The White Rabbit

Matt goes into what he took away, from a recent interview, about building trust. He touches on commitment (hat tip to Robert Cialdini, someone Matt and Alper both have mixed feelings about), how to build trust into a pitchdeck, the importance of describing the problem and its role in building trust, and a couple studies he found that looked into what parts of the body are involved in the building of trust.

Vlad Cazan, co-founder of Romania's KFactory, goes into his company's efforts to sell in other countries, particularly into the UK.

In particular, he goes into the importance of patience and preparation, and what to do when you don't have any connections in the target country yet.

Vlad also mentions the importance of, when considering what countries to target first, to ask yourself which ones are most open to doing business with a partner outside the country.

Like some of our previous guests, Vlad also mentions that your star employees back home might not be your star employees in the new country.

Bertay Fişekçi, employee engagement expert extraordinaire, goes into his public speaking journey, starting with what initially prompted him to work on that skill, how he got past initial fears once he started down that road, and how it helps him in his daily life now.

Matt and Alper blow out the carbon (a phrase an old family friend of Matt's used to use to mean taking an old car out on the highway for some exercise). In this case, that means they cover a couple miscellaneous pieces of business. Matt is considering updating a staple of his trainings, The Four Things, and Alper discusses a video he recorded recently where he takes a side on the "visualize the positive" vs "prepare for the worst" debate.

In this episode Matt interviews Alper on other ways into angel investing. Matt has a dream that we can provide a service and magically become part owners of, say, Microsoft, but Alper squashes that dream, saying that yes, some actual money is probably going to be needed.

But don't worry, if all you want is to brag to your friends over a beer, you can probably get in for not much, but you're probably going to get, well, not much.

Brad Farris returns to the podcast to describe a pivotal moment in the emotional regulation of how you show up for any communication event, be it a presentation or an employee's performance review.

Matt plays the guinea pig (in other words, test subject), providing the disastrous subject matter Brad uses to troubleshoot and advise.

This episode is perfect for anyone who wants to make sure the right person shows up for that crucial communication event.

In this episode, Melda Sofuoğlu, a former client of Matt's, goes into what she has picked up over the years in the presentation world.

Also, Melda, having worked in multiple countries, weighs in on the age-old question: Is presenting less data on a slide a culture-specific thing, or is it universal?

In this, the 100th episode of The White Rabbit, Matt and Alper talk about what has changed in the world of presentations over the past two years.

In particular, what they keep coming back to is that the magic only appears when you show up regularly, and the possibility that others won't get what you were talking about, and don't take that too personally, sometimes you just need to let go.

Following a recent episode, where Matt posed a question to Alper in binary terms, Alper digs deeper into the potential problems associated with any binary approach.

Alper points out a recent Netflix documentary that provides an excellent view into what can go wrong if the presenter gets pig-headed, and instead of changing tack, ignores the signs and plows ahead with the plan anyway.

Anyone uncomfortable with the presence of unknowns needs to listen to this episode.

Matt asks Alper for his opinion on two perspectives, which Matt soon realizes sound opposite but are actually not, and Alper offers up a third perspective.

If you've ever wondered who the most valuable person in the room is, this episode is for you.