22: War Veteran & Amputee Cancer Survivor to Javelin Athlete & Author // The Story of Brandi Benson

It was totally insane. I felt like I had lost control. I felt like it was really unfair. And I also felt like, how could cancer happen to me? I've played everything by the rules. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs. You know, I'm a happy person. I'm young, I'm healthy, and I'm like, how did I miss this? How did this happen to me? How did this happen? She's like, you need to change everything. You have to change the your whole perspective on this cancer. You need to change your outlook on it. If you think you're going to die, you're going to die. And I was like, okay, so I totally changed everything. Make a vision board. Find out what it is you want and just focus on that and you'll start seeing that whatever you're focusing on, your avenues will start to present itself and situations, circumstances, and events start to happen that line up with what you're trying to do. It's just amazing. Don't make any permanent decisions off of temporary situations, circumstances, or events. Stay positive.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams, and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here, we cover subjects in business, sports, and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram Account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Hand signals. Trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like, just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcastricilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say, hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastericgilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started with us here today on From Rock Bottom, the Rockin it is wartime veteran, cancer survivor, mental health advocate, author and model Brandi Benson. You can find her book, the Enemy Inside Me on Amazon, which she's going to tell us all about in a moment. Brandi and I were introduced through a mutual friend of ours, Kevin Hines, who was interviewed on episode 14. Remember to check out that episode and share it with your friends and subscribe. And now Brandi and I finally get to connect and chat. Brandi, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. And I know we've been going back and forth a little bit. You making room in your schedule so we can finally talk. I'm really excited.

Well, likewise. You're busy too. And, you know, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. And it wasn't meant to be then and it's meant to be now. So here we are.

I believe in that.

Yeah. And whereabouts are you right now?

I live in Florida. It's Miramar. I think. We're really close to Miami. And it's so hot here. Oh, my gosh. I've never lived in. We're so humid hot. The food is really good. The fruit is always sweet and amazing. It's really ripe, so that's a plus.

That sounds tolerable. But hey, remember, you're talking to a Canadian that just moved to California. So I moved here in winter. There's some sort of. They call it winter here in California. I don't know what it was. I call it middle of summer.

Oh, my gosh. No way.

Yeah, for them it's winter and my friend's here and I'm walking around in my flip flops and my muscle shirt, just sweating. Right. And they got their long sleeve on and their socks and what's going on here?

Yeah, it's a very different climate than way up there versus here. Because it snows a lot in Canada, right?

Oh, that's an understatement.

Wow. I can't do the snow. I lived in Illinois for a little bit and it snowed a lot. I think there was like maybe two good months out of the year that didn't snow and had like sun and it was really warm. But that's just not.

I need like all my original family, like my grandparents and cousins and all them are deep north in Quebec in Canada. And the snow, they get over there, comes up to your roof, it covers your roof. The snow plows are. It's a full on, you know, giant sized dump truck that has a huge plow in the front and does the whole, you know, it's like six, seven, eight feet of snow. You dig a hole down into the shed to get your snowmobile out so you can snowbill up and over and then you can get to work on the snowmobile type. Type of snow. It's a whole different type of snow, right?

Oh, my gosh. That's right.

You got to try it at least once.

Yeah, I do. I want to go there and I want to skate. I've never gone skiing before and I wanted. Or snowboarding something. I'm like a little baby hill.

That's definitely worth doing.

Yes.

You have such a story. I mean, I checked out your book online. I read your bio. I was checking out your website. Anyone that's not been to Brandi's website, just check it out@brandybenson.com and it's a little short. It was about three minute YouTube video right on the homepage. Check it out. It's a powerful story. And let's dive in. In your own words, what happened here? If I understand correctly, you were in Afghanistan, I think in your early 20s. And. Well, I'll let you take it from there. How about that?

Okay, so I was in Iraq.

Not Iraq, okay?

Middle East. I was in the Middle East. So you're correct. It was in 2008. And I had just got deployed to Iraq. I was in Diwania, which is 86 miles south of Baghdad. So it's kind of like far off in the southern region over there. There was nothing out there. We never had anything in our commissary. So our little shops that we'd get like toiletries or food or whatever you want, it run out really fast. It was a small little base. We always had different people coming in and dropping stuff off. It was very small. We had a lot of action. We got bombed all the time. We had mortars coming in. We had. I remember there was some sort of like insertion that was trying to. Somebody was trying to get on the base and they handled it. But we had a lot of action during November all the way up to like the January timeframe.

I mean, that in and of itself. I don't mean to interrupt you, but that in and of itself to me is out of this world for me. And here you are. Okay, so to say that, wow, I was actually.

So it's just like the movie. So you see the movies and there's like a big bomb noise or a big explosion that happens and it's really scary. There's people running around. It's the exact same thing. I remember I was in one of the. I was in the defect at the dining facility area where you. You eat your dinner or whatever the meals are. You're eating. And we got hit with a mortar and everything started shaking, was going crazy. People running all over the place, people were screaming and I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, I can't believe I signed up for the military. You know, I did this to myself and I was just so scared. I was only 24. I didn't really what I was getting myself into. And I had been in the like active regular army at my regular duty station for one month and nine days. So I'm at a basic training straight out of art. This is like schooling for me. Now I'm at my real station for one month, nine days, and I'm getting shipped off to go be deployed to fight for my country. I was so scared. I didn't know what I was doing. I thought, like, I should have more training. You know, I just graduated. Like, I don't know if I'm prepared. So even just initially getting there, I was really nervous about it. I was really scared. I didn't know how I was going to react to like having to do with some sort of firefight if I had to do one. I was just really nervous. But during that time, it was in 2008, during December, I was getting really tired all the time. I thought maybe it was because we were getting bombed all the time and I'm in the middle of a war zone, I'm away from my family, Plausible time. You know, it's all these different emotions going on. So I thought maybe that's why I was so tired, probably, but I was like even more exhausted. Like, I don't just so exhausted. I'm so fatigued. No matter how much I slept, I was just so tired and I just kind of slept it off. And one of the incentives was at this place that I was at my duty station over there was if you aced your pt, which is your physical training test, you get days off. And I was like, oh my God, if I can just get an ace on this test, get a 300, you know, I can get a couple of days of rest. Maybe that will help. It didn't help, you know, that that's not what the case was. So I would go to the gym like three times a day. I was working out a lot. I was really trained really hard because I wanted those days off to sleep. And I felt like it was going to help me. So I was working out, training, training, training. This is in December. January comes around and I'm again training and I'm stretching. I pull my left leg up to my chest and I'm laying on the ground. I pull it to my chest and I see there's like a lump protruding out of my leg. And I'm like, what's that? I played basketball, soccer, softball, ice skating, gymnastics. I swam, I did everything. And I've never had anything just pop out of nowhere, literally popping out of my skin. So I thought it was a reaction. Maybe I killed something. I wasn't sure. So I thought nothing of it. Because I thought people who got cancer were very old. They had really bad habits. They smoke, they drink.

Yeah. It's not going to happen to you, right? Yeah. You're young, you're healthy, you're fit. Right?

Yeah. And then what I think cancer you could have in your leg. Never. I thought I only knew about breast cancer and brain cancer.

Yeah. I never heard of that either.

Right. So these other weird things popping up, it just never made sense. It didn't click at all for me. So I'm stretching, and one of my roommates that's there, or she is there, she suggests that I go get it checked out, that something is wrong. And I'm like, okay, well, if she thinks something's wrong, maybe the doctors will too. And then that means I'll also get more time to sleep. So I was like, I'm going to show the doctor what they call the medics. I'm going to show the medics, and we're going to see what they say. I get to the medic station, I show her my leg, and she looks like she knows that something is wrong. She doesn't want to tell me what it is. They don't tell me it's a tumor. Nothing. They just said, okay, you're on the next flight out to Baghdad. Get your bags packed, get your earplugs, get everything ready. You got to go get a CT scan. I was like, okay. So I go and I do that, get the CT scan, and I'm thinking, I'm coming back. So I asked all of my friends that are around it, because we have such a small club. We don't have food really. We don't have drinks. We don't have anything. So I tell everybody, I'm going to Baghdad. Do you want anything? And everyone's giving me money, so I have a list of stuff that I have to come back with. So I go to Baghdad, and they're counting on you.

You gotta get this stuff for them.

They really want. Somebody wanted Nike shoes, and it was a guy. Somebody wanted to keep top priorities here. Yeah, they wanted everything. Because at the place in Baghdad, it's like, there's a shopping market there. It's called A green zone. So it's safe. You can go shopping, you can buy food, you can get whatever toiletries you need. And there's this abundance of all of that. So I have a list of things I need to come back with. And I'm thinking I'm coming back to. I don't know that this is my last time I'll see everybody ever again. So they gave me the list, they gave me the money. I go to Baghdad, and I'm there, and they do the CT scan. And then the doctor comes in. He says, hey, you know, we highly suggest that you stay here, but you have the option. If you want to go back to Five Echo, it's fine. Or if you want to stay here, you can. But we highly suggest that we take you to Germany. So being here, taking me to Germany. So I was like, oh, my gosh, that's even better. So I tell everybody, I'm going to Germany now. You guys need anything?

And they're like, come back with some sausages.

And, of course, you know, bring me back the chocolate gummy bears. Bring me back this. Okay, sure. So again, I'm just thinking, nothing's wrong with me. I'm so naive. I don't know. I don't know what's really going on in my body. I've never had a tumor. I didn't know anybody who had tumors. I don't think I knew what a tumor was. So I just didn't know.

It's not even denial. It's just complete. You don't know.

I didn't know anything. Like, nothing at all. And then. So I finally get to Germany, and Germany takes a biopsy of it, and they tell me that it's a tumor. First they tell me it's a tumor. Then they take a biopsy, and then they tell me that they hope that it's not Ewing sarcoma cancer. I'm like, what is that? And they're like, we hope the nerve sheets. So they're kind of like, telling me what it could be, what it can't be. So I immediately go back to my room, and I check exactly what these types of cancers are. And one is worse than the other. One is that you can live, and the other one's like, you're going to die. So I'm like, well, I hope I get the one that they want me to have, which is a nerve sheath tumor. We'll see. So they immediately after that, I'm there for maybe, like, a week and a half, Two weeks. We can have two weeks. I'm not sure. A while they send me to Walter Reed, which is in dc, get to DC and they have to do a new biopsy because all the cells died and have to make exactly sure what it is. And so they finally give me a biopsy. They come back with the results, and they say, do youing sarcoma cancer? And all I remember thinking was, oh, my gosh. That's what the doctor said he didn't want me to have. Oh, no. You know, I'm like, I'm now starting to click. Now I know I have cancer. Not only any kind of cancer, but it's really rare. It's really aggressive. A lot of people don't have it. It affects. If it spreads anywhere, it goes to your lung, your spinal cord, and your brain stem. I'm like, you know, thinking, this is it. I'm 24 years old. I haven't even accumulated enough debt for college. Like, I'm not the average person. Like, I'm. I just started my life and I was so depressed, so sad. I was so scared. And I was really upset that I was going to leave my nephew. I was devastated because he was three. My family were really big on soccer and basketball, so I would love to watch him play basketball and go to his games and soccer games. And I was just thinking, I'm never going to be able to see him do anything. I'm not going to be able to watch him play anything, watch him grow up. That really bothered me. Probably more than think that I was gonna die. But, yeah, it was just insane. It was totally insane. I felt like I had lost control. I felt like it was really unfair. And I also felt like, how could cancer happen to me? I've been. I played everything by the rules. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. You know, I'm a happy person. I'm young, I'm healthy. And I'm like, how did I miss this? How did this happen to me?

How long did you get stuck there? Did you blame yourself or did you end up finding. Because, I mean. And maybe you didn't do this. But for me, anyways, when I'm really down on something, when I'm frustrated or sad or something really didn't go right, I'm like, what did I do wrong? Without even thinking about it, I'm looking for something to blame. I'm looking for a reason. I'm looking to understand. And who am I? I'm just one guy in this huge universe. What am I really trying to understand.

Here I thought it was my karma. I was like, know, maybe it's some sort of karmic stuff. Maybe, you know, whatever goes around comes around. But I was like, I literally, I've been a really good person my entire life. I'm not. I'm very ethical. I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to win. I look out for people's feelings. And I was just like, I can't believe this is happening. I must have been a bad person or, what did I do wrong? Is God punishing me? And I just couldn't figure out why it was happening. Now it all makes sense now. Now I totally come full circle. But back, back then, I just couldn't understand why I was going through this, why my family had to go through this. I was going to be the first to die and my mom was going to watch me, you know, wither away. I was really upset, but I thought maybe it was because I had done something that I didn't even know I did. I was like pleading with God. I was telling, like, you know, please let me live. I don't know what I have to do. I don't what sins I've created or what I've done, but I really want to make this right. Please give me a second chance. Let me make this work. But I did. I blamed myself for a long time and I just could not understand why it was happening. What was the whole purpose. But now, now, 11 years later, I got it. I understand.

How long did you stay there in that blaming or that, well, for lack of a better word, that sort of depressed down state about this?

You know, it was not a month, surprisingly. Right. It's kind of fast.

That's actually pretty good. Yeah, congratulations.

It was a month. And so I remember my stepdad had come down. He came with his girlfriend who was now his wife. Her name is Leah. And she was sitting down, she was talking to me, and she said to me, have you ever heard of the Secret? And I was like, no. She's like, have you heard of the book called the Secret? I'm like, I haven't. She's like, have you heard of Law of Attraction? I was like, I don't even know what that is, but whatever it is, like, I want it. Let me read it. Let me have. And she's like, well, whatever you're constantly persistently thinking about is what you're going to bring about. And I'm like, okay. She's like, you need to change everything. You have to change your whole perspective on this. Cancer, you need to change your outlook on it. If you think you're going to die, you're going to die. And I was like, okay. So I totally changed everything. I started being more optimistic. It was in a snap. Just why didn't I think of this before? So whatever I'm constantly thinking of is what's going to happen. So I started making plans for the future. I started talking about how I'm going to watch Donovan play doctor. Right. My mother was also there. She was my non medical attendant. So she literally quit her job, quit everything, left the state that she was in and came and moved in with me in my hospital room out of nowhere. I know she's such a good mom. He's so good. I always felt like you're so amazing. A lot of people probably wouldn't have done that but. Or she says that it was irresponsible of her, but I just feel like it's like a testimony of her love for her child.

Well, you do what you can. I'm thinking. I mean I've never been in your position or in your mom's position, but I'm just imagining what that might be like. And what else do you do, right? You offer support.

Right. Some people would have to stay home and work and be there. But she quit everything, quit a job, left the house. She was staying in the military house because my sister was also deployed at the time. So both of us are gone in Iraq. So she's taking care of my sister. SON diving they came to the hospital, they were there and thank goodness the army allowed them to have a stipend for hotel and food and stuff. So she ended up staying in a little area for relatives. So it all worked out just fine. But she didn't know that was going to happen. So she ended up coming and helping me and she was a really, really strong pillar for me. And I believe when you're going through something so traumatic or even something small that you need a really strong support system. Like she was so strong for me and she always made me feel like everything was going to be okay. And we both learned about the law of attraction during that time. So we both were playing with the ideas about the future and what we're going to do and how when this is over, what you know, how life is going to be and how excited we were for the future. And we would laugh so much. I remember one time we were laughing so much, it was like 4 in the morning, we were like laughing about this journalist who was doing these really strange poses and reporting something, and we ended up reacting it out and stuff. And the nurse came in basically yelling at us and telling us to be quiet because there was other people that were sleeping. It's four in the morning. You guys got to keep it. Like, oh, my gosh, we're so sorry. But it wasn't all terrible.

They were sorry, but not.

Yeah.

So on the subject of Law of Attraction, every morning, including this morning, when I wake up, the very, very first thing I do pretty much every day, I'd say maybe five times a week, because I slack sometimes, but five times a week I wake up, and first thing I do is reach for my journal right beside my bed. And before doing anything at all, anything, the very, very, very first thing is open up the journal and write down three things that I feel very grateful for. And the trick there, though, for me, anyways, is not just writing it. I have to feel it before writing it, right? I have to write what the feeling is. And simple, relatively stupid things like, I'm grateful for having this comfortable pillow. I wake up, I feel refreshed. It's great. Hey, I wouldn't feel this way if the pillow wasn't there. So I'm grateful for the pillow and really just winding it down to the bare basics, you know, every breath we're taking, coming right down into the moment and truly living that moment. And to me, that's just how I start every day. And this is very much connected with Law of Attraction and setting that vibration every day. Do you have, like, a daily thing that you do? Like, what's. How do you engage with Law of.

Attraction every single day? Ever since in 2009, when I learned about it, I literally walk around the house and I talk about all the things I'm grateful for. And I learned this because I watched the show years ago, watched it, and they were talking about a guy who does the same thing when he gets up out of bed. He walks around, he talks about all the things he's grateful for. And so I walk around in my head or out loud, I'll just talk about great, you know, things I'm thankful for. My toothbrush. My toothbrush is a great toothbrush. It's working. It's brushing my teeth. You know, this house that I'm walking around, I'm living in, I have a home, just everything. These dogs that are here that love me so much, like, I'm so appreciative, even though they drive me crazy sometimes with the yapping and the barking. But, you know, I'm so grateful Just to be alive and to enjoy these moments and to have these moments, it's very important, even acknowledge them. Because some people just live life and they don't even like they're just going through the motions. It doesn't mean anything to them. So to acknowledge it, you can get more of it. You can have more of what you're appreciating and be aware of what it is that you're wanting to experience.

I think it's really important people listening to this right now just wanted to talk about this subject before we dive further. And some of the feedback I get sometimes when I'm talking to people about Law of Attraction and they say, oh, this is crazy magical. A bunch of my friends are with NASA and Google and engineers and it's a big leap to go into this mystical woo woo type of a world is how they describe it. And for me it's just normal. It's not weird mystical woo woo. So the conversations have now turned more into the scientific perspective. Okay, well what does this mean when I'm doing this gratitude exercise? When you're walking around and feeling grateful for the toothbrush and for the dogs, what's really happening here on a scientific level? Well, what's happening is we're putting brain focus onto a certain subject and we're taking because of the what hundred thousand different thoughts we have every day which ones are going to get the focus. And the ones that get the focus are the ones that are going to get our brain power. Now if I focus on a math problem, I'll solve it. If I don't focus on the problem, I won't solve it. So if I focus on how angry I am at some guy, then that's what's going to dominate the space that exists in my brain and it's going to trigger a bunch of other emotions and trigger other thoughts and I'm going to look for other things that are similar and draw parallels. Whereas if I'm focusing on how grateful I am for the toothbrush and experiencing that and acknowledging what's going on and what happened in my life to bring me to this place where I have an abundance of stuff and food and friends and family and love, then my brain starts to go in that direction, which naturally leads to more and more thoughts and feelings in that direction. Which if we substitute the word attract for create or substitute the word attract for perceive, then we can start to describe this on a scientific level and harmonize both that sort of mystical, magical aspect with the scientific. And anyways, I just have to throw that in there. I mean, have you thought about some of this type of twist on the explanation? Is that something you've explored a bit?

Oh, yes, of course. And I've also doing research on it too. So I can explain to people who are on this type of wavelength. I just explained it to them that everything is made up, a vibration and things, when they come together, it's because they are attracted to each other. So if you're able to attract, if you're able to think about a certain object or subject, you are attracting certain things that meet with that. So you can manifest and create whatever you like. And so then I also started creating vision boards. And I remember the first one I did was in 2013 and I put a bunch of things down on there. Some stuff was kind of like far fetched. I don't even know if it's going to happen. But in 2016, 17, I started realizing that I had accomplished every single thing on that board. And I was like, oh my gosh, how did I do that? You know, it's like I put this up there. I have goals, I had things I wanted to happen. Like, I ended up getting the car that I wanted. I ended up learning how to do yoga. I mean, they're like small little things, but I ended up doing things. I ended up publishing a book. I ended up owning my own company. I ended up getting a master's degree. And I was like, oh my gosh, these are all the things that I wanted on my list. And I just had it up there for a really long time. But as I was like updating it, I was realizing that as I was taking stuff off, like, oh, I have the car, but it's a different color, but I have the car. I was like, wow, this stuff really works. And so I do it all the time and I tell everybody about it always. I'm like, make a vision board. Find out what it is you want and just focus on that. And you'll start seeing that whatever you're focusing on, your avenues will start to present itself and situations, circumstances and events start to happen that line up with what you're trying to do. It's just amazing. Same thing with Kevin Hines. When I wanted to meet him, it was in 2017 and it was Thanksgiving time and I was telling my mom, I was like, gosh, if I could just meet this guy. And he's like, no, other. I was like, we have very different stories, but we kind of have like the same kind of. There's something there that's Kind of the same. She's like, well, you know, focus on it. Maybe you can get it. So I reached out to him, sent him a message on Instagram, and then he replied. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I was so excited, so happy. And I was like, okay, this is great. But then he never replied. So I was like, oh, my God, he's not replaying. I was like, okay, I had a.

Bit of that, too. Yeah, yeah.

So he didn't reply for a while, and I was like, okay, so maybe we'll wait. And then he had to give me a number. I'm like, okay. He finally gave me the number, and then one day he called me out of nowhere, and he's like, hey, we're going to be in the Atlanta area. Would you like to meet him? I was like, oh, my gosh. And I called my mom. You never guess who I got to meet and who I'm meeting up with. And it all worked out. It was. You put things out there that you want to happen and it happens. And I was like, this is amazing. So from then on, even from when I learned it back in the early or 2009, 10, all the way up to now, I always do it. I have a list of things I want to accomplish. I have goals I want to do long term, short term. I have a vision board, and I just somehow, someplace always works out.

I love that you've dove into that and that you've embraced it, and obviously it's had significantly positive effects with you. And before we dive into your rocking it moments, I mean, I know we want to talk about your book, the Enemy Inside Me. We want to talk about. I'd love to hear about this javelin paralympics that you're training for. And, you know, being a model as well has got to be up there in the rocking it stuff. But just before we dive in there, I think that just, you know, I think you had to have a surgery that removed a muscle. Is that.

Yes.

So if you don't mind, could you share that with listeners? Like, what was that about? What was that like? Like, what was maybe the lowest point there?

Right. So when I got my cancer, it was in my left leg. And it started out probably like the size of this, but when they took it out, it was massive. It was huge. And it's a cancer that spreads or usually spreads, but thank God it didn't spread in my case. So it's a soft tissue cancer, and it's usually adolescent, like, I don't know, like 7, 15, 14, year olds are going to get it. Caucasian boys. So I thought I was in denial for the long time. Just. I don't. That's. I don't fit the profile. But it was the case. So it was in my left leg. And at first, they were going to have to amputee my leg all the way at my hip. And I begged and I begged, and I was like, listen, you know, I'm an athlete. I played soccer my entire life. Like, could you please just spare my leg? I would really appreciate it if you could. If you could. If you can, save my life. And so, of course, they. They couldn't promise anything. And they were telling me that they're going to try to. If they can get clean margins, they're going to let me keep my leg. So I remember waking up from my surgery, and they had this thing called an epidural, and there was a block on my leg. And so when I was touching my leg or trying to move my leg around, I couldn't move anything, and I couldn't feel it. And I was like, oh, my God. They can't. They cut my leg off.

I was like, so wait, wait, you woke up and you didn't. When you wake up, you weren't going to know until after you woke up is that.

I wasn't gonna know until I woke up.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I just caught onto that one right now. Yeah.

Yes. I was not sure what was gonna happen. I was like, okay, I hope.

Holy crap.

I had both my legs when I wake up. So I'm, like, all groggy, and I wake up, and I'm, you know, tired, and I can't feel my leg, and nothing's there, and I'm like. So I look down, and then I see. Okay, it's there. It's just. I can feel it. I know. So they ended up removing my entire adductor muscle. And that's the muscle that, when you're, like, running, it allows you to keep your leg in. So if you're laying back on your. On your back. So sorry, again, laying on your back. And you would do, like, flutter kicks or the scissors. When your leg goes out, you need a muscle to bring it back in, so that muscle that brings it in is gone. So when I lay down and do flutter kicks, my leg just goes all the way out, and I can't bring it back in unless I move with my hand. That muscle is huge. It's a massive muscle. They took about six pounds out, and they took the entire adductor, all three compartments up. So they took that out and I had to learn how to walk again, how to learn how to run again. You have to learn how to deal with this whole new person. Because the old person that I was fighting for, for this life, you know, that person was gone. That person was dead. You know, this was a whole new brand. You had to learn, what did I like now? What do I like to do? What am I great at? What can I do? What are my limitations? Like, I had no idea. So I had to learn how to walk again. Running, of course. And running. Even now, it's still really hard because I don't have the strength or the momentum because it lags really bad. It's really. So I can't like, sprint or run or do any quick agility anymore. Playing sports is definitely out, but doing the javelin is something that I'm able to do now. And yes, I have a trainer who's training me. He was a hope Olympic. So we picked a sport that I would be great at or do. Do my best at because I needed something that was not lower body extremities. I needed something that was more upper body. So we started training for the Paralympics for this year, but everything got canceled until next year. So.

Yeah, well, that's. Yeah, there's. There's Covid for you. I mean, this is gonna. This is affecting everything for a long time. Who knows how long? Anyways, it's. It's tough not to dive in and talk about that more, but, you know, and maybe let's. Let's give it like two minutes maybe. Because it's hard not to. I mean.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, so everything's canceled. Basically. You're saying everything. Yeah. And there's no way to know when that's gonna change. And it's like, I think it's responsible to cancel everything at the moment. What do you think? Are you of the. Which. What sort of opinion? I mean, because Florida. I see a lot of videos circulating in Florida. You're cringing. You know where I'm going with this. And which side of the fence are you on here? You know, I'm on the side of.

The fence that you. I stay in the house. That's what I'm on.

All right, that's clear.

I don't go out much. I don't. I don't do any of that stuff. There's nowhere to go, really. And I don't want to get sick. And my immune system already really low. So I remember doing a couple of different times. Different times for us to do this Interview. The first one, I was sick because I had, like, a really bad sinus infection. And when I went to the doctors, they said my immune system or something was at, like, a 2.3, which is, like, really low, really low. So they were like, listen, you need to stay in house. You know, your immune system is really. You're really susceptible to getting sick. You have to be careful. So just in general, my immune system is so low that someone sneezes on me. Like, I get sick, so I have to be very, very careful. And it's because of the cancer that I had. It depleted, depleted my entire system, like, everything. I have hot flashes, you know, which is. Everything changed. I have to be really careful with stuff like this, so I just stay in the house. And it hasn't been bad. You know, I'm a homebody, so it's okay. I'm safe. Yes, that's for sure.

Well, right when we come back from this short little break, I want to ask you and hear about your Rockin it moments. So we're gonna take a little break here. And we're here on Rock Bottom, the Rockin It. Anyone listening, please remember to share the show and subscribe. And right back in two minutes. Eric here. I hope you're enjoying the episode today. This is a passion project that I put together. I really wanted to do this. I really want to help people out there. I had so many people reach out to me when I was younger and when I was having a tough time and struggling. I've written a book about it. You can check it out on my website. Please do. But most importantly, reach out to me. Give me some feedback. What could I do better with this podcast? What am I doing that I should stop? What am I not doing that I should do? Tell me your experience. Give me some tips and suggestions. I really want to design this to suit your needs, and all you got to do is send me an email. It's ericericgilbertwilliams.com or use the contact me button that you'll find on my website. Just send me an email. We'll have a phone call or we'll chat online. Doesn't really matter. I would love to hear from you and figure out how to make this show even better with your help. So please reach out and don't be shy. All right, we're back now here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it with Brandy Benson. Brandy, thank you so much for having the courage to share your show. You're just a ball of positive energy. You know everything about you resonates in a positive way. Right. So that's such an accomplishment in and of itself. Now, that being said, what is your rockin it moment? I mean, I could. I'm guessing, but. And I don't want to guess, actually, I want to hear it in your words. Of all this stuff here. I mean, I mean, you survived some extreme circumstances in the war. You know, you're really close to your family, you survived cancer, you're out there training for javelin, and you have a whole extra year, not a train before you compete. And like, and, and. And then you have your book. So what is your rocking it moment in life here when you knew that you were at the top and you're like. Because you've had all these lows. Right. What was the moment where you look back and you're like, this is the moment where I feel like I was totally synchronized with life and it was one of my best memories right now.

Things are all coming together. Everything just. All my hard work, all my being diligent to what my branding I'm doing right now, the individuals I'm creating with, and we're collaborating with different projects and working on different projects with really big companies. Right now, I can't really say because I signed a contract, but I think right now is, like, things are really starting to flower. And I'm saying, okay, this is why I met this person. This is why I went through this. And I see why now I had cancer because I have to share my story with everybody about facing adversity. And so my signature topic is overcoming the enemy inside you. And the enemy is adversity. So adversity could be anything. Big, small, you know, major, trivial, doesn't matter. Whatever this adversity is, that's not allowing you to be the elite version of yourself or be the best version of yourself. And how you. You have to overcome that and understand that. And so now, living through everything and understanding everything, like, I'm living truly what I talk about and what my platform is. And it's just now, now, this year, things are just starting to mesh together and come together. So I think right now I'm rocking it. I'm doing a really good job this year.

I'm really happy for you. That's awesome.

Yeah. Even though 2020 hasn't been all that great to some people, like, major doors are opening up and I'm getting a lot of speaking engagements coming through, even though we're going to be on, you know, social, not social media, via Zoom, and they're not going to be in person. But these are things that I have been striving for and, you know, daydreaming about and envisioning and dreaming about. And they're all coming together, meeting Kevin and doing some events with him, Bristol Myers Squibb. And I might be doing some stuff with the cdc. Like, really large things are happening, and I'm just.

And now you're on rock bottom of the rocket. I mean, what else could you ask for?

Yeah, everything's happening perfectly. And I'm like, this is why I got sick, you know, and, well, maybe that's not why, you know, But I see what I can do now that I have this or had it. What can I do with this? And how can I help other people? And so I've built this platform that's allowing me to share my story with other people and let them know, even though they're facing adversity or an enemy inside them, that you can beat it, that there is life on the other side, that you don't have to be a victim twice. And this is what I mean by this. I tell people this all the time. So you can be a victim to the diagnosis, right? Sometimes we can't really do anything about having cancer, but you don't have to be a victim to the prognosis. You don't have to submit to what statistics say that's gonna happen to you. And that's what I did for myself. I don't remember what the moment in time was, but I told myself that I'm going to live. I'm not going to be statistic, I'm not going to die. And I'm going to create a book and I'm going to tell my story someday. And that's exactly what happened.

Wow. I mean, that's really great. When I think about the process that you have to go through to heal and recover from this, it reminds me and what you were saying as well. One of the mottos in life that I live by is that I can't control what happens to me all the time. I can't control what happens to me, but I can definitely 100% control what to do about it.

Right.

Is that kind of what you're talking about here?

Yes, exactly. You are in charge of your emotions. Like you said, you can't control what it is that's happening, but you can control how you react to it. You know, you can control what you're eating, what you're consuming, what's going on in your. In your little life that you're Able to control. You have control over that. You don't have to be submissive and just give. Throw in the towel and just give up. You don't have to do that. We have the choice. We have the option to do something else. And I think that's something that we all need to explore. And we all need to understand that we're our own superhero. We don't need to look elsewhere for somebody else to give us inspiration, because we have everything we need right here to be the best that we can be.

Now, the title of your book, the Enemy Inside Me, when I first read that, I thought, oh, she's talking about the cancer. But then I thought, well, maybe not. Maybe you're talking about your attitude and your mental state. And now you're talking about Law of Attraction. And I'm thinking, well, maybe you're talking more about an energy state. And. And now I'm not even sure at all. So what does the title mean?

All right. The Enemy Inside is just that voice that's inside you that won't allow you to prevail or do amazing things or that's holding you back. It's something in you that's not allowing you to be the best version of yourself. And for me, it was cancer. For somebody else, it might be alcohol or drug addiction or it might be some sort of trauma being a child or something. Just something that's not allowing you to be the best you. It's the enemy inside of you that's hindering you. So that's what the Enemy Inside Me means.

And how long did it take you to write and publish?

So it originally started out as a journal. So from February to the end of November, time frame when I was in the hospital. And I created it because in the very beginning, I thought I was going to die. I thought I was in a die, but I was. My nephew was not going to be able to know me. He wouldn't know anything. I'd just be some sort of memory told. So I created these journals about what I was doing, what I was going through, how him and I were interacting. So it was mainly for him, and I wanted to leave him something. So the event I did die, that he had something of me. And I really thought that was really important because I didn't think he'd remember years later who I was and what happened at the age of two or three, however old he was. So it really started out as a journal. And then after the journal happened, I kind of was realizing as I'm journaling these next Few months that I'm not gonna die. I'm not gonna give up. I'm not gonna listen to what the doctors are telling me according to, like, statistics. Like, they just didn't know if I was gonna make it or not. They. Everyone thought I was going to die. I used to have the priests come into my. Into my room, and he would come in there so many times and he'd pray over me. And he came in because everyone thought I was gonna die. They literally thought I was gonna die. He used to come in with this huge, huge crucifix. And he hung it up on top of my bed. It was so huge. It was heavy. It was huge, huge cross hanging up on my bed. And he would just come in and pray. The doctors would come in, the nurse would come in, the other assistants would come in and make sure everything I had on my. All my will was up to date, all my fares were in order. Everyone was writing me. So I was like, if I don't die, then I'm going to have this book and I'm going to create. I'm going to take a journal. I'm going to create a book. That's my promise to myself. So when I got out of the military, or I got out of the hospital, then get out of the military, it was my chance to kind of, like, fulfill this. So I'm thinking, where am I going to go to school and need to get a master's degree, and what am I going to write? What's my thesis going to be on? Or what's my dissertation? What am I going to do? So I thought, okay, I have these journals, and when I get to a school, I'm just going to work on these journals and make a book, like, secretly. So that's what I did. So every assignment I did was always something out of my journal. And it was about 200 pages or so. After everything is all finished and done, I, you know, I present my thesis. And it's my book. It's my actual book. But I had they edit it. They go through. They gave me feedback. They, you know, told me what was working, what wasn't working. Develop this character. Do some foreshadowing over here. Be more descriptive here. So I would take all of the notes and just, you know, fix everything, tweak everything. And when I thought it was good enough to publish, I submitted it and I published it. So it took about almost 10 years. But I wrote. I wrote it in about nine months.

When you're writing a book, right, it's A very emotional process, and it takes a lot of time. And I know that one of the things that I saw when I was basically researching you online is this theme of having something to live for. And I know that you mentioned that a few times in writing, and I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that and if that's what this journal in this book was for you or if that was something different.

Okay. So when I was going through my treatment, I needed lots of different things to look for. One of them was my nephew, of course, living for him. So see him grow up. I think that's extremely important. But I also did something, like, really crazy. This is what I did. So there was a car that was on TV, and it was a Chrysler 300 at the time, and my mother was there. And I remember we were, like, sitting in the bed and we're laying there. I was in the hospital room and I was talking to her, and I turned around, I said, I want that car. She's like, you won't. I want that car. She's like, well, let's go get it. We literally got up out of the hospital, drove all the way down to. It's in Silver Springs, Maryland. Drove all the way down there at a price. I had a Mitsubishi small little Eclipse at the time, drove all the way down there, and I went there and I talked to the saleswoman, and I had to talk her in to give me the car. And I told her that I needed this car because I need something to look forward to every day. I need to make payments. I need. This is what I'm going to be looking for. Not only my nephew, of course, but I need something else that's drive me to not want to give up. And so I ended up talking her into letting me have this car. She didn't want to. She ended up bringing a couple different managers in. And, you know, I looked really sick. I looked really pale. Didn't I look really ill? And my mom's just saying, just like, give her the car. You know, she wants the car. Make her give her the sale. They probably thought it was unethical because I looked so horrible and so ill and like, look like I might not make it to the next payment. But they ended up selling me the car. Yeah, they end up selling me the car. And I just talked her into it. I said, I need this car so I can have something to live for. This is my new excitement, you know, I need to wake up every day knowing I have something to live for. I'm living for making these payments. So when I say have something to live for, find something in your life, even though you're going through some hard adversity, you have to find something that drives passion in you, that makes you feel like tomorrow is worth getting up. And for me, it was my nephew. It was my family. It was not giving up on myself. It was the car that I bought. So those were the different things at that time that I was doing. And now it's just be able to help as many people as possible. I want to tell my story, and hopefully they can find some sort of inspiration in it and feel like they, too, have that amazing power and fire in themselves. To continue to push.

I remember was probably. What was it? 2015, I suppose. And one of my companies back then was in a really difficult spot, and I thought for sure it was going under. We had about two weeks of Runway left before I couldn't make payments on payroll for all my team. And there was about 45 of them at the time. And. And, you know, this team. I mean, a bunch of them are still some of my best friends to this day. So it's not just. I mean, if it was a. If it was a team that I never saw and just, you know, kind of employees, I would still feel horrible, and it was still really important. It doesn't change anything. But add the fact that it's one of my best friends and I can't pay them anymore was a whole different level. And, you know, I'd built that company up for many years. And, yeah, it was going under.

It was.

Was over. And I was having extreme anxiety. I was stressed. I was depressed. I couldn't sleep, and it was just a negative spiral. And I remember finding that if I just focused explicitly on what I can do today to increase the odds of us getting through and if I focus just on today, then I ended up finding that the next day, I could do it again. The next day I could focus. Focus on what can I do this day? And next thing you know, a week went by, and two weeks went by, and all of a sudden, we sold a couple extra jobs out of nowhere. And, okay, well, now we got an extra two weeks of Runway before we go under. Well, it still sucks, but we're two weeks further than we thought. And at the end of the day, I ended up stumbling across a really big contract that we closed and sold on. And it ended up being the most profitable year with the highest revenue, with the happiest team that we'd ever had. And it just. But If I had have gotten stuck in this headspace of it's not going to work, if, like, there was no reason to continue, like there was nothing left that made sense to say that the odds were going to be. This is like, you know, Spock talking to Captain Kirk, right? And he's like, you know, the odds of success, Jim, are 0.001%. And Jim's like, oh, don't worry, it'd be fine. Right? And what I'm getting at is, to me, I feel like when we focus on just today, you know, what can I do today? Anyone listening to this right now, what can you do today that's going to be the best effort and the best that you could do with the resources that you do have? Forget about the ones you don't. What resources do you have today? What could you do today that makes the best use of these 24 hours, that helps you get out of this, whatever it is that you're in, and do the same thing tomorrow. Don't think about too far in the future and don't dwell in the past. Just get in the moment and own it. This is your moment, right?

Because you can change anything at any given time, anytime. And then when people are so upset about the past and what's happening, those are past events. You don't have to carry those situations into the future. You don't have to project it into your future. You have that choice. You have that option to let that go, and you can start new and present it new and have a new brand or new whatever, like new options, new choices, new situations. You don't have to bring all that baggage to the front. You don't have to do that. People don't understand that. That's one thing that drives me crazy with some people, like, oh, well, you know, I'm just not good at it. And no, I wasn't good at it before. It's like, well, you can be great now. You can do a better job.

Yeah, this is your time.

Yeah, that doesn't matter what happened then. It's, what are you doing right now to fix that? What did you learn? How can you implement that into your life now? Those tools, resources and.

So what sort of stuff are you up to now? And how could. How could I help you? Or how could someone listening here help you? Obviously, we want people, everyone, just to check out the. Check out your book on Amazon. It's easy to buy. Anyone can do that, check it out. But what are you up to now? And how can I, or other people help You.

So I do speak and engagements all around the world. I do stuff on mental health. I do things on. I have to find the whole rollout roster of what it is, but I do lots of speaking engagements about overcoming the enemy inside you mental health, and using new resources to help decline any of those emotions that you're feeling with that. I wrote a book called the Envy Inside Me. You can find it on my website@brandylbenson.com or on Amazon. Yeah, I'm doing the javelin and I'm doing a couple.

You're gonna tell me when that's. I want to hear about this as you're going on. Right. We're. Keep in touch, I hope.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

For sure.

It's gonna be really great. I'm doing really well at it. I didn't. I pick up things like. Like, I've always been really physically active, and I am really good at. I've just been, like an athlete my entire life. I played on varsity teams since I was like, 12 and a half years old. I'm really good at learning just the whole dynamic of movement and catching things and catching on to stuff. So I was really good at that. So throwing the javelin, I've surprisingly done very well because I never didn't even know what it was at first, but my trainer had introduced me into it, and I'm doing pretty good. There's nothing to train for right now because you just don't know it's coming open again. But I look forward to doing it. I was really excited. My goal was to, of course, get the javelin make it. I wanted to classify. I was like, I don't even care if I get number one. I just want to get in there. I just want to be there. I want to compete, and if I win, I win. That'd be great. Maybe next year I'll come back. There'll be a different goal of mine. And my trainer was like, no, no, no, no. If we get there, you're winning. He's like, I don't train losers.

I was like, I don't train losers. I love it.

Yeah. He's like, I train nothing but winners. I was like, oh, my gosh. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. This is different. Okay.

All right. I have a hobbyist. I love salsa dancing. And as a hobby, I trained and competed for a while and traveled around North America, and it was. It was great. And. And, you know, me and my partner, we won some really cool events. Came first place, and we also lost some really cool events. That sucks. And one of the things I learned to appreciate in the training for a sport that such a short time span, like we're on stage, we're training for an entire year, weeks, non stop, hours and hours and hours to have our 1 minute and 50 seconds on stage. And, you know, you're training all this time to throw that javelin. Right. And a friend of mine is a pole vaulter and, you know, I'm learning just how important those, those little millimeters are and the tiny little decisions, like in dance, like, you know, point that finger and that toe just a little more. Keep pushing it, keep pointing it. Like, what do you mean? But no, that's, that's the difference between winning and losing.

It's in the details that matter.

The tiny details.

That's the sweet spot. That right there makes a big difference. That makes you either amazing or great or even better. You know, it's like you can be good or you can be great. And you got to get those little details that are going to separate everything and make you stand out. It's important to know that because that's important. Even like you were saying pointing your finger in your toe with the javelin. I was throwing it the wrong way for like a little while. I wasn't quite sure, but now I know that it's just a long process. You know, it's a whole technique of how you have to throw this.

Yeah. And I just really, I really appreciate how minute the details get and how much of a laser focus there is on, you know, perfecting, for lack of a better word, these. The movement behind, you know, things that we would normally take for granted. Oh, we're just throwing a stick. No, no, no, it's not that at all.

It's a spear.

Yeah, yeah. It's an art. It's an art form.

I would have never known. I thought you just, you know, you do a little trot and you throw, but there's like a whole. You have to twist your hips, you got to throw your arm, you have to arch your back. This is like the most uncomfortable arch, but you have to go way back and you have to just throw it and your elbow has to pop up. Like, it's a bunch of different stuff. I'm like, my God, I would have never known. But now that I'm researching it and I'm doing like you have, if you want to be serious and you want to win and I don't want to make a fool of myself, then I have to do it.

So I'm doing it now, Randy, just as we wrap up here. I feel like I have to talk a little bit about Black Lives Matter and what's going on out in the world, specifically here in the United States. Do you mind if I dive into that for just a second? Okay. And the short story and then a question. Right. So when I was little, my mom was best friends with this lady who adopted a child. And she was a very black woman. And her and I were absolute, like inseparable best friends, you know, my entire childhood, probably from, I don't know, age 4 to maybe age 11 or something like that. And we grew apart. We keep in touch, but I mean, life happens and whatever, so. But we were best friends forever. And I remember one day she gave me this little, you know, button, and she wanted me to put this button on my coat. And the coat said, the button said, stop racism. And I said, hey, well, you know, of course I'll wear it if you want me to. Sure. So I wore it. But I didn't understand what racism was. Right. I'd never seen it. I never experienced it. Her mom was, you know, just a Caucasian lady and adopted, you know, black girl, for lack of a better word. And like there just was. And at school, I never saw race. I mean, I got bullied and beat up and got my ass kicked. And I was, you know, it was a very bad, like, school was horrible. Like, I ran away from home and left school when I was 16 and never went back. And it was. Yeah, school was a horrible experience. Yeah. You're talking about a high school dropout, by the way. And when everyone's got a story, right?

Yeah. Wow.

But one thing that I never experienced was racism until I think I was 17, I had left home, I was living in a drug house and I got in a lot of trouble. And one of the guys there. Yeah, I know, it's a book of my own coming out. I don't know, but I'm living there. And one of the guys that was renting because we were in this little tiny room, five foot five ceilings, and there's a whole bunch of us stuck in there and we made the best of it, actually. It was fun at the time, but there was someone that lived above us and you know, he was. He was one of the most racist Biggins that I've ever met in my entire life to this day. Right. And. And literally he was training his like 9 year old son on. On just that type of behavior. I don't even want to. I don't even want to tell you because I don't want to tell anyone. I don't. I don't remember. Was horrible. And. And that was the first time that I saw racism. And when I came to the United States here. I mean, I'm sorting out my immigration right now, and it's complicated because of COVID But when I. When I got here and. And saw the riots and saw what was happening, it. It changed. It became real. It was no longer literally in my mind. What. What happens every day in America was just in Hollywood for me because it was never in my immediate surround. It's like war. I've never been exposed. Exposed to. To war in any capacity. Maybe it's a Canadian thing, I don't know. But coming here, I see now that this is so real, so much more real than I ever gave credit to. And now that I see that it's real, first of all, I'm really confused. I don't understand, you know, why this even exists. I don't. And second, I'm like, okay, well, how do we change this? And, you know, some people just seem to be in a mindset where, like, this guy that I was. That was living above me when I was a kid, there's nothing I can do to change this guy's mind. It's not going to happen. You know, I mean, I hope that it happens, but I have no idea what to do about it. What, like, what do we do about this? You know what I mean? Like, how. What do we do as a race? I mean, we're all human here, and we're all trying to live and do well. How do we move beyond this? That's a big subject.

I think it really starts with just changing the entire dynamic of. Of having equal opportunities for everybody. Because the people that live in the inner city don't have the same grocery stores or the same stores or the same education or the same of anything. Because I think it's called, like, a red border or redlining or something like that. But, like, once you. You could grow up in, like, the same two. Two kids, same city, but one lives in the suburbs and the other one lives in, like, the inner city. But they can be in the same city, but there's. They have this section, it's called the red line or something, a red board or something like that. That doesn't allow these people to get access to that education or to get access to these better grocery stores or areas that are. That are not as infested with disease or poverty and stuff. So I think it's really. You got to start with, like, the whole infrastructure of things just making things equal for everybody, getting rid of those boundaries definitely would definitely help because some people just say that they'll be like, well, you know, they have the same opportunities as we have. Pretending I'm white. And it's no, we, as black people, we don't have the same opportunity because we don't have the same schools that you're able to. That you're able to get into, or we don't have the same facilities and recreational parks and stuff that you guys. That they have because of the zoning that they have in there. So taking that off and giving everybody an equal opportunity to be better, to have better, to see better, would be just great. So I think starting there would be amazing. And then those people that do say that they don't acknowledge, like, they don't see black and stuff, or they don't see racism, it's like, that's impossible. So also, like, taking credibility, like, yes, we see that this is something that's happening, and then don't teach their kids those terrible things and let them get away with certain stuff. I don't know. For me, I just feel like it starts with infrastructure of just the entire landscape of the United States. Getting rid of those things that make things unequal, like living in the city, in the suburbs, and having these two different dynamics, but they live in the totally same little area. Changing that and giving everybody the same opportunities, really, really, really help. Really help.

And I think it might be a stretch, but I feel like the subject of. What's that?

I said, yeah, that's a huge stretch.

Yeah. Well, what I mean is the title of your book is the Enemy Inside Me. And I feel like there's. I mean, anyone listening to this. This. It's healthy to take a step back and ask, you know, what is the enemy inside you? What's going on inside you that's corrosive. Is it an attitude towards a culture or a race or yourself? Is it a memory from your childhood of something that happened, or is it a fear about something that's going in the future? What is your enemy? This is my question for everyone listening right now. What is the enemy inside you, and are you even aware of it, and are you ready to take it on?

Right. That's a good question.

Randy, I really appreciate having you here. Is there any final words you wanted to share with people that are listening right now?

Yes. Don't make any permanent decisions off of temporary situations, circumstances, or events. Stay positive.

Stay positive. Well, everyone listening. Thanks for being here. On from Rock Bottom the Rocket. Remember to check out Brandi's website, buy her book, buy a copy of for your friends Share this episode Remember to subscribe and give me a six star rating out of five. Those are my favorite and check us out again next week. So to everyone out there, just keep rocking it and we'll talk to you next time. And that's it my friends for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to to hear from you. Also please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter, just get it out there. I really appreciate it and we'll see you next time on From a Rock Bottom to Rockin it. Have a Rockin it day.