Overcome the Odds and Supercharge Your Success

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Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why to see how their why has played out in their life. And so today we're going to be talking about the why of challenge to challenge the status quo and think differently. So if this is your why, then you live outside the box. You do not believe in the norm or following rules or drawing inside the lines. It is far more natural for you to rebel against the stereotypical or classical way of doing things. You aggressively seek unique ways of approaching the world and finding solutions that no one else has considered. You like to create and innovate, especially in game changing ways. You have eccentric friends and eclectic tastes and a large variety of both. You may have diverse interests with little in common with each other. As an entrepreneur, you prefer to create a new market versus serving an existing market. You love to be different, think differently, and challenge virtually anyone and anything that is too rote or conventional. People with your WHY often accomplish amazing feats. When you say you want to change the world, you actually mean it. Pushing the envelope comes naturally to you. So today I've got a very fascinating guest for you. His name is Brandon Kelly. He is an extraordinary overachiever who has overcome two wrecks with errant dump trucks, two rounds of aggressive cancer, and the owner and founder of nine businesses including Magnitude Capital Investments, as well as the CEO Super Summit. He's authored seven books, 14 workshops and more than 60 awards, including Saving a Life With Extreme Risk to Himself, and has recently started his own private equity hedge fund to buy hotels, resorts and office towers. Brandon discovered his why at 16, 27 and 41 and has become a nationally recognized speaker through the National speaker association, having spoken to nearly 1 million people while coaching more than 100 companies to elevate their efforts while they elevate their excellence through the Raise the Bar Academy. Brandon, welcome to the podcast.

Welcome Gary. It's great to be here and you've definitely done your homework. When you were reading the intro about the challenge and my why, I was like wow, you really kind of drilled that down on the spot. So your research and your research assistants really must have dug into my profile. And I think they nailed me spot on. So it's great to be here.

Well, you took the Y discovery. You already took the Y discovery. Remember when you took that and then that's what it came up with was challenge. So it's interesting when you said you found your why at age, what was it? 16, 27 and 41. Let's talk about that. What did you mean by that?

Well, and that's a great question, Gary. And if you can, for your listeners, can I back into it two more minutes so they'll understand why the why was so important at 16. Would that be okay?

Yes.

So when I was almost two years old, I was hit by a drunk driver and paralyzed. I was clinically never supposed to walk or talk again. It took 295 stitches just to put my face back together. And they said that I would never amount to anything. The doctors were convinced that the brain activity, not being able to move, my parents being poor in the 70s, all that stuff would be so insurmountable that they should just pull the plug. So fast forward to when I'm 10 years old. My parents had moved out of state. We're now in a brand new state, brand new school. I'm seeing kids of ethnicity, ethnicity for the first time in my life. And I ended up being the human soccer ball. So every day I was picked on, I was beat up. I mean, imagine Forrest Gump with the braces on his legs and getting thrown at and books knocked down. That was me. And so I made a decision at 10 years old to get into a beat em up, shoot them out African American gang. And I looked at that and I was just like, hey, these guys are here to protect me. But they weren't, they were there for themselves. They were doing a lot of stupid stuff. And I decided that wasn't good. But I didn't know how to get out. So I had a scout master and an after school teacher helped me figure out what my superpower was. And they wanted me to high jump, of all things. So imagine barely being able to walk and I have the big metal braces on in the late 80s at this point. And now my coach that's like 6 foot 6 and has big burly clown type hair, you know what I mean? The afro style there. And he gets me and he says, brandon, you need to go to high jump. That's your superpower. And I'm like, well coach, I can barely walk. So at 16, I was getting ready to compete for the Olympics because at that point in time, I had a 66 inch vertical leap, so 5 foot 6 inches from not being able to walk. In fact, when I was 12 years old on that Gary, I set a state record in the high jump in Wyoming at 6ft 7 and a half inches. And by the time I was 16, I was clearing 7 foot 5. And the world record was 7 11. And so at 16, I was actually diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and given two months to live. Imagine that. Let that sink in for a second, and you can see me now. I've got some gray hair for my kids that are getting their driver's licenses. And I'm only in my early 40s. But the point was, is at 16, I literally was extremely depression, I was suicidal. I was like, screw life, I'm out of here. And I had a scout leader that had hung around and he said, brandon, what is your record going to be? What do you want to be remembered for? Are you going to let this cancer hold you back and dictate you of your full potential, or are you going to overcome it? The choice is up to you. So at 16, I made a bucket list of 1900 items, literally wrote them all down and everything like that, and said, I'm not dying until that happens. And some of those things were so far in the future. That was like 2015, going to the hundredth anniversary, the Boy Scout jamboree type stuff, or order the arrow. And so I looked at that and I kept that up. And now, to date, I've accomplished 4,200 things. But at 27, I just had a business partner take me for $10 million. So we'd started a company, built it up, and he literally ran off with $10 million, left me $10 million in the hole and another $10 million that I owed. So I owed $20 million at 27. Had to figure out, how do I fix this? What do I do? How do I overcome? How do I not go through bankruptcy so that I can continue on with my name? Does that make sense? Yeah. That threw me into the coaching speaking world. That threw me into owning hotels and fixing and flipping them and really doing something bigger. And that's when I figured out, hey, you know what? I want to be a professional speaker and be able to help impact people and help them understand how do they take that proverbial high jump bar that we all face? Raise the bar. Okay. And finally, you know, at 41, what happened is I'm sitting There thinking, hey, I'm all that and then some, right? You know, I had. I was making, you know, almost 400,000 a year speaking. I was speaking 309 days a year. I was on all the big stages with all the big people. And I'm like, here I am, I've arrived. But when I came home, and this is what the listeners need to really understand is when I came home, I found out that I wasn't a parent. My wife was pretty much a single parent raising all the kids. My oldest son was autistic and he was convinced he was worthless and going to go join the army and be on the front line. My second oldest, my daughter, her boyfriend was beating her up. And, you know, because I wasn't there to really get involved, I literally came home and my son was suicidal. I mean, literally at the point where we caught him almost in the actual. My youngest daughter was crying every time I came home because she missed me and then crying for the week that I was gone. And so I said, you know what, Brandon? There's got to be a better way. We've got to find a way to really continue the impact. Continue your. Why? Continue delivering and helping people achieve, but do it in such a way that I now take control. And it's not so much the money that drives me, but it's being with the family and being there for their achievements. So I realized that took us a couple minutes to kind of set that stage, but that all leads to helping find your why. So with that, I'll turn the time back over to you, but that at least sets the stage to kind of go from there and have some fun with it and take it where you want.

Gary, that is a lot to overcome.

I mean, that's just the tip. But yeah.

So how were you able to do that? I mean, what was your secret to overcoming these things that seem insurmountable? I mean, obviously when you were very small, it's not so much about. You didn't know what was going on. Probably at that age, right when they were going to pull a plug on you, you were 2 years old, but somehow you were able to hang in there and every step along the way. I mean, those are not little things. None of us. I've never had to overcome the kinds of things you're talking about. Not even one of those.

Well, how do we overcome it? That's a great question. Really what happened is right around that 10, 11 age timeframe, I was doing the after school activ esports and getting involved in the Boy Scouts. And one of the scout leaders, you know, he turned to me and said, you're never going to amount to nothing. You're never going to be able to achieve this rank and that rank. There's no way you can do this and that. And he was actually serious, you know, he was very a pessimistic type person. And it was about that time, 11, 12, 13 range, where I finally said, you know what? Kind of gave him the proverbial middle finger and said, screw you. I'm going to prove that I can. I had English teachers that said, you suck at English. You shouldn't be in English. You shouldn't be an ap. You shouldn't be in honors. And so I said, screw you. And at 16, when I was facing cancer, I actually clucked out of all my high school classes and started taking college. So when all of my peers were graduating high school on that, Gary, I was a senior in college, and I was kind of like, yeah, you're right. You said I couldn't do it. And guess what? I'm here to prove you wrong. And so that was my drive for a long time, you know, so from 16 to 27, maybe even into my mid-30s, it was to prove people wrong. I realized at a point in time that that didn't matter anymore, and it was more, you know, what matters to me. In other words, how am I showing up? How am I being an impact? And I found that I didn't fit very well in a 9 to 5. So I had to create my own skin in the game and hang out my shingle and go from there. So being a motivational speaker has been challenging because it's a solo gig, and I think you've kind of seen a little bit of that. But it's very rewarding because I get to help kind of create new solutions for people, challenge the status quo and find a way that, you know, all the different businesses that I've built or coached and spoken to, I can say, hey, Gary, you know what? We can take this one thing from over here, this one from over here. We can put them together, and we can supercharge your success. And that became the driving why clear up until, you know, finally it's now working with CEOs and helping them deliver a product. But that's a whole other story. So anyway, take it away. Sorry.

No problem. No, no, that's really good because it's. It's interesting to hear how you speak about why, because we're talking about different whys. So you're Talking about the motivation, the short term motivation you have for doing something and doing it the way you're doing it. What I'm talking about is what is that gift that Brandon has? What is that special thing that he brings? What you bring is an outside the box solution. You don't do things the same way everybody does. None of your life has been typical, Right?

True.

And you've had to think differently and think outside the box and imagine extraordinary and then go for it. And so what you've done at every step along the way is to challenge what people say you can do, to think outside of what they think you can do, and to find something extraordinary to go after. And then you've done it. And that's pretty dang amazing. So that is the why I'm talking about is why would I choose Brandon? Not why did he do what he did, but why would I choose Brandon to help me, to come speak to me, to work with me, to coach me, to mentor me? It's because you get people to think outside their box.

Well, and we get them to see themselves in an Olympic level, you know, kind of removing those barriers. So really the why is, why not? So why can't we build a billion dollar hedge fund in two years when it's never been done? Why can't we? Well, guess what, we're on track. You know what I mean? You know, why can't we start a business or do something or why can't we create something new or, you know, I was asked to help MC an event several years ago and they're like, yeah, if we could get like 5,000 people to watch us live, that would be the coolest thing. And we're launching this cryptocurrency and it'd be cool. And I was like, well, why can't we get like a million? Why can't we get 10 million? And they're like, well, that's just not possible. And I was like, well, if we connect this dot and we do this thing and we get this celebrity to endorse us and do this and do this, it may just be possible. Well, guess what happened, Gary? The night that we launched a cryptocurrency, we had 72 countries worldwide and we only had a 25 day span from the time they said, brandon, we want you on board. So let's get this going. We had all of those countries, we ended up with 120 million viewers and they overwhelmed their system that they ended up raising over $600 million on the day of their cryptocurrency. Launch.

I assume they're happy they brought you on.

It was very entertaining. I got to meet some, they nickeled and dined me to death. But it was worth playing with the superpowers that were there to be part of it. And, and so my why is why not? You know, I look at going space travel and I'm like, well, why can't we figure this out yet? Why not? You know, and why can't we do something? Or why can't the human body run a four minute mile or whatever that why not is? I was always said, well, or told, brandon, you're poor, you're on the wrong side of the tracks. Your parents were never anything. You know, they're government workers and blah, blah, blah. And you grew up on the government side of the check and stuff. And you're never going to amount to anything. And I'm like, but why not? Why does that have to be the stamp on my forehead? Why can I not, you know, create my own box and go do my own thing, you know? And yeah, I've had challenges on the way, Gary, but every challenge has led me to a better point. You know, people say, oh, it sucks to be screwed out of, you know, multiple thousands and millions of dollars from partners. Okay, maybe I look at it and say, you know what, that's an expensive education. I learned what not to do. I learned who not to trust. But more importantly, I learned what I was capable of, who I could surround myself with in a tough time, and to know that deep within I had the strength to win. And that really is what it came down to. And so then I started realizing, okay, I had to elevate my efforts. I mean, when you're $10 million in the hole, how do you do that? And so I got into fixing and flipping hotels. I've never done it. I fixed and flipped a couple of regular residential houses, but I was like, well, if the principal works here, why not try it here? And that's how I got myself out of $10 million in debt. Wow.

How do you buy a house, hotel when you're 11 million in debt?

Yep.

How do you do it?

I took $100 in a handshake and I did a giant lease option and said, I'll tell you what, we'll benchmark it. The three hotels are worth 19 and a half million. If I can get somebody that will pay more for it, and I can do all the improvements and I can manage it better than what you were doing, then I get everything above that. If not Then I buy it in two years and there you go, 21 months later, we sold it for about 36 and a half million dollars and walked away. Took that extra chunk of money and paid off the debt, started back at ground zero and wow. So I dug myself out of that hole.

That's amazing. Not many people could do that. And you know, I love what you're saying, Brandon, which is my why is actually why not? Because, I mean, that is the essence of challenge. That is the essence of what we're talking about. Who says we have to do it this way? But I like the way you word it because that just fits you perfectly, right? Why not? There's probably a word in the middle there too, or maybe a couple in there. Why the extra?

There's a couple of times. And it's funny because being redhead and then being picked on and stuff. In school, everybody called me the Ronald McDonald or the human soccer ball and stuff like that. And at first I really fought against that, but now it's like, you know, what? Why not? You know, Ronald McDonald, he's worth a couple hundred million as a clown. Okay, why not? You know, and why, why can't it be done? And in my book, the distinctive watermark principles, we talk about kind of that why and why not and how do you raise that watermark for yourself and those around you and ultimately the world? And it's by having a higher expectation. I believe in a higher power. And as you look at that, Gary, I think that every one of us has the capability to literally go to the moon or literally create a billion dollar company or whatever, but we get lulled into.

Just kind of doing stuff passively, just barely getting by, not getting above the radar because it's too much risk or it's too challenging. And, and so I always look at that and say, why not? You know, when other people are running away from the fire, I'm looking at it saying, well, okay, I have a little bit of scout training. Why not? You know, what can we do? And that kind of alluded to, you know, saving somebody's life. And we can talk about that another time. But the point is, you have to really save your own life and realize that every one of the seven plus billion people on this planet have a capability of rising above what they were born from, right? I mean, more or less, the birthing process is pretty much all the same for us humans, more or less. I mean, there's C section and there's regular birth, pretty much that's what it comes down to. And so we. We all start with nothing. And somewhere along the line, we accept that stamp on the forehead that says, gary, you're only ever going to be a dentist. You're only ever going to be good enough for this. You're not anything else. And we accept that instead of saying, hey, you know what? I'm interested in this and I'm interested in that, and I've got tons of passions. Why not follow them all? You know, when people say, well, you have a choice. You can do A or you can do B. And I'm like, well, what if I want both? Does that make sense?

For sure.

And so I just try to take that, not so much a different perspective, but just, you know, when everybody else is, you know, it's like this whole COVID 19 thing. Yes, it has impacted me huge. I mean, six, almost seven figures huge. But I've looked at it and said, hey, we want to set up this private equity fund. And literally the day that the NBA got shut down, 45 minutes before that, I got the notice from the attorney saying, hey, we're good to go. You're good to go. Raise all the money you want. And then the world shuts down, right? And I'm like, man, this sucks. But then I thought about it, and I was like, you know what the reality is? All of the properties that we were looking at buying to improve our portfolio and our performance suddenly are on sale. Well, who doesn't want to buy something on sale? Who doesn't want to feel like, hey, I got a good deal, right? And so I looked at it, I turned to my investors and my partners, and I was like, you know what, guys? Yeah, the world is completely different. This is a 911 moment. This is a Pearl harbor moment in our lifetime. We can sit on the sideline or we can say, hey, you know what? If it's to be, it's up to me. Let's make it happen. And right now, we've got commitments for nearly a hundred million dollars just in the last week from people all over the country that don't like the situation that they're in. And I'm not saying that to brag. I'm just saying that, you know, the listeners that are here, we all have the why's. I saw the nine whys when we went through the test on that Gary. And each one of those apply. But what they needed to do is decide, why am I doing it? You know, how am I going to do it better and what will the result be?

In other words, shoot for the moon. And expect to hit it.

Yeah, I love that. So somebody's listening right now. They're in a dead end situation. They're not feeling good about what they're doing, they're not feeling good about where they're going. What are the steps you would take them through to get them out of that? To think differently, to imagine. Extraordinary. How do you take somebody through that process?

Well, number one, it's all outlined in my book. But since that's a good question and we don't have the book in front of us, I would do two things. First of all, treat it like you're going to the emergency room. In the emergency room, those doctors are trained to look at three quick things to assess the situation. Number one, the airway, number two, the breathing, and number three, the circulation. And I call that the ABCs of survival and thrival. Okay, so we have to get out of just surviving and thriving and we have to revive ourselves and make that decision on where we want to go. And so if we don't like where we're at as humans, we're the only race that can change that. And so take a look at your inventory. What are your skills? More importantly, what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? What's that bucket list that really would be a defining moment for you? As you look at that moment, then you need to sit there and say, hey, how committed am I really right now? I'm at a pivotal point. I think probably 70 to 80% of the entire country, if not the worldwide population, is all at a pivotal point right now, Gary, where we have to decide, okay, are we moving forward? Am I completely screwed? What's going to happen next? And just sit back and look at the options. And historically there's going to be a couple of other doors that may have been there that you can open up and go through, but you didn't realize that they were there. For instance, I have a client that he brought me an idea a couple years ago about how to do telemedicine and have the phone come in and do some cool things and check stuff out and you know, kind of Star Trek type moment, you know what I mean, way in the future. And he's dabbled with it. And I called him the other day and I said, hey, I'm going on the shark tank with some of my friends that are sharks. And I think that now is the time. And he's like, well, I'm not ready. And I'm like, you're never gonna be ready. But yes, you're a physician. Yes, you're making tons of money, but now you can't do your doctor work because you can't go work on people. So maybe now is that time. And so in a matter of a week, we've taken them from a sample to a full blown usable product that, you know, later on today, literally, we will be able to pitch that to the sharks and potentially change millions and millions of people's lives and improve their health care from their phone and other things that will come with that. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. So you said act like you're going to the emergency room is step one, and then step two was. Was what?

Create your vital signs. So check the vital signs. Your airway. Yeah. You know, you want to see not just, you know, what you're breathing, but you want to check your head. You know, you want to be able to check and see where are you at, what's going on, you know, what's plugging things up, what's really holding you back. Okay, so that's checking the airway. The breathing is really checking and seeing. Okay, am I still alive? How long can we last?

If I build that border right now to protect myself and my family, what do I do then? C is the circulation. And C meaning how are you getting out? How are you finding new opportunity? What opportunities could you be looking for? And just kind of do that circulation. So if somebody's looking for a new job, and I've been through that several times, you know, put out hundreds of resumes instead of a couple, you know, put out thousands instead of hundreds. It's magnifying your effort and building a magnitude of response.

So you have kids, Right? Right. How old are your kids, how many you got and how old are they?

So I have four goes boy, girl, boy, girl, 22, 20, 18, and 14. And the last two were born on the same day, four years and four hours apart. Oh, wow. My wife is pretty good at planning.

Yeah, no kidding. So take it. You know, as I'm listening to you talk, Brandon, you got more stuff going on than anybody I think I've met, and you're in all over the place. So take us through a typical day with you, and then how do you get so much done? Because I'm sure people are listening. Yeah, Brandon can do it, but what about the rest of us? So how do you get all that done in one day and be a father and be the husband and be.

All the other things? So are we looking in COVID 19. Are we looking pre and post COVID 19 because that's. I changed my schedule up a little bit based on that.

Let's go pre and post.

Okay. So pre COVID 19 I was usually up, you know, 7ish, 7:30 would get the kids off to school, make sure they're up and going. You know, being a speaker and entrepreneur, I work from home. I've been able to set everything up to where I can manage life from my phone and not have to have tons of overhead. Okay. And so typically I will work with clients or I will be practicing speeches, writing things. One of the things that this is, a key ingredient is oftentimes each of us will get a little thought throughout the day. Maybe it's a phrase that sounds really cool or hey, a book idea or man, if I fix this little fork a certain way, I could do better cooking. Whatever that is, whatever it is. I've learned to keep a journal with me and when those notes pop in, I stop what I'm doing and I instantly write that down. And so I might stew on that for five or 10 minutes and think about some different things. I mean, last night at 3:00 in the morning, I literally had a life changing thing that's going to take everything I'm doing and turbocharged, where I'm already, you know, going supersonic. So it's, you know, strap on and hang on time. But a normal day, I will work, you know, with clients, doing the phone calls, finding stuff, evaluating properties. So I'll spend a third of my day doing one business, a third of it my day doing another business. About 5:30, 6:00 clock at night, I will kind of put everything on hold. My kids are home from school and I'll be like, okay, great, let's go hang out, let's practice sports, let's do your homework. So from there, you know, we have dinner, 6, 6:30, you know, 7, 8 o', clock, I'll go spend some more time with the kids. About 9 o', clock, my wife starts winding down and she'll watch some TV shows. So I'll pull out my laptop and just kind of sit next door and listen, what's going on. She'll go to bed about 10:30 and about 10, 10:30 I'll start really cranking out. So I'll start going, okay, I've had this book idea and I write down everything, kind of do a brain dump. Then I look at it and say, okay, I need to have this and this and this done tomorrow, next day, next day, next day. So I'm always prepared and unfortunately for me, I will because of the brain injury that I have. You may not know this right now, Gary, but I literally cannot use the left side of my brain at all. There's like a big metal plate that goes back and forth. And so I've had to retrain myself how to think and talk and read and all that fun stuff. But what I do, I will. Typically, my most productive hours are 11:00pm to 2:30, 3:00 clock in the morning. Every day I get more done in that timeframe without the disruptions than most people will typically do in a 40 hour work week, to be candid. And again, none of this is patting myself on the shoulder. I'm just saying that's me. So I'll fall asleep for about an hour, hour and a half, I'll wake up in a ton of pain, I'll do some stuff for about an hour, fall back asleep for an hour. That's been my normal mode for the last 20 years.

So what do you mean you get that much done in that amount of time? How do you do that? What is your secret? What's the tip that for all the rest of us? Because that's not easy to do.

I have a lot of acronyms that I'll use, so I've literally got a list of about 200 acronyms. But typically what I'll do is I'll. I do what I call eye to eye every day. And this might be something fun. So we're going to do something I don't know if any of your other interviewees have done and listeners can do the same thing. But every single day you have to get eye to eye with success. And that success is your determination of what you're doing. So you have to decide what is one thing that I'm going to do better today than I did the day before. And maybe it's faster, it's more productivity. You know, I look at it like the Olympics. It's the higher, faster, stronger. What can I do in those four hours to be hyper focused on? Maybe it's a chapter in the book, maybe it's my speech, maybe it's the software that I've created to analyze properties. Maybe it's connecting or looking through my Rolodex to say, hey, I can connect with these people. And here's how I would frame that conversation. So whatever that maybe is, right? So as we elevate our efforts, we figure out that one thing. So I want you to take your left hand, touch your left eye, and I want our audience to stop what they're doing right now unless you're driving. But come back to this, because this is important. So every single day, when you're getting ready, every single time you see your eyes, whether it's passing a window, going to the bathroom, putting on your glasses, whatever that is, ask yourself, what can I do today to elevate my efforts? What one thing to make today successful can I elevate my efforts on? And you focus on that one thing. So if you're a sales guy, it's make one additional phone call. If you're a doctor, maybe it's spend a minute more or a minute less with a client, whatever that one thing is, to be just incrementally better. Okay, Gary, and the answer to that, when I said eye to eye, that's an acronym. So the answer is now take your right finger, touch your right eye. If you've done one thing better, that is elevate your excellence. So you have elevated your excellence. The competition is with you. It's not with all of the people that I work with. It's not all the other doctors, dentists, and accountants and attorneys or whatever. The competition is doing one thing better with me. So to get eye to eyes with success, you literally have to elevate your efforts to elevate your excellence. But look what's happening right now, Gary. As you look at where your fingers are pointed, where is it truly going?

To the brain.

To the brain. And you're telling the brain, you deserve success. You are good enough. No matter the depression or whatever you're facing, you're able to get above that bar, and you can do one thing better. So now you're doing one thing better and more excellently. Well, the next day, you've added another and another and another. Well, all of a sudden you're performing, and life is great, and you're just like, wow, I'm getting these pay raises. I'm doing this. And these cool, awesome people are coming into my life, like you, Gary. And I'm going. It's just by doing one little thing. And, you know, and I've been through depression. I've been through serious life depression, where twice in my life I faced hardcore suicide personally, you know, and there's been days where they turned into more days that I couldn't even get out of bed. But I started looking at my why and going, well, why sit here? Sitting in my bed isn't going to accomplish anything. And there we go. So I said the COVID 19 thing, mainly because now I don't have to get the kids up. And so I'll sleep in until 9 o' clock and get a couple extra hours. But as things are returning back to normal, I'm returning back to that schedule. And it's really just being able to figure out what are my top three, four things that need to happen today and get them done. And if I get three or four things done today and I still have time, what's the one or two things tomorrow that I've mapped out? And I love that picture that's behind you with the guy jumping up. It looks like he's. Is that you clearing a ski jump or something?

Or it's off a sand dune.

Yeah. Okay. But that exhilaration that you feel in that picture, believe it or not, every time you touch your eye and say, hey, I'm gonna get eye to eye with my own success today, there's a tactile response that's happening. Literally help you perform that much better without even recognizing it. That's what I've been able to tap into and teach people how to find, you know, not just what is your why, but how do you elevate your expectation of yourself. I have a friend that I interviewed in my book. His name is Brad Barton. And you know, he got ready to compete for the Olympics, I think in 88 or 92 in the steeplechase, which is where you jump over and land in the water and run through. Well, he was leading the Olympic tryouts, was going to do it. And he tripped on the very last lap into the water. Saw him. All of his people fell in last place. He ran back, got into sixth place, which is the absolute worst place to be in an Olympic qualifier because it's the first real loser. And so he gave up on his dream for the Olympics. Fast forward, oh, probably 25, 30 years, and he's now 45, 46. And one of the people in his audience says, well, Brad, why don't you try to go back for the Olympics? Are you ever sad? And. And he's like, how many 40 some odd year olds do you see in the Olympics? You know, it's 16 and 20, 25 year olds that are in our sport. He called his coach out of retirement and said, why not? And they started training. And to this point he set eight world records. He is the fastest miler for anybody over age 40. And he was able in 2016 to compete, make it to the Olympics. Wow. Ended up meddling as one of the oldest ever in the Olympics simply because he said, why not? And my Life isn't done. And, you know, and there's. There's hundreds of stories. You know, Colonel Sanders, you know, going through his entire career, virtually broke, age 67, finds this chicken recipe and takes him until he's 71 to really get it off the ground. What else do I need to say about that? You know what I mean? I mean, there's hundreds, hundreds of people out there. We just have to realize that we have the opportunity to really be what I call an eagle. And are you ready for that acronym? So if you're writing things down, it's E, A, G, L, E. And that stands for Everybody achieves greatness through Leadership Excellence. And, you know, they may not be a leader, they may not be the boss or the manager, but the reality is they are the leader when they look in the mirror, because they're looking back at themselves. Does that make sense, Gary? Does that kind of help answer the question, or is that taken too long on a podcast? By the way? You know, I don't know what type of time we have, but I blocked out the time for you, so.

No, I'm glad that. That's awesome.

Cut me off.

No, and it sounds like, really, if I'm trying to summarize what I'm hearing, it's. It's very much about getting people outside of their box of what they think they can do and have them set expectations much higher, because there's power in expectations. There's action and expectations. There's movement. Things happen when you change the expectation. Without that, you're just stuck in the same old, same old.

True. Absolutely. You hit it head on. Getting stuck. And in that Ruth, it is challenging. You know, I've been there. It's extremely difficult to get out. But when you start to see the beauty of the world around you after you've gotten out of that rut, you go, man, why was I in here so long? Why did I let myself really idle? Why did I not develop more skills? Why did I not develop more network and contacts? You know, man, I've had this idea that, you know, could be great. I mean, I had a guy that years and years ago, I was doing roofing. That was when I got hit by the dump truck. And he had this idea to make painting a lot easier. And he had mapped it out and was all ready, but he was scared to get it out there because, you know, he was making 65, 70,000 back probably 1999, 2000. So that was decent money back then, you know, probably double or triple the average. And he Was scared because he didn't want to give up that solid salary. Right. We connected him to a patent attorney. We connected him to some other people. We got them tied in with some people to actually produce the product. And, you know, a while ago was about a year and a half ago, I got a Christmas card from him, and he was like, you know, thanks for helping me get out of my box. His company's now worth, like, 10 or $12 million.

Wow.

But he was so afraid to give up that solid bird in the hand thing and not know or not ask for help. And that's another great thing to address right there is asking for help. You know, many of us have never started a business that's quite honestly why they fail. Reach out to the people that you want to be most like. You know, when I was starting to rebuild some companies, I didn't just want to build a standard company that's doing 1, 2, 3 million a year. I was like, you know what? I want to. I want to watch my wagon. To somebody that's doing 100 million, 500 million, a billion. You know, I want to see how they do stuff because it's been done. There's no sense in me trying to recreate it. But I can learn from their tracks that they're doing or leaving.

So one of the things that. That we talk about is your why, your how, and your what. And so, from the perspective of this, I hadn't shared with you yet, but one of the whys, one of the nine whys is your why, which is challenge. One of the nine whys is your how, and one of the nine whys is your what. And so if I were to just take a stab at it, I would say that your why is to challenge the status quo and think differently. Now, how you go about doing that is by looking for better ways to do things. And then ultimately, what you bring is a way to contribute and add value to other people's lives. How does that feel to you?

I'd say that's a pretty good synopsis.

Yeah, because you're the guy that gets us out. Because I hear you saying a lot of better way things. Well, I found a better way.

I found a better way.

I found a better way. You get outside the box, you find a better way, and then what you bring is either something is ultimately what you bring a better, a way to contribute and add value, or is what you ultimately bring a simpler way to do something, or what is it that you ultimately bring to people?

Do you think, what do I ultimately bring to people. I bring my full, authentic self. And that's a combination of everything you've just mentioned. You know, so back in the day, they're like, well, you know, again, my 16 year old mentor said, well, what do you want to be? And I'm like, well, I want to be a vice president of a company like you. Okay, well, you're gonna need all these skills and these different business ventures to be a part of. And so I got the black belt and Six Sigma. You know, my business partner screwed me out of 10 million and I wrote a book about it. And they said, well, we're never going to publish you because you don't have an MBA and a PhD. Okay, great. Well, I went and did them concurrently, found a way to get them done in six months instead of six years. And basically, I bet the professors, I was like, tell you what, let me take your final test before I've even stepped into your class, senior catalog or anything. And if I can pass it with a 90% or higher, you give me an A and I move on to the next class as fast as I can. And they said, it can never be done. It's never been done that way. I was like, great, you got nothing to lose. So the reality of what you're asking and saying, Gary, is that I take all of the hundreds of businesses that I've coached and trained and sold and worked with over my entire career, seen how they do all of their little cogs and bits and pieces, and look and say, okay, well, what is Gary doing? Where does Gary want to go? How do we fine tune that railroad track so it's straight and we get all the curves out of the way so I'm able to see the lineal process, the people and the connections that need to come in, and then be able to find your particular button and push it and say, okay, Gary, I know you're capable of more, I know you're more. And you're gonna hate me for it, you know, and the client that I'm taking to the sharks today, they said the last four weeks have been the most challenging of their entire career. But you know, last night when we were doing our little thing, we had a. He pulled up to my house unexpectedly and we had a little practice session and he said, you know what, Brandon? In the last four weeks, I've grown more as a business owner, as a person than I ever have in my entire life. Because you challenged everything, every single word that we were putting on print. And I feel we can go raise Tens of millions of dollars now and have a billion dollar company versus just little fly by night, never know that I existed company. And so how do I do all of that? I honestly don't know. I just do. I just get out and do it and I go until I can't go any further and I look for a new solution.

I'm changing my why, how, what for you? Okay, I think it's this now that I. Now that we're talking about it, because I think that your why is to challenge the status quo and think differently, get people to see outside their box. Now, how you go about doing that is by making sense out of the complex and challenging, Taking these complex things and just figuring them out. And then ultimately what you bring is a better way to move forward. That I think is better. Yeah. Your why is challenge. Your how is to make sense, solve problems. And your what is finding a better way. What you bring is a better way than what I had before. Because you just walk. You walk in and you say, okay, what are you doing? No, no, no, no. Let's imagine something totally different. And now let's go figure that thing out. So what do we got to figure out? We got to figure out this. We got to figure out this. We got to figure out this. And now let's put it all together, and this is going to be better. How does that feel to you?

I think that works, you know, and.

That hits it on the head.

Yeah, that's what I think too, because ultimately when I hear you talking, you just come up with better way after better way after better way. But you first got to challenge what's going on. You got to.

Okay, what are you doing?

No, no, no. Let's find something better than that, bigger than that, more expansive. Let's imagine things we hadn't imagined before. What do we got to have 10,000 people on here? Let's get a million people. Let's get 10 million people on here. And then you figured it out. Okay, what are you doing? Let's figure out what we're doing now. Let's find something that's better. This is way better. We're going to do this. That's interesting.

Is that good or is that bad?

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

It's rare, by the way. It's very rare.

Really.

The combination that you have, and it's a great combination for doing amazing things in your life. Nothing's gonna stop you, and there ain't nothing gonna stop people with that.

Why? How?

What combination are not gonna get stopped by anything. You can't put a roadblock in their way, that they can't figure out how to get around it in an extraordinary way and come up with something that's better. And I hear it in every one of your stories.

Well, and I haven't even really mapped that out of the stories. These are all just really off the cuff with where we. So it's kind of interesting to see that insight. I guess you look back at the why and you go, at 2 years old, they should have pulled the plug. At 16, I had cancer. What I didn't say is, at 16, my dad was beating the tar out of me, and I moved out on my own and was literally homeless. At 16, facing cancer, facing college, facing all of this other stuff, and still went out and did it, you know. And so the good news about getting hit by the second dump truck that prevented me from going to the Olympics. So I want to be clear, I cannot say that I'm an Olympian, you know, although I was 2 inches away from setting the world record and without a coach. But what happened is when I got hit by the dump truck, as we were going through it, they said, hey, you realize you have stage four cancer a second time, right? And so at that point in time, my oldest was almost three. My daughter was four or five months away from being born, and my other kids haven't even happened yet, you know, had to drop out of college. All of that stuff happened. And so at that moment, I realized that every day is a gift after that point in time, right? And so if I die today, I can look back on and say, you know what? I did all I could to enjoy as much as I could in this world. I did all I could to make somebody's lives better by taking on their burden that they couldn't handle on their own. Does that make sense, Gary?

Yeah.

And so the one thing, too, that our listeners need to hear today is that they're good enough. They can get through it. But don't live the day with regrets. You know, don't wish you could have had a product or written a book or, you know, invented something or competed or done whatever, or you just want to be shy. You know, I get it. I've been there. Don't live with the regret and just sit there and ask yourself, why not? Why? Why are you not capable of that? Why don't you deserve to be successful? Why don't you deserve to have cool friends and cool cars or whatever that thing is for you, the listener? Why don't you deserve it. And figure out what's holding you back. Because I'm here to say everybody deserves it, plain and simple. And I know that's a big kind of boom moment. Aha. Type of. You know, there's so many people that I've spoken to that have all these roadblocks, and I've had them, too. But the reality is you have to recognize that those roadblocks are there and they're holding you back from your purest potential.

That's awesome.

Brandon, thank you so much for spending the last hour with us. I really appreciate it. It's been great to get to know you and hear your stories and I'm sure you're going to be doing amazing things. Now I got to follow you, so, you know, I got to figure out what you're doing and stay connected to you.

Well, I kind of fly under the radar, but the best ways to connect with me are, you know, a lot of the stories and things like that that we do the motivational speaking on are located@thebrandonkelly.com.

If you wanted to see some of the other things we have, we've done the Elevate youe Efforts University, where it takes and helps people improve their efforts, map out their direction. You know, there's the books and all that fun stuff. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook. You know, I post when I have time, but I don't do very many postings anymore. I found out that the people that are truly my why and my client, the people that I'm going to help, I'm not going to find much in social media. And so I'm prospecting in other areas. But yeah, I'd love to connect with people, you know, love to come in and do stuff and should we do something crazy?

Why not?

Why not?

That's your. That's your why.

So with people, if they'll connect with me through my website, you know, because I've decided to self publish most of my books, I'll give them 20% off any of the books that I've personally written. I've co authored a few that I can't, but I'll give them 20% off my book. So if they'll put in Gary S20 and just send me that note, we'll ship that out to him and give them a 20% off of anything that we decide to help them with in the future. So that way you can pay it forward through your success and all the great things that you're doing. Gary, and go from there. Is that Fair. Is that okay? I mean, that's just off the cuff. And I'm gonna have to go tell my web people about that. But give me a minute to get that done. Is that okay to share that with you or no, for sure.

And I'm glad you did. Thank you for doing that. And then. And I hope there's a ton of people that come and buy your book and learn from you, because I learned. I have three pages of notes here now.

Three pages.

Three pages.

And look at this.

One, two, three. And I know a lot of new stuff, so I appreciate that. And good luck when you talk to the sharks.

No, I think that's gonna go well. We've practiced. We know what we want, we know what we're willing to give up and not give up again. It's not my business at the end of the day, but I've done some pretty crazy things. We've got a CEO super summit coming up where we're taking 300 of the.

Inspiring CEOs across the country, putting them in a competition and filming a TV show about it. The mentors are going to be some people like Jeff Bezos, Kevin Harrington from the Shark Tank, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson. So, you know, it'll be fun to kind of see how some of these things go and see the level of success we take people to, because we're taking people that are already doing a high level, successful business and taking through a competition to double the size of their business and profits in a year. So that'll be fun.

That's awesome. Well, congratulations on that. And I look forward to seeing what you're doing as we go forward. So you have a great rest of your day.

Keep it up, elevate your efforts, have a great one.