Embracing Pain to Avoid Suffering

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already if you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to yinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

So today we're going to be talking about the why of Make Sense to make sense of the complex and challenging. So if this is your why you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information, observe situations and circumstances around you and sort through them to create order. You consider factors, problems, concepts and concepts and organize them into solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. It's not even that you enjoy problem solving necessarily. You simply can't help yourself. It is the lens through which you view the world.

Interestingly, it is not necessary for you to share your solutions on a continuous basis. It's sufficient that you yourself have solved the problem or resolved the complexity of the situation. Often you are viewed as an expert because of your uncanny ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating a solution and summarizing it clearly in understandable language for your own benefit and the benefit of others. You believe that many people are stuck and if they could just make sense out of their situation, they could find a simple solution and move forward. You help them understand and see their way through this. And so today I got a perfect example of this. I got a great guest for you. His name is Brian Bogart. He is a human behavior and performance coach who teaches clients to leverage self awareness and intentionality to become the most authentic version of themselves and who they are. Brian helps executives, entrepreneurs, athletes and growth minded individuals learn this transformation approach that cultivates perspective, motivation and direction to help them align their life with their true purpose and defy their own expectations. He teaches not just to accept change, but to embrace pain in order to avoid suffering. Brian, welcome to the podcast.

I'm happy to be here, Gary.

Well, that's a mouthful and I messed it up a little bit in there, but it sounds like you are the perfect example of somebody whose why is make sense.

You know, it made sense when I got the result. So it was definitely one of those things that wasn't an over oversurprise for me. Actually, the way it described it, that's, that's part of my brand. That's part of what I'm, what I'm known for is just how you describe the description. It's seeing complex stuff, looking for solutions, and whether I like it or not, I can't help myself, so.

Exactly. Can't turn it off.

Right. And you didn't choose it.

It's just the way it is.

It's just how I see the world and that's how my, my brain filters whatever comes in. So I, you know, it is what it is. I've learned to leverage that as a gift though. And that's a lot of what I do with a lot of my clients today.

That's awesome. So take us through, Give us the three minute version of your life. Where'd you grow up? Where'd you go to school? How'd you get into what you're doing now?

Yeah, so I was born in Phoenix, lived in California for a little bit, then I lived in Australia and England Both for about 18 months. When I got back into the States, we moved back to Arizona where I was born. I'm going to brush over this really quickly, but right after we moved back, I was actually run over by a truck and my left arm was completely severed from my body, so it was reattached. I've had 24 surgeries. When I was run over, my spleen was torn, Tire tracks are on my stomach. Years of surgeries, recovery, a whole lot of things that went into that. And it taught me a couple of pretty critical concepts. One, I learned not to get stuck by what had happened to me, but get moved by what I could do with it. And two, I learned to embrace pain, to avoid suffering. So it's the same concept that I use to not only overcome this unique injury, but how my business partners and I built our last business in risk management, employee benefits consulting, from a quarter million to over 15 million in the span of a decade. And now how I flip that on its head as a human behavior and performance coach to help everyone, hundreds of people just like you, just like the listeners, become more aware, more intentional in who they already are their most authentic selves. And you know, I've done this in the community, I've done this through my philanthropic work. And I just have like a deeply ingrained desire to change lives. I'm on a mission right now to impact a billion lives. And I know that's a shared mission that we have through different lenses. And the reason I think that's relevant is I think a lot of the pain and the suffering that I've endured in my life, plus the way I can process it to help people really understand their blocks, their emotional triggers, their behavioral patterns, we'll be able to reduce the amount of suffering in the world so that joy, freedom and fulfillment can finally come back in.

Well, I love it. So I know you brushed over it. Are you comfortable talking about what happened with the truck?

Oh, of course. It's a big part of my story.

So tell us what happened.

So my mom, my brother and I went to our local Walmart to get a 1 inch paintbrush. We were walking out to our car and I got there first. This was back in the day before key fob. So I was standing there waiting for my mom to literally get up and put the key in the door to unlock it. And while I was waiting, a truck pulled up in front of the store. Driver in the middle, passenger get out, and the passenger all the way to the right feels the truck moving backwards. So he did what any one of us would do. He moved over to put his foot on the brake, but he instead hit the gas. And the combination of shock and force threw him up onto the steering wheel, up onto the dashboard, and before you know it, he's catapulting across the parking lot 40 miles an hour right at us. Now we're right in the in an end spot. So we went up and over the median, cleared the tree in the median, hit our car, knocked me over, ran over me diagonally like I said, tore my spleen, tire trickster on my stomach and severed my left arm. Mom and brother watched the whole thing. I'm laying there on the asphalt on 115 degree day in August in Phoenix, and my arm is 10ft away. And my guardian angel watched the same thing, watched it happen as well. She walked out of the Walmart, saw the life and limb scenario in front of her and rushed immediately into action. So she stopped the bleeding at the main wound and saved my life. And she instructed some innocent bystanders to run inside, grab a cooler, fill it with ice and put my arm on ice within minutes. She also saved My arm. Had she not done one or both of those things, Gary, I either wouldn't be here with you today or I'd be here with a cleaned up stump and no arm. That's just the reality of it. There's a whole lot that happened after that. Right. Years of recovery, 24 surgeries. And there's different phases of my life, frankly, that have really broken down and probably enhanced what my why is around making sense. Because I'm hardwired in a certain way to process information this way. But there was also conditioning through different periods of my life and having to either direct the attention away from me or learn how to bring vulnerability and authenticity back in, or focusing on human connection through the lens of emotion. All of these things are what help our complex human society and connect and transfer into the world. And so I've been a student of human behavior for about 15 years because the more fascinated I got around these things, the more I realized I could use my experiences, my gifts, my ability to communicate and see the world and people the way I do to really help them get unstuck. So that's. That's a core part of what it is. Wow.

So how is your arm now? Well, first of all, I.

Full practical use you have.

You can use it.

Full practical use. I do everything, brother. Yeah. I mean, I've got a little bit of limited mobility in my fingers. So the one thing that I do differently that a lot of people don't, I type with one hand, but I've learned how to type with one hand at a pretty fast rate without looking at the keyboard. So I'm not that old hunt and peck guy. But that's just because of the dexterity of my fingers. But I can pick stuff up. I play sports, I pick my kids above my head. It's never stopped me from anything. I refuse to be defined by the boundaries that the world placed on me.

That is amazing. And how old were you when that happened?

Seven.

Oh, my gosh. So you went all the way through school that way?

I did, yeah. And that caused a whole bunch of challenges.

I can imagine.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so did you. Probably missed plenty of school.

I missed only a semester, actually. And we had an in home teacher for the semester right after the accident. So it happened in the summer, so I missed the fall semester. And then I went back in the spring, but I did not do recess. I basically was inside with a full time aide for help just to kind of navigate the day physically. At that time, I was still enduring a ton of surgeries. My arm was in a sling most of the time, so there was a lot of recovery still taking place. But. But, yeah, it was. It really only impacted me from a schooling standpoint for really, my second grade year, third grade, I kind of transitioned back in normally. So by the time I was eight, I was kind of back in and doing things and starting to play sports. Still had a lot of surgeries left, still had years of recovery, but the main moment of pause was really for the course of about a year.

Wow. So for those of you that are listening and not watching, I wouldn't have even known that had you not mentioned it. But the left arm is just smaller.

Yeah. And what's funny, I mean, it's 4 inches shorter. My arm is smaller, My hand is smaller. But what's funny is you can't see it on camera unless I lift it up. But the reality of it is I've had friends for five years, never notice, and I don't, like, necessarily talk about it every day either. Right. I mean, I do in my professional world at this point, because there's a big portion of my story that leans to where I've learned a lot of these techniques. But I'll have friends for five years, and I'll make some comment like, oh, yeah, my arm or my accident, just passively, like, not even thinking anything of it. And they're like, what are you talking about? And I live in Arizona, so I'm in short sleeves all the time. I can't fathom how people don't notice, but some don't, so it's interesting. I think that's exactly the point. I've been on stage, in fact, and I sometimes tell the story on stages. A live stage, in third person, because there's a really cool way where I can reveal it and it draws in the crowd. I'll be on stage talking about this injury with one arm that's clearly 4 inches shorter. And people still don't notice that it's me until I have the reveal moment. Like, it just. It cracks me up. I love it. So what do you.

What do you think that means?

You know, I don't know. I think everybody views the world through their own lens. Right. And so I think people are clued in to look for certain things that I identify. Right. Or they might be familiar with. Sometimes they identify on things that are different. What's interesting for me on this case is I noticed almost everything physically on everybody, which probably makes sense because I'm intimately aware of the differences in my own body. But I Also don't like, I don't coddle it, I move it around, I talk with my hands, I talk with both hands. And so unless somebody's like looking at my arm, they might not notice, you know, But I think for a lot of people who don't notice, there's also a lot of people who do. So it's not to say that everybody doesn't notice. And it's not, it's blind to the world. It's just I think everybody views the world through a len sometimes they're not even aware of and it's going to prevent them from seeing things or really hone them to see other things. I think that's all it chalks it up to.

Yeah, yeah. And so what are the lessons that you teach and that you learned from going through what you went through?

Yeah, so I shared two of the primary lessons. But here's the thing, you know, so it's. I learned not to get stuck by what has happened to me, but instead get moved by what we could do with it. And then one of my core philosophies is the idea to embrace pain to avoid suffering, which I'll explain in just a second. And then I am a huge believer in just generally awareness and intentionality. What we're not aware of we can't be intentional with. And we know for a fact that our minds process 11 million bits of information per second, but we're only consciously aware of about 40. So what that suggests is that we're largely led by the unconscious. So when I work with people to get unstuck, right. And I bring in a complex amount of data, right. A lot of that is moving things into a level of conscious awareness for them. Because often we aren't even aware of the things that keep us stuck, the self defeating patterns through emotional triggers and behavioral patterns that take place. And so when we bring those into conscious level awareness, then we can be intentional. And often, as you said, and even the makes sense. Our solutions are not that difficult. It's less about strategies and tactics, it's more about getting to the core of who we are and making sure we build our life in alignment so that it can become self regulating and we can be intentional. But this embrace pain, avoid suffering piece, that's where I want to spend a minute, if you don't mind. I want to unpack what that means.

Yeah, embrace pain to avoid suffering. To avoid suffering.

So let me give a few examples because it'll concrete the idea really well for people. We can embrace the pain of hitting the gym for 30 minutes a day to avoid the suffering of aches and pains of a sedentary lifestyle. We can embrace the pain of a difficult conversation with a loved one to avoid the suffering of a loveless marriage that will end in divorce, or frankly, being stuck in a marriage when we really want divorce. Right. We can embrace the pain of the fit our kid is sure to throw by having them put down their mobile device at the dinner table to avoid the suffering of years of lost meaningful connection and conversation at night. As business owners, we can embrace the pain of firing our top salesperson to avoid the suffering of losing all of our other top talent and having stagnant growth because they're the biggest cancer in our culture. This goes on and it relates to everything in our life. The issue is, most people view it through the lens of what the world has told us. The world has told us to reduce, eliminate, or avoid pain, and I'm telling you the world is wrong. What I believe is that we need to learn to embrace pain as a critical tool to our success. But by doing that, what we also need to realize is we all must choose our pain or our suffering will choose us. What we tend to do, though, is we define pain with clarifying words. So pain by itself is defined as short term, intermittent, and direct cause of something and heals once that direct cause is removed. But we put adjectives in front of it like acute and chronic. Well, acute fits. It is short term, it is intermittent. That's what acute means. So it's kind of duplicative. When we say acute pain, we're actually defining pain. But when we put the word chronic in front of pain, it changes the definition because it implies that it's longer than short term, it implies that it doesn't heal. And so anything that's longer than short term and doesn't heal after the thing is removed, we shouldn't call chronic pain because that's not what it is. It's actually suffering. And we don't want to admit that suffering exists in our world, particularly when it's a direct result of our choices. But what I often find is our choices sometimes can be active, sometimes they can be passive. We can choose to not embrace the pain of unpacking our emotional triggers and turmoil and resilience. And then we'll end up suffering because we're going to have burnout, we're going to have anxiety, we're going to have stress, we're not going to have fulfillment in our life because we're not chasing what we really Want, we're not healed. Right. So the reality of it is this is a very concrete concept that everybody can apply. But I'm not encouraging us to put ourselves into unnecessary amounts of pain. It's to identify the right kinds of pain that are going to get us on our path to success and remove and eliminate the ones that don't serve us.

So don't look for pain to. You don't have to eliminate every pain you have. You got to pick and choose the ones that are going to have the biggest impact.

Yeah. And to be clear on, like what are we actually, what are the pains we tend to avoid? Right. So is it the pain of weight training that we avoid or the anxiety in a crowded gym? Right. If we know that we need to work out, lift weights for strength training, for health purposes, but we get anxious and stressed every time we go to a gym because that's not our environment for success. Well, don't avoid the weight training, but avoid the gym. Find another environment, build out a home gym, Figure out some different way to get in the work that you need to do. How often as salespeople do they look at that telephone and it's a 500 pound telephone. But often when we think about it, salespeople are really good at talking to people. They're really good at uncovering problems and they're really good at figuring out solutions. That's all cold calling is. It's finding the root of those problems. But what I've found as well, I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with someone who was a business owner and she wouldn't pick up that telephone to make the calls that were necessary, even though she wasn't afraid of any of those things. What we uncovered is she actually was afraid of what it would look like if she was successful because she was so conditioned to fail in so many areas of her life. What if I was actually really good on the phone? What would that mean for me? And so we had to unpack that. Right. Often the things that we tend to avoid, it's not because of the surface level. Strategy or tactic is wrong. It's probably something below it that's keeping us stuck.

And what led you to see that and how did that come to consciousness for you?

Through enduring a whole lot of suffering and realizing that that's not what I wanted anymore. Right. So I went years of, right after my accident where I was the victim, I was the center of attention. I had people defining for me what they thought I would be capable. And I refuse to be defined by that. So what did I do? I created an external narrative, right? A narrative that I'm good, I'm strong, I can do anything, I don't need anybody's help, and if I put my mind to it, I can accomplish it. And guess what? That served me really well for a long time. It also honed my emotional intelligence because I really learned how to read people and environments so that I could avoid the attention being on me and I could go do the things that I wanted to do. Well, when I'm 20 years old and I am snowboarding and I go down and re break my arm in a compound fracture and almost lose it again, and then go through seven surgeons over the next 10 months who are all afraid to touch me and tried healing it, but I'm hanging there with a broken bone that could sever a nerve or a vein at any moment. I also realized very clearly at that moment that the world bought into my narrative. It's not that I didn't have friends. It's not that I didn't have people that wanted to help me. It's that they didn't think that I needed it. Because Brian's good, he's strong, he's capable, he doesn't need anybody's help. And in a time when I was most vulnerable, I didn't have the courage to ask for it. So back then, had I embraced the pain of sucking up my pride and my ego from the narrative I'd built for the last 13 years and said, hey, I really need help. I really need you here, I could have avoided the suffering of depression, isolation, anxiety, stress, wondering how I was going to recover, right? That was a turning point where I started to shift on human connection and focused on vulnerability and authenticity, which I then mastered very well in that next phase of my life. But applied this through a sales lens, applied this through relational lenses, and I started to apply this philosophy. Then I have another health thing that happens to me a few years back that really rattled me, and it allowed emotion to start coming back into my world. What I started to realize when my daughter leaned over on the couch, put her arm around my neck, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and said, daddy, I love you. After we just played and I broke down in tears out of pure joy, is if I haven't experienced joy in this sense, I also haven't experienced pain, despair, fear, shame, any of the ones that are on the other side or anything in between. And it made me realize that when I shut off physical pain, I shut off emotional pain. So I had to embrace the pain of unpacking what that looked like. I had to build some emotional resilience, some emotional maturity, really understand, like, how to navigate through these things. And it brought empathy into my world in a way that I shifted my language from asking people what they thought about something to how do they feel about something totally different as it relates to my relationship with my wife, with my clients, with my kids, with everybody in my family. Because I truly believe those that reach the highest level of potential are the ones that understand that mental toughness. The mental game is critically important, but so is our emotional maturity and stability. And those that understand and reach the next level are the ones that understand the mind, body, connection and can regulate between the two as well as really appropriately let the right narrative lead in the right scenario. That's embracing the pain of understanding and putting ourself in a position where we can feel so we can heal, so we can be the best versions of ourself.

While we take a moment to give our guest a quick break, I hope you're hearing how important it is to know your why. If you're ready to put an end to your frustration and unlock the code to your personal and business success, then after the show, make sure to head to yinstitute.com and discover your why. Today. It only takes about five minutes. Let's get back to the show.

Yeah. So what I'm wondering is, what is the question that you're answering? Is the question how to be the best human? Is it how to what? Is that question that your three steps there have allowed you to answer?

Yeah. So it's getting to the core of who you are as an individual. I think so often in this world, things happen to us. I think people start with the what versus the who. What car, what job, what house, what spouse, what amount of money. Right. And we all go down this path around what the world tells us we need to do. We get literally a crusty exterior because we start as the most pure version of ourself in our life. And the world conditions us to be this, like, faint glimmer of a version of who we were born to be because of all the shoulds the world has placed on us. You should do this, you should be this, you should do that. You shouldn't feel, you should be tough. You should suck it up, you should smile, you should push your way through this. You should go make a lot of money. And so what I do best is help people get really, really clear on who they are and what's important and start to shed those layers. Because when people get to the core of who they are. Right. Their why also exposes itself in that process. And then the what becomes a manifestation of the who and the why. And so the answer to the question is, I help people get to the core of who they already are, their most authentic selves, because that's when magic happens. And literally, they can start to bring joy, freedom, and fulfillment back into their lives by applying awareness, intentionality, and embracing the right pains along the path. I love that.

That is really good. And I love that what versus who. Because that is a really interesting way to think about it. Not what am I going to do? But who am I going to become? Who do I want to become?

Yeah.

Who do I want to show up as?

Yeah, but I mean, think about it, too. When you meet somebody, what's one of the first questions they ask?

What do you do?

Almost always. Yeah, right. It's typically one of the first two questions. What's your name? And what do you do? Yeah, right. And even if you change the narrative on there, and like, I've done this often, I test it. I go in and somebody will ask me what I do, and I'll tell them, and then I say, tell me who you are.

And 95% of the time, they answer with what they do.

That's how we're conditioned as a society to focus on the what, not the who. And I'm on a mission, because I think reducing the suffering also gets back to the core of who people are. And if we can change the narrative in the conversation so that when you and I meet, I say, gary, who are you? And you can tell me very clearly who you are, then we're focusing on the human element. We're focusing on human connection, and we're focusing on collective impact, and where do we build from there? But if we focus on what we do, it's a transactional relationship versus what we all seek and desire, which is human connection and being a part of something.

What I find interesting about that is when what you do changes or you retire. I'm about to retire in six weeks from dentistry, which I'm also a dentist. Will I still. When someone says, what do you do? Will I still say, I'm a dentist, or will I say, you know what? How does that affect who I am versus just what I do? Or will it?

I think the fact that you're asking that question shows the issue with all of us being conditioned, because we focus on what we do as a core part of our Identity, it's not right. Sometimes it is sometimes like what I'm doing right now, what I've committed my, myself to right now is who I am, but it also happens to be what I'm doing. But that doesn't happen for most people. And that's okay. Right. But the issue in the slippery slope is when what you do becomes a part of who you are in your identity, that's where people start to get lost. And the reality of it is like that's where people start to lose their sense of self. Right. When their identity is in their job or in their role, when they retire, they. How many people feel lost? Right. Feel like they don't have a purpose or a cause, they don't have a why anymore? Because their what has been their why. Right. It has been who they are. And so that's part of the reason that I'm so adamant on trying to change this narrative is, look, most of the roles of what I've done in my life have been things that I do. They aren't who I am, but because I'm clear on who I am, I also know the things that I do will complement and advance who I am. And, and I also know from a self regulating perspective because I'm very clear on that what fits and what doesn't. And so when you say I'm going to retire, how will I answer the question on what I do? Well, I think what you do is obviously you're building the Y Institute. You can talk about what that is and where that is, but that's not the question. If somebody said to you who you are, how would you answer that question today or six weeks from now?

I would say I'm somebody that believes there's a better way. I'm always in search of a better way. And how I do that is by diving in and learning about it and making it clear and understandable. And then what I bring back would be a simple solution to help others move forward. So I'm the guy you can count on to find a better way to do almost anything. That's how I would say it. Now.

I think that's beautiful.

And that's, that's the essence of why I exist, is to find better ways to do things and then share them.

Yeah.

When I talk about what I do, dentistry, I talk, I say that's one of the things I do, right?

Exactly.

Not who I am.

That's exactly right. But you're a rarity from that lens. Because I think there's a lot of people Right. Who build a business. They do these things and it becomes who they are. It's not something they do.

Yes.

Can we get back to the.

I love that.

Embrace pain to avoid suffering. And the first one was not get stuck by. I want to write these down because.

I didn't get to write them down.

When you said it.

I said, I learned not to get stuck by what has happened to me, but instead get moved by what I can do with it.

Let's talk about that for a minute.

Yeah. So that concept came from when I was seven years old, right after my accident. I went through two phases right out of the gate. The first phase was I thought it was a dream. I thought what happened to me wasn't real. I had a hard time. I literally felt like I was in a dream state and I was going to wake up. And then once I woke up, even though I was awake and conscious, I then felt very sorry for myself. I felt like a victim. Why did this happen to me? Why me? Why this? Why now? And I remember feeling that way at 7. And then I'm laying in the ICU bed and we have families coming up to us saying, we're so sorry for what happened to you. We're so sorry for what happened to you. We're so sorry for what? This is just horrible. What can we do to help?

And then we find out that their kids laying in the ICU bed next to me with a terminal illness and they don't know if they're going to live for another month.

Perspective points us at what's important.

I could not feel sorry for myself after I knew my life was no longer in jeopardy. At that moment, I still didn't know whether or not I would have use of my arm, but I knew I would be alive. And then over the course of the next 10 years, because I have a really unique story, and I've never been shy, and I've always had a loud voice. I've been on stages Since I was 7, talking about this through a lens of perspective, motivation, and direction. Helping fundraise, helping talk about teaching people how to tell their story to benefit an organization that helped them. Talking about these things. Right? Giving perspective. And through the course of the philanthropic work that we did, from talking and teaching and raising money and doing all these things, I built some really good relationships with other kids that were also in a healthcare journey. And by the time I was 17, I had lost 10 of them because their illness has got the better of them. And so this idea of not getting stuck by what has happened to me getting moved by what I can do with it. I get chills every time I say this because it just honors the lives of those kids that lost their lives too early.

I knew I was going to grow up and have a happy, healthy, productive life by the time I was 17. Most of my surgeries and recovery were done outside of my snowboarding accident. I knew I had good function of my hands. And not only did I have my life, but I had function and I had purpose. And although I went down a path of risk management, employee benefits consulting, because I got lost by the what. I got lost by chasing and proving to myself that I could, that I could make something of myself, I could build a business, I could do these things. But it also, I almost lost my who on the path of doing that. But the reality of it is when I, when I realize I lost 10 people in 10 years that were all talented, but they were robbed of their opportunity to give gifts back into the world because of an illness that they took.

That'S getting moved by some what I can do with it. I'm here alive with the opportunity to share my story and share the stories of so many in a way that we can help other people move forward in life. Yeah.

And when did you notice you'd lost your whole with your last, with your previous business? And how did you get your who back?

I didn't notice it for a while. Right. I mean when you come out of school and you want to take over the world and you're bright eyed and bushy tailed and you know you're going to climb the corporate ladder and do things, it's, it's, it's easy to get lost. Right. With a lot of the what's the money, the house, the cars, the whatever, the custom suits. And by the way, I want to say very clearly, I in no way vilify making a lot of money. That's not what I mean by this. There's a whole lot of people who make a whole ton of money, but they're very clear on who they are. And money does give us freedom. It does give us opportunities to do things, build lives and have experiences and help a lot of people. So my comment, when I say I chase those things, I was chasing them for the wrong reasons. That's what I'm trying to point out. Right. And so along the way I, there wasn't like a singular moment that I lost my whole, but there was a combination of a whole lot of things over the course of 10 to 15 years. Like, I would drink in certain scenarios to fit in or feel like I could take down my wall to be in an environment that I didn't think I needed to be in. I would go and do things with a group of high performing males because it made sense. And this is just what you do, right? And they weren't things I was interested in. In fact, they gave me anxiety, stress and turmoil. But I did it anyway because it's like, well, if I can be a part of this crew, we're all going to grow and be successful together, right? I mean, There's. I have 50 examples of things like that that just really started to kind of take me away. And I started to get a semblance back of who I was when I really started going deep in the community. And I just have a huge, like, altruistic nature about me. And so over the last 10 years, I've spent about 30% of my time in the community doing nonprofit work, leading boards, standing up programs, running capital campaigns, raising money, helping people.

And when I started to realize, look, this is where I'm getting a lot of joy, freedom and fulfillment. It has nothing to do with the what it literally is impacting who's every single day. It's impacting lives, it's giving people other chances. You know, those were moments that I started to really turn back into who I was. And then, you know, we had kids. And seven years ago, I had a blessing, right? We had our first son. We have a son and a daughter. And six months after my son that went by like that, I realized that everything that I had said I was doing for the benefit of my family was actually also what was hurting my family the most because I wasn't there. I had provided a great life for them. We'd made a ton of money, we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We had these experiences. But six months, the first six months of my son's life, I missed because I was burning the candle at both ends and I wasn't paying attention to what I knew was most important to me. So that's when I hired my first coach, because I didn't have the skillset or the people in my life to help me get there at that time. And it was a month into working with him that he said, brian, you need to be doing this. I said, what are you talking about, man? He goes, you've been speaking on stages since you were seven years old. You work in the community. You literally build people in organizations. You coach people naturally. Like, you need to be Doing this. And I said, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm paying you a lot of money not to tell me how great I am, but to help me figure out these other things. Like, I want to get clear here. Right. But what it turns out is he told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear. And he was right. He trickled it for about nine months, and then I leaned into that. So about five and a half years ago is when I started that business. And I jumped in because I had to answer the question, is this complimentary or conflicting to what I'm doing? I felt like it was complimentary, but the more I did it, the more I realized this is what I want to be doing. Right. And I didn't really go after it hard until my wife challenged me, which I can unpack if you want me to. But the reality of it is, it's like the more I spoke on stages, the more I was actually formally coaching people, the more other people's wins became. My wins was less ego based. It was more outcome and impact based, man. It became really clear to me, like, this is where I need to turn, because that is exactly who I am, is helping people, approaching it with heart, approaching it with love, from a real, authentic, genuine place. Because I genuinely want to see people be the best version of themselves.

I love that. Wow. And then you also, your third thing was awareness and intentionality. Tell me about that.

Yeah, so I quickly talked about it a little bit earlier, like, what we're not aware of, like, we can't control, Right? But I think so many people in life desire to feel like they can control or influence the outcome of their lives. But so many people don't feel they actually have influence or control. They feel like they're victims, like life is happening to them. And so we talked about the 11 million bits of information per second. We're consciously aware about 40. And until we actually move the unconscious to conscious, the unaware to be aware, it's going to literally feel like victim and fate. Like life is happening to us, like we have no control. And so I am a really strong believer that everything begins and ends with us, and everything begins with awareness. Because until we start to move things into a conscious level of awareness, understand who we are, the things that we desire, what impact we want to have on the world, what legacy we want to leave, the way we want to have family, business, structure, health, like, literally across the board on a holistic perspective, we can't begin to be intentional with it. We'll just be subject to the autopilot. That's the unconscious that keeps us moving through life and doing the things that the world tells us we should be doing. And so that, to me, is the core of awareness and intentionality. When I started to move things to a level of conscious awareness myself, that's when I started to realize I actually can influence and control the direction of where I want to head with this. I no longer need to be defined or subject to what the world is putting on me or telling me I should do. Right? By building this business and making money and having nice cars and, like, whatever, right? Because that stuff, I didn't really. I like my stuff, but it didn't really move me. I did it because it was a role I was playing right now that moves some people. And great, there's nothing wrong with that, but it didn't move me. I did it for the wrong reasons. And so when I became aware of that, I was able to shift through that and be intentional with that and focus on impact. And in the core work that I do with my clients, it always begins with awareness. We can't know the pains to embrace to avoid suffering if we're not aware of it. Right. And then we're not aware of who we are and where we're headed. And so intentionality follows awareness. That's why I say awareness. And intentionality starts with awareness, and then we can be intentional on everything we do. And when people know their purpose, they know where they're doing things, then they can actually live life on purpose instead of having it happen for them.

I love that. So the sequence then is what? Awareness and intentionality first, then not getting stuck by what happened to you, and thirdly, embracing the pain. Or is there a specific sequence to those?

Yeah. So I would say that awareness and intentionality are the core tenants. Embracing pain to avoid suffering is a part of the intentionality. The not getting stuck by what's happened to you, but getting moved by what you can do with it. That's more a philosophy that kind of layers over a whole lot of it. Because there are situations where we get stuck, stuff happens to us, and we have to pivot. We're experiencing that right now. Nine months ago, we were literally robbed of the lives that we knew.

Pandemic hits, World is upside down. We were robbed of the world we knew. Right. Well, guess what? That happened to all of us. We can either be stuck by it, or we can be moved by what we can do with it. And everybody's going to be in a different process on that because the reality of it is there's a grieving process to that. We were knocked out of autopilot. So there's fatigue and literally having to reinvent ourselves day in and day out on how we're managing the social world and virtual learning for kids and not going to the office and not interact. I mean, literally, we're experiencing fatigue and grieving, but we need to embrace the pain of what's in front of us so we can get clear on what we can actually accomplish in this period of time, so we can avoid the suffering of having done nothing over however long this is going to last. Right. But that's where it comes from. That happened to all of us. So that's a philosophy that we need to ingrain in everything we do. Because you can set out with strategy and tactics and intention, and guess what? It might not happen the way you want. You know, you could literally be run over by a truck one day in a parking lot. What are you going to do then? You need to pivot and you need to really start to recognize, like, okay, this did happen to me, but I'm in a position to choose. I'm either going to be a victim, or I can take ownership and actually figure out how do I use what's happened to me as a critical tool to my path. You know, it's an antiquated statement, but what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, is real, but it causes us to see our challenges through a lens of meaning.

Yeah, I love that. You know, when I hear you say, embrace the pain to avoid suffering, it brings me back to the saying of, there's always a price to pay. Right?

That's right. For the price to pay for the.

Good, price to pay for the bad. For doing something, for not doing something.

Yep. And I say to that, by the way, I say, I believe we all must choose our pain or our suffering will choose us.

Yeah.

It's that concept. We can't escape it. Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is optional.

Yeah. How do you help people figure out what it is they want?

Yeah. So that's a great question, because not everybody always knows. But I do think that there's a core about us that we at least know directionally how we want to feel. Right. So we might not know what that looks like or what and how that will manifest in the world, but I think a lot of us have had enough positive and negative experiences to know how we want to feel. So there's an element of that where we have to start and really pay Attention to what are the things that make us feel good, that give us energy, that have us fueled up, that we can get into a flow state and pass eight hours and it feels like 10 minutes. And we also know when we're in a situation where it doesn't do that, it drains us. We're absolutely wiped after an hour. But it feels like we've been there for eight. Right. There's people in negativity. And so I do like people to take a toll on their life from both categories. And let's intentionally remove as many from this category and move them over here. That's a start. But the other thing is we don't always necessarily know how to do that. So I have a client I'm working with right now. He literally. He had a separated household. He moved around 25 times before the time he was 16. He didn't know what it felt like to have trust from those that were closest to him are supposed to be. He didn't know what it was like to give or receive love to those that were closest to him or at least should have been. Right. And so now he has a wife and two beautiful girls. But because he doesn't understand right. What that actually looks like, what he's been conditioned to do and what his emotional triggers tell him is I need to guard myself from those that are closest to me. What he wants more than anything is a deep connection and love with his wife and his girls, which will impact his business, which will impact his health, which will impact all these things. But instead, sometimes he feels isolated and he literally isolates himself in that scenario. So when we take a step back and we look at, look, we can start with acknowledging the suffering we wish to avoid, which is kind of the first step that I really help people envision. And people are like, wait a minute, you want me to picture suffering? Yeah. For him, suffering is not having his wife and his girls in his life. Like, that's very clear to him. And then we flip it around to what do you really want? And he's got this profound vision, this vision of him and his wife sitting on a hundred acre ranch when they're 80 years old and just having the wind and the peace and the serenity. And the only thing breaking the silence is their girls and their grandkids laughing joyously. And the air that normally would be just silent is filled with love and laughter. He knows that. He knows that's what he desires most. And so when he burns that image into his soul, and he knows so clearly that's what he wants. That is a purpose that overtakes the pain. So now he's empowered to embrace the pain necessary for him to change, to learn how to give and receive love, to focus on connection with the three girls that mean most to him on this planet, because the suffering of losing them is not what he wants. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. Yeah. You're really good at, obviously, making sense out of complex issues that most people can't solve. You're very quick to put it together in a format that's easy to see.

It's weird, right? Yeah. Makes sense exactly in line with your why.

And so there's your why, and then there's your how, and then there's your what, why you do what you do, how you go about doing that, and then what it is people can ultimately count on from you. And I see your why loud and clear. I'm going to guess that your how is to make things clear and understandable. And ultimately what you bring is a simple solution so that they can actually do something with it.

I would say that's very accurate.

Yes. So how I would say that is my why, is to make sense of the complex and challenging. How I do that is by making things clear and understandable. And then what I bring is a simple solution so that others can move forward. And that comes through loud and clear. And that's the perfect combination to have for somebody that's going to coach.

Yeah.

That's going to help others with their challenges.

Well, thank you. I think it's a perfect combination. That's why I've committed my life to doing the work I am. But, yeah, it's cool to also sometimes take a step back and have tools like yours to be able to reflect on and see. Yep. Okay. This is in alignment with how I see myself and who I am and what I've committed my life to do. And so that's. Yeah, no, I think it's a great resource that you guys have built, and I know you're going to impact a lot of lives because not everybody might know intuitively what their why, their how, and their what are. And I know that your tools are going to help them get there.

So when we think about who it is you're looking for.

Your who will resonate with you is not going to be everybody.

It's not.

It's going to be people that are looking to make sense of things where some people just want. As a coach, just hold my hand. Just. Just hold my hand and sit with me and let's talk for a little bit y and encourage me. And you're like, that ain't who I'm looking for.

Right?

That doesn't fit you very well.

No, no, I'm not. I'm not wanting to just hold somebody's hand and give them love and encouragement. Now, I do that for clients in periods. I absolutely do that because that's essential. But I don't want a client that every single call, it's just like, oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way. Like, we gotta actually take action to fix these things.

You want action takers that are looking to make sense of something they can't solve.

I want people who want to become the best version of themselves and might not know how to get there. I want people who want to have an impact on the world, who want to reach their potential, who don't want to be stuck, right? Who know that they've got something more to offer outside of the success they've already built. And often who I work with are business owners and entrepreneurs because they're wired that way more often than not. And they also view that these types of things are an investment, not an expense. It's an investment in their future self that they know will have a ripple effect in their world, personally, professionally, financially, and all the people they support, either in their business or in their families or in their communities. That's who I want to work with. And people who are tired, frankly, of suffering because there's a lot of really successful people. In my last business, I was running in circles with people making seven figures who were miserable on paper. They looked like they had it all on paper to the normal public. Everybody said, oh, they've got it all. And you know what? They were some of the most hurt people I ever have known. And they numbed it and they masked it because they didn't know how to fix it. Those are the people that I want to work with because I want people who have the ability to take action, have impact, but need the help to get there themselves.

Love it. Love it. So, Brian, for our listeners, if they are that person and they're looking for your help, how do they get ahold of you? What's the best way to connect with you?

Yeah, so I think, honestly, go to the website brianbogart.com. it's got a whole bunch on there. And the reason I say that is, is there's a direct link in there for if there's inquiries on coaching or speaking that you can actually just submit. We'll get back to you. Our team manages that. But what I also realize is that's who I want to work with on a one to one perspective. Okay. Now we have coaching programs, both group and self led, and we have other coaches and speakers that help promote a lot of this thought process. So the reason I say that is I'm very aware that 99.9999% of the billion people that we're going to impact in the next 25 years will never pay us a dollar. So we create a lot of free content. So the reason I say that, go to brianbogart.com, you'll see our weekly Bogarts Bullets. You'll see a lot of the content that's been published in Forbes and other periodicals. You'll see some featured podcasts, but there's a whole bunch more that are going to be coming on there. And there's other ways for you to be able to engage through that site. But I also want to give a gift if you're okay with that. If you go to nolimitspralude.com you can get a free download of some of the basic questions that are the core concepts of our coaching philosophies to help you ask the right questions to lead yourself on an intrinsic journey. And that may be enough for you. And if it is, great. If it's not, we're here to help you along the way.

I love it. And you better spell your name just so that they get it right.

Yeah. So it's Brian with an I and it's Bogert. B o G E R-T.com thank you for the clarification on that because often people spell it wrong. Yeah.

So Brian, thank you so much for spending the time with us. I totally enjoyed getting to meet you and know you and I look forward to following you and see what you're doing because I'm sure our paths are going to keep crossing.

I have no doubt about that. And thank you for creating a platform to put good into the world and help people understand who they are, why they do the things they do. I think the more people get clarity on that, the more impact we have. So let's get after it, brother.

I love it. Thanks, man. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.