194: Communication Skills Masterclass LIVE with Brenden Kumarasamy | Founder of MasterTalk

[00:00:26] We’ve had a time to connect in lots of different forums, and I absolutely. Love everything about what you’re doing, begin though, take me back, communications, you’re the pro, master talk, everything that we know about you today is world class, but it wasn’t always that way. Who was Brendan before master talk?

[00:00:51] Brenden Kumarasamy: Brandon was a piece of work. Let’s put it. Let’s start there. Zach. I mean, for me, you know. My. Story started when I was in college. Well, actually it started before college when I was. In, when I was five years old, actually. I grew up in a city called Montreal. For those who don’t know, Montreal is a city where you need to know how to speak French.

[00:01:07] And it’s a language I didn’t know. So my parents looked at me. So you need to know how to speak French. And my dad looked at me when I was five years old and he said, you know, Brendan, you need to learn how to speak French. So he sent me to French school to learn the language. So from the ages of five to 16, every time I would go up on a stage, which was obviously the classroom filled with six, seven, eight year olds, not only did I presenting ideas, I had to present a language I didn’t even know.

[00:01:36] So that was the big challenge I had. And then the second one’s around my arm. I have a disability in my left arm because of an accident I had at birth. So because of that, I always had a lot of insecurity around my arm because it’s always crooked whenever I give presentations. So I never thought I was going to be a communications pro.

[00:01:51] That was never the goal. 

[00:01:54] Zach White: My mom was a kindergarten teacher. Oh, was she? Retired now. And I used to go into her classrooms, five and six year old kids. It’s a zoo in there. It’s, it’s a zoo in there and you know, they all knew who I was because she would show them pictures of her kids and I would walk in, they would know my name, et cetera.

[00:02:09] But I cannot imagine being in that classroom at that age, not speaking the language and feeling that pressure of being different and how kids, Yeah, unintentionally or intentionally can make that really hard. So do you have any experiences that stand out to you? Any memories from those early days, what that was like?

[00:02:32] Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s a beautiful question. And I never really thought about it until you asked me, but you’re right. I mean, there’s, there’s definitely two facets. One facet that got a little bit lucky. Once again, I live in Canada, right? So kids are pretty nice. In general. That’s fair. Right? Shout out to Canada for your niceness.

[00:02:48] Yeah, shout out to Canada. so because of that, what happened, I remember this when I was 7 years old. Cause I could only speak English at that age. Okay. I only started learning French when I was in grade 2. They actually gave me a special teacher to learn French. And I would get all these free cookies and snacks and all the kids would be jealous.

[00:03:05] But basically I was a special needs student for the first couple of years. Not because I had like a mental disability, but because I just, I just didn’t know French. I just needed extra help to figure it out. So because of that, a lot of the kids were trying to speak English to me. They really actually made a lot of effort.

[00:03:20] I remember there’s this one kid named Samuel that I never seen again for the rest of my life. He always took the time to teach me. To meet Frederic too and Daniel. They always took the time to like figure out English a little bit, just to communicate with me, but the other side of the angle was true as well.

[00:03:34] I always felt left out as a kid. And the reason is because from, I would say kindergarten to grade two, or maybe it was grade one, I had to wear a cast. two years, basically, because of a surgery I had when I was like four years old, because of the arm situation. So because of that, I would always walk into class with a big cast on.

[00:03:53] So it always looked really awkward because everyone would come up to me and be like, Oh, did you like get into an accident? Is this cast going to be on for like a month or something? I was like, no, I’d had to have it on for like two years. So that was definitely a huge insecurity. 

[00:04:06] Zach White: Not the conversation starter you want at age six.

[00:04:11] So in that time. For you, it was the language, but in the spirit of communication, communication unlocked a different life for you when French became accessible. Is there a lesson from that stage of life, ages 6 to 10, of the language, etc., that it’s still part of your ethos around why communication is so important.

[00:04:33] Brenden Kumarasamy: I would say the, the lesson that comes to mind immediately is we don’t think of communication in the same way we think of other skills. So the problem with today when we’re adults, right, fast forwarding the timeline a little bit, Is, is we have a very negative relationship with communication and public speaking and how that negative relationship comes out is whenever we want to get better, quote unquote, it’s always around something we have to do, not something we get to do.

[00:05:01] So in engineering land, it’s a status update meeting. It’s presenting a board presentation about an idea, an engineering initiative that the person is working on a project. They’re spearheading from a technical perspective that they’re sharing to the technical team, right? Or to leadership. So it’s never exciting.

[00:05:20] Yeah, it’s, it’s more like. Deliver this properly 

[00:05:24] Zach White: right 

[00:05:24] Brenden Kumarasamy: or you’re done or forget about management. So it’s always attached to a threat Whereas going back to your question on six to ten years old when I look back at that self really what I applied Not just in that age range, but throughout my life in communication is really this idea of wait a second If a baby falls on the floor and they’re trying to walk Do they sit there and they go like mom?

[00:05:49] Can I get a book on how to walk and just study this a little bit more? They just get back up again And I feel if we apply just more of that logic that we had as kids as grown ups I think a lot of us would be a lot better at speaking than we currently are Were you 

[00:06:04] Zach White: in a place of You fear around speaking French, or it was just like, I got to learn this.

[00:06:10] What was your actual. Experience with that gap. 

[00:06:13] Brenden Kumarasamy: I had a very negative relationship with French because I felt like learning French was essentially being a part of the enemy. Like I didn’t want to learn the language because I already knew English. It’s like, why, why am I giving myself a purposeful handicap?

[00:06:31] It makes no sense. 

[00:06:33] Zach White: That is so okay. Here’s what’s standing out to me. And I didn’t see this coming. I think engineers, the managers, the senior leaders, the people who work with us in coaching for career development often see communication exactly like that. it’s like a foreign language. I speak technical.

[00:06:53] I’m an engineer. I can speak geek. I’m a nerd. I love, and I thrive on being able to articulate these radically complex things in a way that if you’re not on the inside, you don’t even understand what I’m saying. And then someone comes along and says, Hey, We need you to present this to management or present this to the board or present this in a way that the sales team and the marketing team can understand.

[00:07:17] And it’s like, Why? What’s the point of mastering? Like, there’s a certain resistance to joining the other side. Like, shouldn’t be necessary. I just want to go back to the lab and keep doing the work that I love. Huge barrier to growth in our experience and career. So, how do we get out of that mindset?

[00:07:38] How do we shift, or what have you seen helps people change and recognize Like the world unlocks when you learn to speak French. 

[00:07:46] Brenden Kumarasamy: It’s a fantastic observation that you just made. And it’s a hundred percent true, even for me. That’s exactly the key. Not just with French, with a lot of the things that I’ve learned in my life, frankly, in my journey, where it’s just like, Oh, I don’t know how to do this.

[00:08:01] Oh, well, I don’t need to learn this because I’m X, Y, Z. We make up reasons as to why we shouldn’t be in the other person. And you know what I learned in life, Zach, that I honestly, I learned from guys like you. you’re my mentor in this, which is this point about saying, do we want to be right?

[00:08:16] Or do we want to get the result that we desire? Do we want to be right? Or do we want to get the result that we want in life? And those things are completely different. We get to be right, like, especially in the engineering context, because I know it just as well as you do. You know, you could totally not master communication if you don’t want to.

[00:08:35] Yeah. You could, could you make a lot more money? Could you grow? I know the people who agree with you on that. Right? You can, but don’t go telling me or you that you want to be in management and that you don’t want to fix your communication skills. That doesn’t make any sense. Because what is the ethos of management?

[00:08:52] The ethos of management is simply to manage others. It’s not about doing technical delivery work anymore. Yeah, there’s still some of it. You still need to know your stuff because you need to be able to, especially in engineering management roles today, as you know, you coach your clients on this is you have to be able to both take a thousand foot view on a technical problem and be able to go down the weeds.

[00:09:12] You have to be able to make that switch constantly, even if you’re not doing a lot of the backend work anymore. And if you are not taking the time to master the technology. The most critical skill, which is comms, and we’re making excuses about, Oh, I don’t need this. I don’t need this. That’s also true. You also don’t need the promotion.

[00:09:29] So don’t worry about that either. Right. So, and that’s something I’ve been guilty of most of my life, frankly. 

[00:09:35] Zach White: I agree with you when you say that communications is the building block skill. without it, none of those more advanced things come to life. And so I’m going to propose something that I believe, and I want to hear if you agree, okay.

[00:09:50] and how does communication fit in? So most engineers love and thrive on solving problems. When I ask an engineering manager at Google who reaches out to us for coaching, what is it that you really want? What’s the dream? What’s the goal? If it was a year from now and everything went exactly the way you want it to go in your career, what would you be doing more than half the time?

[00:10:14] The answer starts with, I just want to be in a job. Where I can solve really hard problems that I love solving. This is just part of the ethos, the DNA of an engineer. We just love to solve problems. Okay, well, I believe that every real problem in your career that holds you back from the things you actually want is a people problem.

[00:10:38] Every problem is a people problem. So if you can’t communicate, you cannot solve people problems. What do you think about that? 

[00:10:50] Brenden Kumarasamy: I agree. I would just look at the frame a little differently, but I agree with the premise, which is let’s bring it down to the bare bones, right? Let’s say, cause I know software engineer the most out of probably all the engineering types.

[00:11:00] So let’s 

[00:11:01] say we’re, coding something and a debate is we’re trying to create a new app. We’re trying to create a new service, trying to run it into production and then go live with it. the problem that is missing and why everything is a people problem is because we’re not just making an app for the sake of making an app.

[00:11:16] Every technical decision that is made in a business is always, always attached to a business outcome. Exactly. It’s about saying, no, no, no, we need SCP. We need this system to help us make more money. So now, because of that, the layer on top of that becomes, now we need technical people to then solve that technical problem.

[00:11:37] But the layer is always business and the layer on top of business is always People because who are we doing business for? Like if you’re an aeronautics engineer, you’re making planes, well, who’s in the plane at the end of the day, it’s people.

[00:11:52] If you’re in software engineering, who’s using the app, the end consumer, it always starts and ends with the person to your point, 

[00:12:02] Zach White: you might have. A problem on your project. You said, what’s the problem? Well, the deadline is three weeks and we’ve got 10 weeks of work to do. You call that a project problem, but it’s like, well, where’d the deadline come from?

[00:12:15] Somebody picked the deadline. You’re going to need to go talk to somebody about what we’re going to do. If there was no deadline and no person making it, solving the technical challenge is actually what engineers love to do. So do we begin? Especially coming from the technical lens, Britain, and you understand the, the thinking of that deep, logical, that deep analytical mind.

[00:12:36] What’s the first thing that needs to shift to unlock communications 

[00:12:40] Brenden Kumarasamy: mastery. Absolutely. In the conscious of engineers, what I would say is that which I haven’t said last time is to have a maniacal focus in love in the same way that we bring our engineering mindset to solve really hard problems. How do we bring that same joy, excitement and energy to your point?

[00:12:58] Energy before strategy, right? That’s one of your quotes. So true. How do we bring that into communication? And that’s really what I’ve spent my career thinking about, not just for engineers, but for people in general. So if you look at any skill, right, uh, learning how to play piano, going salsa dancing with your significant other, and just notice from your smile.

[00:13:17] That is actually the driver, which is oftentimes when we learn a new skill or we have a desire around it. Usually the energy is very positive. So it’s about saying, Oh, you know, I’ll learn this skill. I’ll go salsa dancing. I’ll make a couple of mistakes. I’ll get a lot better and I’ll grow. We don’t apply that logic at all to speaking.

[00:13:37] It’s more about, Oh, like I’ve been struggling with this for so many years. My boss is not good at it. My boss’s boss is not getting it out, but they’re still telling me I need to do it. And then like, but I’m not doing it as well, but they’re not doing it well. And there’s just always this boring chatter box around it.

[00:13:53] So the first thing that we need to do is more of a mental game. It’s about taking a step back and going, how can I gamify communication in the same way I gamify engineering problems that I’m solving at work? And an easy way of thinking about that is to say, okay, we’re software engineer. We’re calculating the number of bugs that we’re solving for.

[00:14:11] How many defects do we solve this week? 10, 15, whatever. Whereas the knowledge I use in communication is in communication. You have 40 defects right now. How do you solve one of those defects every single week? That’s the way I would ROI. 

[00:14:27] Zach White: Part of why I love talking to you. you know me so well. Salsa dancing is a perfect metaphor.

[00:14:34] I used to teach dance. Did you know that? No, I did not. Okay. So at Purdue, while studying mechanical engineering, I did competition ballroom and Latin dancing. No way. Shout out to Monica. My first dance partner. I would never have joined the ballroom dance competition team at Purdue if it weren’t for Monica.

[00:14:51] So now I need videos on this. Yeah. I’ll show you sometime. I was actually a very good dancer. So. Oh, I believe that. We went dancing last year. That’s true, that’s true. I 100 percent believe it. You’ve seen me on the dance floor. Not salsa, but, uh, you know, that was a super fun time. When we taught dance in St.

[00:15:08] Joseph, Michigan, this beautiful lakefront venue, and people would come for Tuesday nights, and we would teach dance lessons and have a social dance afterwards. You can predict with the people who are there that Who don’t really want to be there, but they’re there. The spouses, the significant others, the boyfriends, the like, okay, she dragged me here or occasionally the opposite.

[00:15:31] You know, he dragged me here, but you could see that all over them. The people who absolutely wanted nothing to do with learning had zero fun on the dance floor. And they learned slowly and they forgot everything by the following week. And the people who would come and they’d say, I’ve never done this before, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

[00:15:55] I want to have a good time. I love the idea of being a dancer. And they just got into it. They allowed themselves to kind of be in the moment. Have fun. They learned faster, had great times, they made these great experiences, even though they still sucked at dancing. They’re not good dancers. Not at all.

[00:16:12] But the love of dance started to get nurtured and then they would learn fast and they’d become great dancers. So, my question to you with communication, you’ve coached so many people to be in the top 1 percent in communication in their industry and well beyond that. Is the love for this discipline to get better, to improve that shift you just talked about, is it something that you can nurture if you don’t have it or is it you have it or you don’t?

[00:16:42] What’s, what’s your belief or your experience with that? 

[00:16:45] Brenden Kumarasamy: Oh, so many cool directions to take with that question. Number one, I love the observation that you made around salsa dancing. That is so true and so applicable, not just to dancing, but to every skill that you’re learning where if you’re just not excited about it or find something to get excited about, you can’t win.

[00:17:04] Now to your, question around, can you nurture that? I thousand percent believe That you can because I’m the case in point of someone who hated communication. I never wanted to be a communication coach. Like who does that for a living? Like what? Only crazy. Only crazy people. I was an SAP consultant at IBM.

[00:17:25] That was my life. I was an HCM consultant. I was implementing human capital management technology software for fortune 500 clients. I was doing three of them at the same time. Died doing it, which is a separate set of story. But like, you know, I was good at it. I wanted to be a partner at IBM. I wasn’t looking to be a communication coach.

[00:17:43] So how in the world did I develop a passion and a love? How did I nurture that? Because my whole life I hated speaking. I am insecure about my left arm. I don’t speak French that well. I look like a scrawny little kid. Most of the people in my, not all of them, but most of my classmates were white, you know?

[00:18:00] So I was always a visible minority too. So like, I never really grew up. Once again, it’s Canadian, so it’s not so bad. But you know, I grew up with not, you know, So what happened was the reason I was able to nurture a love for it later in my career is when I went to college, I did these things called case competitions which is essentially presentations competitively, kind of like hackathons in the software, right?

[00:18:24] But I never did them. Because I wanted to do presentations. I did them because a lot of the best companies recruit out of case competitions, but because I did those competitions, I accidentally fell in love with speaking and my relationship with speaking took a complete one 80. So now bringing this back to our engineers, to our cold cut systems thinking, I’d even argue square, potentially engineers, and then How do we get them to love speaking?

[00:18:52] You’re speaking to my heart right now. How do you get them to love speaking? your point, I’ve trained a lot of engineers like yourself on how to get there. Because what’s cool about this, because we’re focused on the negative right now, but there’s also a positive, which is.

[00:19:04] You only need one good reason to do it. That’s right. Like if salsa dancing, your only reason is to make your wife happy. That’s a damn good reason. 

[00:19:12] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:19:12] Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s a good reason. Like latch on to it. So for engineers, what I found, there’s three or five that come to mind. Let me just list them off. Number one, it is learning communication for pro bono activities that you do outside of work.

[00:19:28] Here’s a typical example that I did when I used to work in tech myself. I would say a lot of engineering executives, they would put in so much effort in the presentation and I would ask them why. And the reason is because they had to present to organizations like Technovation, who were basically like kids, like ages five to 12, who are learning how to code apps, who don’t know technical that well.

[00:19:49] So they really had to dumb it down. And they would put so much effort because to them, it was like coaching their own kids to be technical. And they were superstars. And that’s one of many examples of how to do it. 

[00:20:00] Zach White: I like that. Who’s the person who you’ve seen turn that equation around the fastest? They hated the idea of public speaking, terrified of public speaking, did not love, did not want to practice.

[00:20:13] Like they were going to never come back to salsa class again, but they turned it around. Who stands out to you? what’s, what’s the biggest turnaround you’ve ever seen? 

[00:20:21] Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, that’s a great question. You’re having me think on the spot here.

[00:20:24] I would say the one that comes to mind is not a person, but a process. So the process, and I’ll probably think of the person in that explanation going back to salsa dancing. How do you make something as fun as possible? For me, the answer is make something easy and systematic where people get results really quickly.

[00:20:41] Yes. It’s the same thing in engineering. Hey, if you got 40 bugs in a system and you solve for five of them. There’s a momentum that gets built. You’re like, okay, well I solved these five. Or if you solve one super red bug, all the green ones are going to solve on their own. So how do we apply that to speaking?

[00:20:56] So one of those ways is through the random word exercise that we’ve talked at length with together privately and publicly, which is simply an exercise where you take a word like cup or something, and you create a random presentation out of thin air, right? But what’s fun, and the reason where I’ve seen a lot of engineers kind of 180 this, is it’s not just about the exercise in doing it.

[00:21:14] Yeah. It’s about doing it with their kids, doing it with their significant other, doing it with their aunts, their aunties, their nephews, their nieces. When that relationship starts to happen, it becomes more of a family activity in the car when you’re picking them up from school. This is a real story, dude.

[00:21:31] There are people Not even clients, just people in general, who will send me video messages of them in the car. Real story, with their kids in the back, and they’re doing the random word exercise together as she’s like driving her like kids to school. So what’s happening here is the energetic is, is changing around that.

[00:21:49] So you asked for a name, and Yvonne is one of those people that come to mind. she’s exactly that. She sent me a, a video for doing that, yeah. 

[00:21:56] Zach White: That exercise, the random word exercise, which, You know, in the last interview we did, we talked through it in detail. You have amazing videos explaining it in master talk.

[00:22:05] Go check it out. It’s like the basic step in salsa. you got to learn that basic step. You can’t do this fundamental movement. Then you are not going to build on these really flashy, exciting, the stuff you see in the movies and on TV, or if you go out to the salsa club and the stuff that makes you scared to get on the dance floor, all of that is built on the basic step, two thoughts, and I want to hear from you.

[00:22:30] where you would take it. One is you can do the basic step in a way that feels boring and rote. And it’s like this, this stinks. Salsa is boring. You can also do the basic step in a way that’s full of life and just experiencing it and letting it be great. again, it’s direct correlation to who masters the dance and who doesn’t.

[00:22:52] So what’s the difference in doing an exercise like that? These fundamentals. In a way that’s not actually going to create results versus it really unlocks the next level. 

[00:23:03] Brenden Kumarasamy: There’s a beautiful book on this by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy called The Gain and the Gap And I think that is the key difference because at the end of the day to your point to reemphasize it it’s the same step So what is the fundamental difference between both people and I think the difference is who is willing to?

[00:23:22] to change the energetic relationship they have associated to that skill. So you have the one guy at the salsa dance who goes after 10 steps, he still brings the same attitude, the same energy, and he focuses on the gap. Yeah, I mean, you’re right, Zach. I did this 10 times, but you know what, dude, I don’t think I’m going to get any better at this.

[00:23:42] Yes. And then the other person does the same 10 steps, same skill level, but they go, you know what? I can still get better at this. But man, just 10 minutes ago, I was struggling to just move and now I can do a nice movement. What if I did this 20 more times? So it’s the same person. It’s the same skillset.

[00:24:04] It’s the same movement. It’s the same exercise, but the only difference. Is the one person is focused on the gap one person’s focused on the game And that’s why in my coaching practice a big focus to keep it simple. There’s no secrets here I’m sure you do the exact same thing in yours. This is a rocket science what we’re teaching our clients, dude Whether it’s mindset or speaking.

[00:24:24] It’s just about I think our role as coaches frankly this to help our clients? See themselves in a different universe. That is it So good And the way that I do that in speaking is after 10 random word exercise, when everyone’s focused on the gap, I just have one job, which is just to ask them, Hey, were you more confident the 10th time you did it or the first time?

[00:24:47] Nobody answers the first time. Everybody goes the 10th. And I go, cool. What if you did 100 more times? 

[00:24:52] Zach White: And that’s the key. So good. Why? What if I go to the other end of the spectrum? we’ve covered some building blocks and exercises and basic tools that we all need to start with. What’s the most advanced dance move?

[00:25:08] So I’m so glad we’re talking about dancing today, Brennan. Your communication skills are next level. I love listening to you speak the way you craft questions, the way you answer questions, the way you engage, even just today, walking around with you. So thoughtful. It’s so clear. It’s so fun. It’s next level everywhere.

[00:25:26] what’s that top level, you know, gold salsa move. The one that everybody in the club is like, dang, you should see Brendan. He has this move. What’s that for you in communication right now? Like your most advanced skill. 

[00:25:39] Brenden Kumarasamy: Wow. My golden move. it’s even one I hesitate teaching my best clients because it’s so hard to master.

[00:25:46] I have two streams of thoughts right now. I’ll give you the one that I don’t share a lot on podcasts, which is a term I invented called kind of like lifestyle engineering. I love, which I love your term. I call my term communication agility. So communication agility means predicting in advance what will happen in a situation related.

[00:26:08] To comms and how to mitigate that risk ahead of time and I’ve had trouble coaching this to clients in all fairness I’ll give you an example because you apply this quite well, even without me telling you to apply it Which is something along the lines of let’s say we take a manager entering manager.

[00:26:23] We’ll take your typical client, right? And they come up to me and you, and they’re saying, uh, you know, Brendan, you know, Zach, I’m really stressed about speaking. I’ve been really worried about speaking the last three months. So most people will coach them through something like, okay, tell me more about like, where do you think that fear comes from?

[00:26:40] Or they’ll take more of a therapy approach. That’s not the approach I take. So the way I take it is I ask them to take a step back and I go, I want you to journal. For three minutes or five minutes, whatever you’re more comfortable with.

[00:26:52] What are the three communication situation that caused you the most stressed in the last seven days? And why, and this is a question no one really asks. This is what comms agility is and what I really dig through. So a client will do the exercise. They’ll, they’ll go through it and they’ll say, you know what, Brendan, now that I think about it.

[00:27:09] It’s actually not three. It’s just one. And that’s, what’s causing me most stress. I was like, cool. So tell me more about that situation. Let’s say that person’s name is John. So John will look at both of us and say, you know, Brendan, you know, Zach, there’s this one manager who is always asking me a ton of questions and just barraging me.

[00:27:27] And it always increases my anxiety level. 

[00:27:29] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:27:30] Brenden Kumarasamy: And I go, great. How much time have you spent preparing for that meeting that week? That’s specific one. Cause you can’t prepare for everything. Oh, I haven’t thought about preparing that at all. Ah, now we find a tangible, practical way to play the advanced dance.

[00:27:43] And I think what I’ve done in my career very well is I do this with everything. So even with the conversation we’re having right now, I was thinking about this podcast interview three months ago. So I was like, man, it would be so cool to do an in person podcast with Zach. I don’t think he does a lot of them.

[00:28:00] Oh, okay. I have to make him feel more comfortable because I don’t think he does a lot of in person shows as a host. So I got to make sure he’s comfortable interviewing me. Okay. That’s one. Two is I should be on time, right? Cause there’s a lot of traffic in LA. Oh three. Okay. I’m going to go back. to a studio where I actually know the producer because I already have a relationship with them.

[00:28:17] There’s not going to be any delay. So the last time I didn’t have the relationship and there was a delay. So what I’m doing here is I’m practicing communication agility. So if you predict you win. 

[00:28:28] Zach White: Okay. Well, first of all, thank you for your agility creating this moment, because to your point, we would have been on zoom and it would have been amazing, but not what we can create together here.

[00:28:39] Exactly. a coaching lens. One of the things that I talk about a lot with my clients, especially my mastermind, is the power of presence in the moment when it comes to listening and not over indexing on guessing or predicting or assuming where a conversation or where a situation is going to go.

[00:29:03] It’s like if you’re in the room and while you’re talking, if I’m formulating my next question, then this conversation is going to be garbage. You know, it’s just like the kind of podcast where people just read off questions and the guest answers them and the boring is all like, ah, so it doesn’t flow properly.

[00:29:17] I gotta be with you. And if I over index on prediction rather than presence, then we don’t create magic in the room. And so how do you have agility, which sounds incredibly important without losing presence? I love the challenge. It’s a fantastic point 

[00:29:37] Brenden Kumarasamy: and I’m like a real 

[00:29:38] Zach White: question. I don’t know how to do that 

[00:29:39] Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:39] it’s a great point and i’m still learning that too because there’s no perfect silver bullet here to solve Here’s here’s what present brendan will answer right now and we’ll see what brendan in five years will answer What comes to mind right now is we both can be right.

[00:29:54] I think it’s an and situation, not an or. Because I, I concede the argument to your point. If you’re trying to play this agility game in real time, kind of like if I was trying to do that right now, it wouldn’t work at all. It completely derails the conversation. Increases a ton of stress.

[00:30:12] And I would advocate once the moment is happening to exactly do what you’re preaching, listening. And there’s ways we can talk about how to practice that more that I don’t think we covered in other shows. We can talk about that if you want, but like being more present, listening more, how to do it in a practical way from an engineering perspective.

[00:30:29] So that’s one point that I’ll just leave as a bucket here. But then the other piece is just because We need to be present doesn’t mean there’s no planning involved. And that is a key difference. Let me give you a simple one that I think engineers will relate to, which might not be like agility because you asked for the number one move.

[00:30:48] So let’s go down a little bit, a couple of notches, accessible for the 

[00:30:51] Zach White: rest of us. The 

[00:30:53] Brenden Kumarasamy: world where we live, Brendan. Right. So, so one of the frameworks I was teaching your clients while you’re hanging out in Fiji is the framework I teach called ACE, which is an easy way to crush status update meetings that I felt no one else taught.

[00:31:05] So I just had to invent a new framework because a lot of the times when you enter a status update meeting, you go in blind, you go like, Oh, yeah, you know, I don’t have time to prepare for this. Yeah, you know, the project is going well. They’re kind of all over the place. They don’t sound like managers.

[00:31:19] Zach White: Random bullet points of all the open issues or just whatever. 

[00:31:22] Brenden Kumarasamy: Exactly. So I was like, guys, there’s an easy way to solve for this. Ace, acknowledge count of value. I’ll go through it really fast. Acknowledge people. We live in such a virtual room now. We’re forgetting to build the relationship. If you want to be in management, it doesn’t matter if you’re the best in the room.

[00:31:38] The VP has got to know who you are. The SVP, and you preach this so well, by the way, they got to know who you are. At the end of the day, there’s one position. If there’s two people with the equal skill and one person just knows the guy and the other person does not know the gal, you don’t get the job. So acknowledging and acknowledging doesn’t mean asking people about their dog.

[00:31:56] It’s just saying, Hey, it’s great to see you start the meeting. Number two, count, tell people how many updates you have. By the way, Zach, I have three updates I want to share with you today. If you just start rambling and it’s been five minutes, People are looking at you like, dude, what is this guy going to stop talking?

[00:32:13] And number three, evaluate, just end strong and with, that’s it from my side, always happy to take your feedback. Thank you so much. And if you say that enough, the languaging is really clear here. If you say this enough times, eventually people will step aside, step you aside and go, you know, Zach, you’re always asking for feedback all the time.

[00:32:31] I really liked that about you. Let me start mentoring you. And then you become an automatic sponsor for promotion I love that. 

[00:32:39] Zach White: the planning aspect of that versus the presence in the moment. So you’re in that update meeting. The VP stops you on your second of three updates and wants to go deeper.

[00:32:53] Your ability in that moment to still hear the question, get clear, make a decision, communicate what needs to be communicated and not say, Oh yeah, my, my plan was three quick updates, et cetera. Not in conflict. I would agree with you on that. As far as these two energies of. Agility and planning. It’s kind of reminds me of Robert Cialdini’s second book, Pre suasion.

[00:33:14] Uh, this idea of conditioning ourselves and setting up the room for success before we begin that little opener, Hey, we’ve got three updates today. That one line sets up the room for a successful interaction because now you’re not wondering, am I going to talk for two hours? I’m able to contain my updates into a framework and a formula.

[00:33:41] Lots of good things there. 

[00:33:43] Brenden Kumarasamy: And let’s stay in that nuance because it’s really good because you’re allowing me to go into pieces where I just can’t talk about where it’s kind of like this idea of, how do I listen and ask really good questions? I’m sure you’ve heard that one a lot. it’s like, well, I got to say something smart and I also got to listen to you.

[00:34:00] And my reaction is always, wait a second. We should be practicing these things one at a time, not both simultaneously. So the question is more about saying, let’s take a step back and for this next interaction, you’re just practicing how to listen and you get really good how to listen and then you practice how to ask questions.

[00:34:20] And then the final nuance to that is. the corporate meeting, which is we’re in high stakes comms right now, which is, okay, I’m worried about what my manager will say. Well, let’s separate planning and presence where it becomes, let’s practice the planning with our coach or a friend where they’re not going to interrupt us.

[00:34:40] Let’s practice ACE. Let’s put it on the table. Let’s do this in front of Brendan. Do this in front of Zach, do this in front of John, Julia, whoever you want. And you practice it 30 times. So that can 100 percent be controllable and there’s no risk because Julia is not your boss. But then when you master the planning, you get a lot better at being present because you’re not worried about the nuances of the conversation.

[00:35:04] And that’s how you break it down. I want to go back to that bucket 

[00:35:09] Zach White: of listening. I just did a Really deep session. Actually, right after your sessions on comms, the speaking aspect with my mastermind, I came in for the final session that month, because the whole theme of the month was communication. Oh, was it?

[00:35:25] I said, all right, Brendan taught you how to talk. I’m going to teach you how to listen. And we talked about the different levels of listening and what it really means to listen deeply and how do you master that skill? So I’d love to hear your lens. What role does listening play in speaking? And how do we get great at listening?

[00:35:45] Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely. Honestly, I just feel like listening to your frameworks now. I have to watch a separate bit. Please tell me yours. 

[00:35:51] Zach White: I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me. Yeah, 

[00:35:52] Brenden Kumarasamy: yeah, absolutely. So I’ll give you the one that I think is the most interesting in my Rolodex of frameworks, which is this question I answered very early in my career, thankfully, around being pissed off about how people preach listening, but we don’t have practical ways of measuring success in listening. 

[00:36:11] everyone tells us to listen, especially for an engineer who is very like problems focus. How do I know if I’m improving? How do I? Yep. And I actually found a solution. It’s very simple. It’s a strategy I teach called the goals. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this one from me yet. But the goals call simply this and you don’t even have to do it with corporate.

[00:36:32] You can do this for fun. So it’s a very simple call. This is how it goes. Let’s say I did this on you really quick. It’s a 60 minute call or 45 minutes and it’s just a conversation about your goals. So the conversation would just go like, okay, Zach, I want you to take five minutes 

[00:36:46] And I just want you to write down your top three goals for the year and why they’re important. So you take five minutes. You write in the school, but so far, pretty simple, easy. And then after those five minutes elapses, you share everything that’s on your piece of paper. For five minutes. So at this point, we’re 10 minutes into the call.

[00:37:04] Then after that, I have to repeat everything that you save word for word. Just to make sure I got it, Zach, these are your three goals. This is why it’s important to, is there anything else that you feel you’d like to add that you feel I missed in the recap and almost always they’ll go yes or no, but they’ll still add something.

[00:37:22] They’ll go like, yes, you got it right. Let me add some more. So at this point, 15 minutes has passed. But here’s the kicker. For the rest of the 45 minutes of that call, you are not allowed, under any circumstances whatsoever, and you notice I’m changing my tone of voice here, you are not allowed, under any circumstances whatsoever, to give advice to that human being.

[00:37:47] The only thing you are allowed to do for the remainder of the call is to ask for advice. Clarifying questions around their goals. So for example, let’s say you came up to me I do this with all my besties all my best friends all my top clients. I just love them That’s why I got good at the goals cause I’m a shit listener.

[00:38:04] That’s why you’re the podcast host and I’m the podcast guest I don’t have a show people ask me. Why don’t why don’t you treat people? I’ll tell you why cuz I’m not good at it I like talking. So hey, so you’ll master you’ve already mastered it. So what’s the punchline? The punchline is If you’re saying, Hey Brendan, I want to grow my business.

[00:38:23] Hey, tell me Zach, where’s your business at right now? Where would you want it to be? Can you talk about your business model right now? If you had to change one thing about your business, what would you change? What do you think is missing? And I’m, and all I’m doing is ask you questions and repeating what you’re saying back to me and ask you if you want to add on, you do that with a hundred people, you’ll be a master listener.

[00:38:42] Guaranteed. 

[00:38:45] Zach White: I like your framework. Thank you. I’m not sure if I want to share mine now. You know, what’s cool. Even we’re not doing it live, the actual goals call, but just you saying those things activates a different part of my brain. Like I start getting excited about answering those questions. I’d love to answer them later today.

[00:39:06] It’s like, yeah, let’s do, there is something special about not just that process to master listening. But you’re giving that person a real gift by talking with them for that length of time about their goals, their dreams, their desires. Like when was the last time somebody just said, I want to give you the gift of my attention, the gift of my time, just to know you in the context of who you want to become, that doesn’t happen.

[00:39:37] I mean, even with a lot of coaches, you’ll talk to, it doesn’t happen, let alone with a friend or something. So I just. You 

[00:39:45] Brenden Kumarasamy: hit the nail on the head, brother. And I’ll even add on to that. You know what? I always tell my clients is that as a coach, I’m a leader of leaders. So what that means we are essentially.

[00:39:56] So we lead people who lead people. That’s essentially what we do. So I told them I won’t be working privately with the people that are working under you. I might never meet them in my life. And that’s not the point. The point is in the same way. And I ask all of them, raise your hand. If you’ve ever done a goal is called given one and nobody raised their head.

[00:40:15] And I go, you have an opportunity as a leader of leaders to go to the people who either can’t afford coaching or can do coaching or don’t believe in it, or are not mature enough for it yet. You have an opportunity to be the only person in their life. To give them a goals call. It is not just a gift. It is the most important gift that you can give somebody.

[00:40:40] And the best part is that that gift that you’re giving somebody doesn’t cost a dime. It just costs your time. So are you going to play the game to be a leader or not? Cause a lot of people play big talk about saying, I want to be a manager. I want to be senior manager. I want to be, what does that mean?

[00:40:58] What it means is, are you willing to at least sit your friends down for a ghost call? Because if we’re not willing to do that imperfectly, because I sucked at it, but I’ve done 300 now, so I’m great at it. If we’re not willing to do it imperfectly, then we don’t deserve to be leaders in our organization.

[00:41:13] Zach White: Let’s go. That’s so good. One of the moments in my process that relates to this, and I’m actually going to tweak it, I think we can improve it based on what you just said. But when I meet someone for the first time, we’re in our, our first one on one coaching session, which now since starting the Oasis of Courage, I think we’re at like 950 people that I’ve had an hour or more one on one with all engineering managers, leaders, people in tech, and you start to pick up some themes and what’s true.

[00:41:45] When you talk to all these leaders in that call, there’s a moment like what you described, usually 30 to 40 minutes into the call. We’ve talked about where they’re stuck. We’ve talked about why they’re not making progress, why they’re unhappy, what’s not working, what their goals are, what their dreams are, everything in the way of the roadblocks.

[00:42:04] And then we’ll pause and do that recap and say, all right, let me see if I’ve got it. And I’ll take 40 minutes of conversation and replay that to them. With what I heard. In a, 90 second or less recap. And you see it on their face in that moment, that sense of feeling heard and understood, if I get it right, you know, at the beginning to your point, man, I botched it at the, oh, he’s not, you know, I’m using my own words.

[00:42:38] I really wasn’t tracking. I wasn’t listening to them. I was formulating things or thinking about selling them stuff instead of serving them all of those rookie mistakes. And 

[00:42:46] Brenden Kumarasamy: I made all of them myself, 

[00:42:48] Zach White: but now. When you do that call, I’m thinking of Corey, who I just talked to last week, and you see it on his face, that sense of, like, yes, that’s it.

[00:42:57] And I will ask them in that moment, before we go on and talk about solutions, before we do any work to solve that problem, what’s been most valuable for you just from having the conversation? 

[00:43:13] Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s a really good question. 

[00:43:15] Zach White: Guess what the most common response is. Probably the recap. What about the recap?

[00:43:22] Like, what do you think they actually found value from? I’m curious, just your intuition. You’ve done so much coaching. You’re so good at it. 

[00:43:27] Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s a great question, man. I would say what comes to mind now from a client’s perspective is hearing somebody else communicate their own problem back to them in different words than the ones they were using in their mind.

[00:43:43] So it gives them a new perspective. That would be my answer right now. 

[00:43:45] Zach White: Yeah. That’s, that’s really close. And it’s super common to have someone say, hearing you say it like the way you said, it really helps add to my understanding, but the most common response, and it is the recap. So you’re right. But they basically tell me I’ve never actually had anyone take the time to help me get clear and flush all this out at once.

[00:44:09] I’ve never put it all on the table before and then looked at it for what it is. Yeah. Just talking about this created more clarity for me. And even if they don’t do coaching with me later, if this is the only session we ever have, I’ve had people come back to me months later and say that one call changed this and this and this, and this just, so I love the goals call.

[00:44:31] Everybody needs to go do that. 

[00:44:33] Brenden Kumarasamy: And you are the executioner of the ghost call. You’ve done it more than me. 950 times. My God. I probably done like 300 times in my career. So congrats, man. Yeah. It’s the 

[00:44:42] Zach White: very first session I have with anybody who even wants to consider doing work with the oasis of courage, because if you don’t have that conversation 

[00:44:50] It’s like, we don’t have a basis. For us to launch into a transformational journey, if we can’t have that conversation. And if you meet someone who’s unwilling to share those goals, unwilling to open up about it, for me, that’s a sign they’re not coachable. And I don’t want your money because you’re not going to get any results from coaching.

[00:45:08] So do you want to hear my framework? I do. Of course. That’s what I asked for. Okay. I said, I would tell you what the fans are waiting for. If you told me yours. So listening, which to me, the mastery of the voice, which is where you are just genius. it’s like the one edge of the sword. If you don’t know how to listen, you’re missing out.

[00:45:31] I think it’s, they’re so important to compliment, which you already mentioned, but I think of listening as levels and I get the core of this from the co active coaching models of CTI, the, the coaching technical institute. I forget the acronym, amazing coaching group. The book is co active coaching. So level zero, This is when you’re on your phone, you’re watching television, you’re, on the computer, and somebody’s like, you know, Hey Zach, uh, curious what you think about blah blah blah blah, and then suddenly you’re like, What?

[00:46:05] Not listening, or you and I are here, but you’re somewhere else. Your mind is in a whole nother world. You’re not listening. So you could be literally in the room. The person’s talking. You’re not listening. That’s level zero. I am thinking about burritos. No, those burritos looked amazing. Okay. So if you’re at level zero, you got to realize that ultimately it begins.

[00:46:29] If you want to get off level zero, with letting go of selfishness. you’ve got to have some level of investment in the other person. You got to care about the person. If you are completely wound up around yourself, your own problems, your own things, you’re going to get stuck at level zero, level one, level one.

[00:46:44] Listening is when you’re listening to respond. I’m hearing your words, but I’m listening to your words for the sake of formulating my response. And you know, you’re at level one. When there’s that internal chatter, I’m already thinking about what I want to say while you’re still talking. And I’m guilty of this.

[00:47:09] It happens all the time. You know, and maybe it’s because you have a really smart thing to say. Who knows? and this is when people interrupt you to say the thing that they need to say, right? It’s like, you’re at level one. Level one listening is about my agenda, not your agenda. 

[00:47:26] Brenden Kumarasamy: I 

[00:47:26] Zach White: love that nuance.

[00:47:26] Yeah. So it’s like, If I’m listening at level one, it’s because I still care more about me, my image, me looking smart, me answering the question, than I care about you. That’s level one. Level two is listening to understand. In level two, I am listening to what you’re saying, not because of what I care about, but because I care about you.

[00:47:50] And I’m on your agenda. What does Brendan really need here? What is Brendan really asking here? How can I actually help Brendan? And I’m not thinking about my response while you’re talking. I’m just thinking about you while you’re talking. It takes a lot of practice and trust in yourself and that listening works to do it because you get to the end of whatever the person’s saying and there’s that scary void of silence while you’re now formulating, where do I go from here?

[00:48:20] What do I say? Where does this, you know, and that’s what coaches invest their life mastering, but you can get better at this. you know, you’re at level two when the mind chatter quiets your energy is totally on that person. And you stop assuming what they want you to say, and you trust yourself to say whatever comes up.

[00:48:41] So I can tell you’re at level two with me right now. Cause you’re just hanging on this frame. You’re listening. You’re with me. So 

[00:48:48] Brenden Kumarasamy: What would you say to that? I mean, let’s hope I’m at level two. Let’s, let’s test that out. So, so let’s recap, please. Whatever. So number one, level zero, no listening, none. Oh, you know, like, Oh, wait, I got that.

[00:49:01] So that’s level zero. Level one is listening to respond. Yes. when we’re listening to somebody, we’re mostly thinking about our agenda. Like, okay, what’s I need to make sure I need to say what I, what I need to say, so I sound smart in this conversation or that I achieved my goal. 

[00:49:16] Zach White: That’s right.

[00:49:16] Brenden Kumarasamy: And level two. Listening to understand we’re shifting from our agenda to your agenda. How do I serve you? What can I do to support you? I love it, man But you know what? I love the most about your framework and I want to hear more if there’s more there’s a level 3 I’m so curious what level 3 is. But what I love about your framework is that it’s very tangible And understandable.

[00:49:42] It actually solves the similar problem that I was talking earlier about, which is like, how do you measure success? Well, that’s very easy with your scale. I’ve heard it before, but I’ve never heard it in such a cool, systematic, practical way. Cause you could look at an engineer and go like, cool, dude, you think you’re a great listener?

[00:49:58] Let’s take a look and see if you really are a great listener, which part of the scale or, and there’s ways for us to test that. 

[00:50:04] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:50:04] Brenden Kumarasamy: Little indicators. 

[00:50:05] Zach White: You can reflect. On any conversation just ask yourself. What level was I at? Yeah, and the truth is we bounce between them Yes, you know you’re going to be at level one You’re going to catch yourself and you need to bring your energy back to the other person Yes, and as a coach, it’s my intention to always be at level two or level three But it happens you’re on a conversation and something distracts you or something pops up in your mind and it’s like meditation It’s not that that’s a bad thing.

[00:50:30] It’s just that discipline of saying. Oh, no, there’s that internal chatter That’s not why i’m here Bring the focus back. 

[00:50:36] Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah. And before you share a level three, I’ll share a personal vulnerability of what I suck with just to be open that we’re all working on something. I have this ego in my mind of, and a lot of us have this where when we hear something that we feel we already know.

[00:50:51] Or understand the level starts to go down. So like if I’m listening to, to somebody, you’re actually way better at dealing with this, but that’s what I’m learning from guys like you and Vamsi and other mentors of mine, what’s I’m, I’m, I’m coaching somebody and they’re telling me about their problem.

[00:51:08] I go like, oh my god, I’ve coached 50 people on this program. You’re insane. Are you kidding me? So I stop listening to understand and I start listening to respond. I go from understand to go like, no, no, no, I’ve already solved this from 50 other people. Yeah, let me give you the fix. Let me just give you the fix.

[00:51:23] So that’s why I need to work through it. Now I’d love to hear level 

[00:51:25] Zach White: three. All right, level three, and then we’ll land the plane. Level two, it’s about your agenda. It’s a selfless act of listening. It’s a high energy listening, but I’m listening to what you’re saying. Level three listening is when I start listening with my whole person and it’s not just what you’re saying.

[00:51:43] I’m also hearing what’s not being said. I’m hearing what your body language is telling me. I’m hearing what the energy of the room is telling me. I’m hearing, and I’m seeing, and I’m feeling, There’s a certain intuition that happens of like, Brendan said that this is a gap for him.

[00:52:02] Is that gap really the thing that he’s stuck on? It feels like he’s using that gap as a distraction to not talk about the real problem. And in that moment, instead of asking you more about your gap, I’m going to say, Hey, it feels like there’s something else you’re not telling me. It’s that ability to read.

[00:52:25] in between the lines. That’s level three listening. And it’s total ninja jujitsu mastery level. And it’s incredibly hard to do without focused intentional practice. and you’re going to get it wrong. You’re going to say that. And they’d be like, no, like this is the thing. Cool. It’s all good, but that’s level three.

[00:52:42] Brenden Kumarasamy: I’ve struggled with level three for a long time. Not just from, uh, me listening. Because I think some part of us, which we don’t cover probably in engineering, are intuitively gifted.

[00:52:51] That’s why we’re, coaches. But I think the other piece is going like, how do you teach somebody else to get to level three? What’s your thought process? I have mine, but I want to hear yours. Teaching level three 

[00:53:02] Zach White: is all about the humility to just go back to the basics again and again and again. And I believe that the unlock for level three is actually in the heart, not in the mind.

[00:53:18] Level three unlocks when my Compassion, my love, my care, my concern, my joy, my hope, my, everything starts to become not about me, but about you. When that starts to unlock and it happens in my heart, then the ears will catch up. Like the rest of it, the skill will develop, but it begins, the unlock begins with caring so deeply about the conversation and the person on the other side that you’re willing to bring that amount of energy because listening is harder work than talking, I think.

[00:53:51] It’s so much harder because speaking, you know, there’s a certain self to it. There’s an ego to it. And that’s comes more naturally for me. Listening, you know, listening is not about me at all. It’s all about you. So that’s the unlock. I think. 

[00:54:06] Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s beautiful. I love that and I’ll give mine because I’m sure you’re curious too.

[00:54:11] everything you said I completely agree with and also I got to work on a lot of that myself. I’d say the other piece that I found has helped me is two things. One is pattern recognition and the second one is not being afraid of being wrong. so the first one is pattern recognition. Eventually if you listen to enough people.

[00:54:31] To add your nuance with love, with more compassion, eventually, you start to realize some nuances about similar types of human beings that you can pull from, but it’s not as easy to your point. The other point, which I think is that was the big unlock for me. That I teach other people now to think through is not being afraid to be wrong.

[00:54:53] I’ll give you a funny random thing. Like, uh, there’s this thing I’m really into now called human design. It’s kind of like horoscopes, but I feel it’s more legit. It teaches you a lot, but I think the value of these things, and I would even bucket people won’t do this. I personally don’t, but let’s just do it.

[00:55:06] Cause it’s an engineering podcast. Let’s bug it. Human design, horoscopes, astrology, all the stuff that engineers probably don’t believe Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it, but here’s my business case for it. You know, what’s interesting about these things, Zach, is it opens the door to conversation that otherwise never would have occurred.

[00:55:24] So let’s say me and you are sitting down together. We’re going through a human design, right? And what what’s nice is like in that nuance, you go, well, actually, no, I disagree. And here’s why, but that here’s why creates an interesting nuance.

[00:55:37] And I think sometimes I touch level three and I feel really good about myself. And then I go right back down to level two is like, I’m not afraid to just throw out assumptions as long as I approach the conversation with the right intention.

[00:55:53] Hey, my goal from this listening conversation of me practicing level three is not to hurt somebody’s feelings It’s more like this is an assertion i’m making and the first couple of times are just dead wrong And then it’s like I want you to be comfortable telling me why i’m wrong and then when they do it’s not just about them Do it’s also what is the reaction that you have when that person tells you you’re wrong?

[00:56:16] So when somebody goes like Well, no, Brandon, you missed the point. And instead of going, Oh shit, like this suck. I’m going like, yeah, you’re right. I screwed up. Tell me more. And that creates the kid. 

[00:56:27] Zach White: Sir, every engineering leader I’ve ever spoken with. Needs to spend more time with you with us. I, I want you to just lay it out there.

[00:56:39] Uh, tell us how to connect. What’s the place to go find more from master talk from Brendan, your amazing team, where should people go? 

[00:56:47] Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely. It’s like, this is an enlightening conversation. Thanks for having me, man, on the show. Super easy. Just go to Instagram. Go to my handle, master your talk, your spelled YOUR, and just send me a DM letting me know that you listened to the podcast and what you got out of the show.

[00:57:03] Zach White: Amazing. 

[00:57:05] Brenden Kumarasamy: I want to 

[00:57:06] Zach White: acknowledge you for just a moment. Last time we talked gold Mine after Gold mine after gold mine. Getting to know you has been an incredible pleasure. We’re here live in LA for the Summit of Greatness. The second time we’ve been together at this event, all the work you do is world class and I know that you have changed more lives.

[00:57:26] Through your free stuff, you know, who knows countless lives with all the value that you give on your, your YouTube channel and on Instagram, but also your clients that are, you’re radically changing the future for them. And so thanks for the work you do, man. 

[00:57:38] Brenden Kumarasamy: Thank you, brother, man. You’re such a gift to the world and I, and I get to be a part of it.

[00:57:42] So lucky me.