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- [00:01]
Ever
Chronic spontaneous urticaria or chronic hives with no known cause. It's so unpredictable. It's like playing pinball. Itchy red bumps start on my arm, then my back, sometimes my legs. Hives come out of nowhere and it comes and goes, but I just found out about a treatment option@treatmyhives.com Take that, chronic hives. Learn more at treatmyhives.com.
- [00:31]
Weston Brandon
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate potential. Savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. My name is Weston Brandon. I'm making it a point to get out and share my story a lot more, and that's why I'm here. So thanks for having me. Of course, the, the story that most people will recognize first off, is my story of losing my wife when I was 23. And it was two weeks after she gave birth to my son at only 26 weeks. I mean, he was super tiny. Fit my hand, tiny, tiny baby. And at the time we were living in Texas, just north of Dallas, and she had what's called an incompetent cervix, which sounded pretty judgmental to me at the time calling it that. I was like, but basically what that is, is she dilated but didn't go into labor.
- [01:44]
Ever
Okay.
- [01:44]
Weston Brandon
Right. Basically just the door opened and so her OB and the doctor's like, you know, baby can fall out and, you know, and you need to, you need to go on bed rest so you can keep this baby in there. Right?
- [01:58]
Ever
Okay.
- [01:59]
Weston Brandon
Because the biggest thing with babies, the one of the very last things to form in fetal development is their lungs. So it was the biggest thing that they were worried about at the time was his lungs. But our story on, like, how we met and everything is also, it's, it's a funny, it's a funny story. I had just gotten back from serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, and I had been home for six months or so and I had signed up to go do door to door sales for pest control. I was going to Colorado and I've been going on dates here and there, you know, and I decided, I was like, well, now that I've signed up to go peace out for four months and go sell some stuff, I'm just gonna stop going on dates until I get back from that, because I don't Want to, like, trip and fall into something that I'm just gonna say, never mind, and leave for four months, you know? So I tell my mother this, and she's like, yeah, we'll see about that. I'm like, no, I'm not doing it. I promise. And then I was actually at one of the local church buildings for a meeting and was coming out, and there were some people in the. They have a gym in there, and they were playing volleyball. And I loved playing volleyball. We played it a lot as youth in our church. That was like. For some reason, our youth group liked volleyball more than most of the other youth groups. Like, playing basketball was usually the thing, but we played volleyball. And so then these people were in there playing volleyball. I was like, God, it's been a long time since I've done that. This is kind of fun. Maybe I should. Now I'm going to go home. Like, I'm tired. It's like, I've been up super early in the morning, working, you know, And I go to go out this. In this church building, there's, like two sets of double doors. Like, a breezeway in the middle, right? And I go to go out the first set of double doors, and hits me. Spirit tells me, you need to go play volleyball. And I had had experiences plenty times on my mission where God had told me to go down a particular street or talk to a particular person. You know, I had made up my life for two years to try to connect with God and connect with other people about, you know, God and teaching about Jesus and stuff, and had the coolest experiences doing that. So then I wasn't unfamiliar with when, you know, that still small voice had kind of come out of nowhere to tell me to do something. So when it came through and said, go play volleyball, I'm like, what? That's. I never had one like that before. Yeah, you know, I've been told to go knock on this door or walk down the street is what I was used to. So I kind of sat and kind of had this battle in my head. I'm like, was that now I'm gonna. I'm gonna go home. So then I go through the first set of double doors, go to the second set of double doors, about to open them, and it hits me even harder. And the words that stuck in my head was, you deserve to play volleyball. I'm like, that's the weirdest, like, message that I've ever got. But, okay, so I flip around and I go into this gym, and my. Obviously, I didn't Know, at the time, but my wife's in there. She's playing volleyball. And I played basically baseball for my whole life and kind of had a thing for softball players, of course. And I recognize that she probably paid softball because when it was her turn to serve, somebody threw the volleyball at her harder than you should ever probably throw something at a woman. And she caught it like it was nothing. And I don't just maybe the way that she did. I was like, oh, I think she played softball. So then I'm, like, paying attention, you know, and. But I also. At the same time, I'm like, I'm here enjoying this. But I'm like, no, I made a commitment. You know, I'm not. I'm not doing this, but for some reason, I'm just gonna hang out in here because I feel like I'm supposed to be here. And so that game gets over and I join. Join a game. And, you know, we're playing volleyball for a while. And then after a while, she starts talking to me, and then she starts flirting with me, like, super hard. Like, she ended up on my team. And I'm sitting there, standing there. She comes up, like, starts kicking my foot. And like, how are you doing? What are you doing? You know? And I'd never had anybody do that to me before, even in high school, before I left on my mission. And, um, so that was super weird. I didn't really know how to handle it. So I was, like, answering her questions and wondering what was going on the whole time. And then. But I was like, I really like, this girl. This is different. And. But again, I was. I'm like, no, I made a commitment. I'm not doing this. I'm not asking for a number or whatever. Like, I'll. If. If she's around when I get back, then fine. But we get done playing volleyball, and I'm going out. And I remember I was. I had my hat on backwards, and I'm at the drinking fountain getting a drink, and she comes, like, shoves my face in the water as I. I'm walking fast and, like, got water up my nose. I'm like, what is going on? This is so weird. Like, do I run or do I stay? Like, I don't really know what's going on. She's being so forward. And so I kind of laughed off and go to. To leave out the. And we go through the doors in the parking lot, and I'm like, I'm really wanting to ask her. I'm like, no, I. I made a commitment. I Got to keep my commitments to myself. And so then she does a whole. I had a good time and, like, doing the whole, like, heel kick thing. Like, you know, can we do. So I was like, okay, okay. All right, well, what's your number? Let's. We'll. We'll talk. And then so we ended up going on our first date a couple of days later. And it was awesome. Super, super fun. And at the time, she was living in the basement of her grandma's house. She had a basement apartment in her house. And she had been to college and graduated. She was a pharmacy technician at a hospital. So she's working full time, like. And that was just her life until I guess she found, you know, whatever she else she was supposed to do with her life. And in her head, she's just deciding that it's time to start looking for a husband, I guess, you know, she's kind of got her things figured out. And I had just gotten off my mission. I was just barely starting school, and she's. She's a couple years older than me, two years older than me, and I didn't have a. I mean, I had a job, but it was, like, delivering prescriptions and stuff, like, kind of not making a whole lot of money. So then she's like, you know, pursuing this. I'm like, maybe I'll have a sugar mama. She's got all this. She's got things figured out. She's bought a car. I'm still driving this old beater.
- [07:57]
Ever
So how old was she when you guys met?
- [08:00]
Weston Brandon
So I was 21, she was 23.
- [08:03]
Ever
Got it at the time.
- [08:05]
Weston Brandon
And so after our first date, we go to. I. I go to drop her off back at her place, you know, her grandma's house, and drop her off in the porch and give her a hug, and I, like, go to pull away, and she, like, doesn't let go, really. And I'm looking at her, and I can tell, like, she wants to kiss me really, really bad. And I've never experienced anything like this before, but the way she's looking at me, like, the puppy dog eyes and stuff, you know, I'm like, ah. So I'm like, whatever. And I just ended up kissing her and then telling her good night, and I leave. And then as I'm driving away, I'm like, you idiot, what are you doing? You're gonna leave? You know, like, you made this commitment, and now you have to go admit to your own mother that she was right, which I don't want to do. Yeah, you know, and so I was like, well, I had done things in high school that I wasn't proud of. You know, I had issues with pornography and just a bunch of just high schooler stuff. And I didn't feel like I was like, I'd kicked most of those, but I was like, I. In our culture, like, that was really frowned upon. And I'm like, I gotta, I gotta talk to her about some of this stuff, make sure that she knows exactly who she's getting into things with, right? And make sure that this is okay. Because also, like, if we are gonna do this, I'm gonna be gone for four months and do this, like, long distance thing for the summer. And I'm like, we gotta know who we're dealing with. And I felt really strongly that I kind of felt God was telling me to do that. So I call her back and I'm like, hey, we gotta, we gotta talk. And she's like, okay, is. Whatever. So she's kind of weird. So I probably like stirred all these thoughts in her head, like, oh, what did I do? You know, And. But we get back and we end up sitting on the porch and talking to her and tell her. I was like, hey, if we're gonna do this, then you're gonna. Then we need to have a conversation. I need to admit some things that are going to be hard to hear about some things I've done in my past. And just so that you, you know exactly what's going. So there's no secrets, no red flags that come down the road. Kind of left field, somebody gossips and like tells you something about your boyfriend you didn't know or something like that. Like, I don't want. I heard horror stories of stuff like that happening. I didn't want any of that to happen. So I'm like, I'm just gonna get it all out right now and you can decide if you're okay with that or not. So she's like, all right, cool. And so we had the. Where we both did that, like all of the. That's in our soul, like, here's all of the ugly stuff, you know, and just dump it all out. And so we did that. So it was like an hour, two hour long conversation of just, you know, vomiting all this crap on each other. And by the time we kind of got everything out on, on both ends, it turns out it was pretty heavy on both sides, which made me feel less crappy. But by the time we were done, like, neither of us was running away. You know, we're like, okay, well, now we like, now we know more about each other than probably like anybody else anywhere does. And we've only known each other.
- [10:59]
Ever
Different connection too.
- [11:00]
Weston Brandon
Yeah, it does. And it's like we, we know more about each other than anybody else, with the exception of maybe a couple people does. Right. And so we ended up actually going. We hopped in the car and took off somewhere else and ended up sitting in. I'm from Utah. I don't know if I mentioned that. For your podcast in Utah. Word, Mormon, lds, whatever spin word you want to use for that. And in our church we have these place called temples that are different than regular meeting houses and we don't even use them on Sundays. Those are places for us to go perform ordinances on for ourselves and on behalf of other people that have passed on so they have the opportunity to accept those if they want to. That's one of our beliefs. And so we're like, let's just go sit in like the parking lot of the temple where we had our own personal cool experiences with God and felt really close to him there. Let's just go up there and hang out there. For some reason we kind of felt drawn to that. So we went up and in. I can't remember whose car we drove. There we went, just went up there and just sat in the parking lot until like 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning. Just looking at the lights shine on the temple and just talking about like life, like what we want to do with ourselves and all this kind of stuff. Had never had an experience like that before. And after that I was like, well, freak, if. If it keeps going like today did, then I'm probably gonna end up marrying this girl now. I. We didn't talk about it then. Of course I didn't just like propose to her right there, but that's kind of where I was like, if, if this continue. Because now like, there's nothing else that I'm worried about her finding out about because I just got it all out, you know, and hopefully vice versa, it seems that way. So I'm like, I don't really know what else other red flags could come up unless there's a mental illness we don't know about that's gonna pop out of nowhere, you know, maybe we should give us some time to see if that happens. But I ended up proposing to her three weeks later and we'd spent like every day together. And then. And we got married six weeks after we met. Super fast. Right.
- [13:04]
Ever
I love it though.
- [13:05]
Weston Brandon
And it's just like A fairy tale story, you know. And the way that we got married was actually a whole other funny story in and of itself because we got married on April Fool's Day in Las Vegas.
- [13:17]
Ever
Huh?
- [13:17]
Weston Brandon
And we didn't tell anybody except our parents. Her parents and my parents were in on it. They came down, we just did it at the Clark County Courthouse. But the situation was at the time, it's. It's a different place now, but there was a place called Front side Firearms Training Institute down there. Training resort or something like that. And my family's big into guns and firearms trail. It's like a thing that we all do together that's super fun. And so my dad and my uncle had planned this trip to go down and take a four day self defense class at this place. And me and my cousins were coming and my parents were coming, and then my wife Lauren was coming. Well, not yet wife, but fiance Lauren was coming. And we were originally planning to probably get married in September after I'd gotten back from the door to door sale stuff, you know, a few months down the road. But we're planning on doing this trip to Vegas. Already proposed. And one day, like we were gonna go down there on a Thursday, I think, and it was like Monday or Tuesday that I met up with her after work at a restaurant to eat dinner. And she tells me while we're in line to order our food, she says, I have a really important question to ask you. I was like, okay, shoot. She's like, I'll do it when I sit down. I'm like, well, don't. You should have waited until I said. Because now I'm worried, like, what the heck are you gonna say? But we go sit down and she's like, will you marry me this weekend? I was like, what? You know, like, are you nuts? And I remember I had this big old milkshake in front of me. I'm like. And I sat there like stirring it for like five minutes, like wondering, am I getting married this weekend? Like, what's going on? And she, she says, I've already talked to my mom about it. Like, like we're all. I'm like, of course you have. You've already worked everything out, you know, and I'm the last one to know. But she hasn't actually talked to my parents yet. But she's like, if you can come up with a good reason why not to, then let me know, you know. So I was like, well, can I think about it for a second? So then for like five or 10 minutes, I just sat there like trying to eat the shake, but I don't even think I took a bite of it. Just trying to like wondering where my life's going. And I couldn't come up with a good reason why not to. So I was like, I, yeah, I guess let's, let's do it. But I told her, I was like, at the time, I was like, I don't want to do any weird like Elvis thing or like something like, let's just make it normal, you know? So we're like, all right, we'll do to the Clark county courthouse there in Las Vegas.
- [15:38]
Ever
I don't know about you, but often times life just feels like I am constantly hustling. It feels like even when I complete things on my to do list, there is just more waiting for me to get done. And as much as I love to stay busy, it can be very stressful in my body and literally feels like it is draining me. And come to find out my body is actually literally being drained of magnesium, which is a mineral that is crucial for your energy, your focus and even your sleep. So if you feel like you've been lacking in any of those categories, maybe your stress levels are high and your magnesium is low. This is actually called the stress magnesium deficiency cycle. So basically your stress goes up, your magnesium goes down, you feel like you don't really have any productivity, you're not sleeping well, your focus just isn't there, your energy is drained, and then ultimately the cycle continues to repeat. So, so obviously the next question is, how do we break this cycle? And for me, it has been Magnesium breakthrough by Bioptimizers. It is the only supplement that has all seven forms of magnesium that your body needs. And in turn, it helps calm your nervous system, boost your energy. And my favorite of all, it supports better sleep. There is nothing worse than not getting a full night's sleep. And the best part is Bioptimizers is totally risk free. They give you a 365 day money back guarantee. So if it doesn't work for you, no harm done. And if it does, then you've just broken the stress magnesium deficiency cycle. For an exclusive offer, go to bioptimizers.com insane and use promo code INSANE during checkout to save 15%. That is code INSANE at bioptimizers.com/insane. I feel like something that I always mention to you guys is how important balance is to me. And sometimes, as I'm sure you guys can relate and know when stress piles up, it just feels like everything is off your Sleep is off, your focus is off, your energy just isn't there and you don't feel like you are productive overall like you want to be. So I wanted to share my newest secret with you guys which is the Bestseller Bundle by Cured Nutrition, which has been giving me support both day and night. You may be wondering how they are supporting me both day and night. That being said, during the day I am always reaching for their Serenity gummies. My favorite flavor, which tastes so good is the passion fruit and clementine. They're packed with amazing ingredients which I'm sure you guys have heard of some of these like Ashwagandha and cbd and these gummies genuinely allow me to show up the way that I want to show up and they keep me feeling calm and balanced and then I don't have to lean on things like sugar or energy drinks to keep me where I want to be and just feel leveled out and perfect and amazing during my days. And then at night time I am winding down with the CBN nightcaps which combines CBD and cbn which allows your body to calm down, wind down. It allows you to get to sleep faster, easier and actually stay asleep and then wake up refreshed. So if you are somebody that is looking for more peace during the day and a deeper rest at night, then I personally cannot recommend the Bestseller Bundle from Cured Nutrition enough. It is absolutely amazing and it has been the perfect daytime nighttime combination for me. The Bestseller bundle is already discounted 10 off plus the code stacks an additional 20% off. So you can stack my 20% off code insane on the 10% off bestseller bundle. Just go to curednutrition.com insane and use my code Insane to save a total of 30% off the bestseller bundle. Okay, so I just moved into a new house and if any of you have moved before, then I am sure you can relate to all the new fumes, the smells, whether it's new paint, new furniture and chemical fumes. If you're moving into an older house, maybe it's some dusty air vents. Overall, we just don't know what we're breathing in. And that's why I decided to get Jasper. And let me just tell you, I am literally obsessed. And this is not just some cute air purifier that I got for my house. This is a medical grade air scrubber which means it is not just filtering the air, it is actually scrubbing it clean. So anything like smoke, mold, spores, voc is chemical fumes all gone. It is scrubbing it clean. And now we can Breathe some fresh air. And as you guys have seen, and I talk about them literally all the time. I have many animals in my home, so it actually makes me feel a lot more comfortable and safer knowing that the air I'm breathing in is clean and safe for not only me, but also my amazing fur babies. So that being said, if you want to try Jasper, they actually gave me a code for $300 off. All you have to do is use code insane at Jasper Co that is insane. I N S A N E Jasper J A s p r.co for $300 off. And I promise you, you will not regret it. Your air will be scrubbed clean, fresh filtered, and you will feel a lot more safer and comfortable in your environment too. And now back to the episode.
- [20:41]
Weston Brandon
So what we. And that was on April Fool's Day that we ended up doing that. So we tell my parents and my mom's all for it, you know, and so they all make plans to come down there and we go to this, this self defense training class. And I think we ended up getting married like a day or two into it. And when we're going down there, my uncle was, was giving us a heart. He was trying to convince us to get married while we were down there. And of course we, we didn't tell him that was the plan. And my wife was borrowing a firearm for the class of somebody's. She didn't have her own. Most the rest of us had her own. And so he knew that and he's like, tell you what, if you guys do it while you're here, I'll buy her her own. I'm like, that's like 700 bucks right there. And I'm like, no, no. But now in my head I'm like, crap. Now like, we are gonna do it, you know? Yeah, I don't want him to. But we're like, no, no, no, we're not gonna. Whatever, we're not gonna do it. So we do it and then show up at the, at where we all gathered for this class and we're wearing wedding rings. And he's like, are you kidding me? You guys act. Are you kidding? Are you faking it right now? Right? We're like, no, we actually did. And like show him the marriage certificate and everything. He's like, why didn't you invite me? We're like, we already had it planned. It was a just us and our parents. He's like, well, now I got to go buy her a gun. We're like, no, you know, we already planned, you don't have to do that. He's like, no, I'm a man of my word. So he did, when we were done, he bought her her own gun as like that was her wedding gift with this little handgun, you know, it was just hilarious. And so fast forward, I we go out and do the door to door sales. And I did pretty well at that. I was number two rookie in our company. And it was really rough at first because she would go back to Utah, just in Colorado doing it. She was on a 7 on 7 off rotation with her job. So she'd come back and then come out and then come back. And so being newly married and now I'm absolutely in love with this person that was just emotionally rough to like have that. Yeah, it's like dynamic there, so get done with the summer. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to do that again. Like was successful, made some money, but I'm like, let's get a normal job. And so I transitioned into a different sales job that was selling engineering, mechanical engineering software. And that gave us the opportunity to move to Texas because they had an office out there.
- [22:56]
Ever
Okay.
- [22:57]
Weston Brandon
So we decided let's go plan our own routes. And I mean, house prices are nuts now, but this is back in 2019 before they really ballooned. And I remember in Utah, we're looking at townhomes for like 275, 285. And we're like, no, that's too expensive. Which thinking now I'm like, you idiot.
- [23:13]
Ever
I know, right?
- [23:14]
Weston Brandon
Because now they're like, double that. And so we move out to Texas, we're like, let's go rent something and then maybe we can look at buying a house that's cheaper or something. And so we move out there and I, I'm working. I had been working at this job for a while. By the time we moved out there and started doing really well at that I hit there. They had these goals like Presidents Club. If you hit certain revenue numbers or whatever, then it's basically how you get a promotion to. You know, at the time I was referring sales opportunities to the outside reps. And then hit Presidents Club. We got our Hawaii trip. And then I got promoted to have my own territory that was like mine that I was the rep for. And that was like the whole goal. I was like, okay, now that I have this, the amount of money that I should be making should like double. It should be a lot more. So like, things are going the way that we've planned. You know, we got a house that we like. We got everything set. She's got a really good job, works with awesome people down there. And we decided that, you know what? It's time to start a family. So it took a few months, but she eventually got pregnant. We found out we were having a little boy. And, you know, at 20 weeks, having that ultrasound and find out we actually know. We didn't even do it for the ultrasound. We did the. There's a genetic blood test you could do where you test for genetic diseases or deficiencies, but they can also get the gender of the baby out of there. And I remember we got a letter back with the results from that, and we opened it on Zoom, and she thought she was having a girl. She was so sad that she was having a girl. So then when she found out she was having a boy, she's like, I'm having a boy. Are you serious? And, like, there's a video of her where her voice goes higher pitched than I've ever heard. She's like, I'm having a boy. Oh, my gosh. And so we're super happy, super excited. And this is. Come March of 2019, I'm just barely getting into the new role of things, just trying to figure it out. And at 25 weeks, she calls me and says that she's like, it feels like there's something falling out between. Like, this is weird. I don't like this feeling something's wrong. So she calls her ob. OB says, go to the er, get checked out just to make sure things are okay. So she runs to the ER and they check her out, and they say, hey, you're dilated to whatever it was, like seven, eight, or nine or like that. And they're like, baby's gonna come out into the birth canal if you don't get on. You need to lay down. Like, you're not getting up again. And obviously, we need to keep the baby in to keep growing.
- [25:31]
Ever
Yeah, right. And prior to this, there were no, like, issues with pregnancy or anything?
- [25:37]
Weston Brandon
No, nothing. Everything had been, you know, tracking normally. We had a. We had had a couple miscarriages before that. She. She had one thing before that was called a blighted ovum, basically, where fetus had attached and gestational sac was formed, but the fetus had. The. Whatever's in there had got reabsorbed or, like, didn't. Didn't work. So she had. She'd passed a couple of miscarriages, but other than that, like. And at the time when that happened, I remember if anybody listening is in the future is dealing with a miscarriage or first go around. Like, that's pretty common. That's like. A lot of people have that happen.
- [26:14]
Ever
Yeah.
- [26:14]
Weston Brandon
But not a lot of people talked about it. So when it happened to us, we're like, oh, my gosh, this is. I mean, it is still super sad, but we thought that, like, there's something super wrong.
- [26:24]
Ever
Okay.
- [26:24]
Weston Brandon
Right.
- [26:25]
Ever
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Weston Brandon
And, you know, once. Once we, like, talk about. We're like, oh, no. Like, they had, like, almost literally everybody that we talked to that had kids, had been through that.
- [26:32]
Ever
Yeah.
- [26:33]
Weston Brandon
You know, so that was super common. But then, so, like, second, third, or time around, it sticks and it's working. Right. So she goes to the hospital with this incompetent cervix. They call and say, you're going to be on bed rest until the baby comes, whenever that is. And 40 minus 25 is still a long freaking time. Like three months, right? Three and a half months if she keeps it full term. And this is true bed rest, like, with the bedpan and everything. Can't get up to go to the bathroom or anything. Somebody's got to clean everything. And so, of course, that's, like, emotionally heavy, especially for her having to be stuck on bed.
- [27:11]
Ever
And did they say if this was, like, had the. Is this pretty or this. Can this be common or not really? Is this something that they don't really see often?
- [27:19]
Weston Brandon
You know what I remember?
- [27:21]
Ever
Okay.
- [27:21]
Weston Brandon
It's been common enough that they knew exactly what had happened. I had heard some other stories of this happening to people, but I'm not sure how common it is, honestly.
- [27:28]
Ever
Yeah, I've never even heard of that. I mean, that's crazy.
- [27:31]
Weston Brandon
Yeah, it's just. Door opens and baby can fall out. Right. And so she's on bed rest and. And they tell her that, hey, we're gonna start giving you some steroids that are meant specifically to kick the baby's lung development into gear faster. Because that, again, that's one of the last things to develop in a baby. And in the event he does still come super early, we need those developed as much as possible. Right. And so she stays in there, and I get permission to work from home because my house is a lot closer to the hospital than where my work office was. So I'm like, maybe 20, 30 minutes away from the hospital in my house. And so, like, the whole time I'm working from home, like, my wife is in the hospital. So then I just work all day, and then I go up to the hospital, spend some time with her. And then come home, you know? So again, that. That sucked. But it was only for about a week that we had to do that, because a week later. So at about 26 weeks, she calls me mid morning and says, hey, the OB just came in and did the pelvic exam to check and see how things were going. Said, the baby's kicking his fingers. He's coming out breach. He's coming out the wrong way. Supposed to come head first, right? He's not supposed to be coming at all at this point.
- [28:39]
Ever
Yeah.
- [28:40]
Weston Brandon
But when they do come, they're supposed to come head first, and he's coming out feet first. They're like, that's not good. We're gonna do an emergency C section and pull him out. So she says, you better get your butt up here because they're not waiting for you, right? And so I hop in my old pickup truck and I floor it up to the hospital, and amazing. I didn't get pulled over because I topped that. There's an old diesel pickup truck, and it topped out at, like, 97, which I didn't know it until that day, but I found out kind of how. How fast it went and got there. And I go into where her room had been, where all these nurses were usually around, and I go in there. There wasn't a soul in there. Wasn't a. Obviously they moved my wife and stuff. So when I got in there, I was like, oh, duh. They probably took her to, like, operating room or something, but I have no idea. Like, no nurses around. It's just crickets in this whole place. So I'm looking like, wander around like a lost duck, like, where's my wife? And then one of the nurses that we'd worked with a lot at that point comes around the corner, and she sees me. She's like, weston, come here. Hurry. So I book it down there, and she says, stand like this and shut up. I was like, okay. So they like, throw on, like, the scrubs and the cat and everything on me to prep to go into the OR really fast. And they throw me in there, and my wife's on the table, and they've already got things, you know, they're starting to open her up to get the. The baby out. And I'm in there for, God, maybe. Maybe two minutes at the most before they pull out my son. And he's 1 pound, 13 ounces, like, so. So, so freaking tiny, you know? And I'm used to seeing babies, even newborn babies that are full term, and they're usually like, the Swollen face, you know, little fat rolls and stuff. And he does not look like that. You know, he's super, super skinny. Looks like this little wrinkly alien old man kind of thing. And I was like, is he good? Like, what this is? I. I don't know what's going on here. And they weigh him, and I remember they. They took him and they took basically plastic wrap and just wrapped him in plastic wrap, like, all across his head, his body, his whole thing. And they put a little mask on his nose so he could breathe. That was the miracle, the first miracle of many, of course. But they're expecting, when a baby comes that early, to have to intubate them and shove a breathing tube down their throat into their trachea and their lungs or something, to basically have a machine breathe for them. But whatever they had given her for that week got his lungs developed quicker. And just enough that they didn't need to do that. They just needed a little. Little tiny oxygen mask that, like, clasped over his nose just to, you know, give a little bit of pressure to remind him to breathe in. And that was it. So he had that on his nose, and then they gave him a little feeding tube. But then other than that, they wrapped him in plastic wrap, like, his whole body. I'm like, what is that for? Like, it's to help him keep warm. He needs to. You know, he's not really able to maintain his own body temperature at this point, so we have to monitor for him, you know, so they take him into the NICU and there's a little incubator, and they said, we're run a couple tests really quick, make sure there's nothing else weird going on. As long as everything else looks fine, then, you know, 10, 15 minutes will come get you, and you can come in and see him, you know, and so they do that, and all the tests go good. Like, they don't see any. Any other issues with him. He's. Other than being super tiny and super early, like, yeah, he's fine.
- [31:53]
Ever
It's incredible.
- [31:56]
Weston Brandon
So they let me go in there and I remember looking at him and, like, not really processing what's going on, you know, because you had to think from my. My perspective as her husband and his. This little guy's father, I hadn't felt him move at all. It's still too early to feel that. And, you know, so obviously I believed her. She was pregnant. Like, she was starting to show there was something going on, right. And had seen this sonogram, been there, heard the heartbeat and everything so, like. Like, you know, kind of in here that. That it's happening. But I don't. I don't. There was, like, it hadn't really said yeah. Yet. Whereas my wife had had all these experiences, you know, she could feel him and, you know, she had a relationship with him. And that's what's, I think, is so beautiful about, you know, becoming a mother, is that you have such a bond with this person that you grew inside of you, you know, that I don't. Just being a man, like, biologically, I can't do that. There's nothing I can do about that. You know what I mean? So. And I remember looking at him and I'm like, this is my kid. Like. And I remember feeling worried. I'm like, why don't I have this overwhelming love for, like. Like, I feel something for him. I do. But I, like, compared to, like, what my wife is experiencing, like, what. What's wrong with me is kind of what I'm thinking, you know, and again, come to find out after talking to lots of people over the past years, you know, and now that I'm getting out and, you know, doing public speaking and sharing the story more, finding a lot of new dads experience the same thing, you know, and that's. That's very normal. But also, now that I've remarried and had two more kids that did go full term, that's also very different, because by the time they're born, I have been able to see and feel a move and talk to him, you know?
- [33:44]
Ever
Yeah. So that's time to.
- [33:45]
Weston Brandon
It's a little bit different.
- [33:46]
Ever
Yeah. Take it all in.
- [33:48]
Weston Brandon
Yeah. So I just. My son's in the nicu. My wife gets discharged, like, the next day, I think, you know, they. They sew her up and let her out. And so then for the next little while, my wife and I are just going up to the hospital after I'm done with work and spending a lot of time up there. And that was also just a super stressful time for both of us, you know, because we're thinking like. Like the big thing on my mind being I make the most of the money in our family is how the hell am I going to pay for this? Because I'm being told that this state in the NICU is racking up bills, like 3, 500 to 4 grand a day that he's in there. Not necessarily that I'm gonna have to fork out all that myself, but that's, like, the bills that are stacking on how much it's costing and even more than that, if they have to do, you know, all sorts of stuff. So they're like, our estimate is he's probably going to be in here at least two months, you know, and by the time it racks all up on top of everything that's going to be done, it's going to be like, over a million dollars. It's going to be billed to our insurance and stuff. I'm like. So I'm essentially in my pants about that.
- [34:55]
Ever
It's stressful.
- [34:57]
Weston Brandon
And. But of course, with insurance, there's, like, out of pocket maxes. If some. We're working with all those numbers. I'm like, okay, it's gonna be stressful, but we're not gonna die. Right. There'll be. There's things. And then he also, because of his birth weight in Texas, if any baby is born under two pounds in the state of Texas, they automatically qualify for Medicaid.
- [35:15]
Ever
Okay.
- [35:16]
Weston Brandon
For the time that they're in the nicu. So then some state funding can apply for the hospital status. So there were, you know, there were other helps that were coming. I was like, all right, we're gonna. We're not gonna drown completely. You know, it just might take a minute to pay it off. But then my wife started having these episodes, like walking up to the hospital where she'd be a little bit short of breath, and she's kind of playing out. She's like, I've gotten fat while I'm pregnant, and I mean, you know, just have a thing to catch my breath. And so we're like, all right, whatever. Take your time. And she was on anxiety medication even before she's pregnant. You know, she struggled with that. So she was thinking, also, of course, this is extremely stressful.
- [35:58]
Ever
Yeah.
- [35:59]
Weston Brandon
So, you know, she's thinking that she's having these little anxiety episodes and stuff. But one day, about two weeks later, I'm at home working, and she's at home, too, and she calls me over and says she's having another. What she thinks is an anxiety episode of some sort of. And she's having a hard time catching her breath, and she just asked me to come hold her and help her to calm down. And unfortunately, she was never able to catch her breath again. It just got progressively worse over the next few minutes. And I held her in my arms as she passed away, and I ended up having to do CPR on her until the EMT showed up. And to put it lightly, that sucked.
- [36:44]
Ever
Yeah.
- [36:45]
Weston Brandon
You know, they rush her to the hospital and to actually. Is actually a different hospital that they rush her to, and her parents were in town luckily. So they, they came running over and picked me up and we all ran to the hospital together following, you know, behind the ambulance. And they take my wife into the icu and we're just stuck in this little waiting room at the hospital. And there's a separate, like family waiting room in the icu, and a social worker is assigned to relay information to waiting family members based off whatever's happening with people in there. So this lady, the social worker lady comes in and she tells her, like it's been about 30 minutes since we estimate her, her heart stopped. We're still doing CPR 30 minutes later, which is way, way, way too long to be doing cpr, you know, and they had machines donate, you know, and they even had a little machine to do it. Once they showed up in my house, they hooked it onto a stretcher and it was this, I don't know, air pressure regulated thing to do CPR for you so they could carry her. And it just kept doing that the whole time. But obviously that's way too long. And then a couple minutes later, she comes back in, she says, okay, we got a pulse again, it's weak, but you know, we don't have to be doing CPR anymore. We're clearing all the equipment and everybody out of the room. So still a bunch of stuff in there. We have room to take mom and dad, we're gonna take them. And then once we get a little bit more room cleared out, we'll come get you talking to me. So they take my in laws and then I'm left there by myself in this waiting room. And that, that time, that moment in the waiting room was like where everything I mentioned I had served a mission for two years teaching people about Jesus and trying to share with them a message of the restored gospel. And I thought I. Well, I mean, I still did believe that I knew what was true and what wasn't. You know, a big thing we believe is in something called the plan of salvation, which is essentially like the whole reason that we're here. Like, what's the plan? What happens after we die? Those kinds of things. And you know, in Christianity, we believe we're all going to be resurrected because of Christ's sacrifice for us, right? And in, in that time by myself in the waiting room, like, that was heavy on my mind. Just the general, like, is that real? Right. I didn't realize that's what was heavy on my time in the moment, because my mind's going, you know, Everywhere, a million miles an hour. Can't even track my own thought processes. But I knew in that moment, I was like, I need God to talk to me right now. And he'd always done so, either through music or through getting into the Word. And music felt kind of weird in that scenario. So. But I. On my phone, I had an app that had scriptures at the Bible and has a Book of Mormon and then some other stuff on there. And so I was like, I'm just gonna open the app in general and start tapping and see where it shows up. Whether it's in the Bible or some magazine or. I don't even care where it's going to open up to. I just need to hear him say something. And I remember kneeling down and praying and telling him that, like, if I have ever needed you to talk to me at any point in my life, like, this is the moment that I need to hear something. And I didn't really say it very nice because I wasn't happy, you know, with him about this whole scenario. But I start tapping and, you know, I close my eyes, I'm tapping on my phone, and then I open, and it's. It's got a. It's got a chapter and a verse pulled up, and it's in the Book of Mormon, and It's Alma, chapter 40. And the way that that very first verse starts is. And I might not get the quote perfect, but it says, and now, my son, I have somewhat more to say unto thee, for I perceive that thy mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead. And when I read that, it, like, hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, yeah, that's. Obviously, that's. That's big on my mind. And so for the next few verses as I'm reading, it's like every. The next thought that I would have, the next question, the next worry would be answered in the very next verse, you know, And I continued doing that multiple times throughout the rest of, you know, for the weeks and months following this, where something. The Bible would jump out and smack moves, like, God talking to me, tell me what I need in that moment. And. But that moment there in. In the waiting room was him basically giving me the assurance that, yeah, like, everything you've. You've worked so hard for me to share, and also everything that your parents like, all this, this is really. You can lean on this. But it was also kind of, in a way, saying, like, she's not coming back, right? Like, this is part of the plan, even though it really sucks. And while that was a super powerful experience for me, and I really felt God in the room, and I felt, you know, this overwhelming love for me in that it didn't fix the anger piece that I had. You know, the. Okay, I feel loved and cared for, but I'm still not happy that this is what the plan is.
- [42:02]
Ever
Yeah.
- [42:02]
Weston Brandon
You know, and super mad about that. And I don't know where I heard it or who told me or something, but at some point in my life before this, I. The. The one thought that I remember that kept coming up in. In the weeks and months following this and when I'm just stuck in this deep hole of what do I do now, you know, was even if you're super angry at God, let Him know. Let him, like, if you have. Don't hold anything back from him. Just let him have it all. Even if you have nothing nice to say to him, Just say whatever you have to. So, honestly, for a couple of months, anytime I was praying, it was. It was kind of switching between begging and screaming at him for a long time. And lucky for me, he could take it, you know, And I felt very. I. I had experiences and dreams and some other things with my late wife where I got to have a little bit of communication, I thought. And one of the things that I felt strongly that I needed to do, even though I did not want to at the time, I felt it made me feel gross to even think about being in a relationship with another woman other than my late wife. I felt very pressured that I needed to keep myself open to that. Should, you know, God put somebody there. Because as a father, a father's love is obviously amazing, but it's different than a mother's love. There's a. There's. There's a connection that a woman can have with a child that I can't. It's. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just different. Yeah, right. And I'm like, if I am. If I am being the provider for my child, like, obviously my why to keep going, like, I can hold him. This is my why, you know, which was kind of a blessing for me that it was so obvious. You know, I could literally look at him and say, this is why I. This is why I can't go kill myself and follow my wife, you know, which is what I wanted to do, but I have to stay here for him. And I felt very. Not pressure, but I felt prompted that I needed to keep myself open for that. So for the next few months, that's kind of on My mind that I needed to keep myself open to that. But I'm not really doing anything with it yet. But I felt like I. Whatever I do, I can't stay here because all my family and everybody that wants to support most everybody is back in Utah where I grew up. All my extended family, most all of my wife's family is there. So I feel like I need to go back to Utah where people can help, you know.
- [44:53]
Ever
Yeah.
- [44:53]
Weston Brandon
And we had a really good like church home in Texas that, you know, people were being supported. But there's. It is different, you know, with family that can help. So I packed up all of our stuff. We moved back on actually the 4th of July 2019. My family came down and we packed up our U Haul and hauled everything up and I moved back into the basement bedroom of my parents house where I lived out as a teenager. And so it's like complete all the way back to square one, you know, start over. Except now I have this baby. And.
- [45:27]
Ever
And how is he doing throughout his time in the hospital? Was he. Did he end up being there for two months?
- [45:33]
Weston Brandon
Yeah, Y. So total time that he spent there was about two and a half months. So he was born end of March and he was discharged mid Joe or excuse me, mid June.
- [45:42]
Ever
Okay.
- [45:43]
Weston Brandon
But other than a couple minor normal things that they expected to happen, like he had a very minor blood infection happen and a couple little tiny things here and there that they said was pretty much common for all of their NICU babies to have that at some point happen, but nothing out of the ordinary.
- [45:57]
Ever
Yeah.
- [45:57]
Weston Brandon
So really they just kept him until he could hold his own temperature, he could eat all of the food that he was supposed to by himself instead of having to have some supplemented through a feeding tube or something and then hold his own oxygen. Right. Keep his own oxygen levels up. And once he hit all three of those markers and held them consistently for a certain amount of time, then they let him come home.
- [46:17]
Ever
And I'm sure that was so difficult in like ways that I feel like words can't describe of, you know, after losing your wife, of then having to pick back up of like what I feel like you guys were doing together, like visiting your son there. And you know, this routine is just like, it's like confusing. It's like now what. You know what I mean? It's like you, you keep visiting your son who's in the hospital, but now it's just without your wife.
- [46:44]
Weston Brandon
Yeah, I basically lived in the NICU with him for two months.
- [46:50]
Ever
Yeah.
- [46:51]
Weston Brandon
And I can't even say that I was even there the whole time because something that I. I didn't realize when it was happening, but I realized in a couple of weeks after my wife had passed away was there was a little bit of resentment towards my son.
- [47:08]
Ever
Yeah.
- [47:10]
Weston Brandon
Not. Obviously not that it's his fault, but I guess in my mind, I kind of seen that he had replaced my wife, and now it was this little baby that I didn't have a whole lot of experience with.
- [47:20]
Ever
Yeah.
- [47:20]
Weston Brandon
I just replaced somebody that, you know, knew all of the deepest, darkest things about me and still love me. And now that person was gone. And this person that I don't have much of a relationship with is kind of in their place. And like I said, I wasn't having those thoughts at the time. Like, that wasn't actually running through my head, but there was a feeling there of a little bit of resentment that I didn't pick up on until a couple weeks later. And once I. I don't even know how I. I recognized that it was happening. I might have just been sitting there and kind of had an aha. Maybe God kind of finally told me. He's like, hey, you need to fix this or something.
- [47:53]
Ever
Yeah.
- [47:53]
Weston Brandon
And once I realized that was happening, I was like, oh, geez, I need to change this. You know? And so I immediately flipped and started spending way more intentional time with him, you know, before I would hold him and stuff. But I'm not really paying attention to him, you know, I'm all in my head thinking about. Yeah, you know, all these other things and thinking about my wife and all this, and just in this pit of self pity, you know. And once I realized that, I was like, I need to. I need to be more intentional with him while I'm holding him and, And. And put effort into, you know, loving this kid. So that happened very quick, you know, very, very quickly. Started just absolutely fall in love with this little baby. And I would play like, old western music. I actually experimented with different kinds of music that would help him to calm down when he'd get all fussy and stuff. And I'd play like some soft rock or I'd play some gospel music, or I'd play some country music or, like, just start messing with some stuff. And most of it didn't really have much of an effect. But when I would play old western music, like Marty Robbins and Chris Ledoux and stuff, when I'd play the old western and older, older country music, then he would calm right down.
- [48:58]
Ever
That is funny.
- [48:59]
Weston Brandon
I was like this little 30 week old baby has preferences in music. Right. You know, I'm like, wow, that's. That's kind of cool. And so, yeah, just have an experience like that and learning about him and things, you know, I, you know, immediately built that relationship up pretty quick. And, you know, he's like my best bud today, you know, and he's six now and still no, no health issues really. Like, he gets sick probably the least out of my other kids.
- [49:28]
Ever
Yeah.
- [49:29]
Weston Brandon
And he was the one that was super early and they all went like normal full term, you know, other than he's sick. So he has a little bit of an attitude. And my wife that I'm married to now, he gives her a lot of crap. But he's six, you know, he's just a normal kid.
- [49:43]
Ever
Yeah.
- [49:44]
Weston Brandon
But when I come back to Utah initially with him and move back into my basement bedroom in my house, one of the things that I realized was difficult for me again, more looking in hindsight that there's a lot of anger there still. Right. About lots of things. But one of the things that I realize and realize a lot of this, doing therapy. Right. Um, so if there's any men out there, men's Mental Health Awareness month is this month. And so if you need to talk to somebody, do it. I feel very, very passionate about that. But one of the things that I realized was that one of the things that I lost, and I was kind of grieving in a way that I was angry about leaving or losing, was a big piece of what I felt was my freedom. Because, I mean, when this happened, I'm 23, and as far as I know, your brain doesn't fully develop until you're like 25 or something. Right. At least I think something like that. And so I'm still, for all intents and purpose, I'm basically still a kid. Even when I was married, you know, I was single, making the money. We were just, we were just partying and having a good time, you know, and then all of a sudden it just completely shifts and now I'm back home again in a house that's not mine. I'm used to having my own space.
- [51:01]
Ever
Yeah.
- [51:01]
Weston Brandon
And now I'm having to ask my mom for permission to go out again. Because if I go out, somebody has to watch the baby. So I'm like, hey, can you watch the kid or can, you know? So I basically kind of felt like really all rewind all the way back to like being a teenager again. And basically kind of sort of had a curfew a little bit because my mom's or anybody that's watching my dad or grandparents or somebody that's watching the baby, like, I got to be back within a reasonable time to pick up my kid from them. And so there was a piece of the childish thing that was still in me that died really quick, that was still fighting. And this all of a sudden, overwhelming responsibility was. Was rough to get used to when it first happened. And so then I mentioned that I had felt promised I needed to keep myself open for another relationship. Right. So I downloaded a dating app. And the dating app was called Mutual. I didn't even know if it's still a thing or not anymore. It probably is, but it's this app called Mutual. It's basically Tinder for people in Utah is kind of where it was made, you know? So there was. There's a bunch of different dating apps that I tried, a bunch of different ones of, but the one that I ended up meeting the woman I'm married to now was on Mutual. And the reason I used it was because when I first on. On the dating profiles, I was struggling for a little bit. I was like, do I put information about what happened? Do I not? Like, how do I. I was like, you know what? I don't want that to be a surprise. So I'm just in. In as much as the character limit will allow. In my bio, I'm just gonna put like, hey, this is a story. This is where I'm at. This is pictures of me and my son because we're a. We're a package.
- [52:37]
Ever
Yeah.
- [52:37]
Weston Brandon
You know, so.
- [52:39]
Ever
Right. Don't. Don't swipe if you're not in it forever. All of it.
- [52:42]
Weston Brandon
Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, I don't want anybody that's just looking to hook up or play. Yeah. You know, I'm not interested in that at all. So I put all that in the dating profile. And again, this is. So my son's born in March. My wife passes mid April, and this is, like, end of July that I'm doing this. So it's fairly quick. But again, I'm feeling a. Like, a pressure and a push inside. Even though I don't want to do it, I'm feeling like I should for some reason. So I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna do this. And so I start swiping, and I'm swiping. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, go through the whole region. Every single woman in this app. I just. And I get to the end, I'm like, well, like, and I realized, even when I got to the end, I realized, like, you know, the only reason I said no is because they're not the person that I'm looking for. The person I'm looking for, I'm not gonna find here. You know, So I got looking in there, and luckily they had a premium version where if you paid like 20 bucks a month or something, it would tell you if somebody swiped on you. So then you could just look through only the people that swiped on you. I was like, take my money. I don't even want to spend any time on this app at all. So I just, I. I paid for the pre version, then I turned notifications off because I didn't want to get notified for a minute, and I just left it for a few days. I don't know how long. But my son, the NICU gets him on a really consistent schedule. So, like, every three hours on the dot, he wakes up to be fed, because that's the kind of schedule that he's on. So it's like two o' clock in the morning. You know, he wakes up screaming, needs to be fed, and I'm there feeding him. And I'm looking at my phone and I kind of feel like I need to. I need to check that. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to. It's like, no, you need to check that. I'm like, I don't want to. No, you need to check that. Fine. All right, whatever. So I. I finished feeding him, and I'm about to lay back down, and I grab my phone and I open it up and I go into the app and, you know, there's no notifications because I disabled it. So I'm like, we'll see. If. If anybody's in here, it's either going to be somebody that's batshit crazy, or it'll be someone that's very highly emotional, intelligent, and doesn't want to play any games either. Yeah, you know, maybe somebody who's been through some stuff. So I'm like, how do I tell which one it is? And. But again, this is before I even open it. I'm like, I don't even know if anybody's gonna even want a piece of this.
- [55:02]
Ever
Right?
- [55:02]
Weston Brandon
And so I open it up, and there was like four or five that it swiped. I'm like, that's surprising. Okay, well, now I need to decide if filter through crazy or if they're cool. And so I just send messages out, and this is like 2 o' clock in the morning. That I do this and I send a couple messages out and my wife that I'm married to now is one of them. And if you ever talk to her, what's, what's funny is she says she, she doesn't even remember swiping on me. She doesn't remember seeing it. Yeah, I was like, oh, thanks. That's right. You know, but she, she sees my message later and we start talking. And she had been in a previous marriage before that was not healthy, that she had gotten out of and, and gotten a divorce. And then she had actually served a mission just like I had in Ohio and then had come home and was going to school and, and working and stuff. And so given her background, she was not looking for games. Right. And she had been on these dating apps for a while and had been going on dates. And the only people that she ended up match with was people that just wanted to hook up and not have anything serious. And so she was getting sick of it. She'd actually deleted the app. And then the same day that I had or within the same couple of days that I had made my profile on there, she had kind of felt God telling her that no, she needed to open that again. And so she told me that, she's like, later, of course, she says she was kind of having this argument with God, like, no, like all the men on there are just wasting my time and stuff. And so she's like, so she kind of made this deal. She's like, I'll give it 24 hours. If you don't bring someone in 24 hours, I'm never getting on here again. And I guess somewhere within that 24 hours is when we got connected in there. And so I scheduled some dates with, with a couple of these different women and my wife that I am married to now. It was the first one that I wanted a date with.
- [57:01]
Ever
Okay.
- [57:02]
Weston Brandon
And we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and we went and at the time, hatchet throwing, like it's like the big in thing to do. So we went and did that and went and got some ice cream and had a great time and learned a lot about each other. And I'm like, this person's really, really cool. I like her a lot. But before I had went on the date because I was at least self aware enough to know that I don't know where my mind is.
- [57:26]
Ever
Yeah.
- [57:27]
Weston Brandon
You know, I'm like, I don't know how good my judgment is right now. I don't know how good I'm going to be. At reading people. I don't know. I don't feel like anything's broken, but I don't know. So before I went on this, I remember praying again, not super happy with God, so probably wasn't a super respectful prayer, but I remember praying anyways and saying, hey, whatever you need Lauren for on the other side, Whatever. I'm calling in some PTO respectfully, and I would like her to come with me on this date and, like, tell me if she approves kind of a thing. Like, help me feel that in some way, because I don't. I don't want to make that decision with my mind.
- [58:05]
Ever
Yeah.
- [58:06]
Weston Brandon
And so same thing. After the date's over and. And she's driving away, I just said out loud. I was like, well, babe, what do you think? And when I said that, the freaking feeling that I got inside was like, holy cow. Like, this fire lit in my chest. Like, it felt like I got just punched, you know? I'm like, whoa. That was. I've had some powerful spiritual experiences when, you know, when I was a teenager and found out God was real for the first time and had. It was, like, kind of similar to that. I was like, oh, my gosh. That's. Wow. Okay. Well, geez. Like, if. I guess if the dates keep going like this one went, then it would progress to being married is kind of what I'm thinking in my head. But I'm like, that is so inappropriate to just go tell somebody that after your first date. Like, no way. And I'm like, even kind of shaming myself for thinking that at the moment, I'm like. But based off the feeling that I just had, I was like, this could be. And I didn't feel like I got told, like, you need to marry this person. That wasn't the message I got. It was more like, if this is reciprocated, if this keeps going, then basically I approve. Kind of a feeling, right? So. And we ended up dating. This again. We met in. Our first date was the first part of August sometime. We got married the following March. But after that first date and we scheduled, like, we decided we're gonna. We're gonna date more consistently. We decided that on our first date. So then I reached out to the other ladies that I had dates scheduled with, and I told him, I said, hey, I'm not here to play games. I don't want to waste anybody's time, but I found a direction that I want to pursue, so I'm going to respectfully cancel our date, because I don't Want to go jump into something that I have no intention of being open to a possibility with. Right. And luckily all of them were super respectful and was very grateful for, for that. They're like, yeah, I'm not looking to hook up either, so thank you for not wasting my time. And bummer I wasn't the first one was kind of how a lot of the messages went. And so then me and my wife start dating and she very quick, she basically moved in with us, with me and my family, and she took over like her mothering instincts and how good she was at that was like mind blowing. And she just naturally, she just attached to my kid. His name is Vance. She just attached to Vance and basically became his primary caregiver and took a lot of load off of my parents, off my family and off of me where, you know, we, we had some help and not that like she was just trying to be a, a freaking nursemaid or something like that, but like she just naturally wanted to, to take care like that. She's, she's the best mother I could ever ask for, for my kids.
- [60:54]
Ever
And she didn't have any kids?
- [60:55]
Weston Brandon
No.
- [60:55]
Ever
Right, okay.
- [60:56]
Weston Brandon
No, she didn't have any kids. But that was her biggest or one of her biggest dreams, to be a wife and a mother, you know, and she'd always wanted that. And she had been on some other dates with, with men that had kids from previous marriages and so she was open to that. You know, she wasn't opposed to that. But she, she latched on to him pretty quick and we spent every single day together. And then eventually she ended up quitting her job so that I could try to go back to work and she could watch the kid like all day. And we're basically sleeping on the couch in my parents basement this whole time until he got married. And which is also kind of funny because, you know, in our very Christian religious culture, you know, like you don't live together before you're married. It's kind of a thing that like we're taught, right? And sex before you're married is a no and all these kinds of things, right? So then when my fiance, girlfriend, whatever you want to call her at that time, basically kind of moved in with it. So it was like this weird like situation where it's like we're living with my parents, but then she's also here like all the time. She technically had an apartment somewhere else, but she was never there. Yeah, she's always over, you know, and we would stay up all night talking and then the sun would come up and then she'd have to leave for work. So she probably spent a couple nights where she never went to bed for like two days, you know, on. And both of us. But she latched on to him pretty quick. And then we. The. The conversation on if we were going to get married happened pretty quick also, like with my first wife, we. I proposed to her three weeks after we met. But me and Kearsley is her name. My. My second wife, now wife, whatever you want to call it. We had that conversation about a week probably into dating on accident. It wasn't intentional, but we were in my parents basement sitting on the couch, and Vance is asleep, and we're just talking. And she was sharing me a lot of the stories and experiences of her first marriage. And, you know, all these things that were hard to share, honestly. And in my head I'm thinking, like, I had a great relationship with. With my first wife, and I. I'm glad that I did. And I can't wait to show you what a good relationship looks like. And that's what was going on in my head. But it accidentally started coming out of my mouth. So as she's sitting there talking, I. I started to say. I was like, I can't wait. And I got like halfway. Halfway through weight. I was like, whoa, what are you doing? Like, shut up. And I just bit my tongue. And I was like, nope, I can't say that. And she. She knew exactly what I was gonna say. So she, like, starts prying out of me. She's like, can't wait for what? What are you gonna say? You know? And I was like, no, it's fine. She's like, no, tell me. What are you gonna say? So I was like, all right, where do you see this going down? Like, what. What's gonna happen? And she kind of says the same. She's like, well, if it keeps going the way that it is now, then I guess naturally we would end up getting married at some point. I don't know when, but if this is the trajectory. And so we both agreed, like, yeah, that makes sense. So I guess we better have the convert. Let's get everything out. So if there's any red flags that can't. There's no secrets or anything, you know, get all those out. And so we had that conversation right there for another, you know, hour or two, and both of us did the same. Just get everything out. So I had to do that twice, which was super uncomfortable. But we got it all out there. And then again, neither of us were running away. Like, we're both like, can you live with that? Like, yeah, I can live with that. And if that comes back to bite me in the ass, you know, 10 years down the road, can you live with that? Yeah, I can live with that. Like, okay. So at that point, it's how we're like, all right, I guess, I guess we're getting married at some point. I don't. Like, yeah, I guess we are. You know, it's kind of how the conversation went. So then, you know, she starts looking for rings. And what was funny is she's like, I don't, I don't want like this big sparkly thing, you know, I want maybe like a different colored one. I don't know. And then she ends up finding the ring that she wants, and it's like the most sparkly ring in the store, you know, and end up getting that for. And proposed to her. And we, we set a date to get married like the following year. And that's, that's when we got married. It's in March. And there were, there were some things in between there. Some drama with some people. Because I also learned in that process that sometimes people attach their grief to you. If, if a lot of widows, if you ever talk to widows, they'll probably relate to this very well. That people close to you and especially close to your spouse that you lose because you're the closest thing that they can get to the person they lost, they tend to attach their own grief journey to you. So if you move forward or start intentionally growing or moving forward or doing things that they're not or that they're not really ready for you to do in some way that makes them very uncomfortable. So there's, there's a lot of times some, some dissonance that can happen with people. Right. And, and so we experienced that and there were some emotional things that, that ended up happening. But, you know, now having reconciled most all that with everybody, like, everything's great now. And my, my in laws, my, My first wife's parents were not one of those. They were very supportive of this whole thing. And our relationship with them now is amazing, and it always has been, but they live in another state neighboring us, and my wife takes all three of our kids and goes and spends like four or five days with them pretty regular, like two or three times a year. Yeah, they'll go down and have vacation tying up papa and Gigi's house. And so it's, it's a really cool thing, which is, unfortunately, I found, is A little bit more rare in situations like ours. Sometimes families don't just mesh like that super well and there's, you know, it gets a little bit more complicated. But in ours, we're very blessed that, you know, my kids just have extra grandparents and extra cousins. It's kind of. And they don't even see it as extra. They just have a lot.
- [66:56]
Ever
Right.
- [66:57]
Weston Brandon
You know, but other people looking in, at the situation, they're like, that's really cool. A. That's a unique. That's a really cool thing. Right. So now, you know, I. And one of the things that I had to do, I realized I tried to go back to my job in sales, but I, I couldn't do it. I used to be super good at it. You know, I'd gotten promoted, I'd done. I'd made their presence club numbers before and, and was good at my job. But then trying to come back after that. What used to the, the anxiety and the push for sales to meet quotas and then have all these incentives. Right. Was used to be super motivating. And I, you know, I fed off of that. But now with everything that's happened, suddenly possibility is no longer what my soul wants. It's security. Right? Because obviously with everything that happened, that's more important to me now. And for some reason, just picking up the phone to call somebody to try to initiate some type of conversation was like, I can't freaking do it, at least not in that context. Right. And so I, eventually I had to leave that and I had to completely change careers. And I didn't know where I was going to go. But in talking to my father and some neighbors and some other people that were in trades careers, I decided that I was going to jump into H vac and refrigeration. I went back to school, which I. I was not planning on doing, but I went back to trade school and got another job and applied the same kind of tenacity and work ethic to that as I did the sales and became very good at it, very successful at it, and worked myself up to making on average roughly the same amount of money that I was working or excuse me, that I was making before I had gotten the promotion right. When I was referring the deals. And I was like, I can live like I can support a family comfortably off of this. And like, it's not. We're not rich by any means, but like, we're not hurting either. We're like, right. Just. Just barely comfortable. Right. And I'd work my butt off to get There. And at this point, we got two more kids now. And once I finally reach that, I'm like, oh, okay, I can, I can coast now. I've been firing on all cylinders for five years and working my ass off. And now, now that I've made, I feel like at least mentally I can like relax, that I don't have to, you know, be grinding that hard. And now that I'm good at my job and I can just maintain and keep doing that. And so I got to do that for about two months. But earlier in, and this is just a few months ago, so that right now we're June 2025, right? And so this was like probably March of 2024 that I had this experience. I was at the time I was serving in the youth ministry at our church where I was in. I was one of the adult leaders in charge of like the 16 to 18 year old boys. And we're having this youth activity up at the church building and it gets over and I'm driving home and it had been a fairly spiritual. Like we had been watching a movie and I'd been sharing mission stories with some of the other guys that had also served missions and was kind of on it, you know, a little bit spiritual, higher place and feeling it a little bit. And then as I'm driving home, all of a sudden God comes out of nowhere. And I get this feeling rests on me that I'm gonna ask you to do something that you are not ready, you're not spiritually ready to handle. Like, you need to get with the program, you need to. You need to be more intentional about your spirituality stuff. And I had already been kind of bummed with myself that I wasn't as consistent with praying, I wasn't as consistent in studying in the Word, and I wasn't as consistent with these things that I wanted to be. And so then this feeling rests on me. And it's a similar feeling that I had gotten twice before, earlier in life. The first one I'd gotten right before my first wife passed away, I'd gotten a feeling that weighed on me that something really hard was about to happen. Like, I don't know if you want to call it a premonition or something, but I remember talking to Lauren about that and saying, hey, I got this feeling that something rough's coming down the road. I don't know what it is, but we just need to be prepared for it. And she told me, like, as long as we're together, we'll be fine, you know, and then well, then I wasn't fine, because then we weren't together, you know, and then I had gotten another one. Was when I was dating Kearsley that something rough was coming down. And we end up having, you know, some drama happened before we got married that was really emotionally, especially for her, super emotionally rough. And it was for me, too. And so then when I get this third one. But it's a little different this time. It's more. It's not a something is coming that's going to suck. It's more like something's coming that's going to stretch you a lot.
- [71:32]
Ever
Yeah, right.
- [71:33]
Weston Brandon
And you need to be ready for that. And so I get home, and I walk in and I tell Kira. I was like, hey, do you remember those other, like, things that I experienced when she's like, yeah, did you get another one? I'm like, well, yes, but it's a little different this time. This is kind of the feeling that I got. And I don't know what. I have no idea what it means. So we're like, okay, well, let's be more consistent about praying together and reading together and, like, doing all the things. And we're like, all right, cool. Break. And didn't change a damn thing. You know, you just kind of stay in the same routine.
- [72:05]
Ever
Yeah.
- [72:05]
Weston Brandon
And for, like, the next 10 months, I'm thinking of this feeling that I. That I had gotten, and it's way, no, man. I'm feeling this pole, and I'm feeling this pole and feeling this pole. Like, I'm supposed to be doing something, but I don't know what it is. And it's driving me nuts. And I finally reach in, like, probably like September or October. I finally get a raise that I've been working really hard for. And I'm at that comfortable place now. I'm like, I can finally exhale, you know, and be okay. And I get to breathe for a second for, like, two months. And then in January, I'm getting done with a job in Utah. I was. The job that I do now is commercial kitchen equipment service. I was working on the slushy machine at Costco, where they have their frozen lattes and stuff. And I was fixing that thing in a town called Orem, Utah, and I gotten out of Costco, and I. I come out of there, and I'm driving. I go to fill up that My work truck. I get done filling up with gas, and then Spirit comes out of nowhere, says, you need to go see your mom, like, out of left field. And I was like, oh, crap. What's wrong with my mom? I hope nothing. So I text my wife and I had already told her. I was like, hey, I'm on my way home. And then I tell her, hey, just kidding, I need to go see my mom. I don't know know why, but I got a prompt, I need to go there. And she's like, okay, yeah, go, whatever. You know, be home whenever you're gonna be home. So I book it up there and my mom's fine. She's just doing her workout. There's nothing, Nothing's wrong. So then for like the next hour, we're just small talk, chit chatting, and I'm like twirling my thumbs like, what the freak am I doing here? And then she shares with me an experience where. And she's very involved in youth ministry in her own congregation, where she's at too, and what they call the young women's program. And she's, she tells me of an experience that she had where she was watching. There was a lady, or, excuse me, a young woman in our, what we call our stake, which is a larger regional area, and there's a, A young girl that had taken her own life and they were broadcasting the funeral services for people to watch. And she was watching this. And while she was watching this, she said that she felt this kind of. She felt God tell her that she needed to make a much bigger difference and that she could make a much bigger difference in these girls lives from things that she had experienced in her life. So she's telling me, she's like, I don't know what the heck that means, but I feel like I got to do something much bigger. And you know, and as we're talking about that, I'm telling her kind of these feelings that I've been having. And then while we're having the conversation, it finally sits on me and it hits me. It's like, you need to be a speaker, you need to share your story. And I'm like, oh, freak. No, no, no, no, I don't want to do that, don't want to do that at all. Like, I done performing and stuff and singing and stuff in high school and choir groups and theater and like, I wasn't afraid of talking, like being in front of people, but I knew because there was a guy or there is a guy. Excuse me, there's a guy that lives in my hometown that is, that does speaking professionally. Like, that's his job. His name's Chad Hymas and he's a quadriplegic he had a big one ton bale of hay fall on him and crush him and break his neck. And he's been in a wheelchair ever since. But he goes around doing motivational speaking and stuff, and he's extremely successful at it. And he's the only guy that I knew that did that. And so that's kind of the thing that I have in my head. I'm like, holy crap. No, I don't. He's gone a lot. Like, that's a lot of stuff. So I'm like, all stressing out. I'm like, what does that even mean? I have no idea how to even start doing that. Like, what the crap? And so as I'm leaving my mother's after we have this conversation, I thought I was like, I guess I got to do this and you've got to do something similar. Like, I guess we'll figure out, you know, what we're gonna do. And so then I remember I texted Chad and I told him, I says, hey, this is like the super Cliff Notes version of what just happened. We need to talk and it needs to be in person. I don't want to do it over text or something. So he responds. A little bit later, he told me, I think he said he was in Milwaukee speaking, you know, for like three different days on this tour, and was coming back later that week. So I end up going to his house and meeting up and. And I typed up in like five pages my whole experience of like, all this stuff that had happened to kind of lead up to this point and gave it to him. And he read it. And so I show up after, you know, in the morning, and I told him, so did you read the thing? I say? He says, yeah, I read it, but why don't you tell me why you're here? Anyways, I was like, well, that's why I sent it. So I. He's like, no, I want to hear it from you. I was like, ah, okay. And my wife came with me. And so we kind of rehashed the whole thing. And he told me, he's like, well, you definitely seem to have received a call kind of same way that I did on, you know, however many years ago he did. And he's like, if you're anything like me, then if you don't give it everything you got, then you're going to feel like a failure that you're not doing what you're called to do. And I said, that's exactly right. Yeah. 100. I just have no clue what to do.
- [76:50]
Ever
Yeah.
- [76:51]
Weston Brandon
How to even do that. So he's like, you need to go Joint National Speakers association, which is an organization for public speakers, and there's like chapters in different states and stuff. He's like, you need to go join our local chapter of that because there's people there that can help you figure out how to do that. And then this here's a couple names of some specific people that you need to get to know that can help with some things. And, and gave me a couple directions to start going. And so I was like, all right, I'm just gonna. And sprint that direction, you know? And I got connected with the lady that actually helped him get his first two books out, I think first two books out that he wrote. And so I hired her to help me, coach me through writing a book and doing all that. And the book just launched today's the as of recording. We're on June 8th. So on June 5th, the book launched and it's top new release in all three of its categories, which is awesome. Super cool. But getting out there and, and sharing the story has been a stretch. And that's why I reached out to you. I was like, I, I need avenues to share this, right? How do I, how do I do this? So I was like, what are some options to kind of share stories? So what I did was I made a post on some community Facebook pages. I'm like, this is what I feel like my life's mission has to be. I don't know what the heck that even means. Does anybody have any ideas? Yeah, you know, so then people are like, oh, you should go talk to this person. And actually more than one person said, you should go talk to this girl named Ever. And she has this thing called We're All Insane where people share crazy ass stories and you have a crazy ass story, so you should reach out to her. And I was like, okay, I'd never seen your podcast or anything. So I looked it up and I started watching some episodes. I'm like, there's some crazy stuff on here. It's like, this would probably fit pretty well. So then that's when I emailed you and I said, there's my story. If you think, think this is cool. So, you know, now we're here and I just barely started sharing. Like, just earlier this week, I was speaking in front of this large group of teenage boys at like a religious church camp out thing, right? And I share my story of what had happened. And remember the, the adult leaders over these, these boys that were running this camp they told me that the previous year they'd had a. A kind of a. A bad experience and a little bit with kind of how it went because they have, you know, obviously they have a bunch of activities and then they try to bring in the spiritual aspect. And like, one of the things that they do is up on this trail they'll have different spots where they have pieces of the Savior's life and it ends up with him on the cross at the end, and there's people, you know, talking about it. So the boys kind of go through this progression and learn about, like, the last week of the Savior, like the New Testament story, right? And then after that they come and eat dinner and then they have like a, what they call a testimony meeting where people can share, like, you know, what they've been feeling or what they believe in things and kind of, you know, build off of each other. And I guess the previous year the teenage boys had kind of just turned that into a joking giggle fest and it didn't really go super well. And so they're like, we don't want. We don't really know how this is going to go. So just a heads up if you can help, hopefully reign these boys in kind of a thing, you know. And so I'm like, we'll. Okay, we'll see, you know, we'll see how this goes. So I share my story, and it goes super well. And one of the. The. One of my favorite parts about speaking is I can see everybody's face, but they all can't see anybody's face. So none of them think that anybody can see them. But I can see them. Yeah, right. So I can see the facial expressions and I can see how people are reacting to what I'm sharing. And it's like lifetime feedback on obviously how well I'm doing, but then also being able to see the change in people as you're talking, as you're sharing the story. And I see at first a lot of these teenage boys are like, whatever. You know, we've had a lot of these speakers just come and talk and whatever. And usually they're just somebody kind of just lecturing us, you know. So at first they're like, whatever. And they're. And they're not allowed to have their phones. They don't have their phones, but they're like, you know, playing with sticks and like, just not really paying attention. I just start talking to them, and then all of a sudden they start listening as I share my story of being in their same shoes and, and Kind of take them through the progression of when I lost my wife. And then as it's going, all of a sudden I'm seeing all these like 14, 15, 16, 17 year old boys, like crying, you know, and like that was powerful for me. But then the most powerful thing at the end was we were having this devotional and then they had arranged to have their little testimony meeting right after and after I get done. Sharon and I had talked to him a lot about like how I hear God talking to me and how I'd learned that that works for me. And I told him, I was like, your biggest thing is you need to figure out how that works for you. And you guys have questions. I know all of you do. Some of you are here just because it's fun. Some of you are here because your parents forced you to be here. Some of you, you know, there's a bunch of different reasons why some of you, you are here, but you all have questions of your own. And it might just be like, should I even care about this? Some of you do believe, but you're going through a really rough time and have other questions related to that. But you can't go to your neighbor for questions. You can't go to social media for your answers. You can't go to your friends for your answer. You can't go to any person for really your answers. Now there's people that can, can guide you along, that can give you their perspective and it could be helpful. And maybe sometimes an answer might come through, through what somebody says, but really the answer for it to really hit has to come from him. Right? So I'm like, the times that I had felt God talk to me the most was when I was in quiet stillness. And I think the biggest problem with, as an even adults today, but especially with youth today, is that they never have quiet stillness. Because the first opportunity for that to have quiet stillness, the phone comes out and they immediately go to social media, they, they go to whatever and they're just filling in that quiet space. So God never has a chance to get a word in.
- [82:36]
Ever
Yeah.
- [82:36]
Weston Brandon
So I'm talking to him about this. I'm like, you guys need to give God an opportunity. So right now, for the next 10 minutes, nobody's allowed to say a single word. And if you feel like you need to go out and you need to pray, you need to ask some questions, or if you feel like somebody needs to pray for you, then you have youth leaders here that are meant to help you with that. Some of you have parents here you know, grab somebody and tell them that. You don't even have to tell them why if you don't want to, just tell them that you need somebody to pray for you. You. And as. As I give this invitation, I'm like, okay, so now for the next 10 minutes, nobody's allowed to say a single word. You guys have questions. Go get your answers right now. And I was like, I guess we're gonna see how this goes. I'm kind of expecting everybody to just kind of sit there and, like, whatever, you know, kind of. But the most amazing thing happened. Like, 15, I think 10 to 15 different boys stood up, walked off the amphitheater, and then there's a big grass field right behind it, and they all knelt down, like, 15, 20, 25ft apart from each other. Like, teenage boys, you know, going up there and. And started praying. And some of them are crying and, like, having these really cool experiences. You know, a lot of them are like, you know, like, go hide behind a tree. You know, I don't, you know, kind of thing, but, you know, I'm. I'm watching as I go and sit down, and I see these boys go out and start praying. And then I turn and I look up into the amphitheater, and again, I can see everybody's faces. And there's some boys kind of, like, looking around, and there's other boys, you know, praying here. But then there's some guys that are having the same moment for themselves. They're in the amphitheater, you know, and there's probably another 20, 30 of them that are having that experience inside the amphitheater. And that was, like, the biggest answer to me. Like, there's a reason that you have to share your story, because things that you've been with can help not only these boys, but a bunch of other people, right?
- [84:19]
Ever
Absolutely.
- [84:19]
Weston Brandon
And then the. The. The biggest comment that I knew was, like, I. I had prayed super hard before I talked to these boys. I was like, help. If there's just one, please help me to not want glory in this of myself, because that's. That's a natural thing. Like, I want to get good feedback. I want to know that I'm doing a good job and, you know, kind of these selfish thoughts, and I have to catch myself. I'm like, that's not why you're here. You're here for these boys. So please just help one boy to have an experience with you, and help me at least help me to see that so that I know that it worked, right? And so then I see this and there's like 50 of them having this experience. I'm like, that's a huge win in and of itself. But then after that, you know, and I Finally, after 10 minutes, I finally go up, I'm like, okay, this is my least favorite part of this, but I have to cut this off and, and you know, invite you guys to come back in this hampa theater. And now, you know, we're gonna essentially give people an opportunity to share whatever is on their mind or what experience they had. If you feel like you need to and you want to. And one of the things that the youth leaders had told me the previous year was not only was it kind of a giggle joke fest, but a lot of the leaders had to come in and fill empty time. And like, it was just kind of a rough time. But this time There were like 10 to 15 boys in line to come up and grab the microphone to start talking to all the other boys. And none of the adult leaders even had a chance to get in because these boys were lining up to do it. For 45 minutes they were in line to do this. And one of the boys got up and he said he was, I think he was 14, maybe 15. And he gets up and he says, the biggest question I've had for God, because I've been raised in, in kind of the church scene and been taught these things and I'd had experience, but I had been. The biggest question on my mind had been like, what's the point? Why even go on, like kind of having some self harm or suicidal thoughts or something like that? He didn't go into detail, but he said, I. So that was the biggest thing. I feel like I needed to go pray about it. After hearing Brother Brandon, they called me up there to, to go, to go talk to God about it. So I went out in the field and he says, I knelt down and I prayed. And I asked God, I'm like, what's the point? Like, do you even know that I'm here or anything? And he's like, the feeling that I got, he's like, God just came down and told me in my heart that, like, yes, you matter to me and there's a reason I have something very specific for you to do. And he's like, and it took me forever to get the next question out. But I asked him, what is that? And he said, just be patient, like I'm working on you and you'll get to that. So then he come up and he shares that and he says, so I was. I was thinking that it wasn't even worth it to be on this earth anymore until. Until now. And now I know that there's a reason I'm here. And I don't think I'm gonna. I don't. I'm not having that thought anymore. And I. I think I'm gonna stick around. Was basically what he said. And I'm like, I hadn't really gotten emotional with. With most until they said that. And then I'm like, Ballin, you know, I'm like, did we just save a kid's life that nobody knew was. Was. Was talk that was having these thoughts? So then of course, I'm like, I and his youth leaders. There I was like, you better freaking get with this kid and make sure that he's, you know, because he's having this experience now, but who knows what his home life is like or, you know, and make sure that you're. You're helping these kids. So then I leave there and just the biggest thing that has had been on my mind before this and then even a little bit after was and getting out there and sharing my story. One of my flaws, I think, and we probably all struggle with this, is that we care way too much what people think about us and their opinions about our motivations for doing things right. And be honest, there's some people that thought that I just came up with this idea that I wanted to make money off of my wife's death, you know, And I saw a financial avenue for doing that. And at the moment, I haven't made a cent doing it. I'm just getting started doing that. I mean, we did just sell a decent number of books, so like 70 or 80 books, but it takes a few months for that to hit. And even then, that's only going to be like 5 or 600 bucks in royalties maybe doesn't cover. I'm like over 20 grand in the hole in the investments for doing this so far, and the training and coaching I've paid for. So I'm like, no, like, hopefully it pays off at some point maybe, because if you can, like, people will pay for a transformational experience on behalf of other people, whether that's in the corporate world or religious worlds or something. So if you can. If you can provide that, then maybe there's opportunity for that for sure. But that would be nice, you know, to. To be able to afford to do this full time takes money. So that would be nice if that came in and I could do this full time, because that's what I really feel like my calling is. But the, the biggest, like I didn't even want to do this at first. I just reached what was comfortable.
- [89:12]
Ever
Yeah.
- [89:13]
Weston Brandon
And was easy. You know, just go to work 9 to 5 and come home and I.
- [89:18]
Ever
Don'T have to think about it.
- [89:19]
Weston Brandon
I don't have to think about it. Like, you know, and in my head I'm like, you know, the guys that own this company, they're going to retire. And so there's probably I'll event if I've been here long enough, then I'm going to step into that just kind of logically, you know, however many years down the road. So I'm kind of got this long term plan. I'm like, again, think I've got it all figured out. My whole life is going to go this way. And now I'm figuring out like, how do I balance, Like I'm going to have to balance keeping this job and doing this. And if I keep the job that I have now for forever and I do this on the side and that's enough, then I'm happy doing that. Or if, you know, a few years down the line it turns into doing this full time or who knows, you know what I mean? But that experience with those boys and the fact that I was simply a conduit for a life changing experience for what looked like 50 of them was like, that was the end. Like it doesn't matter. Like 10 of everybody that meets you or knows you is probably gonna freaking hate what you're doing for whatever personal reasons they have. And in speaking to other people that I've gotten to know that are kind of in the speaking world and, and do that have had a lot of similar experiences. The people that I've met and the friends that I've made in stepping in to do this have been huge. Like the quality of people that are helping me and supporting me and pushing me to do it or like next level. And every single one of them, when I finally open up, I'm like, this is kind of what I'm like, have you ever experienced something like this? And they're like, let me tell you a story. Yeah, you know, and they all have one like that. And so I'm realizing again, that's normal, not alone in that. And I'm sure you probably have had similar experience with doing your podcast and who knows, maybe old friends or acquaintances or family are like, what the hell is she doing there? You know, who knows? But yeah, that's, I guess in a nutshell that's the whole story. And that's, that's what we're doing now.
- [91:20]
Ever
And I think, you know, there's so many different aspects that you've shared that I feel like are so important. You know, one of them being even just the silence aspect. You know, I think that no matter what you believe or where you are in life, that's something that, especially with the younger generations, is so rare. You know, we're not taught to just be alone in silence at times and just be with ourselves, be with our own thoughts. And that's so important when it comes to growing and healing and discovering yourself. You know, life is so fast paced and especially now with social media, it's like we can constantly scroll, we can constantly consume our brains and our mind with distraction. You know, whether it be music or like, like, it's like a lot of people, they feel uncomfortable in silence. They always have to have music playing, they always have to be on the phone, they always have to be texting or scrolling or something. And we're not taught how important it is. Sometimes, even if it is just 5, 10 minutes of just letting ourselves feel it, you know, feel what's going on around us, feel everything. And then I think when we open ourselves up to that, we open ourselves up to these spiritual experiences. And it's crazy to me how many people go through life and never experience those things because really we aren't taught that that's important and how special silence can be. And I think that experience that you had also shows it doesn't even have to be alone. You know, you can have all these people around you, but just to have that moment of quiet in your own mind, it doesn't matter what's going on around you. It's just like it's a very self healing experience that you can have within yourself, anywhere you are, you know, in the car, at home, in the shower, it really doesn't matter. So I think that is something that is so important and I think it's so amazing that that's something that you include in your story. Because, you know, I think even right there it shows. This isn't about just your story, it's about helping people find themselves and their purpose as well. And I think that that can be a misconception for people. It's like even what you said, of course there's going to be people that think like, you know, he's just sharing his story and what happened to him for his own reasons, whatever people want to say. But to me that goes to show it's not even like your story is, I think your personal experience and your story was your, was your drive and your, your anchor to it. But you know, it does so much more than that. It's, it's not the story that's going to change someone's life. It's. It's you speaking out and then having these different experiences that you're giving to people throughout this that I think are really going to be fundamental and change people's lives. And you know, I think as well, you personally had that moment after losing your wife where you were like, what's the point? So it's like imagine if, if you had a opportunity where you were one of those boys, you know, those younger boys, where you're sitting there and hearing something and that could just be the message that you needed to hear in that moment. And thankfully, yeah, like you, I think you have always been extremely strong in your faith and, and everything where I think you have been so in touch with everything spiritually that you were able to get these messages, you know, and you were, you're very open to them, which is incredible. But not everybody is like that. Not everybody has enough faith and belief that they're like, this is a message. I'm open to it and I'm gonna follow it. Some people need to be sat down and hear it from another human being and be like, huh, that's what I've been asking for. And this is my message right here. And I think there's so many different aspects in life that, and different ways that people receive messages, but sometimes your, your voice is going to be that for people because maybe they, they don't have that, that moment within themselves where they have enough time to just be silent and receive it and be open to it on their own. They need another person to encourage that and that's okay. And I think that that's what, you know, that's going to be what you're there for sometimes. And there's so many just different aspects of your story and of your experience that I think can really touch people and, and guide people on the path that they need to be on. And I tell people all the time, I mean, like I was telling you before we got started, there's no story that's too big or too small. I think that everyone has a story. Even if, even if somebody doesn't have a traumatic experience. Everyone has, you know, stories and experiences and life changing events that should be spoken about. And I think, especially men, even to this day, I think enough men don't share Their story.
- [96:11]
Weston Brandon
Oh, yeah.
- [96:11]
Ever
So to hear a man share their story and get vulnerable and open up and show emotion, it's important. I think it shows other men, young men, older men, whatever it may be, that it's okay to be emotional, it's okay to speak, it's okay to share what's happened to you and not be ashamed of it, you know, And I always tell people, you know, to. To break this stigma of staying silent about things that are sometimes frowned upon. I mean, even the. The moment that you spoke about right after your son was born and feeling that, like, that confusion of, like, why don't I feel more. You know, that's. That's something also that it's like some people might be scared to be honest about, but it's so many people feel that. So I think it's so important to talk about it. There's no shame and nothing wrong in, you know, having these experiences and these feelings. I think the more we talk about it, the more normalized it is and the more that we can figure out how to fix things. Like, if nobody speaks up and nobody talks about things, how are we supposed to get through it? How are we supposed to understand why these things happen or. Or how to, you know, really understand the com, like this complex brain that we have. And it's just. It's so interesting to me. I, you know, like I said, how many different avenues I feel like your story could go and how many different ways it could help people. It's really incredible.
- [97:37]
Weston Brandon
I think the. Even if you're not religious, right? The. The silence part is how you get in touch with even who you are.
- [97:46]
Ever
Like, absolutely.
- [97:47]
Weston Brandon
If you don't allow yourself silence to get to know yourself. Like, I think the why so many people feel so lonely, even in the. Our modern world where, like, we're more connected, technically, I guess we're more connected than ever. Like, this podcast is one example social media, you know, all these things that, you know. Like, I was just telling you before this, I. I'd never used Tick Tock. And I just. But people tell, like, you need to start putting some stuff on TikTok. So I'd put a video here, put a video there. It gets like 150 views, 300 views on a really good day. I was like, wow, that one got a thousand views. That one's really good. And then I finally just shared a clip of me speaking to an actual different youth group is actually just a bunch of teenage girls. It was a girls camp that they invited me to come share my story. At and all I did was take the little clip where I had shared just the piece of where I had lost my wife and that little experience and share that. And of course that's emotionally hooking. And then that one blows up. That one's like over a hundred thousand views now, which for me, I'm like, holy crap, right? You know, my whole profile is like 300 views, 200 views, 100 views, and then a hundred thousand views on this one, you know, and so just an example of that. Like I just connected with a hundred thousand different people. But even when you have experiences like that, I think so many people still feel so disconnected from people because they're not connected with themselves. Right? And if you don't have that time to be silent and still and look deeply within yourself, if you can't connect with yourself, then you don't have anything to connect with other people. Right. In my book and, and the framework that I came up with that I teach was when I wrote the book, I was like, there's, there's all these particular items that I feel super passionate about teaching people that or. And really where it came from was when I was both in the sales job and then also in my new job that I had in commercial service stuff was training some of the new employees. And so they would either in the sales thing, I would walk them through and help them and mentor them and stuff, or in the this more blue collar job, they would ride with me to service calls and stuff. And I learned that a lot of times the practical knowledge that we're trying to get them to learn, like for example, in this job, electrical is huge. We have to understand electrical theory and electrical controls because everything runs off of electrical controls. So trying to help them understand how electrical controls work and things, a lot of times it's really hard for them to grasp that because there's a lot of character development that has to happen first for some weird reason that's blocking the learning process for them because they're still so disconnected with themselves. So a lot of the conversations ended up happening would quickly morph from like, you know, training technical knowledge to having conversations where I'm like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make some assumptions real quick about your upbringing. And I want you to tell me if I'm right or not. And so, you know, we're on this three hour car ride to go do the service job. And I'm just telling like, I'm assuming now that I've been seeing you for about a month, your relationship with your dad was something like this or, or your relationship with. With these people or maybe had some of these experiences and this, that and the other. And like 95 out of 100 times I hit the nail on the head because I could see that in some people. And I don't know if that's a gift or just because I've been through kind of the same thing or not, but they're like, holy crap, how do you know that? I'm like you, you in how you talk and how you behave. I can tell. Just maybe not right at first, but because I've been around you a lot, I can see some of these things. Then the conversations start talking into, well, how do we overcome that first? And then we can come back to more of the technical knowledge stuff. So then as I'm writing a book, a lot of that is ended up in the book. And to bring it back to, when I said a framework, I was thinking like, here's all these things that I've learned in, I guess, essentially coaching these guys on life, I guess, like life coaching these dudes that I'm trying to train. And I have a bunch of these things. So I was like, how do I. I communicate all of that in like an easier to communicate way? Like, is there some type of acronym I can come up with or is there some type of friend? Like, what do I do this? So I join again National Speakers association, our local chapter, based off of advice from Chad. And I enroll in what they have, they call their speakers academy. And it's like weekly meetings for a little while where they're helping you structure back end of things and all this kind of stuff. But the very first meeting I go to is like, hey, you're gonna give up, get up in front of all of us for three minutes and give us like a super short version of whatever your keynote speech is. So here we go. And I'm like, I don't even know. I have no clue. I haven't even thought about this. So then one of the other guys there was like, well, well, here, let's, you know, write down or actually let's start typing out all these things that you, that you want to teach, that you want to talk about. And then we'll throw it into chat GPT and see if we can come up with a little system. And so we did that. And it took us like, like 10 or 15 minutes of like, no, that's not quite it. That's not quite it. Like tweaking in doing all this kind of stuff. And I finally spat one out that was pretty close. And it's the acronym is drive. And what it spat out was discovery. I can't remember the first couple of words that when I first talked about it and I've morphed it since then, but now it's discover, resolve, invest, visualize and elevate. And that's the system on how you dive in and basically how you force success into your life the way that you want to. To look, the first thing is you have to be able to make those connections with people, right? And you have to discover things about yourself to be able to do that. And you have to have stillness and quiet time with yourself to be able to do that. And I encourage everybody in the book that I write to work with God to do that, right. And how I was able to do that. And there's so many things that you have to discover. I mean, that could be a 12 sided dice on how many different, you know, areas of life that you have to do some discovery on. But some of the big ones that I talk about is obviously discovering your strengths and weaknesses, but also the strengths and weaknesses that you don't know you have, right? And then discovering in particular what masks you wear based and what I've discovered about myself. And then also the people that I've worked with is that we put these masks on and a lot of times they're to hide the wounds we received when we were younger that we haven't really worked through. And we kind of put on this facade of who. Who we would rather be rather than who we actually are, right? And we have to be able to pull that mask off and be actually authentic and figure out deeper in ourselves who that is, so then we can project actually who we are. And then if you're able to figure out who you are on a much deeper level like that, then you can actually have effective connection with people, right? And then once you've discovered these things, then resolve, obviously you got to resolve some of those, right? And develop strong resolve to keep working on that. You can't just, you know, do it once. This is the drive thing is more of a ever evolving system, right? And once you've discovered and resolved enough now you should be able to, if you really sit in stillness, if you're at a point in life, you're like, what do I do now? Maybe you've lost your job, maybe you lost your spouse like I did, or maybe, you know, had something happen, you're like, what the crap do I do now? If you can discover and resolve enough, Then you get to a point where you can finally hear your soul speaking to you or God speaking to you or whatever you want to call it, of a direction that you're being pulled. And I say, like, Simon Sinek is a pretty famous, like, motivational speaker guy, and his big thing is like, start with your why or find your why, right? And that why, like, find your why kind of thing like that, that makes sense. But it didn't resonate with me a whole lot because especially the time when I had lost my wife, like, my why was in my hand, right? I could hold this little baby, but it still didn't answer the question for me, you know? So I was like, how do you do that? And I realized that the question why, I guess, could be an acronym in and of itself. And that is of a question that you're trying to answer, of what hails you. And in order to actually start picking up the signal of what hails you, you have to remove all of the crap in the way. All of you have to pull the mask off. You have to, you know, do a lot of discover and resolve so that you can start to hear what hails you. And that's really discover what hails you, right? What direction is that? And you're not going to know exactly what direction. Like you were telling me before, like, your podcast took a little bit of a shift even when you first started, right? It very, very rarely goes exactly where you think it's going to go when you first start, but you're never going to know what that is until you start moving towards it and then you start to get a better idea of what that looks like, right? And once you. Once you can actually feel a direction like this is pulling me in this general direction, then it's time to invest in yourself, like, as heavy as you can in whatever direction that is. And it doesn't matter if it's perfect or not, but as long as it's that way, if you go that way, then you're not going to get anywhere. But as long as you're going generally that direction, it's going to work, right? And so when I change careers, I mean, that's basically what I did. I figured out the direction that was hailing me at that point was security for my family. And the avenue that I felt I should do that was through trade school. And I didn't know what job I was going to get, but I said, let's go. Let's go get a student loan and quit this other Job. So I was out of a job for a month or two and just had to make it work, you know, put myself in a do or die scenario scenario and invested in myself. And then the next layer of that framework, I guess, is visualize. And that's. That's how you actually make your investment pay off and make sure that you're still staying within realm of whatever that direction is. Right. Is actually visualize yourself having made it there. And there's some super, super cool things that I've learned since I lost my wife, and a lot of it resonates with me. As I mentioned, we study a lot of electrical stuff in my field of like magnets and electricity and how they're, you know, they all work together. And your mind and your heart produce an electromagnetic field. Like we've been able to measure brain waves for decades and decades. Right. That's not a new thing. We know that that happens. But there's been some studies in more recent years, particularly you could find them if you look up the HeartMath Institute do a lot of studies on this. The electromagnetic field that your heart produces is like thousands of times stronger than the one that your mind does. And there's actually neurons in your heart, not just in your brain. Like neurons that have a lot to do with both memory and emotion are physically in your heart, not just in your brain. And they actually talk to each other.
- [108:18]
Ever
Yeah.
- [108:18]
Weston Brandon
It's not just a one way from your mind controlling your heart. Right. And the biggest problem that I think people have is that their mind does not believe the same things that their heart does. They'll tell theirselves that, you know, I should do this or this. But then in their heart, they don't believe that they can. Right. The way that you can start to fix that is with Visualize. And you actually put yourself mentally as. As vividly, in as much detail as possible, having already met the goal. And then in particular, the way that you get your mind and your heart to believe the same thing and emit basically kind of the same frequency kind of thing is you intentionally feel gratitude for having made it. The. When the HeartMath Institute is doing some of these studies, they found that the most stable and strong electromagnetic field that your body would put out the. The particular mindset or emotion that was present when it was the strongest and most stable was authenticity, and gratitude was close behind it. And they also kind of work hand in hand because it's hard to be grateful if you're not authentic. Right. So if you're thinking like Your, your body. And we can measure it with equipment. Like, it's not just a theory thing. Like, this is measurable stuff where like several feet away, several feet away, you can measure this electromagnetic field in this electromagnetic frequency that's coming off of your body. And when you're feeling conflict or you're feeling doubt and fear, that's when those feelings get. Excuse me. That's when those, the frequencies that your heart and your mind are putting out get distorted and dissonant and they're not stable, right? As a lot of when those feelings are happening. And those. One of the reasons this resonated with me so much is because I had to go in school, we had to dive into a molecular level how energy transfer happens. Because in H Vac, that's really what an H Vac technician is, is just a heat transfer scientist. Because we're taking heat energy from inside your house and we're packaging it and we're pumping it outside and we're spitting it out there, where we don't care if the heat energy is out there, right? We have to understand on a molecular level, how does that work? And it happens through vibration. Because molecules, even in like a solid table or in the air, they're all moving, right? And in solid states of matter, they're even still vibrating. And there's a frequency to that. They all vibrate at the same rate. If things vibrate differently, then they'll all. Then the things that are vibrating at a different frequency will move over to a different area to be with other things that are vibrating at the same frequency. And you can like, you can watch that happen if, like machines like shaking all these marbles and stuff like that, everything will start to align, right? And that literally happens on a molecular level. And that's how energy is transferred through. That's how heat is transferred. So we take heat energy that's traveling through these molecules and vibrating at this certain frequency, and they bump into other molecules. And that's how we transfer the energy into this package. We pump it through little copper tubing in your house. And then we have a big old fan out there, and those molecules bump into the air molecules, heat them up, and then it gets spit outside. That's like really 101. There's refrigeration for you, right? And so as. Because I already understand this when I'm starting to dive deeper into this for, for ourselves, like, is it any wonder that you can walk into a room and without even seeing, and obviously there's going to be a lot of non Verbal communicate, like things that you see in body language, I think. Okay, of course that plays a role into it, but there's a whole other element. People can walk into a room and immediately feel like the energy there. Yeah, right. Like there's a. An argument just happened.
- [111:52]
Ever
Or.
- [111:52]
Weston Brandon
Or maybe it's the complete opposite. Like, this is a really. Like, there's a lot of love here, I feel. You know, you can just feel it. Right. And some people think that's just because the, The. The visual cues you're picking. I'm like, no, it's more than that. Like, there's actual. Like the electromagnetic field that your body produces interacts with other electromagnetic fields of other people. And we know that just because of actual magnets and we can see how those magnetic fields interact with each other. So then you think of that from a personal point of view. And it doesn't even matter if you think of this in a literal sense or a metaphorical sense. Like, the result is the same. When you're visualizing where you. Where you're going and you're putting yourself there. And especially if you're writing down in as much vivid, like you're painting the picture of what it looks like once you're there, then this and this are getting on the same page, right? Your heart and your mind are getting on the same page, and you express gratitude. And then that gets your field of influence, or whatever you want to call it, being as strong and stable for the things that you want and other things that are conducive to, that are attracted to.
- [112:56]
Ever
It's like creating a mind movie.
- [112:57]
Weston Brandon
Exactly. And I believe that God has created this world with a lot of. All of the natural laws are his. Like, he made them, and this is how he built the world to work. And we have an opportunity, as long as he's okay with it, to partner with Him a little bit on creating our own reality. Right. Obviously, if there's a different plan, then he's in control of everything. He can. He can do whatever he's going to do. Right? But I found that if I come up with a plan first and then I pray about it, and I ask God, like, hey, this is what I think I should do. This is what I feel pretty strongly about, and this is the plan that I have to go for it, I would appreciate a confirmation that this is right. But even if I'm. Even if I don't get one, I'm going to go forward with it anyways and just assume that no news is good news. But if I Shouldn't do this, then please tell me as soon as possible. And I found that sometimes he lets me me go down the path a little bit before he makes a correction. Because now I can actually see why that's the wrong way to go instead of just telling me right up front and then always wondering. Yeah, you know what I mean? But other times, there have been times like, no, actually, that shouldn't be right. And then sometimes I get a confirmation right there like, no, that is definitely what you should. That's a good. You should stick with that. And other times I don't get anything. And in those times that I don't get anything, like I said, I assume that's permission to go forward until I receive. Yeah, until I receive correction otherwise. And sometimes it's a while before I do. And so that's what how I approach it. And then the way that I think about it is that visualize and I put myself there and I make that happen. You know, some people call that manifesting or whatever, you know, call it whatever you want, it freaking works. And the last piece of that is elevate. I believe God's purpose is to bring us all back to him at some point, right. And if our success helps him to accomplish that, then I believe he's all for that and that he's going to put in some effort to help you with whatever that looks like, Right. If that, if your purpose helps him accomplish his purposes, then you're kind of more on the same team, right? But I've noticed that the catalyst to making yourself as successful as possible not only is the visualized part that's super huge, but then intentionally elevating as many people as you can along the way as you elevate yourself, right? Elevating your environment, elevating your thoughts and your emotions and your own faith, but also helping other people to do the same, then I don't know what it is about that exactly or how that works, but that just propels you so much faster in reaching your own goals and bringing other people along for the ride. So a lot of sharing my story and coming on here to do that is to try to do that. You know, like, here's this admittedly shitty situation that I've been in, what I did with it from there and now this is what I'm trying to do and try to lift as many people as I can along the way and try to at least be a good example of somebody that has been through a fire and been able to come out of it not feeling Bitter and angry and just resentful towards everything. Because unfortunately, having associated with, you know, widows and widowers is like my circle of people that I know a lot of people in those areas from Facebook groups and other things. There's unfortunately a lot of people in, in those worlds, even five, 10, 15 years down the road are still.
- [116:20]
Ever
They're stuck.
- [116:21]
Weston Brandon
They're stuck. And it breaks my heart and, and talking to other people that are. Have had experiences more like me that put a lot of intentional work into moving forward and healing that it takes work, but it does, does. There's. There's light on the other side of that, but you have to go, you know, God's not going to want it too.
- [116:39]
Ever
You know, like I think, unfortunately, I think the way like our brains, it's easier for us to crave this negativity and, and stay stuck somewhere because that's the emotions that we become so familiar with. And I think that you have to want it for yourself to, to find that light and get. And overcome it. But I think that for a lot of people, because it takes work. They don't. They don't want to deal with it. They don't want to deal with the hard emotions. They don't want to get through it because sometimes it's easier to stay where you are. But that's because they don't. They don't see how good it can be when you conquer it. You get through it and you can. There. There is always light, you know, and there is always a purpose and a reason. And it might not seem like it in those moments, you know, but. But there always is a. There's always a reason. And I wanted to ask you before I forget, what was the cause of death for your wife?
- [117:38]
Weston Brandon
Oh, I don't think I ever mentioned that. Actually. I'm glad you mentioned this. Pulmonary embolism, okay. Which is for anybody that doesn't know, is a blood clot that gets stuck in your lungs.
- [117:48]
Ever
Okay.
- [117:48]
Weston Brandon
She. Two weeks afterwards. It usually. It develops in the deep leg veins down below your knees somewhere. And it did the same for her because again, she's on bed rest for a long time. So immobility just makes your, your blood kind of sit in there more than pumping like it should be from movement. Makes you a little bit more at risk for blood clots. Being pregnant in and of itself makes a little bit more at risk for blood clots. Surgery, traumatic something makes you a higher risk for blood clots. So it's like all these things kind of compound. So they knew that There was a risk of that. And they, at the hospital, they'll have these massager things it can put on your legs, like move your legs around and try to break up the blood. So that doesn't happen. But unfortunately, she just ended up being one of the statistics that. Okay, that got one, you know, and I'm glad you mentioned about the, you know, feeling like they just kind of want to stay there in that, in that stuck mode. But what I've, what I've also learned is that a lot of people, like, they, they want to, but they have no idea how or where. You know, they don't have, I guess, the tools on how to do that, because they don't, they don't. When I tell people that there's a trumpet somewhere way off in the distance calling you to something and they sit there and think, they're like, I don't hear that. And that's a real thing. And the reason that people can't hear that is because there's so much stuff in front of their face that remember the discover and resolve they have to do on themselves that they haven't gotten through the weeds of their own soul to be able to root that out to the point that they can actually pick up on that.
- [119:21]
Ever
And I think a lot of that does start with stillness. I think, I don't think people realize how simple these tools are. And that's like the most, the craziest thing. Because, like, yes, I think, you know, you can read books, you can read, you know, you can do all this research and understanding and, and I think a lot of times reading something or, or hearing this information can be helpful, can help you break it down and understand it. But in the grand scheme of things, I really do think that it's all natural. Like all of these things are very, just natural thing. It's not like some crazy thing you have to do, you know, to achieve this. It's like, and like I said, of course, reading it and understanding it and breaking it down the way that you have is extremely helpful and beneficial. And some people's brains operate in that way where they need to hear that, to understand it, to move forward. But I do think that there, there should be hope for people to know that we all have these tools within ourselves. I think it's just about being ready to discover these things within ourselves and to really put in the work to be the best versions of ourselves and put in the work to conquer the things we've been through, you know, kind of deep dive and, and get through These things that have happened to us in life and to not let them define us. I think a lot of people, too, they think that what has happened to them, it is something they need to identify with. But that's not the case. You know, just because we've gone through things that doesn't define who we are, that doesn't shape our personality, we have the ability to become any version of ourselves that we want to be. And I think, in a way, you know, could that be viewed as a mask at some points, but that's where I think, like you mentioned, as well, as long as you're authentic to yourself, you know, then it's okay. You know, you can want to be and strive to be the best version of yourself. And almost, I think it kind of goes back to what you were saying as well. With the visualization, you can visualize this version of yourself that you want to be and truly become that in an authentic way. You know, at first it might kind of appear as a mask because you're like, I want to be this, but I'm not this yet. But I think in a way it's a really good way to strive to be this version of yourself that you want to be for you and for those around you. You know, the best. The best version of yourself that you can be is. Is the one that puts in that work for yourself. You know, if you are good for yourself, then you're good for others. This episode is brought to you by Rakuten. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of a deal. But are you getting the deal and cash back? Rakuten shoppers, do they get the brands they love, savings and cash back. And you can get it too. Stack sales on top of cash back and feel what it's like to know you're maximizing savings. It's easy to use and you get cash back sent to you through paypal or check. The idea is simple. The brands you love pay Rakuten for sending them shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app or go to rakuten.com to start saving today. It's the most rewarding way to shop. That's R a K u t e n rakuten.com and I think that, you know, once again, you are a prime example of that. I think that you. You display that in so many different ways. And I think it's really important as well that you do kind of have this knowledge. I guess if you want to call it, like, scientific, you know, where you can break it, you can break it down in a way that I think makes people understand it. Where it doesn't have to do with. With, I guess, a religion or anything either, because I think that people can also be turned off by that. They're gonna. They're. They don't agree with it. They're just going to shut down and be like, I don't believe this. I don't agree with it. I don't want to hear it. But at the end of the day, no matter what you want to call it or what term you want to use, it's all the same, you know, and that's something that I've realized. There's so many different books that I've. I've read. Whether it's like these philosophical books or books that are based on religion or books that are based on manifestation, at the end of the day, they all are saying the same thing. So whatever you want to call it, you know, at the end of the day, you have to be in stillness with yourself to find yourself and to be able to hear what's going on around you. You know, I think. And when I say that too, a lot of people don't understand. They might think, like, physically hear it, but sometimes it's hearing things. Like it's what's coming to you. Like, once again, whether you want to call it God, intuition, or whatever, it's very much there. You know, we. We have all of these things, we have all these tools, and it's not these things we need to seek out. It's just, it's within us if we're open to it. And I think more people need to be open to it. And I think once again, you know, besides all of that, the more people that are open and share their stories and their experiences, I think the more people will learn about these things and want to be open with themselves and want to discover the best versions of themselves that are very much possible and out there. And something else I wanted to mention is, you know, I think a lot of times in life we might feel called to do something and we shut it down or turn away from it because we don't have the experience or the knowledge around it. But, you know, I'm not the expert.
- [124:43]
Weston Brandon
On that, so why am I gonna.
- [124:44]
Ever
Right? And you know, like I was saying before, no one's an expert on anything until they do it. And once you do it, and once you do it in your own way, because I don't think there's a blueprint for anything. I think that everyone. You know, you could have five people that do the same job, but they all do it differently, and they all rock at it, you know, in their own way. So I think that there is no such thing as being a professional at anything until you do it and you learn what a professional looks like on your own. You know, you're able to kind of formulate that. And I think, of course, it's great to take different tools from other people that, you know, have the knowledge and experience. You can never have too much knowledge. You can never take too much advice or, you know, anything like that. I think that's great. But at the same time, I think you got to give yourself some credit and be like, you know, I'm going to figure out what works for me and what doesn't. You know, you might do something, go down one path and be like, this just doesn't feel right. Even though that might work for 20 other people, that doesn't mean it's going to work for you. It has to feel right to you. That also goes right back to the authenticity aspect of things like, do what feels right. I think have an open mind, have an open heart, and just follow what feels good. And if it doesn't, don't quit, don't let it stop you. But just like, be open to shifting things around until you find what works for you.
- [126:03]
Weston Brandon
Yeah. And I said the. I guess maybe the more scientific background that I. I share with that, and I talk a lot about that in the book, too. Like, I split the book into three sections. The first, and my intended audience with the book is men.
- [126:16]
Ever
Yeah.
- [126:17]
Weston Brandon
And particularly either young men that are maybe graduating high school asking the same question, what do I do now? Basically, any man that's asking the now what question. Right. Maybe they had the rug pulled out from under them like I did, and they're asking the now what? But in those three sections, Anticipating Men are my audience. I kind of use. And the name of the book is called the overhaul Fixing your mindset and driving success. I should make sure to mention that in case somebody wants to do it. Maybe I'll send you the link.
- [126:41]
Ever
Yes, I was going to say, please send me any links you want, like TikTok book, whatever you have.
- [126:46]
Weston Brandon
We'll make sure.
- [126:46]
Ever
We'll make sure it's all in the description for people in the.
- [126:49]
Weston Brandon
Below the video or whatever. It'll be there so you can find it. Yes, but in the book, I split into Three sections. In the first section, the of I call ignition. And that's where I'm explaining, like kind of more the scientific background perspective that I have on how that stuff works. And that's what I love about it, is because if. If you're super religious and spiritual like I am, this stuff still makes a lot of sense. Or if you're not, it still stuff, this stuff still makes a lot of sense. Like in, in. In the Bible, when in James 1, I think it says where, where he's saying, basically you need to ask in faith, believing that you'll receive nothing wavering and it will be given to you. Like, is that not the same thing as asking? Like, visualizing yourself as having got it there and making your heart and your mind believe the same thing to attract those things to you. Like whether God, like crafts this thing and throws it through the atmosphere to give it to you, or he's given you the tools to. And he's just teaching you how to think to bring it to yourself. Either way, isn't he still answering the prayer in that way? Or if you're not religious, isn't that still just manifestation?
- [127:53]
Ever
Yeah.
- [127:53]
Weston Brandon
Right. Is that. I don't really care how you think about it. That's just how it works.
- [127:58]
Ever
And that's.
- [127:59]
Weston Brandon
You have to. You have to get some things rooted out of yourself and do a lot of hard work in there to be able to do that effectively so that your heart and your mind actually do believe the same things. But once you, once you work through that and you get to that point, then insane things start happening.
- [128:14]
Ever
Absolutely.
- [128:15]
Weston Brandon
The coolest stuff and the right people at the right time come in and, you know, you can say, like, I'm manifesting all these things or God's blessing me with all these things. I think it's a perfect mix of both myself.
- [128:25]
Ever
Yeah.
- [128:26]
Weston Brandon
But, you know, that's why I'm grateful you had me on here.
- [128:30]
Ever
Of course. I love to hear your story.
- [128:32]
Weston Brandon
Making it a point to, to like do coaching with this stuff. Now, like, we're. One thing. My. And I mentioned my mother before, right. That she felt pressured, I guess, or prompted to do this for, for people. She's. We actually formed a company together in LLC just recently. So, like, we don't even have a website for it or anything. I have. My website is westernbrandon.com for like my book and speaking and stuff. But eventually we're building this little, little coaching thing we call the Brandon Institute. That's our last name, Brandon. So we phoned Brandon Institute and What I'm currently trying to put together. This is another thing that just recently I felt pretty strongly prompted to do. And it's freaking me out, honestly. But again, all the right people are coming in to make this work. Obviously, I want to help as many people as I can who are going through experiences similar to me where they had the rug pulled out from under them. They need resources to help, because some of the things that would have helped a ton had I known to look for them or known that they were available or had they been offered to me was things like someone to just sit and go through all the paperwork with me.
- [129:38]
Ever
Yeah.
- [129:39]
Weston Brandon
You know what I mean? Like, all the insurance, all, like, there's so, so, so much paperwork that was so hard to keep track of. And. And then also, like, finances, like, my finances weren't terrible, but I didn't have a lot of things super organized. And then when that stuff goes, like, blows everything up and it's like, if I could have had somebody sit down with me and like, over. I guess if you're going off the name of my book, overhaul my finances kind of thing, you know, and overhaul so many things, and then someone to come in and just clean up my whole house, like, deep clean everything. If I would have paid something, I didn't even think of that.
- [130:11]
Ever
Yeah.
- [130:11]
Weston Brandon
You know, like, yes, there's people that do that, but when you're in it, you don't think about it because your mind is so occupied. So, like, how can we. How can we put together this one big package where we offer, obviously everything that I teach and help people to. To dive into themselves and learn how to do this and figure out what hails them and what direction to invest in themselves. And I've got the guy that actually did my therapy. I was super, super blessed when I got it. He was a neighbor of my parents and owns his own practice. And for the first couple of months, he did it for free. And then I paid him for a little while to continue going. So he's coming in and working with me to be kind of the clinical background. If. If I have people come in that need help with this, like, we're going to be doing retreats for guys to come and, like, dive into that drive framework, like, super deep and get rid of all the distractions and work on that. And then I got another guy that's like a life coach that I actually went to a men's retreat that he was presenting at, and it was phenomenal. That dude's story is crazy insane. Like, I'm gonna tell like you need to go on Devast because. And he's done podcast interviews about it. Like he, he'll tell you for he was a, he's like, I can't remember the words that he used, but when he was given this thing, he's like, I used to be a dirtbag and all this kind of like I had multiple affairs of my wife and I was like, like just a terrible, terrible person and had to go through like recovery for sex addiction and like all this kind of stuff. And his wife's still with him and now they go around and now they're like motivational space and like doing and just their story is so freaking cool. And so he said he's like, yeah, absolutely, I'm in on this to help, you know, maybe come present or help walk guys through this like deep self discovery stuff. And then like the whole home cleaning, like there's a neighbor of mine that just started her whole house cleaning thing. I was like, dude, like I need your help to like throw a value add in for guys that want to jump in on this. So like all of these pieces of things that I wish I would have had, I'm trying to gather and put into one package in addition to like doing these big multi day retreats and, and having all these guys come together and just help like men that have the, that were just like me, that were successful, that had it all together, had the money, had the family, had the world, you know, whatever.
- [132:16]
Ever
Yeah.
- [132:17]
Weston Brandon
And then all of a sudden it all like blows up. If there was one place that they could go, just be like overhaul everything as quickly as possible and fix as much as we can, then that's what I'm trying to put together. Like how can we do as much as possible in a short amount of time as possible and put that all together in one thing. So I don't have it all put together yet, but I started a little Facebook group and I'm like, so like trying to do like some people don't need to go that deep. They just need a little pep talk or something like that. So I'm like in the Facebook group, like maybe we'll do, you know, a couple, maybe a couple times a month. I'll get on there for a couple hours and just like take them through kind of what I did with the boys, you know, take them through the drive thing, have them, you know, have some stillness with themselves and figure some things out. And if that's all they need, then great. Cool. But if there's anybody in There like, dude, like, do you have more? Like, do you have like, is there a coach or something? Like, yeah, we have that and that's what we're trying to build is like basically like put in some tiered things for people that want to dive into it deeper should they feel need to. And so hopefully by the time this podcast publishes, I'll actually have something tangible that I can offer people for that. And it would be, it'd be cool. But that's what we're working on now. The book just came out and hopefully we'll be traveling around sharing this story a lot more in a lot of other places.
- [133:28]
Ever
I love it, seriously. And you did an incredible job. Really.
- [133:31]
Weston Brandon
Thank you.
- [133:32]
Ever
Thank you so much for wanting to come on here. I appreciate it. And you know, like I said, I think I always obviously my platform. I feel like I have a lot of women, but I always love, whenever I get men reaching out, I'm like, bring it on. Come on. Like, because it's like, it's more rare, you know, to hear a man just get vulnerable and open up and kind of share what they've been through and how they felt. And I just think that, you know, even if men, I don't think it's so much even that they are scared to do it at all. I think it's just more so like they might think like, eh, what's the point? You know, like, who's it really gonna help? But it really, it helps so many people and they're, even if they're silent viewers or listeners, there are probably so many people as well that they, you might not get that direct response of like, you saved my life or you helped me, but, but you still did, you know, even if you. And that's, that's I think a really important aspect as well of everything. And I appreciate it so much that you wanted to come on here and like I said, you really did an incredible job. You should be very proud of me yourself.
- [134:33]
Weston Brandon
Thank you. Yeah, men, men don't talk about enough. And I think it's just cuz this, we're not as natural about that. Women seem to be a little bit more community, like emotionally connect with each other. And a lot of men are just like just freaking hardcore, you know, kind of thing. And when, when we finally get into an environment where there's some brotherhood and we can be vulnerable with each other.
- [134:53]
Ever
Safe. Yeah.
- [134:54]
Weston Brandon
And do that, then amazing things happen. Like I mentioned the guy that went and spoke that was at a men's retreat for three days on diving Deep into yourself and like dudes were balling all over the place. And it was when you first show up and people are hugging each other, like people like you go to shake their hand, they're like, no, give me a hug.
- [135:10]
Ever
Yeah. It's incredible to see though, this shift in, in the perspective of things and.
- [135:15]
Weston Brandon
Then they go for a couple days and then by the end of that like we're all freaking, you know, brothers.
- [135:19]
Ever
Yeah, I love it.
- [135:20]
Weston Brandon
Texting each other all the time and stuff.
- [135:21]
Ever
So it's important though, it builds a community and it, it, it's important for people to feel like they have this safe environment if they need it, you know, because it, like we said, the world is so fast paced. I think it's easy to feel like nobody understands, nobody gets me or what's the point of talking about it. But I think that when you find that and you discover that community and that there's actually people that get it and that can relate to you, I think it does just create this incredible experience in so many different aspects. So I think you're doing something incredible for sure.
- [135:52]
Weston Brandon
Thanks. I want to give those guys that retreat that I went to a shout out because they go around to other countries. Their organization is called Warrior Heart. I can't remember if it's like.org or.com. i'll find.
- [136:04]
Ever
I was going to say send any, I'll just send any resources. Anything you want, send it to me and I'll put it all in there.
- [136:09]
Weston Brandon
Yeah, I'm not on staff with them at all. I just went to one of them and I was like, this is freaking changed my life. And now the next one, I'm like, I'm dragging my dad to it.
- [136:17]
Ever
Oh, I love it.
- [136:17]
Weston Brandon
So if there's any men out there, I guess in the spirit of men's mental health awareness that if, if there's some Christian men out there that feel like they've left their heart behind somewhere and need to find it again, those guys, that retreat is. There's nothing better for that. And then the retreats and things that we're going to try to put together on, like the drive thing, that obviously includes some of that, but it's going to go deeper into like investing yourself and actually get traction and start moving and fixing some things. Yeah, that might include financial or career, whatever, then we're going to be putting together something like that. So I'll have links you can click on and you know, it'll be awesome.
- [136:52]
Ever
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. Seriously, I appreciate it.