:22:43 Aleksandra King: Yeah, love it, love it. You know what I do as part of my research and development to try be a better podcast host and always just improve what I'm doing– I watch other podcast hosts, I watch other presenters. I watch, you know, The News Agents– Emily Maitlis. I see how she uses silence and pauses. For example, her interview with Prince Andrew is very good, the way that she paused a lot and left that space for the question to be answered. But something that, for example, Piers Morgan does very well is that he will watch– I mean, they're all different, we're not saying who we like and don't like here, but this is more a communication style. So what he does quite a lot, and I find it very effective, is that when he has panellists and they're all opinions and whatever, he watches them very carefully. So if he sees an eye roll, or– it's quite– it's called Uncensored, so it's very high energy and it's all about controversy, but he watches so carefully, like a hawk, for what the panellists are doing outside of the one speaking. And then says, oh, I noticed you getting really frustrated and shifting about in your chair or rolling your eyes, and then he said, why did you– what are you feeling right now? And then it comes out. It's very clever.

00:24:02 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, picking up the bodily and energetic cues as well, which is really big in the world of counselling and psychotherapy as well. You don't just listen to the words, you look at what their legs are doing, what their face is doing, what their hands are doing, what's the [sighs] sound of their voice doing. And these little subtle cues are all expressions of our subconscious, if you like. So it may be an expression of disengagement or anxiety, or like a wanting to contribute, or whatever it may be, in some shape or form.

00:24:37 Aleksandra King: Uncomfortable. Someone sort of– you've made a point and then they're like, well, right. Or they put their [laughter] hand over their– you know, there's little things that you can look for.

00:24:45 Matthew Matheson: But you should be reading the room, even the online room, really carefully.

00:24:48 Aleksandra King: When you're presenting it's quite difficult, because you have to deliver all this stuff, it's got to be accurate, it's got to be engaging, you're performing in a way because you want them to listen, but at the same time you need to be watching for information to know that–

00:25:01 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, that's why it requires training, time to get better at it.

00:25:08 Aleksandra King: Researching. Yeah, definitely.

00:25:10 Matthew Matheson: I delivered a workshop on– where are we, we were on Friday– night, it was on Tuesday– for a digital agency, all about online training and presentations. And the very first thing is, like, at the beginning of a meeting ask people to put their cameras on, and leave permission for people that may not be wanting to because they've been unwell or uncomfortable, but it's okay to ask. Most people have kind of moved into this default thing where we just jump on and we don't really know who's present. And it's like, okay, no, everyone cameras on, just to let me know you're here if you're able to and comfortable to. And it's amazing, everybody just flicks up and goes, hi, sorry, I was just eating a biscuit, or whatever it may be, and then they're present rather than away. The eyes and the mouth are the most expressive parts of the body, so if you want to read your room you need to be able to see that. And remember they're going to be looking at yours.

00:26:02 Aleksandra King: Oof, terrifying. [laughter]

00:26:05 Matthew Matheson: And beautiful.

00:26:07 Aleksandra King: It is, it is. There is an art to comms, and it is actually good to take time to– when you're watching a podcast the next time, or you're watching the news, to look at the communication style of the person presenting. And they may be making mistakes– you may think, oh, you said that too fast, you could have used that moment more. Or, wow, this person's really engaging, why, what are they doing? Yeah, you can learn from these people.

00:26:34 Matthew Matheson: Definitely. I think it's important to draw inspiration from people that you identify with as speakers, and that can be anybody. We do this a lot in the programmes that we do, is that we identify people important to the client that they respect from a speaking point of view, and it's like, okay, well what is it you love about that style? What can you draw from it inspirationally and then kind of embed into your toolkit, if that makes sense? So it's not about imitation– very different– but it's about what feels familiar, what feels authentic, what feels homely to you, and then how does that look in your world. And whether that's a news presenter or a family member or church leader or whatever it may be, there's all things that we've taken on from people that we've been inspired by as we grow and stuff.

00:27:20 Aleksandra King: Yes, that for sure, for sure. So what's your three-second hook formula for an opening line?

00:27:29 Matthew Matheson: Start with a question.

00:27:31 Aleksandra King: Ooh, start with a question.

00:27:32 Matthew Matheson: Get the audience doing something immediately.

00:27:34 Aleksandra King: Awesome.

00:27:35 Matthew Matheson: So if I've got a room of a couple of hundred people, I will come on bold, strong, and immediately get them discussing something in a pair. It's like, right, okay, this is what we're going to come– I'm going to pose a piece of information, I'm going to give you all 1 minute to turn to your partner and discuss what this means to you. Instantly everybody's phones are dropped, put down, their notepads down, they're engaging with each other, and bang, they're engaged with you. And then you get two or three answers from the audience that then seed into the next part of your message.

00:28:01 Aleksandra King: That is powerful.

00:28:02 Matthew Matheson: Breaks the ice for everyone in the room, breaks the ice for you as the presenter. It's at the apex point, the first minute– your nervous system, the content, you– duh duh duh duh duh duh– and you're all in it together.

00:28:13 Aleksandra King: Oh, I love that, that's powerful. That's good. Okay, well, I like that one. Cool. All right. [snorts] Now, your body, your voice, your content– what's the most important out of that when you're doing the performance, the presentation? And what's dangerously ignored?

00:28:34 Matthew Matheson: So if we imagine your content, your voice and your body as, let's say, like a pyramid, three pillars– okay– and if we lived in a world that was full of butterflies and harmony and balance and everything was beautiful and in harmony, we'd be right in the middle and have a gentle attention on all three when we're presenting. But what actually happens is we get pulled from pillar to post, and that shows up in three ways. Sometimes we focus too much on our content, and then we lose sight of how we look and how we sound. So that can show up as, "I must get every single word out of my head out of my mouth the way it is in my head, otherwise I've got it wrong." It's perfect script mentality, far too much information, you lose sight of– hold on, what's needed, what's the way to do it, or how should I sound? If you go too far into performance mode, you lose sight of your content, of course, and it becomes all about performance and ego and this, that and the other. And then how you sound– I mean, they're quite close bedfellows, how you look and how you sound, because it's your somaticised experience, if that makes sense. The goal really is– the rule of thumb I always say when we go through this pillar in my programme is that your body language and your tone of voice should either back up or imitate one of two things: either your content, or the emotion that you want to convey. Does that make sense?

00:29:59 Aleksandra King: Oh yeah. Okay.

00:30:00 Matthew Matheson: Okay, so if I'm talking about facing a wall of challenges like this, then I want my voice to kind of express that I've got challenges and my body language to show it. I wouldn't go, "oh, you know, I'm kind of facing this wall of challenges at the moment, it's really–" yeah, that doesn't– it's out of sync, it's out of congruence.

00:30:20 Aleksandra King: Yeah. [snorts]

00:30:21 Matthew Matheson: So that's a rule of thumb. Because most people start– when you start saying we need to look at how we're working with your body, they're like, oh, well how do I use my arms, what do I do, am I gesticulating too much, am I– it's like, okay, look at how you operate when you're completely in tune with someone you're really comfortable with and you are in your element, and it's like your body just naturally embodies what you're saying. So it's like, right, let's get clear on what that looks like, and then pour that into these professional spaces. That's why we feel uncomfortable when someone lies to us– we instinctively know they're lying.

00:30:56 Aleksandra King: Yes.

00:30:57 Matthew Matheson: And I suppose the clearest model– so if we're talking about what you say, how you look and how you sound needing to come together to land an emotion, the clearest model where this works or doesn't is with an apology. So it's like, oh, I hear it in your words, but I can see in your body language you don't mean it. Or you'll show up but you're not prepared to say it. But when all three come together, you feel it. And it's the same principle when you're presenting. It's like, okay, how do I want this audience to feel? This is a question you should ask at the beginning of any preparation process. I want them to feel motivated, excited, curious, angry, frustrated– what is it you want to generate? And then you've got to express that in what you say, how you look and how you sound. And if all three come together it's authentic, even if the audience disagree with you, which is fine. I'd far rather have someone disagree with me but go, "but he believes what he says", than it to be out of joint, out of sync.

00:31:55 Aleksandra King: That does make sense. Yeah. So when you are afraid, and there's nothing really that you can do and your body language is showing that, how can you still maintain some level of authority and still take people with you even though you're afraid and you're finding it hard to control that?

00:32:14 Matthew Matheson: Yeah. So there's different levels of anxiety for different people, and I think the best way to answer this question, because there's lots of ways in which you can manage it– so I think the first is slow down. It's nearly always the same. When people are afraid, it shows up as speeding up. All right, either speeding up or freezing, both of which can be dealt with by becoming comfortable with silence. So if you can sit in the middle of a mind blank, which is a symptom of your fear– so that's part of the kind of freeze response– if you can sit with it, then you can reframe that mind blank to a positive sign that you've said all you need to say in that moment. Look at your notes, move on to the next piece. Likewise, if you're going too fast, "I've gone off to a tangent, I don't–" [sighs] come back, move on. So it is about getting comfortable with silence, I'd say, in both those things, because it will pass. It will pass.

00:33:14 Aleksandra King: What if you're losing the room and they're not paying attention anymore and they're shuffling about, or audience are yawning and they start talking to each other? You're losing them, they're slipping away, they're not listening to you, you don't have that authority. What can you quickly do to get them back?

00:33:26 Matthew Matheson: Okay, so if I'm presenting to a room and I'm losing the room and they're shuffling, getting on their phones, it's like, right, everybody, I need everyone's attention right now. Cut through. "Oh, what's going on here?" Okay. I want you all to stand up if– so just lean into whatever topic you're talking about. So if you're talking about public speaking– I want you to all stand up if you have some sort of fear around public speaking. "Oh gosh, okay, he's got me now." It's like, engagement piece. You need to find a way to get their attention back on you and connect with you again.

00:33:58 Aleksandra King: Hmm, okay. Much more difficult to do on social media, but possible. A little– if we– on social media, this is where the power of–

00:34:09 Matthew Matheson: Are you talking broadcast purely, or just attention?

00:34:12 Aleksandra King: When I say social media, I'm talking about the jungle of– I see the two worlds. It's a private investigator actually said, remember we have two worlds.

00:34:22 Matthew Matheson: It's the same thing.

00:34:23 Aleksandra King: Get training from the private investigator in a way. But we have our world here, and this is how we look here, and then we have our other world, the digital world, and how we look there and how we perform there. And that world, like this world, is very, very crowded and noisy.

00:34:36 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:34:36 Aleksandra King: And everyone's competing for attention, resources, all of that thing, in both worlds. Yeah, it's loud.

00:34:42 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, very much so. Jungle out there. So cutting through in social media is very different to cutting through in the room. We could probably podcast this for 10 days. But I think authenticity speaks. Even the people that– these viral– I have to– gosh, what's the word I'm looking for–

00:35:03 Aleksandra King: Stars.

00:35:04 Matthew Matheson: Stars, I guess you could call it, that have like tens, hundreds of thousands of followers, that so many people will hate– the thing is, they're authentic, even if you might not agree with them and what they do in their practices. But they're authentic, and that cuts through. And that's part of what makes people polarising or interesting or intriguing. So, this person really believes that and I really get behind that. And the other side of it is like, [snorts] this person really believes that and that really jars with me. Both of which leave an imprint on you, and that's your cut-through piece.

00:35:34 Aleksandra King: It's like someone that springs to mind when you say that is Jake Paul. I don't know if you know him, but he's become a boxer, he's evolved into a boxer. He started in social media quite young, him and his brother. But they're so outlandish and so out there and so just– how I wouldn't personally behave. It's quite interesting what they say, but how can you possibly speak like this? Yeah, like you're so not like– you don't do that. That fight with Mike Tyson, that was Jake Paul, wasn't it? That's a controversial one, but yeah.

00:36:07 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, that's another podcast.

00:36:08 Aleksandra King: That's another [laughter] podcast.

00:36:10 Matthew Matheson: That's another podcast.

00:36:11 Aleksandra King: He got really, really upset with Piers Morgan about him. But yeah, he's a big character. He's interesting because he's different. But yes, that's– it's not necessarily good PR for some of these guys and girls. Isn't a phrase that all PR's good PR?

00:36:29 Matthew Matheson: Mhm.

00:36:31 Aleksandra King: Mhm. I'm not sure I agree with that, but yeah. Yeah, okay. So what is your most effective cognitive behavioural therapy reframe for fear?

00:36:41 Matthew Matheson: Oh, that's a good question. I think if we're talking about getting out of an initial freeze, there's a tactic that comes from the world of CBT called deferring. So let's say you are 2 days before a speaking gig and you're kind of entering into that cycle of negativity– when you've got that same worry going round and round and round and it feels like the walls are closing in–

00:37:06 Aleksandra King: It'll be terrible.

00:37:07 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, it's going to be terrible, people aren't going to like me, my content's going to be no good, I'm going to freeze, whatever it may be. They've got a tactic called deferring. So what you do is you get a piece of paper and you write down three things. Number one, you write down the thing that you're worried about– that releases it. Number two, you then write down a date, and then number three, a time on that date that you're going to give yourself permission to come back and worry about it. So I might say, oh, I'm really worried about this podcast, how's it going to go, da da da da da da da da, and this is starting to keep me up. So then I'd just express my worry, really get clear– what am I scared of, what's– so do I really just express it. So systematise it essentially. And then say, well, I'm going to give myself permission to come back on Saturday at 7:00 and worry about it.

00:37:51 Aleksandra King: You're scared of Aleksandra because she asks tough questions.

00:37:55 Matthew Matheson: But the process of writing it down releases it, and then the process of putting a time and a day in the future combats that part of your brain that says, well, I want to give it a bit of an airtime. So you're not saying no, you're just saying not now. And then check in at Saturday at 7:00 and you're going to go, what was I worried about?

00:38:14 Aleksandra King: I like it. There's no point in like writing it down and sort of controlling it. Yeah, it's like a little wild animal or something. [laughter] I don't know what I'm talking about.

00:38:24 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, a puppy that needs training or something like that.

00:38:28 Aleksandra King: That's it, yeah. Learn to sit.

00:38:30 Matthew Matheson: Treat, yeah.

00:38:31 Aleksandra King: Okay, so we've spoken about brain freeze. So when it comes to some of the people that you've trained– and you must have worked with lots of different people, and you have done World Health Organization and executives and the full shebang– what makes a really good speaker?

00:38:49 Matthew Matheson: Someone who speaks in congruence with their intentions and is very at ease with that. And what I mean by that is someone who is very able to really align their words with what they truly believe.

00:39:13 Aleksandra King: Okay, mhm. You mean internally, almost like aligning their words with their be– so they have to– is it believing what they say themselves deep inside, so getting that part right? Or is it anything external as well?

00:39:29 Matthew Matheson: So I think once you– if you can– once you're really clear on what it is you want to say and how you want to say it, then the external part will almost naturally come online, in that same way that I was saying earlier, when we're in a space where we feel ridiculously comfortable around people and we are just expressing, our whole body is online. Every person listening to this podcast will have certain times in their life and areas where people just shut up and listen to them, or they've made them cry, or they've made them laugh, or they've done all these things that we say we want to do as speakers. And it's exactly the same when working with an exec or like a director or whatever it is. It's like, right, okay, how do we kind of move away from this idea of trying to put on someone else's outfit of what you think a speaker should be, and just unlock that real natural kind of open dialogue? And yes, you might need to wrap some structure around it in order to kind of formalise it, but that for me, that's the best speakers– the ones where you just– they are completely themselves, saying it like it is within the boundaries of whatever the engagement is.

00:40:36 Aleksandra King: Mhm, interesting, interesting. So we did speak a bit about this with the PowerPoint slides and things, but what advice do you have for people that have to present a lot of data? And I have this as well with my teams, because we have to present some serious statistics and go into very granular level of digital marketing and exactly how that breaks down and what CTR you're going to have where. There's tables and there's statistics and it can get really heavy, and it's also quite complicated. So what advice do you have for those kind of difficult, data-heavy presentations?

00:41:16 Matthew Matheson: It's a great question, because I do loads of work with tech teams, partly driven from my background being in that space. And I'll draw from, I guess, like a case study. So I work with one big organisation that kind of head up their process automation industry, if you like, and they do lots of events and they have loads of techies on stage all the time having to present different models and stuff. And one of the biggest things I could say is, right, how can you use metaphors to bring stuff to life? So for example, a presentation might be talking about the fact that we've got six different data sets that have to come together and be refactored, and they've got version control, and then how do we release this, and there's all that kind of stuff. It's like, you're going to lose your audience unless you've got like a room full of really geeky techies– you're going to lose them. So I'd say, okay, what metaphor could you use? For example, you might say, okay, imagine a town, and then on the outskirts of this town we've got six farms, and one farm is cultivating apples, the next pears, the next strawberries, whatever it may be. We need to get all this different fruit to the market by a certain period of time, we've only got four roads– here's– so how do you build out metaphors that bring things to life through lenses that people understand in daily life, which is what they see, what they hear, what they eat, what they smell? These kind of concepts– how can you use that to paint a picture? Does that make sense?

00:42:39 Aleksandra King: Yeah. So they can illustrate to make it a bit more exciting, they can break down that data too.

00:42:47 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, you can do it visually or through language. Imagine that we're in this particular world and this data is this– and then build those pictures that help people connect to it.

00:43:03 Aleksandra King: I like that. Yeah. And what about– [snorts] well, the difficulty as well is acronyms. And I suppose some of these guys, they come from very, very, very technical backgrounds, whether it's economics or whatever, and programming, and they– in their worlds. So how can they remember to get out of it and sort of explain concepts? Like, how do they go about it, and what's the balance?

00:43:31 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, so there's a rule of thumb, particularly with, let's say, process or data-heavy presentations, where often there'll be a temptation to– so the rule of thumb comes after the risk. So the risk is that what you'll see is there's loads of content on the slides and they want to just talk about those technical stuff. So the first thing is like, do you really need all that on there? And the second thing is like, really signpost every slide before you go into the detail. And that is like, what are we seeing and why is it important? So right now what you're seeing is a summary of this, which is this. Then you can come into the detail. Next slide– what you're seeing is this, this is why it's important, now I'll describe the details of that. Continual kind of bringing people up to the big picture so they know what they're seeing, rather than just getting lost in it and starting to really get that–

00:44:22 Aleksandra King: That is such a good tip. That's so valid, because a lot of these guys, they're brilliant because they are at the granular level, and they dive straight in. They're thinking that everyone's on board, and they really are explaining exactly what they know they need to explain, but they've just gone right in, and people go, whoa, sorry, what is that, where– even though they're well-meaning and they are correct. It's just– yes. So you're saying come headline, swoop in.

00:44:49 Matthew Matheson: Yeah. So what we're seeing, why is it important, for every slide if it's busy.

00:44:53 Aleksandra King: Mhm.

00:44:54 Matthew Matheson: There's another concept I have called diving for the pearl, which is the idea of– your audience should always know where they are in the presentation, not just in your content. And that's if you've got a risky, techy things. Like, at the get-go you should say, right, this is what we're going to cover. Imagine like a boat going out to sea. It's like, right, we're going from point A to point B. Okay, audience needs to know where point B is at the beginning. Call it out. Today we're going to go all the way through this journey and I'm going to take you there. Then as you get into your content, this is like the boat going on its journey. It's going to stop off somewhere and you're going to dive down and find a pearl. Okay, but before you go looking for the next pearl you've got to come back up and say, okay, we've done one, this is still where we're going. Okay, so we're at stage two of four, three of four. And I see often a lot of my clients in the tech space do this well. They'll almost use like the kind of like game progress indicators. It's a good metaphor to kind of explain this. It's like, okay, we've got 30 minutes of getting lost in this world. I want to know where I am at 5 minutes, I want to know where I am at 10 minutes.

00:45:53 Aleksandra King: Yeah.

00:45:53 Matthew Matheson: And it's almost like, here's your indicator showing progress. So can you do that verbally, visually, metaphorically, whatever?

00:46:00 Aleksandra King: It's like going off to dinner with someone then, and you've got, say, [laughter] the first course–

00:46:04 Matthew Matheson: I usually talk about meals as metaphors for presentations, actually.

00:46:08 Aleksandra King: Yeah, because you know where you are in the process. You know you've got your starter, your main, you've got your dessert, you know you've got all these things.

00:46:13 Matthew Matheson: That's it, yeah, definitely. I usually say there's like the fast food, or there's a Michelin-grade experience. Which are you going to serve up? And the fast food is like, okay, it's all coming out like this, there's no structure, it's a bit like that kebab. It feels overwhelming, I don't know if it's good for me. And then there's, here's the first course, have the first course, take it away, here's the second course, have the second course.

00:46:34 Aleksandra King: Oh yes, we want the Michelin star experience. We want the fantastic service.

00:46:38 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, that's it.

00:46:39 Aleksandra King: Oh. Care, love. Yes, yes. So that's a helpful, very helpful tip. Okay. [clears throat] With 24 hours to prepare– yeah, let's say you're doing this tomorrow. What do you do? Or just, less than what do you do– what's the most important thing?

00:46:57 Matthew Matheson: Don't write a script, because you're just going to get into thinking mode for absolutely ages. Get a series of index cards in front of you, work out by brainstorming on each card very quickly, one topic per card, what might go into this presentation. Within 3 minutes you're going to have the outline of a presentation in front of you. And then pick those cards up and summarise, rehearsal on those cards, to start exploring the content.

00:47:20 Aleksandra King: Do you rehearse to the mirror?

00:47:22 Matthew Matheson: Oh, it's a good question. I generally say no. No to the idea of rehearsing in front of a camera and a mirror, because negativity bias creeps in. We see ourselves in a more negative light than other people do. Therefore when we start looking at ourselves, particularly if we're vulnerable or anxious, we see our problems rather than our strengths.

00:47:40 Aleksandra King: Do you know what, I really dislike seeing myself on podcasts and TV.

00:47:45 Matthew Matheson: It's strange, isn't it?

00:47:46 Aleksandra King: It's cringe. [laughter] When I see myself I'm like, you do not– that is so bad. The other day I did a podcast with Andrew Jenkins from Traitors, and I had to do a remote one, and I [laughter]– and I washed my hair and it was quite nice when I left the house. It was quite like– because I just freshly– I did a really, really quick blow dry here. But then I got into the Zoom thing, I did the remote session, SquadCast, and then I watched it back because I had to, and I was like, oh no, oh no, this is how I've come across, this is my hair, this is everything. But you've got to let it go.

00:48:26 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:48:27 Aleksandra King: Because perfection is good, but you can't always be completely perfect all the time, right?

00:48:36 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, of course.

00:48:37 Aleksandra King: Just– I've had a bad headache, so deal with it. Yeah. [laughter]

00:48:43 Matthew Matheson: Mhm. And that's where I say like script mentality creeps in, right? Often use the metaphor of a game of football when it comes to preparing your presentation. It's like, there's nothing in the rules of football that says in order for a goal to be awarded it has to be a striker who hits it, and it then has to be hit in at an angle, and it has to go through the goalie's legs, and it has to go in the top left-hand corner, otherwise no goal's awarded. But if you tie yourself down to a script unnecessarily, you've only got one way of scoring that goal. But actually there's all these other players available within you, within the room, and if you can naturalise and step back and improvise a little, you suddenly have 150 ways of scoring that goal. We don't want perfect, we want natural, we want good, we want in the moment, we want inspirational, we want authentic. Scripted doesn't tend to lend itself to that.

00:49:39 Aleksandra King: Mhm. Yeah. And also once that happens quite a lot, you just accept– you accept that this is who you are, this is how you present, this is– we all have good hair days and we all have bad hair days.

00:49:55 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, we're all human as well.

00:49:57 Aleksandra King: That is it. People aren't looking at us judging our hair.

00:50:00 Matthew Matheson: No.

00:50:00 Aleksandra King: No, but we judge ourselves.

00:50:02 Matthew Matheson: We do, we do.

00:50:03 Aleksandra King: Whether– we all do.

00:50:05 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, we do. That's negativity bias. It's just the way we are.

00:50:11 Aleksandra King: Okay, so we've covered no notes, we want to have these little cards. Now we've touched on hair– where does real confidence come from?

00:50:21 Matthew Matheson: Where does real confidence come from? It's a great question. Real confidence comes from being comfortable saying what you really want to say. And if you look at where people, whether on stage or otherwise, really lacking confidence, very often it's because they're out of what you'd call congruence, which is where your actions are aligned with your intentions. Once these become– so, I really want to be this way but I can't be this way, I want to say this thing to this person but something just stops me from doing it– that's like being out of congruence. And in congruence is when that's aligned, and when that's aligned then you have a real natural confidence.

00:51:16 Aleksandra King: Wow. It seems to be like you're saying it comes with freedom.

00:51:21 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, I think there's a lot of freedom in– yeah, if we imagine that–

00:51:25 Aleksandra King: Yeah, definitely.

00:51:25 Matthew Matheson: I love that way of putting it, really like that. The being out of congruence– if you take the opposite of freedom, is– without getting too meta– it's almost like there's these restrictions that are on you that are stopping you from saying something. Maybe it's a fear of how you'll be seen, or a fear of conflict, or a fear of judgement, or whatever it may be, that then hold you back from saying what you really want to say, and you're restricted.

00:51:49 Aleksandra King: Yeah. These days people are very scared online of cancellation. Fear of cancellation.

00:51:53 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, very, very much so.

00:51:57 Aleksandra King: Repercussions.

00:51:58 Matthew Matheson: Yes.

00:52:01 Aleksandra King: Okay, so companies– we'll just dive into this one.

00:52:05 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, go for it.

00:52:07 Aleksandra King: Let's [snorts] say there's no budget for any big changes, but you want to make your meetings better. I had a client saying to me the other day, we don't want meetings, we just want to get work done, we want fewer meetings. We don't like that. And there is, in the corporate world, there's a lot of meetings and they happen a lot. Some companies who have budgets have something called quality control, ISO.

00:52:32 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, ISO.

00:52:34 Aleksandra King: And then they will limit the amount of meetings, or there'll be great purposes and procedures as to when the meeting happens, what the outcomes are. It's very process-driven. But for companies that can't afford that, what's the correct process to make it a good meeting culture?

00:52:53 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, there's a few things. So I do a lot of work in this space. So one big bold rule is don't send empty meeting invites, and reject any empty meeting invites that you get. So if we were working together, I should never send you and a group of people a meeting invite that has no information on how you're contributing or why you're there. So for example, "check-in", "project catch-up". The amount of people I speak to– countless– they're like, I don't really know what this meeting's about but I've been invited, I just know it's about this project. So I say, right, you all have permission now, no one can send those types of invites, and if you receive one you're allowed to reject it until someone tells you how you are expected to contribute in that meeting. And it's amazing how quickly, just that little bit of thought, half the people aren't needed in that meeting. So that's number one. Number two is, right at the beginning of every single meeting– and this should take no more than 2 minutes max– whoever's running it is say, okay, just before we start, I just want to check in with everyone here, where do you want to get to by the time we're done in this half hour? And then everybody kind of put their signposts in, and immediately there's going to be some stuff that you don't know there, and there's going to be some stuff that you can qualify, and you may also quickly be able to say, okay, we're covering that separately, you can head out. So those are two things I would say could probably make a big change in the preparation and in the meeting half.

00:54:16 Aleksandra King: Yeah. The worst meeting I've ever attended, actually– and I'm not going to say the name of the client– was [laughter]– was in Warsaw, in a skyscraper. And yeah, I walked in there, I was at quite a junior role at the time, and there was a lot of feisty energy in the room, and the two senior team members started to lock horns and argue. And we were just expected to sit there and listen to this argument, and it just got– you know, it started to escalate, they were getting really angry with each other, and then they started to swear. And at that point I just got up and I said, thank you, but this is not for me. And I was a junior, I was only a junior. I was like, oh no, I am so fired, I am literally fired. I wasn't, thankfully. But I did think at that point that I cannot– I don't have the time to sit in this meeting. Like, this is so bad, it's giving me anxiety. And yeah, I exited the room.

00:55:25 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah, it's horrible. I've been in a similar situation. I remember working with an organisation, and this was online rather than in the room, but almost exactly the same thing happened. One of the directors and one of the staff members just– it just opened up into this really toxic conversation. And yeah, I remember it concluded and we left, and I remember– now I have to name this– and I had a conversation with– I've just said, I don't agree with how that went. No, I need to give you this feedback. This went outside the boundaries of both professional and personal for these people.

00:56:08 Aleksandra King: Gosh. And that shouldn't be on display.

00:56:10 Matthew Matheson: No.

00:56:11 Aleksandra King: Do you remember there was one about the parish council that went viral? The online– I [laughter] mean, I laugh but I shouldn't.

00:56:19 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

00:56:20 Aleksandra King: The parish council basically started to argue, and the chairperson and someone got kicked out, and it went viral. It was when we all jumped on Zoom during COVID, wasn't it, and these videos were everywhere, weren't they? Yes, gosh. I think a lady called Jackie was– [laughter] that was it, yeah.

00:56:35 Matthew Matheson: So you've just taken me back to the first– I shouldn't laugh because it's quite sad.

00:56:38 Aleksandra King: Why we laughing? It's a real shame. But [laughter] it's– yeah, it was hilarious.

00:56:42 Matthew Matheson: Let's just– it was disturbing [snorts] and hilarious at the same time.

00:56:45 Aleksandra King: And I say that because I actually was on the parish council for some time, and we used to have those meetings, and sometimes they would get heated. We would– yeah, but not like this. This was an exceptional situation.

00:56:58 Matthew Matheson: And what's interesting there is, I would say in that situation plus the meeting situation that you talked about plus the one that I talked about, there is– what has slipped out there is their coping mechanisms for conflict.

00:57:14 Aleksandra King: Or let's talk about this, which was my next question.

00:57:18 Matthew Matheson: Great.

00:57:19 Aleksandra King: Very well leading in.

00:57:19 Matthew Matheson: Great.

00:57:20 Aleksandra King: Right. So what are those coping mechanisms, if you're also getting really annoyed?

00:57:24 Matthew Matheson: Yeah. So if we come back to– we were talking about the amygdala, right, that part of our brain that– our nervous system, and tries to protect us. And you've got fight and you've got flight.

00:57:35 Aleksandra King: Which is– I've got– yeah, because they could be shouting at you, or they– or you could be getting annoyed, whatever it might be.

00:57:41 Matthew Matheson: So they're feeling threatened in that moment, for whatever reason. And some people it's like, right, I'm going to fight, and others it's like, I'm just going to freeze or I'm going to hide.

00:57:53 Aleksandra King: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:57:54 Matthew Matheson: And this is kind of what we're seeing come out here. And it's like the unhelpful versions of– have you heard of the PAC model?

00:58:03 Aleksandra King: No.

00:58:03 Matthew Matheson: Okay, so it comes from transactional analysis, which is like a communication theory used in psychology a lot. And it says that as we go through life we operate from one of three places all the time. So you've got the parent, you've got the adult and you've got the child. So in the parent, this can show up as like being really critical, or being really nurturing and kind of mollycoddling. And then there's the child– this can be being like really compliant, people-pleasing, anybody, or being really rebellious. But then in the middle you've got the adult, and this is kind of impartial, grounded, able to look behind the behaviours. When the heat is on, we tend to go up into parent or down into child, unhelpfully. And it comes out– so if we look at these three situations, we can see that coming out. And what's really curious is we adopt these archetypes around other people all the time, and then the more that gets reinforced. I see this in the workplace when I do like conflict work in the workplace to help people better navigate stuff like that. We look at this model and they're like, oh my gosh, my boss– they're always the parent, but then I always act like the child, and it just reinforces it. And so I'm like, okay, well what would happen if you came in here and used neutral language and made clear requests? And it breaks that model, then this person comes in here as well.

00:59:25 Aleksandra King: Oh my gosh, it's fascinating.

00:59:27 Matthew Matheson: It's absolutely– and people will look at this model and they go, I wish I knew this at home for my marriage. It's like, we all have these models, because we take on our– just taking this to marriage for a very brief second– it's like when we enter into a partnership with someone, they become our primary caregiver, and that's why this model is so true.

00:59:48 Aleksandra King: It's so true, it's so true. The thing is, though, that when we have a conflict, a marriage conflict, whatever, at home with the kids, whatever it might be, you're at home, you're in the privacy of your own home, and you can kind of have that conversation. But this is a public space.

01:00:04 Matthew Matheson: Yeah.

01:00:05 Aleksandra King: Doesn't matter that it went everywhere, these meetings, everyone's talking. I'm talking about something that happened in Warsaw many, many, many years ago in a skyscraper. It's difficult to control yourself, to be adult.

01:00:18 Matthew Matheson: Yes.

01:00:19 Aleksandra King: So what are you doing in that moment? There's something's gone off, grenade situation. What do you do?

01:00:28 Matthew Matheson: Pause. So when we go through this training, the big takeaway from all the theories and everything that we do is the licence to be able to pause. And that pause usually comes after getting to the habit of noticing usually two things. So number one, what's my nervous system telling me? And if my nervous system is heightened, that's an indicator. Number two, what's the story I've got going around my head? So I might be in this conflict situation, it's like, right, my nervous system is moving into fight, and the story that's rattling around my head is like, I've got to win this, they've got it wrong.

01:01:09 Aleksandra King: Yeah.

01:01:10 Matthew Matheson: If you've got something like that going on, it's like– yeah, at [laughter] that point it's like, do you know what, I really want to discuss this, but I can feel like I'm feeling really triggered and my head's feeling quite overwhelmed. Can we just pause and let's come back to this a bit more prepared? Something like that. It's– people don't believe– I see this all the time in training– it's like they don't believe that they've got the ability or their licence in the heat of the moment to go, actually, do you know what, let's pause.

01:01:37 Aleksandra King: They have the licence.

01:01:38 Matthew Matheson: They exactly– they do, but they don't believe they do. They feel they have to keep going because the nervous system takes over. I must win. Or I'm just going to–

01:01:44 Aleksandra King: Let's just say to the cameras, to the people watching– you have licence to pause at any point you feel overwhelmed.

01:01:52 Matthew Matheson: Regulate your nervous system and then you'll be better able to engage with that, and the other person will as well.

01:01:59 Aleksandra King: And I'll add to this– and you have the right to leave a meeting. If people are kicking off in the way they're kicking off, and a situation, you don't have to stay in the toxins of that moment. You can leave.

01:02:14 Matthew Matheson: Definitely, yeah. Because you're right, people don't feel like they're allowed to. And it's not jail, you're not trapped here.

01:02:19 Aleksandra King: No.

01:02:19 Matthew Matheson: You're free. Yeah. We get caught up in all these perceptions of hierarchy and power that we feel trapped, but actually take that agency.

01:02:28 Aleksandra King: Yeah, love that.

01:02:29 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah.

01:02:30 Aleksandra King: Love it, love it.

01:02:31 Matthew Matheson: Love it too.

01:02:32 Aleksandra King: Okay. Your six-point programme in 60 seconds. What pillar do most people skip? Let's go. What pillar do most people skip in your– in my– six-point speaker programme? Well, let's do the six. Let's redo the whole question. Let's just do your six-point programme in 60 seconds. What is it?

01:02:53 Matthew Matheson: So the six-point speaker programme is a programme I've designed over 10 years– showing my age now– that works on two levers: confidence in your own voice and competence to express it. The six pillars: how to prepare and how to rehearse; how to take control of your habits and processes; how to master storytelling and connect with your unique view on content; how to express your body language and tone of voice; how to manage your nervous system and your anxieties; and how to include continuous improvement, self-reflection and integration.

01:03:26 Aleksandra King: And how do you remember all of that? [laughter]

01:03:27 Matthew Matheson: How do I remember it? I've been coaching it for 10 years.

01:03:30 Aleksandra King: I was like, that is impressive. I was going to ask you what you got up to.

01:03:32 Matthew Matheson: It's all systematised. So like the way I work with most people– yeah– it's over 6 weeks, one session a week, and then they integrate.

01:03:39 Aleksandra King: Yeah, it's really comprehensive. It's good stuff, and I would definitely recommend anyone listening. It's valuable to invest in yourself. Yeah. Okay, so you blend business coaching with mindfulness, improvisation and counselling. So give us an example drill that we'll use for– yeah, just take us through something.

01:04:04 Matthew Matheson: So there's a methodology I have called the Potter's Wheel, which is about systematising content. What I will do with– so rehearsing– what I'll do is I'll integrate that with a content piece of who you are, what you do and why you're good at it.

01:04:20 Aleksandra King: Mhm, okay.

01:04:21 Matthew Matheson: And I will have someone rehearse this over and over. And what this does is, number one, it installs the tool, the Potter's Wheel, which is around the kind of rehearsal process that I train people on. Number two, it helps them connect with who they are and why they're good at something. Which– you'd be surprised the amount of people, particularly those who are leaders as well, it's not just anxious people, really struggle with owning their power. It's just, well, I think I'm good at it because of this, and other people are like, no, own it. So we work through the barriers, so that's kind of psychology, counselling piece there. And then that then opens up, well, I really don't feel like I'm good at because of this, or they're going to think this about me. It's like, no, step into the power. And then number three, there's the performance piece. So that probably is a good example of how that brings the three together, I would say. The content brings up and opens up different things whilst you're also embodying it and shaping your voice.

01:05:19 Aleksandra King: The question of, hi, yes, so what do you do? What do I do? Yeah, it is one where you'll have that in just everyday life with people– the hairdresser, whatever, walking down the road, shopping centre, school runs, normal everyday situations, and also in networking, high pressure. And although we have it so much, not many of us– most of us haven't really practised it, and we don't know what to say and get uncomfortable, don't we, especially in a networking hall situation. Okay, so what do you do? It's like, oh, well, I– yeah, nerves start to–

01:05:55 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, because you feel– yeah. And so, metaphor that just comes to my mind is like– we're talking about networking here, which– most people, the goal of networking in some shape or form is to build relationships or lead to growth of a business or whatever.

01:06:11 Aleksandra King: Talking about everything, not just networking, but like when you're asked, what do you do? Like, yes, you're probably under more pressure than me, but in general I would say, to make it applicable to everyone watching, because we all get asked what we do.

01:06:24 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Practise it on your own and notice where your resistance comes up. So if you say, here, this is who I am, this is what I do, notice if your resistance comes up in what you say. "Oh, I'm a trainee hairdresser." No, you're a hairdresser, you see. So are you discounting who you do with some of the language that you use? Are you including apologies, or are you making yourself sound small, rather than just saying this is what I do? So that's the first way you can notice any resistance that comes up.

01:06:57 Aleksandra King: That's good.

01:06:58 Matthew Matheson: Is in your body.

01:06:59 Aleksandra King: Mhm.

01:06:59 Matthew Matheson: Okay, so some people, they'll use language that is clear, but they'll kind of quieten off towards the end of it. "Hi, I'm– my name is Matt Matheson and I'm a– I'm a public speaking coach."

01:07:11 Aleksandra King: A public speaking coach. Good. [laughter]

01:07:14 Matthew Matheson: It's like, no. My name is Matt, hi. I'm a public speaking coach, been doing this for 10 years and I love this work. So your body will show your resistance as well as your words, so watch out for both. And then playfully rehearse and sharpen it until it comes together.

01:07:29 Aleksandra King: Yeah, believe it as well, definitely. I heard [clears throat] something that if you don't believe what you're saying, and you're sort of pulling the wool over your own eyes, and it's leaky and people will notice it, won't they? It will come out in that little body language thing or something. So you can't– like, at least tell people the truth about who are you– unless you're a spy.

01:07:50 Matthew Matheson: Unless– yeah. Or master of disguise, as they say. [laughter]

01:07:55 Aleksandra King: I had one on here the other day.

01:07:56 Matthew Matheson: Did you really?

01:07:56 Aleksandra King: Oh, that was interesting.

01:07:58 Matthew Matheson: Oh, it was so interesting.

01:07:59 Aleksandra King: It was so interesting.

01:08:01 Matthew Matheson: And I bet– also I hear that they're also really boring. Like– and I don't mean as a people, but you often see like the job– like the work is not– it's not James Bond.

01:08:09 Aleksandra King: Yeah, it's just, you know, it's just a blendy anything. But yeah, they are terrific communicators, body language readers, psychologists, all rolled into one, and fascinating. Fascinating type. You should watch– Gavin Stone. Yeah, spy. Okay, so final question, and it's related to how we would close a presentation, close a conversation, close that big speech on the stage to make it memorable. So what can you do to do that?

01:08:44 Matthew Matheson: So your closing is the second biggest risk area after your opening.

01:08:50 Aleksandra King: Oh, risk area.

01:08:53 Matthew Matheson: So your first risk area is your opening, because it's the apex of your nervous system, your content, the audience, the technology. Get that mastered. What I see over and over again is, okay, so we've got the start strong, we get through it, and then as we get to the end we're kind of done. Are you finished? Yeah, I'm finished. Finish strong. The single cleanest way you can do this that anyone can do is always– and I'm underlining that– when you're done, say thank you. Because that does two things. Number one, of course, expresses gratitude, but it also cleanly contracts you out of that communication. So there's none of this kind of awkward thing.

01:09:38 Aleksandra King: Yeah, yeah, because everyone does also– does anyone have any questions? And always like, yeah.

01:09:42 Matthew Matheson: No, and finish strong. Don't go quiet at the end– that's your coping mechanism coming in. So finish strong. Thank you so much for having me. Not, "thanks for– thanks for having me." It's like, keep it strong.

01:09:57 Aleksandra King: Yeah. And then it's the awkward bye-bye and see you. Okay, all right, done. Okay, I don't know, I'm zooming.

01:10:02 Matthew Matheson: Yeah, I always give people permission. I say, okay, we're going to close this Zoom room after this, this is the last thing that I'm going to say now, so you can all head off. Just really manage that for people if you're holding space for them. So it's not, are we done?

01:10:15 Aleksandra King: We're done. Matt– Matthew– you've been terrific. Thank you so much for coming on to Beyond the Boardroom.

01:10:24 Matthew Matheson: Thank you. Thank you.