Mastering The Art of Communication with Brenden Kumarasamy

Brenden Kumarasamy  00:00

So pick a random word like sports like Master like talk like trophy case and create random presentations that have dinner. And this helps us a two things. One, it helps us think on our feet. And the second one is it helps us make sense out of nonsense.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:12

So, Good morning and Welcome to another Episode of Better Business, Better Life. Today I am joined by Brenden Kumarasamy from MasterTalk, and Brenden is the founder, CEO, Coach, you name it’s got a number of titles there. But MasterTalk is really a business about helping professionals get better in the way that they articulate, both in public speaking but also from an executive level coaching point of view as well. So welcome, Brenden, lovely to have you here.

Brenden Kumarasamy  00:36

Debra pleasures. Absolutely mind. Thanks for having me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:38

No worries. Now, of course it’s morning over here in New Zealand, but I think it’s about two o’clock your time. Where abouts are you in the world?

Brenden Kumarasamy  00:44

I’m based in Montreal, Canada.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:45

Oh, awesome. Okay, I’m coming to Canada in January for the first time I’m very much looking forward to it. Yeah.

Brenden Kumarasamy  00:50

Is this for vacation or?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:52

No, it’s actually to come and see my coach who is based over there. So in Toronto, and we’re doing

Brenden Kumarasamy  00:57

 Oh, Dancehall masterclass.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:58

No, no, Dan. I mean, Dan is obviously there as well. But know this. I’ve got a new coach. And Nicky Billou is his name. Yeah,

Brenden Kumarasamy  01:07

Cool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:07

Anyway, yeah. So we’re not here to talk about me though. We’re here to talk about you. So I’ve, we’ve just been having a quick chat before the podcast and just hearing your story. And of course, you’re you trained originally at business school as an accountant. And that seems so far removed from what you’re doing right now. So why don’t you tell us a little about your journey to where you’ve got to right now. And just share with us your professional and personal best along that along that journey?

Brenden Kumarasamy  01:31

Absolutely, Debra, and you’re absolutely right. I never thought I’d ever be a Communication Coach. I’d even know that was the thing. I went to business school never to be an entrepreneur either. I never thought I would be in business. I’ve always believed that there’s two types of entrepreneurs in the world. There’s the born entrepreneur and the made entrepreneur. So the born entrepreneur is the person who was like Mark Cuban, or Gary Vaynerchuk, selling lemonade out of their house and running illegal candy businesses at their high schools, razz me, I was never like that I was a straight A student doing really well academically. And that was more of a made entrepreneur. So what happened was, I went to business school. And I did these things called case competitions. Think of it like professional sports, but for nerds. So while other guys may enjoy playing cricket, or rugby, or footy, I wasn’t really into any of that. So I did, presentations competitively. That’s how I learned how to speak. But then as I got older, I started coaching a lot of the people in those programs on how to communicate ideas, not because I was a coach, but because we didn’t really have an alternative. So I just did it, to help them. And that’s how I accidentally learned the art of coaching. And that’s what led to master talk the YouTube channel, because I felt a lot of the information I was sharing with them wasn’t really available for free on the internet. And then one thing led to another and here we are today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:48

Excellent. And so yeah, as you said, I mean, you’ve got the YouTube channel has lots of free resources and things. Tell me a little about why. Why do people need to learn how to speak properly? I mean, it’s great for continuity competitions when you’re at school, but you know, in the real world, what’s it really all about?

Brenden Kumarasamy  03:04

Right. And it will really depend on on who’s who’s listening. So for example, if you’re a business owner, you know, what I always tell my entrepreneurs is, as your business scales, or your communication skill scaling with the business. So what does that mean? That means if your business right now doing six figures, multiple six, let’s say 100 to 300k a year, let’s just put numbers there. Usually, you’re doing every part of the model. So every part of the value chain delivery, ascension, marketing, sales, you’re doing all of it. But then as the business scales, is it half a mil 750, based on the industry, obviously. And then in that context, what happens is everything that you used to do, you start to delegate to other people, and you create standard operating procedures or SOPs, but in that situations, what’s happening is if your communication skills aren’t sharp enough for 750 or a million, you’re going to create a ton of inefficiencies in your business, where a lot of your employees are going to come back to you know, Hey, what did you say? What do you want me to do? What’s the expectation, and you create a lot of problems in the business. But just more looking around on a bigger scope. Besides business, I would say communication is about leading a more fulfilling life. It’s not just about getting promoted at work. It’s about every area of your life. It’s the way that you talk to your family. It’s the way that you raise your children, it’s the way that you make friends. And once we realized that we take it a lot more seriously.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:16

That makes perfect sense. Okay, so tell me a little bit about, you know, what, what, what do you do with people when you’re trying to coach them, teach them about this? Where do you even start?

Brenden Kumarasamy  04:25

Right, And what’s fascinating about this agency, Debra is everyone has a very unique approach and how to coach people on communication. So I’ll give you mine. My version of this is communications like juggling 18 balls at the same time. So one of those balls is body language, storytelling, facial expressions, eye contact, smiling, right? And the list goes on. So instead, my approach has always been what are the three easiest balls that we can juggle to build momentum and motivation to actually practice communication on a consistent basis? So for me, what are those three balls, ball number one, and we could just do one at a time for noun is the random word exercise. So pick a random word like sports like MasterLike chocolate trophy case and create random presentations that have dinner. And this helps us to two things. One, it helps us think on our feet. And the second one is it helps us make sense out of nonsense. What I tell people is if you can make sense out of nonsense, you could make sense out of anything, so I just have them start there.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:23

Okay, that’s a little bit like Toastmasters, isn’t it? I know when I’ve been to Toastmasters, you get given topics to kind of talk on and you go away and, and you prepare a topic is that similar?

Brenden Kumarasamy  05:31

Yes, the only difference between table topics. And what I’m suggesting, for those who are listening table talks is just a facet of Toastmasters, where you’re given a question or a prompt, and you have to deliver an impromptu presentation just off the cusp, essentially, the only difference between my version of the Exodus and Toastmasters which, of course is a great organization is the random word it says I find it a lot more efficient, because there’s less thought. So for example, a table topics, you actually have to find questions, all that stuff. Whereas the random work, you pretty much just have to do it. Essentially, Master boom, boom, and the output is a lot faster. So the results are a lot faster. So I just did what they did and and turn into my version of it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:09

Love it. Okay, cool. What’s number two? Ball number two? Absolutely. So

Brenden Kumarasamy  06:12

Ball number two, is the questions drill. We get asked questions all the times in our life or businesses or career, and we always get bombarded with them. But a lot of us are reactive to those questions to upper we’re not proactive, to those questions. So what does that mean, three years ago, and I started guesting on podcasts. I was terrible at this, I had no idea what I was doing. I remember some guy asked me the funniest question, Said, where does the fear of communication come from? And I looked at the guy and I said, dude, maybe Los Angeles, Brisbane? I don’t know. It’s I didn’t really know how to answer that question. So instead, what I did, Debrah, is I said, How do I take a more proactive approach to this? So every single day for five minutes, that’s all I ask. Ask an answer. One question that you think the world will ask you about your expertise, your business, your products, or services, your career, just one every day, five minutes. And if you do that for a year, Debra, you’ll have answered 365 questions about your business, you’ll be unstoppable. So that’s number two.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:21

I love it. I absolutely love it. So. So we’ve got, yeah, the random sort of words. And we got to talk about those. And then we’ve got this, you know, answer a question every day for five minutes. And you’ve got 365 questions. Brilliant. What’s number three?

Brenden Kumarasamy  07:34

Absolutely. So number three, last but not least, is make a list of the people that you love. Or if you’re a business owner, make a list of the people that you love and your clients? And ask yourself a simple question. When was the last time you sent any of your clients, any of your family members, any of the people you actually care about a 22nd video message, just saying how much you appreciate having them in your life. And if you do just this, it’ll teach you a very valuable lesson about communication, that you don’t need to be great to create an impact. Because for me, it’s not about how good the video is, when you send it to your family members. It’s a binary thing, are you sending it or not? Because trust me, when you do send it, you’ll realize that you’ll get a lot of smiles back, oh my God, I’ve never gotten a video message before Debra. And that’s actually how I make most of my money in business for my business owners listening to this, because word of mouth currently in our business is around 40 to 45% of our entire pie. So how and our goal is to make it 100% In 18 months. So for us, what do we do, I just make a list of all my clients. And when it’s a holiday, when it’s some venue, I just send them a video message. And one thing we’re going to implement this year in our business that we haven’t yet, but we’re doing it is I’m going to buy like a birthday hat, like a literally a $5 birthday hat. And I’m going to buy a little kazoo. And then when it’s my clients birthday, I’m going to send them that video message. And I guarantee I’m the only person in the world is doing that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:56

Actually, it is really interesting. I just got pod matches, I think how we met as well. I actually got a video message from somebody who wanted to be on the podcast of the day. And at first I thought it’s one of those generic ones that they just send out. But no, it was an absolute personalized message. You’ve taken the time to listen to the podcast. She told me what she loved about it. She told me how she felt she could add some value. And I was I was literally blown away because I’ve never had that edge. Ever. If I very rarely get any video messages sent to me. I couldn’t I can count it on less than one hand in terms of numbers she received. So I love it. What about if you’re nervous, though, you know, people who are on because we all have this fear of putting ourselves out there and what we will think and then how will they perceive me? And what happens if I’ve stuffed it up? You know, how do you how do you help them overcome that fear?

Brenden Kumarasamy  09:42

Absolutely. So by acknowledging it. So for me, Debra, I always like to be on record and I’m the Communication Coach. I’m the one coaching other people but I’m always happy to say that I’m scared of communication too. It’s just the level is different. So let’s say me and you’re having lunch in New Zealand, and somebody calls me up Pick up the phone. And it’s Elon Musk. And Elon Musk goes Brendon. I really liked the episode you did with Debra’s really good. And I really liked your YouTube videos. Can you coach me? I’ll pay you a million dollars. I’ll fly you tomorrow. What I crapped my pants. Yeah, I’d be a little scared. I could still do it. But I’m still scared. And that’s okay. So for me, fear is not something we remove nerve is not something we try to get rid of. It’s a dichotomy we need to learn to manage, it’s a relationship we need to learn to manage. So for me, the better analogy, Debra is a boxing match one side of the ring, fear, anxiety, stress, other side of the ring message, why does this matter? Why is this important, and the goal is not for the fear to leave the ring. The goal is to make sure that when that bell rings, and your message and your fear meet in the middle of that match, your message better be so important that you get the knockout punch and win the match.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:53

I love that analogy. That’s really cool. Okay, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay, so I know that you actually coach a number of different types of people. And we were just talking before the podcast about those people, you have to explain you’ve got three, three types of audience that you work with? Would you mind just sharing what those are? And then I’d love to ask some questions about that.

Brenden Kumarasamy  11:12

Yeah, absolutely. Doubly happy to. So the three types of people that we work with number one is the Indian technology professional, who generally lives in the US. There’s somebody who has been technical and engineer most of their life, let’s say at Amazon, and they just got promoted into a leadership role, or they’re already a leader, but they’re not performing as well as they want. Because they spent too much time coding and not enough time leading others and learning the leadership skills required to actually get to SVP to get to VP, that’s our first ideal client. The second one is really the person who is the visionary entrepreneur, someone who has a big vision for the world. But the vision is not matching the quality of their communication. So in other words, the quality of their vision, their dream, is not matching the quality of how they’re currently speaking. So a great example of that is a PhD scientist, someone who has a revolutionary technology, but they’re not able to communicate that technology in a way that’s convincing for other people. And the third one is the executive woman. So for example, we work with Chief which is a high level very, very high up women organization with all the top executives in the United States. And I work with a lot of them, because for them, it’s about stepping into their power. Because when men apply for jobs versus when women apply for jobs, very different. So men look at a description of let’s say, 10 different roles. 10 different responsibilities, they’ll they’ll say they can do three, and they’ll apply for the job. Whereas the woman will look at the same set of responsibilities, look at they can do like eight of them, and then not apply for the job, because it’s not 10 out of 10. So because of that, that’s what we developed a niche to just help them live up to the potential.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:46

Yeah, because we actually talked about that last night, believe it or not a connector event I was that group of women standing around a table and just talking about that. It’s real, it actually exists. You know, we are very much if we haven’t got all 10 There, we don’t want to apply, whereas other people will. Yeah, men will generally get I’ve got 230 That’s easy. I can I can learn the rest. Yeah. Okay, so from a, because obvious a lot of my listeners are business owners. And maybe they are sort of a little bit like that visionary, where they are the technical person, they completely get what it is they’re doing the business, but they’re not so great at communicating. Where would you even suggest that they start?

Brenden Kumarasamy  13:22

For sure. So the rationale is the same depth across all three, actually, across all three profiles. It’s just well, it just a little bit for entrepreneurs. But the only difference so do the random word it says do the question, we’ll do the video message. Because I guarantee nobody on this podcast, as I was listening to this is doing all three things consistently every single day. So for every entrepreneur listening to this, the advice is the same for all of you book, 50 minutes in your calendar every single day, you are not going to get the result listening to this podcast just by listening to me talk all day. Yeah, it’s nice. Brendon knows how to talk well, Debra knows how to talk. That’s awesome clubs for us. But that’s not how you’re going to get better. Right? So you need to book 15 minutes every day. Which brings me to ball number four, which is so simple. The best way to speak is to speak, right? And the problem with entrepreneurs is they don’t make communication a priority. So here’s my message, which is more of a burning bridge, right? Because that’s tough love for them, assume the business will be successful. I’m shocked that entrepreneurs don’t assume that they’re gonna eventually have a $10 million business or a $3 billion business. So that’s the assumption if that’s what you’re going to do. You better optimize for that end leader today. Because the biggest bottleneck in your business is not motivation. It’s not your employees making mistakes. It’s its own leader. And once you realize that you’re the own bottleneck of your own business. You need to keep growing as the business grows, and you need to call your shots ahead of time before those bottlenecks come into play.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:47

Yeah, perfect. It’s the whole start with the end in mind thing isn’t Stephen Covey, sort of like that’s what you do as you know where you’re headed, and we use it in EOS. We’ve got a 10 year target, we know where we’re going. And therefore you have to live as if that is actually happening right now. In order to ensure that you get there, and investing in yourself is really important from that perspective. So, sorry.

Brenden Kumarasamy  15:07

Yeah, no, no, you’re all good. And I completely agree, the only thing I would add on top of that, is we do that really well with the business. So there’s a lot of great models like us, that help us think as visionary leaders for the business. But we never do that for our communication. So a lot of us have goals for a business, but we don’t have goals for communication. And that’s the problem is we don’t have a communication vision for how we want to communicate. There’s obviously like an hour conversation we can have around just that topic. But I’ll give you three easy questions. What do you want in life? who already has what you want in life? But then there’s a third question, what type of communicator are there? We don’t think about question three, as businesses, we think about what we want. Yeah, I want to build a $5 million business, we think about who already has that, okay, this person is making $5 million a year, let’s say, in my niche, but what you don’t think about is question number three, how are they coming off in a podcast? How do they talk in an interview? How do they talk on a panel, and when we don’t spend that focus, thinking about that idea, we don’t actually get better to live up to their standard.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:09

I just, it’s just made me think of something. I’m gonna think I’m an Apple fan, right? I’m sitting here on my Apple Mac, I’ve got my Apple watch on my Apple phone, everything. And, you know, if you think about Steve Jobs when he was around, he was a perfect example of a fantastic communicator. I’m not sure how he was as a leader and a boss. I’ve heard mixed reports about that. But, but in terms of getting up there, you know, and creating that excitement as a as a speaker, I think he was quite phenomenal. That’d be fair to say.

Brenden Kumarasamy  16:34

1,000%. Right. I definitely think that no, actually, I don’t think I definitely know that Steve Jobs is the evangelist of the brand when he was alive. Right? It is that catalyst. And even for people who aren’t great communicators, like sure, could I coach Elon, for 45 minutes making 10 times better? Absolutely. There’s no doubt. But the thesis is still the same, which is, if you want to be the CEO of a big business, you need to realize that your personal brand actually impacts the business a lot more than you would think. Especially if you have really big dreams for what you do. So you need to optimize for that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:06

And I suspect that Steve Jobs because I mean, he’s a bit of a techie geek himself, I suspect he wasn’t all that good at speaking when he first started. I don’t know, I’ve never seen any early, early stuff. But I suspect, I know that rod Drury is one of our entrepreneurs from over here in New Zealand. And I love rod. He’s an amazing businessman and, and a great sort of colleague and friend. But I know that he struggled with with communicating in the early days, and he spent a lot of time working on that. And now to hear him speak, you know, he is always fantastic. So I think that these people that if you’re from a techie kind of background, it’s not natural, necessarily for you to get up there and be an amazing communicator.

Brenden Kumarasamy  17:43

Absolutely. And I definitely agree, I can confirm, you know, Steve wasn’t exceptional in the early days of Apple. He was good. He was good. But good isn’t good enough. Right. I think that’s the message that I want to send. So when you compare Steve, to where he was, let’s say the 80s. And there’s a lot of recordings there with his beard and stuff, versus when he was presenting the iPhone for the first time, which was like, wow, like, amazing presentation. Definitely a huge gap in skill for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:10

Fair enough. Okay. So now I want to ask you a couple of questions. Because you of course, apart from being a coach, you actually run a business as well. And I would love to hear about your because, as you said, you weren’t intending to become an entrepreneur, you’ve got accountants, which I’m so pleased you didn’t become an accountant. So this journey, you know, stemmed from not really wanting to be an entrepreneur to suddenly being in business, I hear you’ve got a business partner, you’ve obviously got other team members as well. Tell us a little about the business and that journey to where you are now.

Brenden Kumarasamy  18:40

Absolutely. Debra, I’m a very odd type of entrepreneur because I never had any interest in wanting to be what and to be frank, because a lot of people have asked me this follow up question to if you weren’t in the coaching business, what we should be doing instead, people are shocked in my answer. I always say, Oh, I would get a job. And just be in corporate. They go what as a Yeah, business is hard. If I’m not really passionate about what I’m doing, and I can’t sell the product, or believe in it, why would I go through the pain of being an entrepreneur. But obviously, since I get to be a coach, I’m obviously going to be in business for a long time. So my path to entrepreneurship was a little bit different than most Debra. So I had a very successful career at IBM and I was doing six figures and which is really good, you know, for my age anyway. And I was I was planning on just being an exec there, make really good amount of money and just retire, just live my life. But what happened was, I kept making these YouTube videos. Every week. I thought this was a side gig. Yeah, this was a side hustle at the beach. But I didn’t really think of it like a side hustle. Like I didn’t need extra income, like I need an extra 5000 No, I was just making videos. I was actually losing money because I was spending money to make the videos Nice. So I just, I just thought it was good value for people. I just felt that it was ridiculous that people are sharing this information for free. So I was just making these videos in my mom’s basement. And then nine months went by Debra September 2019 At this point, so it wasn’t too long ago. So my group my business group really, really rapidly like two, three years, basically. And I met my business partner Vamsi, who had spent the last 10 years of his life kind of investing himself, he spent upwards of like half a mil on himself and all these coaching for all these mastermind groups. And he is the one who opened my eyes to the possibility of being a business owner, because he looked at me and he said, So why, what are you doing? And I said, I make YouTube videos. And he looked at me, he just laughed. He said, Why do you make a YouTube video like pranks or something? And I looked at it, I said, no executive communication. Look, so what’s this, this person is making executive communication tips. So he took a liking to me, Debra, he’s just started watching my YouTube videos. And he said, You do realize you can charge executives 1000s of dollars to work with you. And you know what I said? I looked at him and I said, Come on, dude. I’m like, 2223, so who’s gonna pay a few grand for me? And he said, I would. And he wrote me my first check. And he really believed in me and introduced me to his clients, and pretty much coached me to be the person I am today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:59

That’s fantastic. And that’s not an uncommon stories, you know, gather, having a mentor is obviously good for self development. But sometimes it can lead to much bigger things as well. So tell me a bit about the business now. So there’s yourself and you’ve got your your other co founder, if you like, do you have other team members in your? Yeah, we do.

Brenden Kumarasamy  21:18

But it’s a very small business. So in the sense of team size, because coaching business? Yeah, yeah. So it’s like 85-90 % margins, which is a great business to be in a lot. A lot of people I love service based businesses. So for us, the team has only four people for now. Anyways, so it’s me and my co founder and the two other individuals who are both my designer and my production team for the videos, but they’re not full time staff. So they’re contractors.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:43

Okay, and how do you keep that team together? How do you make sure you’re on the same page? And that you’re, you know, keeping in alignment with your vision? And I suppose actually, that’s a really great question, what is your vision for the business?

Brenden Kumarasamy  21:54

Absolutely, Debra. So for me, it’s the vision for my life, which then leads into the vision for the business, but limit, which I’m happy to get into. But let’s start with the vision for the team. So the team is actually really not that complicated. And the reason is just because I mean, my two, the two contracts, they’re my best friends. Like I’ve been working with them for five, seven years, me and dad, he’s my creative director, he understands my brand really well. And he was there since day one. So there’s not much like disagreement, or it’s just we’re just super efficient. And we’re all super aligned on what the vision. So there’s not much I can teach there. But in terms of the vision for the for my life, and for the mission of the business, here, here it is, I’ll tell it through story. So the easiest way to do this, so it’s 2014. Debra, I’m watching this video of someone in 2014. And it’s Taylor Swift. So she wins an award called Woman of the Year, which is an award that billboard gives out of you, for those who don’t know, billboards like a music company. So Taylor, is looking at the audience and she says this, your future Woman of the Year is 11 years old right now. She is in choir, she’s learning how to sing and she has big dreams to be a singer, and we need to take care of her. Then as I’m listening to this tik tok Debra, it flashed forward six years into the future. And Billy Eilish becomes the youngest inductee in the history of Billboard to win Woman of the Year at the age of 17. So she’s not even a woman yet, and she wins. She wins women, because she’s so talented. And she gets up on that stage. She’s got a big jacket, big, bulky glasses, kind of tipsy towing to the stage. And she’s rambling for most of her wedding speech. She was oh, yeah, like, thanks. I don’t know how I got this world. But that’s good to be just seems rambling. And then the last 30 seconds, Deborah completely changes my life. She looks at the crowd and goes, yeah, yeah, I’ve watched Taylor Swift presentation, too. And I was 11 years old. And I was learning how to do choir and how to sing and how to play piano. And you all took care of me. So thank you, and she walked off the stage. And the reason that forever changed the course of my life, was because I thought about the next Elon Musk, because when Elon Musk was 13 years old, and he’s being abused by his dad, he was some 13 year old kid in South Africa. Nobody cared about him. Nobody sat him down and said, You’re gonna be a big star someday he might coach you for two hours for free. I coach them for free today, if he asked me, right. But the key is, nobody took care of him. And he still became successful. But I thought about the next Elon, because the next Elon Musk is probably some seven year old girl in Cambodia. So the reason I’m in business, Debra, is because my executive clients give me the money, the firepower to democratize communication for the rest of the world. And the same way Dale Carnegie couldn’t because he died in 1955. So there wasn’t any, like podcasts or YouTube videos, so I get to have an opportunity in my life, to be the next Dale Carnegie and empower every generation of entrepreneurs and changemakers to become exceptional communicators, whether they can afford me or not. That’s the mission.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:50

I absolutely love it. They Yeah, making a huge difference, which is great. Cool, so tell me Um, what else can you share with the listeners that will actually help help them in terms of their journey to becoming great communicators?

Brenden Kumarasamy  25:03

Absolutely, Debra, I would say the biggest one. So we’ve covered a lot of big pieces here, it goes back to the simple question that is very powerful if you take it seriously, which is, how would your life change? How was your business change? If you were an exceptional communicator, a lot of us see communication, like, it’s a chore, like doing the dishes, I don’t want to get better. But so in the same way we dream about our business, whether it’s with us or any other framework, we dream about what we want to do in our life, we don’t dream about our communication. So I would encourage everyone to start now. Because communication affects every area of your life. It’s not just about making the extra sale, or motivating your teams at work to increase retention. It’s the way that you raise your children, it’s the way that you lead a more fulfilling life. So I would spend 10 to 15 minutes just reflecting on that question.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:54

And I think you’re absolutely right. It’s important in all relationships to right. I mean, I think one of the things I’ve learned I’m now 52. So I’ve been I’ve been around for a while. And one of the things that I have learned is that the better you get at communication in all aspects of your life, the better life just becomes, because you’re able to have open, honest conversations you’re able to not be afraid of, you know, talking to people in an open, honest way. So it’s good. Yeah. So, so what deep because you’re, you’re a coach, and you tell people they should put 15 minutes every day? Do you do the same yourself? What’s your morning routine? What does it look like?

Brenden Kumarasamy  26:30

So there’s two parts. So let’s start with communication, then I’m happy to talk about morning routine, because I got an opinion on the sort of communication, I’m always on the record to say I actually don’t do this consistently 15 minutes a day. So then next question becomes well printed, how can you recommend this and not do this? Because I’m a lot more intense. What I do instead, is I’m practicing question drills, and all this stuff like 10 to 15 hours a week. And the reason is, because that’s why I go on shows, because I don’t make a lot of money from going on show because it forces me to actually answer questions. So I’m always sharp. That’s actually why I do this. So that’s one piece is is my practice integrated. The other piece is a lot more intense. So for example, like I want to the random word exercise anymore, because I’ve done it 3000 times. So I’ll do something a lot more challenging that I never recommended a podcast because people won’t do it. Like I practice rapping two songs in our week. So that sounds ridiculous. But the reason and I don’t want to be a rapper, let the record show. The reason is because it really helps with pacing. So you’ll notice when I articulate words, every word is crisp, like you’ll hear every word. And the reason is because I rap a lot. So because I rap, you have to speak really quickly at different paces into modalities. So when you go back to being on a podcast and sharing an idea or teaching something, it’s a joke. So you’ll listen to every word I say, like it’s honey versus going, what did he just say? And that’s something I practice.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:52

Actually, it’s very, very true because you speak fast like I do. But there are people who speak fast and mumble a wee bit. And there are people who speak fast and articulate very well, which means you actually can keep up and listening and what they’re saying. Okay, so tell me about your morning routine, then because he said that was another thing altogether.

Brenden Kumarasamy  28:09

For sure. You’re a great listener ever. So for morning routines. Here’s what I say. My routine is not the morning routine, you should be implementing. I think the biggest problem with this conversation, not this sorry, not that this conversation we’re having with the company, though everybody has Yeah, the conversation. The conversation around morning routines, is there’s a set set of steps, you have to wake up at 5am you have to do this. Here’s my encouragement, test all of them, do the cold plunge, do the five M do the do the meditation, try the run in the morning, try all of them and then optimize a routine to maximize the results. The only question with morning routines that I encourage people to think about is is your current morning routine, getting you the results that you desire in your life? And if the answer is yes, don’t change it. And if the answer’s no, change it. And my morning routine is waking up at 9:39 in the morning. I hate meditation, or listen to 10 hours of podcasts a week. So I do that somewhat consistently. And that’s the morning routine. That’s it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:09

I tend to agree. I think we have this whole thing people read about or what does Elon Musk do? I must do that too. And some of us aren’t morning people I actually am a morning person but that not everybody is and I was talking to one of my podcast guests, Scott Rusnak is talking about designing your life before somebody else does. And he says the same thing. It’s like he just be clear about what you want out of life. And then make sure everything you’re doing is helping to make that boat go faster. And whatever works for you is what works for you. The only thing I would say is do try and be consistent because the body is not good at having, you know, multiple different wakeup times or different things to do. It has a certain desire to have a routine every morning that works. Completely agree. Yeah. I’m also just wondering you know, in terms of you designing your ideal life, what else do you do to make sure that you have everything in alignment for what you want to achieve, because you’ve got some pretty big goals there around, you know, helping people around the world with their communication. So how do you design your life to make sure it is doing what you need it to do rather than being influenced by what other people want you to do?

Brenden Kumarasamy  30:15

Absolutely, Debra. So there’s so many directions, you can go with that question, because it’s brilliant. But I’ll give you my simple answer for today. But you’re welcome to follow up on it. And the simple answer is the following by Tony Robbins, the quality of your life is solely determined by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself about life. Rest, for me, the quote is a little bit more aggressive. So my version of Tony’s quote is, I dare all of you to ask yourself one hard question about life every day for 30 days, because I promise if you did that, you will never be the same ever again. So what does that look like in the context of my work? I’m still developing this, because communication is my focus. But I’m happy to share what I have so far, I call these 80-20 questions. So we all know the 8020 principle, right? What are the 20% of the actions that lead to 80% of the results? So I thought about that in the context of life, which is what are the 20% of the questions, human beings should ask themselves to gain 80% of the clarity that they need in their life? So I’ll give you three of them to not overwhelm people? So I’ll give you one, actually three. So let’s go with number one. Yeah, if you had all the money in the world, how would you spend your time? So if you don’t have to retire at 65? If you retire right now, in this moment, what would you do with your time? I just gave you for two years back 50 years back, whatever? Right? So what would you do? And a lot of people don’t have a good answer. Yes,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:34

I know exactly what I would do. But it’s interesting that a lot of people haven’t even thought about that channel. So my husband, he’s not, is a different thinker to me. And so you know, he is an employee, he works for a business, he doesn’t think about these things. And we’ve had some really good conversations together now to go, hey, what can life look like? What should life look like? not constrained by what you have going on right now. But yeah, as you said, What would you do if you didn’t have to work? Yeah,

Brenden Kumarasamy  31:59

Absolutely. And it’s that question that led me to quit my six figure job to do master. Thankfully, I do well now, but at the time, it was a hard decision. That’s one Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So that’s number one. Number two, and I love that story you shared about you and your husband. That’s great. The second question is what I got this from Van Dusen. He says, What’s a goal or a dream that you secretly gave up on and never told anyone about? So that’s number two. And number three, is called the focus question. If you could only accomplish three things in your life, and only three, what would you want those three things to be and why? So I encourage you to ask these questions yourself.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:37

They’re really thought provoking. And I think you’re right, some people have never actually considered what those Yeah, those three questions What the answers might be. I will say one of the things that I’ve found quite helpful is actually taking time out and going away to do some of these tough questions asking, so you’re actually going away for a long weekend with your partner with your, with your, with your family, with your children, and actually asking some of these questions and sort of saying, hey, look, yeah, what does what does it look like? What what do we want and taking some time away from everything. So we talked about clarity breaks in in EOS. And I think that it’s just as important your personal life as well as, as you take some time out? And say, Hey, have I got time to spend on thinking about what is really important to me? And what is important for my family for my life? I love how do you how do you relax? How do you take time out?

Brenden Kumarasamy  33:25

So everyone’s different, right? Debra. You know, in the same way of, of morning routines, I believe balance is a conversation you’d have with yourself. So for for everyone, balance means differently. I mean, my schedule this week is insane. Like, you know, I work a lot, you know, 80 to 90 hours a week, I might do 15 interviews in a week, maybe even 20 Depends on the craziness of my life. But when I’m on vacation, I’m on vacation. So the converse is my family is like, yeah, I work all the time. But I take a vacation. It’s like two weeks, and I don’t talk to any of my clients, and I don’t do anything. So I think the key is you got to pick what works for you. And don’t let anyone decide that for you. I think that’s the big thing. So for me, it’s work 12-14 hours a day, every single day. And then on Saturdays, I’ll take off for Sunday. And for other people, it’s hey, I need breaks a lot more breaks during the week. Just have that conversation with yourself and your family and maximize your own happiness.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:15

And I think Gino talks about it in his EOS life book, he says, hey, look, you’ve got to work out what your optimal kind of working week looks like. And it is very, very different for people, different people. I mean, I know now, I know a little bit older than us. I can’t do those long hours quite so much anymore. But I know 60 hours a week is is absolutely perfect for me at that point. I’m at my optimal performance. I am able I’m not tired. I’m still energized. I’m still doing everything right. And then after that, I actually see that kind of law of diminishing return where I know that I’m suddenly slowing down things aren’t working as well as they should do. And I chose on my clients isn’t for them. 50-60 hours just doesn’t even know that they want to do 20-30 hours a week. And others are like well, yes, they do 80 hours a week. So I think it’s important just as you just try it and keep trying and see look back on what happened last week. How many hours did you work? Did it feel good? Was it optimal? And then you decide what is right for you because work life balance is so different for everybody. I love my work. You know, I get the phone call from my husband at seven o’clock come sometimes. How’s it going? Are you coming home tonight? It’s like, oh, yeah, sure. Sorry, got carried away. They’re home soon, you know? So yeah, it’s personal stuff. But being really clear about what you want. One does, Wow, gosh, we’ve covered so much in such a short period of time. And sadly, you know, we’re coming to the end of our time on this podcast, can you just can we finish up? We’ve got so much information. I’ve made some really good notes here. But the three top things, what were the three top things that you would say if you leave this podcast right now, and go and do these three things, this will make a difference in your life?

Brenden Kumarasamy  35:42

Absolutely, Debra. So to keep it simple, it would be my easy three is the easy three balls to juggle. So let’s recap random word exercise. Pick a random word like goose like egg, like screen, create random presentations out of thin air 60 seconds each five minutes a day every day. Number two, the question drill. So question drilled me just means five minutes a day as well. One question a day, spend five minutes reflecting on the answer and writing down the answer. Do that once a day, every day? Number three

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:11

Expertise that you can actually then share with the world, right?

Brenden Kumarasamy  36:13

Yep, correct. And then a bonus tip on that is if you run out of questions, just ask your clients and your audience for more, and you’ll have an endless supply of questions. And the way that I do this today, which is a bit more advanced, is I guess, dojos. So they’re gonna always ask me questions I don’t know the answer to. So I always get sharper and sharper. And then the third one is video messages. Just pick a few people start with your clients. And that’s it. You know, you’re famous to them. Right? Don’t worry about being famous to the world. You’re famous to our clients, assuming you’re getting them great results, obviously. Right? And then send them videos every day different clients, it will guarantee make you money, if you send it to if you have 100 clients and you have never sent them video messages. I’d be shocked if you don’t make $1 from the strategy.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:53

Yeah, I love it. Okay, brilliant. And now you have got a website, Rockstar communicator.com. Tell me a little bit about that site and what people can expect to find on there.

Brenden Kumarasamy  37:02

Absolutely, that we’re happy to. So Rockstarcommunicator.com is just a free workshop that we do on communication every two weeks over zoom that’s open to everyone. And this is not a recorded webinar. This is live. I’m coaching people on the call. And it’s not boring either. And one another caveat I’ll add to this is if you’re an introvert and you’re scared, and you’re worried, like, oh, I don’t want to come to a workshop, you could just turn your camera off and just listen, it’s totally fine. But I encourage you to shop.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:29

Nice, okay, perfect. And then if people want to get in contact with you personally, they might be one of your ideal clients and your three categories or just want to have a chat to you. Because let’s face it’s been quite fun to chat to you. How would they get ahold of you?

Brenden Kumarasamy  37:40

Absolutely, Debra. So so the best way is definitely, if you want to have a direct conversation with me, is actually to attend the free training, because that’s one of our vetting tools that we use to see who’s committed enough to work on their comms. But if you want to DM me, just send me a text. You could totally do it on LinkedIn, if you can figure out how to spell my name.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:58

I must admit when I got the message, and I’m kind of going okay, I’ve got no idea how to say that. So it is Brenden with an E. So BRENDEN, and then KUMARASAMY. Is that right?

Brenden Kumarasamy  38:12

You got it? Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:13

And you give us the correct pronunciation of that. Before we finish.

Brenden Kumarasamy  38:17

Though you got to actually Kumuramsamy

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:19

Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Brenden, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for all the valuable information you’ve shared. Maybe when I come over to Canada, we might want to catch up in person and that would be kind of cool. If you ever do want to come and have that lunch in New Zealand. You’re more than welcome. You’d be my guest for lunch.

Brenden Kumarasamy  38:35

Thanks, Debra, I really appreciate it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:36

Yeah, thank you for your time and we look forward to catching up with again soon.