Blaze Your Own Trail - Get Obsessed Or Be Average with Bryan Post

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In this episode of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, host Jordan Mendoza interviews emotional performance coach Bryan Post. They discuss Bryan’s journey from a childhood in Oklahoma to becoming a successful entrepreneur and coach. Bryan shares insights on the importance of mindset, accountability, and the entrepreneurial spirit. He emphasizes the need for individuals to confront their fears and challenges through his Unshakeable Man Blueprint, which consists of confronting, challenging, and commanding one's life. The conversation highlights the sign Takeaways Bryan Post has been an emotional performance coach for nearly 30 years. He emphasizes the importance of understanding one's emotional blueprint and traumas. Athletic experiences can foster self-motivation and coachability in business. Entrepreneurship requires grit and the willingness to take risks. Confronting one's fears is essential for personal growth. The Unshakeable Man Blueprint consists of confront, challenge, and command. Success is often about helping others achieve their goals. Investing in oneself is crucial for long-term success. Asking for help can lead to significant opportunities and connections. Failure is a part of the learning process; persistence is key. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Emotional Performance Coaching 04:45 The Journey of Bryan Post: From Football to Social Work 09:33 The Importance of Athletic Mindset in Business 19:03 Transitioning from Employee to Entrepreneur 28:13 The Unshakeable Man Blueprint: Confront, Challenge, Command Connect with Bryan: https://www.bryanpost.com Join Jordan's FREE Weekly Group Coaching Community here: https://byotgroupcoaching.com/           Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host, and I've got a very incredible guest today. His name is Brian Post. And I'm going to have him give you a little bit of brief intro on who he is and what he does today. Jordan, thanks for having me. So, Brian Post, I'm an emotional performance coach, and I have been working with families, with men, with adults for almost 30 years, helping them understand the deeper,

emotional parts of their being, their blueprints, their traumas, understanding how to work through those things to have deeper, more connection and deeper relationships in their lives. Love that. Love it. Super important work. And I'm excited to dive in a little bit later in the show exactly what that actually means for people and then how people can get involved in your incredible work. But my favorite part of the show, Brian, is really taking a rewind. Like, I want to get deep context into my guest story, their journey. honestly see what you're made of. If you're on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast,

it's because you have blazed some type of trail. And so what we're going to do now is really dive back. So if you can share with the audience, where were you born and raised, and what kind of kid were you? What did you get into in the early formative years? So I'm talking elementary, middle, to high school years. Yeah.

So I was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. So there's a country and western musician named Merle Haggard. And he popularized a song called an Oki from Musko. So I always tell people that I'm who he was singing about. And I don't think they imagine a black guy with dreadlocks is Merle Haggars icon for an Oki from Muskogee. But I was born in Muskogee and then I was adopted by Bill and Opel Post. And then I was raised in Mountain View, Oklahoma, which is a small town of 2,000 people

in western Oklahoma, a little country town. So I'm by and large a country boy. I always say you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. And so I was pretty much an entrepreneurial kid, rambunctious kid, my whole childhood. I was fortunate to grow up in a little small town where it was very nostalgic because everyone knew everyone and you could get in trouble by the neighbors down the street and we could run. Me and my buddies could run the streets and terrorize the world until the street light came on and you could hear your mom. I could hear my mom yell from three blocks away that it was time to come home.

I'd yell back and I'd start running my butt home. And the other day, I was in Stockton, California and one of my clients, because I work with families also with traumatized at risk, adopting foster children, one of my clients, he's 11 years old, he was setting up a lemonade stand in the driveway. And it reminded me of myself because I started my first business when I was six years old, and it was a lemonade stand. And so I realized really early that I wasn't getting trashed. setting in my driveway. So I went down to the street corner and that's where I started getting traffic. So I told him, this was just last week. I said, hey, man, you're not going to get enough traffic in the driveway. I said, because look at all the cars, how fast I got to go. So let's go down

on the street corner. So we went down. We positioned his little lemonade stand. In two hours, he made 35 bucks. I was so excited for him because for me, my best day was $4.75. So I helped to to pay it ahead. And I was always wired for entrepreneurship. I always worked as a kid. I always looked for odd jobs. I always looked to start little businesses. Whatever it was I could to make a buck. And it was in me for the longest period of time. And then when I was in high school, well, junior high school, and really from the first grade, the only thing I ever wanted to do was be a professional football player. So that was what I was geared towards. We played football every single day. by the time I got to junior high and high school, it just became my obsession.

So my entrepreneurial bent kind of went by the wayside in place of playing football and lifting weights. And so I went on to become an all-state football player, got a scholarship, football scholarship, went on and started playing in college for a couple years. And then I got tired of being hurt. So my second year of plan, I got tired of being hurt. I knew I was no longer going to have, that was not the caliber of athlete that was going to go to the NFL. So at that point, I knew it wasn't a reality anymore. And so I ended up going into social work. And social work became my next passion, my next obsession.

And that's kind of what I've done my entire professional career, almost 30 years now. I love it. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that context and giving us the access. Definitely a lot to break down there. The lemonade story, it's a story as old as time. You know, it's somebody setting something up and trying to, you know, earn money for whatever, whether that's bubble gum or baseball cards or you just wanted to have something that your parents weren't going to give you the money, right? So I love the fact that, A, you did it yourself as a kid.

B, you not only took the lessons that you learned, but you're able to instill that into the next generation and say, hey, if your location's not right, you can be having a real frustrated time out there. You know what I'm saying? And so you positioned him well. You gave him, you know, VIP level location, and he was able to put some cash in his pocket. So you better believe that was probably the highlight of his whole week, you know, because now he knows, hey, I know where to go. I know how to set myself up for success. And a lot of times that's what entrepreneurs need is they don't need somebody to be a thousand steps ahead.

We just need for someone to be one step ahead. That's right. And as long as we put that foot in front of the other and we say, okay, you know what? Success leaves clues. If this worked last time, you better believe the next time he goes and sets that up, it's not going to be in his driveway. He's going to go exactly to that place where he knew it worked. So I love that.

I just wanted to point that out because I think it's important for people to know. Everybody thinks that you got to go find someone a thousand steps ahead of you. Okay, whether that's a business mentor, a sports mentor. But the truth is, we've got to get back to the basis. And the basics fundamentals are what are going to get you to the next step. So I love A, your thoughts on that. And is that kind of what you were thinking? You're like, hey, let me just go pay it forward and show him. Let me not have him do the things that I did wrong, but let me give him the guidance so that he does this right the first time. Well, I, I, I've 100% agree with you.

I've been an entrepreneur so long that a lot of this stuff is kind of second nature for me. And I just love kids who are out there hustling and want to try to be in. independent and do something that is, it's taken a risk for them because they don't know. Anytime you're doing something you don't know, you're taking a risk. And I love to nurture that kind of courage. And I love to nurture the entrepreneur spirit. And so if I can plant that seed for someone to just take action, because a lot of times people talk about wanting to start a business, wanting to, wanting to do something different, wanting to do something new, wanting to accomplish something. But they never just take the first step. And so,

just like you said, you just need someone, you don't need someone a thousand steps ahead. You just need someone one step ahead. I mean, so many times I've fallen back on that in my career to the point that not only do I, do I still sharpen the sword. And I take that reference from Stephen Covey. I had someone, they got in the car with me once and they asked me why I was listening to this very basic podcast on business. And I said, well, that's how I sharpen the sword.

I'm always getting reinforcement for what I've already done and what I already know. But you never know when you hear just one thing a little bit different. And so I've relied on that throughout my entrepreneurial career. Yeah, I love that. And then you talk about sports, right? You started to have this passion to become an athlete and do that very, very well and put your time and attention to that. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit because we have a lot of athletes to listen to the show,

people in sports. I think it's nice to have fresh perspectives on what being part of a team, having coaches and investing in skill sets, what that actually does for you over the period of your life. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about, A, you know, when you think back and reflect on all the time and energy and in money and that you invested, what were some of the biggest takeaways that are still adding value today and all the work that you're doing that came from sports. That's fantastic. I don't think there's any substitute for an athletic background. And the reason I say that is, and I have employed hundreds of people, but the people who have been athletes, they are able to be coached. They also are self-motivated.

So people who are really good athletes, they don't need to have anyone that tell them to get up in the morning and get to work, go work out, eat the right foods, push themselves. They have that and it's just ingrained and it's built up. over time. And so having that as a background, I feel like it is a fundamental shift for me over a lot of people trying to do a lot of things because I've been an athlete for so long. And let me tell you something that I carry with me to this day. And I was just talking to one of my, I might have been talking to my wife actually or one of my business partners. But when I was in high school, I developed this characteristic, not of competition, but of dominance. I didn't want to compete. I was. I was. wasn't going to compete because I didn't think anyone could compete with me. I wanted to dominate. I wanted to be the best in the game and I have carried that with me throughout my entire career. And I remember Floyd Mayweather said that. He said, I don't watch film on people I'm going to fight. They watch film on me. He said, all I do is get better at what I do so that they have to figure out how to defend themselves against me. And I've always taken that into any business endeavor I've ever gone into.

I don't want to compete. I want to dominate. I want to be the best. I want to bring the most impact. I want to bring the deepest transformation that I possibly can. And that's just something that I've carried with me from a very, I'm 52 years old. So that story I've been carrying with me for since I was at least 15 years old. And I feel like it's just a really important point of differentiation between people who've been athletes.

and they understand that no matter at whatever level you're at, in order to get to the next level, you have to continue to invest in yourself, you have to continue to seek out coaches, you have to continue to seek out mentors, you have to continue to read the books and study and work and push yourself. And that's the thing. It's that innate knowingness to push yourself to get to the next level,

because there are always next levels. And I think that is so important. Yeah, I love that. Fair points there. And I love the fact that you said that because I play in a similar mindset. I've been breakdancing since the mid-90s. I still teach it in my garage at 44. You know, I've never played organized sports, but you don't want to see me on the basketball court at the park or at any gym because you're going to get dominated.

You know what I'm saying? But living life with that confidence, it means something. And it doesn't come from a place of cockiness. It doesn't come from a place of I'm better than you. It's just like I know what's in me. And I know that when you bring that out, it's contagious. And other people feel that. And they feel that energy and spirit.

And for me, when I'm going, it's like, hey, I don't care if you're 18 or you're 26 or 36. You're not going to keep up with me when you play on the court. And there's something about that mentality that you have. We saw it in a guy I hated because I'm a Portland Trailblazer. fam, Kobe Bryant. But you saw that Mamba mentality in the guy and it was there. It wasn't going away. He would do things like show up when the other teams are playing and he'd be practicing

before they got up just to get in their mindset. And so I love the fact that you brought that up because there's something about knowing where your craft is at and knowing the level that you're at and knowing that it's up to you to get above it and not to ever come down below. And I remember being a teenager in D.C., visiting my dad in the summers, and I'd be working on like my dribbling. I'd be working on my layups or my three-point shooting. And I would do that for hours and hours.

And then I would be landscaping because he had a landscaping business. And while I had the blower, I'm visualizing about making the shots. And I'm playing games in my mindset. So I feel like you're a kindred spirit in that sense to where visualization has had to have been a part of you getting to, become a better version of yourself. So I'd love for you to share with the audience, where do you stand when it comes to that and, you know, things to kind of put in reps to build your mindset? Well, I would say it's almost everything. I mean, I was listening to in my early 20s, I think I was probably about 24 years old. I was listening to an audio program. So it was CDs because I

still have them. And it was called The Millionaire Course by a guy named Mark Allen. And in, in the videos, and I still remember where I was, I was driving over the Avondale Bridge in Miami, going to Avondel Beach. And this, he said something in that audio course. He said he met a Korean, a Korean billionaire who wrote his goals every single day. And see, that planted a seed. And he said, if it was good enough for a Korean billionaire, it was good enough for me. And I, started writing my goals obsessively. I still write my goals. I wrote my goals this morning. Sometimes I write a whole bunch. Sometimes I write just my core 20 or so. But I started writing my goals every single day because that is a part of visualizing, which, and I can really go deep into

this stuff, because I am really into vibration and frequency. And now as someone who has studied neuroscience for 20 years and applied it in all the work that I do, I understand. I understand. the reticular activating system. I understand the power of visualizing something, speaking it, and then I also understand the power of getting obsessed. And see, this is the thing that people don't do. They don't get obsessed. In all the businesses that I've ever started, I've always known when I was in the sweet spot. And I also know when people I'm coaching or partnering with when they're in the sweet spot because they'll dream about it. They'll dream about the business. And I always say, because people will be like, oh my God, I couldn't sleep last night because I was dreaming about this

freaking business. And I'd be like, you're right in, that is exactly where you need to be. Because when you're dreaming about it, you're in the unconscious experiencing of it, which is a whole different frequency that is training your cellular system. It's training your reticular activating system to start creating the attraction that you need to pull that thing. into your life. And when you can get obsessed about it, Grant Cardone is one of my mentors, followed Grant forever, and he wrote a book called Be Obsessed or Be Average. And I listened to that book probably four or five times. I got a funny story about that. I actually ended up introducing Grant to Russell Brunson back in the day when Grant was first putting on his 10x conferences,

and I'd been a big Russell protege for a long time. I knew Russell, when Russell Brunson is the founder of ClickFunnels, for those who don't know. But I was in Russell's mastermind the year before he even developed ClickFunnels. And so when I was listening to Grant, one of the things Grant said is I'm putting on this conference. So I said, this is cool. I'm going to go to his conference. And I looked on his website and I saw he had all these great people, but he didn't have any internet marketing people. So I emailed him because in Be Obsessed or Be Average, he says, email me because he calls himself Uncle G.C.

So I emailed him. And I was like, look, you look like you had a great conference, but you need Russell Brunson on your. on your speaking circuit because you don't have any internet marketers in your conference. And so he emailed me back. He said, connect me. So I email Russell and I email Grant and I connected him. And after Russell had been on grants, first of all, Russell's, his appearance at Grant's conference, I think he did something like $4 million in like three hours time.

So he set a record for how much money he did. And then he did like two or three more. And one day he sent me a video message and he had a big old stack of orders. And he said, I just want to thank you because in the last 18 months, you've helped me generate like $6 million. And this is all for making that connection. And then, as everyone knows, now grants all over social media and his whole, you know, a big $200, 300 million of his business is all internet marketing related. But that was all from being obsessed because I was obsessed. And you talk about the person being ahead of you, a step ahead of you.

I don't want someone just one step ahead of me. Now I want people who are doing 100 million, a billion. And I used to write in my gold book that I am mastermining with 100 millionaires and billionaires. And within three years, I was in those rooms because there's a different frequency in that room. And those are all action takers. Those are all people who have been through. They have always called it the first mountain. You've climbed the first mountain

And the first mountain, if anyone's ever climbed that first mountain, which is the mountain of success, you know how much pain and you know how much sacrifice and you know how much loss and you know how many tears and you know how many sleepless nights, you've gone through to climb that first mountain. But man, when you get to the top of that first mountain, it feels so good.

But really the addiction of entrepreneurship is going down the other side of that mountain and getting ready to go up it again because it's a whole different mountain, whole different experience. So dominating, being obsessed, those are just parts of my DNA now. I can't help, but not talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. And I love the fact that you made a connection and there was no, like, what do I get from this? You know, and I think that's a lesson to be taught with people. Because I always tell my clients, I'm saying, hey, you're one connection

away to completely change your life or somebody else's life. It doesn't matter whose life could change. If someone's life gets changed, then that's called impact. That's right. So for me, I'm always trying to think about that. Like, who do I know in my network? Who can I resource somebody with? Who can I, who's that one degree of separation where we could completely change the trajectory of somebody's business, their life, you know, some type of impact, influence. And so I love the fact that you did that. So let's talk a little bit about you finish, you go, you play college football. You realize, hey, you know what, I don't think this is going to lead into what my hopes or aspirations were. So when that realization hit you, I'm sure you were kind of at a crossroads at that point because

you don't do anything halfway. Like you put your heart and your soul into the football thing and now you're realizing it's not there. So let's talk to the audience. Where did you, where was that first kind of step or pivot? Obviously you knew you could do the entrepreneurial thing. So that would be the logical thing. And I know you mentioned you started going into helping out in the social world. Was that a W-2 job? Was that a business? I'd love just to see which path you ended up taking. Well, so that's very interesting journey for me

because when I quit playing football, all I knew was to work. I mean, I had really lost my entrepreneurial, I disconnected from that entrepreneurial spirit when I had become obsessed with football. And so once I quit playing football, I was in college. I was in my bachelor's degree.

So my next class was social, work and I went into an intro or social work class. I was like, oh, well, this sounds interesting. I was probably the first person from my family to ever get a bachelor's degree. So no one in my family was really, I didn't have any entrepreneurs in my family. There weren't a lot of degreed folks in my family, if any. And I just started going, I fell into an intro to social work class. And it was natural. So I went from that class to another class. I liked the professors. And that was the thing about me. If I, if I like the professor, I had a greater acclamation to the subject. And so I had a sociology professor and I had a social work professor. And I really loved both of them. It was Dr. Shutter and Dr. Zellner. And I just

poured into it. And before long, I almost had a double major in social worker and sociology. And so one of my social work professors right before I completed school, he got me an interview with the Social Security Administration. So they interviewed me and I thought, you know what, and this is that entrepreneur in me, but I didn't even know it was still there. I thought there is no way I can go set doing nine to five in a government office. I'm not, I don't, I got offered the job. I didn't accept it.

I'm pretty sure it was a minority thing because I think only me and an older Indian gentleman named Gene were about the only two that got interviewed. I mean, one of us got offered the job. So I got offered it. I turned it down. I didn't know what else I was going to do. So I was smart. I never had an issue with school, and I love reading to this day.

So I went ahead and I got accepted into a master's degree program, which was an advanced standing program only a year long. So packed up my wife at the time and my little girl. We went to University of Texas in Arlington, University of Texas at Arlington for my master's degree going through school. And one day I was walking, I was kind of a hippie, walking across the campus. And a professor said, hey, Brian, and called me over. his name was Lawrence Anderson. He said, where are you going to do your practicum at? And I said,

I don't know. He said, why don't you do it here? He was a director of the community clinic. So I was like, okay. And so I started doing my practicum there, and that is what put me on the journey for becoming a psychotherapist. So after that, before I got out of graduate school, he helped me get a job with the state. I started working for the state. I worked for my first two weeks or my first 30 days. I got that check. I'm walking in a hallway, open that first check. I see that first check and I was like, there's no way in hell. I'm going to be able to support a wife and a little girl on this amount of money. I really kind of freaked out. And so I called him immediately. I said, I can't work here because it's not going to make enough money. And so he helped me

get a job with another agency. And I was always, I was always, I realized this really early and I was fortunate. I had problems with authority. So he helped me get a job there. I didn't like the supervisor, had a falling out, got released from that job, got a 30-day severance check, which was the first time I ever got a severance check. I was like, this is super cool. So I had about six jobs in the span of about six months, and then one day I realized I have problems with authority. I can't work for anyone.

But I didn't have a job at that time. So an entrepreneur came down from Oklahoma, hired me, brought me back up to Oklahoma. I started working to do an intensive in-home for him. And one day, I had went back down to Dallas. And I had went to spend the weekend with Larry. We called him Big A. That was his nickname. And this is the same professor from graduate school.

So we were very close. Again, it's that significant figure in my life. And I was telling him about what I was doing. And he said, well, you could do that for yourself. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. So kind of blew it off. And we spent the weekend, had a great weekend. I was driving back home.

And his words resonated in my brain that I could do that for myself. And I thought, I could. And all of a sudden, that entrepreneur's spirit show back up. I called him. I said, you're right. I could do this for myself. He said, okay, well, I'll help you get started. And I just dove right in. So I was 25 at the time, dove right in, finding out about policies and procedures in the state and what we needed. I hired a lady that worked at the office where I was already working. And in a year later, right before my 26th birthday, I went in and resigned, and I started my first business. And then

in about three years into that, I realized, probably a year into that, I realized, that not only did Larry not know anything about business, he had been in private practice, he'd been very successful, but he didn't know anything about business. And I didn't know anything about business. I started that first business. I didn't even think I knew how to spell business. But what I did know, because of my father, because of my mom and dad growing up, I knew how to work hard. And I was never, I was never immune to hard work. And I became obsessed. And within three years, I had 30 clinicians. I had three offices. And we were the dominant player in all of Southern Oklahoma.

And I did all of that basically just on sheer grit, just working hard and marketing and connecting with people. And that was one of those times where a mentor came and just playing at a seed. I was open to it. And that put me, I never looked back after that. After that, I never worked for anyone else. You're muted. Yeah, I love that story.

I was going to say, we're kindred spirits in that sense, except it took me working in corporate for 15 years before I had decided to leave. So I think I could handle authority a little bit longer than you could, but everybody has a journey. At some point, you come to the realization that you're undervalued, underpaid, and you're not really being leveraged for the gifts, talents, and abilities that you have. There's three things that I've seen in the last five years being a full-time entrepreneur that it takes to become successful. You hit one on the head, which is grit. If you have grit, Meaning when you get knocked down, you get back up.

When the MAC account says negative, you still have, you still figure out how to go put one foot in front of the other, right? You need that. You also need the ability to not be afraid to fail, right? Meaning you got to put one foot in front of the other and you got to go take action. That's the only way you can create momentum. And then the third thing is, as you mentioned it as well, is you got to invest in yourself, which means sometimes we've got to go to people that are ahead of us and say, I need to, need help. I don't know this. Now, what you did was very similar to me. It's like, hey,

I run all these businesses in corporate, multimillion dollar apartment buildings. How hard could it be? And then you get punched in the face. You're like, wow, this is hard. This sucked a little worse that I thought it was going to be. But trial and error and being thrown to the wolves, you either going to rise to the top or you're going to become dead meat. So I love the fact that you invested in you, you put it out there. You also did something that a lot of people wouldn't do. And you went into and dipped into the company and said, this person already knows the business. They already know ops. And you had an asset that you had help you. And I'm sure that that person was instrumental over that year for you to be able to go in at 26 and say, I'm out of here.

She sure was. Your name was Yvonne Martin. We would work. She would come over. And both of us would be, We rented a place. We'd work in the evenings probably from 6 o'clock till 9, 10 o'clock at night to get all that stuff done until we finally got that business started. Yeah, I love that. I love that. So you have this business. It's successful. What do you do next?

Because I know a guy like you at some point you're going to get bored and you're going to either want to have to add something to the plate, you know, maybe add speaking to the play. So I'd love to see just how did the business evolve? And then we're going to get closer up to just some of the other. other things that you've done since then. Then, of course, I would love for you to share for folks. There's a lot of people listening that are going to get a lot of value out of your story, which a lot of it is, yes, grit, yes, having to show up, being self-aware of your strengths and your capability.

So there's a lot of like kind of through line things that I see, but I'd love to see where did that business go to next? What other adventures did you get into? And then we'll kind of round it out with the ways that you're helping today and some tips that we can leave with our audience before we tell them how to find you. So I love to hear. it's been it's been one one ongoing journey since then and you know isn't it's it's great for us to imagine that you know when we're up we're going to stay up but it's never that way because that's

the process of growth just so you're inevitably going to sink again and you're going to either have to hit the bottom and start heading back up again or you're going to stay you're going to stay on the bottom and i did that business that first business for three years i ended up letting my partner and one of his friends take it over because i was i think i was over I mean, I had grown so big, so fast, didn't really know what was going on in business. I wanted to do something different. And I ended up moving to Canada. I took over, oh, I started learning.

So I started getting specialized. That's what it was. I started to really get specialized in my craft. So I remember listening, and I was still listening to a lot of success stuff. I mean, listening to success material has probably been one of the most common themes of my life. the books I've read, the audios I've read. So I have followed. Robert Allen was the guy of the day.

Mark Victor Hansen was chicken soup for this old guy. And I remember Mark Victor Hansen at a T. Harve-Ecker workshop once. He said, you get rich in your niche. And so I knew then that I had to really become specialized in something. So I really got specialized in the area of attachment and adoption and trauma. And so then I took that after I got out of my first. business. I took that to Canada, ran a program, and started traveling, lecturing, and working with families intensively all around the world. So I was very fortunate in that I had a mentor

when I was 27. I had read a book about this lady, a psychiatrist who was doing some very specialized care. I called her up, and it's another one, those action things. I read her book. I saw her at a conference. I bought the book. I read the book. I put the work into a session like two, three days later, loved it. It was intense. It was powerful, but I knew I need to learn more. I called her the next morning. She was in New York. I was in Oklahoma. She answered. I said, I got to learn more. She said, I'm going to be in Kansas City. So I drove up to Kansas City a couple weeks later. And that started a three-year training process with her where we traveled all around the country. And then I leveraged that into my own private practice. And then what I started doing, Jordan, and this was

another one of those pivotal points for me is that I started in one of the biographies a biography I read Benjamin Franklin after a conversation I had with a good friend of mine I realized that I didn't even know what a million dollars was that I was wanting to make a million want to make a million but I had no idea my parents combined made $40,000 a year so I didn't it was a it was a shock when I realized that I didn't actually know what a million dollars was but that same that same weekend I was reading Benjamin Franklin's biography. And in that book, he said, he set out to double his income every year. And I thought to myself, well, I don't know what a million dollars is, but I can double my income every year. And so at that first year, I was making $75,000. I knew I went to make $150,000. So I

started working to make $150. And then when I hit $150, I knew I had to get to $300. So I started asking people in my lectures, who in mental health do you know that's making $250,000 a more year? And one lady mentioned a guy, so I got his number. I mean, no hesitation. I said, give me his number because I didn't know how it's going to get there otherwise. So I got his number, come to find out, it was actually him and his wife together as professors were making $250,000 a year. So I knew that wasn't the way that I wanted to go. So I realized I had to start a business. And so that took me back from a business to private practice to now a business again. And then I started another series of businesses. I started like five businesses, almost had a nervous breakdown. I had businesses in all

these different states, all these different employees. You know, I'm 30 years old. I am burning it at both ends of the candle. And they were successful, but then I would, I didn't have the wherewithal to, to stay focused. And it wasn't until I had had several successes and failures that I was coming off the tail end of another failure. And I think the failure was impending. I didn't even realize it at the moment. But a friend had driven, he had driven overnight to spend the weekend with me because he was struggling with some emotional stuff. And this was when I really got into really emotional breakthrough work with adults, other than the work I'd been doing with parents and families. But he was a pastor. And he said, the Bible says that of these three things, you can have anything that you want.

He said, it's faith, focus, and perseverance. And that just resonated. with me. I was like, that was the thing. It was the focus. I've always had the faith. I've always had the perseverance. I mean, I could persist to the worst of things, but it was the focus that I was missing. And all the times in my career leading up to that, that I'd been focused, I'd been the most successful. And so I realized I had to dial in. I had to get really focused. And I started getting really focused. And then that probably within that next, I'm going to say it was two years, just to give myself, there's more like a year and a half, but I went from like zero to $4 million to $7 million to $13 million to $23 million because I was focused. And that's, that's where I really moved into

just the next level of doing business and the next level of thinking and the next level of taking risk. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love how everything kind of had its next ladder, you know, and it's like, hey, you know what, if I'm going to hit this target, I want to go to the next. But I love also, this is a TEDx playbook on how you get the things that you want. So I actually, a couple years ago, I interviewed Mark Victor Hanson and his amazing wife Crystal here on this show. And this is right when their book was coming out, Ask the bridge between your dreams and your destiny. And you've literally just laid it out for everybody that's listening. There are so many people that are going to hear this.

and the only reason you haven't got what you're asking what you're trying to get is because you have not asked. You haven't asked the question to yourself. You haven't asked a question to somebody else. You haven't slid into the DMs of that celebrity that you're trying to like tell them that they're awesome. But guess what? You want to know the difference between Brian and you? He asked. He took the action.

He said, hey, who is making this amount of money in this vertical and do you have their contact info? great because here's the thing you can get the contact info but you got to take action on that info too so if anyone has listened to anything or learned anything you can get a lot in life if you're willing to be humble a because asking is not easy especially for us men that have pride and egos it gets in the way we feel like we should already know the stuff let me let me give you a little tip you don't okay i don't know it all brian doesn't know it all and this is why you go get it from other people. Now, what's the worst thing that could happen? They could say no. Or they say, hey, it costs you a thousand bucks to get that answer. And sometimes it's going to look like that,

because there are people that are like that. And that's fine. But here's the thing. What's it worth to you? What's it worth to you? Because I guarantee you, in several of these instances, you would have opened up your checkbook and written a check for that information. But luckily for you, you just asked. And they were gracious enough to have the ability to say, here's how you can do it. So that's just a lesson. I wanted to call that out because there's a lot of people that are going to listen to this. And you're literally one way from dramatically shifting your world in 2026. It just takes that one question. So what I want to do now, Brian, is you've done some amazing things. You're in a space where you're adding so much value to people. And the way I look at it is you're

trying to help get down to the root cause for people because surface level as you know doesn't work you know we can mask people's emotions we can pump them full of medication but if we don't get down to the actual root cause then nothing's going to change right and so i'd love for you to share you know if there's somebody that maybe they're struggling i was trying to decide which which area of value you wanted to give the audience but i know that we're in a hurting world i know there's a lot of people dealing with emotional things, racism, physical, you know, it could just be in their marriage. So I want you to if you wouldn't mind, just lay out a few steps for folks. If you're, if they're struggling today, maybe it's a mindset thing. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe they're trying to make that decision

in the first quarter of 26. Do I leave this job? Do I go and put one foot in front of the other? What would be that three step roadmap for the folks that are listening that would really add value to them? matter what their circumstances are because a lot of people feel like I need everything to be perfect before I make a change. And as you and I both know, brother, it's never going to be the right time. So I'd love this three-step roadmap for people that might just be stuck and struggling. What can you add value to them on today? Well, I think that's an excellent question. And the first thing that I want to say is for the person who's struggling, number one, you're the only person who can hold you accountable. No one else. No one else.

can hold you accountable except for yourself. And I like to really challenge people to stand in the mirror, look themselves in the eye and get really honest with yourself. And I want to ask you a question, are you being reactive or are you being responsive? Are you being a victim or are you being a conqueror? Because if you're being a victim and you're being reactive, you're always going to be held hostage and helpless to someone else or something. So you're always going to be arrested. You're you're going to be in shackles forever. And the only thing that's causing you to be victimized and to be reactive is fear. It's really important that people understand that there are two really core primary emotions,

and that's love and fear. Fear will arrest you because it is in your DNA. We live in a fear-based society. We grew up in fear-based homes. We grew up in fear-based churches. Religion is fear-based. You look around you. Everyone's telling you that you can't do something,

or you better be safe, or you better worry about this. Fear is real. And I would say that it is the most real enemy that exists in your life. But you have to be really honest with yourself and ask yourself, are you being a victim or are you being a conqueror? Are you being reactive or are you being responsive? And so when you get real honest with that, the next thing you got to do is you have to,

and I have a three-phase formula. I call it the unshakable man blueprint. It's called confront, challenge, and command. You have to confront your blueprint. So whatever is showing up in your life right now, whatever negativity is showing up in your life, whatever scenario, say you're working for someone and you don't like working with them,

but you won't get another job. Whether you're in a marriage and you're blaming your wife, you're saying, I don't, you know, she's not doing this and it's making me feel this way. You've got to confront that. And here's why you got to confront it. Because all of those experiences that you're having are coming from your core blueprints. When you find yourself being reactive to someone or something, it has far more to do with you than it has to do with that person or that situation.

Emotional reactivity stems from unfinished business. So when you're being reactive to something, that's all you, brother. You've got to face it. You've got to take some deep breaths and you have to ask yourself, when have I felt this way before? because whatever reactive experience you're having is coming from an old brain stem energy-based pattern that you learned long time ago. So you've got to confront it. Most people don't want to confront because confrontation is difficult. As soon as you confront it, yeah, it's difficult. Maybe you've got to grieve. Maybe you got to get really pissed off. Maybe you got to feel really scared and really sad.

But as soon as you confront it, that's the first step to them being able to really challenge it. Now, the challenging it is asking yourself, how is that old feeling showing up every day? And what is that old feeling keeping me from? And if I am not blaming anyone except for myself, what action can I take today to set me free from the confines of fear in those blueprints that have been that have been afflicting me for so long? Because I would say that it's probably been afflicting you for decades. you probably watched your own parents or your own grandparents experience it. So then you got to challenge it. And the challenge is an ongoing process.

So confronting and challenging is an ongoing process until you get into command. When you get into command, that's when you get into conscious, mindful awareness about what's showing up in any moment, what you're feeling, what you're thinking. You learn to breathe. You learn to pay attention to it. You learn to settle it, dial it down. and you learn to move forward in its midst, which is courage. And that's why I call it courage intelligence. Core coming from the heart.

So it's emotional intelligence. It's heart intelligence. It's courage intelligence. You don't back down. You go forward and you be willing to take that risk and realize that you only fail when you quit. Otherwise, it's always learning. It's always growing.

So that's my unshakable man blueprint. Confront, challenge, and command. I love it. Confront, challenge, and command folks, make sure you write that down. We're also going to make sure we put resources in the show notes. I'm sure he's got some info on how you can implement this into your business and in your life. I know the folks are going to get so much value out of your story and your journey. You're definitely a trailblazer. You're continuing to blaze trails. And what I love the most is that you're humble and you're helping people along the way. As you've heard, rising tides lift all boats. And so if we can be a value add to people, then they're going to go and add value and that multiplication is just going to continue to move on. So where can the good folks find you, Brian? Yeah, I would say anyone that wants to just go deeper in themselves, especially men. I have a website. It's called courage dash IQ.com. You can download my unshickable man blueprint. And it's for every man who's out there that wants to just become better. And my main focus is, excuse me, is for the second mountain men,

the man who've already climbed the success mountain and want to climb the meaning and the legacy mountain. And then also, feartolove.com is another place people can go and find out about my parenting work, my work with traumatized children, and work with traumatized families. Friend, love it, love it. We're going to make sure we link all this info down in the show notes. Folks, make sure that you run to those show notes, grab the resources. If you're a man and you're trying to be a better version of you for your spouse, your kids, your workplace, place, make sure to get that resource. If you want more info on the other stuff, we're going to link everything that Brian has said, plus all his social links. And he's a very approachable guy. So

make sure, hey, if there's any advice you take from this, if you liked what you heard from Brian, send him an email and ask him a question. You know what? Because if you don't do that, you're never going to know. And that's all you got to do. I guarantee you, if you reach out to him, you'll probably reach back out to you and it'll give you an answer. And if he doesn't have the answer, he's the type of guy that's going to point you in the right direction. Hi, Brian, thank you so much. It's been an honor having you on the Blaz Your Own Trail podcast. Any final words for the audience?

Thank you, Jordan. Just, you know, my last words is probably something that is in alignment with what you're saying. Zig Ziglar is known for saying if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything that you want. And I really do believe that. And I believe that that's all about frequency. The more I help lift other people up, I'm increasing their frequency. Their vibration is growing, which then grows my vibration and my frequency. So the more that we can support one another and lift them up and connect them and help them achieve their dreams and sew into them,

the more that frequency is better for ourselves. And so I just want to encourage someone who's struggling. If you're struggling with whatever you're struggling with, go out and help somebody else. Stop focusing on what you're focused on. stop thinking about what it is that you want and go be of service to someone else and watch how the law of manifestation and the law of vibration comes back around to you.

So thank you, George, for having it. Awesome advice, my friend. It's a pleasure having you on. Folks, if you haven't got a copy of my latest book, make sure to go grab that. It's on 40,000 publications, the life-changing power of adversity, how to overcome struggles,

unlock your potential, and blaze your own trail to success. One of the quotes, Brian, I put in the book, it actually is the perfect close for this episode. And it goes like this. The struggle might be real, but the good news is that every struggle has a free gift called a lesson.

So go out there, folks, unwrap those lessons. Brian, thank you so much, brother, for coming on the show. Let's go. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. All right. All right.