Episode 129 – Brian Bogert: How To Embrace Adversity

Casanova Brooks:

What’s up DreamNation. We are back again. And with another episode and today I got my friend, mr. Brian Bogert on the show, Brian, Hey, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to DreamNation.

Brian Bogert:

What’s up DreamNation. I am a just humbled and blessed to be with you all today. And, looking forward to my conversation with you, Casanova.

Casanova Brooks:

Man, it’s going to be a really good one.

We were just talking before on the air. And right now there’s a lot of uncertainty in life for a lot of people. Right? When we talk about the pandemic, when we talk about social injustice, there’s just so many things that now we’re having to. Everyday mentally adapt to, and try to figure out how we can be a solution, how we could be a superhero in the world that we’re living in now.

And so I always like to make sure that when I bring guests on the show that we give them the proper introduction. And so I compare us as entrepreneurs to superheroes. And the reason being is because we’re. Always kind of flying around the world. We’re putting on a Cape and we’re trying to solve the biggest problems.

And so I know that you’ve been a superhero over the last 10, 15 years, but before we get into all of that, I always like to take it back. And so if we can say before your high performance coaching business, before you built businesses to $15 million and before all of that, let’s take it back to when you were just a young boy and tell us who, who is the Clark Kent of Brian Bogert.

Brian Bogert:

Man. I love that question. I’ve actually never been asked, ask the question, quite framed like that. And I love that. and, and what’s really funny about that before I share that story is I’m constantly working with my kids to talk to them about their superpowers. And so we’ll, we’ll unpack that a little bit later, but, you know, my superpower, I don’t know that it, it was totally apparent right out of the gate.

Right. I’ve always come out. I’ve always had an excitement and bigger for life, but. I, I definitely faced some very interesting, turmoil early in my life. So I just want everybody listening to pause for one minute, close your eyes, and imagine walking to your car after a shopping trip and turning your head to see a truck barreling 40 miles an hour across the parking lot, right towards you with no time to react.

That’s where this portion of my story begins. I was seven years old. I have a brother who’s 14 months older than me was also with me and my mom. And we had gone to the local Walmart to buy a one inch paint brush. And as I said before, I’ve always had an excitement and the vigor for life. So I of course was the first one to the car, a few feet ahead of my mom and my brother, excited to get home and use that paintbrush.

And as we’re standing there waiting for my mom to unlock the doors, truck pulls up in front of the store and a driver in middle passenger got out. Passenger all the way to the right felt the truck moving backwards. So he did what all of us would do. He moved over to put his foot on the brake, but he instead hit the gas combination of shock and force threw him up onto the steering wheel, up onto the dashboard.

And before you know it, he was catapulting 40 miles an hour across the parking lot, right at us. He went up and over the median, we were parked in an end spot, hit our car, knocked me over, ran over me, diagonally tore my spleen, left a tire dragged scar on my stomach and continued on to completely sever my left arm from my body.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow.

Brian Bogert:

Was reattached. and you know, I, I I’ll take one second cause I always have to thank this woman. She was my guardian angel. She walked out of that Walmart, right? When it happened, saw the life and limb scenario in front of her and rushed over to immediately stopped the bleeding and saved my life and simultaneously instructed some other innocent bystanders to run into the store.

Grab a cooler, fill it with ice and the convenience center and get my arm on ice within minutes, because this was 115 degree day in Phoenix, Arizona. And I’m laying on the asphalt, which we know adds 10 degrees. Had my arm not been on ice. I would have for sure. Lost it. And so that was the beginning of, of really this whole story and this next evolution in my life.

And as I’m sure you can imagine, right. It took a lot of intentionality and awareness by this particular physician to start the reconstruction process. Cause it wasn’t, he was smart enough to know it. Wasn’t gonna be a one, two, three or four surgery or deal. It was going to be a five, 10, 15, 25 surgical deal.

So we began with intentionality flagging and tagging things and making sure that my reconstruction can take place. So I know a lot of our listeners weren’t expecting to hear that today. Yes. I have a unique story, but what I learned a long time ago is. That we’ve got to be aware of the lessons that we can extract from our story and then become intentional with how do we apply those in our lives and how do we do that collectively so that we tap into the collective wisdom of all of those around us so that we can have a body of learning and help each other move and grow.

So I’ll share with you two primary lessons, ones that I think shaped most of my life and gave me some of the superpower that you talked about. Yeah, one I learned very early. Yeah. Not to get stuck by what had happened to me, but get moved by what I could do with it.

Casanova Brooks:

And how did you learn that?

Brian Bogert:

I had no other choice.

I’m laying there in the ICU. I’m laying next to kids who have terminal illnesses who might not live another three months. Once my arm was reattached. Right. Easy when you’re in something like that, to feel sorry for yourself to be why me. Right. And all of a sudden I had that perspective as a seven year old.

Believe it or not, I was blessed enough to see this I’m laying there. And even though I didn’t know, no, whether or not my arm would actually stay on my body forever, even though I didn’t know if I’d be able to use it permanently, even though I didn’t know what my life would look like. I knew I had my life.

Hmm, because that wonderful woman saved it in the parking lot. And once I had my life, everything else really was just details. And so I learned through that because by the time I was 10, I had probably lost 15 of my friends. In the hospital because the terminal illnesses that they had been. And so when you’re seven to 10 overcoming putting in the work grinding to get myself better, but I’m also witnessing people who don’t have the same blessings that I had to be here.

Happy, healthy, and productive today. It’s impossible to not learn to not get stuck by what has happened to me. But get moved by what to do with it. And so I’ve used that as fuel for a big part of it and the other major lesson. And that’s not to say that I’ve only had two lessons in my life, but, but this was another major lesson that came from this.

But I do believe is my super power. And it’s, it’s one of the big things that I really have used in so many elements in my life. And I didn’t realize it until frankly later, see I experienced most of those posts accident years in a fog, but my parents didn’t. Hmm. So their heightened awareness through unceasing medical treatments and years of physical therapy is ultimately what saved me.

So my parents sacrificed countless hours of their own comfort to strengthen me. And so it wasn’t far until far later in life that I realized that they gifted me something far beyond the function of my arm. What, whether it was intentional or not, they were carving into me a habit and way of living because I learned to embrace pain to avoid suffering.

And ultimately that leads to gaining freedom. So we’ll unpack that a little bit. I’m sure in our conversation, but that is a driving principle in my life.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing it and right away, I’m sure that nobody watching or listening expected that bomb. And, I definitely can resonate with that with so on so many levels, me being two weeks away from death, when I was 15, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. The same thing, me being, always a healthy child. Right. And then in the blink of an eye, just like you, yours came into physical form. My kind of came more in the inside where I just found myself having a hard time breathing.

But you never would have expected that, but then. What’s great about it is that you talked about the perspective. And I think that for me as well, like it was that perspective that I was still living every single day. And so I was seeing other things around me that I didn’t necessarily know. Like, I didn’t know if I would continue to make it, like you said with your arm.

But what I did know is that like right now I was here and right now I got an opportunity that a lot of people do not have. And then that leads to the second point of what, something, where you say your other super super power. And this is something that my parents did as well, because I didn’t know all of the financial burden and everything else.

You know, we don’t as kids, especially, but here’s something else that you said, like what your super power. I think one of the superpowers that they sowed into you was the power of serving others. Right. And, and trying to make sure that they don’t see the weakness in themselves because you’re leading by example.

And I think that that’s so critical. Because you’re right now, you’ve been doing it with your performance coaching, which we’re going to get into and all of that. But your parents first did that. And so subconsciously you were watching them and that’s all, you know, now you’re like, man, I seen what they did.

So I think that that’s a super power in itself as well.

Brian Bogert:

So thank you for saying that. actually it’s funny that you picked up on the nuance behind that, cause that is a, it is a very powerful driver. In fact, you said that again, I’m going to just give another compliment to you because I’ve done a number of projects, podcasts and conversations like this, and, for you to be intuitive and pick up on that piece, you literally gave me chills head to toe.

When you said that about my parents, I’m forever indebted to them for a whole variety, but the way they live their life, it wasn’t just for me. Right. They do that for everybody. They are like the beach, you know, of hope and help for so many. And I have the opportunity to witness that. It’s impossible for me not to, to apply that into my own life.

And they were the beginnings of the foundation. And one of my other principles, which is my if and how principle and the basic behind that is literally in every scenario, every interaction, no matter where I show up. To determine if and how I can help the person that I’m dealing with. Right. Not sell them something, not try to, but literally genuinely with high intent, how do I help this person?

And if I can’t, who do I know that can, because if you can do that, right, we all reach out a helping hand. That’s filled with love, encouragement perspective. Right. We all rise. And my parents live that every single day and I definitely was ingrained in me. So thank you for picking up on that.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, absolutely. And just like the saying that goes, if you help enough people get what they want at the end of the day, you’re going to get more than enough of what you want. And so we see that every day. And I think that again, for somebody out there that’s listening or watching this right now, and they’re saying that, Hey, listen, I’m not an expert right now.

I don’t have a big business in any industry. Right. I’m just trying to figure myself out. But here’s something that I’ve learned along my way. Journey is even if you’re not a 10 right now, or if you’re not a seven right now, even if you’re only a two there’s somebody out there, that’s a one that would love to be able to just get an hand from you.

But if you turn around and you don’t reach back for anyone, then it’s hard for you to get somebody to reach back for you. Right? So that’s something that I’ve learned, but again, it’s kind of this quote, if you help enough people get what they want, you know, and there’s always someone who can take inspiration.

Brian Bogert:

That’s a fact.

Casanova Brooks:

For sure. And now let’s, let’s kind of transition a little bit and let’s talk about, you have been a, a business in a sense of business mogul. Right. And what do I mean by that? I think you started out with a company that was a quarter million dollars, right. And 250,000 or so dollars, but then you had a big hand in growing this business over $15 million, which is no small feat.

And so talk to me, did you come from the entrepreneurship world? Did you like, were your parents entrepreneurs? How. Where did you get the business? Acumen’s to be able to grow a company like

Brian Bogert:

that? Yeah, so I I’m gonna, I’m gonna start just very clearly. It is not all me. We had a phenomenal team of people, so I I give credit to every single person in the blood, sweat, tears advice they made to build that. yes, I was one of the partners that led it, built it. but, but I wanted to at least acknowledge this. It took a team, I would say I’ve always had the bug. And my, my dad has, he’s always had that entrepreneurial bug.

He’s had multiple different businesses in the years. Had lots of success, same thing with my mom, but you know, I’ve always, I’ve always desired more in my life. So I started my first business when I was 12 years old. Hmm. and you know, it’s, I pardon my, but it was the shittiest job of her had, but literally it’s because I was picking up dog poop in the neighborhood.

Cause I was like, what can I do to go like better myself and stay active and start doing the things and literally got up jail and scoops and just, you know, started doing it. It transferred. So by the time I was 14, I had 35. yard maintenance clients within our neighborhoods. So I’d be working long days on the weekends, just trying to earn a dollar, have an impact and, and, and do what I was doing.

So that entrepreneurial piece has been ingrained in me since. I was yay high. Cause my parents would always say, look, I’m not going to buy you everything. You know, we, we, we always had food on the table. We always had clothes on our back. You know, we didn’t live like an overly privileged and wealthy life, but we never needed anything.

Right. We wanted stuff. And so that’s where my parents kind of put that drive in and they were like, Brian, you got to go do this, right? If you want to, if you want to go buy this stereo, you want to do this, like you need to do it. and that just, that just transferred over, you know, my brother and I, well, even though my parents could afford it, we bought our own first cars.

We, we paid our own insurance, like, so I think it was just always teaching us the value of a dollar and the value of time and the value of what we can offer the world. And so that’s where it started. And you know, that embrace pain, avoid suffering philosophy, applied in everything I’ve done, because the more discomfort you put yourself in not just for the sake of it, but for the purpose of growth and intentional path forward, you know, that’s, that’s the philosophy that I used to not overcome my unique injury, but that my business partners and I use to grow our other business over the 15 million in the span of a decade.

And how I’ve I helped hundreds of organizations and individuals become more aware, more intentional and more of who they already are because. That’s what we have to do. We’ve got to look in the mirror, see what it is and turn into the pain.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, no, I love that. And the thought that you were doing this when, you know, so are you able to use both of your arms?

Brian Bogert:

I have full functional use, right? So you can see, can move my hands. I have some limited mobility. I type with one hand because I don’t have enough dexterity with my fingers, but truthfully, the, probably the most difficult thing there is for me to do is cut steak. Because I don’t have a tricep. So my tricep is missing.

My lat is missing. My bicep is a, is, is a muscle from my leg. but the beautiful part about it happening when I was seven. Is, you’re very adaptable as a kid, you learn, you learn to do things and I’ve always had the belief from early on. I never wanted somebody to tell me I couldn’t do something. Right.

And so like, I’ve kind of lived my life breaking boundaries because as soon as somebody would see this, right, I had to learn really early. To not be stuck or startled by startle reactions and looks when people would ask me what happened to my arm and I’d tell them they would always look to my mom as if I wasn’t telling the truth for confirmation.

And she’d be like, yeah, no, he was run over and his arm was ripped off, but they were expecting me to be like, Oh, you fell off the place that you crashed your bike, you right. Cause all those things. And so I just have always been determined to not let this or anything stand in my way of something that’s important to me.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah. And the reason why I asked that is because it had to be so inspiring. And, you know, even as an, a adult to see a young kid, cause you said you started this at 12 and then by the age of 14. So I have essentially one arm, but you still don’t let that play a factor in your mindset that you say, I’m going to go out, I’m going to start a business and then you get 35 yards.

And so if you come up to my doorstep and it looks like maybe you only have one arm and I’m like, and you’re like, Hey. There, you know, cannot take your yard. Can I, and I think that I would be inspired by that because we see a lot of grown people right now that put these limitations on themselves. So when you see a young kid that comes up and says, listen, I get it.

That I got, you know, a little bit of limitations on the physical or on the visual side. Right. But intellectually I can do everything that anyone else can and how to not be inspired by that. So that was the reason why I asked. And it was just a cool sight to see like looking at my mind for you to say, Hey, here’s how I grew.

Now, when you talked about,

when you first started out and you got your business and you had your business partners and you always had the bug, like what, what challenges did you experience from a beginning stage of growing a startup company essentially?

Brian Bogert:

Yeah. So just to be clear, it wasn’t a hundred percent on a startup.

We were, it was a series of LLCs. So we were a part of a larger organization, but effectively in our town, we were nonexistent. Right. And we were competing against all the big houses. And so we could, we could build something that had some brand in different parts of the country or the world, but didn’t really exist where we were.

And so one of the biggest things that we struggled with right out of the gate is nobody knew who we were. Right. And in some way that looked like that was going to be a hurdle and it seemed that way in the beginning, but then we just. Pivoted our mindset on it. We’re like, okay, well, if nobody knows us, let’s use that to our advantage.

So we became kind of the silent Ninja that was running around town, taking off big accounts for the work that we were doing and nobody saw us coming. Right. So actually, what was interesting is what might’ve seemed like a bigger hurdle. Again, we turned into it. Pivoted made it actually a superpower of ours to use your term earlier.

And there was a few years before anybody in town really took it seriously. Because they literally like, Oh, you know, these guys are coming around. They, they, they don’t have a big block of business yet. They don’t, they don’t have a huge team yet. And we were able to get creative and pivot and use that to our advantage.

So that was one challenge. Another challenge was people, right? Until we had the brand, right. We needed to be able to paint the picture for what this was going to become so that we could recruit top talent. Because if we don’t have the top talent, we can be the greatest sales and development individuals on the planet.

But if we don’t have the people to help us actually. Deliver on the promises that we make, then, you know, there’s, we can only spread our time so thin. And so we were really big on our do say ratio early on. Like, we were so focused on whatever we say we’re going to do, we’re going to do, because that’s a part of our brand, but that also allowed us to pivot and bring in really good people.

So when I say, look, yeah, my business partners and I are the ones that really. Opened the doors and built it. You know, we went from two of us when I started to over 60 of us in that decade because we needed the people, frankly, that were smarter than we were to help us get it done and been able to deliver the promises with our clients.

So those were probably the two biggest hurdles was people in resources and then lack of. Brand collateral in the marketplace. So it was to your point effectively a startup here. and it was cool because within the series of LLCs over that decade across really the world, we became the fastest growing partner office within the system.

So outside of the bigger hubs, We, we were able to scale that pretty effectively and be able to leverage our larger brand. Once we got some reputation, it was, it was a fun ride, man. I learned so much.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah. And so the first, I guess the big thing that came to my mind in the first thing is how did you start to recruit and get people to buy into your vision?

What did you learn? That allowed you to scale so quickly, you know, within that decade. and the reason why I say that is because there’s a lot of people right now, they’re thinking that they want to start their own business. They’re thinking that they really want to scale their business, even if they’ve just started in the last year or two, but they struggle with articulating how exactly I, what my vision is and how exactly I can go find and even retain top talent.

So it was there techniques or anything that you did. So

Brian Bogert:

I think overly communicating, right? I think that that’s really understanding. So that do say ratio is important, but I think that really, when we start looking at top talent, top talent wants to be freed, right. They want to go do what they do. They want to be themselves.

They want to be able to go have the autonomy and. At least in the world that we were competing in for talent. There was a lot of other shops in an insurance brokerage world in our space that were very black and white in there thinking we do this, we don’t do this, right. This is how we market. This is how we communicate to clients.

These are the standard decks that we use. And so what’s interesting is like, we really were able to leverage bringing fortune 100 solutions to the upper middle market clients. In a way that was effective and we could scale. And then when we were able to translate that over to top associates, right? A lot of it, we were able to speak to their pain as if we were hiring a client or trying to get a client to hire us.

We were trying to sell for lack of a better term, the model, the flexibility, the autonomy, and the resources that would make their lives. Easier and fulfill what they were trying to do on a professional standpoint, which is to give the best solutions, have the highest retention rates with clients, make sure that we’re providing value.

So we, we just overly communicated that stuff. And honestly, some of the early recruits were difficult to get to come over, but we had a couple of big wins and it’s like anything, right. We could, we could look at those failures when we didn’t get somebody that we wanted. We could look at those failures.

Oh gosh, like we’re never going to make it, how are we gonna do this? But instead we just pivot and we’re like, okay, they’re not the fit right now. They may come full circle. And in fact, some of our early recruits that didn’t come ended up joining us five years later. Cause they were like, Oh man, I missed the boat.

It should have been a part of this from the beginning. Right. and you know, those people that are willing to invest in the front end of building something. It’s, you know, everybody’s pulling in the same direction. Everybody’s rowing in the same direction. I’d take out the trash. Sometimes my business partner was taking the tree.

I mean, literally like, yeah, there was all hands on deck for anything that needed to be done. And we created a culture and a family around that belief system. And then we were able to train translate that when we’d go see clients, they’d see, we liked each other. We wanted to be working together. We were building something, we had passion.

We had collective vision when people can attach to that. Right. They want to work with that and success breeds success. So it takes a minute to get there. But the other important thing to realize is like you as an individual and as a leader, as an entrepreneur, have to be very, very clear on what are the things that only I can do.

What are the things that someone else can do? What are the things that don’t even need to be done? Because that allows you to understand how do you build your team in a way that you can do the things that your superpower right. Right. Helps with in the world. And you put other really smart people who are better at things than you are in positions to succeed as well.

And then you let them go,

Casanova Brooks:

right.

Brian Bogert:

It’s amazing when you don’t overly manage people like how much freedom and joy they get in the work they do.

Casanova Brooks:

You talked about company culture, and I think that there’s a lot of people right now that are trying to figure out what does the company culture look like, right.

And, and, and adapt into that. And the reason why I say that is because for a lot of people, they only had the brick and mortar where I had to see you. We had to have our meeting in person, but now we’re at a point where there’s so many people doing meetings just like this, and you don’t, you don’t have as much control.

So that goes into your last point of talking about just let them go. And I think a lot of leaders, they struggle with that because they want the control. Was that ever something that you guys found within your culture in the beginning that you were not very good at? Oh yeah. To navigate around that.

And what I mean by navigate? How did you get the mindset? How did you shift your mindset to understand if we don’t start to loosen up a little bit, we’ll lose our people.

Brian Bogert:

Yeah. and again, there was a handful of partners that helped build this, and we kind of all had different moments where we realized that, and frankly all had different styles, and some were more wanting to manage, then let free than others.

And so we had to have those open, honest discussions. I’ll tell you for me in my trajectory. Cause, I was the longest standing person there. when I first started, right. I had to be doing a lot more. Leadership. I had to be doing a lot more management. I had to be doing a lot more account hands on, type things.

And so when our team started to grow, I had to intentionally overcome that hurdle of staying in the same pattern that I was in because we were in a different place. Than I was in when we created those patterns, right? So the roles and the things that I had to fulfill and do early on evolved every couple of years over that 10 year window.

And so that I think is something that we were pretty good at is being able to adapt to the growth and recognize that our roles were inevitably going to evolve. And that also changes in how you internally and externally communicate. Right. So I would be the guy for a lot of our early clients.

Like I was on the front end, I was selling it. I was helping do a lot more of the implementation. I was helping him do things. And so when I started pulling myself back out of some of those accounts, not only with current clients, but with new clients, I had to change and manage expectations for the clients on what my role was.

And so that they very clearly understood because, you know, I think as a leader too, we end up, it’s easy to let your ego involved in like you like the feeling of being the guy. Right. But I found that the more, I didn’t have to be the guy. In fact, the more that I, could almost self deprecate and limit the value of my role and empower and support our teams.

The faster that our clients trusted our teams and the quicker I was able to back out. And so I had to really look at what is my objective. I have really two primary objectives, which is to grow or business and keep our clients. And so I had to be very thoughtful about leadership style with those individuals as well with clients because you’re managing expectations, And so when you set them up appropriately and you can put yourself in a position where you don’t need the credit. Right, but you can give the credit and the wins to your teams that frees you. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand and they get stuck on is it’s like, I want the credit. I want to feel good.

I want the, win I had the inverse philosophy, I actually didn’t care about the wins. I mean, I did cause it meant growth, but I didn’t need the credit, but if we screwed up or we had bad news to deliver, I was always the one to do it. Hmm. So I would come in and fill in, like, it’s like, Oh, you’ve got a horrible renewal.

Hey, we’ve got some claims situations going on. Oh, you know what? One of your vendors totally screwed up. I’d take the fall. I’d let them get the credit. And again, it set up a structure of trust on all levels for our teams that, The trust has to start with you first, right?

Casanova Brooks:

Absolutely. And I love it. I hope that somebody’s listening to it, that they really take notes, rewind this take notes because that’s a critical point for a lot of leaders to understand, right?

Yes. We all want the wins. We all want the growth, but at the end of the day, if you can operate and there’s a book, I want to say it’s by Simon Sinek and it’s like leaders eat last. Yeah. It’s and I read that book, probably what, four or five years ago, but that was the first time that I was exposed to like understanding what true leadership was.

Because just like you said, we all want to be on the front. We want to be the guy or the gal, but a lot of the times you can sacrifice your team. And then there’s so much anxiety and frustration because you wound up pushing out the people who were going to make you the guy or the gal. That’s right. If you just serve them and made sure that they had all the necessary resources and let them feel like that they were winning because we all want to feel some type of value.

We all want to feel like we have a place on this team. You have, all of the places is so for somebody else to feel like that they bring anything to the table. So then they go find another table.

Brian Bogert:

That’s right. And you also can’t leverage yourself. The only thing I can’t create more of is time. Right. Right.

That’s it. That’s the only thing I can’t create more of in this world is time.

Casanova Brooks:

Absolutely.

Brian Bogert:

So if you look at that, even through that, I mean, even if you want to take the totally selfish lens, which isn’t how I’m wired, but some are, if you do that effectively, even if it’s not for genuine reasons to support and empower your people, if it’s a hundred percent selfishly driven, you will get more time.

Right. So grow your leadership style because that’s how you leverage yourself.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. I love it for. Now let’s, let’s kind of wrap this up by. I want to ask you decided to make a huge pivot, right? And in life, I think this is very relevant for a lot of people right now, whether they are very successful or whether they’re coming out of a job and they’re thinking about getting into entrepreneurship.

But when we decided to make a pivot, there’s a lot of uncertainty. For you, tell us about the pivot that you’ve decided to make. And then also, why did you decide to make this pivot?

Brian Bogert:

Yeah, thank you very much. that’s I’m happy to unpack that. I want to start real quick if you don’t mind, because a lot of that, my core concept plays into this decision.

So I want to explain real quick, the idea of “embrace pain to avoid suffering”. I’m going to give just three examples and I’m going to jump into answering your question, but I want people to understand the world tells us to reduce eliminate or avoid pain, right? And I’m telling you, the world is wrong.

Right. We need to learn to embrace it for our benefit. And so what does this mean? We can embrace the pain of hitting them gym 30 minutes a day to avoid the suffering of aches and pains of a sedentary life. We can embrace the pain of a difficult conversation with a loved one to avoid the suffering of Loveless marriage that might end up in divorce or being stuck in a marriage that we want to divorce.

Right. We can embrace the pain of firing our brother-in-law. Because they’re the biggest drain on our culture and to avoid the suffering of what might happen if we can’t ever fix our culture and provide the right solutions for our clients. Right? So when we look at this, really getting clear on those things.

And so, now I’ll answer your question. What I, what I’ve had my human behavior and performance and speaking business for five years. I, I actually was challenged six years ago. I hired my first coach and within a month of working with him, he said, Brian, you gotta be doing this. Right. He’s like, you’re an inspiration.

You speak publicly. You’re always looking to elevate people. And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m paying you a lot of money now to tell me how great I am, but tell me, figure out these other things, which was just to get super intentional and make sure that I was having my time with my family, because everything I was sacrificing was for them.

But if I wasn’t present, none of it mattered. Right. And so I needed the help and I unpacked a lot of that and he trickled it so five years ago, I started the business and I was just humbled and overwhelmed because my network was just phenomenally responsive and talks and coaching clients and things started to flow in because of the demands of my other business.

It never had the space to breathe. And that’s okay. That’s just what it was. Right. It was a side passion project that I was just kind of pursuing and I didn’t necessarily have aspirations. It was that moment of like wanting away from everything that had been built on the other side. But the more time I spent there, the more I wanted to spend time there.

And the more I felt like this is actually what I’m put on on this planet to do my wins become other people’s wins. So it’s super easy to remove the ego and focus a hundred percent on advancing that philosophy. I told you before on if and how I can have, I can help people unlock what’s inside of them.

And so going through this process and living life and everything was great. And I had some, some other health issues that came up. I got diagnosed a few years back with a rare and extreme case of growth, hormone deficiency. So it rattled my energy and it rattled my mental acuity. You can probably tell them the way that I talk to things I’ve identified with or my energy and my intellect, right?

That’s the way I can present into the world. And so when those things were rattled, it rattled me and I had to go inside and really do some analysis a year ago. My wife and I had a phenomenal weekend. We’re driving home to pick up the kids and she looks over at me in the car and says, how’d you feel if you didn’t have to go to the office on Monday?

I would like just was like shocked and startled. And I was like, ah, where are you going with this? Tell me more. She said, I think you let this growth hormone thing allow fear to enter into your world in a way I’ve never seen before. She said, I think that you are not having the impact on the world that you want, and you’re barely scratching the surface of your potential.

And she said, whether you see it or not, I think you’re dying a little bit inside every day. You work in insurance. She threw a dart and hit the bullseye. Right? It was way more clear in that moment than I was. And she said, look, we took a big bet on, you wants to go build this other business and it’s paid off.

I want to double down on that bet. And if you want to go and chase what I believe you’re put on this planet to do, and what I think, you know, your reason for being on this planet is. She’s like, let’s do it. Let’s double down on it. So she gave me the permission to really evaluate it. Right. And not that I needed the permission, but she gave me the push and the permission all in one.

Right, right. And so we unpacked it and we’re super aware and super intentional in our evaluation. And it was last October that we made the decision that we were going to execute my bicep, my business, sell my portion back to my partners and be able to go out and chase this full time. so that I can fulfill what I really want.

And one of my primary driving goals is to impact a billion people in my life. So as of June 1st, I’ve been a hundred percent in this. And I can tell you right now that I’m in a position where I feel happier, more fulfilled and more like myself than I ever have. So I’ve taken a dose of my own medicine.

And what’s really interesting about this is when I look at everything right. It’s regret minimization theory. What am I going to re greater when I’m sitting in a chair, when I’m 90 years old, looking back on my life, it’s gonna be the stuff I never tried versus hitting the easy button. Right? And so this was a perfect place to apply this concept.

I had to embrace the pain of walking away from something that was built, that was running, that was growing. That was providing us a phenomenal income and a beautiful lifestyle. I had to embrace the pain of. Walking away from all of that to avoid the suffering of not ever knowing what impact I could have on the world and who I could actually become.

If I fulfilled the work I believe I’m put here to do. And so that’s what led to it. And that’s one of the biggest driving motivators in making my decision. It’s like, you know what, if I’m going to challenge other people to do this, and there’s even an inkling of me, that’s not a hundred percent authentic to who Brian Bogart is.

I need to do it because that’s nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. It reminds me of a I’m sure you’re a big Jim Rohn fan. I’m a huge Jim Rohn fan. Yeah. And he has that quote that says, you know, in a sense, “failure weighs ounces, but regret weighs tons” right. Choose, which you choose, which weight that you want.

Right. And so you have to make sure. That you are embracing it. And I love that story. I want to ask though. Why do you think that you hadn’t embraced it sooner? Because it wasn’t the permission necessarily. Do you think that there was a fear there? Was it a fear of success? Was it a fear? Like what was it?

Brian Bogert:

Yeah, so a great question. And there was absolutely one definitive thing that was holding me back that I didn’t quite understand until a couple of years ago. I didn’t understand the role that shame played in my life. Hmm. And, and Shame played a role in my life in a different way than I think most people would think.

And, and shame to me is the ultimate Wolf in sheep’s clothing, because it hits you from both sides and you don’t really understand it. Okay. So the primary narrative to shame, and I’m going to reference Bernay Brown. Cause I learned the second talk track, which is how I was able to unpack it for myself.

But the first talk track is you’re not worthy. You’re not good enough. Right? Like that’s the shame piece. So it’s, it’s, it’s less about what you do. So when you make mistakes or do things or show up into the world, it’s more about who you are. And I didn’t really struggle with that. Like there was moments where I didn’t feel worthy.

I mean, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but that wasn’t right. That wasn’t really it. Cause I’d overcome so much. I had perspective to know that like I am worthy, I am good enough. I can do certain things. I’m the one that got me is she says, the second talk track is when you shut that down and you show up in the arena and you’re ready to go to battle it’s who do you think you are?

I’ve done a lot of really cool stuff in my life. And I don’t say that to impress. I say that to impress upon the point I’m about to make. All the cool, big stuff I’ve done in my life. I’ve always felt the need to apologize for. And I’ve always felt like I couldn’t tell people. So there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve done that nobody even knows about and they don’t need to, it’s not like a braggadocious thing, so it’s not necessarily that I need to go blast the world on this cool stuff I’ve done.

But I mean, whether it’s raising a bunch of money for a charity or helping somebody bust through in their business or whatever, like there’s cool things. And I always felt the need to apologize for it because I felt like. How is it fair that I have the ability to do this and somebody, right, right. And, and, and w call that whatever you want.

There’s a whole multitude of reasons that lead into that, right. There’s privilege, there’s opportunity. There’s skillsets, there’s gifts that we’re all given as individuals that separate who we are from others. And there was a big part of me that carried a lot of shame around that for a long time, because a lot of attention was put on me from early in life.

Because of my unique accident. And so I think I just always tried to normalize myself cause I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want to be that guy. Right. I didn’t want all the attention on me. And so when I unpacked that shame, that is a hundred percent what kept me on that path because the path I was on was a safe path.

I needed to prove to myself that I could accomplish great things, make a ton of money, right. Whatever that means to anybody listening and prove to me that I could build something that I can develop my leadership skills. I did all that years ago. And I don’t, I don’t, again, I don’t say that to impress. I say the principal at a point until I could handle and understand the role Shame played in my life.

I couldn’t take another big leap because I was comfortable and I fell into the seduction of success. Right. So I needed to put myself in a position of discomfort again, to see tremendous growth in my life.

Casanova Brooks:

Man, I’ll be honest that right there, it gave me chills because I’ve had that exact, exact feeling.

And it’s funny because now I will, and I hope anybody else that’s watching or listening, we’ll go back and really ask themselves, like, what is the role that shame maybe plays in your life of why you’re not the best person that you can be because similar to you, it’s always just kind of been like, we feel like we have these.

Innate abilities. We have these super powers. Everyone has their own superpower. Maybe it’s not speaking in front of an audience of 5,000 people. Right. But it might be, you’re able to see things like an interior designer. You’re able to see things that other people can’t see. Like my wife and I were finishing theirs.

So we’re finishing off our basement right now. And that’s not our thing right there, her nor I can be able to visualize that. So everyone has their own superpower, but I think. The, the ability to really assess where that shame comes in. And how do you move past that with feeling like, how do we, how do I feel like, no, this is the role that I’m supposed to be playing in my life.

And I am supposed to be the star of my movie. Right. Cause that’s what it really is. I am the character in my book. And what is the transformation that I want to have shown to inspire someone else? But a lot of the times we can’t get past that level one. Like it’s okay that we see the downfall, but we find it very hard that when we get to the top that we rip open our shirts and we say, look, we did this because of what you said of like, why did I, it gets so lucky.

Right. And when you first said that, I almost felt like for my name, like, obviously I got very lucky with my name that at least if nothing else, it’s an icebreaker.

Brian Bogert:

Oh, yeah, no doubt.

Casanova Brooks:

But if nothing else, even if I didn’t know how to communicate people, like, Oh, that’s a really cool name, but then it’s like, okay, well, how do I show that I am worthy of the gifts that I’ve been given?

Right.

Brian Bogert:

That’s right. And then how do you translate those gifts to have impact that’s the key, right? Cause when you can realize that it’s bigger than you, you that’s, when you can start to break through that stuff. What most people don’t do though as well is they don’t take the time to raise their level of awareness to really understand like, what are those things.

When does that emotional trigger of shame hit me. And how do I move through those moments? The combination of moments and patterns in our life that we, you got a break. Right? Right. And then how do they become intentional with making sure that they’re constantly aware and all their actions aligned with where they want to go?

That’s the key. But when you say, look, look, why am I so gifted? Like how do I bring those gifts in the world? If you shift it beyond yourself? Like, that’s one of the things that I had to do when I looked external. And this is about impact, not about impressions, right? This is about how do I change other people’s lives.

That if my gifts do that well, then it’s a shame. If I don’t put it into the world,

Casanova Brooks:

right. Right. No, I love that, man. And I’m glad that you said it. Like I said, I’m hoping that somebody else they hears this and this kind of similar what I tell all of my friends and my family and my wife, if like your story is not for you.

Right. And it could also be said in the other way of right. If you do not get tested, you’ll never have a testimonial and we all love. Testimonials. And so I love that you brought that part up and again, that’s something that I’ll really go back and I’ll reflect on, because I think in some way it’s either one or two things, it’s that it’s that imposter syndrome, right?

They’re like, we’re not worthy to be there or it’s at the top where it’s like, okay, we do feel like we’re worthy to be here, but at the same time we have to shift our mindset. Like you said, to feel like that we can express that. But it’s really just because we’re only looking at internally, we’re thinking that the world, you know, everything revolves around us rather than figuring out how to, when we articulate this show, how this super power can help other people

Brian Bogert:

A hundred percent.

Casanova Brooks:

And so that’s clearly why you’ve obviously been a high performance coach for the last five years and probably many or more while your mentor said, Hey, you know, this is why you got it. Get this out there. let me ask, do you feel like now you have, You’ve made a big pivot in life. You’ve had a lot of success in business and now, you know, starting up your own venture and you’re having success with that.

And you have the backing of your family, which is very, very important because obviously their votes matter. Well, let me ask, do you feel fulfilled?

Brian Bogert:

So I think there’s a difference between being fulfilled and having desire for more fulfillment. So I want to be clear on that. Yeah. I feel very fulfilled.

Because I I’m very blessed. It’s not lost on me. That the gift I was given in my wife for her to have the courage to shake up our entire life, which really was about me being happy and fulfilled more than anything. Right. It wasn’t, I mean, she could have been selfish in her own lens and be like, yeah, you know what?

We’ve got a really comfortable life. We can do whatever we want. We’ve got all this freedom. She could have looked at it through her own lens, but she didn’t. She looked at it through who is my husband. What’s going to make him happy and fulfilled. And what’s the impact that we could have collectively if we do this together.

So I’m very blessed for a whole variety of reasons. And so I’m very fulfilled through that. I’ve got phenomenal kids. I’ve got phenomenal friends. I’ve had so many blessings in my life. I’m very fulfilled. And like I said to you earlier, making this leap, I’m six, seven weeks out from the other world. And really for five years of trying to balance both side by side, Seven weeks of separation and I am happier, more fulfilled and feel more like myself right now than I have in my entire adult life.

That said I have a huge goal of impacting a billion people in my life so I can be fulfilled and appreciate what I want, but my work is not done yet. Hmm. I am far from finished. And frankly that includes the work on myself and the work on myself that will ultimately translate to work on others and the ability to help others elevate and grow and live a no limits life.

Because again, shame limits you. Lots of things limit you. I’m a big believer in removing those limits so that we can be who we are our most authentic selves. And so I will, I believe, find different moments of fulfillment through my life. But there is no final destination. And the day that I wake up and I don’t have something more that I want to give to the world, there’s something more I need to learn and grow myself.

That’s might as well be the last day of my life. So I’m fulfilled, but I’m seeking further fulfillment. I

Casanova Brooks:

love it. I love it. That’s a, that’s a great point and great perspective because the reason why I bring that up is when I get big guests on the show, just like yourself, a lot of the times it’s easy to look at you or anyone else and feel like that they’ve already made it.

Right. And you feel like you’re so far. Far away from that. But to understand that there is no, like you said, final destination every day. That’s why it’s called personal development every day. You have to be developing yourself because there’s, I’ve learned early on in my journey that it’s not what you do know that hurts you.

It’s what you don’t know. That hurts you. Right? And if you don’t continuously seek out and try to look for different things that you’re exposed to, then at some point you will get in that rut of feeling like I’m comfortable and comfortability is obviously the enemy of success of one person. Because we all have different levels of success.

So always love to hear that. And I love to hear the different perspectives and hopefully have the audience hear that as well, because then it shows that like, listen, it’s not going to be that three years from now. Now I get this business off the ground and now it’s like, I’m there. It’s like, no, it’s a constant right battle.

Right. Because even if you make it in business, are you there with your spouse? That’s right. Are you there with your children and are you there with your employees? Right? There’s, there’s so many different levels. And so you’re always going to constantly be having to evolve this. And so I’m glad that you brought that part up.

Brian Bogert:

That’s exactly right. And when you were breaking that down, you actually reminded me and I wish I could source the original person who said the quote. I heard it for the first time from a Aeneas Williams. Who’s a hall of fame quarterback from the NFL. And he, this, I don’t know, six years ago, I had the opportunity to have dinner with him actually through my other coach, originally.

And he said the only difference between who you are today and who you’ll be five years from now is in the people that you meet and the books that you read. Hmm. Right.

Casanova Brooks:

I’m going to give it to you, Jim Rohn. It doesn’t mean matter. I give everything to Jim Rohn,

Brian Bogert:

but somebody, I thought it was an Aeneas Williams original, but then I found out about a week later, I was listening to a book and the same quote came up.

I was like, well, it wasn’t his, and he didn’t claim it as his, so that wasn’t him. It’s just my lack of knowledge. But. He’s on the gold there, right? That quote is gold. And what you just said is gold. It’s like, if you aren’t continually seeking, what are you funneling through yourself? Interpersonal relationships. Other people you can learn from other people you can teach because you learn when you teach.

Right? Right. What are you putting from a knowledge perspective, reading, consuming, videos, whatever it is like, what are you doing to better yourself? So that you’re constantly growing and evolving because there is no such thing as an overnight success, right? And people are celebrated in public for what they’ve practiced in private for years.

Hm, right.

Casanova Brooks:

Say that

Brian Bogert:

people are celebrated in public for what they’ve practiced in private for years.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow. Right. There is a whole word. If you don’t take anything else from this episode, like you have to take that cause that right there defines life. And I believe success.

Brian Bogert:

And again, I don’t, I’m probably stole that quote from somebody, so I don’t even take credit for it, but that’s, I mean, that’s a philosophy man, that’s a belief.

And, you know, so I, it’s one of those things where people just need to really take toll on what’s important and how do they do that? But it’s got to start with some vision, right. So I kind of hope that our audience will just pause for a minute and picture a day when they no longer worry about the future, but know that they’re embracing the pains necessary to live, that no limits aligned the life that they’ve always desired.

I want them to picture a day when their friends come up to him and say, I’ve never seen you this free, calm and confident. Right? And I want them to picture a day when they’re truly living with no limits and reaching their full potential. Every single person has the ability to do that.

Casanova Brooks:

Right. I love it.

Has there been one person and that has really inspired you over these last 10 years, whether they hear like, obviously you might say like Jesus or God or something, but outside of that, somebody that’s maybe let’s say currently, still living. Has there been one person maybe outside of your parents who you’ve already, you know, said as really set the foundation?

Brian Bogert:

So there, there are a lot. And so this is actually, that’s a great question. I have to like quickly do a toll because I have been very blessed with some phenomenal people in my life. there, there is, there is one that comes to mind and then somebody that if she called I drop everything to help her, Her name is actually Sue Glawe.

I was introduced to her when I first got out of college and she had one of the coolest jobs on the planet. Not that it was easy, but one of the coolest jobs and she was the head of basically community relations for blue cross blue shield in the state of Arizona. Got it. And so her primary job was to be a community advocate and it was basically her final decision to determine.

Wherever they spent their dollars in the community from a support and donation standpoint. And anybody who’s from Arizona knows that blue cross, their name is on everything that’s big and important. No. Well, so blue cross is a, they’re all independent. So there’s different States and they’re all, they’re the only national carrier that doesn’t have a a hundred percent national ownership.

They’re all like a series of organizations. So blue cross blue shield of Arizona is headquartered here for Arizona, but there are other blue crosses across the country. but she just. Always had this humility about everything she did and a simplicity to everything that she did. And it was always focused on impact and people.

And she was, it would always be in a position. I mean, she’s literally one of the people who helped build this city from the sixties and seventies. I mean, anything major that’s been done, she was somehow involved. Right. Even if it was behind the scenes, but she never needed to be the front person for anything.

In fact, she’s the quickest person to give credit to others and her and another individual here by the name of Bill Schubert both share this philosophy. And again, I think this is a quote that they probably took from somebody, but, they both had told me multiple times in my life, “there is no limit to what one can accomplish as long as they care, not who gets the credit”.

Hmm. And so. That was something that I’ve always tried to embrace because there is nothing that any individual will ever do. That’s major on this planet. It takes people collective effort, collective wisdom, collective learning. And if you don’t care who gets the credit. You can come together and do phenomenal things.

And so, you know, she has been a huge role in my life. She’s gotten me involved in a couple of different places in front of me. There are people who’ve called me to recruit me for board leadership that had them, they not used her name. I probably wouldn’t have taken their call. And I don’t mean that to sound arrogant or anything.

It’s just, I had my time. So allocated and intentional, but if it’s something she wants me to connected to I’ll follow her till the end of this world, because she just always focuses on how does she help other people I’ll get behind that all day long.

Casanova Brooks:

I love it. And we all have those champions in our lives and, and those what we’ll call a saints in our lives just poured so much into us in terms of wisdom that then when that person calls you look forward to the call, right.

And you look forward to, to really just make an impact as they have done. And I got a couple of people that are in my mind when you first say that. So I’m glad that you brought that up. And I hope that we all can. Really visualize that person in our lives. And really just maybe even pick up the phone and say, thank you, right.

Or send an email or send a text message and just say, I didn’t need anything. I just wanted to say thank you because I think that’s as impactful as anything.

Brian Bogert:

I couldn’t agree more.

Casanova Brooks:

This has been a phenomenal conversation that I want to ask you. One last thing. And the reason why I always ask this is because there’s someone who.

Is very inspired by your journey, by the way that you’ve been resilient. And they love the path that you’re on right now. And they want to do something very similar. They are maybe in a position right now where they’re looking to do a pivot, but they have that little voice in their head. And you kind of alluded to this earlier in the conversation, but that little voice says that they’re not strong enough.

They’re not smart enough or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. So I want to ask you, what is the one thing that you would say to that person to get them to just take action?

Brian Bogert:

So taking action is a really big philosophy in my world. because I think our actions are what demonstrates who we are to the world.

And so I think the very first step is to. Take a step back and get really, really clear on who you are. And what’s important to you. If you start there, and you know that definitively, right, and you understand your purpose, you understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Purpose, literally overtakes pain.

So when I’m telling people to embrace pain, if the purpose is big enough, you’re going to turn into pain all day long because you’re driving towards something. So I think there’s a lot of people. When, when you ask, what is your purpose? Who are you? What impact do you wanna have more people know what the answer isn’t than?

Know what it is. Right. And, and, you know, it’s funny that you asked that question because one of the most common questions I get is Brian, how and where do I start? Right. Can you help me, like what resources are there? And the answer is absolutely. Yes. And so for all of those that are listening, whether you have no idea what to do and feel completely stuck, you just need a slight tweak or you are well on your way to becoming who you are.

I have an offer that will be valuable to you. It’s a free offer and you can go to no limitsprelude.com. And what this is is, is this is essentially the alignment pages for the playbook, the course philosophy, my one-to-one coaching philosophy. It’s the end game of all the work that my clients put in to help them get really clear on what’s important.

So it at least will be a starting point for folks to understand what’s important in my life. And what are some basic things I can do over the next three to five years over the next year, over the next 90 days and daily with my actions to demonstrate to the world. Who I am. That’s what nolimitsprelude.com helps Individuals with.

and then certainly, obviously we, we’ve got plenty of resources that we can jump in and help. and that’s not in any way a sales pitch. I want to be very clear. This is genuinely a free resource, but if anybody’s interested in other ways that we might be able to help, they can always go to Brianbogert.com as well.

I always spell the last name cause 90% of people spell it with an a and it’s not Bogart. So it’s Brian B O G E R t.com. Start with getting clear on who you are. Cause once you understand that and when you can emerge that person, when you can become who you already are, that’s when the cracks match has to happen and perspective, motivation, and direction becoming your life.

So you can truly live with the most.

Casanova Brooks:

There you have it DreamNation, just as he said, you must take action. And that starts with getting clear with who you are, because if you don’t take any action, it’ll only merely be a fantasy. So that’s all we have for this one. I want to say, thank you again, my man, it’s been a phenomenal conversation and we look forward to seeing your growth and we look forward to having you on the show again.

Brian Bogert:

Thank you.