Empower Your Communication

Tom Finn:

Welcome, welcome to the Talent Empowerment podcast where we support business education through a series of great stories of glorious humans. Let's borrow their vision their tools their tactics to lift up your own purpose find happiness within your organization your teams and your community I am your purpose-driven little host the real Tom Finn and on the show today. We have Brenden Kumarasamy. Brenden, welcome to the show.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

It's great to be here Tom, thanks for having me.

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Tom Finn:

Look, if you don't know Brenden, let me just give you a quick intro on this guy. He is the founder of master talk. He coaches ambitious executives, entrepreneurs to quite frankly become the top 1% of communicators in their industry. So let me say that again. He coaches people to communicate so that you become the top 1% in your industry. 

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He also has a very popular YouTube channel called master talk. So go ahead and check that out. And his goal is to provide free access. to communication tools for everybody in the world. Very ambitious goal. We'll get to how we accomplish that. But let's start with the basics, Brenden. What is the origin of communication and why should we care?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

For sure, Tom. So let's start with the definition, which is what is my definition of communication, which is simply this. How do we convey an idea in a way that helps us achieve a specific outcome for a specific audience? So I'll repeat that again. How do we convey an idea in a way that achieves a specific outcome for a specific audience? And that could mean a thousand different things. That could be how do we do a sales presentation and close $50,000 worth of business? That could mean convincing our wife that we should have Mexican food tonight and not Chinese food tonight. That could be convincing kids or nieces or nephews that we should have vegetables instead of ice cream. So all of this is communication. It's the way and how we project ourselves and share ideas to get people across to the finish line. 

But the biggest challenge around communication, Tom, is it's very vague in nature. What does great communication actually mean? And most of us don't really know the answer to that. Is it saying less ums and ahs? Is it speaking more, speaking out? Is it keeping your eyes on the camera? So the way that I've defined it is communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. One of them's eye contact, one of them's body language, one of them's storytelling, and the goal of mastering is by focusing on one ball at a time to eventually build up our expertise.

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Tom Finn:

Okay, so I've got 18 balls in the air in communication. Probably some things that I'm not thinking of, right? So you said eye contact, you said body language. We'll get to those. Those are certainly physical behaviors in which we need to interact. What are some of the other components of communication? Give me top five, top six, whatever that looks like.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

For sure, Tom, let me simplify it even more. So now the question I've always thought about is what are the three easiest balls to juggle that allows us to get momentum? I call them my easy threes. Where, similar to, let's say we wanted to lose weight, if we do the right things like, you know, eat less junk food, no more soft drinks, we eat less food in general, if you do that for two weeks, you'll probably lose a pound or two. And when you do that, you start to see results immediately.

How do we bring that same immediacy to communication? So let's start with ball number one. which is the random word exercise. Pick a word like soft, like hard, like a mouse, like mouse pad, like home, like wife, like doorknob, and create random presentations out of thin air, on the spot, off of the word. And this serves two main purposes, Tom. One, it helps us deal with uncertainty. Life is filled with uncertainty. And the way we communicate with people, when we meet somebody at a cocktail, when we do a sales presentation, we meet somebody new. Life is filled with uncertainty and the random word exercise helps us deal with that. 

And the second piece to that is if you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything. So if you can talk about avocado toast for 60 seconds, when you go back into your job, your coaching practice, your business, it's really easy for you to navigate those situations because you're always talking about the same topics over and over again.

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Tom Finn:

Okay. So you pick a random word and how does the exercise go? So let's pick the word empowerment because we're on the talent empowerment podcast and you know, it just seems to make sense. So let's start there. So then what do you actually do with that word? You, you give a presentation on that word off the cuff.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

You got it. So for those who are listening to the podcast, Tom did not give me the word empowerment, so I'll demonstrate the exercise right now off the cusp. Which sounds something like this: Ever since I was a kid, Tom, one of the pieces of my life that was missing was control. Because I never had it. I always had to listen to what my parents told me to do. I couldn't get the things that I wanted for Christmas because we didn't really have enough money for it. And even in the dreams and the aspirations I had, I had to dream small. because we were lucky enough just to be born in a country like this, to be able to navigate life in a first world country like Canada. 

But you know what I learned later in life, Tom, is that when we choose to empower ourselves, when we believe in the idea of empowerment, it goes beyond just a job. It goes into something much deeper than that. Possibility. enthusiasm, energy, creating a life that is so unique to us because there's only one version of us. 

So I encourage all of you who are listening to this podcast, whether you're driving, whether you're with your kids and you're cooking a meal, or whether you're alone in your basement asking yourselves, how can I empower the talent around me? The most important person you need to empower for anyone else, like that little kid I used to be, is yourself. Because when you choose to empower your dreams, your beliefs, your ideas, and you bring them to the world, your energy will vibrate across the people around you, and that will inspire them to empower them and their teams. There you go, that's the random word exercise.

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Tom Finn:

Wow, that was fantastic. I need an applause button. And we'd be able to hear the clapping in the background, but that was beaut, that was beautifully done, man. And  for those of you thinking that I gave him the heads up, I did not, I made that up on the spot and that was absolutely glorious. I felt like it was a talent empowerment commercial. We'll probably use it as such. Well done, Brenden. That was, that was beautiful. So, okay. You're a skilled practitioner. You've dedicated your life to communication and we get it. You're good at your job. Okay. So how does somebody go from step one to that type of storytelling off the cuff?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Absolutely, great, great, great pass, Tom. So exactly. I always like to say when I do this exercise, Tom, that the reason I'm good at it is not because I'm special, not because I'm talented, it's because I've done it a lot. How many times has Brenden done the random word exercise? And a lot of you might be thinking it's 200 times, maybe it's 100, try 3,000. That's why I'm really good at the exercise. So for all of you listening, the first 100 times, It's not about doing it well, it's about doing it a lot. We do not get points for doing the exercise well. We get points for doing the exercise a lot. In other words, what I'm trying to say is the first hundred times don't count. 

Don't worry about how good you are or how good you could be, but rather focus on saying, am I willing to do it a hundred times? And that's when the conversation gets really interesting. Because we haven't even talked about the other balls, Tom. But just ball number one. you would be shocked at how little people even try the random word exercise one time. Let alone book five minutes in their calendar for three weeks to do it a hundred times. And that's why my advice is always, because remember, I don't say top 1% communicator, I say top 1% communicator in your industry. 

So if you're a cloud architect, think about the other 99 cloud architects, they don't even know what the random word exercise is. So if you do it 50 times, you're ahead of all of them. If you're in the HR department, right, you're a CHRO, you're a VP of people, you're managing great people, you might be decent at communication. I don't know a lot of VPs of people who are, or of HR who have done this a hundred times. So that's where I would start is just get the reps done and you'll figure out a format that works for you later as you mature.

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Tom Finn:

So you use the word format and that's where I was gonna go. I am a process person. I know people think differently, but process tends to help me out. So when I heard your story, you didn't start with the word empowerment, you actually started by storytelling about you as a child and the things that were perhaps missing. 

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You were creating a scenario where I felt empathy towards you first. That was the way I felt. And then we started getting more detail, more detail, more detail. And the crescendo was, now you can empower yourself, now you can empower others. That's talent empowerment, right? So, how do I do that? Are there some process steps? Are there some levels that I create in this communication practice?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Absolutely, Tom. So there's two nuanced answers I'll give you here. One is I agree with you. There was a process that I followed and you pretty much nailed it, which is hey, I start with the story, I create a magical moment for my personal life, and then I end with a key lesson. What is the lesson that I derived from this word? And that's my version of doing the random word exercise. But here's the second part of the nuanced answer, which is infinitely more important. If I ask 10 different people, Tom, to do the word empowerment, they would give me 10 completely different answers. 

The first person would go, like me, personal story, that's my MO. I love that style of speaking, I would do it that way. The second person might define the term empowerment and talk about how some societies in the world don't have the resources to empower, and they'll give a whole speech about how we need to create global equality in the world. The third person will go, oh, my mom was never empowered to have the tools that she has, and I'm lucky. So we should all take that seriously. 

So every single, and then somebody else could go, empowerment to me means getting up in the morning, eating some scrambled eggs and going for a run with my wife. So notice how everybody has their own interpretation to this. So the reason I'm pushing back on process is not because I don't have one, it's because we're forgetting the most important lesson of the random word exercise and communication. 

Unfortunately, If we want to be masters of communication, it means we need to be willing to destroy the process. It means we need to be willing to take that process and put it in the garbage, because there's always gonna be a contextual application of communication that the process hasn't optimized for. So we've done all the practice, we've followed the four steps that Brenden outlined, and then the next day we get into a corporate boardroom meeting and they go, hey, Brenden, actually I need you to present this part. And you go, well, but I didn't prepare for that part. and you have to deal with it. And that's why the random word access, I'm very specific about prescribing never a process, but rather saying that is the embodiment of not having, sorry, of jumping out of a plane without a parachute. So that way, if you can master that, if somebody gives you a process or a parachute, it's gonna be really easy for you to deal with those situations.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, for sure. And we've all been there in those meetings where you haven't thought about how to answer a question that's flying across the table at you. And you're going, huh, how do I answer this thing appropriately so that I can look good and also share the right answer in a meaningful way with my peers at the table here? So we've all been there, and you used a word earlier, you used this word uncertainty. And you were in the context of we all deal with uncertainty. We're all in different scenarios all the time when we think about it. So how do executives polish, the most polished executives, how do they deal with uncertainty?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Absolutely, Tom. So for me the general idea here to keep it simple is confidence is never given it is earned. So let's say we take a VP as an example and we'll keep it simple and then I'll complicate it later. Let's say they do the random word exercise 200 times or rather two times. They don't really feel that confidence at the beginning. They go, oh well empowerment is like a word I guess and and that's what it sounds like at the beginning. But then after they do it 200 times, they start to get really comfortable, which is taking a random word and creating a presentation. 

But then, when they go back into the boardroom, there's a new internal confidence that they earned, that was never given to them, that they earned fair and square, that the other executives in that room do not have. Which is you go into that room and you go, I've done the random word exercise more than every other VP in this room, combined. So that creates a win, a small win in our Rolodex. That's one piece. 

Another example that I can give you around confidence in the boardroom is ball number two, which is the question drill. We get asked questions all the time in our life, especially in the boardroom or on a podcast like this, but most of us are not prepared for those questions. So we're reactive to those responses. So let's say somebody asked me at the beginning when I started this crazy marathon of podcast guesting. and one of them said, where does the fear of communication come from? And that totally caught me off guard. I was like, I don't know, dude, Los Angeles, Florida.

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Tom Finn:

Where did the fear of communication come from? A physical location, maybe a boat, I don't know.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Yes, it's like Iceland. So I didn't know. So every day what did I do differently, Tom? I just answered a brand new question, including that one, for five minutes a day. But if you do that for a year, you'll have answered 365 questions and you'll be invincible. And then the last piece to confidence is how we react to questions. I'll give you a simple idea. There's a big difference between I don't know and I don't know. Listen to this. There's a big difference between Tom, I don't actually know that. Versus, I don't know Tom, but I'm more than happy to get back to you. It's the same thing, you don't know! But the way the delivery changes is really important.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, for those of you not watching on YouTube, but with your, I don't know, massive following on YouTube, I'm sure people will be watching on YouTube. If you weren't though, and you're listening to this, Brenden's physical body language shifted a little bit, his tone, you heard shift a little bit, the rhythm and pace of his speech shifted, and it went from what I would say is not confident to, oh my gosh, I've got this, and I'm gonna confidently tell you. then I don't know the answer, right? Which is okay.

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Yeah, I think people tend to in communication and where I tend to see this show up the most is when we think we should know the answer, but we don't. And then we sort of hum and ha our way through it. So how do you, how do you build that leathery skin so that you are comfortable enough to just say: “yeah, I don’t know”?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Absolutely, Tom. For me, the simple answer to this is it's a different philosophy than other coaches might share in my industry, which is do the harder thing. Do the harder thing. Whenever an executive comes up to me and says, oh, Brenden, I need to get into this meeting and I'm really worried about these VPs that I have a working relationship for seven years with and I'm really worried about this meeting, I go, perfect. Here's what we're going to do, Julia. I'm going to simulate a meeting with 10 other executives. We're going to make your life a living hell. and I'm gonna interrupt you every two seconds, and I'm gonna make your life so difficult that when you go into that boardroom meeting, you're gonna be like, wow, that was really easy. Nobody interrupted me, nobody told me I was such and such or that I didn't know what I was talking about or that I was missing this point, and nobody was aggressive with me. 

So that's always been my philosophy, especially with execs, since that was the specific question around this specific archetype, is for me, it's not about saying, let's do some deep breathing, let's sing kumbaya, it's more about going, How do we simulate an outcome that is far more challenging than the outcome that we actually need to face in real life? And if we simulate that outcome successfully, we manage it properly, when we go back into real life, that outcome becomes very, very easy to manage in the same way as a small anecdote. 

This interview is significantly easier for me than any others, because you're a really good interviewer, right, you're really well-prepped, you asked me a ton of great questions prior to the start, pre-interview, and then you have the other side, Deliberately said yes to even if I knew what was gonna happen is they would go out to get me They'd be like they would ask me a bunch of quite They'd make fun of my left arm because it's crooked they would throw a bunch of shade at me But I would answer those objections with a smile on my face because it's I did that Intentionally so that these interviews would be really easy to navigate through

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Tom Finn:

I love the way you said that and it takes me to sports. And for those of you that are athletes out there, love sports, doesn't matter what the sport is, there are a lot of coaches that subscribe to the philosophy of your practice will be more difficult than your game. They will make practice really difficult, it's gonna be intense, you're gonna be more tired after practice than you're gonna be after a game. Pick your favorite sport, doesn't matter what it is. 

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And the reason that they do that is so that when you walk into the game, There's nothing you haven't seen and nothing you haven't prepared for in practice. And when you get in there, as you said, Brenden, it's not as wild as people cutting you off and interrupting you. And if you prepare hard, then you're able to execute when it comes to game time or boardroom time. Well,

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

1000% and that is the philosophy I ascribe to. I mean I'd better if the outcome I'm selling is be a top 1% Communicate in my industry. If I don't if I don't embody that myself then I'm out of alignment

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Tom Finn:

Okay, so you bring up a good point. There's one of you and there's quite frankly, hundreds of thousands of listeners to this podcast. Now, how do we, how do we mimic the work that you're doing and spread this around the world? Because if I'm listening, I'm going, okay, I get it, but how do I do that myself? How do I practice with myself? How do I create a team? Can I do that in my, my own community? Can I do that on my own business team?  How do we bring this down to the real world?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

One thing I'll point out in this interview, Tom, that I rarely do because you do it so well that I think it's an advice for people is a strategy I teach called The Mind Reader. So what you're really good at that I want people to pay attention to is Tom's really good at listening as if he was one of the people listening to the show and then he goes this is what that person is thinking about how do I pull a question that's on your mind that's why when you're listening to the show you're going hey how is Tom asking the questions that I'm thinking about so apply that strategy too I love that. 

So having said that, here's the way that I think about it, Tom. To keep it really simple. Are we booking 15 minutes in our calendar every single day to do the easy threes? That means 5 minutes of doing the random word exercise. Pick 5 words. Goofball. Home. Golf. Chair. Husband. Doesn't matter. 5 random words. 5 minutes. Are we spending another 5 minutes doing one question? We have one question down that somebody will ask us about talent, whatever our expertise is. For me it's communication, for you it might be talent empowerment, coaching, for somebody else listening it's around drafts, like it doesn't matter. And then you write out those questions, you answer them. And then the final five minutes of that practice is ball number three, which is sending video messages to people that you love. Pick three people that you love in your life, send them a 20 second video message to say, hey I'm thinking about you, hope you're having a beautiful day, I'm really grateful to have you in my life. And the only rule behind the video message is you're not allowed to retake the video. 

So if you just do that every single day, three exercises, you'll be solid. Now let's go to the second layer of your question, Tom, which I think is really fascinating, which is how do we stay accountable to this? How do we do this in a way that gets results? Obviously, if you're an executive and you want to pay for that accountability, coaching helps, but for those of you who can't afford a communication coach, what I would advise instead is a couple of things. One, integrate it in your family life. but I've seen paid a lot of dividends with my executives whenever they give me feedback at the end. They go, the random word exercise, Brenden, isn't just about making me a better speaker, it helps me improve the relationship with my family. And that really surprised me, because I don't have kids, so I was wondering, like, what are you talking about? 

And let's say he's an associate partner at IBM was one of them, and he would say, like, you know, whenever I go home to my 12-year-old daughter, she's always watching TV or on her phone. So when I went up to her and I said, hey, let's do the random word exercise together, it didn't just create practice for both of us, it created family bonding. So that's a good way to do it. Or when you're picking to, for those of you who have children, when you're picking your kids to and from school, instead of listening to music, just do the random word exercise with them. That's one approach. 

Another approach you can take is you can find accountability members within your area. Toastmasters is really cheap, I think it's like 200 bucks a year. You can go into that club, meet a bunch of people, and practice what we talked about on the show. That's the second way. Third one that I was like to mention, I usually do this in person but I always go like raise your hand if you take a shower every day and I go hopefully everyone's raising their hand. Well you got 15 minutes in there and you're not doing anything so practice the drills in that time that you have.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, well said. Lots of tools and opportunities to find your way through it. So let's go back and hit on the three balls because you just gave us the third ball for the first time. So first ball is let's pick a random word, take five minutes and tell a story about that random word. You can do a couple of them within the five minutes. Second ball is let's figure out all the questions that we could answer around that particular topic. And let's try to get those questions answered in a five minute span. And then the third ball is taking videos, cell phone of ourselves, sending them to loved ones, telling them how we feel about them and that we're grateful to have them, you know, in our lives. So those are the three pillars or balls that we can start with five minutes, five minutes, five minutes. And we try to do that. You said every day.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Excellent excellent summary by the way Tom Ideally every day or you could do it a little bit differently where you book longer time once a week and you drill it more intense. So obviously whenever I'm sharing to the general public I don't actually implement it that way So I try and make it as easy as possible so people don't have excuses So I'll say something like oh, you know do it ten minutes a day like James Clear has like the two minute rule in atomic Happens so I do it for two minutes five minutes. That's not actually how I implement the rule though I'll do a hundred questions in a day I'll do 50 random word exercises in like 75 minutes. That's the way that I apply it, but that might be a little bit too intense for people getting started. 

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So for those of you listening, do it four times, five times a week, those 50 minute drills. But the magic is 99% of people, I can actually confidently say this at this point in my career, 99% of people will not do this consistently for a month, all three exercises, unless they're being yelled at too.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I agree. And that's the challenge with this, right? Is that I think conceptually, we're listening going, yeah, totally get it, totally understand the model, makes perfect sense, and I'm not gonna do it, right? Like how do we, right? And we do that as humans all the time. I mean, how many of us have gained weight and lost weight, and right, done more exercise, done less? ate better, not ate better. I mean, come on, we do it in all different parts of our life. But I think the question I'm getting at is, how do we hold ourselves accountable?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Right. Great points, great points. So here's the way that I think about it. A lot of people think, Tom, that the number one challenge behind communication is fear. And I actually completely disagree with that idea. And I'll explain why. 

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The reason is because there's so many things we've accomplished in our life that had some fear attached to it. Example, asking somebody on a date, applying for college, getting a job, doing job interviews, buying our first home, getting married, having children, everything that we're proud of in our life. we have never done with zero fear. We're scared to ask somebody on a date, but the reason we do it is because the fear of being alone supersedes, right, the fear of asking someone on a date. The reason we apply for the job and we do the interviews anyways is because the fear of being broke far exceeds the fear of doing the interview. It's just we don't apply that logic, Tom, to communication. We go, oh, I'm scared of it, so I'm just gonna sit home and do nothing with it. It's like we... What do you mean? Like you just applied the same logic with everything else except for comms. 

That's why for me, the triggering question, triggering is the wrong word, but the question then becomes how would your life change if you were an exceptional communicator? Like for you who's listening to the show, how would your life change if you're a great speaker? And for all of you, the answer is going to be completely different. One of you, by the way, with the same rule, so one VP of HR might say, I really want to become a CHRO. That's my dream. I want to be at the top of this C-suite I better be really good at communication because I have to speak on panels. I have to give keynotes I have to inspire my teams But somebody else in the exact same role Tom could say I don't really care about being a CHRO Who cares about that? I'm making pretty good money as a VP. I'm doing 150 200k a year My life's great. The reason why I want to be a great speaker is I want to be a better mother I want to show up as a better father for my children. 

You know, if I don't communicate properly, I'm showing them the wrong way to have conflict resolution. I'm showing them the wrong way to show up with other people. Whereas if I show up with kindness and I get better at speaking and I become the role model and I do the random word exercise, I'm not really doing it for me. I'm doing it so my kids are inspired by me so they become great communicators. To all of us Tom. have different reasons. And then you got the ego driven Brenden who wants to be like the greatest communication coach of all time. So he's doing all these podcasts to get really good at speaking. So all of us got our own thing. And there's no wrong answer, but it's about going 10 miles deeper into what is your thing. So when you find your motivation, whether it's for kids, whether it's for friends, whether it's for a career, that motivates you to do the three exercises every day consistently.

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Tom Finn:

So I'm going to go on a tangent here. So everybody buckle in, sit down. I got some thoughts. I got to share them. So here's, here's the way I look at it. And talent empowerment was really derived from this idea that, that we all need to figure out our purpose, right? And we need to become purpose driven in our lives. And once you figure out what your purpose is, and you're feeling like you really understand yourself better, then. you hold yourself more accountable to that purpose. 

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And what I'm hearing you say is find your purpose, figure that out, whether it's your kids or a promotional opportunity, starting your own business, becoming a speaker, whatever your purpose is that really drives you, find that one thing, and then commit to your communication improvements over a period of days, weeks, months and years so that ultimately all of this communication homework will make you a better speaker, a better communicator that ultimately will achieve the purpose that you started with.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Powerful.

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Tom Finn:

How does that feel?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

I mean, I just felt like clapping on this. I really loved that share talk. The only nuance I would drive around purpose, because we're on the same page, I completely agree with you, is don't be shy, to your point, to make your purpose small to start with. 

So it doesn't need to be grandiose right away. It could start with saying, hey, this next career job opportunity is really exciting for me right now. Like let's say you're a director and you want to become a VP in HR and that's what's exciting for you. Chase that energy. That's why Rob Dyrdek says never chase passions, chase energy. Where do you feel energetically excited? And that's what gives you clues to find your passion. But start with the energy first. And then it starts to build on top of each other. 

Like for example with me, like when I started MasterTalk, I mean I was a loser to be honest. I was a kid in my mom's basement, I was 22 years old. I didn't have any money in my bank account, I have a crooked left arm, I spoke my whole life in a second language, I have a bachelor's degree in accounting, and yet I thought I could make a difference in this space since most of my colleagues now, I used to think of those competitors but they're actually really nice people so they're colleagues and I was just the immature kid who started mastertalk. You know they're all PhDs in communication right? So when I started making videos, I had a lot of fear, I didn't really know what my passion was, what my purpose was, I just thought it was useful. And now I have a really solid foundation for who I am and what I'm trying to build in the world. So don't be shy to start with those little clues. As long as you're practicing and it motivates you enough to keep practicing, I'm happy with that out.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, but by the way, shout out to all the accountants out there. Accounting is sexy. I mean, come on, Brenden, we can't just go throwing accounting under the bus. That can be a glorious career. And with some fabulous people in it that love the numbers, for example. 

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So you're this accounting, person living in a basement. And you figure out, hey, I want to help people figure out communication. I want to be a better communicator. For all of the entrepreneurs, this, that short story is exactly how you do it. And for those of us that have done, or walked through the path of the entrepreneurial journey, we know that the first step is just to make the first step, which is what you did, right? And then you don't know where it's going to land, which is the hardest part when we all do this. But. You do have to take that first step, which you took. What was the hardest part for you in convincing yourself that your, your vision, your purpose, your charisma, it didn't have to be perfect to get started.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Yeah, I would say for me the big thing is going back to motivation, finding that purpose. You know, who are we making the content for? You know, of course today I'm really fortunate, I coach a lot of cool people and for some reason they paid me for it, which I'm super excited for. But when I got started it wasn't that, right Tom? Like I'd coach what, 60 people between the ages of 19 and 22 for free. I didn't even know it was a business. I was just helping them win case competitions, which is kind of like professional sports for nerds. That's how I learned how to communicate. so I could get a job in management consulting or change management or accounting, that was the goal. 

But then as I started coaching them, I started getting really good at the craft and the reason I started making videos frankly wasn't because I thought executives would hire me, because I was working at IBM and I did pretty cool jobs, I didn't think I was going to leave the company by any means. It was more about two facets, one, the other university kids wouldn't have access to me anymore because I'll be too busy with work. So I won't be able to coach them. So that was the reason number one, why I started making videos. And reason number two is for the seven year old girl who can't afford a communication coach. Like if you're a 13 year old girl in Cambodia, like what are you supposed to do? Like you don't have anyone to rely on.

And the alternative before I existed was a 55, no offense to them obviously, but like a 57 year old, you know, male, who's a PhD in communication is a little bit boring on camera. So it's a little dry. So for me what it really came down to is this quote from Ali Gadet that I highly highly recommend people write down which is, if you help one person, the world will give you permission to help everyone else. So if you help one person or a few groups of people, if you do a great job with them, eventually the world just gives you a bunch more opportunities and you end up in a place you never could have believed in like the place I'm in today and I still can't believe it honestly.

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Tom Finn:

That's awesome story, man. I love that quote. I'm sort of thinking about just getting to know you a little bit more personally, because you've mentioned it twice now, and you talked about your left arm. So share with us your personal story about your arm.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Yeah, for sure happy to do that, Tom. So when my mom gave birth to me, this happens at one in every thousand surgeries, so it's very rare. Usually when there's a problem with getting the baby out, they'll use a vacuum to pull out the baby. And there's usually a malfunction with it, one in every thousand surgeries. And I happened to be that one surgery. So when they pulled me out, the left part of my body kind of dislocated. And it's always been like that since I was born. So that's basically what happened. But luckily for us, usually in those types of circumstances, somebody dies. Like either me or my mom dies in this case. But luckily for us also, we both came out of it alive. So super grateful for that. But yeah, that's what happened.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for sharing that part of you. And you know, all of these little components make us who we are, right? They, they drive us. They make us unique, they make us powerful, when we determine how to use them as a superpower. And you have clearly used all of your experiences, to create this superpower in communication. What's your, what's your desire for the world in terms of making the world a better place? You talked about the 13 year old girl who doesn't have access perhaps to a high powered communication coach, but where would you like to see this all go?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

For sure, Tom, I'll share the story with you, which is about Taylor Swift. So Taylor Swift in 2014, she wins an award called Women of the Year, which is an award that Billboard gives out, the music company. And she stands up on that stage and she goes, your future woman of the year is a 12 year old girl right now. She's in choir, she's learning how to sing, and she has big aspirations to be a singer like me. And our goal is to take care of her, because we need to. Then she gets off the stage. 

And then the video I'm watching, seven years later, kind of flips, and Billie Eilish becomes the youngest inductee in Billboard's history to win Woman of the Year. She's like 17 or something. And then she gets up on the stage, rambles sort of, because she's a 17 year old kid, right? So she's like, ah, blah, blah, blah, like, how did I win this? And then the last 30 seconds really made a mark on me. And I think it really solidified my purpose in life, Tom. Which is, she looks at the crowd and goes, Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, like in 2014 too I was watching Taylor's speech and I was 12 years old. And I was learning how to sing. And I was in choir. And I had big dreams to be somebody. And thank you Billboard and everyone in this room for taking care of me. And then she walked off the stage. And when she said that it always gives me goosebumps because it made me think of the next Elon Musk. The next Oprah Winfrey. Because when Elon, whether we like him or not, is a different story. When he was 10 or 11 years old, he was being abused by his dad in South Africa. Nobody told him he could be a big star. And nobody sat him down for 45 fricking minutes to teach him how to be a great communicator. He still became successful, but boy, his path would have been a lot easier if he could talk like me. Right? So it's the same thing. What about the next Elon? There's somebody right now and we don't know who that is. 12 year old girl in Cambodia, 14 year old girl in Nigeria. Who knows who is the next Elon? And I know for sure nobody's helping them to be a great speaker. So if I could be the person in this generation and become the next Dale Carnegie, I could really democratize the information for everybody to learn, including that little girl. That's my vision.

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Tom Finn:

Well, it's a powerful vision and one that the world needs. And I love that you're on this path, my friend. This is, it's really cool. I love what you're doing. I love how much it means to you because your passion and your drive and your energy absolutely shines through. So well done, man. This, it's not an easy path to carve and you're doing a really great job. So thank you for the good work that you're doing.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Thanks man, all thanks to my mentors and coaches. I'm really grateful for the smarter people in my life who kind of help me navigate my insecurities and my stupidities, so there you go.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, for sure. 100% it's never just us, right? There's always mentors, partners, friends, coaches, teachers, right, along the way that lend their hand. And so if somebody wanted to get ahold of you, Brenden, and wanted you to be their teacher, or wanted to learn from you, or wanted to track you down on MasterTalks, like how do they do that?

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

For sure, Tom. This is such a pleasure, by the way. Thanks for having me. So two ways to keep in touch. The first one is the YouTube channel. Just type MasterTalk in one word. You'll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to speak. And the second way to keep in touch is I do a free communication training that's live over Zoom every two weeks that I facilitate myself. Super fun. You get to see me apply a lot of the tips that we talked about today on a Zoom call. So you get to learn from my facial expressions and things like that. and everyone's invited. So if you want to jump on that, go to rockstarcommunicator.com and just register for the next one.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, lovely man. We will put that in the show notes for everybody. So if you're driving, please don't type that into your phone. We will pop it in the show notes. You can click away and connect with Brenden. Hey man, thank you so much for coming on the show. Loved having you. Love your energy. Love where you're going with this. And all super grateful for the work that you're doing.

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Brenden from MasterTalk:

Likewise man, such a treat.

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Tom Finn:

And thank you for joining the Talent Empowerment podcast. I hope we've helped you to find your purpose, advance your career, and create a life of happiness. Let's get back to people and culture together. We'll see you on the next episode.

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