What Great Communicators Do Differently (#325)

What separates great communicators from everyone else? It’s not confidence, charisma, or having the perfect words.Matt Abrahams, Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer, bestselling author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast, reveals why many of our instincts before presentations, meetings, and difficult conversations may be working against us.In this episode, we cover:The best way to introduce yourselfHow to interrupt someone politelyWhat to do in the final five minutes before an important presentationWhy memorizing a speech can actually make you worseWhat Matt means when he tells people to “dare to be dull”How to respond to criticism How great communicators listen, ask questions, and make others feel heard.Matt’s central message: great communication isn't about perfection. It's about connection.

What if joy isn’t a reward for when life goes well, but the thing that helps us survive when it doesn’t?Psychologist and Stanford lecturer Kelly McGonigal reveals that joy is not the same as happiness, and that many of us quietly push it away without realizing it.In this episode, you’ll learn:Why happiness needs everything to be good, while joy needs just one thingWhy so many of us protect ourselves from joy, and why anxiety can feel saferHow power and success can make connection, and joy, harder to reachWhy people in war zones, hospitals and hospice understand joy bestHow to follow the news without being consumed by outrage and fearThe simple practice of “meeting joy with joy”Joy is not something you wait for.It is something you can create for yourself and for others.Kelly McGonigal is the author of Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking.

As Arctic ice melts, the struggle for the frozen north is beginning to resemble a new Cold War.Russian submarine activity is rising. China is mapping the seabed and expanding its icebreaker fleet. And Greenland sits at the center of a growing contest over shipping routes, critical minerals, energy, and missiles.Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and one of America’s leading experts on the Arctic, Europe, and transatlantic security, spent years warning that this region would become critical to America’s defense.What did she see that America and its allies were missing and how much time is left to prepare?She discusses:How much of what Trump wanted in the recent Greenland deal was already possible Why Russia sees the Arctic as central to its military and economic futureWhy the United States secretly offered Denmark $100 million for Greenland after WWIIWhy Greenland’s location makes it critical to America’s missile defensesHow the Arctic shortens distances for missiles, submarines, ships, and undersea cablesWhy China’s Arctic science will also have military applicationsWhat Greenland’s mineral wealth means for U.S. interestsWhy America cannot adequately defend the Arctic without its alliesThe next decade in the Arctic could determine whether America and its allies are ready for when the Cold War in the Arctic gets hot.

The world map we grew up with makes Greenland and Africa look the same size. The problem?  Africa is actually an astonishing 14 times larger.The even larger problem? There's no such thing as an accurate map. They all distort how we see the world. Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones are comedians, writers, and YouTubers with millions of followers where they are better known as Map Men. Their new book, This Way Up, explores how maps shape our understanding of the world and what happens when they inevitably get it wrong. They discuss:Why a 500-year-old deeply-flawed map became our standard picture of the worldWhy Greenland and other northern regions appear much larger than they really areWhy creating a completely accurate flat map is impossibleWhy north being “up” is simply a conventionHow a country’s apparent size and position may shape how important we believe it isWhy Google Maps can display different borders depending on where it is viewedWhat London taxi drivers reveal about navigation, memory, and the brainHow relying on GPS is weakening abilities we once took for grantedWhat GPS and AI have in commonMaps look objective, but they're actually very subjective and flawed. Where and how are they misleading us? And if you're looking for a more topical take on Greenland, Trump, and the recent security deal -- be sure to tune in next week for my conversation with security expert Heather Conley. 

What if one of the things Americans believe most deeply about America simply isn’t true?Americans have a powerful story about who they are and why America acts when it does.Historian Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says America's own history tells a very different story.He discusses:● The biggest myth Americans believe about their own country● What American history looks like when you strip that myth away● Why America keeps doing something it insists it doesn’t want to do● Whether America’s wars were really forced upon it● The unexpected connection between American power and the threats America faces● What China and Russia may understand about America that Americans don’t● What happens if America turns inward againWhat if the biggest thing Americans misunderstand about their role in the world isn’t the world?It’s America.

What if AI becomes easier to talk to than another person?And what happens to us when it does?MIT professor Sherry Turkle has spent decades studying what technology does to the way we think, work, and love. Now she says there are two parts of our lives we should never let AI into.She discusses:Why ordinary conversation has started to feel like workThe surprising reason people may prefer talking to chatbotsHow AI will change what we expect from other peopleWhy “pretend empathy” may be more dangerous than it seemsWhat happens when relationships become frictionlessWhat it could mean for a child to have an AI friendWhether AI could make us worse at being with each otherThe question isn’t just what AI can do. It’s what AI may do to us.

Mark Cuban told people that television would eventually be delivered over the internet. Everybody thought he was an idiot.Now, Cuban is making another prediction that runs counter to what we all believe, but this time it's about A.I.Few people have made as many big bets across as many industries as Mark Cuban. The billionaire entrepreneur and investor has built businesses in technology and media, transformed the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, and is now taking on prescription drug companies with Cost Plus Drugs.He discusses:● What everyone may be getting wrong about AI● What he sees happening to jobs and where the real opportunity may be● The one thing he believes AI will never replace● How he decides whether a seemingly crazy idea is actually an opportunity● The quality he looks for after seeing thousands of entrepreneurs● The mistake incredibly smart people make again and again● Why one of his biggest decisions required him to become “the younger Mark Cuban” again● Why being wrong repeatedly may not matter nearly as much as we think● What success means to him now that money is no longer the measure● What he thinks most Americans still don’t understand about healthcareMark Cuban saw streaming coming and almost nobody believed him. What does he see now that the rest of us may be missing? 

What if the president can act before Congress has time to stop him?As former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, former General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and a member of the National Security Council, Jeh Johnson has advised presidents on war, terrorism, cyber threats, and some of the country’s most consequential national security decisions.He has seen what happens when the pressure to “do something” collides with incomplete intelligence, rapidly changing facts, political pressure, and enormous presidential power.He discusses:● Why “Mr. President, do something” can be dangerous advice● Why Congress has formally declared war in only five conflicts in U.S. history● How much military force a president can order without first going to Congress● What happens to constitutional checks and balances when weapons can strike in minutes● Why presidential power looks different from inside the Oval Office● What actually happens inside the Situation Room when the intelligence is incomplete and the stakes are enormous● The threat that worries him the mostThe Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. But modern military strikes and warfare can move extraordinarily fast. So who can stop a president from starting a war? Where are the limits on presidential power when a decision has to be made in minutes? And when the law leaves enormous discretion in the hands of one person, how much ultimately depends on that person’s judgment and restraint?

What if trying harder is sometimes exactly the wrong thing to do?Angela Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania psychologist, MacArthur Fellow, and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Grit, has spent years studying achievement. In her new book, Situated, she explores why perseverance alone isn't enough.She discusses:How Angela and her husband nearly “gritted” their way out of their marriageHow much your environment shapes who you becomeThe small change that can make good habits easierWhy parents may be asking the wrong question about their childrenHow peer pressure can become a force for goodWhether AI could make us worse at thinkingWhen changing your situation matters more than changing yourselfWe spend enormous energy trying to improve ourselves. Angela Duckworth asks a different question: what if the more important thing is to change what’s around us?

What can we do when doing the morally “right” thing produces worse outcomes?And what if some of society’s strongest moral instincts are preventing us from solving problems we all agree are terrible?Alvin Roth is a Stanford professor and Nobel Prize-winning economist whose work has helped redesign real-world systems, including kidney exchanges and the way doctors are matched with hospitals. His new book, Moral Economics, tackles a harder category of problems: markets and behaviors we find morally objectionable, even when banning them may create consequences we don’t want.He discusses:Why nearly 100,000 Americans can be waiting for a kidney What prohibitions of alcohol and heroin can teach us What happened when Rhode Island accidentally legalized indoor prostitutionWhether paying kidney donors could save lives without creating an ethically unacceptable marketWhy evidence becomes especially important when reasonable people disagree about moralityWhether performance-enhancing drugs could eventually become as ordinary as coffeeSome policies sound obviously right when judged by their intentions. But what happens when you judge them by their actual consequences?Roth pushes into the uncomfortable territory between those two questions: when banning something creates a black market, when changing a rule may save more lives than inventing a new technology, and what we should do when the outcome we believe is morally necessary turns out to be something we cannot actually achieve.