Well hello ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
and today I've got special guest Brendan Kumar Sami on the line
and he is the man behind Master Talk, so he reached out to me
via e-mail. He basically teaches people how
to become better communicators. Public speaking, I I
communication, which is not my typical genre of guests that I'm
bringing out of this podcast, but I do a lot of public
speaking. I have found tremendous benefit
in being a better communicator, which this podcast has helped me
to become. So I wanted to bring him on the
show to just kind of pick his brain as to what what methods
and modalities he's implemented to become a better communicator.
Because I honestly feel like that is applicable to all
regardless of the industry you are in.
So third, enjoy the conversation.
Lots of actionable tips take from this so that further delay,
sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with Brendan
and we are live. Brendan, How are you brother?
Very good, Rob. How are you?
I'm good, man. I'm good.
So we are. We connected, I guess via
e-mail. You reached out to me via e-mail
and you host a YouTube channel and social profile all about
improving one's ability to do public speaking, which I think
is incredibly important. So kind of dive into that man.
What gets you into the public speaking space to begin with?
Were you not a good public speaker at the onset?
Yeah, absolutely. Rob's good to be on the show.
And yeah, you're right on that. I actually grew up a really
terrible speaker. The story begins in in Montreal.
That's why I'm born and raised in Canada.
And for those who don't know, Montreal's the city where you
need to know how to speak French, which is a language I I
was in fluent in Rob. So growing up as a kid I
struggled a lot with speaking because whenever I go into a
first grade or a second grade classroom, I'd look at the room
and go Bonjour. And that was my that was my life
growing up. And on top of that, I know we're
on audio. I also have a physical
disability in my left arm that's crooked.
So that caused a lot of anxiety. And then on top of that, you
would think that I studied communication in college.
I actually studied in accounting.
So despite all of those challenges, I still became the
speaker that I am today. And then really quick side note
how Master talk started. While I was in college I did
these nerd competitions called case competitions.
Think of it like professional sports but for nerds
presentations. Competitively.
Did that accidentally got really good at coaching other people
how to speak? Then I thought, hey, should
probably share these tips for free.
And I started making videos. I love it, man.
I feel like people that are not naturally outgoing and how I
really selfconscious about speaking in public, they they
often times just kind of like, you know, shudder that they they
they just drive it down deep inside them.
They don't let that be an issue because they don't ever present
an opportunity where they would need to speak.
But in doing so, they truly shoot themselves in the foot
tremendously. I'm totally with you on that,
right? If you if you have the right
level of preparation and you know exactly what to practice,
you won't shoot yourself in the foot.
It's just a lot of us, Unfortunately, we don't have a
clear structure like with fitness.
It's even if you're getting started with fitness, whether
the goal is weight loss or the goals muscle mass, or whether
the goal is to just be healthier in general, the three steps that
you take are often obvious to the general public.
It's like you don't eat the right things.
Walk a few times a week. And go to a gym or hire a
personal trainer. But those steps are just not as
clear. And calms and communication.
That's what I really want to bring to the space.
Yeah, 100%, man. Did you feel like despite the
the shortcomings in the beginning, there was like a
specific moment where you recognize that, OK, this is
something that I really need to double down on and prooritize,
because otherwise I'm not reaching my full potential.
Yeah, for sure. So for me, in the context of
speaking, there's kind of two facets we can tackle this with.
SO1 facet is like from the point of view of what other people are
doing to coach people on speaking.
And the second one is kind of my own personal improvement.
So the first lens is more the idea of practicality, like and
we're gonna solve that today, obviously on the podcast.
Where a lot of communication tips are very vague so we'll
hear something like picture everyone that are underwear and
you're like, OK, but what if they're all attractive?
Then what do I do like? It doesn't make any sense, like
the tip is not relevant. But then the other piece for
myself, I think what's really helped me is kind of practicing
one thing at a time. Communication is like juggling
18 balls at the same time, Rob. One of those balls is eye
contact when it's body language when it's facial expressions.
And for me, the question has always been.
What are the three easiest balls to juggle?
And with the first one to keep it simple and quick, is the
range of word exercise. Take a word like alphabet and
create a random presentation out of thin air.
Helps you with small talk. And if you can make sense out of
nonsense, you can make sense out of anything.
I love it. I love it.
I feel like apart from speaking into like the masses to a crowd
of any sort, simply being able to speak one-on-one in
communication is is oftentimes underrated but so incredibly
important. Like when I look at all of them,
the monumental leaps and bounds I've made in business or
relationships or anything, it's simply a result of being able to
talk to somebody in a clear way that is not awkward like this,
As simple as that may sound like.
That seems to be a fleeting skill set.
I'm with you and there's a reason for that as well, Rob.
The reason is because. Human beings value optionality
and convenience. So what I mean by that, you
know, 25 years ago, if you wanted to ask somebody on a
date, you don't really have that many options.
You have to kind of get introduced by a friend or more
often than not go up to that person and say, hey, I really
like you, I'd love to take you on a date, right?
You have to really have those conversations because the
options are limited, and I mean options of communication here.
But now today, we have the option of texting someone,
sending them a DM, swiping through a dating app, or meeting
them in person and asking them out.
So it's not that we're losing our edge, which is somewhat
true, but it's more so. The fact that we have more
options to communicate as human beings will always default to
whatever is the most easy and convenient to us, which
naturally just leads us to having less one-on-one time in
practice. In general.
To your point, do you think all of the technological
advancements have resulted in a net gain or net loss in one's
ability to simply communicate effectively face to face?
I've been asked this question before, but I haven't been asked
in the context that you've brought it.
Is it a net gain or a net loss in general?
Very good question. I would say for me, Rob, it's a
net loss, but. Some for some people in society
like you and me, are great examples of this.
It's a massive net positive. So let me explain both of those
nuances. So why is it a net positive for
some of us? The reason is because social
media has a lot of and technology in general has a lot
of positives to conversations and just meeting people that
just didn't exist before. So one example is this podcast
right now where you and me, the statistical likelihood, where do
you live by the way? Side of just country.
I'm in northwest Arkansas, so US.
A Northwest Arkansas. OK, so I go to the US lot, but
I'm never in Arkansas, so the chances of us meeting face to
face without technology is is like none, right?
Whereas because of technology now me and you have a chance to
meet each other. And actually this happened funny
enough, like two months ago I had, I was on a podcast and I
asked him, hey what plans do you have this soon?
He's like, I'm gonna try, he's like you're gonna Toronto for
what? Cuz he lives in like Minnesota.
He's like I'm going for a conference.
And funny enough I was attending the conference as well cuz I
live in Canada. So we met like a week later in
person. That would never would have
happened. Even if we met at the same
conference, we never would have met.
We never would have talked to each other if it wasn't for
technology easing the conversation.
And even during that week I hung out with one of my best friends
and I literally need best friends.
But, and I've known the guy for three years and that was the
first time we ever met in person because he lives in Auckland in
New Zealand. So that whole relationship, I
saw his kids grow up and everything.
It was all online. So what's What's the?
Point here Rob. The point is technology, social
media is a tool. It's just the reason it's a net
negative is most of us are using that tool in the wrong way, but
people like us in the minority are using it in a smart way.
So that's really the key is leverage it correctly.
Yeah, no, I totally agree man. I feel like the people that are
using it simply as a social media outlet to, you know, post
on Instagram and interact in the comments and the Dms, they're
likely the ones not benefiting from it as much as they could.
Where's like this podcast for instance?
I have no doubt that my ability to communicate has, you know,
10X because of the podcast. I mean, I have to bring people
on here, interact with them on a regular basis, ask good
questions, hear what they're saying that have a good
turnaround question to follow up with That those are skill sets I
would not naturally obtain if it were not for this technology.
But for people that aren't podcasting, aren't in the
business space, aren't putting themselves out there to truly
leverage technology, they're likely not getting the benefit
from it. Exactly.
Very well articulated. So talk to me a little bit about
the the step by step man, like if someone's coming to your
platform master talk, they want to improve their speaking.
How do you, like deconstruct that from?
How do you break it into steps? Like what does that road map
look like? For sure, Robert.
So there's like like we were talking about communications,
like juggling 18 balls, right? Body language, storytelling,
facial expressions. So what I want to do today is
kind of focus on what are the three easiest balls to juggle.
Because these are the three things that if you're just doing
on a day-to-day basis and for 30 days 100% you'll see results in
your speaking. And of course there's hundreds
of other videos you can check out on master talk, but these
are the three kind of tidbits you want to implement.
So the first one is the random word exercise.
Pick any word like we talked about before, highlighter,
space, home, and just book 5 minutes in your calendar every
day to do this exercise. 5 * 60 seconds on one word, 60 seconds
on another word, 60 seconds on that word.
And that's how you get better overtime.
That's one. Number two is the question
drill. We get asked questions all the
time in our life, Rob at school, on a podcast, on a sales call
and a job interview. But a lot of us are not ready.
But the questions that life has in store for us.
I remember some. I'll give you an example with
me. Few years ago when I started
guesting on podcasts, I. Guy asked me, hey Brendan, where
does the fear of communication come from?
And I looked at the guy and I said, I don't know, dude,
Florida, NY you tell me. I have no clue.
So because I didn't know the answer, I was always shaking.
So how did I fix this every single day, Robert?
I answered. I asked and answered one
question. But I thought the world would
ask me about my expertise. So one of them was, hey, what
tips do you have for introverts on speaking?
Day 2 is what books do you recommend on communication?
Day three was What's your vision for Master Talk?
Day four is how do you overcome your fear of communication?
But if you do that once a day, Rob, for a year, just for 5
minutes, you'll have answered 365 questions about your
industry and you'll be bulletproof.
That's exercise #2. Ask yourself one question every
day. And finally, #3 is the video
message. So here's what I do to implement
this. I have a Google Calendar that
tells me it's right on my screen.
Right here as we're doing this podcast tells me whose birthday
it is. So for example, today on the day
we're recording this, August 8th, it's one of my best
friend's birthday. So what do I do when I start my
day? I open my phone, open my camera,
I go to Messenger. I put my stupid $12.00 birthday
hat on that I bought from Amazon.
I open my camera and I go, hey, John.
Hey, Richard. Hey, Julia.
Guess his birthday. It is.
It's yours. I hope you have a wonderful day.
I don't really take the video. I don't put any makeup on, and I
just do that probably 150 to 200 * a year.
So if you just do that three to five people you love, I think
you'll get really good at speaking on camera pretty
quickly. Those are my three.
I like that, man. I like that a lot, actually.
I feel like the birthday thing is something cuz like in
Facebook you know, you get notified when it's so and.
So's birthday, everybody jumps into their feed, they don't talk
to them all year long and their birthday comes and you get at
like a Julian happy birthday wishes from people that don't
really care about you at all. So doing it in video format like
that is definitely going the extra mile and I think is much
more memorable. I mean, you explain that so
well. You're so right.
Especially on Facebook. I tell people who's all the
time, mostly like clients, we're not the face.
I don't mention the Facebook part on podcasting, but you're
absolutely right. Where it's like, yeah, like,
Facebook literally tells you whose birthday it is every day.
So even if you haven't seen them in a while and you don't have to
send videos to people you're not comfortable sending it to.
But I think the point is, is like send birthday video
messages to people who are really close to you in your
life. And it's really meaningful to my
friend, cuz you're right, he got those 100 messages today, but
I'm the one with the crazy hat who sent him that video.
So he knows I really care about him, which I do.
And I think that's really the key.
I love it, man. So on step one, kind of
elaborate on that little bit. So you're picking a word, and
then you're simply using that word in multiple different
instances. That's correct.
But let me make it even easier for your audience.
Rob, give me a word. I'll just demonstrate really
fast. Any word?
Nutrition. Nutrition.
Awesome. So Rob did not give me this word
prior to this podcast. For those of you listening, and
I'm gonna create a 62nd presentation with the word
nutrition. You know, Rob, something really
interesting happened to me six months ago, and that part was
around my nutrition. I made a difficult decision to
give up my addiction with black tea.
I used to drink 5, not one. Cuz I couldn't stop after one to
be honest. 5 cups of black tea every single morning and it
would cause me so much stomach pain but I would run through it
because I had such a busy day every day that I needed some
tea. And then one day my mom
accidentally gave me hot water to drink because she just said
hey like have hot water day and I just drank it and I realized
that the taste difference between black tea because I
don't put any sugar. And the hot water that my mom
gave me literally tasted the same.
So I just asked myself for my nutrition, for my help.
What have I swapped out this black tea with hot water, and
I've never looked back ever since.
I haven't had a cup of coffee or a cup of tea in over 8 months
now. And the point that I want to
drive in this, in this lesson in this speech, Rob, is that
nutrition doesn't have to be complicated.
It just needs to be one simple, positive decision that you make
for your health every single week, every month, every
quarter. And if you just keep stacking
these easy wins, eventually you'll have the nutrition of a
superstar. And that's the random word.
Exercise room. I like it, man.
I like it. So black tea messes with your
stomach, huh? It really does.
And not after One Cup, but after five.
Cuz I'm addicted. It gets really messy really
quickly, huh? Is coffee just as bad or just
the tea? Yeah, tea.
Coffee gets me, gives me the jitters because I do
intermittent fasting, so I don't eat.
I don't eat breakfast. So when I tried coffee before,
this is years ago, without, without the, without food.
Oh my God, it just made me jittery like crazy and I hated
it. But now I love my hot water.
I just drink that all day and life is great, huh?
It's interesting. I I had a lot of GI distress and
I thought it was coffee. So I could coffee out for like 3
months, three or four months and then I realized it was the
carbonated drink. So I just I brought coffee back
in with no issues. But the carbonated drinks have
totally removed from my nutrition.
Yeah, coffee isn't necessarily. It's like everything in
moderation. Like most of my My health, my
health junkie is friends. They they use bulletproof coffee
that Dave Asprey makes, and it works out for them pretty well.
They put a little butter and it's all good.
So what I mean, I'm this is a nutrition podcast, you're coming
from a speaking presentation, but you also mentioned
intermittent fasting, so I got to dive into that a little bit.
What What do you want to do? Intermittent fasting?
So this is kind of a, I mean, I hope people take it as a joke.
I mean, I've been practicing invented fasting my whole life.
It's just when I was a kid, it was called We don't Have Money
for Breakfast. Yeah.
But as I got older, I was kind of listening to different health
experts like Dave, I'm not an expert by any means, like you
are, but like, you know, health David Sinclair, like people were
kind of preaching it. And I said, huh, Like, I don't
really like breakfast in general.
So I just started skipping in. And it's worked out really well.
Like just to give you a crazy example today, cuz I'm so busy
today with the calls on the day you're catching me.
It's 4:00 and I still haven't eaten anything.
So I've been intermittent fasting today for like 18 hours,
maybe almost 24 hours. And and honestly, it just works
really well for me. And and I think that's really
the key is you got to do what works for you.
Like, I have people who eat three times a day who are really
healthy people who. Do some people do omad right
which is 1 meal a day which is so tough?
Like I would never, I wouldn't be able to do it but it's worked
out well for me and and it's simple.
Like I don't cook that much because my mother takes care of
a lot of that for me. So for me, it's just like, OK,
eat what your mom gives you, then eat a whole avocado, some
blueberries, do a workout, I mean do the workout, then eat
the fruit and then just eat something else and finish with
the healthy protein bar and just start it again and it it's
worked out. Well, yeah, I think simply
removing decision fatigue is is tremendously, you know,
valuable. And I feel like so many people
get hung up on when they're gonna eat what they're gonna
eat, and that just drains their productivity throughout the day,
like beyond measure. So for me, like, right now I am
doing homemade cuz I'm low enough of my calories where it
makes sense to. But having that one meal prepped
and ready to go takes the guesswork out of it, and my
productivity throughout the remainder of the day is just
heightened significantly. I'm with you like, especially
for lunch when I used to eat heavy.
When I used to have lunch early, yeah, it was it was so hard cuz
I'd be groggy throughout the whole day.
But now I have lunch. But the earliest I have lunch
now is 130. Today I'm gonna have it at like
4 thirty 5:00-ish. And and I've just been super
productive all day. So yeah, works really well.
I love it man. And what was the 2nd?
So the first one was picking that word, making a short
presentation with that word. The second one again, was one.
Yeah, of course. So the second one is the
question drill. So the way we practice is very
simple. We're doing it right now
indirectly where you're asking me questions about my expertise
or life in general and I'm answering them.
So for those of you who are listening on this podcast and
you're asking yourself, well Brian, I don't guess it on
podcast, you don't need to. So for you, it might be like a
job interview. For you listening to the pod, it
might be OK You're interviewing for something next week.
Make a list of all the questions you get asked.
Maybe it's an industry panel that you're going to be on this
year and they're gonna ask you a bunch of questions about your
industry. So go on YouTube, see what
people are asking in your your industry.
Write those questions down and that becomes your question drill
practice every day. Or maybe it's just in a company
you're working and somebody's asking you about your status
update. How are you answering the status
update questions? Most of them are really bad,
they just kind of ramble. Instead of going okay, ace,
acknowledge, count the number of updates, I have 3 updates and do
you have any feedback for me. So notice how that's a lot more
structured as a response and that's how you get better at the
question drill day and day. I love it.
Do you use any types of productivity apps or like daily
journal prompts or something like that?
Yes and no. So I don't, I don't like using
like official apps. Like a notion like I'm not a
notion junkie. I I don't use like specific
productivity apps. But I do think do a couple of
things that are easy for me to do to stay productive.
I'll give you a couple. I have actually a lot of junk,
junk tools. So I'll like hacks.
So I'll let you kind of pick from your favorites, but I'll
give you kind of my favorite three.
OK. So my favorite three is number.
One, I have a little virtual sticky note.
I don't like physical ones. Where I write down my top three
to five priorities in any given moment of my life.
So one of those priors could be closed a bunch of deals this
week, cuz this this week is like I have like 20 sales calls.
So it's like crushing those sales calls and and I'm listing
out those priorities as I'm killing them I'm replacing them
in the virtual sticky note that's on my laptop.
So I so I'm always keep staying productive and I know what to do
next. Where a lot is a lot of us are
stuck in like a loop sometimes where we don't know what the
next right thing is for us cuz we didn't give it thought.
So that's made me a lot more efficient.
That's one. #2 is a lot of my documentation, even note taking.
When I'm I'm the listener of a podcast, I just use Google
Notes, nothing complicated, where I'll have a title for
every episode I listen to. So since I'm listening to this
podcast, I'll write the guest's name as the title of the note,
and I'll put in parentheses Keto Savage Podcast.
So I'm kind of like a Cyborg. If somebody asks me a question
about a podcast I listen to, I can quickly look up the notes
and I can pull up all the takeaways and those notes are
sorted in my general notes. And then the bottom is always
key action items like what are the three things that I'm
implementing from this podcast. So I'm.
I never forget that's the second hack.
The third hack it's which is more money related.
I've I have a notepad. You can do this with any number
called I I use how to spend the next 100,000.
But for you listening, it could be the next 10,000, the next
million, the next 50,000 and you have a list of what you're going
to spend your money on in order. And what I found really useful
about this, Robert, is a lot of us, we use emotion to buy
things. And a lot of us are kind of have
a disease around that where we go to a shopping or we do, we go
to a grocery store and we just buy kind of unnecessary things.
Whereas this notepad has allowed me to be very unemotional about
the decisions I'm making with my money.
OK, what am I spending on next? OK, what is more important, this
fitness coaching program or this media production contract that I
need for Instagram reels? So now I'm tackling it from an
objective perspective, and they're both important
priorities, but I'm ranking them by order of what's most
important. I think a lot of people don't do
that exercise and it really helped me.
Those are three main hacks. And you just doing that third
one like in a Google Doc as well.
This would be on a Google Keep as well and I'm happy to share
it with your audience. If people want a screenshot of
it, I'm pretty open to sharing what's on mine.
But I I mean I could read off a couple if you want.
It says like, you know what is that?
I'm opening it up right now. What do I have here?
It says like invest in my environment.
This is actually one of my bad habits where I'm really good at
investing let's say 1520 grand and production on videos.
But I won't spend a grand or two on like a really nice bed.
So I've been sleeping on the same match as the past 10 years
which I'm fixing. Next weekend I'm getting a new
mattress, like a new laptop dentist appointment.
Getting I've never bought a massage before, like it's freaks
me out cuz I come from such a poor family.
Why would I spend 100 bucks on a massage?
Like it sounds nuts to me, so I know this is like really stupid
things, but it kind of gives you an idea of of what to spend your
money on. No, I like them and I feel like
having. Like having something tangible
like that, where people can look at a list of action items that
are prioritized. It puts things in perspective so
they're less likely to just buy something frivolous if it's not
really needed. Exactly.
So what about, let's talk about businessman.
So you you come from a poor family as you mentioned and then
you've decided to make your mark in the in the public speaking
genre and are you bringing people on to teach them how to
speak and that's kind of like these.
The sales that you're making is basically one-on-one coaching to
improve speakership or how is that structured?
Yeah, for sure Robert. So.
So the program is I'm coaching a lot of execs.
So actually what ended up happening, funny enough in the
business is a lot of my clients ended up being like of South
Asian descent, like people in my.
Community who are often like execs because they're I'm the.
Only person they trust. So the sales call is a lot
smoother. But basically the idea is I'm
coaching them on getting rid of their ums and ahs.
They send me videos during the week and I have them like do eye
contact better on video and they're speaking smile more, not
do this when they're talking and improve the pacing of their
message. So that's really what I'm
focused on with my I. Would say 90% of my clients are
immigrants. So they're Chinese, they're
Indians, they're Jewish. So those are the, those are the
people that were were working on the program and I would say 90%
of my revenue is coaching. You got it.
Very cool, very cool. What do you think the biggest
common denominator is with regards to people that are
having issues with public speaking?
So there's kind of two perspectives.
One is from the client perspective and one is from the
the just general perspectives. Let's tackle both.
So it's valuable for everybody. Client perspectives really
simple. There's a great saying on this
from a wise friend of mine. He says that you information
should be free, but implementation should be the
fee. So what does he mean by that?
He means like everything I share on the podcast or on YouTube,
I'll always give away for free cuz it's gonna cuz at the end of
the day there's gonna be a large percentage of people who just
can't afford a coach. So for those people, the advice
becomes the challenge for them is to just get them to take
action. So what a lot of clients do on
the same vein is they'll just pay the for the accountability.
Kind of like in fitness where if you have a personal trainer,
Gary Vee talks a lot about this. Or if you have a personal
trainer, you don't have a choice.
Like if they're at, if they're there at 6:00 AM and they're
waiting for you, there's no debate around, hey, should I get
up this morning? It's like, no, like a human
being woke up that morning to be there.
Like you have to show up. So it removes the decision
fatigue to your, to use your words there.
So that's the benefit of of hiring a communication coach is
like, I do that like work for them so they're forced to get
results. But for people who can't afford
a coach though, Rob, what I would say is the biggest
challenge for them is motivation in the sense that a lot of
people think it's fear. I disagree.
There's a lot of things in our life that we were scared of that
we did anyways. Why did we ask that girl or that
guy on a date? Because.
Not because we weren't scared, but because the fear of being
alone exceeds the fear of asking somebody on a date when we get
old enough. Anyways, same thing with the
job. Was I scared to apply for my
first job 578 years ago? Absolutely.
But why did I not let that get in the way of my success?
Because my fear of being broke was way higher.
So what? I encourage people to reflect on
Rob. Is that the exercises are easy I
just gave him. Send a video message every day.
Answer a question about your expertise every day.
Do the random word exercise a few times a day.
But the way you do the exercise is 1 by booking 15 minutes in
your calendar every day automatically for the rest of
the year to do this. And then the other piece is
creating a more motivation to actually get the job done.
Which goes back to this question.
How would your life change if you were an exceptional
communicator? Start to reflect on that
question and the answer will force you to take action.
I love it. What genre of communication do
you feel like you excel at most? Like more so one-on-one face to
face or in front of a crowd on the stage or through video
presentations? Like, where do you feel like
that's your strong suit out of all of the genres?
I'm. Decent at most of them.
But if I had to say the one where I think I'm the best at
specifically virtual interactive workshops.
There's a lot of professional speakers who are actually really
bad at that. Where they're they'll be really
good in person. But when they're doing like a
webinar, let's say like we're on a zoom call right now where
there's like 100 people on the zoom call and you're
facilitating like a workshop experience for them.
I think that's the one I'm I'm that's the vertical that that
actually that makes up most of the business for me and where
where I feel I I have the strongest suited.
What do you think it is about your format with the virtual
webinars that is better than the others out there?
Like what is it that you're doing to keep people engaged in
a digital format like that Fascinating follow up there's
there's a lot of nuances. We get into this conversation.
I'll give you a few. So one is engaging with the chat
and when I'm engaging with the chat, I don't just mean hey
guys, write down where you're from, which is a good question
that I asked. But.
And then they kind of just move on.
So, OK, nice. Minnesota.
I see Chicago and they'll call it 2.
That's not the way I do it. Unless there's like 200 people
in the call. But there's like 50 or less.
Literally, as people are typing in the chat, I'll say something
like, hey, by the way, team, I've always found that speaking
out somebody's name, making a mistake is always better than
not trying at all. So it's a joke.
People laugh. And then I go, OK Laura says
she's from Wisconsin. Thanks for being here, Laura.
John is from Turkey. Wow, you're from Istanbul.
Thanks for being here. So I'm not.
I'm calling out their name and I'm reacting emotionally to the
response, so it feels like I'm talking to them directly.
That's one piece. The second piece is my energies
off the charts. And even in this example, people
can feel my enthusiasm. But what people don't know is
that I can't even see you on this student call.
Like, it's literally like, you don't see my face.
I don't see your face, but I'm speaking to you with the energy
as if, man, I've known robber for like 10 years.
We've been buddies since high school.
Like, that's the frame that I take whenever I'm on a podcast
or I'm giving a workshop. And I think people feel that
rapport. They feel that relatability.
The third thing that I do, that's that I haven't seen a lot
of. Speakers do that.
I do pretty well is getting people to talk in a way that's
efficient and effective without being awkward.
So a lot of people they do mistakenly in a zoom called
let's say 75 people or even 25 people, they'll say OK guys, and
it's like not clean in the transition.
Hey, like I just want a couple of thoughts from the group.
Does anyone want to share? So that's a really bad way of
approaching it. And the reason is because now a
couple of people are gonna UN mic, the introverts are gonna
feel uncomfortable, they won't want to speak and people are
gonna talk over each other, which is gonna create a lot of
tension in the group. So for me instead what I do is I
go type in the chat something they'll type and then like an
like a question like, hey, how would your life be better If
you're a great speaker and the best shares, I'll mention them.
I'll say, hey Matt, I really loved your share on xx.
Do you mind unmiching for 30 seconds and sharing your
thoughts with your group? Would love to hear from you.
And then I'll pause and 80% of the time, let's say 5050% of the
time, the person will unmiking. Well thanks Brendan, they'll
start talking. So now no one's being
interrupted. And the other 50% if they don't
unmike because they might be in the bathroom right or something.
I I I do a really cute thing where I say, hey, I always like
to get 5 saying 54321. No worries Matt, let's go to the
next person. Hey John, I really liked your
share in the chatter on X and after the second or third
they'll unmike. Those are the three main things
that I think is unique to me. Did that make sense?
I kind of. I kind of went a little too deep
there, but. It makes total sense, man.
Like the whole, you know, OpenTable let anybody jump in,
never works. That's why like when you witness
an accident or like a head on collision or something, you have
to like literally point to somebody and say hey you, you're
dialing 911. Otherwise, if you just say, hey
somebody down 911, nobody does anything.
I love that analogy. Very, very, very good point.
I think I might use that, actually, yeah, I might steal
that from you. No for man, it's all yours when
it comes to platforms. Is Zoom your preferred platform
for these webinars? Is that the format you like to
use or is it like a better software that you use?
Yeah, I wouldn't overthink the software too much.
I just like Zoom because that's what most people are on these
days. Yeah, one thing I will add just
for the because you asked the question.
I like Zoom a lot better than Microsoft Teams, and I'll
explain why. Because for some reason, I don't
know why, teams doesn't fix this bug.
Like I had to deliver a keynote to a I mean not a keynote, but
an interactive workshop to their to a senior leadership team.
Well, is this like a month ago I think when I was on vacay
vacation and I had to use teams because that's their internal
platform, which I'm fine with, I can use it.
But the problem with teams is when you share your slides, they
don't see your face anymore, whereas when you're on zoom you
can see. The slides being shared and you
see me on the camera as well and that's just a lot more useful.
So I definitely prefer Zoom personally, but I can live with
teams. But if I had to pick zoom for
sure. When it comes to slides, I was
talking about like in person presentations on a stage.
So like I do a lot of those at conferences and most the
speakers have a slide deck. Do you feel like, I mean, it
really kind of just depends on the presentation if there's not
a, you know, graphs and charts and whatnot, but I feel like a
lot of people. Leans so heavily on slides that
people just like the audience just checks out, you know, they
take pictures of the slides, but they kind of disregard what the
person's actually saying, especially if they're just
monotonously reading from the slides.
So when it comes to slides, what's your stance on that?
Like do you have like a general rule of thumb as hey you slides
in this scenario but not in this scenario.
For sure. For sure, Robert.
So I'm in the camp of I'm a big fan of slides.
Because it gives people an opportunity to review your deck
or your presentation after the keynote is over.
But the last point that you mentioned, which is very key
that's worth highlighting is it's kind of like social media
and tech that we were talking about before.
It's not that social media and technology is bad, it's just
we're leveraging the tool in the wrong way.
But I would make the same argument in the context of
PowerPoint presentations as well.
The tool. Is a good one, but we're using
it incorrectly and the example you gave is the perfect one.
People reading off slides. I mean, that's heresy in my
coaching ecosystem. Why are you?
Reading off slides, there's really no point to that.
So instead what you wanna do is you wanna use slides for what
it's used, which is the main purpose.
To present key ideas, like what's the main take away that
you highlight in a slide, but also more importantly, to tell
your story. Like I think like when I do my
keynotes and people can watch me do this, I do a free workshop
that we'll talk about at the end of this where people will just
come for free on Zoom and just watch me facilitate everything
we talked about today for free. But basically the idea is when I
start that webinar. Which is more of a workshop,
actually, because because I'm talking to people.
But the the idea is my personal story.
You have a bunch of images. You have a picture of me as a
three-year old kid in front of my like I'm standing on top my
uncle's car and I make a joke about how I pretended to be a
superhero. Look, it's this is a lot more
powerful when you see little Brandon on the car or when you
have a picture with me and my sister, or the picture of me and
my broken arm might have surged you when I was a kid on my left
arm. Because it's a it's crooked.
It's so crooked today. So I have physical disability
there. But there's the picture of me
with my cast when I'm five years old, like it's just a lot more
poignant. So I think to summarize this
this kind of long winded answer here, PowerPoint Carry
PowerPoints are a tool that you need to leverage effectively and
the best way to leverage them effectively is to use them more
for images rather than text in general.
Totally agree. I always try and avoid much tech
or much. Yeah, much text.
It's all visuals and I just like it prompts me I can't.
When I'm presenting I can see the visual.
And then know exactly what it is I want to talk about, cuz it
acts as a prompt there, but I'm not reading from a bullet list
because that's just very disengaging.
Exactly. Very well, Sir.
When it comes to your approach to business, that's kind of what
this is like. You've got your own business,
you've got your own niche, your industry, just as I've got mine
own niche and industry within the fitness nutrition space.
There's so many different ways to get a message out, market
that message and then drive traffic and eventually sales.
What have you found to be the most advantageous route in doing
so? Like, I know you've got the
YouTube channel, you've got the Instagram profile, like are you
on a bunch of other platforms as well?
Like are you doing clubhouse? Like where do you try to invest
most of your time? For sure.
So let's sort the advice and then I'll give you the answer.
So the advice is. As an owner at the beginning of
the business, and I'm sure you felt that as well, Robert, you
don't really know which acquisition strategy works.
Like I remember what two years ago when I started doing
podcasts, Oh my God, I think at this point I've guessed on five
600 podcasts, like literally. And I've gotten, I've gotten
some results, probably made 5075 grand in total.
But the main reason I'm a guest on a show is mostly just to for
a brand awareness. Just so people know who I am and
they watch my YouTube. It rarely leads to clients, but
unless unless it's the host of the show.
Like I'm sure you've had a lot more success in with selling
your Leer products and services in the context of your show cuz
it's so big and people are watching you for you.
But in the context of our business, what I found is these
are the top three acquisition channels, but you had to try all
of them to see what works best with your niche.
Number one is the obvious one in coaching word of mouth.
Look, if you're not getting word of mouth in your.
Business as a coach. You are not a talented coach.
That's the way. That's why I've always seen it.
And I don't mean 100% referral like there's some clients who
are really introverted, who might not know people to refer
you to, but they'll keep buying your product.
So that's OK. But if you don't have a like my
Business Today is 70% word of mouth cuz I'm in year four now.
But if you're like in year four and you're getting 5% referral
or 10% referral, I think you just suck as a coach and that
needs to be fixed. So that's that's acquisition
strategy number one over deliver for your clients and leverage
your clients in a strategic way that gets you more leads without
them necessarily having to refer business example.
Going back to that free workshop that I'm doing, just cuz you're
asking about business. The the yeah, if people from
this podcast come to the workshop, that's awesome.
I'd love to see them there. But it's worth mentioning,
Robert, that the way that I get the business though is I get my
existing clients to bring their friends to the workshop.
That's the play. So let's say my friend Josh is
an executive and I get him 100X results and his speaking.
I'm reviewing all of his videos and he loves me to shreds, but
he can't think of somebody on the top of his mind to refer.
What I often tell Josh to do is I go, hey, go back to your
company, Josh, and just invite everybody on your team or your
friends or your college student friends to or your college
buddies to my free workshop. So what Josh will do, Rob is
he'll invite 20 to 25 people because he just loved the
service so much. But out of those 2025, one or
two of them are going to be clients and that's the way we've
grown. That's number one.
Number two has been LinkedIn, TMS, because a lot of my clients
are in the corporate world. LinkedIn has been a blessing, I
would say on social media across all my platforms.
I've probably gotten 7080% of out of total the business in
that area in that category from LinkedIn alone because everybody
money and it's been really good. And then #3 has been YouTube,
but it's been a it's been a long, long hustle to get clients
from YouTube. It only started in year 3 for
us. Yeah, YouTube's a beast, man.
Like, I've been chipping away on YouTube forever and I've got
over 1000 videos and it's growing, but it's growing very
slowly, like YouTube. I'm not been one of those that
has these crazy viral videos. It just blows up and leads to a
ton of extra subscribers. Like, it's just been a a slog.
But I love it because it documents the entire journey,
which I think people appreciate. That's exactly right, Robert.
Like in in our case for us, the benefit of YOU 2, by the way,
we're not a big fish on YouTube either.
We're doing pretty well. Like we're definitely, we don't
have 1000 subscribers, that's for sure.
We're definitely doing a lot better than that.
But each of our videos is getting a few 100 views, Summer
videos get 50 views. It's not a big deal, but the
reason why I'm getting clients is because of brand.
So the quality of the videos are still good, so they might
discover me on Instagram. Or some other platform, but it's
YouTube that builds the relationship.
There's a great concept on this from Sharon Srinivasta that the
Srivastava rather that I really like and he calls it TLB, which
is time on brand. That's why podcasting as a host
leads to so much business in the long run.
You have to do it a long time like you have.
That's why you've done well where it's like people are
spending so much time with you, unlike a 62nd tick tock that
they want to do business with you.
So I have the equivalent, but on YouTube.
So when somebody watches my YouTube videos, they might bench
15 videos and they'll spend almost an hour watching videos.
In general, they'll say, Oh my God, Brendan is so good, I need
to work with them. And that's really what we found.
But it's taken a long time to get there.
I definitely prefer the long, medium, long format.
Mediums are like like the you tubes, like the podcasting
platforms. I've never really been drawn to
the. The quick reels and the
Instagram tick tock clips, I mean that's just like, I like
that people can engage with me on a deeper level over a longer
period of time. So there's not really any
questions to who I am or what I stand for.
And the lesson I got on that Robert, cuz I used to think what
what you believed. And I still do.
By the way, I'm a big fan of long form.
That's always been the core focus.
But the reason I've invested a lot of money and it's paid off
by the way, I've made that money pretty not my recent investment,
I haven't made that fully yet because I just started deploying
the new reels. But the first investment I made
in my Instagram, my 5-6 grand, I already made it back really
fast. And the reasons really simple,
because short form content is often a gateway to long form
content. And I found out with my own
behavior like there's this podcast called 20 VC, which has
nothing to do with the audience that's listening to this, which
is like venture capitalists in tech.
Like I'll watch 62nd clips that are super sharp on like Tick
Tock. And I'll say, man, I've listened
like three of these clips. I need to listen to this whole
episode. So I'll literally specifically
search up that episode on Castbox or Spotify and I'll
download it and watch it at a later time.
And that's actually the benefit of short form is a lot of people
are now watching. Like my Instagram went from 6000
followers in October of last year.
And today I'm at 30,000 on Instagram just because I put in
the time and the effort. But a lot of those people are
now watching my YouTube channel and that's what I wanted them to
do in the 1st place. So that's a key benefit that
might change your mind around short form.
Yeah, I think if I can you know and gave he talks about this
extensively is basically taking your long form and then multi
repurposing it into micro content that you can put across
the various short form platforms.
To just draw people in as a funnel, which I think makes
total sense. It's just I gotta get more,
more, more time in the day, man. There's just so much content out
there. Exactly.
You just gotta do what works for you, right.
Like, and that's good. Good point that you drew here
because in your case, hey, like if your goal is to make 200K
here and your pot. I'm just throwing numbers.
These are not the numbers that Robert has.
OK, everyone. I'm just throwing numbers out
there and let's say you're doing 250K and coaching revenue or the
product that you're selling, who cares?
Like you don't need to be on Instagram if it's working for
you. I think it just depends what
your goals are. If the goals do 3 million, OK,
like podcasting only is not gonna get us there.
We need to include other acquisition channels and that's
where I'm transitioning, right? Going from six figures to seven.
Now I have to really push like I'm I'm fine now for the rest of
my life. I can get word of.
Mouth and be OK. But if I really want to grow a
lot faster, I'd really need to start pushing other acquisition
channels. So it really just depends on
what your goals are, frankly. Well, the LinkedIn is pretty
cool, man. I've not.
I've got a LinkedIn, I don't really use it, but I've got a
few friends that are just killing it on LinkedIn.
And a lot of people, they kind of, they cast LinkedIn out.
They don't really give it much time a day.
But the people that are actually leveraging LinkedIn to its full
potential just swear by it. So I think it's a very viable
outlet. Yeah, it's well said, Robert.
I I think the key is like a good way of understanding this or
people how to listen to podcasts in general is like there's a
thousand ways to win the game. And your job as your own human
being, as the CEO of your own life is to take a truth from
this podcast and take 99 truths from 99 other people and
implement the best practice that you agree with.
So for example, from this show, from this episode, we're doing
together. Somebody might listen to this
podcast and their take away might be, hey, let me try
replacing my black tea in hot water and see what happens,
right. So you kind of just pick the one
insight that works. But as long as you're
implementing what's true to you across 100 different people, I
think, I think you'll be very well positioned to win. 100% Do
you read a lot? I felt.
I feel like reading improves one's vocabulary.
Inability to speak significant as well.
But do you read much yourself? A lot of people think I do.
I really don't. I read like 3 books a year.
I'm gonna read a book this year that this month it's gonna come
out cuz I've been anticipating it for a long time.
But it's $100 million leads by Alex or Mosey.
But I'm sure you know since you're in the fitness game.
So the. But the point is I think asking
people to read books is dumb advice and I know that sounds
controversial. So hear me out.
Because the people who are not going to read books, telling
them to read books is not going to change their mind.
The right piece of advice that I'm shocked is never to
communicate on a podcast. It's funny that I'm the guy
who's saying this to people is you need to find the medium of
learning that works the best for you.
And for some of you listening to this podcast, it's going to be
books. For others it's audio books.
For a lot of you, it's probably podcasting or why are you
listening to me and Robert talk. For others, it's you're getting
coached. For some of you, two or three of
these Vms and the key is to list out the top three and spend 80%
of your learning on your favorite medium and learning.
So for me it's it's 100%. Listening to podcasts, I just
love the conversational element. Audiobooks kind of suck for me.
I fall asleep really quickly. Unless the guy's really
entertaining or the gal's really entertaining books just reading
physical copies. After 40 minutes I just start
falling asleep too, so it just doesn't work for me.
So you just gotta pick what works for you and triple down on
that. That's really the only advice
that matters. No, I totally agree.
Math fact. As long as you're finding some
outlet to learn continually, you're coming out ahead.
You just have to prioritize that learning medium.
What's your go to podcast on that note?
My favorite I I shift a lot. I'm kind of a podcast ho, so I'm
kind of shifting from podcast to podcast.
The the only part like the podcast I listen to I wouldn't
recommend to the general public but I'll I'll list off a few
that's that's kind of related more to interview style.
I really like Lewis houses School of Greatness.
I think Lewis does a great job at interviewing guests and he
could really get to the core of them, not just from a practical
level but also as a human being. I think he does a great job at
facilitating those conversations and making it like stupid simple
for me to understand it because I'm not super smart unless it's
communication related. So that's one second podcast I
like that I listen to religiously, but it's not when I
recommend to the general public is All In by Shamat, Jason,
David and David, which is basically a tech podcast for
like a few like tech billionaires and.
High level millionaires, they're they kind of just give a state
of the the world. So it's like a news podcast but
without the BS, which I like. They kind of laugh.
They're drinking wine, they're kind of shooting the shit, but
they're not sugar coating anything.
They can just give them what they think.
So that's how I learned about the world.
That's my news basically. That's my CNBC.
That's my CNN and I'll listen to that an hour a week.
And I haven't. I've only missed one episode
that I have to catch up on from last week.
Those are the 2 main ones. And I also like Masters of Scale
by Reed Hoffman, where he kind of interviews a lot of really
successful entrepreneurs just so watch.
The newest seasons are kind of terrible.
Listen to like season 1-2 and three.
Those are the three that are really good.
Nice. I will definitely check those
out cuz I'm also a podcast junkie, so I almost certainly be
listening to those. What's your opinion on
Toastmasters? Like a lot of people, when they
think of improving their communication skills, they
automatically default to Toastmasters.
I've never done it, but I have friends that haven't gone
through that program. Is it well?
Received. I mean, what's your take on it?
For sure? I get this a lot, so no worries.
So Toastmasters, let's talk about this.
You know, for me, I always like to begin that I'm a big fan of
Toastmasters. I think what they've done is
awesome. Like they got clubs across every
city. Basically what this is in a
nutshell, Robert, and people listening is you have a weekly
meeting, it's 90 minutes, it's in person.
Some of them are virtual, but most of them are in person now.
Now that pandemics done and it's kind of like you're practicing,
you're speaking for 90 minutes and I think it's a great
community, especially for people getting started and it's dirt
cheap. I think it's like 200 bucks a
year because they run it as a nonprofit.
So you pick a city and then you go to the Toastmasters club.
So the but then the other line that I want to comment on really
quick is what's the difference between Toastmasters and hiring
somebody like me. And the difference is really
simple. It's time versus money.
So if you have a lot of time but not a lot of money and and an
easy benchmark here is if you're making less than 80 to $90,000 a
year, you have more time than you do money.
So because of that, you want to invest a lot of your time to
acquire skills or make progress. Example, you can spend 2 hours
in a meeting every week in Toastmasters, you could spend a
bunch of hours listening to a podcast.
You can spend a lot of time, you know, getting leads, whatever,
and we're doing job interviews. But what happens at some point
in your career, not for everybody, but for some people,
Rob, is your time becomes significantly more valuable than
your money in the sense that you're making 100 grand a year,
120 or more, and you're kind of thinking, my God, Like if I
watch all of Brendan's videos and I listen to all the
podcasts, it might take me a year to implement all of this or
two. And that's a lot of my time.
Or if I hire Brendan directly, he's going to coach me on how to
speak and everything I could learn in three years.
I'm going to learn in three months because he's going to
adjust everything for me because he has eight years of
experience. And then the other piece is in
Toastmasters. The best communicators will
never stay in Toastmasters because it's a low level group.
So if you get really good at speaking, like I don't attend
Toastmaster meetings, like the best speakers will just become
politicians or CEO's or podcast host, they won't spend time in a
Toastmasters meeting. So the.
Key is really what season of life are you in?
Like if you're getting started, you're making less than 100
grand. In general, I think Toastmasters
is excellent, but if you're someone who's like most of my
clientele. You're a busy executive, you're
a manager at Amazon, you're doing well in your business,
You're making at least a few 6 figures.
Then then I think hiring a coach is definitely the better
alternative cuz you'll save a lot more time.
Yeah, I think once you get to a point where time is of the
essence, you have to double down on that.
Otherwise it just gets it escapes you and like time, is
the most valuable commodity. Absolutely.
And and one quick example on this to keep it really simple,
why does Gary Vaynerchuk spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
on his personal trainer? Not because he's charging
100,000. Because he's literally has a
personal trainer who flies with him to every event he attends
because his health. Is worth millions of dollars to
him if not more because he's running $100 million company.
So for him that 300,000 is investing in that personal
trainer is worth it because he knows he won't workout if he
doesn't have that personal trainer.
So for a Gary who's worth a lot more money than all most of us
listening to this, he's valuing that personal trainer at.
300,000 but it doesn't need to be 300 K Like if you're living
local, it could be signing up for a yoga class every month and
that accountability forces you to go to class and that's worth
it than just trying to do yoga on your own, in my opinion.
Totally Speaking of Gay V and it's interesting you brought him
up, so I used to listen to him religiously his book.
Which one was it? I forget which one it was one of
his first was. Job job, right Hook.
Maybe it was crushing it. I think it was crush it.
I think it was the the first one crush it.
That was one of the pivotal moments of my life where I
really started doubling down on content creation.
Building the brand like that was one of the catalysts for me to
create what I have today. But honestly, I have not really
consumed any of his content in the past few years.
And that I mean, maybe that's that's to my own detriment, but.
It seems as though I think he said this himself.
Like once you've got the framework, like I'm saying the
same stuff, just go out there and implement it.
Like you could still consume a lot of his content as he got a
lot more fresh content, like bringing up to speed on Gav.
Fascinating, Robert. So yes, let's start with what
we're on the same page on, which is 90% of what you asked. 100%
You know, Gary Vee's a great example of what I refer to as a
0 to one thought leader. So zero to one thought leader is
someone who is like he's always yelling at you.
Who's going, Why aren't you posting content, why aren't you
posting content? But it's never specific tactics
on what to actually do to optimize your pages.
But for somebody getting started like you did, you know a few
years ago when you were religious about Gary Vee, it's
super helpful. Because the the main objection
to the business or anything is not that you don't know how to
optimize your SEO funnel or your funnel on podcasting or
optimizing your sales process. It's that you don't even want to
start posting content. It's a mindset game.
It's a mindset block. But once you overcome that
block, which is actually a good thing, that's what Gary Vee
wants, is you naturally stop consuming his content less
because you just don't need the boost anymore.
Now you're just more interested in advanced, nuanced
conversations. And that's honestly the
conversation you also want to have on this podcast just based
on the questions you've asked me today.
Right. So that's that's what happens as
you become more advanced in terms of my consumption of Gary
Vee. My consumption with Gary Vee has
always been pretty high relatively even from the
beginning. I just.
Why? And it's nothing.
It's nothing intelligent here. I just like his voice.
I like listening to him, but more importantly, I like
following him. I like seeing what he's doing
with this tech stack. So I'm not spending 10 hours a
week on Gary Vee, but I'll probably spend 30 minutes a week
on average on Gary Vee, listening to one video, one
reel, just to see what he's doing because he'll always catch
trends the fastest. And the next trend, I always
want to see what he's thinking about, what is on his mind
because I think he's the goat of our field.
So it's important for me to keep studying him, but I'm not really
listening to him for rah, rah per se.
I'm mostly listening to him for those advanced nuanced
conversations that he'll have. So sometimes that's gonna be
like a 4DS meeting where it's like a 60 minute long form video
on YouTube where like you pay 10 grand to be with him for an hour
and he's just and he just posts that for free online.
So people just watch it. I just listening to those
conversations have been really helpful for me, but that's
that's where I see the puck going with Gary Vee.
What's he really hot on right now?
Do you know? You know, it's funny because I
said 30 minutes a week, but I haven't listened to him in a few
weeks, so, so way to go to Brendan for not practicing what
he preaches. But, but the last time I was
consuming his stuff, it was mostly in regards to threads,
Yeah, which is the new, the for those who don't know, the new
platforms, kind of like the Twitter clone for Instagram.
I just wanted to hear what he thought about it.
I'm posting pretty intensively on the on the platform
regardless because I got the lesson which is who cares if it
works or not, just put all your eggs on the not all your eggs,
but invest some eggs in that game.
So I'm just listening to his point of view on that.
That's that's been a big one. That's.
That's actually been the last kind of big one.
Another one that I like this is it's not really in the last few
weeks, but in the last year. I like his videos on overrated
versus underrated which is basically a series he started
that he posts like once 1/4 on where like his team will give
him something like. Conor McGregor or UFC or the
brand of Pepsi, and they just ask him if he thinks the brand
is underrated or overrated. Just really interesting to kind
of hear his perspective in general.
Yeah, totally. What's in the pipeline for you,
man? Like we've talked quite a bit
about what you've done to build your current infrastructure.
What are you super stoked about going forward?
Yeah, I think what I'm super stoked about.
Robert is I always like to start with gratitude.
You know when I started Master talk in my mom's basement like
four years ago? I've been coaching for 8:00, but
I've been taking it seriously as a business, probably for like 4.
Almost four. And for me, the big thing was I
never thought I would be who I am today.
Like, I just started making videos for fun in my mom's
basement. And it's crazy to think now that
I'm coaching so many clients and I'm doing pretty well
financially now and I get to do this full time and I think
that's the greatest gift of all. So I'll start there.
But in terms of the future, I think the keyword in 2022 for me
was survival. Because I quit my corporate job
in June of 2021 to pursue this full time, and I was a fucking
savage in 2022. Just guess on every podcast I
would say yes to me posting every single day on social media
and and it was survival like of the fittest, like making sure my
business works but this year because I'm getting a lot of
word of mouth kind of like we were talking about earlier.
Now I'm stable. Like I'm not gonna die anymore
in business, things are gonna workout for me.
So from now the question is more what am I doing to scale the
brand? Scale is the word of this year.
So that means I'm investing in Instagram reals.
Like I was telling you earlier, I'm thinking about new creative
ways. OK, how do we DM 300,000 people
on LinkedIn? How can we make that happen
across like 15 LinkedIn accounts?
Like, that's what I'm thinking now.
How do we scale the brand? Because I still.
I still don't have. I still don't have a social
media following that's in the six figures.
I've I've achieved 5 figures on a multitude of platforms.
I still haven't hit the golden 6 on any platform.
So that's really what I'm I'm focused on and of course my end
game is to be this generations. Dale Carnegie, I think the next
Elon Musk is a 7 year old girl who can't afford a communication
coach. So it's my duty and
responsibility to share all that content for free and that's
where I'm gunning towards and getting that social media growth
will help me become that person and get me a step closer to the
goal. I love it, man.
I think it's very important to have a theme for the year.
Like every year I do a manifesto.
My manifesto for this year is Discipline is Destiny.
And every year I've done that for the past five or six years
now pretty much since I started the business.
And having like a dedicated theme for the year has been
profoundly impactful and actually making Monument to
Strides in that year. So that's that's awesome that
you're doing that too. That's awesome.
I love that discipline. Destiny's discipline is that you
said? Discipline is destiny.
It's kind of like Ryan Holidays book.
Of the same title, but that like, I've got so much going
this year with my competitions, my conferences.
We've got a newborn, like there's a lot going on and I
can't possibly keep all the plates in there if I'm not
disciplined. So it's just been a very
structured year, but I thrive in that type of structure.
Nice. Congrats on the newborn.
That's awesome. Appreciate it man.
Appreciate it. Well, let me let me ask you
this. How is my just asking life here.
How's my communication been throughout this podcast?
We've literally never met before.
Never talked before via. Other than, you know, a few
messages back and forth on e-mail, has this been?
Very good. Actually, Robert, one one thing
I really appreciate about your communication style, which is
very rare in podcast hosting and you do it.
Very subtly that your audience doesn't catch it is that most
people don't is that you'll pause after you share without
asking a follow up question. So and why that's powerful is
because when you pause, if I have another thought, I just
jump in, whereas what a lot of podcasters do.
Is they they'll they'll share, like you'll share your thought
and then you'll go, OK, next question.
So then what I have to do is I have to go, awesome.
Robert, let me answer. And then there's one other point
I wanted to so I always have to backtrack, rest here.
I haven't done it a single time in the podcast.
So that's a really powerful thing that you're doing.
So kudos to you, man. Appreciate that, man.
It's kind of unorthodox, I suppose, but I do zero prep work
for my podcast. And it really didn't feel that
way. By the way, just based on the
questions you're asking me, it didn't I?
I really felt in this podcast as a compliment to you that you
prepped your ass off for this cuz the questions you were
asking. I was like, man, he's taking
this conversation into like all the right places, but the fact
that you did no prep, it presses me even more.
Man, that's awesome. Yeah, I don't know if that's a
good thing or a bad thing, but for me it works because I'm able
to scale the podcast output because I don't spend time
prepping, but because I don't prep, I have to actually pay
attention to what you're saying in order to ask a good follow up
question. I think so many people get hung
up on the prep work. They've got this list of
scripted questions and they just aren't present in the moment,
which I think is debilitating in the conversation.
You're so right. I I agree with that point a lot,
Rob, where there's pros and cons to build styles.
So what you referred to us is the Larry King style.
So the Larry King style is you'll go into the guest.
He won't even know there's actually a clip on this you can
watch on YouTube. So funny where he's like
interviewing Jerry Seinfeld like the guy who has the greatest one
of the greatest sitcoms like ever in human history and in
terms of popularity anyways and he doesn't know who Jerry
Seinfeld is and Jerry's like do you not know who I am?
Larry cuz Larry asked him a question around did your show
ever get cancelled? He's like what are you talking
about? I've never been cancelled so it
was hilarious. So the Larry.
So the Larry King approach works right?
Cuz he's he's one of the goats in in the interview space.
And then there's also the over prepped super like the Super
funneled and there's pros and cons.
Pro is you get every detail right of that person's story.
But the con is you miss out on the nuances of the conversation
you wouldn't get in a free flowing style.
And a good example of the compare the contrast to Larry
King is like a Guy Raz right. The host of How I Built This by
NPR. Like when he interviewed Gary
Vee which I highly recommend people check out since we talked
about him. Like it's ridiculous he even
knows the name. Like I never heard this on a
podcast before. He even knew the name of Gary
Vee's wine store. I was like, what?
Like how did you even know the name?
And even those the year that the store opened?
It's like, ridiculous. But the key is to go all in on
your style. And your style clearly works for
you, by the way. Awesome, man.
Well, I appreciate that kind sentiment for sure.
Well, Brenda, where do people go to find out more about you and
jump into the master class? It's basically like a free.
A webinar where people can go to get some more information.
That kind of acts as a funnel to get more involved in your
ecosystem, right? You got it, Robert.
So there's basically two ways of keeping in touch.
One is I do a free interactive workshop on communications.
This is a live workshop. I do it every two weeks over
zoom. So you can jump to
rockstarcommunicator.com. Just go to that website and you
could register for an upcoming date.
I do them all the time. I've never I've I I haven't not
done one in like 2 years so like I just keep doing it.
And the 2nd way to keep in touch is the YouTube channel.
Just type Master talk in one word and you'll have access to
hundreds of free videos on how to speak.
Awesome, man. Well, I will link out to all
those, make it easy for people to find you, and I really do
appreciate that, rich man. Like I said, we're in two
different industries, but we have a lot of.
Similarities when it comes to brand building, business acumen,
etc etc. So I appreciate you reaching out
us making this happen, and I thoroughly enjoyed the
conversation. Likewise, this is super fun.
You did a great job. Thanks.
Thank you, Brandon. Have a good one, man.
You too, man. Thanks so much.