Episode 22 Clem Dwyer Connects Storytelling, Public Speaking, and Fraud Detection

A strong story can inspire, teach, persuade, and mislead. Clem Dwyer brings his experience as a keynote speaker, workshop trainer, and 2025 D60 International Speech Champion to a wide-ranging conversation about what makes communication effective and why storytelling remains one of the most important human skills.

The conversation explores Clem's IMPACT framework for communication, the role of identity and message, the difference between confidence and manipulation, and why charisma can be both powerful and dangerous. Clem also shares how a childhood stutter shaped his path toward public speaking, coaching, and helping others find their voice.

Episode Show Notes

Hosts

Emanuel Petrescu
Kevin Carney

Guest

Clem Dwyer, Keynote Speaker, Workshop Trainer, and 2025 D60 International Speech Champion

Topics covered

• Storytelling as a foundation of human communication
• Clem Dwyer's IMPACT framework: Identity, Message, Passion, Articulation, Charisma, and Technique
• Storytelling, culture, heritage, and identity
• False stories, online wealth narratives, and shortcut culture
• Charisma, persuasion, and polished communication
• Communication challenges for immigrants and people with accents
• Why listening is as important as speaking
• Clem's experience overcoming a childhood stutter
• Toastmasters, feedback, and record-and-review practice
• Vulnerability, mental health, and personal stories
• Questions that expose fraud, weak claims, and false expertise
• Macroeconomic narratives, banking, and public misunderstanding
• Political messaging, branding, and social media influence

Episode Timestamps

00:00:18 - Introduction to the episode and guest Clem Dwyer

00:01:15 - Emanuel introduces Clem as a public speaking champion and storyteller

00:02:36 - Storytelling as an ancient source of status and connection

00:03:44 - Why stories preserve lessons across generations

00:05:19 - Storytelling, collaboration, culture, and human survival

00:07:36 - A story about inherited habits and forgotten context

00:09:12 - Clem introduces the IMPACT communication framework

00:14:30 - Public speaking, filler words, hybrid communication, and classic storytelling

00:18:18 - Fake success stories, shortcut culture, and online wealth narratives

00:20:43 - Fraud, Forbes, Theranos, and persuasive false stories

00:23:07 - Charisma, dictators, celebrity status, and the power of words

00:26:06 - Rhetoric, immigrants, accents, and communication barriers

00:27:45 - Speaking clearly, listening patiently, and two-way communication

00:31:52 - Toastmasters, public speaking fear, and presentation skills

00:33:42 - Clem shares his childhood experience with stuttering

00:40:28 - Internal stories, self-perception, and how others see us

00:41:04 - Vulnerability, mental health, and sharing personal struggles

00:44:30 - Thinking in one language while speaking another

00:45:56 - Record and review as a communication-improvement tool

00:49:35 - BS detection, fraudsters, and polished communicators

00:53:01 - Macroeconomic narratives and accepted stories

00:57:09 - Political tribalism, banking narratives, and persuasion

00:59:29 - Using simple stories to challenge complicated claims

01:02:20 - Banking, savings, financial education, and misunderstood systems

01:04:06 - Donald Trump, branding, social media, and political communication

01:09:07 - Closing reflections and where to find Clem Dwyer

01:10:36 - Curious Pundits closing

Episode Links

• How Did Prehistoric Humans Survive the Fear of the Dark?
• Clem Dwyer on LinkedIn
• Clem Dwyer's website
• Clem Dwyer on YouTube
• Banks are not intermediaries of loanable funds

About the Podcast

Hosted by Kevin Carney and Emanuel Petrescu, two curious minds exploring ideas, culture, and everything in between. Curious Pundits is a conversational podcast where each episode starts with a topic that caught our attention and unfolds into thoughtful, unscripted discussion.

Their main ventures are 1307 Digital and Organic Growth.

Entities mentioned in this episode

People

Kevin Carney
Emanuel Petrescu
Clem Dwyer
Patrick Boyle
Elizabeth Holmes
Sam Bankman-Fried
Martin Shkreli
Warren Buffett
Steve Jobs
Bill Gates
Elon Musk
Justin Trudeau
Mark Carney
Pierre Poilievre
Donald Trump
Ronald Reagan Sr.
Ronald Reagan Jr.
The Tate brothers
Scheherazade

Organizations, companies, and institutions

Toastmasters
District 60 Toastmasters
Forbes
J.P. Morgan
Theranos
Rogers
ICE
Central banks
Commercial banks
Schools
Libraries

Media, platforms, and tools

YouTube
Netflix
Instagram
Facebook
Zoom
Google Meet
Microsoft Teams
PowerPoint
Descript
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Podcasts
Radio
Television

Places and regions

Canada
United States
North America
Toronto
Eastern Europe
Ancient Greece
Scotland
India

Historical and cultural references

Neolithic people
Prehistoric people
Stone Age tribes
Homo sapiens
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
The Little Engine That Could
Arabian Nights
The Wizard of Oz
COVID-19
The Great Depression
The 2008 recession

Concepts and subjects

Storytelling
Public speaking
Effective communication
IMPACT framework
Identity
Message
Passion
Articulation
Charisma
Technique
Fraud detection
BS detection
Hybrid communication
Rhetoric
Macroeconomics
Neoclassical economics
Loanable funds theory
Private debt
Money supply
Political tribalism
Branding
Mental health
Vulnerability
Feedback
Record and review
Stuttering
Immigration
Accents
Culture
Heritage

Transcript

[00:00:18] Kevin: Welcome to another episode of the Curious Pundits podcast. I'm Kevin.

[00:00:22] Emanuel: And I'm Emanuel.

[00:00:23] Clem: And I'm Clem Dwyer. Thank you for inviting me here, gentlemen.

[00:00:26] Kevin: Clem, thank you for being here. So today's special guest is Clem, and Clem is a speaker, coach, communicator, and the overall theme of today's episode is effective communications, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And what we're talking about is... well... clem has a six-step program, I don't know if that's the right way to say it, in terms of teaching people to be... a framework...

[00:00:50] Clem: Yeah.

[00:00:51] Kevin: In which he teaches people to communicate more effectively. And Clem is gonna give a short overview of his six steps.... looking for the right way to say this, but I have a bad habit of speaking when I should probably wait a little more. So I'm gonna resist doing that until Clem is completely done, and then it's gonna segue into our usual free rambling conversation around this topic.

[00:01:15] Emanuel: Before that, I would like to introduce Clem a little bit more, because I know Clem, and I've seen him speak many, many times. Clem is also a public speaking champion with worldwide recognition. I would say worldwide champion, but not yet, but in the making. And he's an incredible storyteller. Now, if you ask all the important people, thought leaders, philosophers, even some rich people around the world right now, what's the single most important skill that anybody should possess when it comes to the future that will benefit for the future? It's not coding, development, AI, or anything like that. It's storytelling. So if you want to at least have a chance in the future to keep your job or to have any kind of relevance in the society within your family, learn to tell stories. And Clem is an excellent storyteller, and I think that even if he would tell us about, I don't know, the label of the detergent, he'll still make it very, very interesting. So I do recommend search for him, and we'll drop links, and we'll put in the description where people can find you. And you have some YouTube videos that are incredible as well, and to follow him and his podcast that he will launch at one point. But we're blessed enough to have him today. So welcome Clem, and looking forward for today's episode.

[00:02:35] Clem: Awesome.

[00:02:36] Kevin: Can I make-- I'm doing what I just said I wouldn't do, but you haven't started yet, right? Can I just make one comment to layer on top of that something that I stumbled across very recently that supports everything we've said so far? It was a short video on YouTube about... some channel that talks about how Neolithic or prehistoric people lived, this particular video was about the fact that dark was a real problem for prehistoric people because the things in the dark that were nocturnal predators had access to you, and for that reason, we would build fires because they didn't like fire, and that would keep us safe, right? But because it was dark, people couldn't do the kinds of productive work that they did in the daylight, so at nighttime, they would sit around the fire and tell each other stories. And the way somebody would obtain status, and I guess we know this from studying Stone Age tribes that still exist today. The way that people would obtain status in the tribe was by being good storytellers. So they ended with, "So if you really think about it, the world's oldest profession is storytelling."

[00:03:44] Clem: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%. You guys have definitely hit the nail on the head where communication is key. Storytelling is an excellent part of communicating, and it's... and you brought it up, Kevin. It's because stories have been... nobody had iPhones and computers thousands of years ago. They didn't have that. But how do you tell someone, how do you give someone information that they're going to remember through generations? We told stories. Stories were easy to remember. You tell a child a story now, and they'll remember it 10, 15 years ago. Emanuel will attest that when I won the District 60 international contest... my story... I started off with the Itsy Bitsy Spider. And in my mind, I was like, "No one's gonna remember the story. It's a kid story. Who's gonna..." And I started off the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and everybody joined, and you could see 200 people just singing this song. And in my head as I'm doing this, I'm stopped going, " Oh my goodness, unless you have that in your playlist, how did you remember this 30, 40 years ago?" Because it's a story. And you talk about The Little Engine That Could, it's a story. There are stories that you know that not only are they childhood stories, but when you get older, you realize that there are adult predicates to it. It's something you go, "Wait a minute, that makes sense. If I try, I try, I try, I can get to where I need to go." A child hears that, but an adult hears that as well. And I found that storytelling allows the children to hear as well as adults to hear, and it connects everybody together.

[00:05:18] Kevin: Yeah, I totally get it.

[00:05:19] Emanuel: I would argue that, not me, but there's people that would argue that storytelling is the single skill that made us, the Homo sapiens sapiens, survive and thrive and be where we are today compared to other, let's say, distant relatives, genetically different, slightly different relatives of us humans. The ability to collaborate and also to tell the stories.

[00:05:43] Clem: Yeah. I mean, think about it. You have Netflix, you have the library, you have a computer. That is all stories that's been gathered and put together in one location. Think about the stories through people who are immigrants, came from their country and they come to Canada and they're starting something new. There were no books, no manuscripts, nothing. All you had was history that your great-great-grandparents told your grandparents, that told your parents, that told you. That culture that you're preserving, in this world, that's the most powerful thing you can keep is that. If you can tell that story and it transcends through generation, through generation, through generation, you don't lose your heritage. You don't lose your character. You don't lose who you are, and too many times we forget who we are and where we came from because there's no tangible information. But get that one person who remembers that story and tells it, and the child who's two years old up to grandma who's 80 is locked in, because there's something within storytelling that grasps the human mind and the human heart, that you just wanna grasp it. You just wanna hear it, and you cannot not wanna hear the story. That's something that preserves culture, and I think that's the beautiful thing about storytelling, is you'll learn lessons and it's also going to preserve culture. And if it's done right, it also can predict the future, because there's many stories we can look through history of wars that happen or through the economy. That's a story. And Kevin, you were talking about macroeconomy or macroeconomics. Think about the recession in 2008. Think about the recession in the 1920s, 1930s. History that economists are watching and watching, and they can predict, "Oh, in the next two years there's gonna be a recession." Why, because they're psychics? No, no, no, because they've read stories. Saw stories, and history seems to repeat itself, and that's what's fascinating about it.

[00:07:36] Kevin: Can I do my thing one more time before you get started?

[00:07:38] Clem: Go for it.

[00:07:39] Kevin: So you know, as I mentioned before we started recording, I have this kind of obsession with, like, how economies and banking and credit actually works, and many of the stories that are used to make those predictions, I have come to believe are actually not true. Like much of what we call neoclassical economics seems to be built on a set of assumptions that, like, why do we believe that stuff, right? And I won't go into the details right now, but I wanna tell a specific story that you've probably heard that shows how stories can set us off on a weird trajectory. So this young girl is watching her mother prepare a chicken dinner on Sunday night, and her mother always cuts the leg off the chicken, and then she puts the chicken and the leg in the roasting pan and cooks them together. And her daughter's like, " why do you do that?" And she's like, "Well, my mother taught me to do that. Go ask Grandma." So she asks Grandma, and Grandma's like, "Well, my mother taught me to do that. You'll have to ask Great-Grandma." So she goes to Great-Grandma and says, "Why do you do that?" And she says, "Well, I don't do that anymore. I had to do that during the Depression because the only roasting pan that we had was too small to hold a whole chicken." So this is a case where a story got passed down from generations, and they completely forgot the origin of the story, and they just did it because that's the way it was done, even though there was a reason why it was done, and the person who did it actually no longer did it that way because that reason was over.

[00:09:05] Clem: Yes, it didn't apply to this generation. It applied, you know, in the recession, but not for this. 100%.

[00:09:11] Kevin: Yeah.

[00:09:12] Clem: 100%.

[00:09:12] Emanuel: So Clem, how can we become better storytellers?

[00:09:15] Clem: That's a great question. And I have this framework that I've found out that to be a great storyteller, you want to be able to present impact (IMPACT). Like, that's the reason why you're telling a story. You want to impact somebody. And my six steps is Identity, Message, Passion, Articulation, Charisma, and Technique. That's what IMPACT is. And to be a great storytelling is... what's your identity? Who are you as a person? What's your brand? And the good and the ugly is that people who tell the story who they are, and you can't change yourself for too long. You can't hide for too long. If you're a certain political person and you tell stories and you kind of go, "Mm, that sounds off," that's your nature. You can tell people who tell stories and they're powerful and inspiring well, that's your nature. So what's your identity? The next thing is your message. Your message is what you're trying to convey to someone. And here is how my framework works. Your message is predicated on your identity. Your message that you're gonna talk about is your identity. I am not a millionaire. I don't have fifty houses, I don't have forty Cadillacs. So me telling a story about what it's like to be a millionaire would be a lie based on that's not who I am. But you can tell someone like Warren Buffett, who is a millionaire, but you listen to how he speaks. He doesn't boast about his wealth, about how much money he has. He boasts about how you can become wealthy, that's his identity. He's always teaching people to become wealthy. So your message is predicated on your identity. Your passion. Your passion is your why. Why do you do what you do? Storytelling comes down as why am I telling you this story, Emanuel? Because the story I'm telling you, that message is going to help you to become a better person. It's going to help you to be a wiser person. It's going to help you in your home life. I'm passionate about that. You will never hear me talk about gardening. You will never hear me about macroeconomics. You will never hear me talk about fishing. Why? I know nothing about it and I don't care, so I'm not gonna talk about it. But if you talk about effective communication, if you talk about helping someone to get past their faults and into their future, oh, I go for days on that, because I'm passionate about that. The articulation is the words that you use, and storytelling is powerful because we use descriptive words. I want you to hear these words and let it soak into your spirit the way water soaks into a sponge. Right there, the imagery, if you look and going, "Oh, I can put the words into my spirit the way a sponge soaks up water." Storytelling is about imagery. It's painting a picture. And great storytellers, their words paint pictures in your mind. You can actually see what's happening. So the articulation, the words that you use, how you're going to pause, how you're going to get rid of the filler words, filler words can deter from the message that you are trying to set off. The charisma, how you are as a person. Articulation is your words, charisma is who you are as a person. And people get attracted. And this is where politicians, and we talk about the good, the bad, the ugly. Some of the politicians are great because no one cares about the words. Oh, but when they get on stage, oh my goodness, they captivate the audience, that people have been blind to what they just told you because this person comes out with this aura, it has this way of just grasping you to the words that people are just so focused on who he is as a person or who she is a person. And then last but not least is technique. Technique turns to now technology, its how can you convey your message when you're not just in person but in a hybrid nature? Because hybrid is not going away anytime soon. COVID proved that, and it opened the floodgate. How do you use the technology that you're faced with, Teams, Google Meet, Zoom? How do you use those tools to convey your message? How do you use a PowerPoint to convey your message? Because if you don't do it right, those tools can kill your message. And I've been in meetings where someone's PowerPoint failed, and the presenter just kind of froze and went "I don't know what to do." Well what was your message? " My message is tied to my PowerPoint." Well, you failed because if I'm in a coffee shop, you're not gonna pull out a TV and a computer and a laptop and send it. Like, you have to tell me what your message is. So when the technology fails, are you good enough to present your message? Can your message hang on you? Because when I come out, I don't care about technology. I came to see you, Mark. I came to see you Kevin. I came to see you, Emanuel. I didn't come to see your 35 decks. I came to see you. Storytellers are great because people come to see that person who is the entire package.

[00:14:13] Emanuel: Where do we start? I usually take hand notes, but I don't have my agenda next with me, so that's why you saw me typing. Don't think I was Googling something else.

[00:14:22] Clem: It's all good.

[00:14:22] Emanuel: Do you still wanna go, or is this a good moment to make some comments?

[00:14:26] Clem: Oh, make some comments. Yeah, I'm good for open discussion.

[00:14:30] Emanuel: I'm gonna have a few and then I'm gonna pass along to Kevin because I can sense he has a few as well. I don't remember mine, but I wanted to, I'll start with the ugly. We had the Prime Minister before Mr. Carney, Justin Trudeau and love him or hate him, he was definitely a top-class public speaker.

[00:14:48] Clem: Yes.

[00:14:48] Emanuel: And I enjoyed watching his speeches and even when... the last major one that he did when it came to the US tariffs and all those things were, it's like textbook speech that can be easily included everywhere. So at least we can learn from Prime Minister and we'll stop at there. Filler words. We use a tool right now to remove them, but we need to be more aware and that's something that organizations such as Toastmasters help a lot as well. I wanted to say that many people see hybrid as still an issue or a hiccup, where in fact it's not, and it's a good thing. We have the possibility to connect with people all over the world. Kevin is in the US, we're both in Canada, in Toronto, but we're not in the same room. This wouldn't have been possible if the technology wouldn't have been here. So that's an amazing thing and we need to embrace it sooner rather than later. And to your point, we know many people that don't actually like that. God knows I have my frustrations with technology, with Zoom, with Descript, with Google Meet, with Teams, with whatever. But still, we tend to forget in the moment the possibility that it enabled us. To that point, and maybe I'll leave that for the last comment because I do wanna get your both of your inputs. But we forget, I often tell people that one of the best stories is the story about a girl by the name of Scheherazade who was keep telling a mad, depressed young Arabian prince that was on a loose for making what? So she kept herself alive and many others perhaps just by being able to tell stories and structure it. Influencers nowadays will call it like he, she had a hook, she had a good conclusion. She had a good CTA, and she also left some something for the next episode, as one might say. But we should come back to reading the classics and rereading some of the stories themselves that created the I wouldn't say identity, created the culture that we live in. And it doesn't really matter from where it is because we all have been influenced by it. I grew up in East Europe, but doesn't mean that I haven't read or heard stories from all over the world, including, the Arabian Nights or stories from India or other stories as well. And last but not least, you said you're not a millionaire, so you cannot talk about that. But how come there's actually so many fake billionaires on Instagram that actually tell that story a lot? So that's a topic that I wanna bring to discussion for everyone and get your input on it. Slightly related to today's topic because actually it's very important because it influences a lot the young generation, because those people tell those stories and we have on one side the toxic masculinity - the Tate brothers and whatnot. And on the other side we have the fake influencers, the fake millionaires who rent their cars and do those videos and influence our close ones and it's not... doesn't need to be a family member to care for his mental health, right? At 16 you're not supposed to drive, I don't know a fancy car. It's okay if you live with your parents. It's okay if you don't make $100,000 a day and all those things. But yet somehow those stories tend to penetrate and can influence negatively. So there's a lot to add, but I wanted to just drop this on you as well. You wanna tackle any of those or should Kevin throw some more?

[00:18:18] Clem: All right. So you did talk about why there are people who are... let's say they're profiling. They're profiling that they make a million, but they don't, they make a dollar. That what they're looking at is not the fact that they wanna make a million. It's they're interested in the dream making a million, and if you look like you are doing it, and you look like you have all the skills, I'm willing to follow you because I wanna get to where you are, but I wanna take a shortcut. I don't wanna do the work. And we live in a microwave world instead of a slow cooker. That's how I attribute it. Back in our days, we had to work for everything, slow-cooked everything. You had to wait, you had to wait, you had to wait. So patience to us is not a problem. I can wait two, three weeks. Kids nowadays microwave everything. I wanna make a million dollars without going to school, without having a skill, without being educated, without having a job, but I wanna make a million dollars. How does that make any sense? But they see someone who's profiling their rented car that's not theirs, a suit that they probably got from Tip-Tops and rented it, and they're saying, "I make a million dollars." No, because people who make a million dollars don't throw away ideas like that's how you make it. There's a process. And we don't like process, and kids nowadays don't like process. They wanna get from A to Zed without doing B to X. They don't wanna do that. That's what fascinates them. They don't see the grind that it took for someone such as a Steve Jobs, a Bill Gates, a Warren Buffett, you know, even Elon Musk. Those are millionaires. They weren't millionaires overnight. They hustled and worked for years to get to where they are. But people just see the final product. They don't see the years of failure, because nobody likes to see the failure. Nobody likes to see the grind. I just wanna see the shiny fruit. Well, here's the problem. That apple tree that you're picking the apple was a seed, but you don't wanna see the seed. You don't wanna see it go in the dirt. You don't wanna see that, but you wanna pick the apple. And people don't like process, and I think that's what's destroying our world today, is people don't wanna work, they don't wanna wait, and they don't wanna do process. Because technology has told us, " I don't have to wait to get to a certain place. I snap my finger and it arrives." You said technology can kill us, this is it.

[00:20:39] Emanuel: I don't know about you, but I'm 21, so that's... You're talking about me, actually.

[00:20:43] Kevin: I'd like to layer something on top of that, and that's that it seems... I'm looking for the right way to say this, but it seems like we're also living in what some people are calling the golden age of fraud.

[00:20:58] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:59] Kevin: Something that I mentioned in our previous episode, and I'm gonna go into it in more detail here because relevant to what we've talking about. There's an Irish finance guy named Patrick Boyle who does-- He has a YouTube channel, he does a bunch of videos, and one of his videos is that Forbes has a fraud problem. And he spoke about how a disproportionate number of people who have appeared on a Forbes list are now in prison for fraud. So Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried, Martin Shkreli, the pharma bro, some lady who literally cooked her books in terms of how many customers they had, spent money hiring people to create fraudulent data so that she could amplify their valuations in advance of being acquired by J.P. Morgan. And once J.P. Morgan completed the acquisition and went through the reality of this, it went from being an exaggeration to being a crime, and she's now in prison. So he made this comment of, you know, "If you ever find yourself on a Forbes thirty under thirty list, it's probably a good time to start shopping for a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty." Because the track record of being on that list is not what people think. There's a whole bunch of people out there promoting false stories on the Internet because it's lucrative to them to do so. Like, one of the quickest ways to get rich quick is to have people give you money so that you can teach them how to get rich quick, even if you don't know.

[00:22:33] Clem: That goes to the charisma and the framework. I talked about charisma.

[00:22:37] Kevin: Yeah, people who can spend... I know people who went to drugstores and made use of the Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, you know, do your blood test with a drop of blood service. And it wasn't until years later that we learned that the whole thing was a lie.

[00:22:53] Clem: Yes.

[00:22:54] Kevin: I don't know the accuracy of the lab results that came back from these drop of blood analysis that was done, and I don't know how many people, like, had that done and then got a lab result that they trusted.

[00:23:07] Clem: You hit the point where... when you know how to speak and twist words around, you can influence people to do things. And we know dictators through history who stood on podiums and convinced countries that it was okay to invade another country, to kill, to do genocide. Convinced not one, but hundreds of thousands of people and said, "This is the right thing to do." And now years later, we shake our head and we go, "I don't get how is that possible?" Because of the charisma, the words that you use. When I sit there and tell you, "Kevin, I have the drug that's going to allow you to look 20 years younger," you jump on board because my words, the way I present myself. Not once did those people sit there and go, "Well, can I see the stats? Can, can I see proof? Can I see any of this?" "No, no, you don't need to see any of that, Kevin. I've got proof right here. Look at this person who's like 19." Because the person is 19. They're not looking 19. They are 19. But they're telling you they're 46 because of the charisma. And when we talk about how powerful words are, that's why it's a double-edged sword. We are killing people with lies, at the same time telling people the truth. Well, now we've mixed it together, and it's become so mirrored and miry that we have no idea what is truth and what is lie. Because I can help you, and I think you should look better. That's the truth. But I mixed it with a lie about technology that doesn't even work. So did I really lie? Well, kinda no. And the way our legal system works, which our legal system. If you have enough money and enough celebrity status, you can make things go away. I drive a car. I go through red light. Police pulls me over. I get a ticket. If I'm drinking, I go under jail. There are celebrities who've been doing this five, six, seven, eight, nine times. They show that I'm celebrity XYZ. "Oh, Mr. XYZ, you know, can I get your autograph?" And they're off and, and going. I'm sorry, where does the law work? Because I have status, and so when you communicate, you're presenting yourself in this status that now the government sits there and says, "Oh, you're Kevin? Oh, that's okay. He can get away with murder." But Emanuel, no. Where do we draw the line?

[00:25:26] Kevin: Well, it seems to me that storytelling is more than just words and charisma, and here I'm gonna quote Ronald Reagan Jr., who told a story about his father, Reagan, ex-governor of California, ex-president of the United States, and basically, apparently what Ronald Reagan Sr. said in the presence of Ronald Reagan Jr is, he didn't know how anyone could become president without having first been a professional actor. Like to him, that was just a part of the path that one took, and if for whatever reason you skipped that step, it was gonna be a lot harder for you.

[00:26:05] Clem: Yeah.

[00:26:06] Emanuel: In ancient Greece, part of the education, important part was rhetoric, and that included part of public speaking, articulating, and making even mock conversation, how we might call them today. Which, this conversation, as you know this, we tend to deviate a lot, but I wanna keep the main topic in focus. I'm an immigrant living in Canada, and I've seen many very capable immigrants that have been stuck in a position or even a job that was mediocre that would definitely... weren't deserving it. They had the knowledge, the skills, the attitude, the power to do something else, something they were trained on, yet nevertheless, they haven't done it. And I tend to attribute that to communication. They would say it's speaking, but as we know, we've learned from the Internet, speaking the words are just maybe half of what communication means, right? So within this context, how would you approach this? You know, build that confidence, try to understand, to learn, to tell the message. To give an example, I also seen immigrants who only have, like, 100 words in the English vocabulary, but they're very successful. They communicate a lot. They found their niche. They tell the story. They have an identity, of course, and everything else. I have them here right now, so I think I'm gonna print them because it's actually a very good framework that I can actually connect to my speeches moving forward. So in that context, Clem, what would you, I don't know, coach or say to such a person?

[00:27:45] Clem: Well, the part of the articulation that I have in my framework is how you speak. And sometimes we get to a point where we have to speak a million miles an hour to get our point across. just being able to communicate your message by speaking slowly and clearly so that I understand. And we use, and here it's English, we use the idea because you have an accent, I can't understand you. All that really tells me is I don't have the patience to listen. That's all you're telling me. Is I don't have the patience to listen. But you can sit here and listen to someone who has a thick accent; if they speak clearly and speak slowly, your brain will be able to decipher what they're trying to say. You will get to the point, "Oh, okay, now I know what they're trying to convey. Now I know what their message is." Communication works two ways, someone speaking and someone listening. Sometimes we forget the listening part is just as important as the speaking part. And if you are a radio station or you're on podcast, the most successful podcasters not the ones who talk 90% of the time. They're the ones who listen 90% of time. Because they get that information and they interject here and interject there. The person who has the knowledge is speaking, and the audience goes, "I love this podcast because the host is so knowledgeable." The host didn't say anything. The host just asked the right questions, and they listened to what someone was saying and dovetailed off of what the person was saying and asked a question according to what they said. Some podcasters I've watched have a piece of paper and a pen, and there's no questions written down at all. None. What they're doing is they're listening to as you're speaking and asking a question and interjecting, and then putting in their thoughts. And everyone's going, "Oh my goodness, Kevin and Emanuel, they're so wise in their knowledge and..." No, they've learned the skill of listening, and because they've listened, they've asked the right questions. Being an immigrant, the hardest thing is coming to a country where people in North America, unfortunately, don't wanna take the time to listen. Because I've been to other countries, and I'm trying to speak their language, and I don't know French, and I don't know Italian, and they're listening, but they're waiting, and you can see their face going, "Okay, I see what you're saying. Okay, I kinda get it." And then they'll ask a question, "Is this what you mean?" I'm like, "Yes." Because they took the time to listen. We come to North America, be like, "Emanuel, your accent's too thick. I don't wanna hear you." Maybe it's too thick. Just stop talking and listen to him you'll hear the message if you use your ears. That's why you have two of them and one mouth. Unfortunately we don't wanna take the time, and it goes right back to the... When you're on the Internet, and you have Instagram and you have Facebook, these reels are thirty seconds, forty-five seconds to get your entire message out. So of course I'm gonna lie about certain things just to get your attention. But if you listen to podcasts, and it's an hour long, and you have the patience, you are getting such a wealth of knowledge because they're picking at pieces, and they're diving deep, and then they're analyzing it. That's the hard part about someone who's an immigrant, is they only have a hundred words, and it's not their fault. The person who's receiving, are you gonna take the time to listen to those hundred words and decipher it? because if you're not, the person can have a thousand words, but you're not listening, and that's the hard thing. If the person doesn't listen, I don't care how knowledgeable you are, it's gotta go somewhere, and you keep hitting a brick wall.

[00:31:18] Emanuel: Often in Canada, at least, the person who says, "I can't understand your accent," have themselves a heavy accent.

[00:31:25] Clem: You have an accent to the person who they're listening. They're going, "But I can hear you. Why can't you hear me?"

[00:31:30] Kevin: Yeah, I think this is just like a minor frustration of mine, but I think that people don't realize that everybody has an accent.

[00:31:38] Clem: Yes.

[00:31:38] Kevin: From the perspective of somebody else.

[00:31:40] Clem: Yes.

[00:31:41] Emanuel: I saw a person from the US speaking with somebody from Scotland and they were saying, "Sorry, I don't get it because of your accent." What accent? Right?

[00:31:50] Clem: Yeah.

[00:31:51] Kevin: Yeah.

[00:31:52] Emanuel: I do have a series of questions that I've came prepared as well because I've noticed the benefits of improving your speaking, and I'm far from being where I wanna be, but I've improved over the years. I joined an organization called Toastmasters, which helped me a lot break down some of those mental barriers that I had on myself. I deal with clients a lot, and sometimes even when the results were extraordinary, I made it sound like you know, they're gonna go bankrupt the next week or something like that because of my posture, my tone, my gestures, my overall, the way I presented myself, when in fact it had nothing to do with the results themselves. Whereas, you know, some other people that didn't have any kind of clue what they were doing and the results were terrible, kinda like magically seduced them to continue or pay more money towards, that wasn't working as well. So I learned a lot from that, and I'm still learning and I push people a lot to join these types of organization and kinda like face their fear. And we know that after the fear of death, the second most fear is public speaking and also has a name that I can't remember right now. Maybe it'll come after us. There's a technical name for the fear of speaking in public. You have faced that successfully... actually, I wanna get even further back a little bit and tell us, how did you end up in being a coach in communication, essentially?

[00:33:26] Clem: Excellent.

[00:33:27] Emanuel: And then even tell the Toastmaster stories and all those things. I know it, but I want you know, the audience to know it as well. And our goal is even if one person sees this and he takes an action towards improving himself, then we did our job with this podcast. We made a better world.

[00:33:42] Clem: Awesome, awesome. Well in the art of telling stories, I want you to look at a kid who's 10 years old, sitting in the middle of the class. The teacher walks up to the front of the class and says, "Hello, class. Today we are going to learn the art of public speaking. You're going to present a message for three minutes in the next three weeks, and you're gonna present it in front of your colleagues." Now, I want you to turn around and look at this black kid, 10 years old, who heard those words turned ghost white. And it wasn't because he was afraid of speaking. It's because he had a s- s- stuttering problem. When you have that speech impediment, it puts this weight upon you that feels like there's a 10-ton elephant sitting on your chest. Your mouth feels like cotton balls. I attribute stuttering with your brain is like the freeway going 140, 160. You're cruising and everything's going well until you turn the bend and have to slam on the brakes because you hit traffic. That was the brain sending words down to my mouth, and it couldn't come out. Now you're 10 years old. You look out and you watch everybody looking at you, and people start to snicker, and your classmates start to laugh. Because they're 10. To them this is funny. They don't realize that this is a debilitating condition, and it's killing you from the inside, and you're standing up there with every ounce of courage, and they don't seem to get it. And you tell yourself, "I'm never speaking again. Once bitten, twice shy. I'm never doing this." So for years, I just stayed in the background. I didn't like doing presentations. I told my teacher once, "I would run around the school a thousand times before I speak. I'm never doing this again." I said, "I'll fail this class. I can't do it." So my parents put me through therapy. So for two years, I went through therapy class, and I learned something. There was nothing wrong with me, because I felt like I was stupid. I felt like I was a problem. What I learned in therapy was there are tips and tools, techniques on how to communicate, how to get through the stuttering, how to get through the fear, and I remember her telling, "Your words are important, Clem. People want to hear your words, and I'm going to teach you the skills required so that your words can be heard." I learned to pace. I learned to pause. I learned to pre-think what I wanted to say before I said it. I learned to write out my message and read it over again out loud so I could say the words. So if I couldn't say a word, and I have a defense mechanism, I don't know how it happens, but if there's a word that I can't say and my tongue starts to flutter, my brain kicks and finds another word to interject. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to teach you that. It just happens. And if you ever watch some of my videos, you'll see it, and you have to watch it where I'll start saying a word, and then I'll change to another word. And you'll go, "Is that the word you wanted to say?" But unless you see it coming, you'll never know. My brain just goes, "We can't say this word, Clem. Let's interject another." That was me knowing what my message was all about, and I learned that time and time again. And it wasn't until I taught junior high kids, and these are inner city kids, and I tell people, "If you wanna learn how to speak, don't speak in front of adults, speak in front of junior high kids." Junior high kids will tell you if you suck. Tell you for good. They'll have a way of throwing you off track. They'll tell you're talking about apples, they wanna talk about chicken; they don't make any sense, but they do it to try to throw you off. And that's why when people try to throw me off, I'm like, "You gotta do better than this. I did eight years with kids. You can't throw a question and deter me off where I'm trying to go. It's not gonna happen. I've just been trained by the best." And I learned that when I spoke in front of those kids, I always went back to, "Hey kids, I have a stuttering problem. I have a stuttering problem. I have a stuttering problem. Just give me time and we'll get through it." Sometimes we take a flashlight and we shine ourselves on the smallest mistake or smallest flaw we have, ignoring the other 99%; we keep saying, "I have a stuttering problem." And it took a kid who was, at this time I was like 23, 24, about 13 years old. He says, "Clem, can I ask you a question. Why do you keep saying you have a stuttering problem? Because none of us hear it." And I went, "What?" I took a poll. "What do you mean none of you hear it?" And they all said, "We've never heard you. The entire year you keep telling us this. And you like to tell stories, Clem," because that's my thing. "So is there a point to why you keep saying the stuttering problem, but we never hear it?" And that's when it clicked in. I kept minimizing something that I thought was big, and it wasn't. I had actually overcome years of stuttering and didn't even realize it, and it took a 12-year-old kid to tell me, "I don't hear it." And that's when I realized, oh my goodness, everything I was saying made sense to them because they never heard my flaw, and that progressed and progressed and progressed until I said, "I want to become a better communicator," because I realized my message matters. That led me to Toastmasters, that led me getting to the level I am right now. That even led me to becoming the District 60 Toastmaster champion, because I realized that the problem that I had actually helped me, because I understand people's flaw. I understand the fear of speaking. I also understand that when there's a gift inside of you, it should not be buried. It should come to fruition. It should grow. But we don't know the tips, the tools, and techniques because the teacher never taught me how to speak. They never said, "Here are the skills you need." They just said, "Here's paperwork. It's worth 30% of your mark. Now speak." How does that help anybody? I wanted to be that person that sat there and said, "Kevin, guess what? You wanna become better at communicating? Great. I'm gonna take the time and invest in you because I see where you can be." That's mind-blowing, and I think that's where communication in my fence becomes very powerful, is when I can plant a seed to help someone get to a level that I know is possible. Because you're looking at someone who swore he would never speak in front of people, and now I'm the type of person who I will take every speaking opportunity that comes my way. Because I believe your message matter. I believe there are things inside you. I believe God prepared you to do something that's great and powerful, and you should not waste it trying to fear that I can't do it. You should get to the mindset, if I can find a way to do it, I can do it, and I can become better, and that's money on the table. When communication, those who are directors, those who politicians, those who are making the six figures are the ones who know how to communicate a message. And if you can do that, you can go so much further in life.

[00:40:28] Kevin: You brought up something I'd like to comment on, and for the listeners and the viewers, it's something that Clem and I discussed previously off camera, and that's that sometimes an internal story that you tell yourself, like, "I have a stuttering problem."

[00:40:43] Clem: Yeah.

[00:40:44] Kevin: Dosen't match with the stories that other people tell about you. I just find this to be... I don't know, a really interesting phenomenon. I'm sure it happens to everybody, still I find it's really interesting when we believe stories about ourselves that unbeknownst to us are private to ourselves and other people don't share.

[00:41:04] Clem: Yeah. We're taught that when you have a struggle, to keep it inside. Especially men. Being vulnerable as a man, we find it can be a weapon used against us. So we're taught, "Listen, Emanuel, you've got problems, you got struggles? You be a man. Go into your man cave, keep it to yourself. Don't tell anybody you have issues. You can't cry, you can't complain. Suck it up, buttercup, let's make it work." Then you come out of your man cave going, "I can do all things. I am the man." And all of a sudden you're saying, you're telling yourself this, and you're believing this, but everybody sits there and says, "Man, you're struggling, dude. Like, we see the problems." But where's the disconnect? Because we are told, "I'm not supposed to show you my back, because if I do, you're going to stab me." And mental illness was something that was shone during COVID when people all of a sudden said, "I'm losing my mind." And I experienced this at my last job because I was fortunate to be still working outside at my workplace. People who were two years, two and a half years locked down literally in their condo of 800 square feet that they thought was gonna be beautiful, became a prison, and they couldn't see anybody, couldn't talk to anybody, and they realized that, oh my gosh, I like to be around people. Yeah, because we're social beings. That's the way we're created. But we were locked down. Couldn't go outside your building because COVID's gonna kill you. Everybody was caught in fear, and they were locked in, and they came out, and one lady I talked to, she was starting to break down and cry. And she was like, "Clem, I think I'm losing my mind here. Like, I'm so..." And other, other men were like, "Yeah, I started drinking. I never drank before, but I started drinking to kinda cope with the pain." Why is that? Because with the art of communicating means me being able to share my personal story with you without caring whether or not you expose me or not. Because here's the thing, I tell people what my fears are, what my struggles are, what my failures are, because I wanna make sure the narrative is true. I'm telling you what I went through. I don't need Kevin to tell Emanuel because he'll twist it. But if I tell you what it is, guess what? Emanuel can't come to me and go, "Hey, Kevin told me that you went bankrupt." No, I told Kevin I went bankrupt, okay? You can't use that against me because I'm telling you I went bankrupt, but now I'm making money. I figured out how to get out of bankruptcy. What story do you wanna hear? How I got bankrupt or how I got out of it? Because that will tell me... Remember your identity? That will tell me who you are, and if all you wanna hear is my faults and my failures, we got nothing to talk about because if that's all you wanna hear... But if you or someone says, "Clem, I hear that you failed at point A, but I also hear that now you're succeeding. Tell me how you got this point," then we can talk for days because your identity tells me that you're someone who wants to get through the struggles and get to a level. You're not here to gossip about my business. That's why I tell you my business. Put it up, put it on Facebook. I don't care. I'm the one who told you. I'll put it before you tell it. So we have that fear, but communicating can break through those walls because it takes that weight off of you. I call it... it's a weight you don't have to carry. You don't have to carry it. You tell someone your problem, and you have to use discernment because obviously there are people who are gonna weaponize what you're going through. That's human nature. But there are gonna be those who are gonna hear what you have to say, and they go, "You know something? I can help you. I actually have a solution." But you wouldn't have known because you kept this bottled up inside.

[00:44:27] Emanuel: I'm gonna ask another question that...

[00:44:30] Clem: Yeah.

[00:44:30] Emanuel: Is very related to today's topic. So let's say, let's say I know someone who's an immigrant. Okay. Okay, me. Many people... actually, a friend of mine told me, and I had this realization, I had this eureka moment, and he told me, "Dude, stop speaking in Romanian using English words." And I figured out that the way I communicate verbally is in Romanian, essentially my native, my vernacular language, because that's the way I think, that's the way I form. And we know that languages shape the way we think, the way we exist, essentially. Maybe we can talk about languages as well in this podcast, but mostly what happens inside the mind sometimes. And when I become aware of this sometimes, for example, not today, but sometimes I understand this, and then I kinda like do some mental effort to shift and speak English or North American English or Canadian English using English words, if that my statement makes any sense. So given that, what's maybe a trick or a tip or something that you would share with somebody that faces this issue? And obviously, I'm assuming it's a little bit more than a ten-minute conversation if you want to achieve that. But where would you start, essentially? Because I'm assuming it's perhaps something similar to the stuttering problem, or at least the same mechanism inside the brain is the same at or similar. I'm just assuming. I'm not a neuroscientist. I don't really know how the brain works.

[00:45:56] Clem: Well, here's something that I learned, and I started doing this, and I didn't even know this existed. I wish I could take credit for it. I wish I could a trademark on it, but I'm not. So somebody else did it before me. I just did it knowing that it was gonna help me, and that was recording everything that I was saying, because the camera and the microphone don't lie. It-- camera shows you what you look like, microphone tells you what you sound like. So I did this thing called record and review. When I started doing Toastmasters, I would record every speech that I presented, and I would watch it, and then I would review it, kinda write down those things that I saw. And then I went one step further, where I would send that video out to a few of my friends and go, "I want you to watch this video and give me your feedback. Don't give me the, 'Clem, it was great.' I want you to look at things, and "What did I sound like? What did you see? What do you think I could have done better?" And they would give me feedback. And one person, I remember her telling me, she goes, "Clem, you wash your hands." I'm like, "What do you mean I wash my hands?" She goes, "You're on stage, and you keep doing this." I went, "No, I don't." And lo and behold, three videos I did, I was on stage doing this. I had no idea I was doing this. I don't know if it was nervousness, subconscious, could not tell you, but I was doing this. And what I realized is, there's a powerful skill, and there's a powerful tool called feedback, and we hear feedback as criticism. When we hear criticism, we think it's negative. And if I hear negative, it means you're trying to break me down. And if you're trying to break me down, you want me to fail. If you want me to fail, then I don't wanna hear about it, and we go down this spiral. When feedback is meant to build you up... the definition of being critical is to help someone to become better. So I took the risk of sending out to people and go, "Watch my video tell me what you think." I took the third level, where I would post it online and wait to hear what people would say because now it's out there in cyberspace. I can't take it back. And people would always say positive things about it. It would always say encouraging things about it. And these are people that I don't know. And that's what I realized. When you record yourself and you have someone review it, you'll tend to hear things that you yourself would have never thought about, would have never seen. How do you know you're going to improve? You can only improve when someone brings a comment. Even if someone says, "Emanuel, that was the worst message I ever saw. You said too much. You were rocking back and forth. Your background was dark." You know what they're doing? They're not giving you negative comments. They're helping you. You just told me how to improve. I have to change my background. You just told me how to improve. I need to stop walking back and forth. You told me how to improve. I have to get rid of filler words. But we take it too personally. Because we take personally, we lock off messages that-- information that can help us. But guess what, Emanuel, Kevin? Even flowers need manure. So when someone dumps crap on you, take out the nutrients, find out things that they're saying that could help you, and you'll be surprised when you get up there the next time. They'll sit there and go, "Oh, Emanuel, you're amazing. How did this happen?" Because of your criticism. What? Yeah, all those negative things that you said to me were actually there to help me to become better. So I tell people to ask for feedback and don't take it personally. Remember, it's their opinion. It's not the gospel truth, it's their opinion. And then take it to the next level. Find someone who's been in the game longer than you and ask them to review it. So now you're getting so much information to help you become better.

[00:49:35] Kevin: I want to kind of flip the paradigm. So I definitely have an interest on communicating more effectively, but we also live in a world where there's a whole bunch of people who communicate effectively who are, for lack of a better word, caught up in what people call this golden age of fraud. So are there tools that you help provide to people to tune up their BS detectors so that when they see very slick people, very charismatic people, people who are very good speakers... determine what parts of what they're saying are meaningful and what parts of what they're saying are, for lack of a better word... bullshit.

[00:50:16] Clem: It comes down to the framework of identity and message. The messaging you say, is a reflection of your identity. So that's where you have to do research on the person themself. And you're going to see things, because people tend to post a lot on social media, and they'll post everything. But if you're skeptical about somebody, you almost have to do another layer where you're going to watch what they're saying, how they live their life, does it reflect to what they're doing? So the problem with a lot of fraudsters is that they're very good at shining crap. They're very good. They've practiced this art of taking a rock, shining it, and telling you it's diamond. It's 100%, it's diamond, and you fell for the trick that it's diamond. Ask yourself where this person developed the skill to... how did they figure this out? What's their track record? And sometimes when you see it on media, it's hard to get in contact with that person and asking them the question. So that's a very good question. If I can catch you individually and one-on-one, we just have conversation, you start talking, you start talking, and I always ask them, "So how did you get to where you were?" " Well, I don't really want to talk about that." Hmm, see, that throws up a red flag to me... that you don't want to tell me where you were before you got here. I gotta ask you. You did not wake up with this skill. You didn't wake up with this ability to turn this rock to diamond. How did you do this? And asking questions is very key because there is one name everyone loves to hear, that's your own name. And if I can sit there and go, "Kevin, I want to hear more about you. Kevin, I want to..." I'm asking you to... I'm flowering you. What I'm asking you is to open your mouth, and if you talk long enough, you'll reveal things about yourself. And I'll sit here and go, " Huh, Kevin knows absolutely nothing about macroeconomics. He just heard it off of a podcast. He doesn't even understand this." Because you're talking about things where you're like, "You know something, Clem? I know nothing about stocks and economy." Wait a minute. Hold on a sec. You just told me you're macroeconomics. Isn't that the same thing? How do you tell me you don't understand? And then they'll start talking, and I've watched people talk themselves into the truth of authentic, whereas like, "You know absolutely nothing about what you're talking about." But you sit as you nod and smile. You're like, "Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah, continue." Because the longer I get you to speak is the longer you end up revealing who you are. The tough part is if I can get you to talk. If you're not willing to answer questions, then I'm not really willing to go any further. And people's character will stand out.

[00:52:53] Kevin: You've actually brought up a very specific example relative to macroeconomics that I'd like to use as an example to illustrate a point.

[00:53:00] Clem: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:53:01] Kevin: So I have come to learn through my little obsessive compulsive behaviors that many of the dominant stories that we hear about macroeconomics are based on assumptions that I've come to believe are probably not true.

[00:53:15] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:15] Kevin: And everybody believes these things, and then someone else comes along and says, "Well, actually..." And I'm gonna share with you one that I shared when we were off camera. Actually central banks do not control the money supply, commercial banks do. Actually, stocks and bonds... well, actually, I gotta exclude bonds, but you know, stocks and finance and all that stuff, it's related to macroeconomics. But at the core of macroeconomics, that which most shapes how economies works is private debt. Not you know, Canadian or American national debt, but the amount of debt that people have borrowed from banks. People don't realize that when you go into a bank to borrow money and the bank gives you the money, it's intuitive to think that that money came from somewhere, but it doesn't. Bank loans increase the amount of money in circulation. Making payments on your loans decrease the amount of money in circulation.

[00:54:18] Clem: Yeah.

[00:54:18] Kevin: So somebody who thinks that these ideas are BS might might push back against them in spite of the fact that they're true. Like, how does, how does that work?

[00:54:30] Clem: Wow. That comes to the fact of... when you're good at... And we'll put this, if I sat there and said, "The sky is falling," and I say it long enough and hard enough, you're all gonna believe me. Sky is falling. Sky is falling. Sky is falling. What credibility am I bringing to the fact that the sky is falling? I have no credit at all. And when we talk about what stories are being told, if you can tell the story again with passion, if you can tell the story with the idea that this is truly true, it'll pass. It'll pass. Because my goal, Kevin is... as you're a macroeconomics, if you wanted to lie to me, you would never talk to me if you knew that I knew macroeconomics, I'd catch you in a lie if you knew nothing about it. The whole idea is... the narrative is I can tell the story to the majority of people who know nothing about macroeconomics. I'll get the majority to buy into it. The other 10% already know you're lying, aren't listening to you, don't care. You are not in their scope, but the other 90 have no idea. And now I'm coming to you for truth. I'm coming to you for information. And the idea for most people who are fraudsters are only going to fraud those who know nothing about what they're saying. A fraudster cannot fool someone who knows. And I have this fool who was calling my mom telling her that she owed money for the Internet. I said, my mom, "Who's this coming from?" And she goes, "Oh, it's some person, Joe Blow." I went, "Does Joe Blow work for Rogers?" She goes, "No." And I went, "Then Joe Blow knows nothing about your Internet." She goes, "Oh, but he has all this information." I went, "Mom, the internet gets all kinds of information. Yeah, he knows a lot about you, but he never said where he came from. He never told you how much money you owed on your bill. He never told you your IP address. He never told you your speed. He doesn't tell you any information because he doesn't know it. But his job is to scam you by hitting as many people as possible." Until he met me, and I picked up the phone and went, "Oh, can you tell me what's my Rogers account number?" Pause. " Oh, can you tell me where..." And I'd ask him certain questions knowing that the fool didn't have this information. And I went, " Don't call back again because you and I both know that you're full of crap." And he would phone again, my mom would go, "Hold on one sec." I pick up the phone and go, "Hi." And I'm like, "Yeah, we've been down this road." So the idea is for fraudsters to find out the majority of people who don't know. That's why when they say knowledge is power, knowledge that's applied is power. And if you know nothing about nothing, I'll believe everything that you say because people, remember, want the microwave information. They don't want to take the time to research it.

[00:57:09] Kevin: Now, I wanna take this idea one step further into political tribalism.

[00:57:13] Clem: Yeah.

[00:57:14] Kevin: And I'm actually gonna use a Canadian example because you guys are Canadian. Well, for for what it's worth, I'm a dual national, American Canadian citizen, so I pay attention...

[00:57:21] Clem: All right.

[00:57:22] Kevin: To Canadian politics. So Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister.

[00:57:26] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:26] Kevin: Pierre Poilievre, I think, still is the leader of the Conservative Party,

[00:57:30] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:31] Kevin: Going into the last election, it looked as if there was gonna be a Conservative victory, which means that had that panned out, Poilievre would be prime minister today. Justin Trudeau resigns as Liberal leader. There's a leadership fight. Mark Carney gets in, and it swings the election, like... I mean, I was shocked that that simple change, shall we say, could have such a dramatic impact on the degree to which it swung the election. But all of that was kinda like a precursor to the actual point, right? When Pierre Poilievre gets up and talks about economics, he doesn't use the phrase I'm about to throw out there, but he talks in terms of government spending crowding out private investment. This is based on something called the loanable funds theory, where banks are financial intermediaries. There's people who put money in banks, and banks loan out that money to people who start companies or buy washing machines or whatever.

[00:58:31] Clem: Right.

[00:58:31] Kevin: And if you don't know any better, that's a good story. You would think that banks actually work that way.

[00:58:38] Clem: Yeah.

[00:58:38] Kevin: So when Pierre Poilievre gets up and talks about this whole concept, you don't necessarily have a frame of reference for knowing that that entire loanable funds theory is, for lack of a better word, BS.

[00:58:50] Clem: Right.

[00:58:50] Kevin: When banks make loans, they create deposits. Deposits don't make loans. Loans make deposits, right? So that entire crowding out story simply isn't true because when a government... when a federal government spends money, it then goes into negative financial equity by virtue of doing it, but that creates positive financial equity for everybody else.

[00:59:15] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:15] Kevin: So how do you effectively or, I guess I'm being selfish here, how do I effectively convince people that this popular narrative is just like... Yeah, tune that out, right? Listen to me instead, you know?

[00:59:29] Clem: Well here's the thing, and remember the government, this overseeing body that everyone has to follow. So they have more clout, more power, more celebrity status than you do. You're not celebrity Kevin X. You're Kevin on a podcast. They're like, "Yeah, that, that's nice," him and the other millions of people. So the government's up here with all this power. The government throws out these big, fidicious words that sound beautiful, and we're like, "I guess that makes sense because I don't know anything about what they're talking about." But the minute they... they use buzzwords, the government is working for you. The bank is doing this to hijack you. So they use emotional ties is is what they're doing. But you have to come in with the mindset that goes, "Oh, I just want to let you know this is a lie, and I'll tell you why." But you can't use these same buzzwords. You have to use words that the average person understands, and you tell them why it's lie. And that's when when I talk about stories, I sit here and I say, "Just say for an instance your company makes a million dollars. You know they're making a million dollars. You can see the bank statement." But then they tell you, "You know, Kevin, I know you want a $2 raise, but we can't afford it because we're in an economical slump." And you go, "Oh, I guess that's true. Wait a minute. How does that make any sense when I just saw the paperwork saying making a million dollars? This is net profit. You just posted on the company's website we made a profit of $100 million. How are you telling me we're in economic slump?" And the company systems says, "Oh, you know, because there's so many X, Y, Z that's happening." We get caught up in the, oh, I guess the person up here with the biggest mouth, the biggest platform, is telling you the truth. When you could walk in with a simple story and say, "What would happen if this company told you this story? Would you believe them?" And they would sit there and go, "No, Kevin, that doesn't make any sense." Well, what if I told you this story? Does this make sense? No. Well, that's exactly what the government is doing. Wait minute, what? Yeah, the government works like this, and when you can do stories, people get it. They can visualize it. So the small person can be just as powerful because they tell stories that the 99% gets. And the problem the government does is they're convincing the 99 about this clout of facade because the 1% already know its a lie because they're in on it. The 1% is in on all this because they're making money off of loans. They're making money off of debt. So the 1% is not going to spoil surprise. The 99 is getting hustled because we don't know any better, because no one like yourself is coming out doing what in The Wizard of Oz, Toto did, went behind the sheet and pulled back the curtains and went, " That's the person making all this. He's just a human. He's not a god."

[01:02:20] Kevin: Yeah, I get what you're saying, and I will get off this whole macro thing in a few minutes, right? But I think the fact that how banks work is really badly understood by...

[01:02:31] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:31] Kevin: almost everybody is...

[01:02:33] Clem: Yeah.

[01:02:33] Kevin: probably one of the greatest PR achievements in history.

[01:02:37] Clem: Yeah.

[01:02:37] Kevin: Everyone has these ideas about how banks work, and banks work differently.

[01:02:41] Clem: Yeah. We were told, like I grew up, I'm first generation Canadian, and for years my mom said, "You get your paycheck, put it in the bank." Put it in the bank. Never said about investments, never talked about high interest savings, not talked about... Like, I didn't know that there were things that you could make money with. Because everyone who I grew up with were all first generation. Schools, which was supposed to be the foundation of education, never told us, "Oh, by the way, when you get allowance, put it in an investment with a high interest savings account." Why? you told me that 1% is less than 4%, and I don't care. But now if you told me, "Oh, if you made $10 and you put it in a bank that gives you 1%, you're only making a dollar. But if you put it in a high interest account, now you're making four. Where would you put it?" We'd all go in the four. It just makes sense. I want more. They don't tell you this. They tell you, "Put it in your savings account. We're gonna look after it. We're going to you back the money that you've put in, and then we're gonna charge you." So wait, you're charging me to hold my money, then when I want it back, you're still charging me? How does that make any sense? We don't think about this. I'm laughing now going, if I had put all my money in a high interest account, I'd be a millionaire. I had a boatload of money because I just threw it in the bank and earned 1% every year. That's all I got. But you charged me $4 in service charge.

[01:04:06] Kevin: Well, I wanted to get back to the... I don't know, topic, concept of messaging within what I'm gonna call political tribalism.

[01:04:14] Clem: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:15] Kevin: So I totally get people who are good speakers and charismatic, and here in the United States, we have a very strong habit of electing people who are very good at public speaking.

[01:04:29] Clem: Yes.

[01:04:30] Kevin: The current president of the United States is kind of an enigma in as much as he's not a good public speaker, and he does in fact have a very limited vocabulary. But love him or hate him, and I think those are the only two options in America, I don't think anybody's allowed to be neutral on Donald Trump, he is a master at branding. Like no matter what you think about it, he is really good at selling the value of a brand, whether it's the name of Trump or MAGA. Just wanted to get your take on how can somebody who is such a poor public speaker be such an effective communicator?

[01:05:09] Clem: Because he's understood this. His identity and his message are linked, but he used technology as well. He used social media to his advantage, and he had something that other presidents didn't have before him. Because they would have to rely on radio stations and the television and the networks and all of that. But he had social media where he could constantly throw in tweets every now and then, every now and then, every now and then, throw jabs every now and then. His charisma so... It was an, as you said, an enigma that people are like, "I need to hear what this guy has to say. I know it sounds outlandish, but man, I gotta hear what he has to say." And people are tuning in to what he has to say. And he understood branding because that's where he came from. His real estate, his golf courses, hotels, that's all branding stuff. And from what I've heard, he's not a millionaire. Like he's like bankrupt or whatever. Like his money is tied up in... He doesn't have the collateral, but he has it lined up in other investments. But he's also a very popular person because when he walks into a room, people gravitate to him. So you surround yourself around celebrities and heavyweights because you have the same mindset, and he speaks the way a lot of people think. There's a lot of people who think the way that he does but don't wanna say what he has to say. And there's a line that I heard years ago that says, "You can tell the way a nation runs or what they believe based on the person they elected." Because you're never going to have some... if I want someone who... if I have my principles and my morals are X, Y, Z. I'm never gonna hire someone who doesn't believe what I have or lead me, because it doesn't make any sense. But if you've got someone who's thinking the way Trump does and the way that he acts, that's because that's the way the majority of the people are thinking. I mean the majority, not the necessarily the population, the majority of people who have the power to say things and make decisions, and he's in the ears of those-- He's in the back pocket of those who make the decisions. I want to put tariffs, but I can't say it because my company will look bad. But if I can put the bug in someone else's ear, guess what? He stands up and says, "I believe we should have tariffs." And the entire world is going, "Dude, you're dooming your economy by doing this. So you're isolating people. This isn't what you wanna do." "No, it's good for our country because we're gonna bring companies back to America." Because you just went in there with ICE and removed all the people who were working in the factories of what you just set up. Like I don't understand how that makes any sense. " Oh, but I'm making America better." How? You're bringing dissension. And we see this and the world is going, "How does this make any sense?" But the people at the top are pulling the strings. Why? Because we have someone who's got that charisma. We've got someone who doesn't need to say anything, because when he speaks, you kind of stop and you go, " Is this right? Is this AI?" Because someone's dubbing this. This isn't making any sense. But he's very good, and he doesn't care. Because his identity is who he is, and he told us, he told the world who he was from the onset. This isn't a surprise on how he operates. Everybody knew this walking in. And because he did a good job of doing what I tell you, if I put my sins on the table, you can't use it against me, because I already told you. So good luck trying to pick on dirt, because I'm telling you who I am. And he's done that, and he's done a very good job of owning up to it. He's not shying away from who he is. That's branding, sticking to who you are. Heels in, digging in, right or wrong, who cares? But he is who he is, and people are following suit. The idea is the people who are at the 1%, who have the power to make decisions, are totally in agreement with what he had to say. Because if it was the other way around, you wouldn't be where you are right now. You wouldn't be where you are right now. People can complain and cry all they want. How did he get voted in? He used media to his advantage.

[01:09:07] Emanuel: Well, a masterclass of an episode. I certainly enjoy it. We passed the one-hour mark, for sure, and I'm gonna give a chance for Kevin, and who of course has some follow-up questions as well. But maybe we'll have Clem again as a guest with his permission, of course. I hope he enjoyed it as much as we did. Clem if somebody wants to get to know you, get more of Clem, follow you or you know, hire you even perhaps, where would they go?

[01:09:36] Clem: Well, I have a website, and it is my first name, last name. So it's clementdwyer.com. That's my website. You could always email me at [email protected]. So that's C-L-E-M-S-P-E-A-K-S at C-L-E-M-E-N-T-D-W-Y-E-R.com. Those are the two best ways to get in contact with me, through my website, through email, and I definitely will respond back. And I look forward to connecting with anyone who's on a connect with anyone on our to do a keynote speak, wanna do a workshop, even have a conversation about what it about what it means to be in IMPACT and understand the framework I work through, and how that framework can help you to become an effective communicator, so that you can be the best person public or private, and be the best person that I know that you can be.

[01:10:31] Kevin: Thank you for taking the time to be with us.

[01:10:34] Clem: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

[01:10:36] Emanuel: Oh, we didn't put this at the beginning, but if you enjoyed it or if you didn't enjoy it either, go to curiouspundits.com. That's where you'll find us, me and Kevin. Links to all the platforms where you listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, we're there, YouTube as well. Until the next time, my name is Emanuel.

[01:10:55] Kevin: My name is Kevin.

[01:10:57] Clem: And I'm Clem Dwyer.

[01:10:58] Kevin: Thank you for listening.

[01:10:59] Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like the podcast, please like, subscribe, and tell others. Visit curiouspundits.com to learn more, and stay tuned for the next episode