How To Become A Great Speaker with Brenden Kumarasamy

Today's guest is Brenden Kumarasamy, communication expert. In this episode, we'll dive a little deeper into how each of us can become a better communicator. The first thing you can start doing today is to ask more questions rather than answer statements with more statements.

Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, a coaching business he started to help ambitious executives & business owners become TOP 1% communicators in their industries so that they can accelerate their success in the workplace & companies.

He also hosts a successful YouTube channel by the same name with over 11,000 subscribers.

He has coached many executives from companies like Salesforce, Amazon, IBM, Morgan Stanley, Blue Cross, J. Walter Thompson, Deloitte, Verizon and the list goes on.

You can connect with Brenden and sign up for one of his upcoming free public speaking workshops on Zoom at https://www.rockstarcommunicator.com/

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, Magic Barclay, and today Brendan Rejoins us talking about how you can become a great speaker and what master talk is. Welcome back, Brendan

Brenden Kumarasamy: 1:15

Magic. It's pleasure to be on. Thanks for having me

Magic Barclay: 1:17

Thank you for rejoining us. In our last episode, we kind of touched on, you know, why communication is key for health. What else is communication important for, and why are you doing what you do with Master Talk?

Brenden Kumarasamy: 1:34

Absolutely. Magic. You know, the, the dream behind Master Talk and why I started it is because I believe in a world where all of us. Indicators. And the reason that's so important is because it helps us lead a more fulfilling life. It's so much more than health. It's so much more than getting a pay raise. It's every part of our life. And the way that I like to see this magic is that it's an accelerator for our dreams. So for all of you listening to this podcast, think about every goal, every dream aspiration that you might have with this travel to 80 countries across the world, whether it's to. Be in better shape, whether it's to have the relationship that you want, whether it's to make more money. All of those goals are linked to communication. And what I also felt magic is not a lot of people can afford a communication coach either. That's why I started Master Talk, the YouTube channel, cuz I wanted to make sure that these tools were accessible to everybody regardless of who you are, whether you're Elon Musk. Or you're a seven year old girl in Cambodia. I wanna make sure that every person has the tools so that we can all become better communicators and we can all make the world a little bit better and argue a lot less, and learn to listen to each other. I think

Magic Barclay: 2:53

that's something that's been missing and severely lacking. In fact, from. The earth maybe for the past few years, and that is that we're not learning to listen to each other. You know, there's so much fear and hatred going on about, you haven't done this, or you've done that, or This is what you believe. You know, it's almost like arguments are butting up. Like you know when the hot air meets for cool air, the change of seasons, and you get a thunderstorm and no one's actually listening. So how do you suggest people communicate to people? about why they're taking the stance they're taking and why that doesn't change who they are. It's just how they

Brenden Kumarasamy: 3:36

believe. Absolutely magic's a fantastic question. So there's a couple of great key themes that you brought up there. So let's start with the first one, which is the importance of listening. Listening is so important because it allows us to see other people to make them feel important, and this is how we move the world forward. But now the question becomes how do we listen more effectively to the people around us, our partners, strangers that we meet, so that we. Get what we'd like out of life. And the way that I've seen listening magic is that listening is simply about questions versus statements. Let me give you an example. Most communication is generally statement, statement, statement, statement, and so on and so forth. So let's say somebody goes, Well, I believe this. The other person goes, Well, I believe that. And then it's, there's a ping-ponging of statements and this is what most human beings do. Whereas a very small percentage of people, they ask a lot more questions. So when somebody says, I believe this, the other person responds. Hmm, Why do you believe that? Why is that important to you? What do you find fascinating about this point here? And they ask questions. So I would say where I wanna lead the conversation is what percentage of what we into the world are questions versus statements? And we'll find, most of the time magic is 90% of the. They're often statements and 10% or less are questions. So I would encourage people to change that ratio a little bit more. So if you ask one question or zero questions a day to other people, let's increase that number to two. Ask two questions to people around you tomorrow or even today. Then go to. Then go to four, and that change alone will make you a better listener because you are asking open-ended questions that are getting other people to open up. So now the second part of your question, magic is how does this ability to ask more questions versus statements create a less divisive world? When we start to listen to each other, we start to focus more. On the 98% of us, that is the same because we still eat it at the same restaurants. We still watch the same movies. We still think the endings for Game of Thrones was terrible. Like we all share a lot of things in common, and what this listening skill allows us to do is it allows us to focus on the 98 rather than the 2% that we. Mentally disagree with who cares about the 2% that we disagree with. Let's spend time listening more to each other, realizing that most of it is the same, and appreciating those commonalities so that when we argue over the hard stuff, they don't get as heated as they are right now, which is a bit tragic.

Magic Barclay: 6:35

Very much so, and I think really bringing communities together, and I've spoken about this before on the podcast many times, bringing communities together means accepting people's differences, but communicating clearly, I don't believe what you believe, but that's okay, because our differences make us unique and without differe. We'd all be very, very boring. So I think, you know, really accepting people for the people they are, rather than just what their platform that they stand on says is really important. And communicating at that human level, not an ideals level.

Brenden Kumarasamy: 7:17

Absolutely. I completely agree with you. Magic. I love the way you put it as well, is when we learn to celebrate those differences, that's when we really start to see the magic of what communication listening can bring us. Well said,

Magic Barclay: 7:29

Thank you. Now, there's many types of personalities, whether you know it's the introvert, extrovert, or whether. you understand pcn. So process, communication, modeling, and all the different types of people. So when you're communicating or when you're teaching people to communicate, Brendan, how do you. Incorporate all of those different personality types because you know, you could be getting on stage to speak to a crowd of 5,000 people and they may all be auditory listeners except for maybe 10 of them who are visual, so you might need some visual aids or something. So how do you incorporate all the different types of personalities in communication?

Brenden Kumarasamy: 8:20

Great question. Magic. Here's the way I think about it. Communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. So one of those balls is fill of words. Another one is pausing more effectively. Another one is storytelling and adapting your presentation to different personality traits is also one of those balls. But what I would argue. Is that that is often ball 16 or 17, not the first ball that we pick up. And the way that I've always seen it is communication is a multiplier effect. In other words, what is the easiest win that we can get with our communication skills and how can we use that to build momentum for what we actually wanna achieve in life? So where does this begin? This begins with a simple exercise that I call the random word exercise. So all you do is you take a, a word like ball or phone or laptop or screen, and you create presentations at of thin air. And what this does is it improves your resiliency as a speaker. So if you do that exercise 50, 75, a hundred times, That's when you start to feel that, Wow, I'm actually really good at this exercise. And it starts working on the most important thing with our communication, which is realizing that we can be exceptional communicators in the first place. That's the first barrier that we need a break. And then once that barrier is broken, then we tackle more advanced subjects like personality traits. And what I would say to that specif, Is there's always going to be people in an audience who don't particularly like us, and that's life. But what I would say is it's important for us to understand who is the core member of the audience that we're really trying to impact. Let me give you an example. Let's say there's a speaker who wants to speak to technology executives. That's really the core, so. So what that person's going to do is they're gonna spend a lot more time adapting their presentation to the technology executive rather than a seven year old girl who might be in the crowd because their target, the goal of their influence, the goal of their speech is to get closer to those executives. It doesn't mean. That we shouldn't try your best to simplify the message to every single person in the room, but there is no such thing as a presentation that a hundred percent of the room falls in love with, that just doesn't exist. Instead, what I recommend is to build that percentage higher and higher over time as we become increasingly empathetic. And we start to have more and more conversations with the people in our audience. And this is why my piece of advice on this magic is so, is simple, but it's so simple. Nobody does it frankly, which is have dinner, actual dinner, real dinner. Not virtual dinner, but real dinner with the people that you actually wanna serve. Sit them down. I talked to my. all the time. Informally. I talk to people who subscribe to my YouTube channel all the time informally because I wanna ask them questions. Questions like, If you were in my shoes, how would you communicate my ideas better? Who else should I speak to to talk about my ideas, will give me interesting insights. And if you had to change one thing about the way I communicated my idea today, what would you change and why? These are the questions that give us the necessary insight to blow past our competi. I

Magic Barclay: 11:30

actually did that for the business that I work in, holistic natural health, and. I got together with a whole lot of people that represented my avatar and took them out for like coffee and afternoon tea and just picked their brains and that was the best thing I could do. So I just love that you talk about that, you know, being actually in person with these people and asking them questions. Absolutely. Now, why did you start Master Talk?

Brenden Kumarasamy: 12:06

Yeah, so, So what happened, magic was when I was in university, I went to business school and I did these things called case competitions. Think of it like professional sports, but for nerds. So other guys my age are playing rugby or cricket or football or basketball. I wasn't really one of those types of guys. I did presentations competitively and that's how I learned how to speak. But as I got older, I started coach students in the same colleges and universities to win these competitions because frankly, we didn't have anyone better, and as I was helping them out, I started accidentally developing a skill and communicating ideas effectively. And that's what led to Master Talk the YouTube channel because a few years later I realized that everything I was teaching the students wasn't available for free online on the internet. So I started making YouTube videos on communication and public speaking, and one thing led to another, and here we are today.

Magic Barclay: 13:05

Wow, that's wonderful. Now, in our last episode, there's something I didn't ask you. Now, I do love freebies for the listeners. So what can you offer the listeners and where can they find it?

Brenden Kumarasamy: 13:18

Absolutely magic. Happy to share. So for the free Be people can register to join on one of my free trainings over Zoom. I do a training every few weeks on communication, Public speaking. It's live, it's interactive, it's super fun. And I'm on the call as well. I'm the one facilitating it. So if you're interested in that, all you have to do is visit my website, Rockstar Communicator. Dot com and then on that website you'll be able to access our freebie and join, Join the free training and have a lot of fun because it's super interactive and it's super high energy.

Magic Barclay: 13:51

Fantastic. Sounds like fun. Thank you, Brendan, for joining us. Are there any parting words that you feel the listeners need

Brenden Kumarasamy: 13:58

to hear? Absolutely magic. I'd love to end with this question. How would your life change if you were an exceptional communicator? You know, a lot of people when they hear this question from me, whether it's on another podcast or another episode, or even the one they're recording now, they generally sidestep the question. So they might write it down, but they won't really think about it too much. I would encourage you to do the. Take 10, 15 minutes and really look at the question, Well, how would my life change if I was an exceptional communicator? Spend the time to reflect on what that reason is for you, because for all of us it's different. For some, it's winning a bunch of nerd competitions like I, for me, it was in university. For others, it's spending more time with their family and having their family yell at them a little bit less, and for others it. Traveling the world and learning how to communicate to strangers without being too anxious. Figure out what is that burning desire that you want for yourself, for communication, and let that answer to the question fuel you, motivate you so that you actually take the time to work on your communications and really change the.

Magic Barclay: 15:12

That's a powerful thought to end on. Thank you, Brendan, for joining us. I'm sure the listeners have just gleaned so much fantastic information. And again, your website is rockstar communicator.com.

Brenden Kumarasamy: 15:26

Absolutely magic. Thanks so much for having

Magic Barclay: 15:28

me. Listeners, thank you for your time. Again, this was your episode 1 49. Go forth and create your magical Life. And before you do that, let me tell you, in episode one 50, Cindy van AUM will teach us how to dance to the beat of our own drum. Thank you again for your time.