Episode 406 - Brandon Young - Army Ranger, Afghanistan, Divinity, Author, Entrepreneur, Leader

Summary

Cleared Hot, Episode 406: Brandon Young - Army Ranger, Afghanistan, Divinity, Author, Entrepreneur, Leader

Date: September 8, 2025
Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Brandon Young

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andy Stumpf sits down with Brandon Young, former Army Ranger, Afghanistan veteran, author, entrepreneur, and leadership consultant. Their wide-ranging, candid conversation spans Brandon's journey from a tumultuous upbringing through elite military service, his transition to civilian life, personal and family challenges, faith, leadership lessons, and the modern veteran experience. They discuss their parallel military timelines, the harsh realities and transformations that come from combat, parenting, dealing with generational differences, and the universal struggle of finding meaning beyond titles and achievements. The discussion is grounded in Brandon’s new book, "Perseverance Is Greater Than Endurance," co-authored with Blaine Smith, and the ongoing work they do in leadership development and veteran support.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. Perseverance vs. Endurance & The Purpose of the Book

(00:50–13:50)

• Brandon explains the core concept behind his book: "Perseverance is greater than endurance."
  • Perseverance: Becoming someone new in the process of overcoming adversity, not just surviving.
  • Endurance: Just making it through a known, marked course, becoming only more tired, not fundamentally changed.
• The book draws on their military and leadership experiences, illustrated through five factors: change, uncertainty, acceptance, choice, and growth.
• Both Andy and Brandon share reflections on how people, especially leaders, reach the end of their endurance, are forced to adapt, and why this capacity is fundamental to growth.
• Quote:
  • "By the time you get to point B, you are not the same person that started the course at point A ... you have had to change and grow to become the person that the situation calls for." – Brandon (11:46)
• The concept is connected to real-life trials—combat deployments, raising kids, marriage, and facing career and personal inflection points.

2. Generational Perspectives, Parenting, and the Culture of Enablement

(13:50–19:55)

• Open conversation about Gen X (their own upbringing) vs. modern Gen Z/Alpha kids.
  • Money as a (misguided) metric for happiness.
  • Over-parenting vs. the "free-range" '80s/'90s upbringing—modern helicopter parenting seen as a passive form of capping perseverance.
  • The problem of pursuing perfection or not trying rather than risking failure.
• Quote:
  • "It teaches them that someone will always save you, and the reality of life is no one is coming." – Brandon (19:31)

3. The Value of Hardship, Growth, and Seeking Discomfort

(21:26–26:10)

• Both agree that adversity and pushing into discomfort are essential for personal development.
• Encouragement for parents, leaders, and individuals to seek hard things, not shield from every struggle.
• Lighthearted planning on "leaving the GPS off" and putting younger generations in situations that force problem-solving and initiative.

4. Military Stories: Grit, Selection, and Rites of Passage

(26:10–29:56)

• Sharing of “old school” military selection and training stories (e.g., flutter kicks, BUD/S, Ranger school), and how these intense experiences catalyze maturity and humility.
• Generational jokes and the enduring culture of passing on hardships through the education pipeline.

5. Identity, Family, and the Challenge of Military Transition

(29:56–45:51)

• Brandon shares his complex family background—estranged father, self-reliance developed through adversity, his father's false military claims (stolen valor), and discovering the truth as an adult.
• Emotional discussion on the cost of living in delusion/lies vs. embracing the sometimes-painful reality.
• The pain of transition: the struggle to redefine oneself outside the military, the lure of the familiar chaos of war over family vulnerability, and the need to actively seek help.
• Quotes:
  • "Part of what makes that transition so tough is...you've been in that culture of being indomitable, and you're expected to walk through another door and say, I need help. That is irrational." – Brandon (73:11)
  • "[Veterans] just end up isolated." – Brandon (73:31)

6. The Post-9/11 Experience: Service, Success, and the Trap of Nostalgia

(53:55–56:15)

• Contrast between Vietnam-era veterans and the post-9/11 veteran community—highlighting the abundance of support, but flagging the small group who exploit this goodwill for personal gain.
• The dangerous tendency to get stuck in the "glory days" of youth, missing out on decades of potential growth and change.

7. Parenting, Purpose, and Choosing to Leave the Military

(57:01–71:20)

• Brandon explains choosing to leave the Army after 11 years to be present for his wife and kids, even as others pressured him to stay for a pension.
• The post-service struggle to find meaning and worth beyond former titles, and the journey to redefine himself in business, faith, and service.

8. Faith, Healing, and Rekindling Marriage

(90:36–98:36)

• Brandon details a turning point in his and his wife’s life when they explored Christianity, which catalyzed emotional healing and the repair ("remarriage") of their relationship.
• They discover the importance of radical honesty, forgiveness, and shedding façades within marriage and leadership.
• Quote:
  • "Stop managing your reputation, cut the shit and tell the real story." – Brandon (94:26)

9. Applied Leadership Partners & Leadership Lessons for Civilian Life

(98:38–110:21)

• Founding of Applied Leadership Partners with Blaine Smith—a leadership consulting company helping organizations develop effective, adaptable leadership cultures with a focus on framework, not scripts.
• Discussion of the limits of military leadership models in the civilian world; importance of trust, purpose, and meeting people where they are.
• Humorous notes on how military methods (directive, punitive) generally fail with a diverse civilian workforce (e.g., "If I treated my coffee shop like a SEAL platoon, I'd have zero employees." – Andy, 104:04)
• Quote:
  • "The key is not to try to force the round peg of military leadership into the square hole of the civilian population. The key is to figure out what can I relate." – Brandon (106:03)
• Value of investing in people’s real purpose and the universal elements of leadership.

10. Vulnerability, Failure, and Real Leadership

(109:08–113:21)

• Both reflect on teaching and learning more from failure than success, and the immense value of honesty, humility, and building trust "in drops and losing it in buckets."
• "Good leaders are hard to describe specifically because much of what they do is nuance and relationship." – Andy (111:51)

11. Trust, Teams, and Why "Thank You for Your Service" Matters

(115:16–120:11)

• Debunking the myth of rank or office being enough for trust and real leadership.
• The importance of building love, trust, and willingness among teams—acts that transcend orders and rank.
• Addressing veteran standoffishness to public gratitude; advocating for veterans to build bridges, not walls.

12. Faith, Divinity, and Modern Leadership

(120:14–123:47)

• Brandon’s Masters of Divinity was less about formal ministry and more about fusing biblical wisdom, psychology, and leadership theory in practical settings across industries.
• "Leadership is leadership" regardless of context, because people are people.

13. Life Lessons, Adversity, and the Ridgeline Metaphor

(123:55–131:37)

• The book's core metaphor: life as a series of valleys, climbs, rock slides, and false summits; real growth happens in the valleys, not at the curated "hilltops" promoted on social media.
• Urging leaders and individuals to accept the cyclical, unpredictable nature of life, keep extending the time horizon, and make one good decision at a time.
• Quote:
  • "To me, the juice of life is in the valley." – Andy (129:14)

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Notable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Perseverance (11:46):
  "By the time you get to point B, you are not the same person that started the course at point A ... you have had to change and grow to become the person that the situation calls for." – Brandon

• On Modern Parenting (19:31):
  "It teaches them that someone will always save you, and the reality of life is no one is coming." – Brandon

• Stolen Valor and Family Lies (37:54):
  "He never went to Vietnam. He never had Agent Orange exposure ... my grandmother was never a silver medalist in the Olympics... none of that is true." – Brandon

• Why Military Leadership Often Fails In The Civilian World (104:34):
  "We were successful in spite of that person, not because of them." – Andy

• On Choosing Growth (73:11): "You've been in that culture of being indomitable, and you're expected to walk through another door and say, I need help. That is irrational." – Brandon

• On Reinvention After Service (134:43):
  "Sometimes you gotta take a step down, and going down isn't going backwards." – Brandon

• On Trust (112:29):
  "You really have to work at it. Can't just slap the table and say, we trust each other." – Brandon

• Final Reflection (129:14):
  "To me, the juice of life is in the valley." – Andy

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Important Timestamps and Segments

• 00:50 — Book concept: Perseverance vs. Endurance
• 13:50 — Generational differences, purpose, happiness, and parenting
• 21:26 — The value of hard things/parenting lessons
• 29:56 — Brandon’s family trauma & discovering stolen valor
• 53:55 — Transitioning out of military identity; pitfalls of nostalgia
• 63:39 — Post-9/11, family sacrifice, deployments, and marriage strain
• 71:21 — Transition to civilian life and leadership struggles
• 94:26 — Marriage, honesty, forgiveness: "Cut the shit and tell the real story"
• 98:38 — Applied Leadership Partners: new chapter, leadership consulting
• 104:04 — Why you can't treat civilians like commandos
• 109:08 — Learning and teaching from failure; nuance of leadership
• 112:29 — Micro-deposits vs. withdrawals of trust
• 115:16 — Veterans, gratitude, and social norms
• 120:14 — Divinity, faith, and leadership in modern contexts
• 123:55 — Life’s terrain: valleys, climbs, and false summits

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Closing

The episode highlights the universality of adversity, the necessity of perseverance in a world of uncertainty, and the rewards of embracing growth, humility, and vulnerability. Brandon’s journey is both unique and resonant for anyone wrestling with purpose, leadership, and reinvention beyond a single role or era. The tools and insight he and Andy discuss—across family, combat, business, and faith—are made tangible for listeners seeking authentic, hard-earned wisdom for their own trails.

Find the Book: perseverancebook.com

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Brandon]

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[Andy]

Sun runs north to south. West of the smoke, west of the smoke.

[Brandon]

Okay, copy west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[Andy]

God, it sucks.

[Brandon]

Classic, dude.

[Andy]

Let's start with the book.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Perseverance is greater than endurance. Whose idea, yours or Blaine's?

[Brandon]

I would say ours. That's not fun. I know.

[Andy]

It's more fun with something non controversial.

[Brandon]

I know. Well, Blaine's dragged me into a lot of stuff over our, what, 16, 17 year friendship. One of them being conning me to leave my corporate job, take a 60% pay cut and help him at a upstart veteran nonprofit. Turned out well, but that's the kind of friend you get with a Blaine Smith, you know?

[Andy]

Yeah. Were you happier after the pay cut?

[Brandon]

Oh, man, so much.

[Andy]

How do so many of us get trapped in that where money equals happiness and it just doesn't? Yeah, you get some cool things, sure.

[Brandon]

But as we all learn pretty quickly, the things aren't that important. They.

[Andy]

I'm in a journey to constantly relearn that.

[Brandon]

You and all of us, we call it the 80s 90s playbook, I think, you know, we. We followed the playbook, you know, the be successful, reach the achievements, get the money, get the girl or the guy, whatever, get the house, get all the kind of stuff, the car. And then you wake up one day and you're kind of like, this isn't all that fulfilling.

[Andy]

Why is happiness left out of that? If you ask most young people, what would be your metric for success? It's money. At least in our generation for sure. Why was the happiness left out of that? Do they just assume that one equals the other?

[Brandon]

I think so.

[Andy]

Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. By the time this episode comes out, we're going to be into September, and that means hunting season is afoot in quite a few of the western states. So I'm going to cover what they have on their website, but we're going to really dial in and I want people to focus on what can you take into the field. How do you prep for your journey, your travels, your adventures and have coffee with you? So let's slide over real quick. It looks like they're opening with the exclusive coffee subscription. I used to call this Evans Coffee Club or Evans Coffee Subscription. This is, you're gonna get a bag per month and it's gonna have art like this. Surf and destroy. This art is unbelievable. Limited amount of people who can be a part of this program because they don't have an unlimited amount of beans. If you wanna go to the regular coffee subscription, here's all their roasts that you can go for right there. A fall 20, 25 drop. This is gonna be merchandise. T shirts, stickers, all of those things. Here's actually where you can join their traditional coffee club. Let's go to coffee and let's head over to actually gear because this is what we need to talk about here. How are you going to drink your coffee and are you going to have it in a ceramic mug? Are you going to take a plastic water bottle out in the field? Probably a good idea to have water when you're in the backcountry. So a variety of different mugs. And I bet you we're going to get to a place where you have some yeti type stuff. I mean, right over here we have a stainless. I don't know if I would take that into the old backcountry with me. What else can we find here? Equipment. Here we go. French press, yeti style. V60 ceramic pour over. And this is stuff. I mean this is a huge grinder. I wouldn't take that necessarily with you. I'd go hand grinder, which I bet I can find one of those on here as well. Kettles, vessels, all this type of stuff. What are you gonna take with you when you want to go hunting this season? Do you want to go hunting without coffee? I guess if you hate your life, you could go do that. But for those of you getting ready to get after it in the great outdoors, head over to blackrifflecoffee.com and figure out what you need. Load yourself up. You want to be in pristine condition mentally and physically. Let's get caffeinated before we go out there and we arrow things. Blackrifflecoffee.com Back to the show.

[Brandon]

I mean, I think it was really.

[Andy]

Wealthy people and they got some real big problems.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I Mean as, as I think you and I are close to the same age. I'm 46.

[Andy]

47. 40.

[Brandon]

47. Right. So elder.

[Andy]

It's not a big deal.

[Brandon]

Okay, well, I defer to my, to.

[Andy]

The Elder Statesman is 23. We defer to him to nothing. Except for words I don't understand in.

[Brandon]

The common vernacular, Michael, which is a ton of words. We will totally is. We'll tap you in as we go here, especially if we start getting into your generation. But as Gen Xers, I think a lot of things were conflated. Right. Money was conflated with happiness, sex was conflated with love. All the stuff. I mean, I don't think, I don't think, I think every generation has their own traps. I think the generation right now, Gen Z, they're experiencing some of their own traps. I've got a 23 year old son and almost 21 year old daughter. It's, it's wild.

[Andy]

I have, going on 22, going on 20, just turned 17. I'm in birthday season right now.

[Brandon]

Okay. Man.

[Andy]

You had kids young.

[Brandon]

I did.

[Andy]

Pros and cons.

[Brandon]

Pros. I would say.

[Andy]

No, I just mean in general.

[Brandon]

Oh yeah.

[Andy]

You still get to do amazing stuff with them.

[Brandon]

Oh, it's amazing. I, I would say we're in this season of life now. That's been a real blessing, you know, like, so I was married at 22, I was a dad at 23 and I, I had no clue what the hell was going on. I don't think anybody has a clue what the hell is going on when they do any of those things. Not looking back, but I had, yeah, I had absolutely. I didn't really have any good models to go off of either. My dad took off on us when I was 11 and so here's the beauty though.

[Andy]

How certain were we at that age? We had it dialed.

[Brandon]

And how adult were we at that age?

[Andy]

Oh, the most adult.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy]

I look back now, I, I was just, I was married at 23.

[Brandon]

Yep.

[Andy]

First kid at 25. I don't even recognize the young man that I was then.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's.

[Andy]

But boy, I do remember how sure I was.

[Brandon]

That's become a, it's actually become a little bit of a joke in the young household. We say, are you certain? Yeah, you know, you're very certain about that. I was so certain about everything back then and I'm happy to say that I'm certain about very few things now.

[Andy]

Do you think it's because our optic on time was just different? I mean the younger you get. I talk to my kids. I'm sure you've had this experience a long time. To them could be an hour, a day, a week. Insurmountable to wait a week. It's going to be next year. Nobody's ever waited that long for anything, ever.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And now time is. It's just time. Like, okay, it'll happen when it's supposed to happen. It'll get here when it's supposed to get here.

[Brandon]

I think it's a big key of it. I mean, we talk about that quite a bit in our book because we talk about extending the time horizon. Right. You know, a lot of times we find ourselves in these. Whatever it is, it's a valley. Maybe you're just kind of stuck in the climb of life and it feels like it's the whole world is on your shoulders. But when you kind of zoom out and extend the time horizon, you. You can see there's never been a straight line to the top of any goal worth achieving. Yeah, there's always going to be ups, downs along the way. And I think back then when, you know, being, being a young person, I won't speak for you. I'll speak for myself. Is that, you know, I mean, the time horizon was so short. And honestly, I didn't really see the time Horizon extending past 25.

[Andy]

For me, 30 was my number.

[Brandon]

That was your number. Good for you, man.

[Andy]

I know. I don't know where it came from. I think it was probably just the oldest person I knew at the point was probably 30, other than my parents, who were of course antiquated dinosaurs.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

But yeah, you know, especially in that career field in the military, like 30. Dude, how are you still.

[Brandon]

That dude's a dinosaur.

[Andy]

How are you still doing it? I've told this story before. There was a 36 year old in my Bud's class.

[Brandon]

Oh my gosh.

[Andy]

Prior inner service transfer from the Marines. I remember so few things, like distinctly from Bud, specifically because I think your mind just erases it. But he ate 800 milligram motrins. Like he was a pest dispenser. Just fa fa fa fa.

[Brandon]

And I remember you guys want one?

[Andy]

I remember at the time, like, why would you need to do that? And then having passed that a decade ago, I remember when I turned that age thinking, would I actually be able to do that course now? And if I tried it, what would my body feel like? It would feel like a pez dispenser of 800 milligram Mildreds. Yeah, dude, just gunny Like a hardcore Marine, which he had a little bit of a hard time putting down. I think that probably had some friction.

[Brandon]

A little tough for him.

[Andy]

A little bit tough for him. But, yeah, meanwhile, I'm 18. I was half his age just looking at somebody, wondering and asking myself, does the human species get older than that? I don't even know.

[Brandon]

Certainly I don't see that in the windshield.

[Andy]

And now I'm like, basically made out of glass. I'm like, let's be real careful. Let's stretch. Let's warm up a little bit.

[Brandon]

Maybe you should warm up a little bit. I don't know, guys.

[Andy]

Let's just take a day off. It's not even warm up. Let's take a day off.

[Brandon]

How does a walk sound?

[Andy]

Oh, how things have shifted over the years.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

What's the preface of the book? I mean, obviously, perseverance is. Perseverance is greater than endurance. Lead, grow and win. I like it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I mean, so the really, the underpinning of this entire thing is that we have seen a whole lot of really tough, smart, strong people just kind of ready to kind of bear down and grip through it. And when we came to this idea, this idea came to us. We were. During the COVID time period. And what we noticed in our practice, we. We own a leadership development company called Applied Leadership Partners, is that there were a lot of people that were really just kind of trying to grip through it and get through it. And it kind of like, brought back some memories of different circumstances that we write a little bit about. In book, I talk about a deployment that I had in 2003 in Afghanistan. Blaine in 2009 in Afghanistan. Blaine was a Green Beret. I was a Ranger for about a decade. And just the fact is, is that everyone will eventually reach the extent of their endurance. Right? Life will break you in ways that you did not expect. And you can be as tough and as strong and as smart as anybody else and as determined as anybody else, but eventually, you're going to have to change a little bit. You're going to have to pivot a little bit. And we. We talked about this idea of perseverance being greater than endurance, because perseverance is when you come crashing up against those rocks of reality, you begin to pivot. Instead of just kind of wholesale quit or change. Right. You said you start to adjust. You start to do things a little bit differently. You know, for guys like us, we're in our, you know, later 40s now. We certainly do things differently than we did when we were 21, 22, 23. Right. You know, it's you, you. You grow in that way. And so what we tried to think through and as we started to talk more and more to different leaders that we, you know, that we get the opportunity to serve, what we kind of equated it to is, you know, like, there's plenty of endurance sports out there. You know, you can go do, like a Spartan race or whatever. You can do a marathon.

[Andy]

You can go as crazy as you want. 200 milers, 250 milers, exactly. I've even heard of ones where it's. There's no set amount. It's four hours every hour, and you go until you break mentally or physically or both.

[Brandon]

Yeah, good luck with that. Right, yeah. And we kind of think about, like, a marathon in many ways as kind of almost like the, you know, the. The model endurance event. Right. No matter which marathon you do, it's still the same amount. It's 26.2 miles. Right. The course is known. It's a marked course. You know, where your aid stations are going to be. You know where your water stations are going to be. You know, when you'll probably hit a wall, you'll be fine because you'll get through it. You'll hydrate your fuel and all that kind of stuff. And so in this way, on a course from point A to point B, by the time you get to point B, you're essentially a more tired version of who you point A, not the same with perseverance. By the time you get to point B, you are not the same person that started the course at point A. You have had to change and grow to become the person that the situation calls for, the leader that the team needs to accomplish the goal that you have initially set out for yourself. And so we explain it in terms of five factors. Change, uncertainty, acceptance, choice, and growth. So it's not a marked course. Change hits you. It pops you in the mouth. It comes fast, often, and often without warning. And when that happens, it tends to create a sense of uncertainty. And uncertainty peaks. A basic human emotion, we like to call it a lot of words like I'm anxious or I'm frustrated. It's fear. Fear is what it peaks. And fear can be the friction that holds us in place. And so what we then have to do is choose between our pain or our purpose. We're either going to run from our pain or we're going to run towards our purpose. And that's when acceptance comes into play. You can accept the reality before you, you can accept what you can control, what you can't control, and then you get to start making choices. And this is where Blaine and I share that. You get to make choices in keeping with all the things that you say you are, your creeds, your ethos, your values, all of those things that you put on the wall, the successories, you get to make small choices and then on the other side of that is growth. And we would suggest that people who persevere through the adversities of life, not only do they achieve what they had set out for, but they become leaders who know how to persevere because change is going to come again. It's just going to keep coming.

[Andy]

Do you think you're born with a certain level of perseverance in life or can it be taught? Because I get asked this all the time about mental toughness. Yeah, my answer is yes, you're born with a certain amount and you can be taught. So whatever you do, start with. Because they're like all three of my kids, they're super different and not mental toughness wise, but they came from the same genetic DNA. And if there were 10 stereo equalizer buttons I could move, they're at 6 and 7 or 3, whatever it may be. But whatever you're at mental toughness wise, at least my answer is, whatever you start with, we can build on that. People will glass ceiling out at some point, but that doesn't mean you should accept the status quo.

[Brandon]

I would agree with that. I mean, I think it's a pure blend. I think that we're at a place right now where we can see both the impacts of nature and nurture. And we wholeheartedly reject the idea that you're either born a leader or not. You're either born with a perseverance potential or not. I think people can learn it. I agree. There's probably a glass ceiling at some point there. You know, maybe not everyone's going to be a Navy seal, an Army Ranger, a Green Beret, whatever. However, I think that what we need to do though is reject this notion that, well, if I'm just, if I'm not one of those people, surely I can't go through difficult things. Surely I can't flex the perseverance because we suggest this all the time, like, you know, you know what's really difficult and you have to persevere through, have a kid, get married, you know, go through a life shaking event like a divorce or a near divorce, go through all of those things, go through something that you hadn't planned was going to happen. There's no, there's no like monopoly on any of that. Yeah, none of us hold that.

[Andy]

What do you think that mentality comes from? Like if I can't be like you're saying one of those three military examples then you know that's just is what it is. I'm at my apex. Where do you think that willingness to accept the status quo comes for so many people whether they recognize it or not? That's a good question because I don't think it is a conscious thought for most people.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I think people slide into apathy unfortunately.

[Andy]

I certainly do. It's nice. I think it's like a recliner just.

[Brandon]

I know we're going to go for that walk right?

[Andy]

Tomorrow.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I still gotta get my movement in today but we'll go for a walk instead.

[Andy]

Hey, if your Fitbit isn't reading the numbers you want to see, just take it off.

[Brandon]

Yeah, there you go.

[Andy]

You know.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I like it.

[Andy]

I'm an outside of the box thinker. No, it's a common mentality of I'm just not good enough so I'm not gonna try.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And I don't know where that comes from. I don't know any parents and of course I can only speak for the people that I know but I don't know any parents that are actively telling kids hey, you're not good enough to do this. Fill in the blank. If anything they might over exaggerate on the other side because you want to be supportive of your kid and you know there's a lot of non truth in telling your kid that they could be anything because demonstrably that's false. I guess there is a short example of somebody playing in the NBA Spud Web. But let's go with the statistical anomaly versus the norm there. But I don't know any parents that are actively really trying to throttle their kids.

[Brandon]

So I just, I think it's more insidious though. I don't think it's an act of throttling. I think it's a passive throttling. I think it's happened over the last 10, 20 years. When I think about the difference between how we as Gen Xers grew up, nobody had a clue where we were or what the hell we were doing. We were completely unsupervised. Right. Versus Gen Z. You know some of our kids generation I think we did like this hard revert. You know, no one was ever here for us for we're going to be like uber parent here.

[Andy]

Helicopter parenting.

[Brandon]

We're going to helicopter you. We're gonna. We're gonna do all the things. We're gonna argue with your teachers. We're gonna do all these things when, in fact, you know, you're probably wrong half the time. And what has happened is that it has created this environment of enablement. And I think that that's. I think that that's something that's really affecting this generation right now. Again, I. I'm only speaking from my observation of my kids, my community, you know, my nieces and nephews and things like that. But I think that they're up against an awful lot because I think there has been this passive enablement. And when you have that passive enablement, I think a couple of things that you mentioned, I'll pick them up. One of them is I think that you're so inclined to perfection that if you can't achieve perfection, I just won't try at all. I'll just opt out. Because it's easier for me just not to try at all than to try and screw up, than to try to ask for that girl's number or whatever. Snap. Whatever the hell it is, you know?

[Andy]

Write that down, Michael.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Ask for the girls.

[Brandon]

I'm. I'm looking at Andy, but we know we're talking to.

[Andy]

I don't see you writing anything down, sir. Write that down. Ask for the girls.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'll definitely write it down. And he's like, I'm recording this dude. Geez.

[Andy]

Sorry. He's just like, in one ear, out the other.

[Brandon]

So I. I think that. I think that's one of the obstacles. I think that we just talked about it before. Right. You know, so you can. You get opportunities. And even they're micro opportunities to flex a little bit of perseverance. I think that we have, in this current milieu, an environment where people have not been given those opportunities. You know, like, think about all the play dates that were set up for them or all the, you know, reports that were read over by us before they turned them in, all those kind of things. Or the reluctance to give kids what they deserve. You. You should get an F on this. You turned it in two weeks late. Yeah, that certainly never happened in my kids, you know, school experience. They certainly, My son particularly, would turn things in late. How this guy kept, you know, getting passed through. I think that that's not isolated, you know, to that circumstance.

[Andy]

And then what does that experience teach them?

[Brandon]

It teaches them that someone will always save you.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And the reality of life is no one is coming.

[Andy]

100% agree. And, you know, here's the thing. I may not know. I can speak broadly than. More broadly than the social circle of my friends, because although I don't know anyone who is actively telling their kids to not work hard or any of those things. Let's just look at the stats of the average American. 60% of Americans are considered obese. And it would be much higher if they went back to the traditional body fat percentage. But what do they keep doing with that?

[Brandon]

They keep moving the goalpost.

[Andy]

They keep moving the goalposts. So if your examples of leadership as a child are apathetic and they're letting themselves slide, your parents don't really need to say anything because they're just going to see it all as it is.

[Brandon]

Exactly. Yeah. They're going to model what they observe. Yeah, we all do.

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be real careful, especially as a parent. My kids are sponges. I swear. They pay attention way more to things that I wish they didn't see than the things I'm like, you guys saw that one, right? I did a good job on that. They're like, no, no. But here's eight examples of things you messed up. Like, great things.

[Brandon]

It happens pretty frequently in our house. Like my. Like one of my kids will, you know, well, they're out of the house now, but they'd do something. And Kelly would just look over at me. I'm like, that's me. That's on me. Yep. They got that one from me 100%.

[Andy]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's tough to see. I've convinced myself or have gotten to the place where I think the fountain of youth is always trying to find new things to learn. Which is another way of saying you need to go out and find your own adversity. But I think it keeps your brain young.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I think it keeps you active. It's something that I have definitely enjoyed. And then you. You start seeing the rewards of pursuing things that will make you or increase your perseverance. Just doing hard stuff.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

It's amazing what's on the other side of that rainbow. And you can't really convince somebody to do it. They need to experience it themselves. And it's the opposite of what most people seem to be interested in, at least currently.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I don't know the solution for that, though.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean, I certainly don't hold all the secrets on that either. But I would suggest that, you know, the first thing is get out on the trail. You know, just try some Stuff. Yeah, try it. Like, you know, Blaine and I tell people all the time there's no, there's no answers at the trailhead. All your answers are out there on the trail. You probably get lost. That's okay. Been lost in the woods a thousand times. Same, you know, that's the only way I know how to get back.

[Andy]

Yeah. And you know, also take a gps, like take a map, compass, educate yourself. It's okay to get lost. I mean, like you said, make sure you can get back to the trailhead, you know, or take a satellite communicating device.

[Brandon]

Sure.

[Andy]

There's ways to safely explore and experiment.

[Brandon]

Yeah. But even, even that, I mean, it's such an interesting example, right. Like we have all this technology, right. I mean, sometimes I'll just like not turn on where I'm supposed to be going, right. For like to map it. If I'm going to drive to Kalispell or whatever and just say like, no, I generally know I just need to drive up 93. That's something that people can try. That's a little, little, little sample of something you can try just to see how, see what happens. See if you get lost, see if you, if you need to ask somebody for help before you pull the rip cord and pull that phone out.

[Andy]

I have an idea for content involving Michael. Essentially it's, I'm trying to kill him so he thinks he can land a commercial airliner. We're going to get him in a sim. Okay, get him in a helicopter. Because he, he literally said how that.

[Brandon]

One is not true. I did not say that. I did not say that. His exact words were, how hard can it actually be?

[Andy]

His exact words were, well, you can do it, so I can too.

[Brandon]

Well, I'm, I mean, anything Andy can do, I can also do. But I did not say specifically.

[Andy]

Here's another one that his generation doesn't know about though. The multi ring map books we used to carry around, the best were they. I mean, it was like the entire. Under the passenger seat of the car, but they were amazing. He doesn't even know what we're talking about at this point. But a simple navigation.

[Brandon]

The big atlas.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Remember the big ass one that was.

[Andy]

Like, this is what we. This goes right in. Like there's no consequence to this other than, I don't know, maybe I'll send you out with no food and water. But yeah, I need to get him to a major metropolitan city, get on ebay to find one of these old books and be like, hey, meet me here for dinner. Give me your Phone.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I actually. That one. Doesn't that sound like it would be fun? That would be fun. Honestly, I would like that. Yeah. All right.

[Andy]

He's generally game for it. Yeah, I was going to take him base jumping. His mother basically directly said, I'll kill him if he does. She said a no, if the base jumping doesn't kill me, which I already told him a life lesson. This will. Tell her we're going camping, and we'll just go do it anyway.

[Brandon]

That's what we did when we were kids.

[Andy]

She wasn't a fan of that one.

[Brandon]

Yo, tell your mom that you're staying at Andy's house. Yeah, we go tell your mom you're staying at Brandon's house.

[Andy]

You have to deal with your mom, though. I don't want to deal with it.

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, that's fine.

[Andy]

All right, cool. Yeah, we'll get that done. Get you on the. Get you on the Red Bull team eventually.

[Brandon]

Yeah, for sure. I think one bass jump will do it.

[Andy]

Those. God, those books. I Forget, like, Rand McNally or something like that.

[Brandon]

But, like, I keep seeing mine in.

[Andy]

My head too much because I don't want to. I don't want to. It's the same way you read a map in the military, that you look at it and you converge on it. But he has to figure that out on his own. I take you know where I'm taking you. Deep inner city Chicago.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, let's not do that.

[Andy]

See, now I'm figuring out ways to make this excellent for me. Several recording devices all over him, maybe a drone overhead, and it's like, see you in five months.

[Brandon]

Maybe. Let's. Yeah, we'll discuss this later.

[Andy]

I mean, I'm not saying we won't have. We'll link up with some local law enforcement. Maybe they can do a wide safety observation net so they can kind of keep an eye on you, but they're not allowed to help.

[Brandon]

I mean, I'm just saying, if this goes down, count us in. We're in. Yeah.

[Andy]

It's amazing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, this is. This will be fun.

[Andy]

Yeah, it's these ideas, they come to me mostly because of the weird stuff that he says. And I realize he's missing out on the finer things in life, but I say opportunity. You get used to going towards things that scare you. Not like, hey, I think I'm gonna die every day. There's pros and cons to that, but stuff that you're uncertain about.

[Brandon]

Sure.

[Andy]

Everything in my life that I really value has come on the other side of that journey.

[Brandon]

Absolutely. And questioning whether or not, I mean, am I. I don't know if I'm going to make it through this. Like, yeah. You know, anyone that's been through a assessment and selection, you can look at that and say, you could be as, you know, whatever, confident as you want. But everybody knows that if you try to get cocky on that, that course is designed to break you.

[Andy]

Yeah. The curriculum will find. Looking back, I got to go back as an instructor and apply the curriculum. It made no sense as a student. Some of it still made no sense as an instructor. But you realize the role of the instructor is just to apply the curriculum. Because in the SEAL pipeline, it really hasn't changed much. And you think, well, in the 40 to 50 to coming up on 60 plus years, we should probably update it for the modern times. And after being there, it's like, it does a really good job. It's, it's got something for everybody. It just takes you a little bit of time as a student. You will be challenged with the thing that you suck at.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And that's when we start paying attention.

[Brandon]

Yeah. We. So for, for our community in the Ranger regiment, it's generally the same. The first kind of four weeks. It's still, you know, basically like if you can hold on to a speeding bullet train and be holding on when it's done, then fine, we'll let you kind of progress forward. But we actually transformed quite a bit over the global war on terror just because we were like a dude getting through what you've shown us, that you can do enough flutter kicks and push ups and run fast and find stop signs in the woods for three, four weeks. And then we were sending them over to meet their platoons and boram or.

[Andy]

Biop and you guys weren't doing flutter kicks on target. We would always, as soon as we had to.

[Brandon]

I mean, maybe sometimes soon as we.

[Andy]

Had the target secure, be like, all right, guys, line it up. Let's just, just. We'll get a set in. Yeah, just one.

[Brandon]

What are they doing? No.

[Andy]

You know what I have from all those flutter kicks? Hip flexors that have issues.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I've got trashed hips. God, I hate flutter kicks.

[Andy]

I do too.

[Brandon]

It is astoundingly unhelpful.

[Andy]

I'm just trying to think of the usefulness of it other than literally, long term destroying your hip flexors.

[Brandon]

Yep.

[Andy]

And we did them for hours.

[Brandon]

Totally.

[Andy]

Put the dive mask on, put salt water in your dive mask, put your head back, water going up your nose, and you're just like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2.

[Brandon]

Yeah. God, what are we doing? You know?

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah. And then I went back as an instructor and made people do an ungodly amount of flutter kicks.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I had the same experience. I got to go back to Ranger assessment and selection.

[Andy]

When punished, you must generationally pass it on in a military setting, in a family setting, reconsider. Like, don't make your kids an alcoholic if you are. But in the military, if you were punished by something dumb, you should probably pass it on.

[Brandon]

And would you really want it any other way? No. If you're being honest, no. There's not a single person that, you know, got through the other side of coal range and wants to be like, oh, no. It was. It was kind of. It was kind of cool. You would actually feel it was miserable.

[Andy]

Yeah. And you would feel cheated if they.

[Brandon]

If they modify 100%.

[Andy]

Yeah. Do you want. As an officer. Enlisted.

[Brandon]

Enlisted.

[Andy]

I think that's the move.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

How many years you do?

[Brandon]

11.

[Andy]

Interesting time to choose to get out. Most people would try to argue with you. You're so much closer.

[Brandon]

A lot of people argued with me.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I finally just started saying, you know what, I just don't want to count backwards from nine. But it was what led me to that, though, so.

[Andy]

Well, what led you into the military.

[Brandon]

In the first place, man? I knew I wanted to be a soldier since I had memories.

[Andy]

You come from a military family, so.

[Brandon]

My dad was in the army and he told wonderful stories about being a Green Beret in Vietnam that were turned out to be untrue.

[Andy]

No way.

[Brandon]

Way.

[Andy]

How did you find this out, man?

[Brandon]

Gosh. Well, I invited him. So let me go back a little bit to get to how I found that out. I found it out over a beer because after. After years of being told him with him.

[Andy]

Oh, boy.

[Brandon]

Over years of being told. I'll tell you that someday over a beer. I'll tell you that someday over a beer. He left when I was 11. My mom raised three kids in San Francisco Bay area. Very expensive, if not high school education. So Fremont, California is where I'm from.

[Andy]

Yeah. San Francisco, I think, is the apex of that. And Coronado island might be the two of expense. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Oh, God. It was per zip code. Yeah. So my mom was working three and four jobs at a time on a high school education to keep us kids, you know, there you can talk about persevering.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And I graduated from high school in 97, joined the army, went straight to the army, and I hadn't Had a whole lot of contact with my father because I was just kind of like, what the hell? You know, he was a, he was a really sick dude. Just not well. I mean, I remember when he was packing everything out, he, he loaded basically everything of worth up in our house. And we lived all up in the hills and it was all nice. Literally brought a U haul truck in, packed out everything of worth in his five car garage, cleared out all of the bank accounts that he and my mom had. And he comes and gets nose to nose to me as I'm an 11 year old kid standing on the porch watching this, just not knowing what to do. And he said, I'm going to financially destroy your mother. And I was like, okay. And I stood there long enough before I was like, do something, do something, do something. I ran upstairs, actually stole a couple of his firearms because I was like, well, I guess I'm the protector of the house now. Hit him. I later told my mom and she was like, I'll take those back, please. But, but at any rate, when I joined the army, what I decided to do was, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna find out myself what this guy is all about. And so I called him up and I said, listen, you know, I'm, I've, I've made it through Ranger indoctrination program. That's what RASP used to be called. I'm assigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion up in Washington. You opted out on being my father, but I would at least it feels to me like this soldiering business now connects us, especially because I'm a Ranger and you are a Green Beret. And so I'd like to at least give a relationship a try. You know, the boat has left on being my dad, but I'll give it a go. And so we kind of engaged for a little bit over, you know, that time. About a year. I ended up getting sent to Ranger school in eight months later. So the way it works in the Ranger Regiment is that you can go in as long as you pass assessment selection. You get assigned to a Ranger battalion. So your line operational, you know, 18 hours worldwide, deployable, the whole nine yards. And then when you get identified as somebody that the battalion wants to invest in for leadership, you get sent to the U.S. army Ranger School. You go through Ranger school, you come back, and then you continue to progress.

[Andy]

And that's how you get your tab, right?

[Brandon]

That's how you get your tab. Yeah. So scroll is the unit, tab is the school. And so I get sent to Ranger school. I'd been there for about eight months. And I told him, why don't you come out and come to my Ranger School graduation? And he came out to my Ranger School graduation. And, you know, when you're a kid and you don't know anything, you. And you hear these stories that sound like, wow, that's. That sounds almost like a movie. And then you hear these things like, oh, yeah, you know, I got a Purple Heart from getting pollen in my eye on a training jump. And then when you're in the military, you're like, that's not how Purple Hearts work, like, at all. At all. And then you're like, wait a minute, hold on a second. If that's. And I'm like, if that was what it was. And then you go back and you start rehashing, like, some of the small shreds of things that you've heard. You're like, no, I think that was a movie, actually. I think. I'm not sure about that. So I invited him out to something that meant a lot to me, and we sat down face to face, and I said, you know, you've been telling me you're going to tell me all these stories. Tell me the story. I had just turned 20. Here's your beer. And as the stories, you know, I'm.

[Andy]

Oh, he actually gave the stories a go.

[Brandon]

He tried to give it a go.

[Andy]

Instead of just owning it right there. He gave it a go.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And I would ask, you know, second, third, fourth order question. You know the deal now.

[Andy]

You know the questions.

[Brandon]

You've seen it. You know, it's.

[Andy]

You'll hear a story being told, and it's one word, and you're like, please stop. Like, run that. Run that back. Hit me with that again. Okay.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And it's. It's like, now you're just like, hey, man, we don't have to do this. You know, like, don't do this.

[Andy]

How did he take that? Once you realize, did you confront him with it and give him the chance to come clean?

[Brandon]

So I actually. So we were supposed to spend the weekend together, and I called my unit. I was basically like, get me out of here. And I went from Georgia back to Washington, say, hey, I got a. I got a jam.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And then my brother came up and he flew out, and we had this kind of weekend together. And in the end of the day, after spending the. We spent a weekend together, and I was just like, that's enough. I've had enough. And I sat him down At. We were up actually in Seattle and we sat down for lunch, and I think it took about two hours. I said everything I ever wanted to say to him and do include like, what are you talking about? This is not how this works. What did you actually do? Come to find out that he was actually a personnel clerk in Germany during the Vietnam War. And one of the things that he had said to me, which really just, it's, you know, when you're. Sometimes when you're talking to somebody who's just not very well, they're kind of a sick person. And they. They don't see, they can't perceive reality in the manner in which reality is unfolding. They say things that they think are going to land really well and they're just so far off. And the thing that he said to me that just. I really was like, hard stop. Was he said in a joking manner that he would get bribes to take people's soldiers names off the manifest to go to Vietnam and put other soldiers on. And I said to him, so let me get this straight. You're basically telling me that you profited off of sending soldiers to their potential death. That's what you're telling me right now. I don't know why you would think that that's something why, why you would share that. And I just remember telling him it all really kind of boiled down to, look, I've been in the army for a little bit of time now, and, you know, this whole seven army values, loyalty, duty, respect, self service, honor, integrity, personal courage, this whole, you know, Ranger creed thing, you know, expecting to be morally straight. Like, I buy all of that. I'm a hundred percent all in it. And you're just not the kind of guy that I associate with. So I think we're done here.

[Andy]

Did he tell other people in his life outside of you that he was a Green Beret?

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy]

So it was a large part of his identity.

[Brandon]

So we went down, so, oh, fast forward a number of years later. And at the time we were living in Georgia. We had just gotten out of the military, which I'll come back to that. Why did I leave the military at 11 years? And I got the call. You know, it's kind of like once every three years I got this call like, oh, your father's dying. You know, it was kind of like, okay, or I'm dying. It's like, whatever. He was really dying.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And so my sister and my brother, they're both still in the Bay Area. They came out, we all. I'm the youngest of three. We all came out and when we got there, the woman that he had left my mother for and married and, you know, just nothing but havoc in that relationship, as you can imagine.

[Andy]

It's like an atomic bomb going off.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah. We were out at dinner and you have. Her family has flown in, you know, her brothers, sisters. And these people are just like, they're great people, very kind people. You know, they're. They're operating at face value in earnest. Let's raise a toast. You know, Vietnam veteran dying of cancer because he was exposed to Agent Orange. And I'm just like, okay, yeah, you know, okay. And then what seems to happen is that once you get past all of the niceties and the real conversations start to happen, what happened was, is that, you know, she started sharing. Like, I don't even know. Like, I'm. We're completely, like, financially destitute. We've. This whole thing has been a disaster. And the VA won't pay for his health care. I don't understand why the VA won't pay for his health care. And I said, would you like to know why?

[Andy]

Yeah, I have some thoughts.

[Brandon]

I have some thoughts.

[Andy]

Some hypothesize. Hypothesize. Hypothesi. Whatever the plurals of that would be. Hypothesi.

[Brandon]

Edit that app. Yeah, but what, you know, and I just told her, I said, look, the VA is not paying for anything because.

[Andy]

Like, because he can't fucking prove it.

[Brandon]

He's not disabled. He's not a disabled veteran. He's not a disabled veteran because he didn't submit for it. He's not combat connected. And he's not combat connected because he never went to combat. He never went to Vietnam. He never had Agent Orange exposure. And oh, by the way, since we're talking about this, my grandmother was never a silver medalist in the Olympics for swimming. He never played for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Like, none of that is true. And it was like, how did she take that?

[Andy]

Because I've seen it go one or two.

[Brandon]

Devastated. She was. She was devastated. It was like the end of the Usual Suspects. Remember whenever you remember that movie where everything comes together and he sees all the pictures.

[Andy]

So I've seen it go like that where it's an earth shattering revelation. And I've seen it where they double down and you become the enemy, the bad guy, for trying to tell them something that was clearly untrue because you have some type of underlying motivation to destroy them.

[Brandon]

Exactly. I've seen it go down that way. Too.

[Andy]

So wild.

[Brandon]

Yeah. This, this one, she, you know, to, to her credit, she was, she was really open about it. And she said again, to her credit, she said, you know, I, I don't know what to do if he makes it out of this. And I said to her, like, I, I don't think he's gonna make it out of this. Like, he was, he was intubated, he was dying for sure. And, and he did, he passed a couple days later. And she, I just said, like, I'm, I'm really sorry, you know, like, I know this is rough. Like, I think I said to her, you're experiencing right now what my mother and our family experienced 20 years ago. And I'm really sad for that. And I'm sorry that this is unfolding.

[Andy]

This way, but can you even imagine what it would be? So it's the most common. It's the tales. Oldest time somebody did serve in the military.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And what they did was totally enough.

[Brandon]

Be proud of it.

[Andy]

But they add. And for one, I can't imagine the mental geometry of trying to remember what you told who.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Andy]

That in and of itself has got to be exhausting because in the people that I've been around, what I've noticed is the stories do become very intricate and they splinter off into different directions. And I feel like they spend all of their bandwidth trying to remember where the spaghetti strings are separate and then where they come together. But can you imagine living your life predicated on a lie like that?

[Brandon]

No interest.

[Andy]

I can't even fathom it.

[Brandon]

Can you imagine the exhaustion?

[Andy]

But, but I think that the fear.

[Brandon]

With some of these people, though, I don't think, I don't think he knew where the truth began and ended anymore. I think he was so, so truly psychological. I do believe that. You know, I think that's real too. I do believe that. And I, I've shared this story. I actually shared this story on Coffee or Die. Years ago. I wrote an article about this. It was called. It's called Daddy was a Green Beret. And I make the point that Daddy was a Green Beret until he wasn't. And, and, and, and really the way that I kind of bring that home is I don't know what's going on between somebody's ears. What I do know is that I feel sad for those people because I, because we've all met those people who. They'll double down because I think they.

[Andy]

Actually believe it or they, I think it's that they believe it or they feel trapped. They don't Maybe they don't see the management of reputation.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Andy]

Well, they don't see a way out of it. Or the way out of it that they can see would be so untenably painful that they're unwilling to walk through that.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Andy]

Because.

[Brandon]

So the alternative then is just cut and run and start over somewhere else with the same story.

[Andy]

That's what they do. They isolate so they can control narrative.

[Brandon]

They'll switch a social.

[Andy]

I've seen it. Where they switch a social circle or even geographically lift and shift. Because then you are. Right. You're the artist of your own story. Blank canvas. Let's. Bob Rossett.

[Brandon]

Let's get on a nice little trip.

[Andy]

Right up in here, a nice little slope.

[Brandon]

Happy stolen valor.

[Andy]

Oh, God. Did he own a Green Beret? Did he have, like, a shadow box? Because I've seen these things go deep.

[Brandon]

No.

[Andy]

Where you're like, man, your Amazon cart must have fallen.

[Brandon]

Not that I can recall.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Brandon]

I mean, I remember that was actually. You know what? You just totally brought me back, Andy. Oh, I could see in the closet, he had a set of greens, and it had the 8th army logo on it. And that was one of the first things that I was just like, what the hell? Like, if you were a Green Beret, why didn't you have a Special Forces patch on your uniform?

[Andy]

I mean, it's the little things.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Like, I'll. You know, I'll tell on myself here. Like, I. When I left the Ranger regiment after, like, I said, nine years, and I went to West Point. And so the last unit patch that I had on my class A uniform, my greens, was the West Point patch. And I'll admit I was out of the army for, like, 10 years. And I'm like, I would like to have my Ranger regiment patch back on that. I mean, I still have my 2nd Ranger Battalion combat patch on, but I. But I put it back together because, I mean, that was where I grew up.

[Andy]

But here's the difference. You earned that.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy]

You know what I mean? You earned that. It's. I. It's so wild to me. I had a guy once tell me that he was a SEAL in Vietnam. And of course, I'm like, awesome. What team are you at? He goes, Seal Team 3. And I'm like, buddy, I just actually finished a tour at Seal Team 3, where I am very aware that they weren't commissioned until the 80s, which I am not exactly sure when the Vietnam War is considered to have ended, but it wasn't in that day. Yeah, I didn't say anything. I just let him finish his story.

[Brandon]

No, I mean, that's. That's. I mean, most of the time, I'll just kind of be like, cool, hey, have a great one.

[Andy]

Well, and then, of course. So I used to have a. The bone frog tattoo under my arm. So I would just pull my sleeve up a little bit just to see if they would notice. Never once notice. It's the most visibly recognizable identifying mark for anybody from that community. If you've seen it.

[Brandon]

Yes. And you know it 100%.

[Andy]

I could see the, like, a little one of the hands sticking out. I'd be like, that's a bone frog tattoo. And it is. It's. Again, it's just another one of these. I'm going to throw this out there.

[Brandon]

God.

[Andy]

What gets me. I'm remarried now, and I met my wife long after military service. But we'll be in airports, and I let. Like, if people want to tell me tales, I'm like, and then what happened? And then, tell me more. And my wife would be like, oh.

[Brandon]

What were you feeling in that moment?

[Andy]

Yeah. And then tell me again about how you were in 60 link and grenade pins.

[Brandon]

Oh, man.

[Andy]

And then my wife would be like, oh, and. And did Andy tell you that he was in the military? I'm like, no, you ruined it.

[Brandon]

Ruining it. Gosh.

[Andy]

And she'll ask. She's like, why do you do that? Because I want to give them as much rope as they want.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I just.

[Andy]

And I'm fascinated by where they go with it. Like, lie to me all you want to. And then, God, it's happened so many times. I finally am like, stop telling people anything about me when I'm asking questions about them.

[Brandon]

Just let it happen. Let me have this.

[Andy]

I mean, you're a good example. You know, in an airport, a guy, it's talking, oh, I'm in the military. You know, I. I don't want to talk too much about it. You know, I'm kind of involved in, you know, a little bit more of the secretive and special stuff, if you know what I mean.

[Brandon]

Here we go. You're like, yes, I know what you mean. No, you don't know what you mean.

[Andy]

No, you go the other way. You go, oh, what is the special stuff?

[Brandon]

Can you just tell me a little bit?

[Andy]

Tell me what you do. And then again, halfway through the conversation, my wife Leah's like, oh, and Andy, he used to be a seal. And I'm like, oh, you know, ruined everything.

[Brandon]

Tell me more. That's when they say, I'll tell you about that over a beer someday.

[Andy]

I tell you what's interesting is how their personalities shift when she does do that, though.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy]

Holy cow, you can hear the slamming shut.

[Brandon]

I had a guy in an interview one time, so this is when I was still in the commercial sector, commercial side of healthcare, which I did after I got out of the military. And he had come in and he had written down on his resume, it was like, education, US Army Ranger school, and then awards and like, awards and badges or something like that. And, you know, he had, like, parachute his badge on there and all this stuff. And I happened to notice there was no Ranger tab on there.

[Andy]

And I was like, oh, Ranger school, but no tab?

[Brandon]

Yeah. I'm like, what's the situation? And I had asked him, I'm like, you know, can you explain to me what you're. What are you communicating here? Yeah, you know. I said, dude, you know, are you a Ranger? Mind you, Andy, I have this dui. I wear it on my lapel all the time. The Ranger Regiment crest. Yeah, I'm a Ranger. Oh, no. I said, are you a Ranger? He said, yeah, I went to Army Ranger School.

[Andy]

Not the question asked.

[Brandon]

I said, are you a Ranger? Yeah, yeah, I went to Army Ranger school. I said, okay, let me ask it a different way. Did you successfully graduate from U.S. army Ranger School? Yeah, I mean, I. Yeah, I went to Ranger school. And. And like, one of my buddies, Jeff Roberts, who is West Point grad, awesome dude. He's. He just finally is just like, bro, read the room. He's like, you're so this guy was in the Ranger regiment for a decade, bro. Have you not noticed his DUI on his lapel?

[Andy]

Or the specificity.

[Brandon]

What the hell? And yeah, I mean, he doubled down.

[Andy]

Which is wild, because why.

[Brandon]

And I tell guys all the time, like. And so when we finally got to the bottom of it, you know, he was an infantry officer, went to Ranger school, got hurt, and I was like, brother, thanks for your service.

[Andy]

And also, many people get hurt. Maybe leave it off your resume on the next job interview, because guess what? You're not getting this.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly. Be proud of what you did, man. I said, because what I think you're trying to do is I think you're trying to perpetrate a fraud, because I think civilians won't know what they're looking at.

[Andy]

Here's how they do it smartly, though. Exactly how you just mentioned. They let, instead of directly and overtly lying, you take it to the 10 yard line and then you let them fill in the gaps.

[Brandon]

That's right.

[Andy]

That's how they really. Because then you can go back and say, I didn't say that. And technically they didn't. But you know.

[Brandon]

But you inferred it or implied it heavily. Yes.

[Andy]

Or showed up every day in your Ranger T shirt. Or hopefully not the Ranger panties, because. Unacceptable.

[Brandon]

God, I love those.

[Andy]

They had a lining at least, right? A liner. Yeah, because the UDT shorts. No, I actually introduced Michael to UDT short. We did a quick.

[Brandon]

Sounds like a lot of chafing.

[Andy]

It's a lot of bubble gum hanging out, you know what I mean?

[Brandon]

I do, yeah.

[Andy]

You want to talk about flutter kicks wearing those?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I don't know why that's a good idea.

[Brandon]

I don't know.

[Andy]

Why would a group of men do flutter kicks in that outfit together willingly?

[Brandon]

I don't know, man.

[Andy]

Some questions are very hard to answer. Yeah. We used to call your guys stuff silkies and ours were just UDT shorts.

[Brandon]

Yeah. We called them Ranger panties. I think it's. It seems that whenever I talk to either someone from the Navy or the Marines, they refer to them as silkies.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Like they have this. There's a kick ass company out there. I think they're called Savage Silkies or.

[Andy]

Oh, there's all sleeves. They're great.

[Brandon]

I love it.

[Andy]

There is. I mean the. I mean we're talking maybe a 1 inch inseam on some of these products.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy]

And what's wilder is I know guys who are voluntarily wearing these things and I just don't have the self confidence, quite frankly.

[Brandon]

Do you? Well, Andy, I suffered from over self confidence when I was dating my wife in 2000. She took me up to see a San Jose Sharks vs. The Canucks, a Vancouver Canucks game. And. So sweet. She takes me up, we get a Weston hotel and everything. And I'm like, oh, great, let's go to the pool. And I come walking out in my Ranger panties. No shirt, just Ranger panties. And she's like, oh, oh, wow. That's not. I'm like, no, you love these, right? Like you love this look. She's like, oh, yeah, it's amazing. She married me.

[Andy]

I mean, just because we're such awesome people.

[Brandon]

Well, overconfidence for sure.

[Andy]

Yeah, man. I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering why people embellish, specifically the military stuff. And I'm sure. I think it probably irritates me more because we come from that world and it's such a double edged sword. We got really lucky that we didn't serve at the time that my dad did in Vietnam because his stories of coming home are horrendous and the stories he has of people that he knew that just disappeared, literally and figuratively out into the wilderness to deal with stuff on their own. Because there weren't 40,000 service based organizations that are funded and looking to spend money on people they were not, you know, like coming together and being celebrated, elevated and all of these things. And it is so easy for people to just add a little bit here and there to try to get those things when what they did is enough. And then when they end up getting caught, it sullies the reputation of everybody involved with that. That's. That to me is, I think the most insidious part is it, it causes people. And people have asked me this, well, how do I know who to trust? I'm like, that is actually a really complicated answer because I kind of need to know what they're saying and in the context and why are they saying is that there's something that they're trying to get. But that should never be the case. The people that we serve while we're in military should have nothing but faith in our own integrity as the person wearing the uniform. And everybody who does that, it undermines it. And so it ends up hobbling in the long term, the community. Anybody who wears a uniform to begin with. It sucks.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it totally sucks. And you know, we, we're in a very different environment than your father came back to. My uncle, My uncle who served in Vietnam came back to.

[Andy]

Let's not forget your dad coming back.

[Brandon]

Raise a glass.

[Andy]

Cheers to the Green Berets.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I don't even, I got nothing. I'm not even gonna drink after that. Yeah, but I mean like, we, we were, I would say, swept up by the sea of goodwill. Right. You know, people, the American people have been very good to us in, in the global war on terror era.

[Andy]

Maybe too much, to be honest.

[Brandon]

I would not argue with you on that. And I think that unfortunately, and, and why I might agree that maybe too much is because I think a lot of people have taken advantage of it. Taken advantage of, of the, you know, goodwill of people. When in reality, like, like, you know, I, I cringe when I see these professional veterans out there and you know, the people who go from one free week to a next, and I'm just like, come on, man. Like, you know, like you, you raised your hand. I know what you were doing when you were 18, 20, 22, like, that's a lot of goodness to have to maybe invest it back into our community instead of just kind of riding that wave.

[Andy]

It's tough. It's tough to talk about because there can be a lot of negative backlash associated with talking about those things. The good thing is, I think it's such a small minority of people that do that. But the problem is the attention that it can receive and the impact that it can have.

[Brandon]

Very loud.

[Andy]

Is very loud. So even though it is vastly the statistical minority, the impact that can have is orders of magnitude beyond the size of the people that are doing that. Because what you're talking about is real. I've interfaced with enough nonprofits. You see the people. And again, I don't get. I'm not mad at them. I feel sorry for them. And I don't know if that's the right word, because in 30 years, they are still going to be trapped in the time capsule that they're trapped in. And I just think that sucks. It's not a life I would want for anybody.

[Brandon]

And think about that time capsule. Right. I mean, oftentimes they're stuck in a time period where they were 18 to 22, 23 years old. Like, that's what you're capping out at. Like, there's so much more to do out there. You're probably going to live till you're 80 and you're going to ride on this four year time period when you were a young person. I mean, think about how. Think about how different we are today than we were at 22.

[Andy]

Thank God.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I was a real asshole.

[Andy]

I mean, for men, the average prefrontal cortex development. 27. So we're still a half a decade away from actually being able to think properly.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I got an idea. Here's a machine gun.

[Brandon]

Yeah, go do it. Pretty effective.

[Andy]

I mean, now I'm like, wait a minute. I got in trouble for some of the things, the decisions I was making. You guys clearly knew I was just an idiot.

[Brandon]

Yeah. They're like, yeah, no, we. Yeah.

[Andy]

How could you do that? Because I'm an idiot.

[Brandon]

It was calculated risk, not asymmetrical. Go forward.

[Andy]

Talk me through your thought process. Well, I can't because it didn't exist. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Front towards enemy. That was my thought process. I don't even. Yeah.

[Andy]

So why'd you get out? 11 years.

[Brandon]

So I got out because I wanted to see if I could figure out how to be Kelly's husband and Jayden and Ellie's dad. The way that my experience unfolded is I got into the army in 97. And, you know, did all the. Grew up in the 2nd Ranger Battalion. We were training day in and day out for the big game, you know.

[Andy]

Only it was him in September of. Yeah, 2001. I'm saying I got into August of 96. So I was just a touch ahead of you.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy]

I experienced the peacetime theoretical military and the shift to the practical.

[Brandon]

Very different. Right?

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Oh, pool. I tell people all the time, like, the peacetime army was a blast.

[Andy]

Peacetime seals. I. I honestly drank enough to kill several donkeys.

[Brandon]

I. We were right there with you.

[Andy]

And we. We would drink and then work out. Sometimes work out, then drink. But you actually can do it in combination.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was.

[Andy]

It was whatever you like.

[Brandon]

Explore 100.

[Andy]

Yeah. Explore the seas.

[Brandon]

We used to do Operation Shoot Everything where we'd take barbecues, kegs out to the woods and, you know, as many firearms as we had and just fire away.

[Andy]

One of my.

[Brandon]

I got.

[Andy]

I love. We were in my first deployment ever as a seal. We went to Japan, the Kadena Air Force Base, and we spent a lot of time at the E Club there, which I still remember the name of.

[Brandon]

Wait, what year is this now?

[Andy]

98.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Andy]

The banyan tree. God, we were so dumb. But we would sit around and talk about how awesome we were and if the big ever came up, how we were going to dominate.

[Brandon]

They're totally calling us.

[Andy]

Well, we were going to dominate on every level, too, because our tactics, political prowess, knowledge, understanding unmatched. I mean, why they weren't writing a book about us then? Questions. Not all of them have answers. Right. We just. Maybe they just. We were so super secret.

[Brandon]

Then you sing songs about us someday.

[Andy]

God, then you get post 9, 11. You get overseas and you're like, we suck. We need to really think about. Also, we've been training on Vietnam tactics for the last 30 years. I don't see any jungles here in Afghanistan. And also didn't need to bring the swim fins and dive mask. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've said this before. This is probably one of the easiest ad reads that I could do. I've talked a lot about the role of counseling and therapy in my own life. Some people might think that I'm a broken record. I'm never gonna stop because of the impact that it has had. Let me say this therapy is not magic. Talking to a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, all of these, whatever it may be a version of those things. It's not magic. It takes time. You may not like the person that you talk to at first, you may not connect with them. They may not understand you. And I have heard people talk about giving up on that process for every one of those reasons. And I've considered doing it myself. But you shouldn't like any tool, which I believe these things can be. The first time you pick it up, it's not gonna be perfect. You need to practice. You need to figure out how it fits into your arsenal. Where it works, where it doesn't work. You need to spend a lot of time doing actual work. And for everybody who has not gone through counseling, and I bear, I guarantee you, those who have can sit there and shake their head at this. The hard work is after a session, right? The therapy and counseling itself. Talking to somebody, putting together a strategy, a game plan. That's the easy part. Doing the reflective and objective thinking, thinking about what you have done, why you have done it, Trying to evolve from your past mistakes, Putting things into practice going forward that are new in your life. That isn't easy. That's where the hard work begins. I've heard a bunch of people say over the years, well, I've gone through everybody fill in the blank that's in my local area. And it didn't work. I didn't connect with anybody. What else am I supposed to do? We live in the digital era. Enter BetterHelp. They have over 30,000 therapists with the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's got an app store rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on 1.7 million client reviews. It's convenient. You can join a session with a therapist with a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. This goes back to that connection piece I talked about at the beginning. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can help. BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of experience. You can talk it out with Better Help listeners. You're gonna get 10% off their first month. Betterhelp.com cleared hot. That is betterhelp. H E L P as in papa.com cleared hot. Invest the time in yourself. You will not regret it. Back to the show.

[Brandon]

Yeah, we all, we all got popped in the mouth pretty solidly in those first couple years.

[Andy]

I try to tell people the reason that we didn't lose is that we were fighting an enemy that's generations behind. It's not because we were super high speed. Don't get Me Wrong. We were pretty awesome.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

But we were nowhere near as awesome as we thought we were. And we were legitimately fighting, especially in Afghanistan. They're just generations behind.

[Brandon]

It's a very, very different. I would also submit that in those, you know, you remember in those early years, they were specifically instructed, do not get into a direct fire conflict with the Americans. They will clean your clock.

[Andy]

Which is accurate.

[Brandon]

Yeah, which was accurate. Right. And anytime they tried that, you know, they. They discovered that. Right. But yeah, you know, I. Dude, we used to do the craziest shit. We used to do something called the Zoot Suit Riot where we would rent a U Haul truck, fill the back of it with couches from the barracks.

[Andy]

All of this sounds legal.

[Brandon]

Put a keg, seat belt, of course, right? Yeah, put a keg and you know, a couple hand handles, a jack in the back. And we had the. There was this dance club up in Seattle called Polyesters, Right. And they had the. They had the Saturday Night Fever Light up dance floor.

[Andy]

No way.

[Brandon]

100. One side was polyesters, the other side was the Culture Club. And that was all 80s themed. And the cost of admission to get on to the U Haul was you had to be wearing a 70s leisure suit. It was called the Zoot Suit Riot. And we would roll up to this club, you know, roll up this, you know, gate of the back thing. 20 Rangers come pouring out in leisure suits and everything. It was a freaking disaster. Yeah, that's what the peacetime army was like. So. So let's talk about the. That's what peacetime Ranger battalion was like.

[Andy]

So it's so good.

[Brandon]

911 hits. And at the time I was. I was leading an assault squad. I was in the second range of battalion at the time. And Kelly and I were engaged to be married. We were supposed to be married in December of that year. Well, her mother had cancer. She got chemo on September 10, 2001.

[Andy]

Wow.

[Brandon]

Her birthday was 9 11. It turned out to be her 53rd and final birthday. She went home on hospice care the next day, 9-12-2001. She had a day of clarity. On 9-17-01. We called, adjusted the peace over, got married in the living room. She died two days later. I deployed, I think about six days after that. I was over in Jordan. It was a pre planned deployment. We would go over there and support this, I think it was called Early Victor Bright Star. We would go over and support training Jordanian rangers. But once the towers fell, you know, we had the whole JSOC package over there. It was on. We were like, like, surely, you know, we're. We're gonna get the call. Well, I'm not able to call home for about 30 days. And when I do call home and get a hold of Kelly, she says, I'm pregnant. I said, of course. Nine months later, I listened to my son being born from a satellite phone in Bagram. And, you know, I was around for about three of the first 36 months of our marriage. I ended up doing four rotations to Afghanistan. Yeah. And you know the deal. When you're home, you're not home. You know, it was. It was in and out.

[Andy]

You're home enough to rejock your stuff. And then again. You guys were up in Fort Lewis, right?

[Brandon]

Yeah. Oh, God.

[Andy]

I have some. We used to train up there. I have some stories for you, including static lining in wearing a Batman mask.

[Brandon]

You guys jump Selenas?

[Andy]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Is that right?

[Andy]

At night. I don't believe our static line jump master knew where we were.

[Brandon]

We're going off the carp. It's fine.

[Andy]

Yeah, I don't think I landed on it easy. I was, in fact, wearing a Batman mask underneath my Protech. I don't know why it took us the better part of the night to just link up with our unit.

[Brandon]

Yeah, man, the terrain up there is no joke. Once you get into, like, South Rainier, it is nasty.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Nasty terrain.

[Andy]

Yeah, but it's. I mean, you're home, you rejock. And none of the training that we did was local, especially for us, because, you know, Navy bases, we're the actual SEAL compound. They've now moved it down to Imperial beach, closer to the border. Some billion dollar facility, which is spectacular. I think they have some shooting ranges there, but it's mostly administrative space.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So we could do ocean stuff. That actually is. We could do OTB oth, which is over the beach, over the horizon in Zodiacs and diving. We could do that stuff there. Pretty much. Anything other than that, you got to go somewhere else. All of our desert warfare was out at Camp Billy Macon, which is out in Nile in the Chocolate Mountains.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Andy]

We'd go up to Fort Lewis for not jungle, but just, you know, woodland training. We'd go to Kodiak for cold weather. You have to find a jungle probably somewhere in Florida for that. But, yeah, point being, that's not occurring locally.

[Brandon]

Yeah. You're gone. That's why the whole cycle and then all of that to.

[Andy]

Let's not forget schools. Individual schools, if you want to deal with.

[Brandon]

So I missed my son's birth Right. And I get back, like, two weeks later, which was. Was, you know, a whole nother thing. And they're like, hey, man, you got to go to Bock NCO. NCOES. NCO education school number two. You got to go to BNOC. Your BNock class date starts, you know, in two weeks. I'm like, can we, like, defer this? Nope. Like, okay.

[Andy]

And it was needs of the army.

[Brandon]

Constant, man. Just constant. And so, you know, we. We. We experienced that. And I write about this. The first chapter of our book is winter strike 2003. So come the fall of 03, we had been in Afghanistan almost the entirety of 2003. I think we deployed, like, the day after Christmas in 02, right? And that was our second rotation. So we're over there. We get stuck when the war kicks off in Iraq, so we were supposed to get relieved in place by 3rd Ranger Battalion, but, you know, they're like, hey, Charlie Company 275, the lost company of Rangers. The entire rest of the Ranger regiment was in Iraq. So we get. We do two JSOC rotations back to back. Come back from that. And at this point, I was just like, you know, like, we're holding on by a thread. And I had been in. I had been on the line for six years, which is a long time in the Rangers. It's a lot of wear and tear. And I said, you know, hey, can I kind of take a couple plays off from the sideline? I asked for a compassionate reassignment to go down to what then was Ranger Headquarters for Ranger Indoctrination Program.

[Andy]

Ranger assassins.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly. And they said, yeah, you know, definitely. I mean, I was. I was the senior squad leader in Charlie Co. 275 at the time, and said, yep, you got it. Great. So on orders, packed the house up, getting ready to go, and I went to work one morning in October, and I came back in December. We got alerted the entire Ranger regiment, and then, you know, shit. Tons of other joint special operations elements were surged over to Afghanistan in 2003 in the winter, and it just kind of, like, the hits just kind of kept coming, you know, And I talk about that. You know, we talked about perseverance as kind of the backdrop of this idea. Like, there's no playbook for that. There's no playbook for leaving the house one morning with half of it packed up in boxes ready for a move. The light at the end of the tunnel after a couple of years of hard duty, not to mention the fact that from Kelly's perspective, Her mother, her best friend died. Her dad didn't do well with it. She was basically utterly alone, save for the Ranger wives. All looking out for each other as best they could. But all kids, right, right. All in their early 20s doing the best that they could with babies.

[Andy]

I was going to say a lot of them with kids.

[Brandon]

Exactly. And, and you know, it was just like, you know, all. And, and in all of that I talk a little bit about that, that experience and just try to reflect on, you know, what it was like being so. I was the senior squad leader of a 40 man platoon. We had a brand new platoon leader, like brand new, just got there. Great guy, but just brand new, you know, it's very new. And we had a, a poor platoon sergeant so in the number two slot. So I felt like I had the world on my shoulders with the splatoon in combat while my family was falling apart 7,000 miles away. And it was just, it was just a lot.

[Andy]

It is a lot.

[Brandon]

And so you fast forward that. I was there during a pretty pivotal time when the Ranger regiment, you know, we were doing a lot of, of transformation to make sure that we were preparing guys to go be successful overseas. And that was an honor. I got to prepare future leaders in the pre Ranger school program. Ranger School 62 days. What the Ranger regiment does is that you do another 30 days of pre Ranger to prepare you to go forward. And I just said like, I got to start making my way out of this because there's no way that this is going to last. And in that time frame, I got to see our daughter born and it was like I seen a lot of cool shit. I've never seen something so incredible. Like I was blown away. It's pretty wild, it's pretty amazing. And being, being from where I explained I'm from, I just, like I said, I don't want my kids to, I don't want my kids to feel the way that I felt growing up up. Because you know, I think what you learn when your dad takes off on you is a sense of worthlessness. I think you learn that you're not enough, you're not good enough to be around for. So if I'm not good enough to be around for, for my father, why would I be good enough for anybody else?

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And those were some of the motivating factors where I finally just said I'm gonna get out. And I was, I mean I was that guy like smashing college from my kitchen table every night. The last couple years of my time in the Army And I got out of the army in 2009 and got into medical sales and intended to try and figure this thing out. And I did exactly what I knew how to do, which was run. I took a job where I was in a hotel three nights a week. I was driving 60,000 miles a year around the state of Alabama. I could justify it all, you know, I'm trying to. I'm trying to provide for the family. I'm trying to. This. I'm trying to. That truth was, is I was. I was not. Well, it's a rough transition. Yeah, it is. It was really rough. And in that timeframe, you know, it was. Thankfully, we have so many more resources now. Yeah, I'm not saying we didn't have resources then, but I will tell you that it's really hard to access some of the resources when you walk into places like. Like the VA and say, like, I'm fine. I don't want anything from you. And they're like, okay. And that's part of what I did, you know? But I think that part of what makes that transition so tough is that, you know, like, I. So I got out. I was a. I was a sergeant first class. I was an E7, right? And I'm fast tracker. I made my 7 and 7. I was, you know, I was. I was the guy. Right? You know, like, people. I was expected to be indomitable, and for the most part, I played that role. Right. So now you get out of the military, you've been in that culture of being indomitable, and you're expected to walk through another door and say, I need help. That is irrational.

[Andy]

I would agree.

[Brandon]

And I think that that's what happens so frequently, is that we step out of that environment. You have that complete loss of your mooring. Right? Like, for me, the first family that I. I felt like I fit into was the 2nd Ranger Battalion. And now I've cut my player card. You know, I've said, sorry, fellas, I'm taking a step out. They just keep deploying. You know, friends are dying, Friends are getting shot up. And then I try to come home to this family that I'm trying to cobble together. So not really knowing what to do there. So now I'm running from them, and I've run away from here, and I just end up isolated. And I think that that's what happens a lot, is that, you know, we have all these expectations. I should. I should. Why couldn't I figure? Why can't I figure this out? Why can't I figure this out and I would say that that also strikes the tone of like I was trying to endure through it, but I needed to persevere. I needed to change, I needed to do things differently. I needed to say, I am not okay. It took me six years to walk back into the VA and say, I am not okay. I need help.

[Andy]

How was the treatment you got when you did that?

[Brandon]

Incredible.

[Andy]

I hear that more common than people having horror stories.

[Brandon]

Incredible.

[Andy]

Sometimes I think what people leave out of the horror stories because it's a two way interaction and an exchange. You gotta look at both of those things again. People make decisions off the data points that they have. And if you walk in and say you're fine. There's a lot of skills human beings have. Reading minds isn't one of them.

[Brandon]

Exactly.

[Andy]

Regardless of what a tarot card reader or a crystal might tell you. I know that there's people out there making their money doing that, but I feel like they're making stuff up.

[Brandon]

Probably.

[Andy]

Yeah, non professional, not educated opinion. I feel like that's what's happening.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was great. I mean, I told the truth for the first time and it took a lot, in fact. And this is where I think the power of some of these 40,000 plus veterans serving nonprofits that are out there is, was at that time then I had been working for one of them, Team rwb, Team Red, White and Blue. And my shipmate Dana, one of my, our Navy sisters. She and I were talking one day and she's like, we were just doing an event and she's like, hey, you know, oh, I gotta go to the doctor or whatever. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, I've got an appointment next week. She's like, oh, do you go to the golden facility or do you have to go out to the hospital? I was like, oh, no, I, I just, you know, go to the private practice, you know. And she's like, oh, so you don't get your care from the va? I said, no. She said, why not? I said, well, I'm not, I'm not a disabled veteran or anything. She's like, how is that possible? Like, hold on, timeout. You know, she, she like put me on blast. And she's like, I want you to go talk to a friend of mine who had, who ended up being a, like a veteran advocate and walked me through the process, was just like, look, brother, I mean, he had been a Marine infantryman. He's just like, look, bro, if you'd.

[Andy]

Like to continue living Your life as an idiot. Feel free to do so.

[Brandon]

However.

[Andy]

Yeah, here are some options for you.

[Brandon]

Yes, they really spoke my language, which is that. Which is part of the importance of veterans connecting with other veterans is like. Like we can kind of cut the. And say, like, hey, talk to my buddy and that, you know, you need some help, man.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And it's cool.

[Andy]

Well, you can point them in direction of people who have shared experiences as well.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

I think one of the flaws of human nature is that you think you're suffering through things alone or that what you are suffering through is only yours and unique.

[Brandon]

Unique.

[Andy]

Not. Not the case even remotely.

[Brandon]

Nope. Nothing is new under the sun.

[Andy]

Truly. Did you ever interface with the Tillman brothers in your time in Rangers? So they were up in the northwest too, weren't they?

[Brandon]

They were, yeah. They actually. So I grew up in a platoon called The Black Sheep. 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion. When I moved over to Charlie Company to the Mad Slashers, which is first Platoon, Charlie Company. I think maybe a month or two after is when the Tillmans arrived.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Brandon]

So the only interface that I had with them is I was on staff duty one day and I said, hey, make sure you lock up the battalion fitness center. And they were like, roger, Sergeant. I'm like, you know. But that whole. I mean, those were all. Yeah, those are the guys that I came up with.

[Andy]

You know, I had the good fortune of meeting both Pat and Kevin in OIF1. They were there as our arranger, support. And on the. We hit the number one chembio target, which was an agricultural school, and I actually ripped my. We were MOP level four. I ripped off my mask because I would have rather died from sarin gas than suffocation. Didn't even care.

[Brandon]

MOP level 4. I haven't heard that in years.

[Andy]

Dude. Dude, it's still a shitty.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

With nods on look, you're just like, what are we doing? Does anybody know where we are? I can't see anything.

[Brandon]

Four hour helicopter, like extended out.

[Andy]

Oh, God. Literally just like, can anybody see anything? Well, they. It was pretty cool operation. I mean, they surged to C130. They pulled out little birds.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy]

On like a desert landing strip. We joined up in flight blocking positions with Rangers and one of the Rangers just gets zipped up, up, through and through.

[Brandon]

I know him. Yeah, he was my private.

[Andy]

He's like. But he walked like 100 yards off the helicopter is like, I'm actually going to get back on that. Which. Good for you.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

But Tillman ended up being the guy. That's how I met him. He kind of came forward and they were with us. Born, raised in San Jose. The same areas.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

God, they were such good people. I've stayed in touch with Kevin. Kevin is. I don't want to. I won't say too much about it. I know he's a very private person, deeply impacted by the circumstances around his brother. And I don't know how you couldn't be.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I don't either. I mean, it was. So I was actually at regimental headquarters when that happened.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And because I'm from Fremont, which is right next to San Jose, I was the Ranger regiment's liaison. I. I flew. I was flown out to be a liaison for. At the time, it was the USASAK commanding general and to the family. And because I was from originally the black sheep. And so it was. It was terrible, terrible time.

[Andy]

I was on the ramp in Afghanistan as they were putting his body on the aircraft. We were in the talk and I see Kevin, which tactical operations center for people listening.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And I see. And I didn't know what was going on. The Internet was taken down, which happens. What's happening happens, but generally not for that long. And we had wondered like, did we just lose like a flag officer in combat or something? Because, you know.

[Brandon]

Yeah, something's going on.

[Andy]

Something's going on. And I see Kevin in the talk and he was just destroyed. And I just gave him a huge hug. And then later that night, I mean, watching him walk right next to his brother in that flag draped coffin as they made the route up to the C17. And then that was the last time. That was the last time I had seen him. And then he came up and visited for a little bit. I got to reconnect with him.

[Brandon]

Oh, that's cool, man.

[Andy]

But the impact is still there.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Not just for. I mean, for. For just about everyone in that platoon. I am connected to a fair amount of them. In fact, one of my friends who up. I'll just not mention his name, but he was one of the squad leaders during that time and had just also left the platoon. And he came through and stayed at my place a couple months ago and long into the night with many tears talking about that. That was a devastating and the narrative devastating for us all so out of control.

[Andy]

And at some point, I always come back to the question. Question is, when did people realize that this is shifting from the truth to anything other than the truth?

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's, it's.

[Andy]

And it seems to be the answer is pretty early on, but they stuck with it, which.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Andy]

Yeah, it's. That whole thing was just devastating.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

He was such a good deed man. Nothing but helpful. Yeah. Him and his brother, we were watching movies. You know, they'd like turn a little wad of tape into like a little mini football. Both of them.

[Brandon]

Oh, my gosh, dude.

[Andy]

Like, ambidextrous. Like, they were so incredibly athletic. And I just sitting. Having long conversations with him, just bullshitting about life. I mean, he. At that time, I mean, I was at a JSAW command. That guy had had more life experience than I did. You know, I'm just. We were just sitting there bullshitting in between, you know, objectives.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And we'd go out and come back and he's just like, how was I? Like, I don't know.

[Brandon]

I'm not sure. Wasn't that like, I'm still here.

[Andy]

So like, probably pretty good.

[Brandon]

I don't. No. Did we win? Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy]

I feel like we got a gold star. I'm not so sure.

[Brandon]

I'm not sure. Yeah, it was. It's funny, you talk about wadding up, you know, a ball. You brought me back to Asada BAD 2003, and the good old. A bad epic stickball game we had with it was. It was our platoon versus, you know, some. Some of the folks from your team. It was a hell of a lot of fun.

[Andy]

Yeah. ABAD and J Bad were interesting fobs for sure.

[Brandon]

The worst rocket magnet. Dude, come on.

[Andy]

On that terrain up there up in Konar. Oh, man, brutal.

[Brandon]

Dude. We.

[Andy]

I mean, that's like a troop plus. You don't. You don't go in there light. You got to go in there heavy.

[Brandon]

Now, we were. We were up there for. My platoon was up there for 10 weeks straight. And like, up in it in Abad. Oh, yeah.

[Andy]

Okay. You mean like, I'm talking like up the hills into the.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah. Constant, constant patrols in and out. I mean, I mean, you know, because at that time, like, we. We didn't really know who the hell was what. Where anybody was. We were kind of like just trying to get out there and see if we could figure some stuff out. So funny enough, we did a lot of kind of bread and butter rangering, a lot of long range patrolling, lying in ambush, you know, insertions. We. We had to get off of route Blue because it was IED Alley. Yeah. You know, Pesh River Valley Road for, you know, those of you listening that aren't familiar. It was at one point in time, the Most dangerous road on the planet. And so we were like, okay, so get off a route blue. Or if you're going to travel route blue, you only do it at nighttime, you know, under nods, all that kind of stuff. And so we would. We would do a lot of those kind of insertions. And I spent a lot of time up in those mountains.

[Andy]

They are. In my experience, they're probably the gnarliest terrain in that country. I would say.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And when we got. When we got. And you keep going up that to like Nuristan province, it just gets nastier and nasty to Hindu Kush mountain range.

[Andy]

Nobody you find up there is a casual fighter. No, no, they are.

[Brandon]

They are there on purpose.

[Andy]

Their lunch is packed, their gear has been inspected, and they are ready to partay with a hard A. Yeah.

[Brandon]

That altitude will. It'll put hurting on you. Yeah, pretty quick, for sure.

[Andy]

So how did you navigate the civilian world? Talk me through your journey. The jobs that you held. Medical sales. How did you find this as your starting place?

[Brandon]

Oh, my gosh, man, I was so dumb. Like, I probably could. I remember saying to guys in like, O2 when we were in Bagram, I'm like, oh, dude, I'm gonna eventually get out and I'm gonna do medical sales. And they were like, why do you have like a biology background? I'm like, no, they just make buttloads.

[Andy]

Of money, Which I think is actually true.

[Brandon]

Yeah, so that's what I got into. I worked for a cancer diagnostics laboratory, and it was really cool. Like the hard. Cut your. Cut your teeth in some really tough sales environments. It was, you know, learning how to get people to send to your laboratory where there's no contractual obligations and anything. A lot of these physicians had their own laboratories. It was like, like, I'm taking money out of your pocket and putting it into my pocket. So I did that for a number of years. Honestly, I. I kind of. About a year and a half into it, you know, Kelly and I were just holding on by a thread. You know, we basically were still cohabitating, but very barely being married, I would say. And we were kind of headed in different directions and. And for me, I felt like I just. I'm not made for this. I just got to go back to the war, which I didn't want to, you know, like, that's what you knew, though. But it's what I knew. Right. It was. It was easier for me to face the war than face my family. And I went through a three letter agency's recruiting pipeline. For their, you know, specialty team. And y got to the end of that. And in the very end of this thing, I'm like, it's game on. This is, you know, great. And they had me do, like, a polygraph test. And the next day, they call and say, you failed the polygraph. And I'm like, well, how do you. How do you fail a polygraph? It's the lie detector, right? I didn't lie on anything. They said, yeah, well, you know, you failed. And I said, oh, okay. Is there, like, an appeal? You know, and at this time, like, somebody like me who had spent 10 years in, you know, the JSOC environment, I was a very appealing candidate to them. I was like, okay, well, do we just appeal this and try again? They're like, nope, you're done.

[Andy]

See, here's what's interesting. Lie detectives are not admissible in court because it doesn't detect whether or not you lie. It detects whether or not you have a physiological response to a question being asked to you.

[Brandon]

Right?

[Andy]

It can give you trends, but there's a reason why it's not admissible in court.

[Brandon]

So I looked at that, and I was like, okay, well, I'm screwed, right? And the next, I think, maybe a couple days later, and my company is like, hey, I was in Georgia at the time. My territory is Alabama. It was an expansion territory. So what this company did is they were kind of early adopters at finding military talent, Mostly junior military officers. I think I was the only former nco and everybody else, you know, it was all junior military officers throwing them at these expansion territories and see if they stuck. Because obviously, we've got a lot of, you know, perseverance, grit, determination, all those things, right? And they could trust us this. And so they call me up and they say, hey, man, look, the. The territory you're in, it's. It's not viable. And I'm like, yes, I know. We. We all knew that, like, three months in, and they're like, how would you like to take the Colorado territory? How would you like to move to Colorado? And I said, that sounds awesome. Let me consult with my wife. So I called Kelly on the phone. I said, do you want to move to Colorado? She said, yes. I said, do you want to move to Colorado with me? She said, yes. I said, okay, let's do it. So I got out there, and, you know, there was. There was some things that were holding me back in being successful. I had such a. Over identification to being ranger, you know, Blaine, and I call it identity Asymmetry. So much of my identity was bound up in what I did, not who I was super comfortable. Absolutely. And I just couldn't see my way out of it. And, and then because of that, I, I, my performance could have been better. And when I got on the ground in, in Denver and took this Colorado territory, I remember having a conversation with myself and saying like, you're going to give this 12 months and you're going to stop screwing around and you're going to do the do, you're going to make the hard calls, you're going to, you're going to ask for the business. Because sales is hard, really freaking hard. And I committed to it and you know, it turned out I crushed it. And one of the things that was really keeping me back is I was just kind of like I, I had become not a sales professional, but a professional visitor. I was very good at getting past the gatekeepers and engaging with people and all that stuff. But if I'm being honest, I felt so isolated that it was just enough for me to feel liked by anybody or to see somebody wanted me around. And I just didn't ask the tough question that might put that at risk. But my company expected me to go out there and close deals. Right. And we had a great product and it was beneficial for all parties involved, particularly the patient. And I believed that and had lost my mother in law to cancer just years prior. And so got out there and you know, really kind of planted my feet and, and got to it. And the other thing that I really wanted was I wanted to be in leadership again. I didn't want to be out there alone. And got to, I earned a team. I led a sales district and multi state region. We went through a large consolidation and reorganization. Got to experience that from the inside. My, my territory went from 9 specialty reps in cancer diagnostic in 5 states, 13 reps from 6 different diagnostic business lines and half of Colorado. And so that's one of the experiences that, you know, we, I get to at least relate to other leaders that are going through that stuff right now because it's pretty common.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

With all the consolidation and acquisitions and everything. So did that. And you know, we had been just struggling. Right. And we got here and I think Kelly and I both kind of felt like, okay, we, you know, we'll see if we can't give this a rip. And we. I had been for a number of years, I would say on, on a faith journey, you know, I was kind of asking the question like, why is it that when I feel like I'm about to die in Afghanistan. I'm crying out to God to save me, but I don't ever acknowledge him otherwise, like, I better wrestle with that. That. And so I. I had done a lot in that regard. And somebody asked us if they. If we'd like to go to church. And, you know, I didn't grow up in that kind of environment. And so we went and we were like, oh, okay, that's interesting. And we went the next weekend and the next weekend and the next weekend. And, you know, Kelly and I both came to relationship with Jesus. And. And, you know, I think that that was a real. Well, I know it was a key turning point in our lives because in that moment, it was like everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. Like, we still had the same shit, you know, to deal with. We still had the same problems, but I think we started to work at it a little bit more and a little bit more, and we did all the. Whatever was offered, we did it. They were like, yeah, you guys should try this thing called a life group. And we're like, okay, cool, let's do that. Yeah, you guys should try this thing called piece. And you know, okay, cool, we'll try that. You know, try this, try that. And then. And things got better and we were working through things in that time period. I told you, Blaine has a knack for getting me into things. So Blaine and I actually met at that healthcare company. So it was Quest Diagnostics. We met at Quest Diagnostics. I got in there in 20 2009, he got there in 2010. And, you know, we're kind of like Green Beret, Ranger. Like, you know, these are my people linked up. It was great. And he had left in, I think 2012 or 2013 and became the first employee of Team Red, White and Blue. Well, I had just kind of come to a faith, a Christian faith, and I was kind of just doing some different stuff. Things were going really well at work, but I kind of felt like, I don't know that I'm where I'm supposed to be anymore. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do, but I'm open. Blaine calls me. I hadn't spoken to him for months, and he's like, hey, man, we think we're onto something here and we really need somebody to do revenue development and provide some, you know, some executive level leadership. Like, what do you think? And I'm like, dude, I don't know anything about nonprofits. He's like, yeah, I think you're going to be okay. Let's, you know, give it a rip and, you know, think about it. So Kel and I, you know, we prayed about it, we talked about it, and I just felt like it was the right move. Took a 60% pay cut, started the job, and when I got there at Team Red, White, and Blue, I think. I think we were somewhere around, like, 30,000 members, and we might have been in, like, 30 cities. And then it was amazing, man. Like, I got to take the passion that I felt for service. I mean, remember, I wanted to be a soldier since I had memories, and I didn't think that my story was going to end with me not being a soldier. I kind of just thought I would go out as a soldier in some way, shape, or form, and when I didn't.

[Andy]

He's very. Lieutenant Dan.

[Brandon]

Yeah, totally, dude. Totally. Yeah, the jokes. Yeah. Let's take an interlude for ribs on that.

[Andy]

Do you understand that reference?

[Brandon]

Good reference. Yes, I do. Yeah.

[Andy]

9 out of 10 he doesn't get exactly. Forrest Gump is probably in your. Everybody's seen that.

[Brandon]

Everybody just saying, good. It's good. It's a classic.

[Andy]

But I. I'm shocked at what he doesn't get.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you just get ribbed all the whole time.

[Andy]

I'm just trying.

[Brandon]

Yeah, we're just including. We're making sure you're here with us.

[Andy]

I tell him that I'm forging him into the weapon that I know he can be.

[Brandon]

Can't wait till we do that gig in Chicago.

[Andy]

Oh, God.

[Brandon]

So.

[Andy]

So Team Red, White, and Blue, what do they do?

[Brandon]

They help so enrich the lives of America's veterans by connecting them, their community, through physical and social activity. So I did that for. I think I started there in 2014. Maybe Blaine and I both left around the same time. He was the executive director. I was director development. By the time we left, we were doing like 9 million a year. We had 150,000 members conducting 50,000 events a year. 211 locations. We had built strategic partnerships with Nike, Walmart, Microsoft. A lot of great people that just really cared about looking at the problem set in different ways. Because when we got out, it was like, yeah, it's kind of like a couple key things. Education, homelessness, jobs, you know, maybe some mental health stuff or addiction kind of stuff. And you looked at somebody like me, and it was like, well, you check all the boxes, you're fine. This guy's got his. You got your college done. You have a job, you have a house. What's the problem. And the problem was, is I was like dying on the inside. And so we built, you know, we didn't start the organization. A guy named Mike Irwin started it, but Blaine was the first employee, like I said, said. And with an incredible team of people, we just built this movement where we were, you know, helping vets not just reconnect to other vets in their community, but connect to their community. We were inclusive by design, so we had civilians as part of the membership base. Because our argument was like, what good is it? You can't, like, we represent 7% of the US population. You can't reintegrate if the only people that you're talking to are veterans. Like, yeah, and that's not even. That's not even. And like, productive anyways. There's. You don't have to be a veteran to care about a veteran. So why would we shut that off? And so did that for a while. And then by the end of that, I had been on the road for like 20 years, basically. And you know, Kelly and I had kind of one of those like, what are we doing? You know, kind of things. And it was like, I think it's probably time to get off the road. Road. I think, I think I was traveling. I mean, some years I traveled 90%, some years I traveled 50%. I mean, it was terrible, right? And so I took a job at Colorado's oldest non profit. I was the chief advancement officer of the Tennyson center for Children, which deals in the child welfare space. So severely abused, neglected kids, residential facility, community based care, school, school setting, all this kind of stuff. And. And at the same time, our church was like, hey, what do you guys think about helping us start a marriage ministry? And we're like, oh, yeah, of course, you know, like, we're fantastic. Well, whatever. And so we go down and do this training. And it was in Dallas, a church in Dallas called Watermark does this program called RE Engage. And the thrust of it all is basically, you know, stop managing your reputation, like, cut the shit and tell the real story. And, you know, maybe we can kind of re engage from there. Maybe we can grow from there. And that's what happened in 2018. Kelly and I sat down with each other and told each other the real story. And we laid out a lot of the damage that we had done to each other, to ourselves. And, you know, we asked each other for forgiveness and we granted forgiveness and we. We started over. And in 2018, December 22, 2018, which was supposed to have been our original wedding Date we got remarried in the church that we came to Christianity in. And that's where we're at, man. So now here we are, and, you.

[Andy]

Know, still working for the Tennyson Center.

[Brandon]

No, I left Tennyson actually in. At the end of 2019 again. Kind of felt like. Like, yeah, I'm not supposed to be here anymore. I actually left. I had no. I had no plan. I felt. I felt God put on my heart to apply to Denver Seminary, and I did. And so I started a Masters of Divinity with an emphasis in leadership at Denver Seminary. And Blaine and I have a mutual friend named Caroline who kept saying, like, hey, last time you talked to each other, you guys should really talk to each other. Because we had been a big. Both gone our separate ways, which is.

[Andy]

Not that uncommon for guys. For clarity, we talk less than women.

[Brandon]

Totally.

[Andy]

Take it easy, ladies.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean, pick up the phone. It's like, hey, I haven't talked to.

[Andy]

You in 10 years. In six minutes. We're up to speed.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly. Done. Yeah. What do you want to do next weekend? Cool. Later. Yeah, Right. Talk to you in six years. So we reconnected and, you know, one. Phone calls turned into. Video calls turned into. I flew out to Tampa and Blaine and I had this kind of thought, and he, at the time was doing a little bit of consulting work. So after he had done Team Red, White and Blue, he was the president of goruck. Yep.

[Andy]

Most people would know them for backpacks. If you're not familiar, that's. I mean, they do some shoes and stuff, but we'll call it backpacks.

[Brandon]

Yeah, great backpack. Right? Great stuff. And then he had been doing some consulting, and he said, you know, so I'm going to get out of this game pretty much because I'd rather just work in a team. I just hate being out here kind of alone. But if you're interested, I'll. I'll give you all my notes or whatever, because I was like, maybe I'll do some consulting. You know, I've got something to offer. And then, you know, and he said, like, I mean, I would. I would consider maybe sticking in it if there was, you know, somebody to. If you. If you wanted to maybe talk about doing a partnership. And so In January of 2020, I flew out to Tampa and we sat down for three days and did like a full up scoped everything out, you know, business conversation. And at the end of it, you know, we said, like, we have to try this. Like, we. We've got to try, you know, the. The key for us was, I think that we have been given through our life experiences some wisdom and leadership. I haven't seen everything, but I've seen a lot of things. And I think that we could probably help some people by just coming alongside them and, you know, helping them go through what they're going through and maybe offer some perspective and maybe offer some tools and techniques to, to roll through that. And fortunately, our wives, Jenny Smith and Kelly were like, yeah, you guys should try this. So we finally hung a shingle, whatever that means online, opened our business, I think March 17, 2020. We had three gigs on the books and then the world shut down a couple days later. And so we had an opportunity to take our own medicine. And here we are now, five and a half years later. And what we do at Applied Leadership Partners is that we share hard earned leadership wisdom. Oftentimes we help companies create a common leadership language and then increase their effectiveness for the long haul by having that shared language and then being able to actually function together. As opposed to asking 20 people, what does empowerment mean? Well, they'll give you 20 answers if not 30. Yeah, this is what we mean when we say it. And here's a simple framework. You know, there's no scripts in life, there's no scripts in leadership. We just believe in frameworks because of the way that we all came up.

[Andy]

And, you know, the military leadership framework is interesting. I do a good amount of public speaking and oftentimes they want me to talk about leadership.

[Brandon]

Yep.

[Andy]

I have really changed how I discuss it because the military leadership model is more likely to fail in the civilian world than it is to be successful. Oh, specifically the SOF model.

[Brandon]

Say more.

[Andy]

Well, you're never going to replicate the buy in of the people that you were asked to lead in the soft world.

[Brandon]

Interesting. Yeah. One of the, one of the key things about the soft world is you have a high degree of homogeneity. Right.

[Andy]

Well, think about how many times you have to continuously volunteer. Had to join the Navy. I had to raise my hand in boot camp and say, yes, I want to go take a swim test. No flutter kicks yet, but they came soon.

[Brandon]

It's all fun and games until your two hours of flutter kicks and ball bags hanging out of your DDT shorts.

[Andy]

I know, but so boot camp to the screening test, to then picking an A school that is open for buds. Even though BUDS became an A school well past my time.

[Brandon]

Sure.

[Andy]

Going to A school, training for buds, getting to buds, taking the test necessary to class up for your first class, making your Way through that. Getting to your first team and you're still a new guy going through an additional six month training pipeline to get your trident. Then you're a new guy in your platoon and going through your schools. I would have crawled over hot coals, dipped in cyanide, rolled in spiky. Fill in the blank, venomous poison. If the guys that I worked with asked me to, because they were my absolute heroes.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And you could use positive reinforcement, you could use negative reinforcement, you could treat me like an animal. And I was still so bought in.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

On what it is that needed to be done, let alone being there. But the MIS that I realized that it actually masks really bad leadership. Because I don't know about you guys. When we were tasked with doing something, coming back and saying that we failed was unacceptable because that's not what they ask special operations to do.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Andy]

But I worked with the best leaders that I had ever been around and the worst leaders that I had ever been around. But the outcome didn't change.

[Brandon]

Change. Yeah.

[Andy]

So the question is, how is that possible? The reason is the people that were there were so bought in that they covered for the bad leader. We were successful in spite of that person, not because of them.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And it. I own the coffee shop. You want to know what's hard? Figuring out 16 to 25 year old young men and women. If. If I were to treat them like a SEAL platoon, I would have zero employees. They all have a different language, they have a different motivation. They have reasons for being there. For some of them, they're just passing through. And I'm. I tell people, like, work here for six months or work here for a year, I don't care. I know that throwing coffee across the counter is not a vocation for most people. That is harder leadership than the SEAL teams because everybody wants to be there. Oh, and by the way, you're also contractually obligated and I can hammer you with punitive measures. I've seen so many organizations try to replicate a military leadership model and it doesn't. It doesn't work.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I think that one of the things that we really try to emphasize, because I agree with you and because we've seen it. Right. I've led in a Fortune 500 company. You know, I've led in a social impact organization. You want to really test your chops in leadership, Lead a mostly volunteer force. You know, we had some of that. Yeah. Try some of that. Right.

[Andy]

Well, here's the thing. If military service and leadership was enough, we would never See people who served in the military field in a leadership role. But you do all the time.

[Brandon]

But you do, all the time. Why? Because. Because they.

[Andy]

That's the question.

[Brandon]

Because they're so anchored to that way. And the key is not to try to force the round peg of military leadership into the square hole of the civilian population. The key is to figure out what can I re. How can I relate this?

[Andy]

Yes.

[Brandon]

What are some things that I can bring forward so that they are relatable? You know, know, for example, you just talked about purpose. Right? Okay, look, everybody wants to be. Everybody who shows up to coal range wants to be a Ranger, right? I trust that Everyone who showed up in BUDS wants to be a seal. But not everybody has to be. Not everybody needs to be.

[Andy]

I hope they show up because I galactically lost.

[Brandon]

Well, but, but I, but I saw this, and I'm sure you saw it too when you were an instructor as well, is like the difference between the people who are standing in form at the end and everybody else was purpose. They had a purpose. They had a reason. Not why they wanted to, but why they had to. Absolutely. Had to be a ranger, have to be a seal, have to be a Green Beret, all of that stuff. So that's that purpose, Right? So you try to take that out into a coffee shop with 16 to 25 year olds, what are you going to have them do? Flutter kicks in the, in the back room? That's ridiculous. You're going to try to pitch that.

[Andy]

To our management staff?

[Brandon]

Actually, there was a hard, no hard pass.

[Andy]

They asked me what a flutter kick was and it's like, you guys are not my people.

[Brandon]

Forget it, I'm leaving.

[Andy]

You don't deserve my presence.

[Brandon]

But you know, you try to. But, but that's not. That wasn't the point. The point was, what was the, what's the purpose though? Well, why, why are you working, you know, in this coffee shop? What, what are, what are some of your desires? What are some of your hopes and dreams? Where are you trying to get to in life? They all have different answers and they all have different answers. They're all completely valid and is not to try to smash everyone into this like, you know, homogenous paradigm. The key is to say like, okay, cool. How can I help you get where you're trying to go? Right? And if that's, if that means that you're with us for six months, awesome. We're going to invest in you for as long as you're willing to invest in us. If that means you're with us for six years. Great. You know, as long as you're in, we want you in Y. And, and I think it's. That's, that's kind of the key. And we, we try to share often the fact that, I mean, look, we, we have some, we have some stories in this book. You know, they're, they're military stories. We don't tell military stories for the sake of it, if we're being honest. We don't really love telling them unless there's a point. And if the point is that through us sharing something that we be where we learn perseverance, if we can use that to open up a new window into an old truth for you person, whoever is out there navigating through what you're trying to navigate through, we'll do it.

[Andy]

Well, that's the difference between entertainment and education.

[Brandon]

That's right. Yeah. And that's why I, I don't, I don't need. I don't need to embellish anything. There's nothing to embellish. There's a. Yeah. I'm just going to tell you what. I'm going to tell you what happened. I'm going to tell you what I felt like. I'm going to tell you how. How I felt like a total failure. I'm going to tell you how I screwed those far more often. We talk about how we. Sorry. We talk about how things. We screwed things up.

[Andy]

Those are my favorite stories.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

People will say, tell me about something that happened when you're in the military. I'm like, oh, I got one for you. Like, have you ever seen the movie Navy seals? Because strap in.

[Brandon]

It's not like that at all.

[Andy]

There's this one time where I lost everything I was supposed to have with me on target and had to go back and fire.

[Brandon]

Oh, my gosh. Talk about, dude, this is like insanity. I had like this, like.

[Andy]

Do you want to hear about anxiety?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Pretend for a moment that you lost the kick 13 for four days.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And you thought you had lost all the crypto that was going to destroy your career, and then you just realize it's in your backpack.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah. How about go up to your command after coming off of the bird on the flight line and saying, we gave you a false up, we actually dropped. Dropped a sidearm on the objective.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Andy]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Brandon]

Yeah. We screwed up.

[Andy]

Yep.

[Brandon]

Right. Or, you know, I tell, I tell a story about driving down route Blue, and long story short is that we had a Vehicle roll over. And it didn't. Never had to happen. And the reason it happened is because I, like an ass, just chucked a pair of nods at, you know, a. An attachment and said, just drive. Just drive behind this one. Went over the side. And guess who was responsible for certifying the platoon in driving under nods. You know the answer to that question. Me. Right. And so, like, I use that illustration. Talk about, like, look, man, there's a cost of an action when we don't have those difficult conversations within our teams that we know that we need to have. I know, it sucks. I get it. There's a reason we call them difficult conversations because they're difficult. Difficult.

[Andy]

Yeah. But that's where the growth comes from and the perseverance.

[Brandon]

Absolutely.

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah, It's. God, there's lessons to be learned from positive and negative experiences. I find it. And I view that through the lens of leadership, too. Really good leaders, the best ones that I've ever been around. It's actually harder for me to describe what it is that they're doing so well. But the train wreck, I'm like, stand by. Get a piece of paper out. Let me just tell you, you why this person sucks. It's so much easier. The train wreck is easier to reverse engineer the best leaders I've ever worked for. I've actually had to sit and think deeply, like, okay, how did they do that? What exactly were they doing that makes me feel the way that I do about their leadership? It's tougher.

[Brandon]

Well, that's the. And it's because it's the nuance. Right. You know, we say it all the time like, people aren't math problems. People are people. You can't just drop in, you know, discrete values and get the same result every single time. The reason it's hard to pin down, like, what was it about that leader that taught me so much? It's like, well, when I really think about it, this was a real human to human interaction, and a lot blossomed from that. But investing in that relationship is so often where it really begins. And building that trust, you can get nowhere without that kind of trust. And you really have to work at it. Can't just slap the table and say, we trust each other.

[Andy]

Yep. No, I talk about that a lot too, doing speaking events. I trust God. My wife hit me with this one not too long ago. It's gained in drops, but lost in buckets. And that is so true.

[Brandon]

Absolutely.

[Andy]

And I often will talk about it from a leadership equity position of you get a choice when you're dealing with people, you want to make a micro deposit or a massive withdrawal or a micro withdrawal, hopefully you're going to make both. But the people who don't realize that they're doing that, they have no idea what the ledger says.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And if you hit bankrupt. I've personally have never been able to put my trust back in somebody who I've. Who I've legitimately lost it in. And I have tried, and I hate numbers like 0 and 100% because I don't think they're truly accurate. But, yeah, to this day, I've never been able to put trust back in somebody that truly violated it.

[Brandon]

I. I hear that. I mean, I think I would say it has taken something miraculous.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, in order for that to happen. But I'm with you. Like. Like, it's very hard. Certainly not a 0 to 100 kind of thing, because once again, there's so much nuance. Right. And that is part of why you can't ram, like, a soft leadership model into every equation. Because, I mean, frankly, there's a lot of black and white, and you're either doing this or you're not. When you're in those kind of soft environments, sure, the mission is we operate in ambiguity, we deal with asymmetrical risk, all that, that kind of stuff. But when you exit and you take that uniform off, there's a whole lot of gray out there.

[Andy]

I've had business leaders tell me we are executing a special operations leadership model. And I'll say them, how's that going for you? And they go, like, not super great. You're like, right, like, so what's going on? My guess, you're telling people to do something and they're not doing it. And they're like, how did you know?

[Brandon]

You're like, hey.

[Andy]

Just a good guess.

[Brandon]

But did you bug our meetings?

[Andy]

So, yeah, you're just being overly directive, focusing on negative reinforcement, telling people exactly what to do and not really explaining, you know, the overall mission, the why, or any of that. Just like, huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brandon]

That's, you know, okay, that's probably not going to work out. But, you know, the. In the trust in, like, drops and buckets, like, the things is also, when you see it, you know it. Right. And. And when you see, like, a team that really has trust, Blaine and I sure. Oftentimes, like, you can. You can see a team where people have trust. They really trust each other. They can get a lot of wrong and still find a way to win.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

But Conversely, the teams that lack trust, they can do all the moves. Right. And still find a way to lose.

[Andy]

I tell people, because, again, again, most people's optic on the military is something off a screen.

[Brandon]

Sure.

[Andy]

Right. They think that it is the rank device, the collar device that will get people to potentially do things that might take their life. And I'm like, I came from a rank centric organization, and I don't care what collar device you have. If it is somebody that I don't trust and they tell me to do something that I know that is at exceptionally high risk that might take my life, you're more likely to get the double birds. Or I'm like, yes, sir, I'll go do that, and then just go do nothing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's.

[Andy]

It's trust in a disciplined leader that empowers people to step outside what they think is possible has nothing to do with rank or in the business world, your parking spot or your corner office or the acronyms on your business card.

[Brandon]

100%.

[Andy]

Like, if you're. If you're leveraging those things and relying on those, you'll have success for a little bit, but, boy, yeah, that.

[Brandon]

That locus of power or authority runs dry. Die real quick.

[Andy]

Usually when you don't want it to.

[Brandon]

Usually when you don't want it to. Exactly. I mean, like, people. People have that image. I think people who have not intimately experienced the military, they have that image that it is. It's nearly robotic, right? Like, no, it's all, you know, well, you were an E7, so you told the E6, and the E6 said, Roger. And it's like, yeah, try to pull that off.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, when you're on target, which. Which, by the way, way. You don't want your, you know, your E5, your team lead. You want that person, like, switched on, head on a swivel, looking around and saying, like, you know, we need to move this way. We got to flow left. Flow. Right, whatever. But they don't. They don't see that because it's all this movie vision. And so I tell people all the time, like, look, none of us are in a movie. Like, this is. I have no script where I'm gonna say something, and then Andy's gonna say the next thing. And if, you know, we get it wrong, then Michael re us and say, no, no, no, you guys got that part wrong.

[Andy]

Let's redo that.

[Brandon]

Let's redo that one life. Full contact life. Right. And far more. What I saw was that it was the. It was the dare I say love, you know, love of your brother, love of your sister that you were willing to say, I will run through hell with gasoline pants on for that person.

[Andy]

That's a tough one to explain when a lot of people get uncomfortable if they're asked about, you know, thank you for your service. And people will say to me, what are you supposed to say? That I'm like, start with thank you.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Andy]

You know, because a lot of people don't know what to say, but they are trying to say something. So just say thank you. And also take a wrap off. Like, it doesn't have to be this existential every comment.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Andy]

But also, I wasn't thinking too much about my country when I was overseas. I was thinking about the people that I was there with. Yeah, I understand the greater purpose and the cascading and all those things, but at the end of the day, I was surrounded by people I cared incredibly deeply for, and that's where my thoughts were centered.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And we all have just as complex layers of reasoning as to why we served. Right. You know, did I serve because I wanted to serve my country? Yes. Did I serve because I wanted to do bad things to bad people also? Yes. Yeah.

[Andy]

Two things can be true.

[Brandon]

You know, did I, did I serve because I wanted to feel like I was worth something also? Yes. Point being is that I had intrinsic motivations as much as I had had, you know, these high, you know, extrinsic motivators or this, this idea, these altruistic reasons. I had reasons why I trust you did. I trust everybody did. And so it's, it's, it's just, it's not so, it's not so black and white. But I, I, I appreciate the point that you're making here because I, I see it all the time. You know, I work, worked with thousands of veterans and I see that, you know, thank you for your service. And it's just like, oh, you know, a thousand meter stare and, you know, it's like, okay, like, what, what are you doing, man? You know, don't thank me for my. It's like, stop it, dude. Like, you're just building a wall. Why don't you use your story to build a bridge? Like, these people are just trying to understand. It's not their fault that, you know, they don't understand, but they're trying to.

[Andy]

Yeah. And you're, what's the problem? You're sitting there being a dick.

[Brandon]

You're just being a dick.

[Andy]

Yeah, right.

[Brandon]

You know, and that, you know, whenever I've had many civilians say to me, what do I say? Because I've had experiences. I've had an experience where a veteran, like, took exception to that. They didn't appreciate it. And I just usually say, well, I would just keep doing what you're doing. That guy was probably a dick.

[Andy]

100%.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I mean. And by the way, I appreciate it. Thank you for that. You know, how about appreciate that? My name is Brandon. What's your name? Get to know somebody.

[Andy]

Just say thanks. You ready to say Is like, you'll say you're welcome. 98% of it was awesome and 2% of it really sucked.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Happy to be on this side. Totally.

[Andy]

Yeah. It doesn't have to be that big of a deal.

[Brandon]

I love it. It's not an existential thing, man.

[Andy]

No.

[Brandon]

Just say thanks.

[Andy]

Yeah. What do you do with a master's in divinity?

[Brandon]

Oh, man, I get. I get mastered by the divine. Good question.

[Andy]

You could take that in a lot of different directions.

[Brandon]

It's about to get weird.

[Andy]

Yeah. No, I mean, do you. Do you go into the clergy? Do you work at a church? Like, what does.

[Brandon]

So I'm a little bit odd for a guy with an M. Div, Frankly. So when I went to Denver Seminary, I sat down with a gentleman named Tim Kohler. He's the chair of the leadership department. Ph.D. rock solid dude. And I said, look, I don't. I'm not in clergy, and I don't think that that's where I'm being called to be in. I don't really know what I'm being called to be in, but I feel like this is a good fit for me. I said, what do you think? With my background and who I am. And he said, I think that biblical leadership stands up to anything that life can throw at it. And I think that what I would like to do is see if we can equip people to go out and lead like Jesus did in the world with love. I said, okay, well, I think I might be your guy then, because I know I'm a little bit different in this regard. And so very rigorous program, three and a half years, deep theology. Also just as deep in the social sciences, psychology in leadership context and theory degree. And I think that what I do with it is basically what I do every day is. Is. It's all. Like I said, nothing's new under the sun. The wisdom is there. You know, I. Blaine and I talk about this often. You know, there are certain things that are kind of the big T truths in life. I think you can find a lot of that will help you to navigate adversity, help you navigate leadership complexity, help you navigate life. Life. And so feeling grounded in the theological text. I also happen to have a sociology degree. I. I'm an accidental sociologist. That was the fastest degree I could get to get out of the army. Turns out it actually connected really well with who I am.

[Andy]

I support it, though. I pick things that way too. I'm sorry, what's the fastest to completion? Not interest in what it actually is. I said, what's the fastest to complete?

[Brandon]

How many credits is that? How much I'm in? Yeah. Yeah. Don't you want to?

[Andy]

No, I don't.

[Brandon]

Just so, So, I mean, that's really what it is, is just. Just taking that wisdom and taking it out into the world in, in whatever context I get invited to. And we have this amazing opportunity to work with people. We're industry agnostic, so we work with people in manufacturing, we work with companies. We work with multinational corporations, Fortune 100 companies.

[Andy]

Isn't it shocking how similar they are?

[Brandon]

100%. Why? Because some of those big T truths. It's all leadership is leadership.

[Andy]

We're dealing with people.

[Brandon]

Just people. Right, Exactly.

[Andy]

Well, for one, I know that I'm an idiot and resoundingly not unique. It shocks me how many people believe that they are the unique snowflate of the universe or their business idea or again, again, the problem that I'm having is unique to me, so I can't talk to anybody about it. I have to solve it. It's like, buddy, there's a boat full of people with a life jacket right behind you. You just need to see them and.

[Brandon]

Ask for help, and they actually want to help you.

[Andy]

They're like, waiting. They see you trying to swim and.

[Brandon]

Don'T do that, don't do that. Oh, you did it.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, and that's, that's, that's the game, right, Is, you know, jumping. Jumping in with people on those trails and saying like, yeah, okay, okay, tell me what's going on. You know, a lot. You know, some. Some brand of growth, change, adversity is. Is who we are best suited for, typically. Tell us what's going on. Okay. Yep. You know, you've just merged with a near peer. You know, you guys are now trying to figure out how to put this whole thing together. Yeah. Okay. What are you experiencing right now? These kind of issues. Like, yeah, that's normal. You're all normal. Normal. It's like, really? But it's. The thing is those are the People, those, those hungry, humble leaders are the ones that are willing to say, hey, what is your perspective, Andy, on this? It's the people who think that they're that unique snowflake who are just going to keep trying to push that same boulder up the hill and keep getting rolled over by it and smashed. And you're like, bro, like, just move out of the way and maybe like, get a little bit of help in there. And so that's. That's basically our whole practice in a nutshell. And, you know, after. After working through, you know, the. The way the book came about was that we kept seeing it over and over and over again, and we started to relate it to some of the things that we had experienced. Whether it was, you know, leading in combat or going through assessment and selection or getting out of the military or, you know, starting over with a family, all of these things. Like, this is real life stuff. And if we could equate that, that, you know, if we could. If we could maybe illustrate it in a way that can help other people navigate through it, that will help them maybe see themselves on what Blaine and I often call the ridgeline of adversity. Right. Extend the time horizon. Take a look at where you're at. You know, you could be in a rock slide. Everything just came out from underneath you, and you just. You don't know what that could be. The loss of a key leader in the organization. It could be, you know, rate changes. It could be a number of things, you know, could be Covid. You know, now I can't see. I depend on face to face, business to business engagement. I cannot see my clients now, okay, that's a rock slide. Let's stabilize. You know, what's one small thing that you can do? What's one. The next good decision that you can make at a time. And that is where some of those key principles that we learn in a soft environment can help but be able to say, like, okay, so you can't see your client face to face space. Are they not allowed to let people into the hospital at this point in time? Yep. Nope. Not unless they're this, like, okay, can you maybe connect with them in a different methodology? Can you go, you know, telephone? Can you go text message? Can you go video call? Can you check in on them and see what. How they're doing? First of all, as human beings? Okay, you know, that's one small step that I can take in pursuit of what I'm trying to do, which is to provide them the service that we are uniquely positioned in the market to provide. And then you, you have other positions you'll like. Look, sometimes you're in the valley, you know, Valley sucks, right?

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, like, you think about anytime you've been out there in land navigation, right? You know, you're stuck in that valley. Like it's always overgrown. You've been in South Rainier, it's always nasty. You can't figure out which way is up, right. And look, you may like throw your rucksack on the ground, you know, beat the shit out of it, kick it with your boots and all that stuff, but eventually you got to re shoulder it. You got to resho ye. Ain't nobody carrying that rucksack out of South Rainier, pal, but you.

[Andy]

True story.

[Brandon]

But it's like, it's stuff like that. And to be able to say, like, okay, you know, let's collect ourselves. Is there something that I need? Do I need to reorient? Do I need to just get my wits about me? Do I need to say a couple things that need to be said? You know, have a five minute session and then say, okay, everyone, got you, got you, got you. What's one thing that we can do right now? Sometimes you're on the climb where you just gotta. You. That's really where endurance comes, comes in. You know where you're headed.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, you might have, you know, a couple of, you know, jagged turns here and there, but you kind of got to stick with it. And I think what happens oftentimes, and we share this with leaders, is like one of the most frustrating things in these organizations is that you'll put a strategy, you'll put a mark on the wall, and then you'll. You'll change three months down the road just because you're not seeing the immediate results that you're expecting. It's like, you know, you got to let that mature a little bit. You got to let people, you got to make sure that we're actually running the play to see if this is. Is. Is it the strategy that's amiss? Is it, you know, we can't learn if we're not even sticking with it long enough to let the situation mature and to observe. And then sometimes you're on the hilltop, you know, great job, you know, crack a beer, take in the view, you hit the goal. But if you kick it on the hilltop for too long, you're going to get blown off the backside.

[Andy]

And then guess what's on the other.

[Brandon]

Side of the hilltop downs downhill, which.

[Andy]

Is way worse than Uphill. But you're right back in the valley.

[Brandon]

Exactly right. But life is.

[Andy]

That's life, I think. But the people don't want life to be valleys. Well, look at social media. It's not valleys. It's hilltops.

[Brandon]

Of course.

[Andy]

It's man, you can get yourself wrapped at, why is this person having success? And look at what's happening to them. And none of this is happening to me. It's all.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's the amplification of what we have been taught, which is to manage your reputation.

[Andy]

Well, it's all curated as well.

[Brandon]

Absolutely.

[Andy]

Filters and selective and. Yeah, to me, me, the juice of life is in the valley.

[Brandon]

100%. That is where the gem, the light hidden in the darkness is. You got to get into the valley and you got to actually go through it. We tell people this all the time. There are no life epiphanies in the valley. There's only exit doors. If you think that you're having. And we typically illustrate it as a draw because the draw is actually a terrain feature. That's where two hilltops converge. It's where water comes down. The technical terrain feature, for all of you who are listening, a draw. Right. Any land. Of course you do. You will get stuck in a draw. It's designed to put you there. Right. Yeah.

[Andy]

This natural fall line is just easing you towards it.

[Brandon]

And I don't know how many times I have heard somebody say, yeah, you know what? I was. I was out there, and I just realized I. You know what? I don't think this is for me. I don't think I really want to be a ranger. Okay.

[Andy]

You know what every mountaintop has as well. False summit.

[Brandon]

Every one of them. You will know your summit when you're standing on it.

[Andy]

Yep.

[Brandon]

I was actually out. I was walking the. The Skyline Traverse, which is all the flat irons that kind of flank Boulder, Colorado. It's like 19 miles, five peaks up and down, up and down. I was doing it with the group, and we were on, like, the last one, and we were just chopping it up. This guy that I had just met, and he's like, do you think that's our hilltop? And I was like, no, hey, buddy.

[Andy]

First, I'll put that out of your mind, because like you said, you'll know it when you're standing.

[Brandon]

That's what I said. You'll know it when you're standing. I was like, no, the false summit will crush people. Absolutely. Well, that's. That is. That is part of false finish lines. The human brain craves certainty, it craves pattern. Because we are otherwise in an unpredictable world, it craves those patterns. Right. That's why, you know, we'll. We'll drink the same kind of coffee drinks, we'll wear the same kind of clothing, we frequent the same kind of restaurants, all of that, because we are injecting predictability, some degree of certainty in an otherwise uncertain world. And when the veneer of that gets ripped off and you are confronted with the true uncertainty of life, that's when you're in that valley and you really got to make those choices. That's where. That's what we saw with a lot of people and what we still see. Right. Like, look, I get it. You know, Maybe you've had 11 quarters in a row of growth and now all of a sudden, sudden you didn't grow.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

What happened? Oh, well, now we can look back and see all the things that we just glossed over and knew that we should have addressed because we've actually had that pattern has now been ripped off that certainty. Or it's. And that's maybe Uber, you know, meta from a. From a macro perspective. But it happens all the time in real life.

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You expected something to go one way, it didn't go that way. What do you. You do? Well, I mean, this is. This is when the uncertainty of life will hit you. Change, uncertainty. Accept it. Accept what you can control. Accept what you can't control. Accept what you can influence. Right. Gotta start making some choices then, you.

[Andy]

Know, I agree, man.

[Brandon]

And then you grow.

[Andy]

Where can people get the book? So it's. We've been at it for a couple hours. I want to get you back to Missoula.

[Brandon]

Yeah, man.

[Andy]

Wherever books are sold is there sometimes authors have a particular portal that is more beneficial to them. Does it matter to you guys?

[Brandon]

Not really. I mean, you can go to. But you can go to perseverancebook.com and if you like getting on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever, wherever you like to get it, you can get it there.

[Andy]

Okay.

[Brandon]

But yeah, please pick up the book. Please check it out. Do us a solid. Give us a rating on Amazon.

[Andy]

Yeah, that stuff helps.

[Brandon]

Do a five star one. That would be super cool.

[Andy]

Are you guys going to do another book? Yes, I'm considering a second one. It's called When Things Get Difficult. Consider Quitting.

[Brandon]

Oh, my gosh. Blaine and I just recorded a podcast about this. Blaine and I just recorded this podcast. So we have a podcast, secondary title, Life's Hard.

[Andy]

Maybe Give Up.

[Brandon]

We were just talking about this and I Was like, the question today from one of our, you know, friends out on the trail is, how do you know when it's time to give up?

[Andy]

Today. The answer is today.

[Brandon]

It's right now. Have you considered quitting? So, Blaine, does it look like it's.

[Andy]

Gonna get harder right now?

[Brandon]

Andy, we're like. We're like, five minutes into this conversation, and I keep. I keep. Keep, like, saying, like, well, you know, when you. When you think about, like, you know, maybe diverting or pulling off of an objective, and Blaine's like, say it. It's quit. You can't even say it. You won't even say it. I'm like, I can. I'm alert. I'm like. So if you're gonna. If you're gonna. If you're gonna. If you're gonna quit.

[Andy]

Yep. But there are times.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, agreed. I mean, you. You really gotta take a look at what you're doing, you know? What for. For me, I needed to quit acting like the world needed Sergeant First Class Young, the Ranger. Because it didn't. Yeah, the world needed me, Brandon. My family needed me. They didn't need. Nobody needed that anymore. Tell you what, I left the Rangers, you know, what, 16, 17, 18 years ago. They're doing just fine without me.

[Andy]

Same.

[Brandon]

In fact, markedly better without me. The stuff they're doing. I look at these guys, I'm like, good Lord, man. These guys. Guys are freaking rock stars.

[Andy]

They're evolutions and generations ahead beyond what I even thought was possible.

[Brandon]

Incredible, right? Sometimes you got to. Sometimes you got to take a step back and, you know, sometimes you got to take a step down, and going down isn't going backwards.

[Andy]

Yep, I agree. Well, cool, man. Let's get you out of here. Let's get you back to Missoula. When do you guys do your speaking engagement?

[Brandon]

Tomorrow. Okay.

[Andy]

What do you guys got planned while.

[Brandon]

You'Re in town, in Missoula or here?

[Andy]

Missoula. Well, you might head up to gmp.

[Brandon]

I might go up there. Dude. Dude.

[Andy]

I've always recommend. So it's past the time they'll let you in without a.

[Brandon]

Like, a slot.

[Andy]

What do they call it, the lottery?

[Brandon]

What, do you need permission? I've got that. I've got that card, the America the Beautiful card. Veteran card. So hopefully they let me in, but I think I'm gonna go check it out and then jam back down and work with Jake Herriman and the good people at More More Perfect Union. So it's gonna be good. Thanks for having me, man.

[Andy]

Before you leave, you got to sign the book. That's the last thing.

[Brandon]

Oh, okay. Cool.

[Andy]

Done.

[Brandon]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.