Matt goes into his own form of resistance. Hint: It relates in particular to writing. In true Matt form, his technique for overcoming resistance is both simplistic and reductive: He boils it down to one single step.

Episode transcript:

Alper Rozanes
Matt, last week we talked about some resistance that I had towards recording videos, and we talked about also other situations that we might feel an urge to procrastinate as much as possible.

Matt Krause
Yeah.

Alper Rozanes
And after the episode, after the recording was finished, you and I kept talking about how you approach this theme. And this week I actually decided to pick your brain on that and tell me more about especially regarding the presentations, especially how you advise your clients to start maybe creating the content, start writing about it.

Matt Krause
Sure.

Alper Rozanes
Tell me how your experience is in that regard.

Matt Krause
Okay, well, I have two examples that I’m going to mention, so if I forget to mention the second example, remind me because I want to tell that example too.

Alper Rozanes
Okay.

Matt Krause
But I guess the overarching theme here is that Matt is less thoughtful than Alper, which sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it’s a bad thing. So whereas last week Alper had six steps, Matt only has one.

Alper Rozanes
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Matt Krause
I’ll tell you an example, a very common Matt experiences resistance example. Are you ready?

Alper Rozanes
Okay. Yeah.

Matt Krause
So here we go. One of my tasks for work is I do ghost writing for some of my clients. So writing an article for them or writing a speech for them, and usually they’ll be pretty short things. They might be really short one pagers, or maybe they’re just two pages, 300, 600 or 1000 words or something like that.

Matt Krause
And I’ll find myself, even though I’ve been doing it for years and have been working with some of my clients for years and have tons of history of having done it in a very short time, I’ll still experience resistance even though I’ve been doing it for years.

Matt Krause
Sometimes the overall arc, not every sentence, but just the overall arc or the outline of what the article needs to go through, or the progression of the article basically will often come to me as I’m falling asleep. And so I may start out with the white page already knowing what’s going to be on that page at the end. But I’ll still have this moment of resistance where I’m thinking, okay, I know what I need to say. I’ve talked to the client and heard the client say what the client wants to say.

Matt Krause
So I know what the client wants to say, I know how I’m going to say it. I’ve been doing this for years. I know that the client loves my work and still I’ll go for days where I haven’t really yeah. I’ll go for days where I have an awful time starting. I just can’t get started. So that’s the situation. I find that it infects my life. I’ll start out with just this small, tiny crystal of procrastination, and then it will grow and grow and grow, and pretty soon I’ve built up in my mind, I’ve built up this short two page article that I know that once I get started, it’s going to take me less than an hour to do.

Alper Rozanes
Yeah.

Matt Krause
I still just can’t get started. It’s crazy.

Alper Rozanes
And now you have invested so much procrastination into it that it looks probably like the biggest task ever existed.

Matt Krause
Yeah. And I’ll start.

Alper Rozanes
Huge task.

Matt Krause
Yeah, it looks like a huge task. And I’ll be feeling awful about myself. I’ll be thinking, oh, I’m not worthy, et cetera, et cetera. And I’ve been doing this for years, and the client has been saying for years that the client loves my work. I even know what I’m going to say. So I have no reason really, to be experiencing this resistance, and yet I will go for days building it up until it’s affecting the way that I see the world, myself and the world around me.

Alper Rozanes
For all I know, we could be the only two people in the world who suffer from that, but at least it’s 100% increase from the way I was thinking last week, which was, I’m the only one in 8 billion plus people in the world. I’m the only one doing that. Okay, good to know that I’m not alone.

Matt Krause
Okay, so now we get down to Matt’s one step for getting started, and that’s just get started.

Alper Rozanes
Yeah. How do you tackle that?

Matt Krause
Get started. That’s my one step, is get started.

Matt Krause
And when you get started, it might not be very good. I mean, the first words, whatever it is, whether you’re practicing a speech or whether you’re writing an article or whether you’re filming a video or whatever it is, whatever form of creation you’re doing, your first step might not be very good at all.

Matt Krause
But just get started. Because you, as a living, breathing human, you have a natural tendency in you to want to make whatever it is that you’re doing better. That’s just a natural human tendency. And so once you start with something that is a little bit subpar, you’re going to look at it and think, that’s not good enough. I don’t want to put my name on that.

Matt Krause
And so you’re going to raise it, you’re going to make it better. And then when you’ve made it a little bit better, your natural human tendency is going to kick in again, and you’re going to look at it and say, okay, well, that’s not good enough yet. I’m going to make it a little bit better. The cycle begins simply because you started somewhere.

Matt Krause
And so that’s why I break it down to this one step of just get started. Whatever you’re doing, just get started. Even if it might be brilliant. And if it’s brilliant, then bless you. It’s great. Good for you. It’s probably not going to be, though. It’s probably going to be terrible, but simply through this upward cycle and you being human, you’re going to incrementally make it better.

Alper Rozanes
Okay, I have a question for you.

Matt Krause
Yeah, go for it.

Alper Rozanes
Last week, we had talked about, let’s say, a situation where a scenario where you have an upcoming presentation. It’s in three weeks, and you’re resisting the rehearsal part. You’re resisting preparing for the presentation.

Matt Krause
Okay.

Alper Rozanes
If that person was standing in front of you and told you, okay, I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here, if he or she came to me and said, look, it’s good advice, just start it. I just don’t know how I just don’t know where to start. I just don’t know what the first step would be.

Matt Krause
Sure.

Alper Rozanes
What would you tell them?

Matt Krause
Well, what I would tell them, and usually at that point, we’re talking on Zoom or there’s a video conference or phone call or something. There’s already some conversation, and it’s both of us in a room. It’s not an asynchronous conversation where you’re emailing back and forth or something like that. So it’s it’s a synchronous conversation.

Matt Krause
And so and when you want to help somebody take that first step, it’s important to be having that synchronous conversation. It doesn’t have to be a good conversation yet. Just get them on Zoom or get them on the phone or something.

Matt Krause
And then what I would do in that case is not even couch it as rehearsal. Just start talking. Talk to Matt about just, I would say, show me the slides. What are you thinking? I wouldn’t even talk about the presentation. I wouldn’t even talk about the outline. I wouldn’t even talk about the audience. I wouldn’t even talk about what do you want to say? What do you want your audience to do? I wouldn’t talk about any of that stuff. I would just say, okay, I have a question on slide seven. Talk to me about slide seven.

Matt Krause
What do you mean by XYZ? And then they start talking, and then they remember that, oh, yeah, I am pretty knowledgeable about this subject, and people probably do want to hear what I have to say about that subject. So simply through the act of me asking a question, any question, to get them started, to get them started talking, and them to start talking about slide seven, that’s usually enough to get them in the just get moving frame of mind. Does that answer your question?

Alper Rozanes
Okay, yes. But it also brings up a follow up question.

Matt Krause
Okay.

Alper Rozanes
This is with you in the room with them or in front of a screen in an online meeting. This is you physically participating at the same moment. Right. They are in front of you.

Matt Krause
Yeah. It pretty much has to be synchronous.

Alper Rozanes
Okay. Would you have any recommendations for me if I was just looking at the computer screen by myself, looking at the presentation file, knowing that I need to start rehearsing, knowing that I need to start preparing myself, but I just don’t. And I listen to you. I hear your voice telling me, okay, just start. I know I’m giving you a difficult time, and I’m doing that on purpose. I just wanted to pick your brain further.

Matt Krause
Sure.

Alper Rozanes
In that case, what would you recommend for this person to do?

Matt Krause
In that case, I would recommend that that person give the speech or the script or the presentation or whatever it is, show it to another person. Show it to your girlfriend, or show it to your wife or your husband, or show it to your child, or show it to some stranger on the street.

Matt Krause
And all you need to do is show, like, an introductory slide or the agenda slide. Or it could be slide seven, pretty much any slide, if we’re talking about a slide presentation.

Matt Krause
That person is going to ask you a question. They’re going to be looking at the agenda slide, and they’re going to say, topic XYZ. What do you mean by that? What is that? They might not even know anything about the subject, so they’re going to ask you, what does that mean? And then you’re going to start trying to explain to them what XYZ means.

Matt Krause
And then in the process of finding the words to explain XYZ to this person, it could be a random person that you found it at the bakery. In the process of finding the words to explain XYZ to this random person, you’re going to remember, oh, yeah, I do know this subject pretty well. I can continue to speak about slides eight and nine and ten and six and five and four.

Alper Rozanes
Okay. In my mind, I picture that moment, like a diesel engine that needs some time to crank up. But once it does, it’s going to run smoothly until until you stop it. And it seems like seeking the help of another person and in this regard, another human being actually can instigate that kind of cranking up and put you on track.

Matt Krause
Exactly. Your mind is basically a diesel engine. And a diesel engine, it can’t start by itself. It needs somebody to turn the key. And then I’m trying to remember how an engine works. Somebody turns the key.

Alper Rozanes
We just discovered that we’re not machine engineers, right?

Matt Krause
Yeah, we’re not machine engineers. There is a spark of electricity when you turn the key, there’s a spark of electricity from the battery, and then that spark of electricity causes other things to happen. And then pretty soon, the engine starts running, and then the alternator starts running too. And now the engine is producing its own electricity, and it becomes a self sustaining moment.

Matt Krause
The human brain is a lot like that going from zero to one. That’s the hard part. That’s why you talk to the random person in the bakery or to your spouse or to your dog or something. Explain XYZ to your dog. So that’s why you do that, to get from zero to one. And then once you get to one, then your brain is just going to take over, and it’s going to go from one to ten and then 100, et cetera, just because that’s what brains do.

Alper Rozanes
Yeah, that is some solid advice, ladies and gentlemen. Rehearse your presentation to your dog, and based on the feedback you get, that should give you the crank that you need.

Matt Krause
But by the way, your dog is probably just probably the only feedback that your dog is going to give you is, I’m hungry, feed me.

Alper Rozanes
Okay.

Matt Krause
So keep your expectations limited.

Alper Rozanes
Yeah, well, those are good tips, actually. Thank you very much for the time, and I really enjoyed listening to them. We’re going to wrap up here because we’re running out of time, okay. And I will speak to you next week. All right, sounds good for the advice. Sounds great.

Speaker 3
I’ll talk to you next week. Bye bye.