🎧 Podcasts, podcasts and more podcasts – this time on Communication and Coaching

In my previous post, I wrote about how I have really started enjoying podcasts. I turned from someone who wasn’t a podcast person at all to someone who was bingeing (both bingeing and binging seem to be correct, by the way) on Aussie true crime podcasts.

I am happy that my podcast listening habit has continued and probably even got stronger. I think it has got more to do with my strong intention to walk at least 10,000 steps every day and get some time by myself to unwind and reflect. And it’s a nice bonus if I can get some podcast listening time. Here are three podcasts (two under Communication and one under Coaching) that I have been enjoying recently.

Communication

Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast

Like I mentioned in my previous post, one of my favourite podcasts is Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast by Matt Abrahams, a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The episodes are usually around 15-20 minutes, the usual format with guests on the podcasts is relatively fixed so you know what to expect and the quality of guests on the podcasts is top-notch.

One of my favourite recent episodes was – “Three Guiding Principles for Successful Communication“. In this episode, Matt Abrahams shares top takeaways from 75 episodes and answers listeners’ questions. The podcast covers a lot of ground with some very meaningful and actionable takeaways, but the things that stood out for me were –

• Knowing the audience. This is a point that Matt and his guests stress upon all the time. An excerpt from the transcript (emphasis mine) – before we do anything in our communication, we have to do some reconnaissance, reflection and research. We have to think about who our audience is and what it is they need because if we can make our messaging relevant and salient for them, they’ll listen, they’ll learn and they’re more likely to act.
• Having a goal for the communication. From the transcript – Now, to my mind, a goal has three major parts. It’s about information, emotion, and action. In other words, what do you want your audience to know? How do you want them to feel and what do you want them to do as a result of your communication? And there’s one added bonus of having a clear goal. It gives you a way to judge and assess the success of your communication.
• Importance of paraphrasing. Again, this is a point Matt and his guests talk about a lot. And the best part is that Matt himself does a a very good demonstration of paraphrasing while interviewing his guests. From the transcript – I think paraphrasing is so important, and you hear me in our podcast episodes, trying to practice it. Paraphrasing is where you distill down the information that you’re hearing or reading, you want to bring it to its essence. In other words, it’s the bottom line of what you’re hearing. And this bottom line allows you then to connect or question for what comes next. So, we don’t just paraphrase to paraphrase, we paraphrase to then move on.

One of the episodes I listened to recently and liked is Love & Money: How to Talk About Big Decisions Together. One of my key takeaways was around the appropriate choice for time and place for heavy discussions with one’s partner. When things remain hectic for a few days in a row and we haven’t had the chance to connect closely, there’s the urge to bring things up so you don’t miss them. But that can be counterproductive sometimes as I reflect now. Excerpt from the podcast – Well, the first piece of advice is don’t startle the person that you’re about to communicate. You know, you have just finished dinner. One of you is still clearing the dishes off the table. And all of the sudden you say, “I’m thinking about a new job.” That’s not the best way to communicate. Much better is to say, “There’s something really important I want to talk with you about. Can we carve out a little bit of time tonight? Or if not tonight, can we spend some part of Saturday talking about this?” That would be my first piece of advice on communication.

I’d recommend all the episodes and the best part is you can pick any episode and jump right in.

The Art of Communication

I discovered this podcast completely by chance through a Spotify ‘More like this’ recommendation.

I think first it was the artwork of the cover image that caught my attention (note to myself if I ever end up doing a podcast) and then I saw that the episodes were about 20 minutes on an average. So I decided to give it a go. I listened ‘First Impressions‘ as my first episode and it did make a great first impression and have since listened to many episodes.

An episode I listened to recently was Keeping It Fresh. “How can you deliver the same message over and over again and still keep it fresh? From presentations to pitches, from Town Halls to talks, it can be a real challenge…” One key takeaway for me was (I’m paraphrasing) – ‘stating the emotion/feeling’. It’s not about the content itself, but what you want the audience to feel. As a speaker/presenter/ writer, it’s important to first know what feeling you want to evoke and then explicitly stating that to the audience.

In addition to the podcast content itself, it’s very pleasing listening to the host Robin Kermode who is also joined by Sian Hanson for most episodes. Some of the topics they touch upon in the podcasts are very pertinent and relatable, such as Socially Awkward Moments, Difficult Conversations and How to Ace a Video Call.

Give it a go and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Coaching

The Logan Bartlett Show: Ep 51 with Matt Mochary (Founder, The Mochary Method) – The Coach Behind Sam Altman, Naval, Brian Armstrong

I came across via Michael Batko’s timeline on Twitter. Michael is the CEO of Startmate, the foremost startup accelerator in the Australia and New Zealand region. Michael regularly shares interesting content on Twitter (also do check out his Substack) and this podcast recommendation popped up while I was looking for something new to listen to. For some who follows the startup world in generally fairly closely, I had not even heard of Matt Mochary (pronounced Mo-sh-ary) and I was keen to know more about the person who seems to be coaching some of the most prominent entrepreneurs and investors in the Silicon Valley. The best part of the episode was the content was fairly accessible. As in, the concepts discussed were relatable and the actions and advice quite practical. My key takeaways were –

• Finding your Zone of Genius. Matt talks about the four zones – Zone of Incompetence, Zone of Competence, Zone of Excellence, and Zone of Genius and how one needs to find as much time and as many opportunities to operate in the Zone of Genius. This was a new concept for me and something I will really explore more for my own growth in the time ahead.
• Manager as your thought partner and accountability partner. I really liked this perspective of looking at the manager role. As I grow further into my own role as a manager and work with my own manager(s) while scaling up, this gives me a nice anchor to do well both as a manager and a reportee.
• Drawing feedback out of people while you’re getting much – when you get something, paraphrase it and make it sound as if something you are terrible/have done something terrible 😅 Unless that’s the case, people will mostly say, ‘oh it’s not that bad’ and you’d have done some kind of level setting.
• Having hard convos – Begin the convo by saying it’ll be hard convo and then get straight to the point. You don’t want to ‘ambush’ people (my paraphrasing) and that little heads-up gives them a chance to prepare rather than get into the flight/flight/emotional mode.

There were many more useful and relevant insights and Michael has done a great job of capturing them in this Twitter thread. Regardless of your role, do check out the podcast episiode if you’re interested in growing as a professional and an executive. Next on my reading list is Matt Mochary’s book – The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building.

Hope you like my recommendations and do let me know here in the comments or on Twitter how you found them. Here’s to more listening 🙌 🎧