Ever wondered what it takes to captivate an audience, whether it’s in a lecture hall or on a sports field? Join me, Tim Newman, as I sit down with Dr. Matt Blaska, an associate professor and chairperson at Indiana State University with a flair for public speaking. Together, we navigate the path from anxious speaker to confident communicator, dissecting the nuances of assertive communication and the power of a commanding presence. Matt’s tales of triumphs and tribulations are not only relatable but also packed with actionable insights that promise to elevate your own public speaking game.
Matt’s journey through an internship at Lehigh University Athletics sheds light on the critical aspects of email correspondence and relationship building—skills that are transferable to any professional domain. Whether you’re mentoring up-and-comers or engaging with seasoned donors, the lessons learned in the trenches of athletic programs are universally applicable.
The episode culminates with a rich discussion about the significance of thorough preparation and the art of adaptability, be it for major conferences or leadership transitions. We’ll also touch on the upcoming launch of the Speaking with Confidence community’s Formula for Public Speaking, set to revolutionize how we approach this essential skill. So, if you’re ready to embrace your missteps, communicate more effectively, and find your authentic voice, this conversation is an essential listen. Your voice has the power to initiate change—let’s harness it together.
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Transcript
Tim Newman:
Welcome to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast that’s here to help you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I’m your host, tim Newman, and I’m excited to take you on a journey to become a better public speaker. If you are like most people, just the thought of speaking in front of a crowd or talking during an important meeting can trigger all kinds of anxiety. Trust me, I know what that’s like. I gave my first speech as a senior in college. I was so nervous that as soon as I got to the front of the room and opened my mouth to speak, I threw up. I have learned a lot since then and I’m here to help others overcome their fear of messing up or sounding stupid. If you’ve been listening to the podcast from the beginning, you know that I bring a variety of people from different backgrounds who share about their very different life experiences and how they have dealt with speaking in public throughout their career. Part of why I asked Matt Blaska to be today’s podcast guest is because I’ve watched him grow over the years and I’ve seen firsthand how he’s developed his skills from the time he was a college student where he is today as a professor, department head and leader in his field of expertise. His down-to-earth approach to life comes through in how he approaches speaking in public. Listen to hear Matt’s advice and fresh perspectives regarding making mistakes, communicating with others and the importance of not taking yourself too seriously. So, whether you’re tuning in from your car, your office or your living room, get ready to embark on a transformative journey with the Speaking with Confidence podcast. Together, we’ll unlock your full potential as a public speaker. Make sure you subscribe, like and download our podcast today. If this is your first time listening, be sure to catch earlier episodes with Chris Hobbs and Jennifer Bridwell. Go to our website and sign up for special updates regarding the June 1st launch of the Formula for Public Speaking. Join our growing community of confident speakers and always remember that your voice has the power to change the world.
Tim Newman:
Okay, let’s welcome Dr Matt Blaska. Matt is an associate professor and chairperson at Indiana State University within the Department of Kinesiology, recreation and Sport. He also serves as the vice president of student affairs for the Sport Marketing Association. Dr Blaska primarily teaches sport marketing and sales. He received his PhD in sport management from Indiana University, his master of science in sport administration from Georgia State University and his bachelor of science in sport management from York College of Pennsylvania, outside of Indiana State University. A Bachelor of Science in Sport Management from your college of Pennsylvania, outside of Indiana State University. He coaches a women’s soccer team at Indiana University and he was the director of community soccer with the Cutter Soccer Club in Bloomington, indiana. He currently lives in Ellisville, indiana, with his wife, three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son, matt. Welcome to the show and I’m glad that we got to be able to do this. Always good to catch up with you.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Same. I think I’m excited to be here and I’m excited to get into the topic speaking in public.
Tim Newman:
Yeah, I mean you’ve actually come a long way. We’ve known each other a good long. While it’s hard to believe, you’ve been graduated 17 years.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, it’s been a long time. It is that long, it is a long time.
Tim Newman:
The person who runs the social media at Georgia State was going through the history and posting some pictures from back when you were a student there and I swear to God you look like you’re 12 in those pictures.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
My wife said too, she goes, I’ve never seen you without facial hair, I go. Yep, those were different times.
Tim Newman:
Well, let’s go back to your college days. You were a little bit different student than most of your peers. Actually, your class, your group, was a little bit different the whole class was but as a college student, you were an official for soccer, basketball and baseball. In doing that, what did you learn about communication in general and communicating to different publics or different groups of people?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
communicating to different publics or different groups of people. Yeah, so in college, or even people back to high school, or even for that, really I got my, my, my referee license when I was 15 or 14 years old, somewhere around there from soccer, and that’s where I got started and that’s where I had my growth spurt too. So I went from about five, seven, five, six to about six foot, six, four, six foot, six foot, six foot, and so I had my. As the assigner said, you had a presence out there because you were taller, but you also needed to be able to voice your calls direction of where things were going during those events. So I remember my first soccer match when I was in high school, obviously being a nervous wreck. You know, making a call wasn’t sure, and you know the what they were when I kept getting told listen, you have presence out there, be assertive, communicate what you’re doing, and it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong. People will follow along. Yeah, you’re going to have people who think that you’re always wrong, but what you learn, though, is when you communicate something effectively, people will respect that more and understand that more.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So more reps I got at high school and then in college I did. I refereed primarily soccer and soccer, basketball and baseball in high school, but then in college I primarily just did soccer. It was one of those things that kept me on top of my game, certainly, but it kept me in that community, communicating well with parents, players, other referees who I was refereeing with, and then I took those things to class because I was able to communicate relatively well in terms of different people and I think when I walked onto campus as a freshman and then through the years I was able to communicate with professors because I worked with a lot of folks that were either usually older than me or had a lot of experience in refereeing, and so it made the transition into those different areas a lot easier. Did I still struggle at times? Absolutely, but it definitely helped, I think, build my communication skills.
Tim Newman:
So when you were an official, was it? Were you primarily rec league, or were you rec league in high school, or a combination?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, so I did, I did rec. I did rec locally, I can’t remember what it was called, and I did the travel league there and I did PIAA for both women and men. So the women, I think, played in the spring and the men played in the fall. So I was doing, you know, a bunch of games, probably two games a week for the 10, 12 week season, wherever they were two games a week for the 10, 12 week season, wherever they were.
Tim Newman:
So what did you notice about the difference in the three different levels of competition in terms of your communication style and how you had to actually present yourself?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah. So if we start at the rec level, generally speaking, they are players who maybe aren’t as skilled and need a lot more guidance. So you’re communicating direction. If they do, for example, they do a throw and wrong, know it’s not, there’s not a um. You don’t turn them all over, but more give them instruction, actually go through the candidates want to throw on the side and so forth. So it’s a lot more. You can give the parents too, like hey, this is what I call. Uh, here’s the explanation why I learned that from right my time doing.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
You know when high school, you need to over communicate with that right um, when you get to travel, you’re those parents generally, as they get older 10, 12, 13, 14 generally understand the rules a little more. So they are um and there’s, there’s obviously fouls. That’s a foul. We’re not keeping them or not explaining it. I mean, we are explaining it but we’re not going in depth as the rules are enforcing those rules. So you’re, you’re communicating the the foul direction with hand signals, whether it’s, you know, the possession of the ball or communicating the foul.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Generally, the hand signals are what is what’s driving the signal for the fan, for the players are generally discussing what potentially happened. They, they don’t. And then high school is a hodgepodge of a lot of things, because mechanics are certainly. Which is a weird thing in soccer is that the mechanics are, or the signals are, generally the same, but there are some that are different, that are sometimes you would forget because you’re going back and forth and travel on that one but that. But generally. But generally, if you’re doing an upper level game, like two teams that are fighting for states are really up to date, those parents are generally a lot more involved and you get bigger crowds of students and parents. So you’re certainly listening to a lot of you know, try to voice things, keep things out of your head, but you’re also hearing everything that’s going on. So it’s really important to communicate quickly and directly of what’s going on so you can move on to the next possession player.
Tim Newman:
Yeah, I think, being able to be flexible and go through those different levels you know, because you could be doing, you know, a high school game on a Friday and then turn right around and do a low-level youth rec game Saturday. So you’ve got to be flexible and knowing your audience to be able to do them and do them well.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, absolutely, and you know the you can go from the adrenaline of reffing a top level game, like you said, on one of those nights. The next morning you have to kind of recalibrate yourself because you have to remember okay, now I’m working with six-year-olds or seven-year-olds or eight-year-olds that there were certainly times where I had to do that because I was like, okay, I just came off this really big, high and intense game that there was maybe some rough play. I had to get on some yellow maybe not essentially red, but usually some yellow cards. Coaches were right here. Then you go down there and you’re essentially a friend of the players. They’re looking up to you, they’re pulling on your leg, they’re picking the grass, they’re not really paying attention. Get yourself in that mindset.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Certainly, certainly, you’re communicating two different ways. You know, now that I have kids, I don’t understand communicating the kids, but the college students. It certainly changes the way you think, the way you think of things sometimes. So sometimes I’ll go home after working here I’m like deep breath, the kids are screaming this is they, they need other, they have other needs, you know. So it certainly certainly helped me, I guess, and sometimes you just forget. It’s true, exactly, yep, exactly.
Tim Newman:
So you know, right before you graduated, you did an internship with Lehigh University Athletics. It was in the development office, I believe, yep. How did you navigate the communication channels in that position and what did you learn from that?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah. So what was fun? I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously I was there for a week mostly my boss, who I’m still in contact with. They gave me some hard lessons in communication really, because I was sending these emails and they wanted me to send them, but I was probably not communicating the best. I was still looking at college mode, whatever Email. At that point I was probably 607. I don’t want to say it was new, but I rarely sent an email. Learning email communication was certainly something I learned. So that was from the email side.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
When we have events, my job was just to be the liaison to both of my bosses at the time.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So I was there handling the check-in table, but I was communicating with big donors and I was in charge of this golf tournament.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
But a lot of these folks were big donors who were donating money to the athletic department the partnership, which I think was called the iPartnership. But you really had to have the conversations and be helping the staff that was working there to continue to develop those relationships. And I learned through that process that it was important to not only be a part of that but also be a part of like, hey, we’re golfing, also make sure it’s a fun thing. So when we were organizing the scramble I made sure we had maybe some background what they were going to do. But we organized people that want to be organized in certain ways so they get to meet, really kind of come into the floor as donors but also build that way for the relationship with the university. So it was an interesting internship. Something that definitely helped me with that, with talking to folks that want to be part of the university and want to donate money and see athletics succeed athletics exceed.
Tim Newman:
You know and, like you said in that it’s a customer service role and you know. But you also have to know who you’re dealing with, because these big donors are the ones that you know are funding most of you know the athletic program. They don’t want to come up and talk to somebody who has no idea what’s going on. They want to be able to talk to people that they can get information from, who can tell them what’s going on, where to go, what to do, uh, different types of things yeah, and I is one of those things where I know we talked about it in class but it really hit home.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
You can’t, if you don’t have an answer, go find. So I always left every conversation I had with anybody. There’s a lot of times I probably didn’t have the answers. I wasn’t in the weeds I, I was just an intern, right. They were asking a question like well, let me go find the answer, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. And I my goal is always to try to get back to you know, if it was an email or if it was a, we’re on site, obviously quicker. But if we were off site and when I was I got an email, I would try to get a early in the day. So I’ve used that even nowadays. You know, my goal is out every two or three hours, but if I can get that answer to somebody quickly, I think people appreciate that yeah they do, they do.
Tim Newman:
So you left the internship and graduated and then you got your first job, which you know. To me, for a young person, young professional, it’s a dream job. You know, a friend of yours had a similar type job traveling across the country doing golf tournaments right which you work with the uh, us army, all-american bowling football camps. You traveled all over the country.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
You know talk about your role and, uh, the different people that you had to communicate with yeah, so I, I, after graduation, I interned for a little bit and I got hired on full time, but so my my role was we were basically the liaison to the US Army, us Army and their marketing company, which I probably have their name, us Army All-American, their company, that was the marketing folks, and so we would go. We had the top 90 players in the country that would play in this All-American Bowl. I was in San Antonio. Our job was to go and meet these players. I was on the West team, so we did all the West Coast teams. I got to drive, which is the priority. I was driving from New Jersey. We got to see the entire US six days.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Anyway, we were out there for I think two, three months. We went to each stop. We had to set up something. We had to communicate with the athletic director of the school, the parents of the player, the school that they were planning on attending or if they announced that they were attending there, so they were aware of local newspapers or local media. At the time, podcasts didn’t exist, so we did all these things to put on a event at the specific school. So we our first stop was somewhere in la and we put on this. It was the opening event, so we had a, but we had this huge attendance where I remember being this really windy day, so we had to get the microphones figure out. Uh, we were communicating.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
This player has been invited by the us army us army and the us army, american staff to play in the 2008 American Bowl. So the principal would speak and we’d give them all these talking points and the Army would speak. So all this stuff was coordinated to make sure that we were getting across the message that the US Army wanted. But also the Bowl Is this you know I said that over 60 days we traveled up and down the West Coast. I remember. You know I said over 60 days we traveled up and down the west coast. I never we stayed in la for 10, 12 days, because there’s so many good players out there in la, and then we we came back and then the us army bowl took place. It took place in early january, so I was then. I was then down in san antonio for the week. I forget my role was even that year, but we were working with the players you know, the families to get them whatever they needed during that.
Tim Newman:
Did you have to deal with any local politicians? You know getting them involved in any of this.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I don’t recall. If we did, it probably would have been above me. I didn’t directly work with politicians, I directly worked with, you know, the schools and stuff like that and maybe the schools had to to make sure we were allowed to come in. And maybe the schools had to to make sure we were allowed to come in. I know one of the schools we went to in Northern California would not let us come because something politically different. I don’t think it was a politician.
Tim Newman:
Yeah, and my guess at that point that’s out of your hands and that would hire up the food chain. Yep yeah, I just remember, we got a phone call, maybe the day before, two days before, saying hey, we’re going to figure something else out for this student or this athlete and I think we did at some point, but we weren’t allowed to go to the school. But essentially, you’re putting on, you know, major press conferences two or three times a week.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, I mean it was typically a Monday, wednesday, friday type thing. Sometimes if there was a high school game, we would go to the high school game on Saturday. Sometimes the events took place at the high school or during a high school football game. So if the game took place on a Saturday we would go to the game and then we did various things. We also got, we also attended some NFL games where they would, where they were players to, during those events. So you know, we had a lot of different touch points that we hit, doing these different events. So, and it was all publicized, you know.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So I remember when we were up in Seattle we went to the Seahawks game. We had like four or five players that were in that area that we did so they would come out. I think it was like going on the timeout. We sat with them, their parents did a whole thing, the usr, we set it up and they were a sponsor, I think at the seattle seat. Ironically, we sat with kevin durant, because at that time he was seattle last year. So I’ll never forget that, looking back now that, um, he was there. Yeah, that’s crazy.
Tim Newman:
So so at um, he was there. Yeah, that’s crazy. So so what? What? What was your? What was the favorite place that you went to?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
My favorite place was, uh, would have been in uh, I can’t remember it was a town in Oregon. It was right on, right on the Pacific coast highway. It was just awesome. It was great because, like you know, like, like I said, you get to do the whole west coast. Um, I, I I’ve been out there previously, but actually just kind of traveling, right, it was really. I I was in washington before, I think, at one point, but that was also so. I’m just kind of like it’s hard to really like pick one, I guess, because it was such an awesome trip, but we’re gonna wash and buy one, right but you know I remember you sent me that picture from Alaska too, which was to me was incredible.
Tim Newman:
I had no idea you guys even went up there so yeah.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So I guess if you’re, if you’re taking part of that tour. Yeah, so the following year, when I was full-time, I was running the football camps. At that time there was a town called Barrow, alaska in, or maybe they were trying to get a football team up there to get people excited, it was just a really desolate area. So we did a whole video and I think it was ESPN it wasn’t.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
ESPN. It was yeah, and so we went up there, put on a football cam for the players or for the players that were there. It was so interesting. We were there it was early August, I think of that year, and you know it was 24 hours of daylight. So I mean you’re just oh, like I remember like the kids being up all day. I remember some of our football players, it’s like three o’clock in the morning, it’s just bright light outside. It’s just something I would you know I’m glad I experienced, but it was just wild, like what we had to go through just to get up there one and one to see their day-to-day where I started.
Tim Newman:
Right. And then if you go up there, like another six months later, there’s no sun at all. It’s dark 24 hours, you know Right.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, so from I think I think I was there like right in the middle of it. So I think from like right around maybe late December to like February, there was like 70 days of like the sun never gets up. That would really be tough. Yeah, the other side of it, the sun full time, is harder, but I would say at least it’s light outside everything.
Tim Newman:
You know, as a college student, you and a couple of classmates were really kind of thrown to the fire when you were chosen to present, you know, at a major international conference on education. What do you remember about that experience, especially leading up to it, you know, and actually standing in front of the room to give that presentation?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I remember being extremely nervous because it was the first time like I was really outside of class presenting to professionals. At that point I I remember being prepared and we got there and I I don’t know if it was because we were kawaii or we just got more relaxed when we started presenting and we just did a great thing was great. I think what we did was fine. It just took us to just finally get there and I think it was all the things we kind of we did in college. We presented a lot, so I think that helped us. But this was different because we were presenting in front of professors. You know that at that point I didn’t know where my career would end up, but it was certainly a unique experience presenting all that information to where I can’t remember who was even there presenting that information to folks that you know you never would have thought you presented to. So that’s all that’s what know. You never would have thought you presented to.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So, that’s all. That’s what I recall being extremely nervous.
Tim Newman:
Right, there was one person I was there. His name is Dr Vince Mumford, who that was the first time that I met him. You know we’ve been friends, you know, since that time. Another your college student went went into his graduate program. He’s been on, he’s been on campus at Georgiaorgia state a couple of times and so you know, like so you never know who’s going to be in these presentations and you know what that actually is going to lead to down the road. You know, especially, you know thinking about your connections with georgia state right before you know, obviously before I got there, and how that happened. So the whole idea of being nervous going into that, that’s, that’s normal, right, right, so do you, do you remember Dr Mumford?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I do. Yeah, it was, it was. I remember him being there. We talked to him afterwards after he was really impressed with what we did. Now that I recall we were talking about extranjual learning. I had to be 16 or 17. I was at a conference my mentor in marketing or or one of them, I don’t remember Cosmo, he was there. I was like do you remember me? He was like he didn’t remember me specifically, but he remembered the presentation. So we started chatting a little bit. So it’s not that we’re overly friendly, but I know him that really well, but we were able to connect over something that happened, I would guess, over 10 years prior. Now you know where I’m sitting. It’s kind of funny how that all, how it all played out and that small conversation that happened on Waikiki, you know 10 years prior, right, kind of filtered in 10, 10 years later, where I have some national conference, right right.
Tim Newman:
And so so now you know doing what you do. You know presentations and conferences all over the world. How has your presentation style or approach or confidence changed over the years?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I still get nervous every time I present and I think it’s because I want it to be perfect. And you know you do all this practicing and research and you go through it. You know you’re going to be fine and that’s how I am. Every time I’m nervous once I start talking. Um, there’s very few times where I don’t feel fine. There’s certain times where probably I stumble over a word or something, but overall I feel pretty good once I get going.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So it’s, it’s always been about repetition for me and I tell the students the same thing you go if I know when you don’t, I know when you come in here and you’re just like looking at the slide, you’re guessing what you’re supposed to say. You don’t know. That makes no sense. You know, I always bring up that clip from Rookie of the Year when the pitching coach goes out to talk to Henry Roengunner and says you have to have the have to, which isn’t a real thing, so that because he had no notes, he just wasn’t running out there to talk to us. That’s what’s going on. When you’re not prepared, talk about the have to. It always seems to.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
No one’s ever seen that movie now because it’s 30 years old. It’s still. It’s still. It’s still relevant to being prepared and preparation and I know I am not, as I don’t feel as confident when I, when I’m giving these presentations. I think my style is obviously my style Going back to your question that I probably didn’t answer is to be one prepared, but also I like to have the this open communication with the audience. What I mean by that is I don’t want it to look like I am serious, cause I. I also want to make it seem like, hey, you can ask questions whenever you want.
Tim Newman:
And I think when you have that skill set and people feel welcoming into what you’re talking about, they feel more welcome to ask questions and actually what’s your process From the time that you know that you’re going to be given a presentation and that you agree to it, to the time that you step in front of the audience? What’s your process of preparation to the time?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
that you step in front of the audience. What’s your process of preparation? Yeah, so I would say I’ll start putting the PowerPoint presentation together about a month. So we’re talking about how I want to do it. So I’m storyboarding what’s going to look like about a month out. I’ll wrap it up. If I’m working by myself, I’ll send them to make sure that’s proof. I’ll work with other people. I’ll send them probably a week out, days out, so they can take a look at it and see if they have any feedback. I’ll take a look at it again with the feedback and probably fly it out and send it back out to everybody. And then, so about three days out, I will review it, go through it and I’ll do the same thing two days out.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I’m not a big note card person. I just can’t sit there, I just don’t. But I do have notes in my section. I’ll just read through it and my bullet. So typically that’s worked out really well for me. And then you know right, probably the day of, I am preparing one or two times and then I’m gone.
Tim Newman:
Well, you know you bring up something that I didn’t really think about too much. You know, in a lot of your you know research presentations, you know you’re working with two or three, maybe four different people. You know, a lot of times you give these presentations. You know you’re going to be giving them with maybe not all of them, but maybe one or two more. How do you work it, or how do you feel, when your presentation style is different from the people that you’re presenting with, Because it still needs to flow right? You still have to make sure that the audience is engaged and paying attention and you’re giving them what they need. Audience is engaged and they’re paying attention and you’re giving them what they need. But sometimes, when you have different styles, that really, yep, cause a problem.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, so it can be tough because no two presentation styles are the same, but I’ve worked with this similar people or the same people generally for the last probably five, seven, six, seven years now, so I know what to expect. So I know the transitions, how it’s going to look, how it’s going to look, how it’s going to work. I would say I can’t worry about how other people are going to present, and what I mean by that is everyone is going to do their own thing regardless, because they’re going to have a different comfortability with what we’re going to say, and that’s just the nature of the beast. Some people like to over-prepare, some people are under-prepare, some people are underprepare. I can’t control their presentation because that’s just what they’re going to do, especially if they’ve been doing it for a long time. They’re just going to do what they’ve always done.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
My goal is to worry about me. I will bring things up If we practice together beforehand how the transition can work, but generally speaking, I really can’t overly worry about everyone else. So typically I would. I’m usually the introduction or the discussion I try to look at is because that’s usually an area where can bring in the audience the most or get the audience kind of brought back in, and I feel like that hits my skillset. If someone’s really dry in the middle of that, people usually forget about that stuff anyway.
Tim Newman:
You’ve just taken on a new role as department chair and so now you’re supervising people who you know a couple months ago. You know they’re still your friends, but they were your friends and colleagues, so what have you learned and how has your communication with them been different?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I have a very unique, I think, transition here. So last spring I was on sabbatical so I wasn’t physically here almost the entire semester. I came in a couple of days just to grab some things, when the chair who was in the position was leaving and I decided to put my name in the hat. I got positioned. It was a good nine months where I didn’t see a lot of people here. I wasn’t here and I just didn’t have to worry about it. So I remember preparing like I needed to be ready to transition into this role, worry about. So I remember preparing like I needed to be ready to transition into this role. And my one thing is is I’m a very communicative person, so I over communicate, whether it’s through email or discussion. So how it’s changed, I think the most is people. It took me a little bit to realize that hey, you’re the one who’s actually in charge you need, you’re making the decisions and I would say, well, for the first month that was, I had to keep reminding myself that hey, you’re actually not the one looking for the answer, the one giving it to you. And once I got into that mode it changed the relationship, as people saw me now as their boss. But then it changed the relationship in terms of me being a person who wants to get to know.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I still every day, even though I’ve worked with the Squirt or my I still every day, even though I’ve worked with the sport manager group. We’ve all been here for at least four or five years now. I know those people, but now they come to me with questions. The other group, the kinesiology group I don’t know them as well, but I’ve made an effort. I talk to them, probably a lot more than the SPM group, not that I have to, but I want to. I want to get to know them more so they feel comfortable coming to me and I’ve noticed that change where, hey, they just drop in. That’s perfectly fine, I haven’t opened the door and we’re able to have those conversations and we’ve been able to put out fires before fires even happen.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So I think my approach to over-communicating, communicating with my faculty, has been really beneficial for them and it’s just the way I think people have always seen me, as a person they can come talk to, and I think that’s been really critical for this role, as I have faculty often just say hey, just watch that on chat Perfect, what’s that on chat Close door. We’re going to close door. We can go grab lunch or whatever, I don’t care. That’s been the change. But I’ve made the change, I think, pretty easily for them. Especially since I was gone last year, they People almost maybe forgot I was here. I wasn’t even working here, so it maybe made it a little bit easier for everybody.
Tim Newman:
Is that a good thing that you were even gone?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Probably. I don’t know. I don’t know. It was definitely strange coming back in the fall after you know you’re on sabbatical, you’re home, you’re working on some research and also I had a baby last January, so I was really inundated with things going on almost every single day and when I did come over it was more or less just say hi to people, kind of just reset my brain from being up at 3 o’clock.
Tim Newman:
Right, so you think about it from a different perspective here for a second. You know, in your role as a mentor, in your role as a mentor, what would you, what advice would you give to anybody who’s transitioning from one role to being promoted into a role that now again, you’re supervising people that you worked with, your friends and your colleagues?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I would say whatever you do, be yourself. That’s the first thing. You’re not going to change. You can’t change who you are, but you can change. You can change. Your role will change. So you go from the subordinate to a leader and you have to make that transition. But don’t make a stance to be authentic.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I think that’s the one thing. I’ve always been here. You know, my goal is to make sure all our faculty are supported. So my new role is support you in any way I can and so that, from a from a boss’s standpoint or chair’s perspective, that’s my job. If you’re getting on this role, your job is to support your faculty. So when faculty comes in for a request, that’s my job is to support that faculty. See if I can do it. If I can’t, I let the faculty know. Have that conversation with them, try to figure out a solution. So being able to present solutions to maybe a problem you can’t solve, but also be able to be able to support them, let them know you’re on their side and be the advocate, I think that’s like the biggest role. I think it’s the hardest thing. I hired for a lot of administrators.
Tim Newman:
Let’s switch gears just a little bit here and talk about you know the students you have and young professionals. You know what have you noticed about the way they communicate in class discussions, presentations, et cetera compared to when you, when you first started teaching?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, so I think it’s changed and we talked about this, I think, recently too. I said I think from this COVID group has been certainly a challenge and people call the COVID group the 21-22. But really this, I think this group is probably more. The COVID group has been certainly a challenge and people call the COVID group the 21-22, but really I think this group is probably more the COVID group. They didn’t have those interpersonal skill years of 8th, 9th, 10th grade that they were at home, right. So we’re seeing that now, as they’re presenting, they’re not totally on board. They have a difficult time communicating through email. They think everything should be a text. Not that they didn’t exist before, but it seems to be more pronounced now.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So trying to create what I’ve done this certainly this year created more problems to get people more engaged, not that I wasn’t engaged before, but just to keep people to be discussing these topics where, like 10 years ago, I didn’t have to do that. The hands were always being raised questions, comments, concern, wherever. Wherever I had a topic that way we’re now it’s I have to almost provide the discussion point, provide the prompt to get any feedback. I do and yeah, I’m just assuming it’s from this period of being home, not in those interpersonal skills, not talking to people, feeling that, still feeling that they’re still getting through that, you know this, still learning how to talk.
Tim Newman:
I guess, and I see some of those same same same issues as well what strategies are you using, you know to, to help students I hate to even use the word change right because it has such a negative connotation what you know? What strategies are you using to help them understand the importance of communicating and become better communicators?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So I teach a sports sales class and then I teach I’m right now teaching innovations class and sports sales class. We have things called Ignite presentations. So if you’re not familiar with Ignite presentations, it’s 10 second slides timed and then it goes to the next slide. So they have to. We go through a couple of different iterations of it, but I’ll just use the first. For example, you got to introduce yourself, so they got two minutes to do it. It’s 12 slides. The slides change on their own every 10 seconds so they have to communicate effectively quickly to go through who they are and know. It’s too bad and they can only have. I think as we go along I make the words on some of that. So the first one is like 15 words. So they have to start using pictures. So they’re not looking at the screen, they’re looking at the audience the entire time because there’s no.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
There’s no words in the slide. Now, in innovations class I’ve had a lot of these students. I think I’ve had all of them already in that class, so they know the rules minimal words. I want to see a picture. I want to see what you did. Listen, my job as a professor is to give you the actual information. There’s words on the slide. For that reason, I don’t have to use words. I don’t. I’ll use pictures to prompt discussion For you. I want you to know the topic. Provide what the picture is on the back, provide the context of why you used it, and I think that’s helped.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I’m the best feedback I get every year. Not, I’m the best feedback I get every year. I reach every not every student, but most students come back and they say that was the best thing that’s happened. I’m a better communicator. A student we went over students at this for marketing conference talked about how important that was. Uh, they did a presentation on porn. That was for them, cause they were terrible.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I give them presentations. They were nervous, they were shy. You know, the first day of class. You know my job is to make you all comfortable and I use that all the time in that class. You see it, you see the light going on at each presentation and I tell them this first presentation is going to be terrible. It is, and if it’s great, well then you’re. Then you’ve already been a great communicator. Generally they’re not great by the last one. It’s like a totally different student and it it’s my favorite part of my job right now, I think, or teaching lines is seeing them develop, not only talking, but the slides. They’re paying attention, they’re listening, they go from talking about themselves so they can literally sell me whatever they want.
Tim Newman:
That’s a pretty good exercise right there.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, it’s great and I should do it Now. Other faculty have done it too. I can’t take 100% credit for it. I know other faculty do it but it’s been great. That’s awesome.
Tim Newman:
What has been your most embarrassing moment when presenting, and how did you recover and move on?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, so I was. I won’t use names, but I was presenting in 2012 at a VASM conference. I was in the middle of it and someone in the audience said whatever my research was was incorrect. I was doing it incorrectly. All that happened was my partner misspoke, said the wrong thing, just changed like a couple words. It was, it was not intentional, it was just that happened. She froze, it was and there was, you know. So I’m sitting there as a doc student just scared out of my mind. You know what’s gonna happen next. And luckily my advisor stepped, never being like is this the route for me? Like, do I need, do I need to be screamed at in a presentation that I just we said the wrong, very minor mistake on my partner’s part, and you know my part too. You know I blame you it happens it happens.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t mad, I was just like I’m sitting here, we’re both, we’re both saying it was like is this really happening, like. And so I was just I remember being really embarrassed and walking out of there Like, okay, things happen. It’s not our fault, I get it. It’s not our fault that that that a person took it the wrong way. We’ll, we’ll get better next time.
Tim Newman:
And so we present a couple of I know you’ve heard me say this many times. Everybody says and does stupid things all the time and it’s really you know how we recover from that and how we can move on from that. You know I go back to. I know you’ve heard me say this Bill of X10 commandments Take your job seriously, but don’t take yourself serious.
Tim Newman:
You mess up, okay, you know, and you messed up and you move on and you do the best that you can to clean it up and that’s all you can do. You know, like you said earlier, you can’t control what your partners are doing in the presentation, just like you can’t truly control how that message is received. Now we have a responsibility to make sure or do the best we can that we’re we’re communicating effectively and that they’re receiving it the way we want them to, but we don’t necessarily have any control over that either. Understanding that it’s going to happen and trying to clear up any of those misconceptions as quickly as cleaning as you can, and that’s all you can do and move on yeah, then you know, in that moment you know you feel really small, right.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
And in this, when you’re a doc student, you know, first year it was first semester, I remember. I remember that stuck with me. But then when I would, when I got, when I finally got a job and I was no longer a PhD student, I would see something in the presentation. I would never student, I’ve never done that but I have. What I have done is if I saw something or I had questions, I would talk to them a lot.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Hey, did you mean to say this or did you talk about it? This way? Am I, did I mishear this? And generally they just misspoke and no one said anything but or they were happy that I brought it up, you know, or at least we were having a conversation, and some of those I work with some of these people now. So it’s one of those things that you know I’m it’s. I’m glad it happened because I was able to make sure, like you said, I don’t take myself that seriously, I don’t think of myself that seriously, that I’m going to do my job Right and I think that’s helped me to be a better mentor to discussions that don’t need to be had in front of a room.
Tim Newman:
Exactly, and I think it’s. You know, it’s important, like you said, to maybe to pull them aside, because, again, we’re not trying to call anybody out or make them feel a certain way. We just want to make sure that we’re clear, at least from my perspective. I want to make sure that I’m clear in what I heard and what I’m learning, and if I got it wrong, then that’s how we clear it up, right, right? So yeah.
Tim Newman:
Now. Now, if it’s, if it’s something you know that you truly have a question on. Again, people have heard me say this I don’t mind being the dumbest person in the room, raise my hand and asking a question that that I don’t understand about, Right? So those are. Those are two different things and two different ways of handling them.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Right, there really is no dumb questions because you don’t I know what I teach. I think people know things. I’m sure that’s happened to you and you’re like back in your mind like how do you not know this? But you’re like maybe I just I read a lot more into this, so obviously I know more. But I have to. Not, I don’t want to say double down, but make, bring it out of their level. But sometimes I’m at a senior level. I’m talking to freshmen not realizing okay, they definitely know way over here. I need to be done Right.
Tim Newman:
They don’t know what they don’t know yet. And yeah, and we’re assuming that they’re at miscommunication happens a lot, not only in any classrooms, but out in real life, in the business world. Everything else A hundred percent Yep. What presentation did you feel the best about after, after it was over, and why’d you feel that way?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
You know it’s probably my dissertation because you put so much time and sweat into that. You know it takes a year to get all the data and running this huge document right. I mean it takes so much time. And then when I got to that final stage, I got in the room. It went off without a hitch. I think I presented exactly 30 minutes or very close to what was the requirement, that’s a requirement of what they expect you to do, and I remember being finished and the questions I got were so easy to answer because I knew the person inside and out and I knew I finally achieved the biggest goal, I guess, of my professional career completing dissertation and becoming a PhD. But just knowing that I killed it. It was presented in a great way. It was in the middle of July.
Tim Newman:
It was perfect. It’s a good feeling. You know, from that perspective, that you’re done, you don’t ever have to do it anymore and now you can really start on the next chapter of that journey, right, every career has that point where you can actually start moving on to the next chapter of your journey. And to be a college professor, that’s really the jumping off point, right, and you, you know, you spend, you know at’s really the jumping off point.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Right and you spend. At that point I wasn’t married or anything, so I remember spending a lot of Saturdays, like Saturday mornings going over the office. I did that probably for like 10 straight Saturdays because I didn’t have time around the week to get it all. I mean I needed to get done and I knew I had my own deadline of finishing by that July. So I knew I had my own deadline of finishing by that July. So I knew I had to be done basically by May, and so I was grinding out every Saturday morning. That was when I got my best writing because no one was bothering.
Tim Newman:
So do you have a public speaker? That’s really had a big impact on you.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
It’s funny. I would typically say like a comedian, because I feel like they’re just so comfortable, but that’s probably the best person.
Tim Newman:
Why wouldn’t it be? Because that’s like they’re just so comfortable. But that’s probably the best person.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Why wouldn’t it be? Because, I mean, that’s all they’re doing, yeah.
Tim Newman:
I mean they’ve got an act right. They write the jokes, they practice the jokes, they prepare. It’s really no different.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, and honestly, I like a lot of I’m not really a specific type of comedian you know any comedian that really but I, I really like the show. Impractical jokes, yeah. Yeah, he’s able to engage an audience, not taking himself too seriously, but he takes his role very seriously. I think the way he handles his comedic style, he’s engaging with people and I think not that I’m funny. I may be, but I can see where, like, he is able to get people to not listen but to to communicate with them, to have these, to get these people involved in these, these jokes right. And I think being able to do that is a skill and I’ve seen him live once and he was fantastic because he just engages the audience the entire time and you feel like you’re actually you feel, feel like he’s talking, like really get out in a real conversation, right. That’s, that’s a. That’s a really hard skill set. I’ll go with Joe Gap.
Tim Newman:
Okay, well, we can take that.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, I, yeah. I wish I knew the other guy’s name, but you were there too. It would have been 2013,. 14 2014. His name was Earl. I read some sort of assembly. Maybe it wasn’t his name.
Tim Newman:
I don’t remember my name, earl.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I have the book in my house. I don’t know what the book was called. Maybe that was the book’s name, I don’t know that’s awesome.
Tim Newman:
When I ask people why they get so nervous when doing any type of public speaking, they almost always say they don’t want to sound stupid and they don’t want to mess up.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
So what stupid. And they don’t want to mess up. So what would you tell someone who says that they don’t want to sound stupid? It’s going to happen, you know it’s. It’s you, even if you, if, even if you don’t practice, or even if you do practice, you’re going to go through this whole rigmarole uh, what you want to say, and sometimes it’s going to come out the exact opposite. Because it’s good, it’s, I call, I don’t maybe call it something word, word, just say something.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I had this great professor who would just his name’s Rob Potter. He’s at IU, he was, he was just so engaging, but he would say something wrong. He’d be like you know that was incorrect, let’s back it up for a second, and then I’m going to go Every time he that he didn’t want to say and he would just keep going. So I don’t have that same skill set as he did, because he was just able to just do a pullback and just look at the audience and make any sentence and be like you know what, I’m wrong or not wrong, but like I said something incorrectly and he would just kind of re-speak that in a funny way too. But, like for me, I think it’s the end of the world right, just keep going or correct yourself Like that’s, like it’s, no one’s going to know the difference and when someone and when someone’s listening back, you know they’re going to realize.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Okay, he corrected himself. This is what he meant to say. This is not. And if I have, and if someone has a question, they’ll come on and ask hey, you said it this way, is that the right way, or did you mean this? Nine times out of 10, that’s probably right. Right, or they’re probably right, or they’re going to confirm. But they really want to know the answer. So I wouldn’t be worried about it, unless you really feel like you said an entire lecture wrong, which you just give the wrong lecture.
Tim Newman:
But that’s probably not as ever, often, but I think just having the having the foresight and the knowledge that to yourself that something’s going to be said wrong, it’s okay, but you know, my guess is, you know when, when he says, hold up, I said something correctly, and backs up and resays it. I bet those are the types of points that really stick with people in the audience 100% yeah.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Because, I remember him so how much of that?
Tim Newman:
is he really messed up, or how much of that was done on purpose to make sure that this is a point that I need to hammer home? How much of that is a technique as well?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, I mean some people, if they had the skill of saying it on purpose, if people were paying attention, that’s great and I think that’s awesome, like great, you can make sure, you, that your mission is getting across. But I also think it also helps to kind of, like you said earlier, not take yourself too seriously. You know what I’m gonna make. I said the wrong thing here’s. I’m gonna now correct myself or someone’s gonna correct me so I can go right. So it’s a double-edged sword. It’s not a double-edged sword. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just making sure, like, don’t make take your take yourself so seriously. Like you know what you made a mistake, own up to it. It’s okay, and that’s having a mistake. It’s more or less. I said something incorrectly or I just misspoke. Here’s move on Next thing. Or, as someone asked me a question or someone follows up with me, oh yeah, you’re right, you know.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I said it this way I no, at the end of the day, it’s really not Like and people are paying attention. They will ask. Or, if they care, they will ask to make sure that you said something.
Tim Newman:
So where can people find you?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, the Blaska Project, and you can find me on Twitter X, whatever we’re calling it nowadays at Mblaska B as in boy, las Z as in zebra KA, where you can find me as chairperson of the Kinesiology Recreation Support Department at Indiana State University. My door is always open.
Tim Newman:
Are you still a guest on the IU Basketball podcast or broadcast?
Dr. Matt Blaska:
I haven’t done one recently. I did one about Conference of Real Alignment in September. I haven’t been one recently. I did one about conference realignment in September. I haven’t been on one recently, but maybe I’ll be on one here soon.
Tim Newman:
Well, matt, thanks so much for taking some time with us today. I really appreciate it Really. Good insight, especially from the longevity piece of how you’ve grown as a professional, as a communicator, and hopefully the audience understands that we’ve all been where you are. It does get better, but it takes work and practice to get better.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
Absolutely, and you know it’s one of those things. You know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but you know I had a. I had a stutter as a young kid, so I went through a lot of different things, six, seven year old, being able to speak more fluently. I still have to slow myself down now. So it’s one of those things. You just takes time to get better and slow yourself down.
Tim Newman:
All right, bud, you take care and we’ll talk to you soon.
Dr. Matt Blaska:
All right, sounds good.
Tim Newman:
Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on our conversation with Matt and the items he shared about communicating. I hope you all caught the fact that, despite his extensive public speaking experience, matt still gets nervous before presentations. While he doesn’t think feeling nervous is something he will ever get over, he has developed routines and practices that enable him to feel confident as soon as he starts speaking. I think it’s important for everyone to remember that we’re all human and it’s normal to have a certain level of anxiety when standing in front of the room. The key is learning how to handle these fears and pushing through the uncomfortable moments to achieve your desired end results. As promised at the beginning, each episode addresses the art and science of public speaking and covers techniques to enhance your communication skills.
Tim Newman:
Matt talked about the importance of not taking yourself too seriously and accepting the fact that we’re. Matt talked about the importance of not taking yourself too seriously and accepting the fact that there will be times you make a mistake. His best advice is to own it. If you don’t know the answer to something, tell people. You will find out and get back to them. If you say something incorrectly, admit it and correct it. People will understand and appreciate your honesty. Matt’s recommendation to be authentic and not try to change who you are for others is something I’ve always believed in and practiced. I loved his reference to the movie Rookie of the Year and if you haven’t watched it, be sure to keep the scene Matt talked about in mind when you think about practicing before the next time you speak in public.
Tim Newman:
In the meantime, please make sure you visit the Speaking with Confidence website and join our growing community. Sign up for special updates regarding the June 1st launch of the Formula for Public Speaking. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any episodes. You can download, like and share the podcast with friends. Always remember your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care, thank you.