0:10

Hi, I'm Joelly

0:10

your Branding Badass! Welcome to

0:14

Branding Matters, a podcast I

0:14

created and host to help you

0:17

create brand equity. On today's

0:17

show we talk about what it means

0:21

to get NAKED. Why it's important

0:21

to have a purpose when building

0:24

a brand. How exposing your fears

0:24

is one of the best ways to

0:28

conquer them. And what role

0:28

branded merch plays in creating

0:32

brand awareness. My guest is

0:32

William Branum, a Navy SEAL

0:36

veteran who shares how the

0:36

challenges of military training

0:39

helped him change his life by

0:39

changing his mindset. Today,

0:43

William is a sought-after

0:43

speaker, business coach and

0:47

Founder & CEO of Naked Warior

0:47

Recovery. I'm really excited for

0:51

this conversation, and I hope

0:51

you're gonna enjoy it as much as

0:54

I did. Branding Matters is brought to

0:54

you by Genumark - one of North

0:57

America's most trusted branded

0:57

merch makers for over 40 years.

1:02

Did you know branded merchandise

1:02

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build communities that by

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create brand awareness, email

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[email protected].

2:01

That's Branding Matters at G E N

2:08

U M A R K.com. And now on with

2:08

our show! William, welcome to

2:13

Branding Matters.

2:15

Thanks so much for having me. I'm stoked to be here.

2:16

It's great to

2:16

be here. It's great to have you

2:18

here. I mean, first of all, I

2:18

just want to say you're the

2:21

first Navy SEAL I've ever met in

2:21

person. You know, I did a little

2:23

bit of research about Navy

2:23

SEALs. And I discovered that

2:27

only 6% of seal applicants

2:27

actually meet the requirements

2:31

to go ahead. Did you know that statistic?

2:32

I did not know that.

2:34

Yeah, that's right from the military.com website. So for people who don't

2:35

know, what is a Navy SEAL, and

2:40

then tell me about the moment

2:40

when you decided that this is

2:43

something that you just had to do.

2:45

The SEAL teams are very different from the other special forces in the US

2:47

military, the acronym is seal,

2:51

it stands for sea, air and land.

2:51

And that's because that's how

2:55

we, that's where we work, we

2:55

work, you know, in the ocean, we

2:59

work on the land, and we can

2:59

come from the sky, to any target

3:03

anywhere in the world. And so

3:03

that's that's how we operate. I

3:06

mean, basically just says, you

3:06

know, where we come from and how

3:09

we do it. So we can do it all.

3:09

Where the army is much more

3:12

focused on land, they don't like

3:12

the water, many of those guys

3:15

can't swim. I mean, I would

3:15

argue that I'm not a very good

3:17

swimmer myself, but I, I can get

3:17

out there and do it. I really we

3:21

do. We do hard things that other

3:21

people don't want to do.

3:25

Sometimes we do some pretty sexy

3:25

things that everybody wants to

3:28

do. But most a lot of times it's

3:28

it's hard things that no one

3:30

else wants to do. It is the most

3:30

elite, most highly trained

3:34

military organization in the

3:34

world. And I can say that with

3:36

confidence.

3:37

Well, only 6%

3:37

of people make it through. So

3:40

that's impressive. Okay, so then

3:40

tell me about the moment when

3:44

this was something you decided

3:44

that you just had to do?

3:46

Well, I always

3:46

knew growing up that I wanted to

3:49

be part of some sort of small,

3:49

elite military organization.

3:54

Although I didn't really I don't

3:54

even think I knew the word elite

3:57

because I grew up in Mississippi, and I wasn't that smart. But I was heavily

3:59

involved in the boy scouts. I

4:03

was an Eagle Scout, and which is

4:03

where I found out about the SEAL

4:06

teams. So I was going to this

4:06

national jamboree I grew up very

4:10

poor. But I was so involved in

4:10

the boy scouts, the Boy Scout

4:13

organization that I was a part

4:13

of paid for me to go to this

4:15

national jamboree. And they have

4:15

it once every four years. And so

4:19

we partnered up with another

4:19

troop. And I met a kid in that

4:23

troop. And you know, this was we

4:23

were all high school kids. And

4:26

he said, you know, he's like he

4:26

was very deliberate about he's

4:28

gonna go to the Naval Academy.

4:28

He wants to fly an F 14 tomcats

4:32

like the movie Top Gun, and he

4:32

wants to be a Navy SEAL. And I'm

4:35

like, all that stuff sounds

4:35

really cool. I want to do all of

4:37

that. What's a Navy SEAL? And he

4:37

explained to me the most elite

4:40

military organization in the

4:40

world, blah, blah, they jump out

4:42

of airplanes, they shoot guns or

4:42

scuba dive, they do all these

4:44

things. And I was like, that's

4:44

where I that's what I want to do

4:47

came from. I was the summer

4:47

between my 11th and 12th grade

4:50

of high school. Wow. Okay, so

4:50

the Navy recruiter called me

4:54

like a week after I got back

4:54

from that trip and was like,

4:56

Hey, have you ever thought about

4:56

joining the Navy? And quite

4:58

honestly, almost every Every man

4:58

in my family has been in the

5:01

Navy and I had zero intention of

5:01

being in the Navy because they

5:05

have the ugliest uniforms. They

5:05

wear these weird little white

5:07

Dixie cup caps. They it's like

5:10

a lot of women

5:10

find it attractive actually

5:12

they've you know,

5:13

and Yeah, but

5:13

I'm or whatever. I'm a redneck

5:16

kid from Mississippi. So it

5:16

wasn't it wasn't exciting for

5:19

me. But I was like, Well, I want

5:19

to be a Navy SEAL. And I want to

5:22

go to the Naval Academy and I want to fly it. He's like, okay, come on down here and we can

5:24

talk about it. So we went down

5:27

there, he showed me this really

5:27

terrible cheesy movie GCI or

5:30

whatever. And I was like, Yeah,

5:30

where do I sign? So basically, I

5:33

joined the Navy before I

5:33

graduated high school. So I was

5:36

joined in what's called the

5:36

delayed Entry Program, the

5:39

summer between before my 12th

5:39

grade of high school, then I

5:41

went to high school. I graduated

5:41

and went off to boot camp right

5:44

after that.

5:45

Oh, so you were

5:45

18? Right away? Did you ever

5:48

see the movie American Sniper?

5:49

I have not.

5:50

Can I ask why?

5:51

I don't watch a

5:51

lot of military movies. I've

5:53

seen some and I'm like, I can't

5:53

watch this anymore. It's why I'm

5:56

curious why there are a lot of

5:56

inaccuracies.

6:00

I was gonna ask

6:00

you, actually. So I saw that

6:02

movie with Bradley Cooper. And

6:02

because it came out in 2014.

6:07

That's why you watched it

6:07

because it was Bradley Cooper. I

6:11

don't really care what you're

6:11

talking about. But it's Bradley

6:13

Cooper. So yeah, But I was just curious, because

6:15

I mean, it's based on a true

6:17

story, right? About a guy, a

6:17

Navy Seal, who comes back and

6:22

how we gets sort of back into

6:22

civilization and does has all

6:25

these challenges. And by what I

6:25

sort of research with your

6:29

story, it seems like a pretty

6:29

common theme, right? And I think

6:31

we're going to talk a lot about

6:31

why you're doing what you're

6:33

doing based on that. So that's

6:33

why I was curious to know if you

6:36

saw that movie. So I'm sure

6:36

while you were Navy Seal, no

6:39

dough, you were in some pretty

6:39

horrific places and saw some

6:43

pretty unimaginable things that

6:43

I don't think any civilian could

6:47

ever see. And then you leave the

6:47

military in 2018. And you

6:51

returned to civilian life. And I

6:51

read a really interesting quote

6:55

that you wrote, and you said

6:55

that that transition into

6:59

civilian life was the hardest

6:59

military mission you've ever

7:03

been on, which I thought was

7:03

very interesting, coming from a

7:06

Navy Seal and things that you

7:06

must have experienced. So can

7:08

you elaborate on that?

7:10

Yeah, it's funny. I've right before this call, I was talking to a coach

7:11

to do a TED talk on life

7:15

transitions. We all go through

7:15

them. But usually we don't

7:19

prepare ourselves for those life

7:19

transitions. And you know, when

7:22

I was in the SEAL teams, I've

7:22

spent my entire adult life in

7:25

the military. Being in the

7:25

military, I knew my purpose. I

7:29

knew my mission. And I knew my

7:29

team, and I had a pretty badass

7:32

purpose. I had a badass mission

7:32

and a badass team just like your

7:35

shirt says, badass. Exactly.

7:35

Well, you're a badass, that's

7:38

why you're on my podcast. And I

7:38

was in such denial about getting

7:42

out of the military or retiring,

7:42

like the military's like, you

7:45

can only stay in for such for

7:45

this amount of time, based on

7:49

you know, your rank and things

7:49

like that. So my transition, you

7:52

know, I had, I had purpose, I

7:52

had a mission and I had a team

7:56

and a badass purpose, a badass

7:56

mission, and a badass team while

7:59

I was in the military, my entire

7:59

adult life. And I was in such

8:02

denial about getting out of the

8:02

military, I was still returning

8:06

emails, the day on products,

8:06

projects that I was working on

8:10

the day before I got out, I'm

8:10

returning emails, and I'm like,

8:13

wait, I should probably turn my

8:13

Blackberry in because I'm not

8:15

going to do this job after

8:15

tomorrow. So I turned my

8:18

Blackberry in, and then we hit

8:18

retirement ceremony, and then I

8:21

was done. And for me, it was

8:21

like, if you've ever seen the

8:24

movie, The Avengers where Thanos

8:24

like snapped his fingers and

8:27

half the world's population goes

8:27

away. That's in that movie. I

8:31

don't I don't think he was in

8:31

the Bradley Cooper Cooper movie.

8:34

That's, I don't know who who

8:34

plays in the Avengers. I didn't

8:38

see it. Sorry, Iron Man, Iron

8:38

Man and some other people like

8:41

that. Who ever played iron? Man?

8:41

I have no idea. Robert Downey

8:44

Jr. Yeah, that guy? Yes. So

8:44

anyway, in that movie, you know,

8:48

and then everyone was like, What

8:48

the hell happened? What's going

8:50

on? Like, what do I do now?

8:50

That's exactly the way I felt.

8:53

And it took me a long time to

8:53

figure out what my new purpose

8:56

was, my new mission was, and who

8:56

was going to be on my new team.

9:00

Because, you know, we can, we

9:00

can be as awesome or thinkers,

9:03

awesome as we want to be. But if

9:03

we don't have a team around us,

9:07

you know, I think Jim Rohn said,

9:07

Once upon a time, you know,

9:09

you're the sum of the five

9:09

people that are in your, that

9:12

you surround yourself with. And

9:12

I can't tell you how true that

9:16

is. So I would on a mission to

9:16

find people to surround myself

9:20

with and you know, some of the

9:20

people that I would I call my

9:23

new SEAL team. They are the Navy

9:23

Seals of entrepreneurs. They're

9:27

former Navy SEALs, you know,

9:27

people that I served with, so I

9:30

try to find the people that are

9:30

really good at the things I want

9:33

to do. And I try to surround

9:33

myself with those people.

9:37

There's no map, there's no real

9:37

clear path on what to do when

9:41

you get out of the military. You

9:41

know, you can go find a job like

9:44

some nine to five or whatever,

9:44

just to pay the bills. I'm not a

9:47

nine to five kind of guy. I'm

9:47

much more but let's go figure

9:50

some stuff out. And so that's

9:50

really been the mission I've

9:53

been on for the last four years.

9:55

When you say it was more challenging or the most challenging military mission

9:57

what made so challenging for

10:01

I had no direction. I had no, no purpose I had no, I you? had no idea what I was going to

10:02

do

10:03

Did you have support?

10:03

marginal, I guess, only when I went out and looked for it, you know, I'm,

10:04

I'm a man. And I don't like to

10:14

ask for help. And that's

10:14

probably the biggest downfall

10:18

I've had is asking for help,

10:18

like showing weakness. I never

10:21

wanted to do that in the SEAL

10:21

teams. If I wasn't like, pulling

10:24

my weight, someone was gonna

10:24

tell me, or if I didn't know how

10:27

to do something, I could ask

10:27

someone else, hey, can you help

10:29

me figure this out. But when I

10:29

got out, I didn't have that

10:32

support system, that team to

10:32

help me figure out what my next

10:35

My next admission was going to

10:35

be. And so I I had a lot of

10:38

failures, in entrepreneurship in

10:38

you know, maybe just getting a

10:42

regular old job, I had a lot of

10:42

challenges with that. Because

10:45

that's just not the way that I'm

10:45

wired. And I didn't know what I

10:48

was doing. And the other thing

10:48

that I've had conversations with

10:51

other people about is, the

10:51

military does a very, very good

10:54

job of preparing you to be in

10:54

the military, they bring you

10:57

into boot camp, you have months

10:57

at a time where they're, they're

11:00

like they they take your old

11:00

identity away, shave your head,

11:03

do all this other stuff. And

11:03

they they make you a part of the

11:07

of the organism of the military.

11:07

So it's several months at a time

11:11

where you're just complete

11:11

immersion, the transition from

11:15

the military, the training that

11:15

they give you. They give you a

11:18

one week, one week of training

11:18

that it's required for everyone,

11:21

and they teach you how to write

11:21

a resume, and how to balance a

11:24

budget.

11:25

You mean training to leave?

11:26

Yes,

11:27

strangely. Okay. That's it?

11:28

Yeah. That they don't, yeah, there's

11:29

no like no help to get a job or

11:33

figure out what your what you're

11:33

going to do next that like, you

11:36

can go figure that out.

11:37

Wow. And so you

11:37

suffered some pretty challenging

11:40

times during that time, right? I

11:40

mean, you kind of hit rock

11:43

bottom, is it fair to say?

11:45

oh, yeah, for

11:45

sure. 26 years of service, and

11:48

maybe some not so often

11:48

relationships that I've been a

11:51

part of, I got a lot of noise in

11:51

my head. And so it was very hard

11:55

for me to control the noise.

11:55

That noise was just consuming me

11:57

all the time. And so I would,

11:57

the only way that I could really

12:00

like check out was to like,

12:00

pretty much just drink myself to

12:03

sleep at night, or drink. So you

12:03

pass out or however you

12:06

Self medicate,

12:06

right?

12:08

Yeah,

12:09

Very common.

12:09

This is where you decided to

12:13

start your business naked

12:13

warrior recovery. Can you tell

12:16

us a little bit about that? And

12:16

what inspired you to start that?

12:19

Yeah, so I had heard

12:19

about this molecule called CBD.

12:22

I don't think I really noticed

12:22

anything when I took it. But

12:24

what I noticed over time is my

12:24

life got better, but I couldn't

12:28

really measure it. I didn't

12:28

really notice it got better

12:31

until bad things started

12:31

happening again. So I'd like to

12:34

say that, you know, water boils

12:34

at 212 degrees. And I was

12:37

probably living my life at 210

12:37

degrees. So it didn't take much

12:40

for me to like some sort of

12:40

surface command and like, Yeah,

12:43

and so I went from like, to 10,

12:43

like taking that bottle of CBD

12:46

or from 210 to 205 to 200 to 195

12:46

to 190, maybe 185 I got out of

12:51

that red zone of like, anxiety,

12:51

stress, whatever it was what

12:54

however you want to frame it, my

12:54

fuse got longer, I was able to

12:58

respond to triggers rather than

12:58

just react to them. And then

13:02

also, with my time in the

13:02

military got a lot of stuff

13:04

wrong with me.

13:04

Are you talking physically or are you just talking emotional trauma?

13:07

yeah, there's

13:07

physical injuries, physical

13:10

injuries. And, and so the pains

13:10

that my struggle with every day

13:15

were just not as bad. And then

13:15

when I when I stopped taking

13:18

that CBD, they started creeping

13:18

back. And I'm like, I haven't

13:21

felt that for a long time. You

13:21

know, my fuse started getting

13:23

shorter again. So I tried a

13:23

different brand. I had similar

13:26

results. So now I'm very

13:26

interested in the CBD industry.

13:29

And it was just barely legal at

13:29

that point in the United States.

13:32

So what year 2019 Okay, so it

13:32

was April of 2019 that I tried

13:38

CBD for the first time. And then

13:38

fast forward to I think, August,

13:44

September of 2019. I was at a

13:44

business conference, the same

13:47

guy who gave me that first

13:47

bottle of CBD. He was speaking

13:50

at this thing, and he invited me

13:50

to be like his VIP guests. So I

13:55

got to go to all the like, all

13:55

the VIP events and learn about

13:59

social media because I didn't

13:59

know anything about social media

14:01

at the time. I shunned it

14:01

because of my, my, my previous

14:04

job. And there was a they were

14:04

doing q&a And there was a girl

14:07

in the audience. She was putting

14:07

CBD into kinesiology tape for

14:11

pain relief. And so she was

14:11

like, but I can't market it

14:14

because social media shunts it.

14:14

So how do I market it and and

14:18

that was like CBD, all I cared

14:18

was like, she's a CBD girl. I

14:21

need to go talk to her. And so I

14:21

tracked her down after the

14:24

event. And I was like, Hey, you're the CBD girl, right? She was like, Yeah, I'm like, I want

14:26

to be in the industry. I'm

14:28

thinking, This is my new

14:28

purpose, my new mission. She's

14:30

going to hire me. I'm going to help her like with their company, and she's going to

14:32

train me up on CBD and all this

14:34

other stuff. And she was like,

14:34

I'm not hiring anybody right

14:36

now. I'm moving this thing

14:36

forward. But she was like, so do

14:39

you want to do a to b b2b or

14:39

b2c? And I was like, I don't

14:41

know what those letters mean, I

14:41

want to do the CBD. And she was

14:47

like, Well, why don't you just

14:47

start your own CBD company and I

14:49

said, I don't know how to do

14:49

that. And she said, You are a

14:51

Navy SEAL. You can figure it

14:51

out. So I asked her if I could

14:54

have my man card back and put

14:54

that pocket not to give that up

14:58

again. And I started researching

14:58

the end of Three, I'm like, How

15:00

do I start a CBD company Google.

15:00

And so as I was researching

15:05

this, I found that the industry

15:05

was incredibly dirty. So my

15:09

mission became like, let's

15:09

create the well well hold on.

15:11

What do you mean it was dirty.

15:11

So CBD became legal in the

15:15

United States, December 20 of

15:15

2018. So this was the passing of

15:20

the farm bill that made hemp

15:20

legal, hemp and marijuana really

15:24

at the end of the day, they're the same plant, it's just how they're bred. So hemp has to be

15:26

classified as hemp, it has to

15:30

have point 3% or less THC. In

15:30

the plant marrow, anything above

15:35

that is considered marijuana. So

15:35

hemp once upon a time, it was a

15:39

it was a an industrial crop,

15:39

they are able to either use it

15:42

like to make clothes or paper or

15:42

things like that. Or you can

15:46

extract the oil out of it and

15:46

use the medicinal qualities of

15:49

that oil for consumption. And so

15:49

there were once that happened

15:53

there, like this was like a mad

15:53

rush of everyone that had a good

15:56

idea to just like, extract some

15:56

oil from some plants and sell it

16:02

as CBD. And so the FDA went out

16:02

and did a bunch of testing a

16:06

bunch of other organizations

16:06

went out and did just

16:09

independent testing of like

16:09

products that were in the market

16:11

it gas station at the smoke shop

16:11

at the whatever at the whatever.

16:14

And they found that more than

16:14

70% of the products that were

16:17

out there either had higher than

16:17

the point 3% THC in the product.

16:21

They had high levels of heavy

16:21

metal, mercury, arsenic, lead

16:25

things like Oh, my God really

16:25

has asides, herbicides, all this

16:29

like just like, if you're

16:29

putting something in your body

16:31

to be a medicine, you don't want

16:31

to put in a bunch of poisons and

16:34

toxins in your body as well. So

16:34

there was like, clearly, like,

16:36

there was stuff that was clearly

16:36

marijuana. Like they just

16:39

extracted it and called it CBD.

16:39

There is some CBD in that or

16:43

there was oils that were put out

16:43

there that had zero CBD in it.

16:46

And so people were just like

16:46

this get rich quick, that's just

16:48

like, make a bunch of money and

16:48

whatever. And so I started like

16:51

doing all this research and

16:51

like, holy crap, that's what. So

16:54

my, my mission was like, let's

16:54

create the highest quality

16:57

product on the market. And so as

16:57

you know, I got going down that

17:01

road, doing more research. Okay,

17:01

there's everybody. Everybody has

17:05

a premium quality product. I'm

17:05

like, Okay, so what's our new

17:07

mission? So I looked at myself,

17:07

I looked at where I came from,

17:11

what's my, what's my why, what's

17:11

my purpose again? And so I was

17:14

like, Okay, so there's this

17:14

metric out there that 22

17:17

veterans take their lives every

17:17

single day, we've lost more

17:19

veterans to suicide than we have

17:19

in 20 years of sustained combat

17:23

in two theatres of war. So maybe

17:23

our mission is to eliminate

17:27

veteran suicides

17:28

22 suicides a

17:28

day?

17:30

Yeah, it actually they have

17:32

Is tha all across the US?

17:33

Yeah.

17:34

Wow. And, and so, there, I saw an

17:34

article about a month ago that

17:39

said that they think the

17:39

statistic is probably closer to

17:41

42 a day, you know, current

17:41

world events with pandemic and

17:46

people being shut in, and all

17:46

this other stuff. They believe

17:48

it's even higher than that. So

17:48

CBD was a modality. It's not a

17:52

cure, but it was a modality that

17:52

helped kind of turn down the

17:55

noise in my head to help me

17:55

drink less to help me have more

17:57

positive self talk. Once I was

17:57

like, got to turn the noise

18:00

down, then I had to change the way that I was thinking. So your company is Naked Warrior

18:02

Recovery, but you're wearing

18:07

tons of swag, which is my

18:07

wheelhouse, by the way, GET

18:10

NAKED, your hat, your T shirts.

18:10

So tell me about GET NAKED

18:14

It's a two part thing.

18:14

So I kind of described it a

18:17

little bit like ticking that

18:17

armor ticking that ego off that

18:20

we hide behind so we can find

18:20

the healing that we need, we

18:22

become vulnerable. But it's also

18:22

changed your mindset change the

18:26

way that you think about things.

18:26

And so naked is an acronym also,

18:30

because you know, we love

18:30

acronyms in the military. And so

18:33

the acronym the acronym stands

18:33

for the end is for never quit.

18:38

The A is accept failure. The key

18:38

is to kill mediocrity, the E is

18:41

exposure fears, and the D is do the work.

18:42

So can you elaborate a bit on each one?

18:44

So the N is

18:44

never quit. And I don't mean

18:46

never quit smoking, or drinking

18:46

or porn or whatever bad advice

18:49

that you potentially have. I

18:49

mean, never quit on yourself,

18:52

never quit on if you started a

18:52

project, the program is

18:55

something that you is going to

18:55

be hard, then you take that

18:58

thing all the way to the end.

18:58

And the way I say to do that is

19:01

you're going to have days that

19:01

you are going to feel

19:03

overwhelmed. Like I don't think

19:03

I can do this. What I tell you

19:06

to do is I tell you to create

19:06

small victories. So a small

19:09

victory could just be like

19:09

return one email, turn on your

19:12

computer, make one phone call,

19:12

do three things, three super

19:16

small things, create those small

19:16

victories. And when you do that,

19:19

you create momentum to actually

19:19

start doing the work. But you

19:23

have to really compartmentalize

19:23

what you're doing. And not look

19:27

at the big thing. You can only

19:27

do like one step at a time,

19:29

you'll run a marathon one step

19:29

at a time. You don't run 26

19:33

miles at one time. You do it one

19:33

step at a time and or one mile

19:36

at a time. One more water break

19:36

at a time. And so in SEAL

19:39

training, we have this thing

19:39

called Hell Week. It's five and

19:41

a half days. You don't sleep the

19:41

entire time. Actually they let

19:44

us sleep for about two and a half hours and that was the worst punishment that could have

19:46

done to us. But it was one thing

19:50

is constant during Hell Week. You're cold, you're wet, you're miserable. They carry this bone

19:52

on you on your head. You run

19:54

about six marathons during Hell

19:54

Week. Like you run everywhere

19:59

you Freeze your butt off in the

19:59

ocean, the one thing that is

20:03

constant no matter what is they

20:03

feed you four times a day. So it

20:06

doesn't matter how much it

20:06

sucks, all you got to do is make

20:08

it to that next meal. And that's

20:08

a small victory. So you do the

20:11

same thing in your life, you

20:11

just break this thing up that

20:13

you have that's overwhelming,

20:13

you chop it up into bite sized

20:16

pieces, and you just accomplish

20:16

one a day. If you can accomplish

20:19

10 A day awesome. But just focus

20:19

on one thing at a time, one step

20:22

at a time. Keep doing that until

20:22

you've reached the end of

20:25

whatever it is you're trying to

20:25

complete. And then that's that's

20:28

what never quit is all about.

20:28

The A is accept failure, because

20:31

failure has been the biggest

20:31

teacher of my life. I can do

20:33

things perfectly. And I don't

20:33

learn. But I learned through

20:37

failure. I learned like Okay, so

20:37

what if I try this? What if I

20:40

try that? What if I keep doing

20:40

this? And that's how I learned.

20:43

And I've found that that's how

20:43

most people learn?

20:46

Absolutely, But I have also have found that

20:46

people fail. And they just

20:50

become so downtrodden. From that

20:50

failure. They're like, let's

20:54

give it one heave ho. And if it

20:54

doesn't work, well, I don't know

20:57

what to do with my life, my

20:57

cipher, whatever. Yeah. And so,

21:00

you know, Thomas Edison, he

21:00

discovered more than 10,000 ways

21:03

to not create the incandescent

21:03

light bulb, Michael Jordan has

21:06

missed more than 3000 shots in

21:06

his basketball career. But, you

21:10

know, he's one of the greatest

21:10

basketball players of all time,

21:13

he wasn't focused on the shots

21:13

that he got, right, he focused

21:16

on the shots that he missed. And

21:16

every time in a game, he missed

21:18

a shot, he would go to the gym

21:18

that night, and he would

21:21

practice that shot in every

21:21

scenario possible. So he

21:24

accepted those failures. And he

21:24

became better from those

21:26

failures. I've had massive

21:26

failures in my life, all of the

21:29

plaques or whatever you see on

21:29

the wall, those are, those are

21:32

based on failures, I wear my

21:32

failures, I put them on the wall

21:35

as reminders, I failed all these

21:35

times in order to succeed. So

21:39

you have to accept failure,

21:39

never quit, and keep going.

21:42

That's what accept failure is all about. I totally agree with your

21:44

failure. I don't think there's anybody out there who hasn't

21:46

succeeded without failing. And

21:49

we have an event. It's funny,

21:49

you talk about that, because we

21:52

have an event in Calgary, it's

21:52

actually I think it's

21:54

international. And it's called

21:54

FuckUp Nights. And what it does

21:57

is it brings on people who have

21:57

failed miserably, but you know,

22:01

have overcome it. And they share

22:01

that with people because instead

22:03

of hearing about businesses, or

22:03

entrepreneurs who talk about

22:07

their success stories, and how

22:07

you know, they go from rags to

22:09

riches, I think it's way more

22:09

compelling and interesting when

22:12

you hear about people's failures

22:12

and how they overcame it or so

22:16

if you go from success to

22:16

failure, and that success again,

22:19

I think there's way more of a

22:19

connection being made, because

22:23

you can relate to that, right? Because we all fail versus

22:24

someone who has never

22:27

experienced that. So I love

22:27

that. Okay, so K?

22:32

K is to kill mediocrity.

22:33

Have you ever

22:33

explained this as long as you

22:35

are right now with me?

22:37

You know what, I

22:37

do it on stage all the time.

22:40

I menat with people like asking you to breakdown each letter.

22:43

Usually, most

22:43

people they wait till the end

22:45

and like what? Ah, hold on,

22:45

let's go back to the I can do it

22:48

any way you anyway.

22:50

No, this is

22:50

great. Just having some fun. So

22:52

the K stands for?

22:54

Kill mediocrity. So I

22:54

would argue that we're at war

22:58

right now with mediocrity. If

22:58

you look at Maslow's pyramid of

23:01

hierarchy, we're at the top

23:01

right now, around the world.

23:04

There are some countries that

23:04

are that are not. But you know,

23:07

we're at the top. And because of

23:07

that, because of technology,

23:11

because many people have a

23:11

entitlement attitude. There's a

23:16

lot of entitlement in the world.

23:16

And you know, some of it is

23:19

based off this little thing right here that we carry around in our pocket. And you can order

23:21

ice cream and have it delivered

23:24

to your house in 30 minutes or less.

23:25

People can't

23:25

see this because it's audio. So

23:28

we just have to say he just picked up his iPhone,

23:30

my iPhone, yes,

23:30

we're gonna go What's this? What

23:33

is this thing?

23:34

Yeah, what is this thing that he just picked up.

23:36

And we rely on

23:36

this, we rely on this phone, we

23:38

rely on technology to just make

23:38

our life easier, because we're

23:41

programmed to look for the easy,

23:41

the easy path. But that's a

23:46

million years of evolution,

23:46

drilled into our brain into our

23:50

what we need to do, like we came

23:50

from, like hunter gatherers. And

23:53

then we eventually created

23:53

society through farming and

23:56

things like that, which made

23:56

life easier. So we're always

23:58

looking for the easier way. And

23:58

we forget to do hard things we

24:01

become so dependent on the

24:01

technology at the time, whatever

24:05

that technology is, technology

24:05

is always going to move forward.

24:08

And if we're not careful, we

24:08

will be left behind and

24:11

technology will run our life.

24:11

And we will have a say of what

24:15

we're doing and how we're doing

24:15

it. So that's mediocrity. That's

24:18

you know, ho hum, and we just

24:18

barely exists through life

24:21

instead of being exceptional

24:21

through life. And so the way

24:24

that you kill me the aakriti is

24:24

you compete, you don't have to

24:27

go and like play a professional

24:27

sport or anything like that you

24:30

can compete in, in small things

24:30

like you can compete in giving

24:34

you complete competing kindness,

24:34

you can compete in gratitude.

24:38

But most importantly, what you're competing against is you're competing against this

24:40

ego, this ego that tells you you

24:43

don't have to worry about that

24:43

someone else will pick up that

24:45

trash. Someone else will do

24:45

that. You'd be the winner. You

24:48

get out there and you compete

24:48

with everyone around you in

24:51

kindness, generosity and

24:51

gratitude. You're going to start

24:53

changing the world. You're going

24:53

to start winning against that

24:56

ego that thing that's telling

24:56

you, you don't need to work out

24:58

you can do it tomorrow. You can

24:58

do it later. Now just go do it

25:01

now compete against your ego and

25:01

win. And then you're killing

25:05

mediocrity in your life and

25:05

you're gonna start killing the

25:07

mediocrity and other people's

25:07

lives because you will be an

25:09

inspiration to them. So that's

25:09

really what kill mediocrity is

25:12

all about. Just make yourself a

25:12

better person, compete with

25:15

yourself, and people will see

25:15

you do that, and they will want

25:18

to be more like you.

25:19

I love that. Okay, so we're on to, I'm looking at your shirt, I'm going

25:21

okay, so I think we're on to

25:24

what the E,

25:25

E, the E is expose your

25:25

fears. And that'll mean lions

25:28

and tigers and bears, I mean,

25:28

those fears, those thoughts that

25:32

come into your mind when you're

25:32

driving alone in your car,

25:33

You're an

25:33

introvert?

25:35

there's things that keep you awake at night, there's things that wake you up in the middle

25:37

of the night, that that won't

25:40

let you go back to sleep, those

25:40

thoughts that consume you that

25:43

are not healthy thoughts. And I

25:43

think the human brain thinks, I

25:45

I'm a total

25:45

introvert.

25:48

don't know, 87,000 thoughts an

25:48

hour or something like that, and

25:52

80% of those thoughts are

25:52

negative thoughts. So we have to

25:54

be able to beat out those

25:54

negative thoughts with more

25:57

positive thoughts. And

25:57

oftentimes, those negative

25:59

thoughts come in the form of

25:59

fear. And fear is the

26:01

anticipation of something that

26:01

will never ever happen to you.

26:03

Wow, I wouldn't

26:03

have pegged you for that.

26:04

But for some reason, we put it

26:04

in our mind that we're afraid

26:07

of, we're afraid of heights,

26:07

we're afraid of flying, we're

26:09

afraid of water, we're afraid of

26:09

having a conversation with

26:12

someone, we're afraid to pick up

26:12

the phone and, and be rejected.

26:14

Interesting. We're afraid of like talking to

26:15

our partner about like, the

26:18

relationship that we're in

26:18

whatever it is. And so the E

26:20

And so I am

26:20

afraid of public speaking. I'm

26:22

exposure fears is really about

26:22

talking about those fears, or

26:25

writing those fears down or just

26:25

doing things that scare you. For

26:29

example, I am an introvert. I

26:29

don't like public speaking.

26:41

more comfortable in a gunfight

26:41

than I am standing on a stage

26:44

talking to a bunch of people.

26:45

Wow. Well they

26:45

say that standing they say that

26:48

standing and giving

26:48

presentations is like the number

26:51

one fear of everyone above death.

26:52

100%.

26:53

Yeah,

26:54

I think so. I believe that's absolutely true. For me anyway. And it's funny, I

26:56

was giving a gave a

26:59

presentation. And I usually

26:59

start the presentation off to

27:02

kind of like, get that off my

27:02

chest while I'm like, Listen,

27:05

I'm gonna mess this up. I'm

27:05

gonna say the wrong thing. I

27:07

made swear I made like, forget

27:07

exactly what I was gonna say.

27:11

And I have to go back and look

27:11

at my notes, because I'm

27:13

terrified of speaking in front

27:13

of you. Because I'm more

27:16

comfortable in a gunfight than I

27:16

am standing on the stage. So you

27:20

know, when I do screw up, just

27:20

bear with me, I'll be back. So I

27:23

put it out there to expose it.

27:24

You know what I

27:24

think we all live in. We all

27:27

have fears, right? And they're

27:27

all different. And I think that

27:30

you're not really living until

27:30

you face your fears and do it

27:33

anyway. You know, listen, I'm

27:33

not the best flyer. I don't

27:37

really love flying, to be honest

27:37

with you. But I love traveling.

27:41

So I'm not gonna let my fear

27:41

stopped me from living and doing

27:44

things. And so I've heard people

27:44

talk about being fearless. And I

27:47

don't necessarily know if you're

27:47

being fearless, but like, I love

27:49

that you say your you know what

27:49

your fears are exposing it and

27:52

doing it anyway, will just make

27:52

you I think, stronger and

27:55

happier in the long run.

27:56

Oh, 100%. And

27:56

yeah, so one other one other

27:59

technique is actually one of my

27:59

business coaches. He's in the

28:02

billionaire category. And he

28:02

still gets stressed his

28:04

anxieties, whatever, the stocks

28:04

that consume him, and what he

28:07

does, is he will pull over he'll

28:07

stop at a Starbucks, he's

28:11

driving along, I'm like, he's

28:11

like, Ah, this is like too much.

28:14

He'll pull over, he'll stop at a

28:14

Starbucks order a cup of coffee

28:16

sit down. And with a pen, or a

28:16

pencil and a piece of paper, he

28:19

will write down every of the one

28:19

of the thoughts, the stresses,

28:23

the anxieties, and do kind of a

28:23

brain dump. And so there's this

28:26

magical thing that happens from

28:26

the brain down the arm, through

28:30

the pen and onto the paper. He

28:30

says that fear does not exist on

28:33

paper. So you write down

28:33

everything that's bothering you,

28:35

and you read it. And you're

28:35

gonna read that and be like,

28:37

that's really the thing that's

28:37

bothering me. I was afraid to

28:40

like make a call to someone

28:40

because they might reject me. So

28:43

once you expose your fears, you

28:43

control the fears and they will

28:46

no longer control you. But it

28:46

doesn't happen once you have to

28:48

do it over and over and over.

28:48

Yeah, people. Some people

28:50

consider like, talk therapy. I'm

28:50

not a talk therapy kind of guy.

28:53

I don't like to talk about

28:53

stuff. I don't like to talk.

28:56

Yeah, I get

28:56

that about you. I've had to like

29:01

draw it out of you.

29:02

Right. I told

29:02

you I'm an introvert.

29:04

Yeah,

29:05

I mean, I can I can get out there but I have to like go recharge later.

29:08

I love that expression. Fear doesn't exist on paper. That's great. That's a

29:10

great quote. I might steal

29:14

that.Because it's so true.

29:15

I stole it from him. I told him I'm gonna steal it from him.

29:17

Okay, and I and

29:17

I've heard that before about the

29:19

whole connection between writing

29:19

it and not doing it on a on your

29:23

iPhone or not doing it on a

29:23

computer but actually the hand

29:26

to writing and I think that's

29:26

true for that also when you're

29:30

writing like a business plan or

29:30

any or your goals or anything

29:33

that is important if you write

29:33

it down but you do it with

29:35

actually pen to paper. Okay, the

29:35

big D

29:47

So so the D is do the

29:47

work. And the analogy that I

29:51

generally give is I graduated

29:51

SEAL training. And then I went

29:55

to the SEAL team when I

29:55

graduated I was like, everything

29:57

is going to be easier from here

29:57

on out like I did the hardest

30:00

military training in the world,

30:00

like everything will be pretty

30:02

much downhill from here. And I

30:02

couldn't have been more wrong.

30:05

When you show up to the SEAL

30:05

team, they do not care that you

30:07

graduated. They don't care. Like

30:07

if you were at the top of the

30:10

class, how long it took you,

30:10

because every one of those dudes

30:13

have done it before. What they

30:13

care about is what you're doing

30:15

today. Every day you show up,

30:15

you do the work, you do it

30:18

better than you did the day

30:18

before. That's what's expected

30:21

of you. And what's one of the

30:21

cool things about being in the

30:23

SEAL teams is it didn't matter,

30:23

my rank, my position or anything

30:28

else, how long I'd been there.

30:28

If I showed up and I wasn't

30:30

doing the work, someone was

30:30

going to call me out on it. It

30:33

goes back to that mediocrity. If

30:33

you're not killing that

30:36

mediocrity every day, you're not

30:36

doing that work, then you're

30:38

just gonna be mediocre for the

30:38

rest of your life. So you have

30:40

to show up and you have to never

30:40

quit. You have to accept

30:42

failure, you kill mediocrity,

30:42

you expose your fears. And you

30:45

do the work and you do it every single day.

30:47

I love that.

30:48

That's the idea of the get NAKED mindset.

30:50

Get naked

30:50

mindset. Well, that was great.

30:52

Thank you for going through each

30:52

one of them. And you know,

30:55

everything you talked about,

30:55

that you did in the Navy Seals

30:59

and what you're doing now I have

30:59

a lot of most of my listeners

31:03

are actually small business

31:03

owners and entrepreneurs and

31:05

it's all transferable to

31:05

business, right? Everything you

31:08

just talked about is what people

31:08

need to do to be successful in

31:11

my mind when it comes to

31:11

business. And I love not only

31:15

are you standing there with a T

31:15

shirt with your get naked and

31:18

your hat with your get naked. So

31:18

obviously, you're a firm

31:21

believer in branding. So I want

31:21

to get your idea of why you

31:25

think it's so important to help

31:25

create your brand awareness for

31:28

your business when it comes to

31:28

merchandise and why do you why

31:32

do you have the merchandise?

31:33

So a couple

31:33

reasons that I have merchandise

31:35

number one is brand awareness.

31:35

But you know, having something

31:39

that is a little bit catchy?

31:39

What's that hook and I own a

31:43

little clothing that doesn't say

31:43

this doesn't say get naked in

31:46

some way, shape or form. Maybe

31:46

it's a flag that has it in the

31:49

back that kind of spills the

31:49

whole thing out or a hat or

31:51

whatever. Very, very, very

31:51

seldom am I wearing this?

31:55

Because you know what? I fly all

31:55

the time I travel all the time

31:57

we wait

31:58

sorry, very

31:58

seldom are you wearing it very

32:00

seldom are you not wearing

32:01

Am I not wearing

32:01

it? Very seldom do I not wear

32:04

it? Why

32:04

is that?

32:05

I love this,

32:05

because I want to I'm a walking

32:08

billboard. And people most

32:08

people are scared to ask. But

32:12

the people who do ask like what

32:12

is this get naked thing you've

32:15

got going on? They asked so I

32:15

have to tell them now the Get

32:18

naked guy the naked guy. I'm

32:18

known as the naked guy a lot.

32:23

I love I love

32:23

that you said that. Because I

32:25

mean, that's what I tell people

32:25

all the time. And that's what I

32:28

share with people all the time

32:28

and how important it is and how

32:31

that's exactly what you're doing

32:31

is creating brand awareness. You

32:33

know, I same thing with my

32:33

badass T shirts. I did these

32:36

when I started my podcast. And

32:36

I've always people stopped me

32:38

and go where do you get your T

32:38

shirt? And you know, and then we

32:41

talk about

32:41

your website? Here you go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

32:43

I sell them on

32:43

my website, actually. So tell me

32:46

about your strategy for growing

32:46

your brand. I mean, swag, I'm

32:49

sure is only one part of it.

32:49

What are so what are some tips

32:51

because you become very

32:51

successful? Can you share some

32:54

just quick advice.

32:55

But so for

32:55

example, like social media, I

32:58

can't advertise CBD on social

32:58

media, they consider it to be an

33:01

illicit substance. But I can run

33:01

ads for T shirts and hats, as

33:07

long as it's not attached to my

33:07

my CPD website. So that was also

33:11

part of it. But also because I

33:11

can't I can't run ads. I've been

33:15

on around 450 different podcasts

33:15

in the last two years, which is

33:20

your favorite branding, branding

33:20

matters, of course.

33:25

What's some advice that you could share with some listeners,

33:28

you know, maybe

33:28

consider hiring a coach, what a

33:30

coach does is they help time

33:30

collapse the lessons that

33:33

they've learned, been in

33:33

business for 10 years or

33:35

something like that. And they

33:35

have a lot of success and a lot,

33:38

a lot of failure. And so they

33:38

will help you to time collapse

33:41

their success and failure so that you don't have to go through that. And you can speed

33:43

up what success will look like

33:46

for you doesn't mean that you're

33:46

gonna have failure, you still

33:49

have to do the work and have to get out there and do it yourself. Just because you hire

33:51

a coach doesn't mean success. It

33:53

means you have to do it

33:53

yourself. But you can go back to

33:56

that coach and say, Hey, I tried

33:56

this, this didn't work. And they

33:58

can help tweak you and kind of

33:58

get you going in the right

34:01

direction. I think that's

34:01

probably step number one. Step

34:03

number two is for sure create a

34:03

brand that is going to attract

34:06

attention. I mean, that's really

34:06

all about getting naked. That's

34:09

all about badass that gets

34:09

people's attention. I love that.

34:12

Well, it was

34:12

really great to talk to you.

34:15

There's I feel as well, well,

34:15

even if people want to learn

34:17

more about you and how they can

34:17

get naked. What is the best way

34:21

for them to find you?

34:23

I would say go

34:23

to five seal secrets.com Put

34:25

your name and email in there. And then if you want to have a conversation with me just reply

34:27

to that email. You can follow me

34:30

on every social media platform

34:30

out there. William Branham, er

34:34

WM dot art brand, I'm on

34:34

Instagram. My website is in W

34:38

dash recovery.com And yeah,

34:38

okay, those are those are some

34:42

places.

34:43

All right, well, we'll chat soon.

34:44

Awesome. Thank you.

34:45

Bye. And there

34:45

you have it. Thank you so much

34:53

for tuning in. I hope you

34:53

enjoyed the conversation and

34:56

maybe learned a few things to

34:56

help you with your branding.

34:59

This Show is a work in progress.

34:59

So please remember to rate and

35:02

review on whatever platform you

35:02

listen to podcasts. And if you'd

35:06

like help creating brand

35:06

awareness for your business,

35:09

please reach out to me on any of

35:09

the social platforms under you

35:12

guessed it, Branding Badass, I

35:12

promise you I reply to all my

35:17

messages. Branding Matters was

35:17

produced, edited and hosted by

35:22

Joelly. Goodson also me so thank

35:22

you again and until next time,

35:27

here's to all you badasses is

35:27

out there.