We’re all striving to be better communicators – in both formal and informal situations. Stanford Graduate School of Business Lecturer, Matt Abrahams, shares with Modern Mentor some of his top tips for being more focused, less anxious, and more successful in our everyday communication.
We’re all striving to be better communicators – in both formal and informal situations. Stanford Graduate School of Business Lecturer, Matt Abrahams, shares with Modern Mentor some of his top tips for being more focused, less anxious, and more successful in our everyday communication.
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hey, it's Rachel Cooke, your Modern Mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm specializing and helping leaders and organizations crack their activation codes, finding the simple tweaks to enhance both performance and employee engagement. In today's episode, I got to speak with leading communication expert Matt Abrahams. Matt is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business teaching strategic communication and effective virtual presenting outside of the classroom. Matt is a sought after keynote speaker and Communication Consultant. His online talks garner millions of views and he hosts the popular award winning podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, his new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. How to Speak successfully when you're put on the spot provides tangible actionable skills to help even the most anxious speakers succeed when speaking spontaneously, like navigating q&a sessions, shunning and job interviews, providing effective feedback, making small talk, fixing and faux PA and persuading others. In this conversation, we covered a lot of ground from managing the anxiety we feel in various speaking situations, to being a better networker to persuading your boss to give you a new opportunity, and so much more. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Matt.
Rachel: Well, Matt Abrahams of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast. Welcome to the Modern Mentor Show.
Matt: I am really excited to be here with you and look forward to our conversation.
Rachel: All right. You set a high bar. Let's see how we do here. So Matt, you and I are here to talk about communication, which is a thing that people generally need to do in work and in life and in our own heads. goodness knows. Uh, you and I were just chatting a little bit before we hit record about just how many challenges and moments of complication we seem to experience day to day.
Um, so you've got a lot of expertise, kind of a broad range, and we're going to cover the formal, we're going to cover the informal. Uh, but I want to start with just kind of chit chat. Is that okay?
Matt: Absolutely. Happy to.
Rachel: Awesome. I do feel like it is a thing we kind of lost practice on a little bit during the pandemic and now we're back out there in the world. And it's interesting because I feel like people are having a little bit of anxiety just around how do I just do regular informal communication? Um, and I know you've got some tips on that. So can we start there?
Matt: Absolutely. So you're, you're right. Uh, we, we lost our way when it comes to figuring out how, how do we do this small talk chit chat thing. Uh, and there are a few things that we can do to help ourselves feel much more comfortable. One is to realize that small talk actually has a lot of big benefits. Uh, I'm on a personal mission to rebrand.
Small talk is something to get excited about. You know, we, we can get to know more about others than ourselves. We can learn about ways to collaborate and connect. And in fact, I often ask people to think back in your friendship network. How did you come to meet some of your friends? And for many of us, it was through small talk and encounter that led to something much bigger. Uh, the problem that many of us face, and this isn't just for small talk, this is all spontaneous speaking. And that is we want to do it right. We want to be the most interesting person in the room. We want to give insightful information. And that puts a lot of pressure on ourselves. I was very fortunate on my podcast to interview somebody named Rachel Greenwald.
Rachel is. Fascinating. She's an academic and a professional matchmaker. And she taught me this notion that I really like in small talk. The goal is to be interested, not interesting. And when you focus on being interested, it's really just about curiosity. It's about asking questions. It's about giving people space. To tell more. And when we take that pressure off of ourselves to be interesting, we can just be interested in engaging in conversation. Many of us see small talk is like a tennis match where I have to serve my comment over the net and I want to ace it. And instead I think. We should all see small talk is that game of hacky sack, you know, that little beanbag ball
where we pass it around to each other. And the whole goal is for all of us to work together to keep that ball off the ground. So if you just do what's needed, serve it to the next person, ask a question, make an observation. It makes it much easier and less stressful.
Rachel: You just gave me permission to take a deep breath there. That was that.
You know, it's funny as you're talking, I'm thinking I have this good friend, Michelle. She's one of my favorite people. She is so smart and she's so quirky. And one of the things that she does that I love is when she and I get together for dinner, she brings an agenda.
Yeah. Yeah. And it is literally a list of questions that she wants to ask me. And of course we start there and we go in whatever direction, but she always shows up with this curiosity and we end up having the best time. So I think there is really something to it.
Matt: I love that she's that organized and that's fun. It gives you a place to start. Yeah.
Rachel: Oh, it's too good. It's too good. So hold on. I feel like my wire is banging a little bit here
Matt: Yeah. I'm not hearing anything, but
Rachel: No. All right. Well, my producer will hear it. He has ears like, like a dog for a whistle. Hold on. All right. Let's see if that's any better. Okay. So Matt, also, we were talking during the show about how I am a fan and a listener of your podcast.
And I think, um, one of the things you do really, really well, there are a lot of them, but one of the things you do nicely is you sort of blend the casual and the colloquial with science, right? You've got some real research behind some of this stuff that you talk about. You've got some science based strategies to overcoming some of the speaking anxiety that we can have sometimes.
And I wonder if you could give us a little insight into that.
Matt: Happy to happy to. And thank you for the compliment in there. Uh, that's something I strive for. Uh, so the very first book I wrote was called speaking up without freaking out. And it's all about how to manage the anxiety that most of us feel when we are speaking. either planned or spontaneous. Anxiety looms large in most of our communication, and the book identifies 50 techniques based on academic research that we can use to help manage our anxiety. They really fall into two categories. both symptoms and sources and how to manage them. Symptoms are the things that we physiologically and mentally experience, and sources are the things that initiate or exacerbate our anxiety. So the goal is to learn some techniques to manage both. I don't expect every technique to work for every person. But let me give you an example of one or two for each. So when it comes to symptomatic relief, deep belly breathing, the kind you would do if you've ever done yoga or tai chi, can really help. It slows down your autonomic nervous system. And what's really interesting and really key is the exhale. You want your exhale to be twice as long as your inhale. And this slows down your heart rate, slows down your speaking rate, can reduce some of the shakiness. So deep breathing, a great thing to do before you walk into the room that you're having the meeting or the big presentation, before you unmute yourself on a Zoom or a team or a meet, take a few deep belly breaths and that'll help. Now for others of us, there are other symptoms. I personally blush and perspire. What happens for you when you get nervous speaking in situations?
Rachel: Same. I get, I get a little bit of redness in my face and a little bit shaky. I feel a little shaky.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So the redness and the perspiration come from your core body temperature going up, your heart speeding faster, your body tenses up and your blood pressure goes up. It's like you're exercising. So we need to cool ourselves down. The best way to do this is just to hold something cold in the palms of your hand. The palms of your hand or thermo regulators for your body on a cold morning. If you've ever held a warm cup of coffee or tea,
you felt it warm you up. We're just doing the same thing in reverse. So these are examples of symptomatic relief. Sources are another things, the things that initiate and exacerbate our anxiety.
And one big one is the goal that we're trying to achieve. When I am speaking, I have a goal. My students want to get good a good grade. The entrepreneurs I coach want to get funding. And what makes us nervous is we're afraid of not achieving that goal, which means we're afraid of a negative potential future outcome. And the way to mitigate against that is to become present oriented. By definition, if I'm in the moment, I'm not worried about the future. And there are lots of things we can do. You and I, before we started this conversation that's recorded, we had a little bit of chit chat up front. That allowed me to get present oriented.
You can walk around the building. You can count backwards from 100 by a challenging number. You can listen to a song or a playlist like athletes do. All of these are tools to get you in the present, which reduces your anxiety about what might happen in the future. So just a few examples of things we can do based on academic research. to help ourselves feel better in the moment when we're speaking.
Rachel: Really nice. I'm, I'm so intrigued by the holding something cold in the, in the palm of my hand, that seems like such an easy one. And I've never heard that. So I'm definitely going to have to bring. Bring like a frozen water bottle into my next talk and we'll see how that goes.
Matt: I do it all the time. I do it all the time. It works so well for me.
Rachel: Oof. I'm looking forward to that one. So that's great, Matt. I think you're doing a nice job of, of helping us think about what happens when we feel anxious. How do we calm ourselves down? How do we soothe ourselves? So now let's imagine we've done that. And we are feeling calm and we are feeling present and we're holding something super cold and we're ready to start.
Um, the next big obstacle is actually being successful in the message that we deliver, right? Sometimes we may be really calm and cool and collected and deliver a talk and the talk completely misses the mark. And so I would love to get your perspective on, um, kind of mindset shifts that we can make that will help us communicate more effectively and really drive our point home.
Matt: Yeah. So my new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter is really a six step methodology. The first four of those six steps are all about mindset. And we talked about the first one, which is this notion of managing anxiety. The next two are really addressing what you've talked about. We can make this more difficult for ourselves because we want to do it right.
We, we want to be perfect in our answering. We want to give the best feedback. We want to introduce ourselves in the most engaging way. All of this puts tremendous pressure on ourselves and actually reduces the likelihood. That will do it well at all. You know, your brain is like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but if you've ever had a laptop with multiple windows open or a phone that's got lots of apps running, you're actually stressing the CPU.
You're taking the limited bandwidth you have, and you're trying to spread it across all these different things, which means you have less bandwidth for each one. And when I am constantly judging and evaluating how I'm speaking, I'm actually lowering my cognitive bandwidth to To be focused on what I am saying.
So we don't want to not evaluate everything. We do need to evaluate. It is important. But if we turn that volume down and focus rather on connection than perfection. So if my goal is to get my idea from me to you, put my energy focused on that rather than, Am I saying it right? Could I have said it better?
What should happen next time? So getting more present, getting more focused on connection will make a huge difference. And then the other piece of that is we need to see these situations as opportunities and not threats. Many of us in our communication feel threatened and judged and evaluated, and we are being judged and evaluated by others.
But if you see that as an opportunity to connect, To learn to collaborate, it changes again the pressure we put on ourselves. So we do a lot that makes this more difficult. So if we can focus on connection over perfection, if we can see these as opportunities rather than threats and challenges, we will do better as we go through this.
Rachel: Yeah, really, really nice. So I want to pick up on this idea of connection. I think there's something really, really powerful in that. I think if we're giving a talk, say from a stage, we want to be really rehearsed and really prepared, but we don't want to necessarily seem really rehearsed and really prepared.
And so I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or pointers around how to, how to sustain a connection with the audience members or the folks sitting around the table with you. How do you sort of stay in the zone of this is my script, this is my message, this is what I need to get across. But I also want to kind of listen and watch and make sure that I'm being responsive to what's happening in the room.
Any thoughts there?
Matt: Yeah, certainly lots of thoughts. So, uh, training yourself to be vigilant and and listen is really, really important. So there are a couple parts to your question. One was how, how do I be present and part of the activity rather than being in my head? And then the other part is, how do I, you know, communicate what I want to say without being over rehearsed.
So let me tease those out when it comes to being just in the moment and in the flow of the conversation, it's all about listening. And in order to, by the way, we're not very good listeners. We tend to listen for the top line, not the bottom line. And once we understand what we think is the, just the top line, we begin planning, rehearsing, judging, evaluating.
So we're not listening anymore. So we need to listen for the bottom line. What's the bottom line of what somebody's saying? And in the book, I talk about this three step process I borrowed from a colleague of mine who uses it for something very different, but I love it. It is pace, space, grace. We have to slow down. We all move too fast. We've got lots going on. We slow down. So we, we slow down the pace. We have to give ourselves space, physical space, get in a place where you can actually listen well, but also mental space. Give yourself permission to be focused with this person, at this moment. And then grace, we have to listen not just to what is said, but we have to give ourselves permission to listen to how it's said, where it's said, what our intuition says about what we've just heard. So by listening for the bottom line and giving ourselves a little pace, space, grace, we will be more And and be able to respond in a more nimble way. Now, the sounding over rehearsed, that's a problem. And that really gets to the last two steps of the methodology I teach, which is really around structure. Writing out things word for word actually makes it more likely that you will make mistakes. Again, it's cognitive bandwidth. If I have a script and I'm trying to memorize a repeat, I have a lot of my energy dedicated towards that, which means there's less dedicated to what I can actually be focused on as I'm speaking.
So rather I believe in structure. Structure is nothing more than a logical or set of ideas. It's a connection among ideas. So rather than a list, I actually have a logic. So the one most of your listeners are familiar with is problem solution benefit. If you've ever watched a television ad, most ads are here's a problem.
Here's how we solve it. Here's how you benefit. That's a structure. So if I create my content planned or spontaneous in a structure, It's a roadmap for me. So I don't have to remember every word. I just remember after problem comes solution and after solution comes benefit. So a way to be less rehearsed is to have a structure and a roadmap that helps.
Rachel: Really nice. I love that idea. Cause it's sort of like a framework that you're working inside of rather than a script that you're memorizing. And if I think about, if I think about this from the perspective of my audience, which is Primarily people who work within organizations and are looking to define their version of workplace success and achieve it.
I would imagine, but keep me honest, that what you're describing works really well for a speech if you're giving a talk from a stage, but I am at it. I imagine this also works really well. If you're trying to persuade your boss to consider you for a promotion or to give you an opportunity to lead a project or to make an introduction to somebody else, right?
And, and so it's, it's not just about the formal speeches that you may be giving, but anytime you are trying to convince or persuade, I imagine these strategies that you're sharing are equally relevant. Is that right?
Matt: So having a structure to help you when you persuade is really, really important. Uh, it allows you to focus on what you need to focus on, which is the proper message for the person. So when it comes to persuasion, the very first step we have to think about is what is important and relevant to the audience I'm speaking to.
This is the biggest mistake people make across all communications. They don't focus on what their audience needs. Rather, they focus on what they want to say. So we first have to think about what's relevant and important to the audience. So if I'm asking for a raise, I have to make sure that I understand what's important to my boss.
Maybe my boss is somebody who really looks for people to be self starters and independent and people able to be agile and adjust. Well, then when I go ask, For a raise, I need to demonstrate that I do those things. So we first have to start by thinking about what's relevant and important to the audience.
The next step has us thinking about how do I package up the information so I am clear and I am concise and there are lots of different structures we can use for persuasion, for teaching, for giving feedback and updates. So we just have to find what we need to know about the audience and the right structure to use.
And it can help us in any speaking situation.
Rachel: I love that you highlight the point about needing to be concise. I think that's something a lot of us struggle with. There's that famous quote that's always attributed to Mark Twain, right? About I meant to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time. So I wrote you a long one. Um, sometimes
Matt: Has so many lovely quotes.
Rachel: Especially about the, the coldest summer in, uh, what was it?
The coldest winter in he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Matt: Right. Yes. And yes, very true. As somebody who lives there. Yes.
Rachel: Ah, there we go. Um, okay. So I also wanted to get your thoughts on networking, right? That's something we all know is important. Some of us are better about doing it than others, but do you have any tips for how to do that more effectively, more successfully, more confidently? Definitely pick your adjective.
Matt: I love it. I love that you use lots of adjectives and adverbs. Um, yes. So there's a lot to think about when it comes to how we want to network. Uh, networking is something we have to be strategic about. It's not something that just happens. So much like I would coach people when they're interviewing, I would say before you go into a situation where you want to network in person or virtual, come up with some key strategies. Themes that you want to get across. So what are things that represent you and things that you want to make sure you communicate? So when we network, we have to not just solicit information from others, we have to provide information. So start with what are some specific themes and ideas you want to get across?
So if I'm doing a work networking, I might want to say that I'm a very effective communicator, or I'm very good at long term planning. These are themes that I have. And with each theme stockpile and think of. Some very specific examples, some stories you could tell, some data you can give, maybe a testimonial from somebody else, an award you won. So for each theme, I've got some very specific support that I can leverage. When in the moment of networking and an idea or topic comes up that's related to one of your themes, you are simply pulling what you've stockpiled into the conversation, so it makes it easier. So that's number one. Now, when you're networking, you also want to learn things from others.
So you also need to create a list of what are some of the key ideas or points that I want to get out of this networking. You might have questions about a particular industry or particular role or something of that nature. So think about what are the questions you want. To have answered and how might you ask those questions or connect them to whatever the event is about.
So if I'm at a corporate conference and they have some meet and greet mingling and I want to learn a little bit more about a certain technology, I might look at the agenda. Of the conference and see that. Hey, that technology is going to be talked about in the keynote in the morning. So when I go to this meet and greet in the afternoon, I might say, What did you think about the keynote?
I was particularly interested in this technology. What were your thoughts? So we're not scripting it. We're just preparing. You know, a good chef prepares the ingredients in advance so that they can then just put them into the recipe when needed. And that's essentially what I'm inviting people to do. Now, when you're in the moment, It goes back to what we talked about before.
Be interested, not interesting. So even though you have some things you want to get out of it, listen and find ways to fold them in in a way that seems normal and natural rather than coming in with your clipboard and checking off each of the topics that you want to talk about. So there's some pre work we can do.
And then in the moment we rely on the ideas of engagement, being interested, not interesting.
Rachel: Nice. So you keep using this phrase, interested, not, not interesting, which I..
Matt: Yes. I'm a broken record. I'm sorry.
Rachel: But listen, I love a record that is broken. But I want to ask you about this other phrase that you use in your book, which is daring to be dull, which sounds like it could be the counterpoint to what we're talking about.
Maybe not, but I wonder if you could tell us a little about that.
Matt: Yeah. So I'm actually going to double down even more. I tell my students, my Stanford MBA students on the very first day of class, not just dare to be dull. I say, maximize your mediocrity
and you should see their jaws drop. It's just like. Boom. They've never been told to be mediocre, but in fact, it's getting at the same idea and that is we must in our communication, just focus on the communication, not all the stuff going on in our heads. The notion of dare to be dull comes from the world of improvisation. And I am very fortunate. And I'm still learning improv from just amazing mentors and colleagues. Uh, lots of people, Patricia Ryan Madsen, Dan Klein, Adam Tobin, all of these folks have helped me see these principles come to life. The key behind maximize mediocrity or dare to be dull is simply to say, reduce the pressure on yourself, give yourself the opportunity to connect, and then you can do great things from there. So by taking that pressure off, turning down that volume on judgment, being very focused, seeing these things as opportunities, we actually will end up doing better. Now it takes a little bit of faith and a lot of practice to get ourselves there. But ultimately what I'll tell my students at the end of my course is maximize mediocrity so you can achieve communication greatness.
It is in letting go of trying to be perfect. That we actually become very, very good.
Rachel: Okay. They're, they're. Does sound like there's a bit of a leap of faith in there, but
I'm going to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes. Uh, so what are some of the biggest communication mistakes that you feel like you just witness or see happening around you or, you know, that, that people are asking you about, like, what comes up for you?
Matt: Can you repeat the question? You froze for just a second.
Rachel: Sorry, technology. Um,
Matt: Yes.
Rachel: What are some of the biggest communication mistakes you feel like you are still seeing play out around you?
Matt: Yeah. So a couple of things. One is again, people are focused on what they want to say in broadcasting information, rather than thinking about what the audience needs to hear and really tailoring it towards what's relevant and salient, that's by far the number one thing, the number two thing we talked about, uh, peripherally, which is this notion of concision, many people take us on the journey of their discovery of what they want to say while they're saying it, and they end up saying a lot more than they need to. So really being focused structure helps you focus, but also thinking What is most important for the audience? Helps you focus. Having a goal helps you focus. To me, a goal has three parts information, emotion and action. So it's not just here's the information. It's how do I, what do I want you to know? How do I want you to feel and what do I want you to do?
And that also helps you focus. So concision is the second problem I see. And then third, many people don't focus on how they are saying what they say. You know, if people have to give a big presentation often because they're busy or procrastinating, they don't put it together till the last minute and they give themselves no time to practice how you say your message in some cases can be as important, if not more important than what you say. So those are the three big ones. It's not being audience focused, it's not being concise and it's not taking time to practice. Those are the three big challenges that I see from people.
Rachel: Okay. That's really helpful. And I will just say quickly, one of my biggest pet peeves is when somebody is sharing a story and they get stuck on a detail. It happened last Monday. No, I think it was Sunday. No, it was probably Monday. Ultimately has nothing to do with the outcome of the story. And that just drives me nuts.
Matt: They're so in their heads. Yeah, they're so in their heads judging and evaluating everything. What would be far better is just to say what they said, finish the story, and if they need to correct it, go back and correct it at the end.
Rachel: Yeah. Nice. So you're giving us a little bit of permission to be, to be kind of messy and a little bit authentic, right?
Matt: Absolutely and that's that's where communication happens. You know, communication happens in the moment in the interaction and there are certainly times where you have to be formal and you have to be absolutely On script, but that is not most of our lives, and that is not most of our communication, so we have to be in the moment and let things happen.
You know, when screenwriters write for TV or write for movies, they purposely build in some of this messiness to make it sound real, because what they learned is, if everything's perfectly scripted, it doesn't It's not relatable because it doesn't feel connected.
Rachel: Yeah, for sure. So I want you to tell us a little bit about your new book. I know we touched on it briefly, but, um, what do you want listeners to know about it? Who should pick it up and what should they plan to take away from it?
Matt: So the whole, the new book Think Faster Talk Smarter is all predicated on the fact that speaking in the moment spontaneously is critical to do well. Most of our communication happens in the moment. It's not the planned presentation or the pitch that you've perfected or the meeting with agendas. It's really what happens in the moment. And so We need to learn how to do it better. And the book is divided into two parts. The first part is that six step methodology we talked about. And then the second part applies that methodology to very specific, spontaneous speaking situations of which we've talked about many today, small talk, being persuasive, all of those are itemized.
So people can learn an approach to help them feel more comfortable and confident in those moments.
Rachel: That's exciting. I can't wait for people to, to pick it up and take some good things away. So Matt, I want to be really thoughtful about your time. Um, and I want to ask you. What haven't I asked you that you feel is, is really important to share with the audience today?
Matt: Thank you for giving me that opportunity. I think the one thing that I haven't done a good job of saying it's not because you didn't ask is that all of us can get better at this. Many of us are born. I have this notion that we're either born to be effective communicators or we're not. And in fact, the reality is we can all get better.
You know that in the work you do, mentors can be amazingly helpful. The only way you get, get better at anything, especially communication is three things. Repetition, reflection and feedback. You have to practice. Communication is not something you just think about and magically get better. You have to do it. That's why groups like Toastmasters, taking classes, all of this is so important. You gotta get the reps. You have to reflect. You have to take time after the fact to say what worked and what didn't work. Many of us are just so glad to be done. done with whatever the communication was that we don't think about what comes next and how we can do it better.
And then finally, and this is where mentoring comes in and teaching and other things is this notion of getting feedback. Somebody else who's not you, we are not the best judges of our own communication can give you some insight and feedback to help you actually improve. So repetition, reflection, and feedback are critical. All of us can get better at communication. I've seen it in my own life. I see it in all the students I teach and the people I coach and mentor. So that's one thing I didn't do a good job of bringing up, but I really think it's important for people to hear.
Rachel: No, I think that's really lovely. And I'm a big believer in feedback. And I think that we all, we all need to be better at asking for it, at receiving it. And I also encourage people sometimes, you know, sometimes the best feedback is just in watching how people responded to you. So if you went in with the intention of asking for something and ultimately, You didn't get it.
That in and of itself is feedback. And you can certainly explore, you know, can you give me some feedback on why it wasn't successful? Was it in how I pitched the idea? Was it simply never going to happen? Um, but I think just watching the cues in the room can be a really useful way to, to do some of that as well.
Matt: Absolutely. Yes. And allowing yourself permission to do that. Some of us get so myopic when we're communicating, we don't look out. You know, many people say, I have no idea who was there. I was so inside my head. So really important.
Rachel: Amazing. Well, Matt, I am so grateful to you for coming on the show today. I cannot wait for people to pick up your new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and to listen to your podcast. Think fast, talk smart, which is fantastic and smart. And so many wonderful guests and bits of goodness in there. Um, thank you again so much for hanging out with me today.
Matt: It was a true pleasure. I loved your questions in the conversation. And I really appreciate the work you do and encouraging and how you encourage people to give feedback, to be mentored, and to really help. Thank you.
Rachel: Thanks, Matt.
Matt: Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Matt Abrahams and that you plan to give some of his tips a try. You can hear more from that on his podcast. Think Fast, Talk Smart. Join me next week for another great episode. Until then, visit my website at leadabovenoise.com If your organization is looking to crack its activation code, dialing up performance and employee engagement. You can follow Modern Mentor on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts, find and follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for listening and have a successful week. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty tips podcast. It's audio engineered by Dan Feierabend. Our Director of Podcasts is Brannan Goetschius. Our podcast and advertising operations specialist is Morgan Christiansen. Our digital operations specialist is Holly Hutchings. Our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin and Kamryn Lacey is our marketing coordinator.