DreamNation 147 – Brant Menswar: How To Take Control Of Your Success

Casanova Brooks:

What’s up DreamNation. We are back again with an episode that I’m sure will not only inspire you, but hopefully it will motivate you to take action. And so today I have on the show, my man, mr. Brant Manswar. Brant, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to DreamNation.

Brant Manswar:

What’s happened in DreamNation. I am so excited to be here.

I have been admiring the show now through several episodes. And the minister of razzle dazzle is about ready to get his shot. So let’s do this.

Casanova Brooks:

Should I have you on here? It’s a beautiful day where I am. And so I’m all excited and, yeah, it’s going to be a fun one. So yeah. I always like to start off the show by comparing us as entrepreneurs and thought leaders to superheroes.

And the reason being is because we’re constantly flying around the world. I know you are because you’re a speaker and we’re putting on our Cape and we’re trying to solve some of the biggest problems in the world. And behind every Superman, we all know that there’s that guy, his name is Clark Kent?.

And I want to ask you behind the superhero who we know as Brant Manswar, who is that Clark Kent.

Brant Manswar:

Oh man. I, so for me, it’s been a little a challenge for, for transitioning from the music stage to the, speaking stage. And so the music stage requires you to be. Even more demonstrative than I am on the speaking stage.

And so it’s almost coming back into myself and being comfortable with not having be on all the time and be that guy, that the, that, that Clark Kent for me is a chance for me to just sit back a little bit and say, Hey, I don’t have to, I don’t have to be Superman. 24 seven, I can, I can turn it on and off when I need to and make sure that I’m taking care of myself in the process and not burning the candle at both ends.

Man.

Casanova Brooks:

And that’s crazy that you say that. And the reason why I say is, cause right now, what I heard is that you’re having a pivot and a shift. And a lot of forums, like things were already going well for you. You were, you had, you were in your zone, As a musician. And now all of a sudden. You have to pivot and for a lot of people right now, especially with this pandemic going on, there’s a lot of pivots going on in the world.

So walk me through, what has been the process, because you said that it’s not been comfortable or it’s not been the easiest, what’s been your process, to try and get your routine down and make it more clear, comfortable for you

Brant Manswar:

transitioning from, doing large-scale conferences, where you’re keynoting for a couple thousand people to sitting in your office.

all day, every day, doing virtual keynotes, has been a challenge. And so early on, say in March of this year, I watched six, well into six figures of revenue just disappear, right? Because the conferences got canceled, they got postponed, they got moved to whatever the, whatever the scenario was.

but in the middle of a book launch, that was all pre-sales of books too. So now I’m looking at trying to figure out what am I going to do? so the pandemic actually forced me into innovation in, in ways that I hadn’t had to think of before. And it, and it’s actually turned out pretty well enough, so that once we’re through this and we can go back to doing large scale conferences again, I feel like the virtual stuff that I’ve been able to develop over the last six months will become a yes.

And it’s a, I’ll go and do the big one, but then let’s follow up with, two additional virtual sessions that allow us to carry the conversation further than me being on stage for an hour. And it’s been, a challenge, but one that has, has really. Been able to bear a lot of fruit, right?

So you were able to dive into the technology side of what it takes to, to do something virtually that is not just a talking head. So it’s it’s not just the PowerPoint presentation. So how can we go deep into that? So that led me into the, the deep dive of multi cameras now. So now I have a three camera set up, in my office with, moving cameras and.

And stream decks and, all the E cam software and all these different things that allow me to bring the energy that I would at a large-scale conference into a tiny little box that I now have to present through.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow. That’s yeah, that’s definitely a pivot. And so for anybody who doesn’t know, if anybody’s listening to this and they’re pretty tech savvy, I got the same setup right here.

Rode podcaster Pro, the stream deck, a couple different cameras, new cameras. So it’s definitely a pivot, for. Someone who is right now trying to say, okay, I want to get into speaking. And because you have been able to crush that world, at least from the outside looking in. And I think you’ve had a lot of substance because there’s a lot of speakers out there that don’t necessarily have substance.

They just have a lot of. Good energy and motivation. Which is every place has its own. But for you coming from, I guess specifically you came from being a musician where it was more about just the feel-good, it wasn’t that you had to actually take action from the music. But now you have to pivot that.

How have you been able to do that? Was that an easy transition from you? Was that already who you were and how could someone else emulate the same thing?

Brant Manswar:

So the, so the showman ship was an easy transition. You know that you’ve got to go in and you’ve got to perform whether there’s 20 people in a room, or 2000 people in a room, you still want to give them the same, the same performance.

So on that side, it was a fairly easy transition on the other side of content. that’s a whole different ball game. If you want to be able to be successful in the speaker world. What I will tell people as this, there are two types of people in that world that I have noticed, and this is coming from the music business.

So there are speakers and there are presenters. Now I would, in my opinion, it’s 95% presenters and maybe 5% speakers. So what I mean by that is. There are a bunch of people who are good at presenting information, but they do not know how to own a room. They don’t know how to own a stage. They don’t know how to do any of that.

And so the stage swallows them because. They don’t have the edutainment factor that you need to carry a large room. speakers are somebody who basically leaves enough space, what you’re doing to capture the truth in the room in the moment. And that means you can’t have everything scheduled out to the second.

You’re not playing the tracks. You don’t have. scheduled choreography dance moves. You’ve got to worry about this is leave enough space so that if the room decides to take a right, you can go there. And that’s, that’s the difference between a speaker. The speaker can actually let the room dictate where this is going to go a little bit.

And when you do that, you give yourself chance to capture that lightning in a bottle that, is, is really rare for a presenter to find themselves in that position.Casanova Brooks: Got it. So how does somebody develop that showmanship, to have that speaking ability? What, what would you say?

What’s something that you’ve learned early on in your journey that has helped you to accelerate?

Brant Manswar:

You’ve got to own your content. You’ve got to be an expert in your content. And if you’re not, why would anybody listen to anything you have to say? So you’ve got to, for me, it was, not just being somebody who could be inspirational or motivational on stage.

That’s great. But what if somebody comes up afterwards and questions you on the science behind what it is? You’re presenting. Can you answer those questions? Can you have a discussion about the science and that is what separates the good from the great, and so the greats, they know the content, they know the science, whether you’re a, a Harvard grad or, you’re, you’re just somebody who is.

Is really, interested in the theme of what you’re talking about or the subject matter of what you’re talking about. You have to be a subject matter expert, if you want to make sure that people listen to what you have to say, and then you have to be prepared to defend whatever it is that you are presenting.

Casanova Brooks:

And I think there’s so many nuggets that you said there. I think for somebody that’s listening to this and they say, you leaving the musician world, the music world. Whereas a lot of feel-good to then getting into speaking on the musician world, it’s all about passion. For the most part.

Some people get in from music, but are not music. I’m sorry for profit. for money is what I meant to say. That was the M word, but most people start out with music because they have a lot of passion for it. Why did you leave music was where you burned out? Why did you decide that you wanted to be a speaker?

Brant Manswar:

I was forced out because my oldest son in 2012, was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer. And so that battle that we faced pulled me off the road with him. We, we. We’re in a hospital for 263 straight days. And he survived. But when we came through that, I knew he was going to need some extended care and how that was going to play itself out.

I couldn’t be gone for weeks or a month or two at a time. Like I had been in the past, out on tour. And so I started to transition myself while he was getting sick off the road and into, this, this speaking career that, at first started as. part of another group called Banding People Together.

when we first started, this was a buddy of mine who started this incredible organization that was teaching collaboration through songwriting. And so that was like a nice, easy pivot for me to still be in the music. Space a little bit, but not as the front man of this band, but instead as this teacher of how to, be collaborative when you’re working with others, like we do when we write songs together.

And so that’s what forced me into that space. And then when I got into that space, I w I don’t ever want to go back because I get treated way more like a rockstar now than when I was actually rock stars. it’s, the money is way different. The accommodation things are way different.

And you go from, you go from literally. slogging all over the country playing for 300 bucks in some dive bar in the middle of Kentucky to getting paid, $20,000 for an hour in front of 3000 people. I’m going to take door number two,

Casanova Brooks:

every single ladder.

Brant Manswar:

Yes. Every time.

Casanova Brooks:

Got it.

no, I can definitely understand that in a lot of people I’m sure, because it’s all about your message. And just like you said, you’ve got to own that content. So then the second part of this is how did you decide on where you wanted to show up as an expert at, because I think that’s where a lot of people may be.

They have that fear of I don’t know that I’m even an expert in this. And so for you to come out. Was it, was it really using your experiences like your son or did you decide to jump into something where you said, Hey, this is a really big problem in the world and I’m going to try to solve this. Yes,

Brant Manswar:

that’s a great question, man.

That’s a great question. And I feel like it’s why some people stumble at this sort of a chapter in their story, if you will, is that for me? I, it was born out of experience. So I had to Pick this, this, I found myself when my son was sick. I found myself in this position where, it was going downhill quickly.

the doctors told us he wasn’t gonna make it through the night. I needed to say my goodbyes, I’m the call then who I needed to call in. And it was this horrible moment that I was allowing emotions to, to just absolutely drive every decision that I was making. And, I, I found myself in this scenario where I’m on the edge of the bed and I’m having this conversation with my son that the doctors have now told me is not going to make it through the night.

And so they told me, I should say my goodbyes and I’m in this moment trying to find the words to say goodbye to my son and I’m going okay. I, my emotions are like a tornado right now, and I’m just, I’m absolutely lost at what to say and how to say it. And, and what ends up happening next?

This is literally a miracle, right? And so we are in this moment, they tell us it’s an impossible scenario. He’s got two things that are killing him with opposite treatments and there’s nothing they can do. So in that moment, I call my brother who lives 1500 miles away. And I’m like, dude, you’re not gonna have time to make it.

I’m sorry. But if you’re gonna say your goodbyes, you’re gonna have to do it over the phone. And so he does, he says his goodbyes and he’s distraught, as you can imagine, he doesn’t know quite what to do next. And so he, that night he sits on his couch and he films himself, holding up these poster boards, explaining what’s happening.

My nephew is dying. He’s got less than 24 hours. This is what’s happening. This is what we’ve tried. If you have any ideas, if you know anyone, please help us. We’re desperate and never said a word. He played the song, fix you by Coldplay from start to finish. And he held up 55 poster boards over the course of the song.

When the song was done, he turned it off and he uploaded it to YouTube. My son made it through the night we are sitting there still the next morning on the edge of the bed waiting for, for whatever’s going to happen next am I, my phone is ringing off the hook. I am trying to ignore it. After a couple of hours, I finally reached for my phone and look at it and I see all these names and numbers from people that I don’t recognize.

I didn’t know that my brother had made this video and uploaded it to YouTube the night before. And by the time I grabbed my phone, it had already, that video had been seen 500,000 times. and I had all these messages from people from all over the world who said, H w some of them were doctors.

And so one of them happened to be, a doctor in this fungus that was, that was attacking him at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. And he’s you don’t know me. I saw this video, someone sent me and there’s this alternate treatment that that’s brand new, that I don’t know that your doctor’s aware of that I think might be of a help.

Would you mind if I have a discussion with him? And so we put them together, then I get a call from dr. Tim Johnson from good morning America. And he’s Listen, you tell your doctor anybody. He wants to speak to get me a list and I’ll try to make it happen in the next 24 hours. So we made a list. Dr.

Johnson did exactly what he said he was going to do. We put four different doctors together to come up with this crazy plan, to save Theo’s life. And it worked. And actually today is Theo’s 23rd birthday, if you could. Wow. And I sat in this moment, man, and it’s a miracle. we literally went from, it’s an impossible scenario to, Oh my gosh.

Look at what’s possible. And you would think that. The sheer joy of that scenario, because we know that that’s not the fairytale ending, that everybody gets, would have been enough. But for years after that, man, every night I went to bed, I had one thought that went through my head, which was, I wonder if he thinks I gave up on him and, and the reason.

That he could even think that is because I didn’t define the things that matter most to me in my life, what I like to call our black sheep values. I hadn’t figured out what those were for me. So I was just allowing emotions to, to tell me what to do. And I made a whole bunch of horrible decisions during that time time that led to years of me beating myself up over that moment.

And when I finally figured out what these things were, what I realized is that. That conversation on the edge of his bed would have been completely different. If I would have figured out these non-negotiables for myself, they would have been filled with the things that matter most to me and not with whatever my crazy emotions were feeling at that time.

And since then, I just decided that I needed to write this book and become an expert in what drives us in during those moments. And so what drives us are these core values that we can use as a foundation to make good decisions. And, and so I had to dive into a couple of years worth of. Of research and science and making sure I understand.

And, finally came, this, to this idea of the book called black sheep. And now here we are getting ready for this release of this book, where I hope people learn to define the things that matter most. So when you know the biggest storm of their life rolls in, they’re prepared for it.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, there’s man.

There’s, there’s so many. Why should I definitely want to tap into, I could tell you that that story super resonated with me. similar to your son to, I am a stage four cancer survivor. So a lot, all my audience, they know it. I was two weeks away. from death. So yeah, I, I can only imagine, the feelings that were going through my mom and my grandmas, when, when they tell him when they tell my mom and grandma how sick I am, but that’s for a whole nother story.

When you talk one thing that goes through my mind though, and because it sounds like you really, and I’m sure that the book has a huge purpose in helping other people, but it sounds like you were beating yourself up. But the one thing that I, I wonder is if you had. Those core values. Do you think that you, and it’s funny because you favor w my favorite quarterback of all time.

I think it’s the goat is Tom Brady and you favored Tom a little bit. Have you ever heard that before?

Brant Manswar:

Come on, man. first of all, I knew I liked you. I knew you were brilliant, man. So yes, I have, I have been in front of Tom Brady’s locker, taking appropriate pictures. Got it. Born and raised Patriots fan, man.

So you know, that to me is, is everything. And so look, it is one of those things that, I beat myself up for a long time. I can look back now and try to use logic to, to make sense of the whole scenario and say things like, if that didn’t happen, my brother wouldn’t have made that video and Theo might not have survived.

Or if I didn’t experience what I felt, I would have never been inspired to write this book. And in the thousands of people I’ve been able to walk through this methodology with over the last couple of years would have never benefited from that work either. And yes. I can look at it now, but, but one of the things the book talks about is that we do not control outcomes very much so unless your name is Glenda or Gundaf you, you don’t have that type of power.

You are not a wizard and you are not going to control the outcome. You can only control the deliberate intention that goes into making decisions. And so what is in that deliberate intention and the answer is these black sheep values. Got it.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah. And that, and I love that perspective right there, because the, at least the, if you know what your core values are, in my opinion, that means that you won’t live with any regret.

Because that could have been the thing. If you didn’t know your core value, so you didn’t at least address each and every one of those as you’re sitting. On the side of the bed next to your son, then all of a sudden, if he does go, God forbid and glad that he didn’t, then you would have been like, man, if I would’ve just said this, but the fact that just like you said, you’re intentional about it upfront that can only help you.

So I love it. How does someone start to figure out what their core values are? Because a lot of us, especially right now, we’re just running so fast than life. It feels like you have no time.

Brant Manswar:

It’s the truth. most of us are winging it, right? Whether by design or not by design, we are winging it. And so I wanted to find a easy way to get people engaged in this discussion because it’s deep work, but it’s it’s, I didn’t want it to be intimidating.

So the best, the easiest way I can tell people to start. Is is I built an assessment, that helps people get this conversation started with themselves. Okay. And it’s at find your black sheep.com. You simply click on find your flock. And what it does is it, it starts with 125. It presents you with 125 commonly held personal core values.

And it says, this is what we want you to do. In this knee jerk reaction. Just take a look at these words. If you like the word, if the word resonates with you, go ahead and, and select it. And so what, what happens is as you’re going down, you might go, Oh, let’s see accomplishment. Oh, I liked that word.

Oh, accountability. Oh, I like that word. Okay. Empathy. Okay. That makes sense. And so you start going through all these words, what we know after a couple of years of doing this work and a couple of thousand people going through this, Assessment is that the average person selects at least 30 words. Hmm.

And so what that means is that you’re telling yourself there are 30 things, at least on a daily basis that are really important to you. And what you’re doing is setting yourself up for failure, because if you’re telling yourself there’s 30 things that are like super important, there’s no way you’re going to honor 30 things on a daily basis, even if you were.

Super successful. And you did 29 out of 30. If you’re like me, you focus on that one that just slipped through the cracks and you don’t allow yourself to even celebrate that you had an enormous success on the others. And so what do we do? we have. To actually filter it down into something that’s that’s manageable.

And so we take that 30 plus words into a subset and we grouped them by likeness. So it could be like things like empathy and sympathy go in one box and things like achievement and success go in another. And so by the time you’re done grouping all of these words together, you have five different groups and you’re allowed to take one word from each group.

What is your one word you can’t live without. And it’s a really difficult, it’s a really difficult thing to choose. So that gets you your initial flock of five, right? That’s your cursory, five things that matter the most to you. Now, this is what I will tell you for a fact in two years of doing this, I have never once worked with anyone that the five they started with where the five they ended with.

And that’s because that’s because two or three. Of what people will put down are absolute truth and they will give me 20 different, examples from their past as to why they are true. And two or three are absolute BS. They’re complete fabricated BS. And it’s because they’re giving me who they want to be or who someone else thinks they should be.

But they’re not real. They’re actually not their sheep. They’re caring for someone else’s sheep. And when that’s the case, it makes it really hard for you to feel good and confident about what you’re doing when there’s no evidence of the things that you say matter most in your life. Wow.

Casanova Brooks:

There’s so my, my, and this is that’s really, really good.

I love that. And I’m actually, I can’t wait to take the assessment myself. I do love that. Here’s my question to you though, is you said two or three of them will be things that are who they want to be. What’s the problem with that because shouldn’t, we all aspire to, what is that? If I see that, that thing is accomplishment and I can maybe link it back to a trauma of Somewhere around the age of eight to 10 years old.

And I felt like I never was enough to have that accomplishment. Why wouldn’t I put that down?

Brant Manswar:

Okay. You just said the magic word and that word is enough. And so what I am here to tell you in every single person that is listening to this right now is you are already. Enough in anybody telling you any different is a snake oil salesman.

Do not allow that to get into your psyche because it’s not true. You were created to be extraordinary and you already are the challenges. You have some lost sheep. And so when you spend your time caring for other people’s sheep and not feeding your own, they wreak havoc in our lives. If you had four kids.

And you decided to only feed two. How is that going to go for you? And how long before they are pulling at you tugging at you, screaming at you, you, they, they are crying for your attention. And that’s exactly what happens with our values. If you are not feeding your sheep. Then they are going to wreak havoc in your lives and you spend time taking care of everybody.

Else’s and listen, some of us have grown up our whole lives, being conditioned to care for other people’s sheep. Maybe you had to take care of your siblings or you had, you had to take care of an elderly mom or dad who was sick or grandparent or something like that. And there’s nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with them.

Feeding other people’s sheep. What I have a problem with is people caring for other people’s sheep, taking them into your care and pretending that like they’re yours because they’re not yours. And so what happens is when you get into the proving stage of proving that these are in fact, the things that matter most to you, because here’s the thing.

When you have proof, you don’t need belief. Stop trying to get yourself to believe something instead acknowledge the truth and the proof that exists. And so what we have to do is find that proof. And when we find the proof, you realize you’re already enough, you don’t need to be any more than you are now.

What people confuse. Is the, how you live it out, how you honor it on a daily basis. Now that changes all the time, but your, what? Those values and the why your purpose, those are static. They don’t change. So the thing that people get confused as they think the values change, it’s not the values that change.

It’s how you honor the values that change. Hmm,

Casanova Brooks:

man. That’s really good as well. Like I just, there’s so many things. The first thing that kinda came to my mind, once you said that was, when you really think about your values and your values, they are static and they don’t change. And every day, if you’re working on them, it’s how you want to show up in the world.

But then the only thing that changes is really your goals. Cause we have different goals. We hit some goals or some goals are pretty far stretch goals, but as long as you’re living by those values, then you’ll eventually hit those goals. And the other thing that kind of came to mind, and I think my friend Shalene Johnson, she was on the show and I have to give her a shout out, but she said, comparison is the thief of all joy and success.

And so that’s what it got when you’re caring. For other people, sheep. And if you’re trying to think, Hey, I need to be like, so-and-so, especially with social media nowadays, because no matter how successful that you are, you can search a hashtag. You can find somebody else to put your shame. I’m definitely not doing enough.

And so yeah, when you think about it that way, and you understand that you are already enough and the other way that I always tell people ever since you said that to me, and I can’t remember who said this, but it said, comparing. Your seventh step to someone else’s 17th step. It’s not fair to you, right?

It’s not fair to anyone

Brant Manswar:

it’s not, it’s not. And that, that whole culture, that whole culture is based on this one. It’s a linchpin that that’s the problem. And when you know that it’s a problem, you can change it. And so the linchpin is this. You are basing that comparison off of a result. Off of an outcome.

You’re looking at somebody else’s outcome or result in trying to compare. And, and the truth is we don’t control outcomes. And so even if you wanted to make that comparison, that person who you are looking at. They didn’t control their outcome either. And so why are you trying to compare yourself to something that is completely out of your control?

It makes no sense it’s at all. We don’t control outcomes. We only control the deliberate intention that goes into making decisions. And I say it all the time. And I repeat myself because I want people to stop putting your happiness on an outcome and start putting your happiness on honoring these things that matter most.

Casanova Brooks:

That’s so good for you as, as you’ve looked back, if there’s, cause now for people hearing that you have, you even had the opportunity to have six figures worth of revenue coming in for speaking, you’ve now been a rockstar. You’ve accomplished so many things in life. If you could go back and even just look at your last 15 years, what’s that one thing that you wished you would’ve changed or implemented sooner to accelerate the journey of your dream?

Brant Manswar:

It’s definitely doing this core values work. Cause I didn’t do it until I was in my mid forties. And so that to me is gosh man, if I would’ve done this, when I was in my twenties, I can’t even begin to tell you in my head how successful I would be right now would, would dwarf anything that I’ve been able to accomplish because my, my success, even in this, so in the music business, w I was successful enough.

To make a living at it, but not successful enough that anybody would know who I was outside of the genre that we played in. And it’s the thousand true fans, syndrome, right? If you have a thousand true fans that buy everything you do and, and, and support you on a yearly basis, you can make a decent living.

but. In the speaking world in this sort of meteoric rise that I’ve had in the last, 18 months to two years has come from doing three things. Figuring out what these black sheep values were proving that they were mine and that they were no one else’s. And then speaking them into existence with deliberate intention, meaning I am literally programming them into my day, into my calendar, writing down when and where they appear.

To maximize the impact of each of my appointments. So looking at this, knowing that we were going to record this today, I have to look at my black sheep, which for me are creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family, and authenticity. So I have to look at those six things and go. Which ones have to show up with Casanova to really, really amplify the impact that I can have during my time with him.

And so I have to look and go, gosh, I need to be a little bit creative. the guy does this for a living. If I’m like everybody else I’m obviously I’ve, I should have wrote a book called white sheep. Yeah. Because I’m just like everybody else. So I have to, I have to make sure that the impact that this has leaves people with hope.

Because that is my purpose to creatively impact people’s lives by authentically providing hope. It sounds familiar because it’s loaded with my black sheep. It’s in my purpose, they’re aligned. And when they’re aligned, that makes me incredibly adaptable and resilient in the how I’m going to honor it. And so when I started speaking these into existence, my whole life changed, man.

I, I, in January of 2019 is when I started this really progressive scheduling these things into my day. And in six months from January to June, I saw my bookings triple. I went from 20 talks a year to between 60 and 70. I went. From a couple of thousand dollars a talk to 15 to $20,000 a talk. I went from, nobody knowing who I was to being named one of the top 10 motivational speakers in the country next to Amy Cuddy and Jack Nicholas and magic Johnson and these incredible people.

And when I, when I saw that happen, I had some serious imposter syndrome going on, Because I’m going. These people are amazing. These people are amazing at what they’ve done. And what I’ve come to realize since then is this is the, this is the scary truth. The fact that I have discovered my non-negotiables, I have chosen my purpose and I’m living in alignment with those things is just as rare.

As Jack Nicklaus winning 18 majors is just as rare as magic Johnson, having a legendary hall of fame career in the NBA and Amy Cuddy doing incredible things at Harvard in the work that she’s done. That’s what’s scary is that it’s it’s within everybody’s reach, right? Just figure your stuff out, choose a purpose.

It’s an alignment with those things that matter most and watch how your life can transform. That has literally been the recipe for my success in the last two years. Man.

Casanova Brooks:

it’s a pleasure to watch you glow, just because, because you had found that. And I think if a lot of people did find that man woman doesn’t matter the color, I think that you can have that same type of spirit that where you feel like, you know who you are and you’re living within the image that your creator created you in.

And so I love that. Yeah. For anybody that still has that little voice in their head, which is crazy to believe after all the wisdom that you’ve given. But that little voice right, is the voice of self doubt. That little voice says that they’re not strong enough. They’re not smart enough. Or maybe they just don’t have enough resources.

What’s the one thing that you would say to that person to get them to just take action.

Brant Manswar:

So we all, we all battle. Self-doubt all of us and, and I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, the more successful you are, the more you’re going to doubt yourself. It’s just something that grows with the success is you start to feel like maybe you don’t deserve it, or you haven’t earned it.

Even if

Casanova Brooks:

somebody is going to show up and with the, with the cuts

Brant Manswar:

and cries. Gotcha. You’re done. You’re your time’s up next? Let’s bring in the next one. Eh, For me in those scenarios, the way that I have dealt with it is. I picture myself as, as driving a school bus full of middle-schoolers like, that’s literally in my head, the visual thing that’s happening and, and this imposter syndrome, there’s things that, that this negative self-talk that happens is the equivalent to me of one of these bratty little sixth graders who are coming up and screaming in my ear, trying to distract me from, from moving towards my destination of where I want to go.

Now, there are a couple of options that you have, if that was the scenario you could. Slam on the brakes and kick them out of the bus. But you’re going to probably end up facing some, some things you’re going to have to talk through, of kicking a child off the bus. And now you’ve created another problem for yourself.

You could turn around and scream, bloody murder back in their face. And that also is probably going to leave you with some stuff to sort through with others when you’re done. Or what I have chosen to do is basically look at that person. And I treat this, this voice in my head, like a person, And I basically say, look, I got two questions.

Number one. what is it that you have to say to me? I want to know what is it that you have to say to me? And I give that voice a platform in my head. Number one that takes away its power, because it doesn’t think that you’re going to acknowledge it in any way, shape or form. So you acknowledge and you go, okay.

Floor’s yours. What do you have to say to me? And they’re going to spew some hatred, something awful, something that’s going to try to tear you down in my first question. My first question after that happens is what happened to you? That makes you think it’s okay to talk to me that way. And I got to tell you, man, when you put that on its heels, And all of a sudden, you start asking questions instead of just taking a beating, all of a sudden the conversation changes because I promise you there’s some truth in whatever it is they want to say that you need to hear, but it’s surrounded by all this hate and awful things that you want to say to yourself.

And so you’ve got to be able to say to them, say what you’re going to say. I appreciate it. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, that, that, that makes you feel like this is how you need to communicate with me. But your seats at the back of that bus. And so you better take that seat back there because you’re never touching this wheel.

Because that’s all they want to do. They want to grab that wheel and steal your steer your life into the ditch, and you can’t allow that to happen so they can have a voice. They can have a seat on the bus, but they are never going to touch that wheel. And that is what you have to learn. As you continue to do this, acknowledge what it is, ask the questions that you want to ask, even to yourself, come up with whatever answers that you have to come up with to be able to move forward, but to not ever let them put their hands on that wheel.

Hmm.

Casanova Brooks:

Be protective of the wheel. Be protected that you’re the driver, you’re the driver of your life. You can’t let anybody else get the wheel. Cause that’s your most precious asset.

Brant Manswar:

That’s right.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it for anybody. We’ll make sure that we put the links to everything that you referenced in the show notes, but for anybody who wants to stay connected with you, where can they find you at.

Brant Manswar:

yeah, I’m really active on social media. So it’s just at Brant Manswar, B R A N T MA N S W A R that’s at every possible thing. You want to, if you want to check out the book or maybe even take the assessment to get started in this journey on yourself for yourself and your life, it’s just find your black sheep.com go there and you’ll find whatever you need either.

From, from the assessment side to the book side, to my speaking and stuff, you can go and get there from find your black sheep.com. Cool.

Casanova Brooks:

remember DreamNation, just as he said, you can not let anyone else take control of your wheel because you have a dream and you got to take action. Otherwise, that dream is only merely a fantasy.

That’s all we got for this one. We’ll catch you on the next one.