Brendan Foody: prediction

Transcript context

…Like age 14, right? Age 14, exactly. We were on the policy debate team together. We also did national extemporaneous speaking. They were the winningest speech and debate team of all time in policy debate, the most competitive event, where they won the Tournament of Champions, the National Speech and Debate Association, and NDCA — the three largest national tournaments, which no other team has ever done. I did okay, but I’m dyslexic, and so I [laughs] would always stumble over words, or mix things up. I wasn’t quite the same level as them. I think there’re a few things that go into the answer of what makes one phenomenal at it. I think that high clarity of thought often correlates very strongly with people that speak very well, and so, as you mentioned, intelligence plays another role. I think a second thing is confidence. Someone that’s willing to speak and improve and iterate on it, because oftentimes, it’s just doing more of that activity that allows you to improve on it. Then maybe a third one is, more than just intelligence, it’s also the speed of thought. I think about those as different dimensions. There are certain people I think of as having very high aptitude, but thinking very deeply and slowly about a given thing. Other people that I think of as having reasonably high aptitude, or medium aptitude, but being able to be quick on their feet. I definitely think there’s some innate element of that. Which are you?…

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