Blaze Your Own Trail - Mastering Communication with Brenden Kumarasamy

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

In this episode of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, host Jordan Mendoza interviews Brenden, the founder of MasterTalk, who shares his inspiring journey from overcoming childhood adversity to mastering the art of communication. Brenden discusses his early struggles with language and physical disability, his academic transformation in high school, and the pivotal role of case competitions in developing his public speaking skills. He emphasizes the importance of individual paths in education and offers practical tips for improving communication skills, encouraging listeners to invest in themselves for personal and professional growth. Takeaways Brenden faced adversity from a young age, learning French while struggling with a physical disability.His early interest in math led him to choose accounting as a career path.Brenden's transformation in high school was driven by a crush, motivating him to improve academically.He emphasizes the importance of individual paths in education, especially for immigrant families.Brenden discovered case competitions as a way to enhance his communication skills and secure internships.His journey into public speaking began as a necessity to escape poverty and improve his career prospects.Brenden's YouTube channel, MasterTalk, was born from a desire to share effective communication strategies.He encourages practicing communication skills through exercises like the random word exercise.Brenden believes that consistent practice leads to mastery in any field, including communication.He highlights the importance of investing in oneself to achieve personal and professional goals. Connect with Brenden: https://www.instagram.com/masteryourtalk/ /www.linkedin.com/in/brendenkumarasamy/ https://www.youtube.com/c/MasterTalks Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn Instagram TikTok Order a copy of Jordan's new book The Life-Changing Power of Adversity The Blaze Your Own Trail Podcast is exclusively sponsored by CityGate Studios Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza, and I'm your host, and I'm so excited to be joined by an incredible guest today. A guy I've actually been connected with for quite a while, and we're just now getting him on the podcast. His name is Brendan. I'll let him tell you the rest in a quick intro. Brendan, if you can, tell everyone who you are, where are you from, what you do, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. For sure, Jordan. Thanks for having me.

It's great to be here. And it's been a long time coming. I know me and you have known each other for many, many years. And we're just downvading now. So, so grateful to finally meet you. Yeah, man. So my name is Brady Kumar, Sam. I'm the founder of Master Talk.

Master Talk is a YouTube channel that I started to help the world master the art of communication and public speaking. And then outside of communication tips, I also train a lot of sea level executives and execs in general, how to get rid of their arms and Oz, how to speak with more conviction in the boardroom. And it's been a fun journey. I love it. Love it. And, you know, towards the back end of the show, we're going to definitely get some tips because there's folks out there that want to be better communicators. You know, maybe they just don't have someone that's given them the right advice. So I'm excited to be able to talk about that here. But my favorite part of the show, as we were kind of chatting offline, is really taking a rewind. I want to get context into your story, into your journey. And the only way to do that is to take that rewind back to the past. So we're going to focus on the adolescent years. So elementary, middle school, high school. So where were you born and raised? And, you know, what kind of kid were you, man? What did you get into? Were you more into academics? Were you into sports? Let's find out about little Brendan and dive back in time. You know, funny enough, Jordan, I'd probably still a little

Brandon, my relatives to some other guests you've out on the show. But yeah, man, I would say for me, I was born and raised in a city called Montreal and Canada. For those who don't know, Montreal is a city where you need to know to speak French, which is a language I didn't know. So I remember when I was five years old, my dad came up to me and he said, you know, you got to learn French, man. You've got to learn this language if you want to be successful. So my whole life, I presented in a language I didn't know. That was pretty much my childhood. In terms of the type of kid I was, I would say the type of kid I was, I was pretty outgoing, especially when I got to speak in English. So when I was speaking in English, I was a pretty outgoing kid. But whenever I had to speak in French, I was super introverted because I just

couldn't keep up the language. I couldn't articulate really well. And then the other piece as well is I had I have a physical disability of my left arm. It's like crooked because of an accident I had when I was born. Basically what happened was like I was born upside down and they had to use like a vacuum to pull me out. And one in a thousand surgeries, the pull like has an error in the vacuum. And I just happened to be that that one in one thousand. That's what caused kind of dislocation of the left arm.

So I had like a cast for like most of kindergarten and first grade. And then I would say until sixth grade, I wasn't really good at anything. I wasn't really passionate about anything except like a math. And I just, I chose to be like an accountant when I was in sixth grade. And it was only after I got to high school that I really started focusing on academics. Okay. Well, appreciate you giving that context. And, you know, for those of you that are listening, what I just heard is like,

Brendan had to face a lot of adversity when he was younger. I mean, you talk about, I'm learning French. I've been learning French for probably the past, I don't know, six months. It is not easy. I'm actually part owner of a company that's based in La Lulluvie. Belgium. And guess what? They speak French. It is a predominant. There's French, Dutch, and in German. And so, man, I'm with it. French is not easy, especially as a 43-year-old learning French. Way harder. Okay, so that's hard. Let's switch the podcast to French then. Right? Yeah, let's not do that,

and the other thing is, I mean, you know, having something happened to you that, you know, you had no control of when you're born, and then this thing happens and you have to face that. But when you all see this podcast, he's still smiling, right? There's something that he could be upset about because it's probably not easy in some circumstances, but he's still smiling and he found a way to look at the positive side of things. And I don't know how you did that. We'll probably get into that here soon. Maybe who have been some major influential people in your world that have helped you kind of see things in a positive light. But let's talk about math because I hate it. And it's something that you were good at and you focused on. So when you say you're good at it and you became an accountant

in sixth grade, which, you know, that just sounds bad terrible because I'm not a numbers guy, but what was it about math that intrigued you? Was it that it wasn't challenging or was it more of a game? Like, I'm so curious now. Yeah, totally, Jordan. I think the reason why I was good at math is because it was one of those subjects where what you get in is what you get out. So let's say you're learning an equation. Well, on the test, it's going to be the same equation, just spin a little differently. So if you practice enough times, eventually you understand that two plus two equals four and you can you can figure it out. And the other piece, I think it just came easy to me because it wasn't, I didn't have to try. Because until the seventh grade, I wasn't taking my

studies seriously at all. And my parents were so upset by it. I'm, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The whole immigrant mindset, right? When you're a second generation immigrant like me and you're just born in the first world country, whether it's the states or Canada, you take your life for granted. You're kind of just like, oh, like I just live in abundance. Whereas my parents immigrated from a Sri Lanka, which is a small country south of India, from a civil war in the late 80s and early 90s. So they basically came to Canada's war refugees, which ended up being a gift for us, so they got automatic citizenship.

But the point is, my parents were infuriated with me because I was not taking my life seriously, which is okay because you're 12 years old. But, you know, they always told me, like, the gift that you have is like a gift that not a lot of people have, which is not the gift of intelligence, the gift of just being in this country. So they always encouraged me to make something out of it. And the math, I think it just became like a forcing function. For the accounting thing, I wish I had a super cool story around this, but it really isn't the case. So basically what happened, Jordan, is when you're a kid who doesn't grow with a lot of money, like my parents were factory workers. My dad was a heavy alcoholic.

Like he lost his job when I was like 12 or something. So I was basically a single mom until from like 12 to 19, from my, from my age of 12 to 19 until I kind of got a job in accounting and then life changed a little bit. But the point was the reason I chose to become an accountant when I was in the sixth grade wasn't because I was passionate about numbers or because I cared about numbers. It's because our career counselor came up to us and said, you got to figure out what you want to do in your future. And that was the light bulb moment. And I looked at every other kid in class who was smarter than me. And there was a lot of kids who were smarter than me, probably at least 10 of them. And they all wanted to become dentists, doctors, or engineers.

So I said, cool, everyone who's better than me at math, maybe there was 10 people better than me at math in class, wanted to become engineers, doctors, and dentists. None of them wanted to become accountants. So let me just be in account. That's it. I just did it because I thought it would pay the bills. I love it.

That's awesome. So, you know, I find that people are either good at math and it comes. easy or they really struggle with it. I think that's just kind of, I mean, I see that as I'm a father of six. Wow. I did not know. Yeah, four boys, two girls. My kids are between four months old and 19 years old is our oldest. And so we've seen a lot of math come across our dinner table. And some of the math that I see now, I'm like, yep, no, I'm out. This is mom. Like mom's going to do this because she was like AP calculus, APs and all the things. You know, I just actually checked out when the alphabet started getting integrated. I was like, all right, you want me to learn numbers? Now you're putting letters in here.

I'm out. You know, and so what do you think is the hardest thing for people not getting better at math? Is it just the reps? Or would you say that some people maybe just aren't built for the subject? I love the questions you're asking me. This is super fun show to be on. So the, so what I would say is it's definitely a lack of practice. And analogy applies when we talk about speaking later, which is what I do now, is if you just don't practice, you don't get better, right? Like the first podcast interview that you did, Jordan, I'm sure, was a shit show. It was absolutely terrible versus like now where you're like super confident and you know how to direct the flow of conversation. I think the same is true with math where because I ended up being a math tutor temporarily, basically the long story shirt.

I probably did like three sessions, but it just wasn't for me. I was good at tutoring it. I just didn't like it. Where like one of my mom's friends who's like a favorite auntie of mine, we call her Pushpa Auntie. She came to my house with a bunch of rolls, which is like the Sri Lankan delicacy. It's like amazing. There's like meat and potatoes in it. And she was like, please coach my son.

Like teach him how to do math. And I was like, what is this? And I was like, I don't want to. And she's like, I'll make you like 20 rolls. And I was like, okay. So I sat him down and he was getting like 60s in math. And I just said like, it's just a formula. I just practiced.

And he got like a 95 on the next test. So this is about practicing it and having someone who can like slowly explain the formula and how it works. That's really the key. It just really comes down to practice. practice and frankly just optimizing for every problem that you need to solve for. So if there's a kid who's really smart at math in your class, not that I expect anyone in the audience to be in high school still, but basically what you too is you, or maybe some of you have like kids who are in high school. So you go up to the smartest kid in math. You see how he solves the problems or she solves the problem. And then you just duplicate that and you'll get 90s in math pretty much. Yeah, I think my issue is actually now that I just kind of take my own dive back in time. It wasn't really math. that I didn't enjoy. It said I was more into breakdancing and I wanted to break. You do look like a breakdance. Well, I started in 1995 after I watched the movie Beat Street and I just would like practice all the moves in my room on the carpet and then I moved to a new middle school in eighth

grade and some songs came out. I just started busting moves and that's kind of how I made all my friends. And so in high school I was more interested in break dancing in the halls than math. So I think that's probably what it was. And when you have ADD, and you're distracted. Math is definitely not something I was interested in. So I didn't put in the reps either. So I think you're hitting this on the head, Brandon. I think we're figuring this out here.

Totally. You know, it's funny. We kind of live life in the opposite direction. Like, you started hating math but loving breakdancing than later in your life. Now you're starting to learn a lot more math and accounting because now you're writing like multiple businesses, right? Whereas me, I'm the opposite to you where I started with the math.

I don't do any breakdancing, but I love dancing. Like I don't drink at all, zero because of my dad, right? So I was like, I'd ever wanted to get drunk. I've never been drunk once in my life and I'm 28. But man, do I party. I go, I go to clubs, I go to night clubs, and I will dance until three. There you go. Like some maniacs.

I'm just honored that at 43, I still teach breakdancing. And I do it in my garage, multiple 12-week semesters. And it's awesome. And it's just, it's great exercise. It keeps you healthy, which is great. and when you're doing calisthenics for an hour, I mean, you're definitely going to have a full body workout. So yeah, if you ever want to learn some moves, brother, I happen to teach you.

Yeah, for sure. Where do you live? I'm in metro Atlanta. I'm in metro Atlanta. If I'm ever in Atlanta. I'm in the States a lot. Like, I was in Michigan for a month. I've never been to Georgia, though.

But if I'm ever there, I would love to set up for your dad's breaking class. We'll link up for sure. All right, so let's talk high school. So you became an accountant at, you know, sixth grade. and then you're going into high school, and now you're kind of, you know, you got people trying to push you towards these career options and choices. So what was it after high school?

Is this something where your parents were like, you're going to college? I don't care what you say you're going to go to college, or was it like, hey, like, we want you to do what you want to do. Just kind of give me the route and, you know, having an immigrant parent myself and fathers from the Philippines, jump ship in the 80s to get that slice of the American dream and built his business and now move back and retired.

I kind of know the route that, you know, certain parents go, but I just love to get, I hear it from you, which route did yours go? Yeah, totally, Jordan. So a couple of things. So the first thing is what created the switch from? Because I chose to be an accountant when I was 12, but I had no idea when an accountant was. So that's one. But the second thing, and the reason why I started focusing on grades, you would think it's because I had some epiphany moment and I just started working hard and realized that I needed to take advantage of my gift. It wasn't the case. I actually fell in love with a girl when I was 12 years old, a girl named Valerie.

She was so smart. I don't talk to her anymore, but she was like this really smart girl who had like braces on. And she was like the smartest kid in class. And I was like, man, if I ever want to be dating this person, I just got to be smart. That's literally what happened. So I actually still remember this. I was in class with her. And the guy was named Mario or teacher. And we were doing a, and you're going to hate this because you're learning French right now. We're doing like a French verbs. And you know how complicated they are because there's Pass et Sainte de Ver, Ver, Ver, Ver, Ver, and ver. Yeah, that's, yeah.

And I'm sure, I'm sure you have a copy of the Bacheles somewhere in your, in your house, which is basically like a French verb dictionary. Like, the verbs are so complicated in French, like you need a full dictionary to understand them. So I would always fail these exams because I sucked at French. It was my first grade, my worst grade, I mean. So that way, when I got to sec one, which is called in, which is basically grade seven and in the American system, When I went to grade seven, they had to put me in an improvement program for French because I was getting 50s. And I always get 50s in these things.

But because I fell in love with this girl, I was like madly in love with her. She was like the first love of my life. So I said, okay, let me like study for one of these exams. This literally what happened. So I had a couple of days to study and I went into my verbs and I started memorizing like, jean, jean, I started learning all this stuff. And then Mario was kind of calling out everybody's. grades, like after that exam was over. And I'm just laughing because the semester's about to end. And he goes, Brendan, and I'm just joking. He's like, dude, you know I'm getting 50. And he smiled and

he gave him. He's like 87. And I was like, whoa, I got an 87 on this test. I was like, come on dude, this is not my test. He's like, yeah, this is your test. Great job. And he was shocked, too. He's like, how the freak did Brendan get 87 on this time? And that's what I realized to the proxy of Valerie in my life that if you put more work in, not always, but most of the times you just get a better output. So by the time I got to high school, I started taking my grades really seriously. And my score average went from like, I don't know, maybe like 70%. I think I ended high school with like a 91% class average. And I think I had the second best grade in math in the entire school. One guy beat me, but it's okay. So he's a good friend of mine. So it's all good. But

very cool. That's what happened. Okay. So academics became important, obviously driven from a girl. But, you know, it helped kind of show and awaken some things in you, A, that you could do it, right? That was possible. But then what those reps actually meant, right? That they meant that your outcomes were going to be better. It was almost like you want better, you want more guaranteed outcome, do more stuff, more consistently. And honestly, since June for me, I was 246 pounds this past June.

Really? In the last, you know, less than six months, I've dropped 62 pounds. and I've lost, I think, six waist sizes. My skin is more clear. I'm going to be 44 in February, and I feel 25 right now. I know what it takes took to get there, and all of it is exactly what you said. It was putting my head down, putting in the reps, making better choices, knowing what I wanted the outcome to be, what the goal was.

And it still was one of those things where I had to shift from, let me just lose some weight because I know I can, which I don't. done in the past so many times to let me make some lifestyle changes that I know I can keep up with. And man, what a difference in shift that it's made because the result of all of that is more energy, more mental clarity, obviously in better shape. So my heart rate is lower. I can move quicker. I mean, it's just like all of these things happen as a result of putting in the work. And so what did that work that you put in for your high school years equate to for you? Did that turn into scholarships? Did that turn into opportunities? I'd love the audience to see what a culmination of hard work looks like on the outcome end.

Yeah, I mean, a couple of things there. Number one, congrats on your transformation. I never would have thought you weighed 240. Whenever had the image of you over the last five years? Because you're a breakdance, right? Number, I never saw you as the guy who's 240 because you're always like two busted moves. So really, really cool to see the transformation you went to, Jordan, which is similar to what I've done and what I did. in academics where, and you know this better than I do, or just as well as I do, which is when you put effort on one singular thing, regardless of whatever that thing is, you did it in break dancing in your life, you did in health, you did it in podcast, and you're doing it with your family, obviously. Now you're doing it in a business, and I've done it in business as well, but going back to high school, academics was probably the first time in my life were actually committed to doing something. And the second one was martial arts. So I got forced into martial arts. from like the age of 13 to 18 because my cousin wanted somebody to go with basically.

And it was an awesome vibe. You had to get dragged along and then probably start enjoying it, I'm sure. I actually didn't enjoy it. But man, did I get better? I got so disciplined because I'm actually thinking of going back next year because I've had a 10-year hiatus now. And my health is good. It's not like I'm getting any weight or anything because I have a really fast metabolism

and I have a really strict diet. I do O-MAD every day. So I only eat once a day. But I need to get back to that old version of myself. So I might end up doing martial arts. But really the lesson from all of this is when you focus on one thing, just singularly, and you start to see success, you start to stack gold medals on your life. And once those gold medals start stacking, you start to believe through tangible practical evidence

that everything else you could possibly do in the future, you can ace as well, just through consistent hard work. And that's really been the case with me. Basically, my high school days were boring, George. Like, most of my time were focused on studying or video games. Like, I used to play this game called Runecape. And then I got into a game called League of Legends. I played it professionally when I was a kid. I just loved League of Legends and I played RuneScape.

And anything outside of those two games, I was just studying. I was in the books trying to get the best possible grades so that I could land into a really good college for accounting. Oh, and the last piece that you asked me about that I forgot to answer, was around my parents, right? And you know this in immigrant land. You can be three things. You could be an accountant. Oh, no, you could be four things.

An accountant, an engineer, a doctor, or a loser. You get to pick kind of which one you want. And it just turned out that in my case, I just ended up picking one of the paths that my Indian slash Sri Lankan family wanted me to take. But it was also the path I wanted for myself. Things get a little bit more interesting later in my career when I quit that job to do what I'm doing.

doing today, that created a little bit more tension. But definitely when I was a kid, I actually had no animosity or fighting with my parents because it just turned out, in my specific case, that the traditional path they wanted me to take was the one I wanted to take for myself anyways. I just told them straight up that I didn't want to be an engineer or a doctor. So they were a little disappointed by that. But I said, hey, I'm still going to get a boring job and make a bunch of bunny anyways. So they were happy with that. There we go. So let's share with the audience, you know, what did that look like after high school? What were the fruits of your labor? You got into a college and how was that experience? Like which one did you pick? Where did you go? And then where do you put

college on the value scale? Because I didn't go to college, but I felt like having a 15 year career in corporate was they were paying me to go to school. So I feel like I did go to college, but I got paid to do it versus going when I was finishing high school, knowing that I would probably party and blow my money or parents money, you know, just kind of having that self-awareness. So I would love to find out what was the route you took, where did you end up going, and then what's the value you see on college and is it for everybody in 2025? Yeah, that's a great question, Jordan. So I'll give a pretty nuanced perspective here. So after high school, how the education system works in Montreal, which is a little different

than the rest of the world, is there's like an in between from university and college called SESEP. So I went to Dawson College for two. two years. And I did like a commerce degree for two years. And then from there, I went to Concord a university and I finished with an accounting major, essentially. And the point from all of this is you really have to do the math individually for your own circumstance. So for example, let's say I have a son one day and I'm sure I have kids one day over the next decade. And my son, not with Valder Fritha, with somebody else, because she ended up being crazy, which is a story for another day. But let's say my son is really good at handsmanship.

Like he's just really good at like plumbing or being an electrician. Let's call this person Bob. So it does not make sense for my son Bob to go to college. Why spend $40,000 a year to when you can just go to trade school, spend a few thousand and you get a six-figure job right out at the gate? So for that person, it makes sense. Versus like it doesn't make sense rather to go to college. Or if your goal is to be like,

In specialty trade, you want to be a doctor, you want to be an engineer, you want to be an account, you want to be a lawyer. You're going to go to college. You want to be a dentist. Go to college. Obviously, it's a specialty degree. You know you're good at it. You know you're going to do the homework. You know you're smart because you've done the work and you know you're smarter than the other kids in school in that specific thing in academia, right? Not general intelligence, but just academia, then play that game. And then obviously the third one doesn't really apply for guys like us. But if you're a Nepo baby and you just have rich parents, well, yeah, the play is always college if you have rich parents because college gives you something that other social

situations does not give you, as we know as adults now, which is relationships, real social capital. Like people that I knew in college, and if I had went, if I had rich parents, I would have just went to Harvard. Because when you're friends with kids who go to Harvard when you're 19, 20, 21 years old, and they're all big and famous 10 years later, they don't want anything from you because they know you were friends with them long before that, so they'll start calling in all the favors and you'll just make a bunch of money with that network. So college is a really individual. It's an individual path, but you have to do the math. Whereas I will say, though, which doesn't really apply in the American context, if you're Canadian, most of the times you really want to go to

college, because college is significantly less expensive in Canada. Like, I was spending like five grand a year. That's how cheap university is in Canada. And I paid off my debt in like a month out of school. It wasn't like a big decision that we had to make. And we got paid internships during, so I pretty much made money off of my degree. But the key is it's really taken from an individual perspective. And then I got into Dawson and then I started my degree in accounting. And that's really when my life started to change. Love it. Love it. And I love the answer to it's got to be a case by case basis. You know, and how do people determine whether it's for them or not? Well, I think you made a couple great points. Like if you notice,

someone's natural, God-given talents and abilities, let's invest in those. So if you see strengths in somebody, some strengths we can just see they're visible to the eye. Other strengths we need to actually like extract from us. So I always tell people like, hey, if you've never like taken an introspective look at yourself either through like a strengths finder assessment or emotional intelligence or a personality assessment, really in just kind of learning about you, those are some great tools to help you learn about who you are, how you're wired, what your strengths are, you know, how you show up in relationship, social settings, things like that. And those are tools that I personally took in corporate that really helped show me and point me in the direction of some

areas that maybe I didn't think were strengths. And then I was able to invest and triple down in those areas and really able to capitalize off some tremendous growth. And I don't think enough people invest in themselves. So I'd love your take on that. You know, what are your thoughts on investing in us so that we can have a better outcome of the decisions that we make, whether it's to go left or whether it's to go right? Yeah, totally, Jordan. I think for me, what it comes down to is when you come to investing in yourself, A, start by, here's like my general rule of thumb, A, start by figuring out what is your dream? Like, what is it that you want out of life? And I'm not asking for something perfect. Just a general idea is fine. Like, for me,

if I never became an accountant, I never would have went to accounting school. But if I never went to accounting school, which we haven't talked about yet, but we will in the show, I never would have done case competitions. And if I never did case competitions, I never would have built the expertise to even do master talk and do what I'm doing today. So the key is really sequencing. It's figuring out what is something that you desire right now. And the best way of doing that is to just write 50 things. We call this exercise 50 desires. So you just sit down and you just write down 50 things that you desire or 100 things that you desire, whether it's career or even just like you want a piece of toast every morning. It doesn't matter. Just write a bunch of desires. And then from there, you kind of circle

some of the different career paths that you're interested in. So let's say, let's play this out. You want to be a plumber. So then B, part two is to go see, oh, what are some videos online that I can research on being a plumber? And then you start to learn the business a lot more. Okay, let's go to trade school. Let's do this. And the third thing is, let's say you go to trade school, you become a plumber. And then you go, you know what, I'm making six figures working for this guy, but I want to start my own business. Okay, like your own plumbing business. Now it's like, okay, who's teaching people how to build plumbing businesses? Who's got the best free content in the world right now on building plumbing businesses? And that's when investing yourself becomes a good idea in whatever that

program is, because money speeds up time. Money speeds up time. So for me, a good example of this is in 2019. Now I spent a bunch, too much money probably in programs and stuff. But I was getting, when I was getting started, I was making 60 grand U.S. I was working as a technology consultant at IBM. Basically, I got a job at one of the big

for accounting firms, Pricewaterhouse, Cooper, and then I just said, I don't want to be an accountant anymore, and I got a job in consulting, which I enjoyed a lot more. And then, but the thing is I didn't tell you is my family had $35,000 family debt that they owed other people. So even if I was making $60 grand a year,

I was paying off our debt. So I don't really have that much money. But I saved $1,000 because I really wanted to go to Summit of Greatness, which is an event hosted by a podcaster named Lewis Howes. He has like a really big podcast called School Greatness that I'm sure you've heard of. And he runs this event. He used to run it in Columbus, Ohio, and now he does it in L.A. And I just wanted to go there because I've been listening to his podcast since I was like 19 years old or something.

So I spent the thousand. The ticket was 300. The flight was 400. And I stayed in a $30 a day Airbnb. on a Lofa sofa, and I met my business partner there, my life change. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Yeah, so let's definitely get into it. So you, you obviously, you go to college, you get, you mentioned you got the degrees and now you're working, but then you actually, you mentioned a competition. And so talk a little bit about,

what was that about? Why did it even come up? You know, where did this, where did this thing kind of come from accounting and speaking? I mean, those are, accounts are usually pretty introverted and quiet and not ones that want to be the person with the microphone. So, like, talk a little bit about how this transition or pivot or maybe unexpected moment happened. Totally, Jordan. I think it's a long story short, and then we'll get into the nitty gritties of this all, is that we're both great examples in the world of people who weren't 100% sure what the next step was, but because we just took in perfect action, the gates of life just opened up for us. That's basically what happened. So let me give you some context. I'm 19 years old. I'm in my first

semester of business school. I'm in an oversized suit because I couldn't buy anything else because that's all I could afford. So I got a prom suit from Sears, basically, when I was in high school, and that's what I would wear. It's like a $100 suit. It wasn't fitted or anything. And I get there, and I still don't know when an accountant does. Because remember, my parents are factory workers. I don't know anyone at the business world. I don't know anything. I just knew I was good at math, and that's why they let me in. And I was like, okay, cool, it's fair what this accounting thing is. And then I stumble on the John Moulson Accounting Society, which is basically the accounting association for students in that school. Like they have like little frat clubs, right?

Kind of like frats, fraternities, but this is by major. So I'm like, okay, I should probably come to these events and stuff. And I would go to these events and I would meet students who are like Jesus to me, like two, three years older than me who had internships at like really cool companies. And I was like, what do you think I should do? They all told me you should work for one of the four accounting firms. If you work for one of the big four accounting firms, Deloitte, KPMG, artist and Young, or which one am I missing?

PWC, Price Waterhouse Coopers that I thought was a water bottling company, because they had water in their name. I didn't get, that's how lost I was. They said, if you get a job at one of these companies, Brandon, you could easily make $300,000 a year if you work there and grind it out for 10, 15 years. I was like, $300,000 a year? What? Like, my parents are making $20 an hour. What do you talk? Or $15 in hour or $10 an hour.

So that basically became my salvation. So I'm not going to tell you this amazing story about how I fell in love with speaking. That was actually not how it happened at all. So I figured out this becomes my new dream. And then I start asking all of these gods, right, these people who had interchips at KPMG and PWC, who were playing volleyball with all the accounting partners. And I was like, how did I get a job at one of these companies?

And what they told me, surprisingly, they didn't say get good grades. They said, Brandon, you should do case competition. And I'm like, like everyone listening to this podcast. What is the case competition? Yeah, what the hell is a case competition? They're like, oh, you know what a case competition? So basically what it is, Brandon, is it's like, think of it like professional sports for nerds. So while other guys were playing rugby or football, nothing wrong with those things.

Case competitions are basically presentations competitively. So Nike gives us a problem like, hey Jordan, hey Brendan, we want to open a new store. We can either open it in Barcelona and Spain or in Atlanta, Georgia, but we only have money to open one store. Which store should we open in why? So that's an example of a case problem. And then me and you have three hours to read the entire case, look at all the data, crunch it, make slide decks. And at the end of the three hours, we have to present it oftentimes to executives of that company. Love it.

So now the question is, why do case competitions exist? Because there are a filter system on who's good and who isn't. So if I'm an executive at Nike, I'll drop 1020K to sponsor this competition. Because I want to see who's fresh. Like, who's fresh? So the best students would come up and go, good after. to the board of Nike. My name is Brett. And they would like impress people. They would like, wow. And they would give them jobs. So the reason I started refining my communication skills,

wasn't because I like doing it. It wasn't because I was passionate about it, Jordan. It was because I saw it as my ticket out of poverty. So I took it. That's it. Yep. Awesome. Yeah, I have a little different reason of why I started talking to people. It was because I grew up in Portland, Oregon. We were super poor, you know, food stamps, government housing. And so we didn't have any money. And so I knew that in the state of Oregon, you can get five cents deposit for every can. And so I literally went door to door starting at five years old, knocking on doors, hey, I just want to see if I could have your cans. And I would collect cans until I got enough to get some candy. And I'd just go about my merry day. And that turned into being better at fundraising

in sports than the sports. And then that turned into doing door to door at 14 and getting told no a hundred times and not wanting to quit to fast forward five years a door to door, 200,000 noes before I turned 22, and then a 15-year corporate career. So I looked at communication as like survival. It was like, how can I leverage this ability to talk to get things that I knew I couldn't get otherwise? And so I kind of had a different angle in why I wanted to do it. But it's always interesting because usually it's not the thing that people think.

You know, usually it's not the reason that everyone, that you want this, like, great story or something, and it usually is something different, kind of how you explain. So let's now talk about master talk because you essentially, in my eyes, were mastering, talking by doing the pitching, because you were putting in the reps and getting in front of people that were going to give you feedback. And these are people that you looked up to, or were in positions that you wanted to be in, or companies that you wanted to work for. So when did it in your mind, when did you realize, A, that you became a better communicator because changes aren't that noticeable to us. But once we do recognize it, that's kind of when the light bulb goes off. So when did you recognize it? And then what were some of the initial steps you took

before eventually starting your YouTube channel that's now been growing and all the public speaking that you do and all the other awesome stuff you're up to? Yeah, absolutely, Jordan. Thanks for that, man. Yeah, basically what happened, and I really love what you shared around communication being about survival for you. It's really interesting because we have a very similar life. That was exactly my game as well. It's just my hustle wasn't Cans when I was a kid. It was Amazon Mechanical Turk.

So when I was, a lot of people don't know what this is. So when I was 13, 14, 15 years old, Amazon has a website called mturk.com. And that's going to be extinct now with the rise of AI and everything. But back then, back in the day, maybe it was 15 years ago. For tasks that could not be automated,

companies would create these little jobs, like five cents a job, 10 cents a job. for that jobs that only human beings could do. Seeing if there's adult content in an image, it's just the reason I was able to get on M-Turk was because I used my dad's name. So even if I was 15, I was still using his dad's.

And I made $1,500 on EMTur. I was making like three bucks an hour. And even in between lunch breaks at school, I would like do these little things. And I used that to buy a bunch of video games and all that stuff. So we're cut from the same cloth. So going back,

to the story of doing competitions for survival, but not really because I liked them. I did end up getting that intership. So I got I got scouted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and I got an internship there and it was the best day of my life, really. At the time, I was like, oh my God, I finally got this internship.

And I was like, I still remember when I was 20 and I was, I'm getting goosebumps saying this. I was standing inside the building. It's like at the 20th floor. And I was looking at the window. And I was like, I can't believe I'm here. I couldn't believe it. Like, none of the other interns, they hired like 30 interns that summer.

None of the interns, like, really cared that they worked at PWC. They're like, yeah, it's a cool company. My dad's a partner here or, you know, and I was just sitting there and I was just like, man, I can't believe that I get to be here. It was so cool. And it was an amazing experience. I ended up working there for like a year and a half or something. And the work wasn't easy, but it was, it was awesome. But the point to how this all transition to Master Talk was, I'm like the Michael Jordan that nobody gives a shit.

shit about Jordan, which is funny, because I've never said that to a guy named Jordan. So I'm like the Michael Jordan of, of, that's nobody gives a shit about. Why is that? So when MJ was playing basketball, he was a dick to all of his employee, like to all of the other teammates and he was pushing them to be better. I became that person in case competition. So what I didn't realize what happened in my life is I started winning, no, sorry, I started doing competitions for the sake of getting a job, but then I started losing them. And I was like, wait a second, Brendan doesn't lose. And then, because I'm ultra competitive. Then I was like, I'm not losing competitions. And I sort of refining my speaking, getting rid of all my ums and things like that. It wasn't even about the job anymore.

I ended up getting the job. But it was more just about winning competition. I was like, freak, if I'm going to do these competitions, I better be on top. And then I started winning competitions consistently across the world, really. Like this is, I know this sounds really weird, Jordan. Like we literally fly out people to Singapore to Serbia, to the University of Florida, Pennsylvania, just to give presentations. It's like a whole party. It's a wild thing. So little did I know by the time I was 20,

I became one of the most talented communication coaches because I started running the program the year after and I just started coaching everyone in the pro I had to speak. Not because I didn't make a dollar doing this. I just told my executive to him, hey guys, we got a bunch of losers in this program. Like if they don't communicate really well,

they're going to lose all these competition. So I figured out how to become a coach. And then long story short, by the time I was 22, I coached 40 people on how to speak. I got a great job at IBM. And three months before I started working there, one of the 40 people I had coached asked me a question I didn't know the answer to that started Master Top. And the question was simply, how did you learn how to speak? And I was like, Gaziz, what are you talking about, dude? He's like, well, Brett, you coached all of us. Like, how did you learn how to speak? And I was like, well, I don't know, man. Like, I just practiced a lot. I did a little bit of

toast masses, not that much. And then I had three months. And then I had three months. to kill before I started working my job, Jordan. So I opened the internet. I went on YouTube.com. I typed public speaking tips. I didn't even know there was YouTube videos on public speaking advice. And I was horrified by what I saw.

I would watch all these videos. They were all super boring from like old guys. We're like my colleagues now that I deeply respect, right? But I was very immature back then, as I should be. And I was naive and I was like, that's not how I coached Susie to get better at speaking.

You have to do this, this, this. That's how I coached John. Why are we talking about being yourself? That doesn't make any sense in speaking. and do this. And I just started making videos in my mom's basement. I called it MasterShok and I had the ego to think I could do better. But I didn't expect to be the person that I am today. Love it. Well, all it takes is that one first video. You know, and that's kind of what sparked it for me on LinkedIn in 2019. You know, the video I posted and got five views. All of them were me because I kept rewatching the thing, you know. But that's just how it works. You know, we have to be willing to put ourselves out there. So I just want to say kudos to you because a number of times in your life, I and just kind of seeing the parallel is you've not been afraid to put yourself out there, regardless of ridicule, regardless of what someone might think. And that's, it's not always an easy thing to do. But I think because of your environment that you grew up in, the circumstances,

the trials, those all mean something. And a lot of people don't realize that adversity truly gives us strength. And it enables us to see through a lens that no one else will ever be able to look through. And I know that that's helped you grow. And I want to really, what I want for the audience from you is what are the three things that they can do today to be a better communicator? So let's share three tips. And then, of course, I want you to share, you know, what's the one place you want people to go after listening to this where they can contact you if they hear these tips and say, man, those are great, but I need more. I need to invest in me. I need a coach.

I need somebody that can not only. help me grow, but can actually get me to the next level. Yeah, absolutely, George. Appreciate it, man. So I'll just give the plug really quick and then let's focus on the tips. So if you all want to follow my work, the easiest way to do this, go to my Instagram because you're going to have trouble finding me on LinkedIn because of how difficult my name is to spell.

So what you want to do is just go to Instagram type, master your talk. Your is Y-O-U-R. And just send me a DM on Instagram and let me know that you listen to this show. And I'll send you a voice note and just say hello to you. So that would be the best way to keep in touch. Now let's get to the tips. So bringing this back to the industry, right? I was probably one of the youngest guys to get into communication, Jordan, like into this field.

Because most people, and you know this, right? Most people in my field have PhDs in communication. They went to like Ivy League schools in speaking. They're faculty professors in speaking. Whereas my background is not that. I'm literally an accounting guy. I have a crooked left arm. I spoke my whole life in a second language.

Most of the angle I came from is like, what can we do in speaking? In the same way, you lost 60 pounds, which is, is an amazing transformation. You did something to get that result. So what is that do in communication? So the analogy I use, and then I'll give the tips, which is simply RQV, is if you go outside with a mic, you know those TikToks where you like go and interview people? So let's mean you're like in Atlanta, Georgia for some random reason and we're just like interview people on the street. We can even ask obese people. People are unhealthy. Hey, what are the three things people should do to be healthier? They'll still give you the right answer. You know, eat the right foods, go to the gym more.

maybe, maybe like get a personal training. It's very simple. Like, eat the right things, walk every day, type of thing. But if we ask the same question to the general public on, what are the three things people can work on on speaking? Nobody knows. Talk more. Speak more.

Nobody knows, right? So really a lot of my thought leadership is about simply telling the public, what are the three things that you can do today, like right now, to guarantee results in speaking. So I'll give that to you right now, which I simply call RQV. Let's start with R. the random word exercise. Pick any word you want.

Headphones, scotch, I already said headphones, Mike, hoodie, renovations, as you can say, I've done some renovations in my house. Whatever the word is, pick a word and create a 60 second presentation out of thin air. No preparation in advance. The reason this exercise helps is it improves your fluidity. So if you talk about like tissue or toothpaste or like cup,

when you go back to your expertise, it's going to be really easy for you to speak. And here's the best part, Jordan, you got six kids. You have a whole army of people you can practice the random word exercise with. So I encourage all of you who are listening to this, do this with your kids, do this with your family, do this with your buddies, and only focus on the following. You get points for doing the exercise a lot, not doing the exercise well. That's exercise number one. Exercise number two. Q, question drills. We get asked questions all the time in our life, Jordan. At work, job interviews, right? Sales calls for entrepreneurs. meetings that were running podcast interviews and were being interviewed on a media show like this one

and a lot of us are not ready for the question that life has in store for us. Quick funny story on this. I mean, you could deep it to be funny or not. I guess I'll leave it up to you. So what else, what I was getting started on on podcasting, you mentioned Junet, Junet was the third person to have me on the show and on a podcast. I've probably, I've probably been on like 500 now, but like when I started, but I was just taking whoever was kind of throwing a leftovers at me. I was kind of like, Yeah, I'll just do it. And I remember I got asked this question, not by Juneade, but by somebody. And he was like, so, Brennan, where does the fear of communication come from?

And I was like, I don't know, dude, Tokyo, maybe Dubai, maybe New York City. So I didn't know the answer. And I was really frustrated that I didn't know the answer. So how did I fix this? Every single day, George, I wrote down on a piece of paper one question I thought the world would ask me of my expertise. And I answered it. That's all I did. And if you do that for a year, one question a day, you'll have answered 365 questions about your industry.

Absolutely bulletproof. If you're in corporate, write down all the questions you got this week. Reanswer them on your own time. You'll be amazing. And finally, V, gratitude video messages. Take out your phone. Pick somebody you really love in your life. Could be a best friend, a pal, and just send them a video message.

20 seconds. Hey, I'm thinking about you. I hope you have an amazing day. I just want to say I'm really grateful for you, Jordan, for having me on the podcast. That's it. That's all you have to do. And there's only one rule to this exercise. Do not retake the video.

Whatever you make, you have to send. That is it. And I'll encourage you to do 100. And the last point that I'll leave you with, Jordan, is the following. I have yet to meet one human being, just one, who hasn't paid me a shit ton of money to work with me. I've yet to meet one human being who has texted me on Instagram with the following. Brendan RQV is awesome I did 100 random word exercises

I did 100 question drills and I did 100 video messages can you tell me what to do next there's a one person who has a text to be that so what is the point in five years I've been doing this actually I've been this as a business for five but I've been doing this for a decade almost I would encourage you to be the first person the goal from a communication podcast

is to not listen to Jordan and Brendan speak and go wow this is cool you guys can speak no the goal is for you to say can I put 15 minutes in my calendar every single day practice the random word. Like says, practice RQV, practice the question of the video message. If you do that, 100, 100, 100, 100, you'll 100% see results. Love it, love it. Love the challenge. You heard it here first, guys. You know what to do. So we will put the ball back in your court. I think I posted on

Facebook or, you know, they now have like you can add a note on Facebook or on Instagram. And I said, change comes from within. You've got to want to change. So if you want to change the way that you communicate, follow this system, DM Brendan, or better yet, have it be one of the reps that you put in, send him a 20 second video and say, thanks so much for these tips that I heard on the Blaz Your Own Trail Podcast. I'm sure that would mean the world to Brendan. Brendan, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're definitely a true Trailblazer. You haven't just blazed the trail. You're still doing it, my friend, and I cannot wait to stay connected and find out about all the other stuff that you're up to. So thanks so much for coming on the show.

And everybody, we will see you next time. Next episode will be a solo episode. Man, what an amazing show today. Brendan, thanks so much. Thanks, brother.