#292 How to master your communication skills and become a better speaker with these 3 easy exercises, with Brenden Kumarasamy.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

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Brenden Kumarasamy  0:00  
If you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything. So if you're going to talk about avocados for 30 seconds, when we go back to that party and you're meeting somebody new, it's very easy for you to make small talk and bring the conversation through 100 different angles.

Agi Keramidas  0:22  
You are listening to personal development mastery podcast, providing those with the desire to grow with the simple, consistent actions needed to master personal development and create the life they yearn for. I'm your host Agi. Keramidas. A few years ago, I found myself unfulfilled and unmotivated like I had lost my sense of purpose and my life was merely passing by since then I've been on a continuous journey of personal development that has transformed every aspect of my life now, my mission is to inspire, inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable entrepreneurs, authors, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, people who share their journey milestones and learnings for you to be inspired to grow. In this episode, you will find practical action points that you can implement right now. So make sure you follow the podcast to get them as soon as they are released. 

Agi Keramidas  1:30  
Today, I'm delighted to speak with Brenden Kumarasami. Brenden, you are the founder of master doc coaching ambitious executives and entrepreneurs to become top 1% communicators in their industry. You also have a popular YouTube channel called Master talk with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world show that they can master this important skill. Brenden, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to speak with you today.

Brenden Kumarasamy  2:02  
Agi the pleasure is absolute mine thanks for having me on the show.

Agi Keramidas  2:05  
I've been looking forward to it because you know, communication as I was telling you just before we hit record, it's it's one of the most important things probably the most important thing unless you're not dealing with other people in your life. So if that's the case, then you don't need to listen to anything further on. But it's very important skill. So we're going to talk today about communication, public speaking, things like that. But before we go there, I would like to ask a little bit about your journey. And in particular, I would like to ask you to share with us some major transitions, a major turning point in your life journey that brought you to what you are doing now their communication, coaching and sharing knowledge about communication.

Brenden Kumarasamy  2:56  
Absolutely. I always like to say that I didn't choose communication in many ways communication chose me. And what I mean by that was when I was in college, I studied in accounting of all things. And I wanted to be a CPA or Chartered Professional Accountant, so literally has nothing to do with what I do today. But then when I got there, I would go to business school, I started competing in these things called case competitions, Aggie Think of it like professional sports, but for nerds. So other guys my age were playing rugby, or football or basketball or cricket. I wasn't one of those guys. I did presentations competitively. And that's how I learned how to speak. But then as I got older, I started coaching all the other students mostly for free back then, on how to communicate because I wanted them to win those competitions too. And I accidentally developed a talent and coaching other people and how to speak. But then a few years later, I started the YouTube Channel Master talking mostly just started a social media content, because I found that a lot of the ideas I was sharing with my students wasn't really available on the Internet for free. So I just started making videos, and it just turned into something I never could have imagined. When you should

Agi Keramidas  4:12  
accidentally you developed the tongue talent. Why do you say it's accidental? or explain it to me? How is it? How was it accidental?

Brenden Kumarasamy  4:21  
For sure, I'd be happy to so I'll take you back to my first semester of Business School. I'm 19 years old at this point. I'm wearing an oversized suit from prom because my parents couldn't afford anything better for me and my parents were factory workers. So I had this black suit on those $100 from Sears which by the way in the US is like a bankrupt company now. And and I get there and somebody tells me that for my dream to come true to be successful at accounting, I need to get a job that one of the big four accounting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers KPMG, Ernst and Young or Deloitte. Those are kind of like the big four. And PricewaterhouseCoopers is an accounting firm. I worked there for a year or so but I thought that It was a water bottling company. That's how I lost it was because I didn't know because it had the word water in it. So I didn't even know that because none of my parents were in the business world that didn't have a connection. So I had to build everything from scratch. So somebody told me, I needed to network. So I put the suit on. And I go to networking cocktails to meet people who are three years older than me, who had jobs at these companies after they graduated from school. And I asked them, How did you get this job? And they all looked at me, and many of them answered the same way. They said, Oh, I did case competitions. And like everyone in this audience and probably yourself out. I had the same question. What's the case competition, right? I've never heard of this before. And they said, Oh, Brett had a case competition is where business executives at these big companies, Amazon, IBM, Deloitte, they sponsor these competitions, they come to it as judges, and they give students business problems. Okay, Amazon is looking to open a new store, should I open it in Berlin, in Germany, or should I open in New York City. So students are usually in their 20s Aggie have to develop a presentation to then present back to the executives of the company. And the reason I did the Maquis wasn't because I had a passion for communication, not because I wasn't theatre my whole life. And I loved communication. It's because I wanted a job. I saw it as my golden ticket out of poverty. So I took it. And then when I started doing these case, competitions, I did get the job that I wanted. But I got so much more, I developed an obsession behind these competitions. And that's what accidentally led to my skill set and communication.

Agi Keramidas  6:39  
That's great. And you said, you didn't start with having passion about communication. So when When did you discover that? Alright, I use the word obsession just now, which is even a strongest word than fashion. So when did you discover that? Whoa, this is this is it? I'm right. So

Brenden Kumarasamy  6:59  
you could think of me like, my obsession grew over time baggy. But it definitely started after I started winning competitions, and I realised I was good at them. But also when I started losing competitions, and it infuriated me, I'm, I'm very competitive. So I'm like the Michael Jordan that nobody cares about. And what I mean by that, is when Michael Jordan, obviously for those who have seen the last dance documentary on Netflix, which I highly recommend, I don't even like basketball. But I love that documentary. You see the mindset of somebody like Michael Jordan, and what it takes for him to win. But you also see him being very rude to his teammates, he's pushing them around, he said, We need to win this championship. I was exactly the same way in college, but in a sport that nobody cared about. So I never got in trouble for it. Because case competitions is really small. So that obsession behind winning not around communication, and teaching other people how to speak. The year after, when I was 20 years old Aggie, I became an executive in one of that programmes, because it's a student run group. And we interview the people. It's like a sports team. So we interviewed the best students to get into the programme. And I looked at my executives who were also in their 20s. And I said, Guys, 20 out of the students we recruited this year, are really smart, but they're not great at communication. I won a lot of these competitions. I went MVP as a speaker. I don't know how he got good at speaking. But let me start coaching them. I don't know how to coach, but let me figure it out so that we can win competitions. And that's what happened. But then in my last semester of college, when I landed my job at IBM as a consultant, I thought that was my life, I want to be an executive there, make half a million dollars a year, retire my mother, and just live my life. But in my last semester, Rocky, that's when the obsession behind communication came. Were one of my students, I'd coach 60 people on how to speak for free, because I just loved it. And one of them just asked me the question that changed my life. And the question was, how did you learn how to speak? I said, What do you mean? They said, well, Brendon, you're this great speaker, you've learned all this. Did you do this as a kid? Did you do Toastmasters? Did you hire a coach? And I was like, No, I don't have any money as a student. And that's when he told me about YouTube videos. And I started watching the other videos on YouTube on communication from from PhDs in the subject. And I looked at him and I said, this is wrong, that's wrong. That's what that's how I coach that person. And I disagreed with so much of what they were saying that I had the naivete to believe I could do better. And that's what started basta talk.

Agi Keramidas  9:28  
That's amazing. Tell me something in particular that is well known, let's say knowledge or advice in speaking that you disagree with, as you said, Give me an example.

Brenden Kumarasamy  9:39  
What a beautiful question that almost nobody asked me I'd be happy to go into this is probably 10 different answers to this, but I'll give you two or three simple ideas. So the first one is the focus on the fear. So a lot of communication experts who are doubled tripled my age argue their very theoretical base, right the study communication as a profession, but they don't actually coached clients a lot as a business. They're not tied, they're not accountable to the results. So what that means is, let's say and there is no offence to them, I love them. They're friends of mine right? There, they all do great work. But the point is, is if you're a university professor of communication, your salary is tied to what the university is paying you. So it doesn't really matter whether you get results for clients or not, right, as somebody who's a, who does this as a business, which I only started doing when I got really good at it, if I don't get results for clients, my executives ain't recommending with other people. So there's a lot more practicality to it. So let's go through those ideas. Simple one distort the fear of communication. So many experts emphasise the fear, we're scared, we're scared, life is bad. The next thing to speaking fear is death. And the talk about this. And in my mind, it's like, wait a second, if you want to get better at speaking, why are we emphasising death? That's not going to help us get better? So for me the question that I challenge everyone that listens to my message, and my videos to think about is how would your life change? If you were an exceptional communicator, think about the positives. That's one. The second key difference was practicality. So going back to the PhD way of approaching communication, it's highly theoretical. And there's a lot of complex ideas that an everyday person can't really grasp and internalise in the way that they practice communication. It's not simple enough to a single mother, who has seven kids, like they don't have time to go through these dissertation defences and understanding what that person is saying. So my version of it is how do we bring simplicity to the way that we convey ideas. An example of that, that I'm sure we'll tackle in this interview, is like the random word exercise, right? Pick a word like nuts and home and create random presentations. And then the third one I'll throw back to you is a structured approach to communication mastery. So a lot of people want you and since you, you've actually had a lot of training, you can resonate with this. A lot of the experts speak about communication in generalities. Be yourself, and be your most authentic version of who you want to be. Master storytelling. What does that mean? Like, watch Disney movies and take notes? And the other piece to that? Absolutely getting the idea?

Agi Keramidas  12:16  
Yes, that's why laughing? So there you go. No, this is what you said this is so it's so true. Because Be true to yourself. Be be authentic. Yeah, have your own style and master the storytelling. It's a beautiful piece of advice. But what are you going to do with that? How can? How can you match the digital? Tell me how I can do that. More specifically. So thank you for this answer. And I also liked very much what you said about shifting the focus from the fear of speaking towards how will you change? Or how, what kind of person will you be on the others and of when you have overcome that, and it's a great shifting of the way we think about it? And let me combine that with what you just said and ask you to give us something practical for someone who has that fear, because regardless of whether we focus on it or not, there is I think, most people would agree that before you speak in front of people, there is physical sensations, you have some agitation, at the very least anyway. So give me something practical, on how can someone overcome or get past that fear and focus more on you know, the other side?

Brenden Kumarasamy  13:42  
Absolutely. Okay. So there's two approaches to the first one is bringing back to my common sense approach, which is, just because something is fearful, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Because by nature, there are so many things in our life that we've done in our life scared, right, like, if you're an immigrant listening to this, you move to a country, everything you had, everything you had in that country, you left it all behind, and you joined a new country, let's say whether it's the United States, the UK, Canada doesn't matter. So you left everything. Were you really excited doing that? No, you're really frightened. You're like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna leave my family is this going to work? But you do it anyways. Because you want a better future for your family. But let's even go through a couple of other examples. asking somebody out on a first date, you don't do that excited, you're a little bit nervous. That was gonna go getting your first job, getting married, having children all losing weight, or getting a six pack getting in better shape, all of these things in our life that we've already done, not things we're going to do that we've already done, had fear around it. So why are we applying the same logic that got us there into communication, which is the fear does not need to disappear again. The motivation Just needs to exceed the fear. I had every insecurity in the world not to start master talk, even if I sound pretty nice now in a podcast, and for a couple of reasons. So one is the one we talked about earlier, I literally studied the opposite of what you think a communication expert would say, I have a bachelor's degree in accounting makes no sense. The second challenge is for those who don't know, I grew up in a city called Montreal in Canada. And that's a city where you need to write to speak French. So my whole life actually studied in French school. That's how I'm fluent in it. But my whole life, not only was I scared of communication, I was presenting in a language I didn't even know. So when I was in first grade, I would look at a classroom bag and go a bun jeweller. And the third challenge that's hard to catch, unless I'm on a podcast is I have a physical disability in my left arm because I was born upside down. So whenever I present in person, people always look at my arm. They don't look at my face. When I speak. They go, why is this guy's arm crooked? And I was a kid when I started master talk. I was 22. So why did I believe I could be that person for people? Because my message was more important than the fear like a boxing match. One side of the ring is the fear. The other side of the ring is the message and I'll give you my message, the 15 year old girl who can't afford a Communication Coach, what is she going to do? Listen to 55 year old PhD isn't too many No offence to you, obviously. Right? 55 year olds, I don't have a PhD read it. But you know what I'm saying?

Agi Keramidas  16:30  
I was trying to make a joke. And ignore that 55 bit.

Brenden Kumarasamy  16:35  
Right? Ignore that, please. Because you're great. And a lot of them are my friends. So but the point is, is nobody serving that girl because capitalism does not favour that little girl. You can't make a lot of money coaching her. So that message was just more important. So for all of you listening to this, find the motivation and motivation doesn't mean be the next Tony Robbins be do a TED Talk. It's showing a better for our family being a better mother being a better father for our children. It's how do we make new friends? It's how do we show up better as a leader at work, figure out what sparks your interest and use that as fuel to get better.

Agi Keramidas  17:18  
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Agi Keramidas  18:48  
That's a beautiful piece of advice. Find the motivation and what you said that motivation needs to exceed fears. And this way you certainly want focus aids, you reminded me of that phrase that says when the wife is strong enough, then the how is easy to take care of if you have this kind of strong motivation to grow to contribute to serve others, whatever it isn't. I will second what you just said as a piece of advice to really look, if you haven't found what really drives you to do that, for sure. I will change slightly who I will still speak about that. I will give another angle on what we were just saying. One was the fear that you mentioned a couple of times. I also wanted to hear your thoughts on confidence regarding speaking public speaking or speaking in front of an audience. How do you approach that? The term of confidence in that how relevant is it?

Brenden Kumarasamy  19:55  
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So so for me, as Dan Henry says so well comp attend some breeds confidence. So what does that mean? That means as we increase the level of repetition and what we do, we get more confident the ideas that we convey. So of course, when I was younger, and I started master talk, and I was coaching a lot of C level executives, I was really worried, because I didn't really know how to do it. But as Ali godet says, so Well, if you help one person, the world will give you permission to help everyone else. So you start with one, then you double to two, you double to four. One other piece I'll add to that argue, is going back to how I view communication as a structure. For me, communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. So one of those balls is eye contact, one of them is smiling. One of them's looking at the camera lens when we're speaking, one of them is body length, storytelling. But you'll notice as I start listing these off, that it can get really overwhelming for people. So for me, the question has always been, which also helps us build confidence? What are the three easiest balls to juggle? Because if we just do those, which is what you can do on a day to day basis, you can get much better at building your confidence. So let's talk about ball number one. I'll throw it back to you. But I'm happy to talk about the others if you'd like. So the random word exercise, it's fairly simple. It's just nobody does it. So people listen to that tip Aggie, and they go, Oh, random Rolexes. Okay, so I pick up and I do this with my kids and I go, Okay, you get xylophone, I get a trombone, then you get home. But the problem is, nobody does it. That's the challenge. razz me. I've done the exercise 3000 times. So for you who's listening to this, I challenge you to do it five times a day. And for those of you who tell me you don't have time, you all shower everyday, hopefully. So you got 15 minutes in there to do the random word exercise. And if you do it for a month, you'll have done it 150 times. So that's what builds confidence.

Agi Keramidas  21:51  
Amazing. So tell me about the random gold exercise. So explain it to us. How what does it involve?

Brenden Kumarasamy  21:59  
Absolutely. I think an easier way to approach this is how about you give me a word and I can just demonstrate.

Agi Keramidas  22:04  
Okay, microphone. Microphone is too easy

Brenden Kumarasamy  22:07  
for me. I can give you something a little harder. Yeah. Just to make sure it's it's the pick up cheating.

Agi Keramidas  22:13  
Should vitamin supplements. I know it's two words, but it's still a one concept.

Brenden Kumarasamy  22:20  
That's great. Okay, so obviously, for those of you listen to this podcast, it definitely did not get me vitamin supplements. And I have to create a presentation of dinner, which I'll do right now. Ever since I was a kid Aggie I didn't really have that much money to eat breakfast. Because I didn't grow up with the law. So my parents would always give me lunch or dinner. And I remember as I was growing up, as a kid and social media started going on the rise, I would see ads and videos about vitamin supplements. And I'd always think to myself, who in the world can afford these things. I can't even afford a $10 Croissant or a $5 Croissant at a cafe. But what I learned as I got older, as I gained a little bit more wealth, a little bit more wisdom is that the benefits of vitamin supplements, or really any other supplement greatly outweighs the cost involved. If you choose the right one, if you pick the right supplement, and I find in our life, Aggie when we invest in ourselves, we invest in the wrong things. We buy the Netflix subscriptions, we buy those little pop tarts in a grocery store those chocolate teens that we shouldn't be buying, when instead, we should be buying those vitamin supplement. So I encourage all of you today listening to this podcast, because this presentation is not about vitamin supplements. It's about what are you putting into yourself? What are you investing in? And it doesn't need to be vitamin supplements. Maybe it's a banana in the morning. Maybe it's a class of hot tea. Maybe it's a walk every morning, figure out what is that supplement, you need to supplement your life and I guarantee you, you'll walk away 10 times better in your life. Random Alexis,

Agi Keramidas  24:03  
thank you for this great impromptu presentation that you did for me. And there were some things that were coming up number a there are many to ask actually, with what you're saying. One of them was I was noticing the structure of the speech as you put it together and how you ended with, you know, something that involves the listener something that they can, you know, the call to action of some kind. Does that. Let's talk about this a little bit more clarify something I have this random old exercise. So we're picking up a random word, maybe open the dictionary and go to a random page. I think my dictionary app has a word random word of the day through us. It's very easy to do. And then you construct a story doesn't have to be anything real or doesn't have to be Can it be completely marginal? Coming from imagination? Is there anything else in terms of structure? Or is it just a matter of creating something coherent? Based on that topic, regardless of whether it's true or not?

Brenden Kumarasamy  25:15  
Absolutely. Okay. So the answer is yes. To your point about just being coherent is more than enough. But I'll add a couple more layers to this. Okay. So the first thing that I'll say to everyone listening to this, is remember, the best way to speak is to speak you can listen to me at Aggie talk all day. But if you want to get better at communication, you actually need to do it. That's why the rule in my ecosystem is we do not get points for doing the exercise. Well, we get points for doing the exercise a lot, because I get so many questions about structure. And that's not the point. Because the point of the question or on structure Aggie, is it goes back to where we were as kids in the education system, it's how do I get an A on Brendan's assignment? Because Brendan has this assignment for how do I get an A plus? Do I start with the personal story, do it what's the rule? But the challenge in communication it is there are no rules. Style is something you develop over time, as you get better and better at communication. So for all of you, it's really a question of, Am I willing to do it 100 times because if I asked 10 different people, the word vitamin supplements, let's let's go with that. They would all give me 10 different answers how they would approach it. The first person would go, Oh, you know, I was poor. I couldn't afford vitamins. Well, that was Brendan's version of it. The second version is Oh, yeah, my mom used to force me all the time to read vitamin supplements. The third person goes, well, I don't really eat them. But I guess it could describe what a vitamin supplement is. But the lesson that we learned from this, Aki is two things. One is the random word exercise challenges us and helps us deal with uncertainty. Because life is filled with it. easy example. You go to a party, you go to an event and you meet somebody new, do we go into that conversation? thinking, okay, okay, here's what's gonna happen, I'm going to give you a pre written list of questions. And then me and you're going to have this conversation, meaning for the first time, no, you have no idea what's going to happen. And the second piece, and people can write this down if they want. If you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything. So if you're going to talk about avocados for 30 seconds, when we go back to that party, and you're meeting somebody new, it's very easy for you to make small talk and bring the conversation through 100 different angles. So the random word exercise, not even doing it well, simply doing it a lot. The quantity, the volume is really the solution here is it it drastically improves your ability to not just present on the spot, but also conversate. With new types of people that you've met in your life.

Agi Keramidas  27:51  
It also sharpens the mind, doesn't it? Because when you have to come up with something very quickly that you don't know what it is, because it's one thing to prepare for a speech or a presentation. And it's another thing to have to come up with something on the spot in something that is, you know, coherent and good. And, you know, present in order conveying a message. So, and the other thing I got very strong from your answer previously was that you have to do it, you have to do it, you think you should do it five times a day. And that's really easy, not one. It's simple. It's not easy, but it is very simple to do, then it is a matter of understanding the benefits of it and doing it and I'm certainly going to start doing it, Brandon, for sure myself, because it's great. Something that I had kind of not done in a long time. I remember doing a similar exercise when I was attending Toastmasters, where we would have to come up with the word pick an object out of a bag, I'm sure you've done similar things and speak about it for to me. So it was great. I would like to stick a little bit more in practical things because now we will relevant. Also, because of what you were saying earlier, it does make sense to give some more elements like that to the listener. So that's one great exercise for sure. You did mention that there are like 818 different ones that you said, I will let you add another one out of those 18. But before I will ask you one and then you can add to that something else if you always I'm sorry, I hope I'm not complicating the question.

Brenden Kumarasamy  29:48  
I love it. I love your nerdy nuanced questions. It makes the issue more fun for me that is

Agi Keramidas  29:53  
one of the things that it's extremely important. I believe in communication and And then it is not necessarily so much spoken about. And that is the tonality, how we use the tone of our voice to convey our message. So I would like some practical, again, thinks or exercises one can do to improve this tonality, which plays a bigger part in the message than actually what the words mean based on that famous study that I don't remember who it was. But I'm sure you know which one that I mean that the tonality is the most important in the body language. But let's talk about tonality and give me your thoughts. And, more importantly, some kind of practical exercise one can use to improve that.

Brenden Kumarasamy  30:49  
Absolutely argue. So in my frame, let me start by saying I would say tonality is probably more ball eight or nine. So for those of you listening to this, start with the random word exercise and don't do the vocal tone tips until you've done that 100. Okay, but I'm happy to share. So what's the tip that I have? That's a little bit more advanced for people listening, but I'm happy to share it anyways. Is there's three different types of tones to keep it really simple, high tones, middle tones, and low tones. So high tones just means 20% higher than how we normally speak not too loud, you don't go to ours, you're yelling, right? Regular is just how we speak. And 20% lower than how we normally speak is low vocal tones. So why am I saying normally speak, because for an introvert argue, this is high vocal tones. But for an extrovert, that's normal tones, this is high tones. So it's really relative to you. That's one part. The other part, which is more of the practical layer on top of that is a realisation that the best communicators on the planet Aggie, use all three tones, at the same time whenever they communicate an idea. So I'll give you an example. Let's say we use the sentence John loves apples, he eats them every day. So John loves apples eats them everyday. So this is me on the same tone. Now watch me use all three and, quote, pay close attention to this. John eats apples. He has one every single day. So notice I'm using high and low it's I call this the roller coaster of emotion. So how do you practice this, how you practice this is what I call the 10 vocal tone test. So you take a word, or even just a single word, and you try and present that single word across 10 different tones. It doesn't have to be 10. I just say that to make it sound fancy to make it look nice, but just try a bunch of tones. I'll give an example. Passion, Passion, Passion, Passion, Passion, passion. So notice I'm using the same word, but I'm practising different I know I look crazy, but you get the idea. That's what I'm saying. Let's ball eight, because a little bit more advanced. But, but when you practice that you try eight or nine different tones, and you're like, I like passion better. So I'm going to pick Toad number three, that's what use speech.

Agi Keramidas  33:06  
That's amazing. Thank you for that. And let me ask you now another one that came to mind is something that I know that I do a lot. And I would like to improve personally. And that's the those filler words. And I've actually had conversations in the past about these because in my in the way that I communicate or I speak, I find that they're necessary. I've tried to cut them off at some point in the process of reading, it sounded awful, it sounded unnatural. It did not really sound like me, it was chopped down. What is your take on filler words? Very important. And what can we do practically to? Because I'm noticing you now although during our speed, conversation or interview, you haven't I don't remember hearing you go like I have, and I'm doing it. So set your light on this one for

Brenden Kumarasamy  34:10  
me. Let me start with this. If you take it from a communication expert, or people call me an expert, so I'll take it is You haven't said a single filler word either. I haven't heard one or you've said so little that I haven't noticed. I think you're just being very humble. You're definitely very good at this. So let me start by situating this. So going back to the teen bowl analogy, I would say getting rid of filler words is probably ball six or seven just so people are keeping track of all of it. So let's start with why do we say them in the first place? Okay, going back to that common sense approach. The reason is because we want to buy ourselves time. So when we were in high school, and we were in front of this is the class as a student giving history presentation that we didn't want to give. And somebody would ask us a question that we didn't prepare for we go and then we answer that So we use the filler words to buy ourselves time. So now the question I get becomes what are the best communicators on the planet doing to buy themselves time, because there's no way that they're smarter than us. They're just people who are great communicators doesn't mean they're 100 times more intelligent, so they have to buy time. So what they do is to use pausing to buy time. So instead of replacing, or rather instead of using filler words, the replace the amps and ahhs with nothing. So if somebody asked me a question, let's end this interview. Lets you ask me something I wouldn't say, oh, oh, yeah. Great point, I guess I would just pause. Say, Hey, Aggie, that's a great question. Here's my thought. So we'll pause. So now the practical idea becomes how do you master this? Okay, so I have a tip, I don't think most people do it. But I hope you do. If you do, it'll definitely improve your ability to do this really quickly. Very fast. Actually, you'll see results very quickly, we're talking a few days. And the exercise is called the endless gaze. So the endless gaze is where you pick somebody that you love, again, in your home, somebody around you, and you stare into their eyes for three minutes without saying a single word. Because my philosophy as you could probably get from this interview, again, is I don't believe in deep breathing. I don't believe in power posing. For me, it's all about doing the harder thing. When we achieve the harder thing, life becomes a joke. That's really the idea. So if we can pause for three minutes, without saying a word, it's very easy for us to pause for two seconds for three seconds in a real life presentation. And it will take your game to another level. So do the analysts case would be the tip?

Agi Keramidas  36:46  
Amazing. Thank you. I will ask for one more of those 18 themes because you said this was like the 16 importance. You said the random word exercise. I don't know if that was the number one but give me one of the really top ones. One more, I will have time for one last

Brenden Kumarasamy  37:05  
for sure. For sure. Okay, so what I'll do, because the third one super simple, is I'll give you the easy three. So you're correct. The random word exercises the first ball, ball two and three. And this is really what I encourage your audience to do on a daily basis is one, two, and three. Number two is the question drill. So we get asked questions all the time, in our life, at school, at parks at work on a podcast, but most of us are reactive to those questions. We're not proactive, meaning we wait for the question to come up and go. I don't really think about it. I'll give you an example with me, obviously sound nice and smooth today. But a few years ago when I started guesting on podcast and you know how many have done since we had a discussion about that prior to this interview? Is my first interview didn't go so well. I'm or some guy asked me where does the fear of communication come from? And I know obviously, I know the answer now. But back then I was like, I don't know, dude, London, New York City. So I wasn't that good. I didn't know the answer. And I would use to do it a lot. And so what did I do differently every single day I this is what really I would give credit to what brought me the most success in my life. And my career is every day for five minutes, Aggie, I answered one question that I thought the world would ask me about communication and public speaking. So do this around your expertise. Like let's say, if you're like a podcast host, you're also podcast guests. So you write down all the questions that people ask you in interviews, and you go, Okay, let me answer it every day. And if you do this for a year, you'll have answered 365 questions about your expertise, and you'll be bulletproof. Finally, number three really fast. Just send video messages to people that you love. Pick three to five people you love in your life, your brother, your sister, your nephew, and just send them a 22nd video message to just say, hey, I really appreciate the work that you're doing. Thanks for being in my life. I hope you're having a wonderful day and a blessed week. That's it. Easy threes.

Agi Keramidas  39:09  
Thank you so much this is I knew that you would offer us some practical elements or some things that we can implement to improve our communication. And so I was expecting that, but you have over the levers. I mean, there are so many in here. So I suppose all that's left to do for someone is to actually implement them because as you said, they only work when you practice them and not just hearing them. Brendan, where will you direct the listener who has found this conversation fascinating and wants to, you know, dive deeper in your content and your presentations?

Brenden Kumarasamy  39:53  
Absolutely. I get this is such a treat by the way. Thanks for having me on the show. Great way to start my day. So thanks for that. And the main Call to Action before we get into the links, is everybody listening to this book 15 minutes in your calendar every day to do the easy Thrace to do the random word exercise to do the question drill, and to do the video messages, if you just booked 15 minutes in your calendar every day for the next month, I guarantee your communication skills will improve. So now on to getting in touch with me two ways of doing that really simple. The first one is my YouTube channel, just go to master talk in one word, you'll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to speak. And the second way to keep in touch as they do a free live communication workshop online over zoom every two weeks for the community. So you can jump on that it's absolutely free. And you see me present the tips. And I facilitate. We have eight year old kids on this training, you have huge CEOs, everyone's invited. And it's rock star communicator.com To register for an extra.

Agi Keramidas  40:56  
That's brilliant. Thank you so much all the links will be in the show notes. And let me ask you some final quickfire questions then to wrap it up. And the first one I always ask is What does personal development mean to you?

Brenden Kumarasamy  41:11  
Personal development is a journey Aggie that helps us discover our unique essence in the world. So the deeper we dive into personal development with the deeper we learn about who we are, and who we're meant to be in this world. So that's how I define personal development.

Agi Keramidas  41:29  
Thank you. And hypothetically, if you could go back in time and meet your 17 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give him?

Brenden Kumarasamy  41:37  
I would say, Oh, he would give me or I would give them you would give him okay. I thought you're asking that was like, Oh, that's interesting. So

Agi Keramidas  41:44  
great question at the opposite.

Brenden Kumarasamy  41:49  
I would that's very cool. Actually, I'm gonna, I just reflected on my old question, and I'm gonna write that down and reflect that. But anyways, the advice I would give that person is be insane or be the same. If you want to be like everyone else, that's totally fine. But if you want to do something meaningful, magical with your life, it implies you need to do what most people don't do with their lives. Don't you find it bizarre idea that you're having a conversation with a 26 year old who started a YouTube channel on not on pranks, not on skits, not on music, but on executive communication tips in his mother's basement at the age of 22. Then wanting to coach high level, like we're talking $10 million $5 million CEOs, the year after yet, he still lives in his mother's basement, he bought a nice car, but his sister drives it for him, because he's too scared to drive it. He's in the top 1% of all listeners on Spotify for Justin Bieber, and he can karaoke in eight different languages. That's the point Aggie when every decision in your life makes sense to the only person that should, which is you, you're probably making the right decisions.

Agi Keramidas  42:58  
Thank you. That's a wonderful answer in reflection. Brandon, I want to thank you very much once more for this amazing conversation. I really enjoyed it. And as I said earlier, I'm going to repeat it once more, because you genuinely offered practical things that the listener can implement. And as I told you, I will also implement I will repeat it in my own words, would you say take scheduled 15 minutes every day and do those three easy exercises, and you will see how your communication transformed. So thank you. Again, watch for this conversation. And I want to wish you all the very best with your mission and what you're doing with sharing this

Agi Keramidas  43:46  
very important, crucial Nolan's of communication to people via your YouTube channel. I will leave it to you for your last parting words.

Brenden Kumarasamy  43:59  
Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for having me. My last parting words is back to the question we discussed earlier, that I'd love your audience to reflect on. And the question is, how would your life change? If you became an exceptional communicator? Communication is so much more than making more money, getting a promotion at work, or looking good. It's the way that we raise our children. It's the way that we talk to our family. It's the way that we make new friends. It's every moment of our life. So I encourage all of you to reflect on that question. Because it's not just about all of those different things we discussed. It's about improving the quality of your life. So that's my final thought.

Agi Keramidas  44:40  
Thank you for listening, and I hope you got valuable insights from today's episode. For your free ebook with the top 10 podcast episodes that offer the greatest value in three main categories of life. Go to personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/top10

Agi Keramidas  45:00  
And then until next time stand out don't fit in!

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