Gold Nuggets
- The art of presentation is always fundamental to business owners.
- The first step to mastering public speaking is to shift the conversation about why the fear of public speaking exists.
We’ve been conditioned to view public speaking as a responsibility, a chore, and as something we don’t enjoy, as opposed to using public speaking to make an impact and to scale ideas that matter to us. - The greatest speakers present the same presentation hundreds of times.
- You can have an unlimited number of passions, but you only have a limited number of decisions.
- Brenden talks about a 3-step framework that we can use to improve the foundations of our public speaking skills.
- “If we’re only going to live one life, how about we do something interesting with it.”
- A great exercise to put things in perspective is to write your own eulogy. How will people remember you when you’re gone?
- Steve tries to change a question, and Juliet puts her foot down.
- “Communicate the weird things that you do on a daily basis to everyone else around you, that is not illegal, and it will help remind you that you are different and you’re meant to be doing different things.”
- “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools speak because they have to say something.” – Plato
Meet Brenden Kumarasamy
Our guest is Brenden Kumarasamy, founder of MasterTalk. He’s setting out to help people overcome their fears and master the art of public speaking in order to scale their ideas and become successful.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
https://www.mastertalk.ca/
Book Recommendation:
Thirst by Scott Harrison
Stay Connected:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/masteryourtalks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/masteryourtalk/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/MasterTalk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendenkumarasamy/
Learn more about our Cloud Accounting Services here
Transcript
Steve Lotes:
Hello everyone. And welcome to our podcast, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you very much for joining us today. I am, Steve Lotes
Juliet Aurora:
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Lotes:
And we are your co-hosts. But before I introduce our very special guests for today’s show, let’s hear a few words from my wonderful cohost, the smarter woman, herself, Juliet. How are you doing today, Juliet?
Juliet Aurora:
I am excellent. Thank you. Enjoying all the really warm summer weather. A lot of people are saying it’s too hot, but I think about what it was like in February. So I am good with what this temperature is right now. I’m also looking forward to today’s episode. Because I always love hearing for entrepreneurs who start out really young in their… I mean, I started out as an entrepreneur in my thirties, so I’m always interested to hear from young entrepreneurs as to what got them into the journey, why they started. And our guest today is on the younger side. Although for me, everybody’s younger now, but so I think it’s going to be an interesting conversation.
Steve Lotes:
Thank you. That was awesome. And as I mentioned at the beginning of our podcast, this podcast is for and about entrepreneurs. As you know, our goal with each episode is hopefully to provide a little entertainment, but most importantly, some value for your time, some insights, a gold nugget or two that can help you on your entrepreneurial journey. We have a great show for you today with our special guests, Brendan Coomer Assami. Brendan is the founder of Master Talk, which is a YouTube channel he created to help others master the art of communication and public speaking, something we all love to do, right? No one is afraid of public speaking. He has helped many startups raise capital, improve their pitch decks through his time in venture capital at Front Row Ventures and also enjoys mentoring purpose driven individuals to achieve their milestones in life. It’s a big goal.
Steve Lotes:
His current client list includes Montreal Creatives Conference, IBM, McGill university, Concordia university. Wow. That’s quite a list. He also happens to work at IBM as an associate consultant, helping clients navigate their HR transformations in different industries like telecommunications and construction. So, that… You have a lot going on, Brendan. And so without further ado, welcome Brendan joining us all the way from the beautiful city of Montreal. How are you today?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Very good. Thank you. Thanks for having me on to the both of you.
Steve Lotes:
Absolutely, our pleasure. Now there’s lots of things I’d like to get into with you. But I think before we do that, perhaps we can start out where maybe share a little bit of your own journey as to how you got to where you are today.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah, absolutely. So when I was five years old, my parents looked at me in the eyes and they said, “Brendan, you grew up in Montreal, Canada. So you got to learn how to speak French.” So they put me in a French school, my whole life, except one problem. I didn’t speak a word of French. So my whole life, not only was I uncomfortable at presentations, I had to give them in a language I didn’t know. So in the topic of public speaking, it’s something I was scared of my whole life. And then after I went to university, I started competing in these things called case competitions. So think of it like professional sports, but for nerds. So other guys, my age played sports, watch sports, college football games and all that stuff. I still ate the same chicken wings as they did, but instead of the sports games I was watching other schools present presentations.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And that was my life for three years, presenter of 500 times, coached 75 people on how to speak better, did a bunch of stuff. And got my dream job in consulting. And after I started working in the field, I asked myself the following question which is, “How do I use my time and expertise to make an impact in the world?” And that’s when the idea for Master Talk came because I realized a lot of the content on public speaking communication was horrendous on the platform. So I wanted to do something about it.
Steve Lotes:
Okay.
Juliet Aurora:
And certainly with most business owners when they venture into starting their own business, or even if they’re further along in their journey, the art of presentation is always fundamental because most business owners, when they start their business have to sell their product. And if you’re not comfortable in your own skin and being able to articulate what it is, what the value is that you can bring to a customer, you’re dead in the water right off the bat. So certainly it’s very crucial to business owners. And do you only work with business owners or do you help anyone that wants to be able to public speak?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah. And it’s a great question, Julie. It’s a mix. So with my private client list, most of them are CEOs of companies or speakers, but in the case of Master Talks specifically. So the reason why I started the YouTube channel was really for anybody who wants to make a difference in the world who can’t afford a professional speech coach. So think about 16 year old, Julia, she’s at high school, she wants to make a difference in the world, raise a bit of money for charity. And currently at the present time, she doesn’t have any role models to look up to as to how to speak better. Because right now the people who are teaching public speaking on YouTube, let’s just say, they’re not my age right there. They’re a bit older to say the least. So, she doesn’t really have that role model. So for everybody like her, not just Julia, but for everyone else in the world, I want to be that role model for them.
Juliet Aurora:
Excellent.
Steve Lotes:
That’s fantastic. I think I remember reading somewhere that the only thing that causes more stress in our life than public speaking is divorce. Which is, I mean, it’s pretty amazing. I mean, it’s also, it’s one thing to do a presentation. For example, if I happen to have a career in sales and I’m doing a presentation, one-on-one with someone else, that’s one type of presentation. It’s a whole other thing I believe to have to stand up in front of a room of strangers doing a presentation. I mean, I remember the first time I did it I was scared to death. Can you perhaps share a couple of your tips for people who know they’re going to be in that situation where they’re going to have to make a presentation to a group and they are very worried about it to say the least. How can you help them overcome that or deal with it, I guess?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
That was a lot of questions. That’s good I like it.
Steve Lotes:
Sure.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So, one thing I’ll say is great. Divorce is definitely not a problem that you have Steve, but for everyone else, it definitely could be.
Steve Lotes:
Okay.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And the second part of it is let’s start by talking about the fundamental element of why public speaking fear exists. Because for some reason we all compare it to death. We all compare it to all of these things, but we don’t really understand why we’re afraid. So why is that? So let’s explore that for a bit. Let’s break down where we give most of our presentations. For the vast majority of the people who are listening, almost all of the presentations you’ve given have always been in school. We don’t wake up one morning and say, “Hey, Steve Juliet, you want to like get breakfast and present all day?” It doesn’t happen. Right? We’re in high school, college, university, teacher comes up to us, tells us to do a presentation on the Renaissance.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And we’re sitting there thinking, “What is this like a fruit?” And we work really hard. We come up with some great ideas and then we present. But three major issues come to play. One is we never get to pick the topic. And it’s generally something we’re not passionate about. Number two, the students that we present these presentations to don’t care. Not because they don’t care about us as people, but because they’re worried about their own presentation, they got to present in 10 minutes. So they’re not thinking about you, they’re in their own head. And then you have a teacher who is extremely well educated, very well intentioned, but is too stressed. She or he has 30 presentations to go through in two different classes. She doesn’t have time to coach us individually on presentations. So you don’t get to pick the topic, you present to people who don’t want to hear you, and you have teachers who are much too stressed to coach you.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Over and over and over again this behavior gets perpetuated not just in history, but in English, in math, in sciences, in art, in gym, in music. Over and over again we’re taught to believe that public speaking is a responsibility. It’s a chore, it’s an obligation. It’s not something we want to do because it’s not something that’s fun. Versus why we’re using public speaking in this very conversation, to make a difference, to make an impact, to scale our ideas that matter. And by shifting that conversation, that’s the first step to mastering public speaking.
Juliet Aurora:
What a great perspective. I never would have even thought of it, but it’s absolutely true that when you’re introduced to public speaking, which is when you’re in school, you dread it. But it’s because you don’t really care about what it is you’re talking about. So no, absolutely [inaudible 00:09:44].
Steve Lotes:
That was way too close to home for me. And way too accurate. I had a flashback to my days in high school, which were a little while ago I have to admit, but we did have running water. So that was okay. And I remember having to do a presentation. And as soon as you said that, I had to do a presentation I think it was Hannibal crossing the Alps. I hadn’t chosen the topic, you’re absolutely right. I was presenting to my classmates, again, you’re absolutely right.
Steve Lotes:
And I remember standing up there and I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. And I looked out at my classmates and just blank. I could not even remember the first word of the presentation. So thank you for that perspective, Brendan. I’m sure I’ll get over it. It may take me a little while, but no that was very, very accurate. So, thank you.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
No, absolutely. And back to what you’re saying, Steve and Juliet is, that’s the point. That’s why we’re scared of public speak… In fact, it’s normal that we’re all scared. Who wouldn’t be, right? You got all these chores and all these things.
Steve Lotes:
Yep.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
But hopefully this conversation will be able to break a lot of that stigma.
Steve Lotes:
Absolutely. So, in your opinion, what makes a great presenter from a average presenter?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Absolutely. And the difference is a lot simpler than you might think. What average speakers do is that they present a hundred different presentations, a hundred different times. So think about your regular work presentation, think about your school presentation, it’s Wednesday, your boss, your client, your teacher tells you to have something ready in two days. You put a lot of work in, 10, 15 hours. You present it with as much courage as you can. And then you take the presentation, you crumble it, you dump it. And then you move on to the next one. Whereas with the best, the greatest speakers in the world do is that they present the same thing hundreds of times.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So if you use me as an example here. Sure, I’m young. But my keynote that I present to different clients that I work with in universities I’ve presented over 300 times, not three times, not 30 times, 300 times, but because I’m always presenting the same thing over and over again, I’m asking myself very different questions. Because when we’re working on a hundred different presentations, the question we always ask ourselves is, “I wonder what content to put in this thing.”
Brenden Kumarasamy:
When we do the same thing, 300 times, the questions change to, “What emotion do I want to convey in each slide? How do I vary my vocal tones in the same way I’m doing in this conversation to get people excited about my ideas? Or better what are some of the methods that I can use to present that the rest of my industry isn’t doing?” So a good example that you mentioned earlier, Steve, is for some reason, a lot of my PhD competitors like to compare public speaking to death and in my head, that makes no sense. If your outcome, if the goal of your presentation is to help people to inspire them to speak better. Why in the world would you compare it to death? It makes no sense. And by doing that, you’re able to change the industry and how people think about presentations.
Steve Lotes:
That’s great. Great.
Juliet Aurora:
That’s very true as well, because I think it’s like that with anything that you do in life. You get onto a bike to ride a bike, the first time you do it, you’re wobbly, you may fall over, but by the 300th time you get on that bike, you’re focused and you’re looking around where you’re actually cycling through as opposed to focused on the bike. So that would absolutely be the truth with public speaking, especially if you’re presenting the same presentation over and over again. Lots of truth, lots of eyeopening moments that seems a logical, but would never think of.
Steve Lotes:
Well, sometimes the best ideas and the best learnings are the simplest ones. Right? So that was very, very good. Okay. So, who in the presenters you have seen, who’s a great presenter? I won’t ask you to say who’s the best one you’ve ever seen a case we insult some people, but a couple of great presenters you’ve seen.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So I definitely have a lot of favorites as you could probably imagine. But I would say the person who stands out the most to me personally, just because he’s a personal hero of mine is Scott Harrison, who’s the CEO of Charity Water. Charity Water is an organization that helps people get access to clean drinking water. But what’s interesting about how he speaks is that it’s very outcome-based because he speaks a hundred times a year to get people enrolled into the mission to donate some money, to start a campaign, do those things. And the way that he ties in storytelling by talking about his own personal story oh how he used to be a nightclub promoter and went on to become one of the leading voices in water and sanitation in the world is not only inspiring, but also very impressive in the way that he manages that story well, to maximize the money that he raises in every speech. So he’s someone who stands out to me.
Steve Lotes:
Yeah.
Juliet Aurora:
Is that something that you would recommend that most people try and do when they are having to put together a presentation, whether it’s for work or anything industry related is include some storytelling in it?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So I’m a bit, it’s an interesting question. I have a different opinion than most of the people in the industry. So if you think about a lot of people you look up to like Donald Miller, Nancy Duarte, who have amazing books on storytelling and how to think about slides and presentations. My personal opinion is I agree with a lot of their frameworks and the way that they think about stories, but I don’t recommend it for most people. And the reason is because if you have a poor foundation in your public speaking skills, how can you tell a great story? If your story starts with, “Yeah. So I was a… And yeah, so this happened and…” Everything just falls apart. So my recommendation for people is let’s forget about the storytelling now because it’s just a very vague concept for 90% of the people who are listening, if not 95%, but where I would start the conversation, Juliet is I would say, “Let’s figure out something that you can present over and over again that I call the repeatable presentation that solves a problem for someone else.”
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So I’ll give you an example of that. So I’ll use Julia as an example as I usually do, just interesting that your Juliet. So, I guess its similar. So, anyways. Julia works at a bank, right? She has a nine to five job. She comes up to me and says, “Well, Brendan, what do I present that’s repeatable. I got to do a banking transaction. This is not interesting work.” And I go, “Totally fine, Julie, what do you like to do outside of work?” So that case, Julia might say something like, “Oh, well I love to run Spartan races or marathons. I’m a gold medalist in this this marathon I did, or I love to take care of my kids, or I love these recipes that I like to make.” I’m just shooting a couple of examples here. So what I would tell Julia is I would say, “Well, you just gave me three repeatable presentations.”
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So at this point, Julius confused, she goes, “What do you mean? I just talked about what I like.” Then I would say, “Well, let’s build on that a bit more. A, you can talk about how marathons have changed your life. And some of the tips on how you can run a marathon in a better time. Two, you can give parenting tips because you have two very successful kids. And there’s a bunch of parents out there who have no idea how to raise a family because they don’t have one yet. And then number three, you can talk about your favorite recipe.” So what this does, even if it seems very minute to most people is if you present that presentation, let’s take marathons as an example to three people, not 30, not 300, three. And one of them comes back to you and says, “Hey Julia, thanks for really inspiring me, I actually ran this morning.”
Brenden Kumarasamy:
What’s going to happen is Julia’s going to tie in public speaking with a positive incentive. And she’s going to say, “Well, what if I present this thing to 10 people or 15 people?” And then she’s her way. And that’s what happened to me. I presented to two people, my mom and sister, nobody else listened, then 10 people and now of course, I speak to a lot more people than 10, but it’s a journey, right?
Juliet Aurora:
So you must be very grateful to your mom and sister that they were encouraging when you spoke to them.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah. My mom was actually really scared. She was like, “What are you doing in the basement?” I was like, “I’m making videos.” She’s like, “You’re a consultant at IBM, what are you doing?” So it’s okay. It’s a process.
Steve Lotes:
No, absolutely. Well, and like you say, you’re a consultant at IBM. You’ve got all this interest in communication, you’ve got your YouTube channel. And I noticed in your degree from university, I saw accountancy. And I mean, I don’t know if you know, but we own a cloud accounting business and I just, can you tell me how you went from A to B? Why accountancy and now it seems like it has nothing to do with what you’re doing?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Wow. Very surprised you asked me that question. No one’s ever asked me that. All right, cool. So let’s go into, so this is more feedback for everybody who’s listening. Because I know a lot of people think about finding a passion, all that stuff. And I honestly think that’s not very good advice because passions are vague. Passions are heavily misunderstood. And if that was a workable strategy, we would all have passions and we would all be flying with unicorns and being happy. Right? But unfortunately that’s not the case. Let’s talk a bit more rationally. So I was 12 and at 12, not like 60, I was 12. And the career counselor comes up to us in sixth grade and says, “You should probably think about your career.” So I went home after that meeting, I looked at all the careers in existence. And what I did is I made a decision.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So many people are stuck in passions, but they don’t make time to make a decision. But remember you can have an unlimited number of passions, but you only have a limited amount of decisions. So even as a 12 year old, I understood that. So I went through all the lists and then I compared the careers with my report card. And luckily for me, I was terrible at everything except one subject, which is mathematics. And obviously I was, I came from in a very low middle income family. So, I didn’t have that much money. So I said, “Okay, I probably want to get paid a pretty decent amount too.” So after six hours of just going through, pastor and plumber, I was like, “I’m not going to be a plumber anytime soon with this.” I ended up with two options left, actuary and an accountant.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So obviously I was 12. I didn’t know what an actuary was. So I just looked it up and it said, “Calculate the statistics of someone dying.” I was like, “You know what, I’m not going to do that regardless how much I’m going to be paid.” So I just went with accounting by default and then I never changed my mind, but this is what you’ll find interesting. Just to give an idea of how clueless I was. And then I went on to start this YouTube channel. Then I was 19 and I wanted a job at the bank of Canada. Right? I wanted a government job because people told me was safe. And then I heard about this company called Price Waterhouse Coopers, right? One of the big four accounting firms, I thought Price Waterhouse was a water bottling company. So when in my first semester of university I’d had sweatpants on and I went to a PWC information session and I was shocked that everyone else was in suits. And so I had also brought a bottle of water. I was so lost.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Well anyways, after I attended that workshop and I noticed how all the other students seemed to want a job at this company and I didn’t really understand why, I started talking to someone. I was like, “So why do you want to work for this water bottling company?” And they would say, “No, no, no. This is one of the most prestigious accounting firms in the world. Everybody wants a job here.” And that’s when I said, “Oh, I should probably get a job here.”
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So I started networking like crazy. When I was 20, I started meeting a bunch of partners in accounting. But the summary of this whole spiel is I made a decision and just aligned what my strengths were with the job that I wanted. And after I interned at PWC, I was fortunate to get an offer there. I kind of asked myself, “Is being an accounting partner something I wanted to do?” And then I thought about it and then I said, “You know what? Maybe I should be a consulting partner.” Then I went into consulting. But then after I went into consulting, I asked myself a different question which was, “What do I do now?” And what I want to point out throughout this whole journey, accounting, consulting, Master Talk.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
I would not have the communication skills to teach Master Talk to a CEO if I never did accounting and if I never did consulting. So the point of this journey is you want to make a decision and keep moving.
Steve Lotes:
Very good.
Juliet Aurora:
So one question or one thing that you said when I asked the question about storytelling was you said that it’s more important to improve the foundation. So, is there something that you can tell our audience of what a couple of things, maybe one or two tips of what they can do to improve their foundation, other than speak about something that they’re interested in and that they’re passionate about?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Absolutely. So what I would say is, so there’s a three step framework that we can go over. One is figuring out your key idea. And I have one simple question to figure that out for people. And the question is as follows, “Let’s assume it’s the last presentation that you’ll ever give in your life. And after your presentation is over, you’ll never get to speak again. And in that presentation you can speak for 20, 30, 45 minutes. It doesn’t really matter. And nobody’s going to remember a thing. No one’s going to remember your name. No one’s going to remember your title. Heck, no one’s going to remember your content, but they’ll remember one sentence. What do you want the sentence to be?” And from that one sentence, from your key idea, that is actually the hardest part of your entire presentation. Whether you want to sell cloud accounting software to a client, whether you want to sell Master Talk to the world, whether you want to sell your favorite cupcake recipe, every single idea stems from one sentence.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And then the second step of the framework, because I keep it really simple in the way that I coach people, is what is the best way to defend that key idea? So if you think about my keynote, when I started, when I was in version two or three of the keynote out of 300, well, I would spend a lot of my introduction bragging about my accomplishments. Because I was very young, I was very insecure, I was talking to very senior level executives and I would just started panicking to be honest. So, and I would say my client list and all that stuff that you kind of alluded to the intro. And then at the end, I said, “Is this the best way to defend my key ID?” And the answer was, “No.” Who cares about my accomplishments? Here’s the tactics. Here’s the techniques that if you like them, then I’m adding value.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
But what I realized after was the best way of introing in my keynote. And it’s going to be different for everyone’s key ID and everyone else’s introduction, was talking about my own insecurities as a speaker. Because if I say, “I was five years old, I went to French school and I presented in a language I didn’t even know. And I could master public speaking. Why can’t you?” So I’m able to gain the trust of my audience really quickly through that story. But for you, that could be different. It could be a quote, it could be an analogy. It could be an intro.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And then from there now you’ve built a fundamental element to start your keynote. You have your key idea. The next two things left to do is to think about your conclusion intentionally, because most people what they do is they shove a bunch of content and then they go, “Oh yeah. So it’s my last slide. So, thanks for listening.” But they don’t think intentionally about how they want to end, like a vision state, like “Imagine your ideas, your products implemented into the world. What does that world look like?” And then the last part is just filling in the gaps with the content. Any follow up questions there?
Steve Lotes:
No, that was…
Juliet Aurora:
No, I thought you laid out that framework. It sounds a lot easier when you think about creating a presentation. Because for a lot of people, not only is there stress in presenting, it’s actually in creating that presentation, but no, those are some great, a great foundation, a great way to start the foundation.
Steve Lotes:
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So what is the vision for master talks?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah, for sure. So, when I started there wasn’t really a vision. I was a kid in my mother’s basement, just making videos to my phone. But as I progressed just started gaining more traction, CEO’s wanted my coaching services for some reason. And as I got older and thought about it, I realized that life would have been very different for me had I been born 30 years ago. Because if I hadn’t been born 30 years ago, I would have just stayed at IBM or I would have just stayed at, gotten a job at McKenzie or something became a senior partner. And that would have been my life and I would have been really happy because I love my job.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
But given the time that I’m born in, given the period that we’re in and given the experience that I’ve accumulated over my life, I’ve an opportunity that Dale Carnegie didn’t in his time. So, the unfortunate story about Dale was we only have a book to remember him by. We don’t have any videos. We don’t really have, we don’t even know how spoke like. What did he even sound like? We don’t even know. Whereas with me, I have that opportunity of being my own media company and essentially democratizing all communication knowledge so that when I’m gone every single change maker for the rest of time, will be able to learn from me. So that’s my ultimate vision for the channel is to democratize all of the information.
Juliet Aurora:
Excellent.
Steve Lotes:
Very good.
Juliet Aurora:
I love it.
Steve Lotes:
Yeah. What, and this might be a difficult question. What is the one thing you love about what you’re doing? Because you’re, I mean, you can tell just listening to you that you do love what you’re doing. What is the one thing that you love about what your doing?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
I love working on great things. I like doing something that’s actually important. I think most of us waste too much time doing things that are mediocre for money or things like that. And I don’t blame them. I was exactly like that. Because you need money to survive and all that stuff. But at the end of the day if we’re only going to live one life, if we’re only going to be there once, how about we do something interesting with it? And I always say this, right. The person who needs master talk the most is not the people who watch my videos, it’s me.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Because I want that space to create something unique that only I can build. And that’s what I love about it is I speak multiple languages so I can talk about how to present a second language. I can cover any little nook and cranny of public speaking. And I’m just blessed that I live in a first world country. I don’t have an accent, so I’m uniquely positioned to solve this problem. So it’s just doing great things. I work, I’m sure as much as you two. Right? And I love every second of it. So, that would be it.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. That’s great. And I mean, the one thing I didn’t notice when I was doing my little bit of research was that you’re an avid learner and I was very impressed. I think you mentioned you listened to at least 10 hours a week of podcasts, any particular favorite podcast?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think what would be interesting for the audience is they’re listening to a podcast is understanding why I did that instead of reading books.
Steve Lotes:
Sure.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So the benefit of podcasting, especially for someone like me, I’m sure you two are probably surprised at what is this guy? This guy’s 24 and he’s talking like this, right? So the question is, “Why is that the case?” The reason is because podcasts allows you to dive into the life of someone for an hour rather than 10. So 20 years ago, if you wanted to read a book about somebody’s life and it ended up being crap, well, you would waste 10 hours of your life reading that book to try and garner insights. What’s great about the podcasting space and YouTube applies the same rationale. Is you can quickly look into somebody’s world and if they’re not adding value to your life, you can easily just dump it and move on to the next thing.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So that’s why I was really obsessed with podcasts. I got to nitpick all of my favorite people that we’re adding the most value to me. So and a good example of that is Lewis Howes who’s the host of The School of Greatness podcast, the top 100 in the world. Then obviously Scott Harrison, who he’s had on the show and all these other people. So I was able to pull from a lot of the smartest minds and only read their books, right. Because they were adding value in podcasts.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
So essentially what happened was I just learned from thousands and thousands of people. So you can imagine my brain as if there’s thousands of tape recorders are kind of spinning at the same time. Right? So, now I actually probably listened to two times more now because of COVID. So I don’t travel anymore for clients. So I’ll probably do 20, 30 hours a week now, podcasting, but I’m always learning. I’m always searching. I’m always obsessed with the truth and how to take my content and my life to the next level.
Steve Lotes:
That’s great. I mean, that’s one reason I love podcasts is that you can consume them anywhere and everywhere, which is extremely convenient.
Juliet Aurora:
And I think that’s also a big shift for this generation is that they take it for granted. So, I mean, when I was growing up, there was no podcasts. There was no YouTube. I mean, you basically had a book or you had a radio or you had TV. That was pretty much it, that the wealth of information that is out there right now for this generation is it’s mind boggling. It really is as to how much access you have to all the great information, as you said.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
I completely agree. And to kind of tie this in with Master Talk, that’s why I shared the information for free. I’m in a position now in my career where I don’t have to do that anymore. I can just use the videos and just leverage that for clients. And then that’s it, but because of the generosity, the reason I’m at the level that I’m at today is because of the generosity of the people who didn’t need to be generous. Like Louis had a multi seven figure business before he started The School of Greatness and he lost a lot of money by doing that show. Because he did high quality production. He was just dumping a lot of money. He just did it to serve other people. So I owe it to the next generation. Because all the other speech coaches aren’t doing it. So I might as well share that information for people.
Juliet Aurora:
Very inspirational.
Steve Lotes:
Yeah. That is, that’s awesome. We do not hear things like that often enough. So congratulations.
Juliet Aurora:
Well, and I think that we also don’t hear things like that often enough from someone your age, if there are people who have that insight or who have that mentality, it’s usually later on in life where they’re reflecting back and they’re thinking, “Okay, now it’s my time to give back.” So you don’t hear it very often from your generation.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Absolutely. And I have a secret it’s pretty morbid, but there’s a secret to that success.
Juliet Aurora:
Oh, will you share?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Right. And the secret is simple and I guarantee you, 99% of you won’t do this exercise. It’s the following. Write your own eulogy. Write your own funeral speech. When you’re there in the casket and you give the speech to your sister, your mother, your daughter, your family, what are they going to say? And if you do that exercise and I just asked the hard questions when I was 19 instead of waiting until I was 40. So I was able to get really aligned with what I wanted and get really clear about the direction of my life. So I encourage you all to do that exercise. It’s very clarifying. Helps a lot.
Steve Lotes:
Yeah.
Juliet Aurora:
I attended a seminar. I don’t don’t remember who it was. It might’ve been a John Maxwell seminar and he had us do the same exercise and it is, it’s eye opening. Because you think about, “Well, what do you want people to say?” Well, do they want to say, “Well, she had a nice house. She had a clean house. She had a nice car.” No, that’s not what you want people to remember you for. She had great shoes. No, that’s not what you want to be remembered for. So now it does put everything in perspective. It is a great exercise. So if people in our audience have not tried it, we would certainly recommend it as well.
Steve Lotes:
That’s great. Well, that brings us to the part of the show where we do the Smart Man, Smarter Woman version of James Lipton’s Q and A from the actor studio. And I always give a shout out to James Lipton. It was, he started it. I just borrowed it because I really liked it. So if you are ready, Brendan, I would like to get started with this.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Let’s do it.
Steve Lotes:
What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Insanity.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Maybe a university teacher. I don’t think I would last long though, if I’m being honest.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. What profession would you like never to attempt?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
A pastor.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. What sound or noise do you love?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Korean music, probably.
Steve Lotes:
Okay.
Juliet Aurora:
Interesting.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah.
Steve Lotes:
Now I may allow you to change this slightly based on something you said a little earlier, so don’t usually do this. I’m making allowances for you.
Juliet Aurora:
[inaudible 00:34:43] supposed to be the same questions?Steve Lotes:
Okay.
Brenden Kumarasamy:
You two can fight after the show.
Steve Lotes:
Do you see how much trouble I get, when I try to change something? The question is what book would you recommend every entrepreneur should read?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
No doubt about it. Thirst by Scott Harrison.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. And when your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, what do you hope your legacy is?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
That I actually gave a shit about people. I think the people who really do care make the hard decisions most people aren’t willing to make, whether it’s living in my mother’s basement until I’m 30 to have the money to invest in production, whether it’s not owning a car, making the decisions that even if people in the short term don’t think is smart, in the longterm, they end up thanking me for. So that would be the short serve.
Steve Lotes:
Awesome. And for people in our audience that would like to connect with you, what is the best way for them to do that?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Absolutely. I’m not famous or anything. So feel free to just send me a message on Instagram and I’m at Master Your Talk. So feel free to send me questions, concerns, complaints, insults. I’m always happy for anything. If you want to check out my YouTube channel, it’s MasterTalk in one word,
Steve Lotes:
Master talk or master talks?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Master Talk.
Steve Lotes:
Okay. No S, perfect. Before we can conclude, do you have any final thoughts you would like to share with our audience?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll leave you all with my favorite quote of all time, which is the following, “Be insane or be the same.” If you want to be like everyone else, that’s totally fine. But if you’re listening to this podcast, there’s probably a reason and there’s probably a difference that you want to make in the world. And my advice is the only way to make that difference is to be a little bit more crazy. I mean, think about me. I’m starting, I’m trying to start one of the biggest YouTube channels on public speaking, not comedy, not vlogs like other early 20 year olds are doing and I’m doing it for public speaking communication tips. How crazy is that?
Brenden Kumarasamy:
And just this morning, I was listening to a podcast of a mathematician artist, someone who makes paintings about math and he’s incredibly successful. And that is the point that I’m driving. So my takeaway homework besides the funeral speech is communicate the weird things that you do on a daily basis to everyone else around you, that is not illegal. And it would help you remind you that you are different and you’re meant to be doing different things.
Steve Lotes:
Excellent.
Juliet Aurora:
Excellent advice.
Steve Lotes:
Yes.
Juliet Aurora:
Are you going to have a quote that’s going to top that Steve, to end us off here?
Steve Lotes:
Well, see it will not be me that would be topping it because it’s not my quote. I borrow the quotes from other people. That was Brendan’s quote.
Juliet Aurora:
Right.
Steve Lotes:
As I like to finish off, I’m a bit of a quote nerd. So we always do finish every episode with a quote. And for this episode I chose the following, “Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools because they have to say something.” That was from Plato. So that was many, many years ago.
Juliet Aurora:
Many, many years ago.
Steve Lotes:
Anyway. That is the end of this episode. The time flew by. Thank you very much, Brendan. You’re a brilliant young man. I really enjoyed our time together. You have lots and lots of great stuff to talk about. I hope everybody subscribes to your YouTube channel and wish you much, much success in the future. I think you have a very successful life ahead of you. Thank you very much to my cohost Juliet. I couldn’t do this without you, but most importantly thank you to you, the audience for tuning in and giving us a listen. We sincerely hope you found some value and if you did, please feel free to subscribe, we won’t complain at all. You can find us at all of the usual places, the iTunes, Spotify, google or you can go to the website SmartManSmarterWoman.com. Subscribe and you’ll get notified every time there’s a new episode. So, thank you very much, until next time take good care of yourself and the ones you love. Bye for now-
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
