From Navy SEAL to CBD Entrepreneur: My Journey of Mindset Growth

In this special replay episode, I was interviewed by my friend Amin on his podcast Be Well Do Well. We discussed my journey to become a Navy SEAL, some scary moments from combat missions, the difficult transition back to civilian life, and how CBD helped me manage anxiety and stress. I also share my "get naked" mindset philosophy and 5 key principles (NAKED) for thinking like a SEAL.

Key Takeaways:

• It took me 13 months to get through SEAL training due to a mediocre mindset at first. I had to learn to crush the standards, not just meet the bare minimums.
• Leaving the military was one of the hardest missions of my life. I lost my purpose, mission, and team overnight. It took time to rebuild.
• CBD helped me manage anxiety and stress without alcohol. It enabled more positive self-talk.
• The "get naked" mindset is about removing ego and armor to become more vulnerable and find healing.
• The 5 NAKED principles for thinking like a SEAL:
  • N = Never Quit. I break big goals down into small victories.
  • A = Accept Failure. Failure provides my biggest lessons in life.
  • K = Kill Mediocrity. I seek out discomfort and compete in kindness.
  • E = Expose My Fears. I do hard things that scare me.
  • D = Do the Work. I don't get complacent.

My Websites:

• 5sealsecrets.com
• nwrecovery.com (My CBD company - use code "BeWellDoWell" for 20% off)

Connect with Amin:

• bewelldowell.fm
• https://linkedin.com/in/theaminahmed

Thank you for listening to my podcast, The Navy SEAL Mindset!

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WANT TO THINK LIKE A NAVY SEAL AND UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL?

Discover the 5 SEAL Secrets to Success

A short read with powerful tactical lessons to change your life

https://www.5sealsecrets.com/

Transcript

William Branum: 0:00

Welcome back to the Navy SEAL Mindset. I am your host, William Branham, and this is episode 013. This episode is going to be a little bit different than the rest of the episodes up to this point. This is going to be a replay of a podcast I did about a year ago with a friend of mine, Amin, on the Be Well, Do Well podcast. One of the things I liked about this podcast or doing this specific podcast with Amin is because he asked me some questions that most people don't ask or have never asked. I've been on over 450 podcasts in the last three years and I really enjoy the podcast where the host asks me questions that make me think that are not the standard questions that everyone else asks. So, hope you guys enjoy the show. Again, this is the Navy SEAL Mindset, Episode 013. Don't forget to get naked, and I'll talk to you soon.

Amin Ahmed: 0:51

Hello and welcome to the Be Well, Do Well podcast. I'm excited to have a conversation with a remarkable entrepreneur that's one of the toughest and nicest people that you'll ever meet. William Branham is a retired Navy SEAL with 26 years of service under his belt. He taught as a sniper instructor and served on missions approved by the President of the United States. After retiring from the military, William started Naked Warrior Recovery, a CBD company that focuses on recovery. There's so much I want to talk about today, William. Thank you for being on the show.

William Branum: 1:22

Welcome. Thanks for having me on here. I'm stoked to be here. Awesome. Now,

Amin Ahmed: 1:25

normally, you're calling in from Hawaii. And so today, you're taking this call from, from the road, which is awesome. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. I'm, I'm curious to hear, first of all, your backstory about how you got to this point and just tell us a little bit about your experience with the Navy

William Branum: 1:42

SEALs. Let's see. So I grew up in a little town outside of Meridian, Mississippi. So you pull on redneck with the accent and all. People tell me I don't have much of an accent nowadays, but. You know, when I go back, I'm in Texas right now. And depending on who I'm hanging out with, for sure, I can have some draw come out. But we'll try to keep that on the DL for, for right now. I was heavily involved in the Boy Scouts. I was an Eagle Scout and I, but I was, I came from a super poor family, like free lunches, the whole, the whole thing. Very mediocre mindset. Uh, but I always knew I wanted, there was more out there for me than what was presented in front of me. I also have a learning disability, which I didn't really realize. I thought I was just dumb growing up. So I went to this national jamboree and I met another kid and he, you know, he was talking about what he wanted to do when he grew up and he said, I want to. Go to the Naval Academy. And I was like, Oh, that sounds pretty cool. I think I want to go to the Naval Academy too. I don't want to join the Navy though. I want to, he said, then he said, I want to fly F 14 Tomcat, like the movie Top Gun. Nice. And I want to be a Navy SEAL. I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Well, what's a Navy SEAL? And he explained to me, you know, it's the most elite military organization in the world. They, you know, jump out of airplanes. They scuba dive. They sneak around in the woods. They shoot guns. They blow stuff up. I'm like, yeah, that sounds awesome. That's what I want to do. And so, you know, I grew up hunting and sneaking around in the woods anyway. And, you know, we did a lot of that in the Boy Scouts as well. And I'm like, okay, that's awesome. That's what I want to do, but I don't really want to join the Navy, but I always knew I wanted to be part of some sort of elite military organization, even though I didn't know the word elite back then, you know, we didn't even have the internet, the internet is. You know, it's, it's a pretty new thing. I grew up with like four channels on the television. So I watched a lot of Kung Fu theater also. So I wanted to also be a ninja when I grew up and I'm still working on that one. Yeah, we all are. Yeah. Right. And so, and so I came back from that national jamboree and a Navy recruiter called me because this was the summer between my 11th and 12th grade of high school and so the recruiters, they just call, they get the list of kids that are, you know, going into the, their senior year and they just call and say, Hey, have you ever thought about joining the Navy? And I was like, man. If you'd have called me six weeks ago, probably not, you know, I, I want to be a Navy SEAL. I want to go to the Naval Academy and I want to fly up 14 Tomcats. He's like, awesome. Why don't you come on down here? And he showed me this terrible video about, you know, SEAL recruiting video. And so I'm like, yeah, where do I sign up? And so I joined the Navy, but before I even started my 12th grade year of high school in the delayed entry program. And after I graduated high school, I went directly into to become a Navy SEAL. I've made some tactical errors along the way. One of them was I didn't train. So here's a mindset thing that, that I later looked back and recognized that I was thinking about life very differently. So there is a minimum score that you have to score physical fitness wise to, to get into the, into the SEAL program. And it's some, it's a 500 yard swim. It's pushups, pull ups, sit ups, and a mile and a half run in long pants and boots. Well, I was an okay runner. I was an okay swimmer and I thought I did okay with pushups and sit ups. Not so great at pull ups, but you know, we'll figure it out. And so I had this minimum number in my mind. I just have to hit that minimum number. And so I went to bootcamp and then, you know, woke up early one morning to go take the, the SEAL screening test and I passed the swim, but I failed the pushups. It was like something like 52 pushups is all you had to do. Like that was the minimum number. And I think I made it to like 38 and I was like, Oh, I don't think I can do anymore. And I quit doing pushups. And so I was like, Oh, I need to get better at pushups clearly and everything else that has to do with, with the screening test. So I graduated bootcamp. I went to my. Navy school, because in the Navy, you have to have a Navy job before you can become a SEAL. That's how you, that's how they advance you in the military. And so I went to this Navy school and I got in pretty good shape. And I was like, I probably, you know, I was high enough in the class. To take orders to another school for four more months, which I thought I'll go to this school for four more months in, in Virginia beach, not here in North of North Italy, Illinois in the winter time. I don't want to go outside and brave the elements and I don't want to wake up that early in the morning. I had, you know, again, like a very mediocre mindset. I'll go to this other school in Virginia beach where it's sunny and warm and I'll get in better shape and then I'll take the screening test and go to, go to Bud's. Go to SEAL training. Right. And what I didn't know is when it was time for me to take the test, right. Asked to take the test. They were like, why do you want to take the test? You are going to this ship in Yokosuka, Japan. You came to this school and I'm like, well, what if I fail out of the school? And they were like, you're still going to that ship in Yokosuka, Japan. I was like, okay, well, I won't fail out of the school. I'll still do my best and graduate like I'm supposed to. So I went to the, went to Japan. I spent my time on the, on that ship for, for two years. When it came time for me to rotate to my next command, I called up the guy that's in charge of, you know, of me to go to this next command. And I said, Hey, I'm, I'm submitting a package to go to Bud's. I want to be a Navy SEAL. And he was like, that's great, but I'm not going to let you go because you're too critical to the Navy. And I was like, what do you mean? I'm too critical. It's like that school that you went to, that job that you're doing right now. There's only a handful of those people. So that makes you more critical than me letting you go becoming Navy SEAL. I'm like, but the odds of me making it through the programs are very low. He's like, you're not going the end. Don't ask again. And so I was like, well, I'll get out if you don't let me go. And he said, sorry, bro, you're not going. And so I, I, I did all the physical fitness stuff. I did all the medical stuff. I did everything I needed to do. I got letters of recommendation. I called again. No, you're not. I'm not gonna let you go. I submitted my package anyway, and I called the, the seal detailer and I said, Hey, did you get my package? Can I go? They're like, your, your detailer has to let you go. I'm like, man. Okay. Oh, fast forward. One day we get word that the chief of naval operations is coming to Japan. And not only is he coming to Japan, he's going to come to our ship. So he came to our ship. He didn't go to any other ship in, in Japan. He only came to our ship. And he, you know, he had CNO's call. So to give you an idea of who the CNO, the chief of naval operations is, he's the most senior guy in the Navy. The only people more senior to him is the secretary of defense and the president of the United States. He came to my little ship. There were bigger ships. There were better ships. He just came to our ship. He gave our, he gave sort of his vision of the Navy. This is my thought. This is what we're going to do, blah, blah, whatever. I have no idea really what he said. But he said, does anyone here have any questions? And I was, I raised my hand. Yeah, over here. I was the second person he called, called on. And I said, yeah, I joined the Navy to become a Navy SEAL. I think I deserve a chance to go to training, but my detailer won't let me. What do you think? Something like that. And he, he looks at me and then he turns to my commanding officer and he says, so is he a good guy? Fortunately, I told my commanding officer I was going to do that. I was like, knock yourself out. What's the worst that can happen? So he, my commanding officer says, yeah, he's a good guy. He was the sailor of the quarter this quarter, which is like employee of the month. Cause they did a good job sweeping or mopping or something, polishing the bright work. And he turned back to me, he's like, check, you'll be in the first class after your PRD, which is planned rotational date. Six weeks later, I'm off to, off to California to SEAL training. And, uh, and so, so this was again, free internet, free, whatever. And the value of me talking to him and asking him, I called Washington. Where all the detailers were that made all the decisions that night. So this was probably like three o'clock in the afternoon. I called it like 7 PM my time, which was whatever the next day in on the East Coast and, and I said, Hey, have you heard anything about my, my package? What's your name? I told him, uh, yeah, we nailed your package out this morning. Like that was the. It happened so fast and then I'm off to California. I'm like, Oh, wow. I better, I better get my act together. And so I showed up in California for SEAL training and it took me 13 months to finish a six month block of training. Because again, I had kind of a mediocre mindset and it took me a long time to get myself thinking in the right area, rather than having this minimalist mindset of sort of scarcity and minimum standard. I really had to figure out, I need to be crushing the standard, not shooting for the minimum. But that took a long time for me to like put two and two together. I eventually graduated, went on and spent the rest of my career in the SEAL teams and then, and then retired.

Amin Ahmed: 10:15

Now, during your time on the SEAL team, did you ever feel, cause you obviously wanted to be there, right? Like you, from, from the beginning, you're like, this is where I'm going. This is what I want to do. But when you actually got there and you reached that, that level, did you ever feel like, what am I doing here?

William Branum: 10:28

No, I felt like I was always surprised when I was put into leadership positions. And one of the, the beautiful things about the military is they put you into leadership positions based on your potential. And it was, and this is kind of a reoccurring, this has been a reoccurring theme throughout pretty much my entire life where people have believed in me more than I've believed in myself. And I'm like, I don't like, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to be a leader. I don't know how to whatever. I have many stories about that. People looked at me and they're like, you. You have the potential, you have the capability to do great things. And so I was like, okay, if you say so, and I was telling, I was talking about something else and, and I forgot what they called it. It was like undeserved credit, or you have unearned recognition. Like I hadn't earned the recognition of being that, that leader yet. But I like being put into positions where I'm uncomfortable because. I don't have the option to be kind of mediocre. The way I'm wired is I want to do it better than anyone else. And I look at everyone that I look up to and I take all the good stuff that they've done, and I just try to apply those little things into the way that I'm doing stuff. I mean, for sure, I was asked to lead men that were way more capable than I thought I was. They were better leaders, better, whatever. And when I came in and I just provided kind of the servant leadership style, they took it on board and, and I, and I was successful. Every time that I was uncomfortable in a leadership position, I was uber successful. And anytime where I thought I knew what I was doing, I failed. So I have lots of failures and I have some good successes along the way. Every time

Amin Ahmed: 12:12

you succeeded and every time you got to a new level, what was, what was happening to your confidence at the time? Were you already ultra confident or did they just build your confidence? The more

William Branum: 12:21

successes you had? No, I don't think I've ever had my confidence that, that built up. I'm, you know, and I like to live like that. I didn't, I didn't realize that at the time, but when I'm, when I'm a little bit uncomfortable, I'm a little bit rocky. I focus. And I try that much harder. And I think, you know, in the times that I've failed were the times where I was like, Oh, I got this, this is easy. No, no big deal. Right. I became complacent because I'm like, yeah, it's no big deal. So you've

Amin Ahmed: 12:49

done some really cool things. Well, cool in a sense that most people don't get to do this, right? When you, when you go on these missions. Can you tell me about a time that, that you were just

William Branum: 12:57

scared? A little, little thing that a lot of people don't know about me is when I was 15 years old, I was shot while, while hunting with my great uncle. Okay. So, so I've been shot before. No big deal. There's a whole story behind that. But when we were in combat. I wasn't too concerned about getting shot. I'm like, bro, I've been shot before. You, you have a higher probability of getting hit than me. So I, I, I'm sorry for you. But when things start blowing up around you, it's not that exciting. And like, I'm like, I've never been blown up before this. I, I don't know. I could get blown up. This is not that much fun anymore. Uh, but yeah, so we were, there was, there was a night in Baghdad and we were going into a target. And I remember There was a big gunfight going on off to the, off to the right. It was, uh, an army unit. They were in a big gunfight. We were on our way to, to find a very specific target. And, and I'm thinking like, maybe we're going to roll in and help these guys out. So we come around the corner and there's like a big tank, like pointing out and like, Oh, don't, don't shoot us. And I'm in the back of this, this Humvee and the way that the Humvees were set up for our unit. Is there, there was like a pickup truck bed, right? So we put five guys inside. So a driver, a navigator, the turret gunner, who the guy that sits in the middle with a big gun that spins around and then two guys also inside. And then we put four guys outside and we're, we're driving along and we drive at night and we drive very fast and we drive under with night vision goggles with no headlights on or anything else. And we come around the corner, big gunfight going on over here. You can see these tracer rounds going all over the place, the explosions. And I look to my, to my left as we come around the corner and I see this Iraqi police officer. Look up, he sees us and he starts dialing his phone and I was like, something about that is not right. Mm hmm. And I'm like, mm, I kind of feel like I should shoot that guy, but I didn't because he didn't really show intent. Although his actions were, I didn't like his actions. Yeah. And it wasn't two minutes later that a bomb blew up right next to our vehicle and the bombs there in Iraq, they're, they're EFPs, they're explosive force penetrators. So, What it is, is a, it's a copper plate with a bunch of explosives behind it. And so the explosive train goes down the explosive and it hits that copper plate and it inverts it and it turns it into this like a molten magma projectile that cuts through any armor on the planet. Wow. And, and we lost, we lost three guys a few nights later to these exact bombs. But because we drove so fast, and so, yeah, because we drove so fast, they couldn't time us. And they, like, the bombs were like 10 feet away from us. Wow. And they went right between, like, right behind our truck. I'm sitting in the back of the truck with, like, three other guys, pretty senior guys. And like, you, you, you feel the blast, you feel the heat from the, from the, the bomb going off and you know, it's an EFP and it just barely misses us twice. And then we're getting, you know, people are shooting at us now, we're under the streetlights, so we can't see, night vision goggles are useless. And so, um, I'm a little nervous at this point, I'm like, I don't know who to shoot back at, I don't know where they are, all this, all this other stuff. And, and one of the guys in the truck, he was the most junior guy in the truck, he was like, so, fellas. He What do you think about maybe we get a little lower inside the truck? And so we're all like, yep, that's a good call. And so we all kind of like hunched out as much as we could, and we're like looking for people to shoot. But yeah, I think that was one of the scarier times, like, you know, just standing out in the, in the street or in the, in a desert somewhere trading bullets, no big deal, but when bombs start going off around you and people are like shooting down at you like that, and that was a little, a little nervous.

Amin Ahmed: 16:44

So this is a good segue because to me, it sounds like you, you felt kind of naked when you're there. A hundred percent. Yeah. You don't have any protection. Don't hang

William Branum: 16:52

out. Yeah. There's no, no real protection out there outside of the armor you have on your body and even then that was not going to stop anything.

Amin Ahmed: 16:59

Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Now, you know, moving past your career in the military, when you finished, it wasn't all roses when you finished, right? Like when you, when you retired from the military. Are you, are you okay talking a little bit about how you felt when you left and, you know, some of the,

William Branum: 17:17

yeah, a hundred percent, I think more people should talk about it. So when I, when I left the military, I felt like I lost my purpose. I lost my mission and I lost my team. And if you've ever seen the movie, the Avengers where Thanos like snaps his fingers and half the world's population goes away, that's what I felt like. You know, I, I, you know, I had family, I had purpose, mission, and team. One day and the next day it was all gone. And so that was very hard for me. And it took me a long time to figure out what my new purpose and my new mission and my new team was. I tell people all the time, you know, leaving the military was the hardest military mission I've ever been on. And, and quite honestly, I'm still on it. I'm still working on it. I'm getting a lot better. But it was, it was really difficult for me to, to go through that, that challenge. And, you know, I see it now that I'm on this side of it. I see it all the time. I see it from high performers. I see it from very successful entrepreneurs where they, you know, they were really successful. They, they sold a company and then they go into this sort of world of depression where they're like, I don't even know what to do with myself now. I'm like, I had purpose, mission, and team. And now I have nothing. I got a bunch of money, but what am I going to do with it? I didn't have a bunch of money from even the military. I went from like having an income to no income. Oh, I have to figure this out. So it was like, it was even compounded even more for me. I was like, what do I do? How do I do this? And so I started a consulting company to, you know, help companies navigate the military acquisition system. I did okay with that, but the, the hustle that I was doing, I didn't like because. You know, I, I used the word consultant and they were like, consultants are a bunch of criminals. They don't, they just take your money and you don't get anything out of it and all this other stuff. So I had to like change my, change my, my vocabulary a little bit. I, you know, again, I was struggling with, with I like to call baggage. I don't like to call it PTSD or anything like that. I just call it baggage. We all have baggage from something in our life. Some of my baggage is from my occupational life, my former, my former occupation. Some of it is from not so awesome relationships that still come and try to take something from me today. And you know, what I would do is I would pretty much just sleep, drink myself to sleep at night or, you know, drink until I passed out. However you frame it, just to turn down the noise in my head. Right. And so CBD was a modality that helped. Turn down the noise in my head rather than using alcohol to just dole it out. CBD helped kind of turn it down enough so that I can have more positive self talk. And so I was, I was very interested in the CBD industry and I met a girl at a, at a, at a business summit. Who said, well, why don't, and I, I really, I wanted her to hire me. I'm still looking for my new team. I'm looking for a new mission, my new purpose. And she was like, well, why don't you just start your own CBD company? And I said, I don't know how to do that. And she said, you are a Navy SEAL. You can figure it out. And so I asked her for my man card back. And so she gave it back to me so that I could go and do my own thing. And so I started Naked Warrior Recovery, which is a CBD company, you know, focusing on the recovery of, you know, veterans, first responders, but you know, it's, it doesn't stop there. You know, as I've kind of gone down this road, I've found that lots of people struggle with stress, anxiety, sleep problems, different pain. And so CBD, you know, again, it's not a cure, but it is certainly has been a modality that helped me turn down this noise in my head and, and have more positive self talk. And then once I started having more positive self talk and, and getting. Uh, help from different business coaches. You know, I came up with the, with the, the get naked mindset. And really what that's about is like taking your ego off, taking that armor that you wear around off. So you can, you know, become a little bit more vulnerable. So you expose yourself. You can really find the healing that you, that you actually need. That's what I really needed to do. I needed to get naked so that I could, um, figure my own stuff out. So I could find the healing that I needed and now I can help other people in a similar fashion. Yeah,

Amin Ahmed: 21:15

a couple of things you said there that really, that I really love hearing is that when you were drinking and when you were using alcohol as a way to numb that noise and that, that feeling, it didn't help, right? Cause it took you on the other path, right? Like you started probably getting more

William Branum: 21:29

depressed. It actually made things so much more worse because you know, you, you, you, you drink till you, till you fall asleep. Well, it takes a lot of alcohol to get you there. And then you get up the next day and you try to perform in any capacity. And it's not. It's not a good thing. It's just, and then, so you get more depressed and then you drink because you're more depressed. And then, you know, it's just this ugly circle. And so CBD was just, it was a modality that helped me drink less so I could have more positive self talk so I could drink less and just get better control of my life. It didn't like, I had to want to get better, first of all. Right, right. Once I had made that conscious decision of wanting to get better. And finding help through, you know, really through coaches is, is how I really pulled out of that nosedive and, and got back on, on step where I needed to be. And was there

Amin Ahmed: 22:23

a rock bottom for you when you were like, I, I need to stop this and I need to try something different?

William Branum: 22:29

I don't know if there was a rock bottom moment. I have had some pretty ugly moments, even while I was in the military, uh, towards the end where I was like, okay, I started to ask for help. But, you know, and I got, you know, help physically and, and on the, on, on the TBI side, on the, on the, you know, how broken my body is side and, and also on the, on the kind of on the baggage side. But still, once I left the military again, it was like, okay, who's here to help you? No one. Yeah. So you gotta, you gotta figure it out yourself. And so it took me a while to figure that out. It took me a couple of years to really, of failure, to really get where I needed to be. And in the beginning I was like, I don't, why do I need a coach? I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm a Navy SEAL. I can figure this out. Maybe not. Maybe I need help. Even though I don't have the income to pay for coaches, I will figure it out. And that's, that's how I started. I, you know, I made the investment, investment in myself.

Amin Ahmed: 23:24

Yeah. You know, it's cool because. Most people think, and I, and I talk about this often is that work life balance, it's a myth, there is no such thing as work life balance. Whereas you can be well, you can do well at the same time. And life goes up and down. Everything in life goes up and down, right? You've got light and dark, you've got quiet and loud, you've got, you know, seasons, and I think our life is just like that and what you said totally resonates with me because it wasn't just one big dip at the bottom and then you're like, all right, switch it up and now it's all, you know, uphill from there, but it was like lots of little, little spikes down, right? And you're hitting the bottom and then you're like, Oh, got to get back up. And then you hit it again and you keep, and hopefully there's a trend upwards. And like you said, it's, it's a work in progress.

William Branum: 24:02

Always. I mean, I still have moments where I dip pretty far down, but I'm aware enough and I have the tools now to. Like, Hey, get it, get it together over there. And, you know, since I, I do coaching now, which I never wanted to do in my life, I never wanted to speak on stage in my life, everything I do now are things I never, ever wanted to do it ever, ever, because I didn't have the confidence in my own self, even when I got out of the military. And it was, again, it was that sort of unearned recognition where people were like, you should be a coach. You should speak on stage. You should do all these things. I'm like, why? I don't have anything to give to people. Well, apparently I do. Mm-hmm., uh, it turn, it turns out I, I do, but I had to, I had to walk through that, that, that valley of darkness. Yeah. To find who I was really, truly, And turn that into something positive. And most

Amin Ahmed: 24:55

people, most people listening to this are not going to go into the Navy. They're not going to have, you know, battles and, and gunfights and all that. I think everybody needs the framework in order to live their fullest

William Branum: 25:06

life. Key note that I give is I call it five secrets to think like a Navy SEAL. And, you know, when I. Once I, when I left the SEAL teams and I got my, my mind thinking, right, I had to think about what are the things that I learned in the SEAL teams that I can apply to my life to make my life better. And so. As I, you know, I distilled, you know, there's, there are so many more things, but these are five things that I think speak to everyone. And so NAKD is an acronym and it stands for, the N stands for, the N is for Never Quit. And I don't mean never quit smoking or drinking or, or, you know, toxic relationships or things like that, self destructive behavior. I mean, never quit on yourself, never quit on... You know, if you have a goal that you've, you've, you know, created, you, you take that goal all the way to the end, no matter what it looks like. And, you know, the, the, the trick that I tell people is to create small victories. You know, you see this thing and it seems like you're going to be overwhelmed most days. That's fine. That's natural. You just like do it anyway. But what you do is you take this big thing that you have. So I use hell week, for example, hell week is five and a half days of, uh, you know, you're cold, you're wet, you're miserable and you don't sleep. But one thing is constant during hell week is they feed you four times a day. So no matter how much it sucks, no matter how cold you are, how much you don't want to put that boat back on your head. And run around endless miles on the beach of Southern California. All you got to do is make it to that next meal. You make it to that next meal. That's a small victory. And you just keep doing that over and over and over until, until Hell Week is done. And you do this, apply the same logic to everything you do in your life. You, you take, you know, your daily task and you break them down into bite sized pieces. What do you need to do to accomplish this goal? To, to take a company from zero to a hundred million dollars a year. You do it one sale at a time, one thing at a time, one day at a time. Maybe it's just one email at a time, one call at a time. Just continue to pick up the phone and make the calls. Continue to deliver the product that you need to deliver. on a daily basis, just show up and create that small victory until you have grown your company to a hundred million plus or whatever your, whatever your goal is. That's just an example. So it is for never quit. The A is accept failure. Failure has been, you know, I've talked a lot about failure here. Failure has been the biggest lesson of my life. You know, I just, I just put on, I was a coach in an event this weekend and it was an event where we take all these entrepreneurs, we break them down. They do really hard things. They fail. All night long. And then you watch them learn from their failures and then they start doing things the way that you actually told them to do in the first place. And they start looking at things a little bit differently. So, but they had to accept that failure. You know, we put people in leadership, you know, positions, and then we fire them because they make bad decisions. Okay. And so, and they're like, Oh, if I would have done it differently, but they were able to learn from their failures so that when they go back to their businesses and they go back to their organizations. They have these failures in the back of their mind. I did it wrong. That's okay. We'll do it right this time. So A is accept failure. The K is kill mediocrity. Me, you know, technology is awesome. Lots of things are awesome. Complacency is not awesome. Mediocre is not awesome, but you know what? This thing right here, this thing that we like carry around and. And we spend most of our life looking at, it makes us mediocre at the end of the day. You know, you can hit a button on there and have, have Amazon deliver you a pint of ice cream at any, any time of the day, and it'll be at your house at within an hour. You know, that's great that you have that convenience, but we've fallen, we've become comfortable with that convenience. What happens if that goes away and we don't know what to do? We don't know how to navigate. We don't know how to pull out a map. And actually navigate around, you know, around the country or around the world. Right. Like, you know, you know, when I grew up, there was no internet. And then now you can do anything from the internet. So technology is awesome. It makes our life easier, but we should seek out. Discomfort. We should think out challenges to keep ourselves sharp. And, and, you know, one of the things that I tell people to, to kill mediocrity in their life is to, to compete, compete in kindness. Yeah. Keep it simple. Keep competing kindness, competing gratitude. And once you start competing and winning. And, and that, and like compete against everyone around you in kindness and gratitude. And then pretty soon you can start competing against your ego because your ego knows everything about you. It knows exactly what to tell you to make you quit, to make you mediocre. So the, the KS kill mediocrity, the E is expose your fears, you know, do hard things, do things that scare you. If you have a, if you have a fear of public speaking, get on a stage and speak, go take a public speaking class. Maybe you were bullied as a kid, go take a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class for a year because you're going to be forced to fight someone. Every night that you go into class, but it's in a safe environment. You're going to learn a new skillset and you're going to build self confidence. And you know, the one that I also like to share is, you know, you may, you may or may not have heard of this guy. His name is Sharon Shrivatsa. He likes to say that fear does not exist on paper. And so. He's a very successful entrepreneur. He still has days of stress and anxiety. And, you know, with these days, like I'll have these days, I'll, where like all the noise gets swirling around in my head and I'll pull over at a, at a Starbucks and order a cup of coffee and I'll take a pen and a piece of paper, not my phone, not my iPad, and I'll write down every And once you put those fears. On paper, you take control of those fears, and once you expose those fears, you control the fears, and the fears no longer control you. And the D is Do the Work. So, when I graduated from SEAL training, I thought, you know, everything was going to be easy. Gonna be pretty, you know, I just graduated the hardest military training in the world. And when I got to the SEAL teams, I learned pretty quickly. No one cares that you graduated because every one of those guys graduated. And you know, there's this joke that goes around. My class was the last hard class. So whatever you did was not as hard as what I did. So let's see what you got today. We only care about what you bring to the table today. We don't care what you've done in the past. We don't care about your successes or failures. What are you doing today? And so that's why they say the only easy day was yesterday. And so again, sort of the Naked is all about is the N is for never quit, the A is accept failure, the K is kill mediocrity, the E is expose your fears, and D is do the work. And you have to do it every single

Amin Ahmed: 31:34

day. I think everybody should get naked. A hundred percent. You mentioned one thing a number of times. I've heard you say the word mediocrity or mediocrity right now. I was listening to a, I think it was an audio book and he was breaking down the word mediocre. I'm not sure if you know this, but in Latin, the root word actually means middle of the mountain.

William Branum: 31:53

Mediocre. I didn't, I did not know

Amin Ahmed: 31:55

that. Yeah. I'm not sure exactly where the Latin, where the breakdown is, but it does mean middle of the mountain. So. Mediocre really is like, if you're trying to climb a mountain, you're just getting to the halfway point and be like, all right, I give up, right? You're not making it to the top of the mountain. So you obviously, you talked about your struggles, you talked about your successes, you're not somebody that is happy with mediocrity, though you're happy with being uncomfortable, but not being complacent and mediocre. So is there something that you've got on the go right now, something you're working on or working towards that's got you really fired

William Branum: 32:26

up? You know, I really want to, I want to get on more stages. Because I'm terrified of, and I say this almost every time I get on a stage to speak, and I tell people, I'm terrified of public speaking. I'm going to probably mess up a few times. I'm much more comfortable in a gunfight than I am public speaking. So here we are. Because they trained me how to be, how to, how to win a gunfight. They didn't train me how to, you know, get on stage with a, in front of a bunch of strangers. So I, I really am trying to grow. Speaking, public speaking, because it terrifies me, but I know I do a good job doing it, and that, that's not, that's not arrogance, that's just, I'm, I'm, I'm confident, I'm, but I'm scared, doing it, and, and coaching as well, coaching is, you know, I love doing it, I love seeing the results That makes me try that much harder. That makes me put forth that much effort into making sure I don't say the wrong thing, or I don't tell them the wrong thing or give the wrong advice.

Amin Ahmed: 33:35

When, when you're public speaking, has anybody ever told you to picture the audience naked? They have not. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that to you.

William Branum: 33:45

I, you know, I have heard that saying, but I'm like, I don't, you know, I, I'm too, I'm too like in my head, I'm like too busy, like get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head. Own the stage, own the stage. Like, that's all I can think about. And maybe I'll start, maybe that's how I'll start my next, my next presentation. So as I stand here and we talk about getting naked, I'm picturing every one of you naked right now. So I might, I may, I may do something like that. We'll see.

Amin Ahmed: 34:11

Love it. You don't have to credit me for that at all. So one, one more question for you. Is there something about you that people are genuinely surprised to learn? Now you mentioned earlier about getting shot, but is there anything else that people would be genuinely surprised to learn

William Branum: 34:28

about you? You know, I don't think I come across as kind of a hard ass, but apparently I do. And then when people start, get to know me, they're like, Oh, you're just like a big teddy bear. You're just such a nice guy. I'm like, how did you just now come to that conclusion? Of course I'm a nice guy. Love it. But I guess they're like, Oh, you're your background. You're that I, I, I think that intimidates some people. I'm just like, I think, I think anyone can become a Navy SEAL. All you gotta do is want it. You gotta have the desire. I believe that anyone can do anything that they want in their life. You just have to have the desire, you may not have the roadmap for it. And that's kind of where coaching or, or, or something like that comes into play. But, um, you know, it, it certainly is, I believe anyone can do anything they want. You just have to want to do it and you have to put in the effort. And if somebody wanted

Amin Ahmed: 35:20

to connect with you to learn more about what you do and your coaching and speaking, where can they do that?

William Branum: 35:25

So I would go to the number five, five seal secrets.com. Put your name and email in there. I'll send you a copy. It's a p d f of, of what Get Naked is all about in a little more detail than what I covered here on your show. And that is, comes from my inbox, my email address. So just reply to that and, and, you know, inquire, say, hey, you know, let's, you know, have a conversation about coaching or speaking, or something along those lines. And if you're interested in CBD, the website is nw for naked warrior, nw recovery. com. Or you could put naked warrior recovery, all one word. I changed it to nw because maybe people didn't want to write naked in their search engine. I'm not sure why I just had an epiphany one day after I'd already created it. I'm like, okay, maybe we need to like switch this up a little bit, but you need to put the dash in there because if you don't, you'll go to like Northwestern rehab or something like that. So nw recovery. Let's give your, your listeners, if they're interested in CBD, a 20 percent discount. So Be Well, Do Well, all one word.

Amin Ahmed: 36:27

That's very generous of you. Thank you so much. We'll put all of that in the show notes. And before we hit record, I think we talked a little bit about another training that you have that you'd like to offer that has not been released yet, or has not been shared with other audiences, can you even tell us a little bit about

William Branum: 36:41

that? Yeah. So I have a, a training that I, that I gave one time. It's, I think it's a three, three Navy SEAL Secrets of Leadership. And we will, you know what, if you go to 5sealsecrets. com and get the, you get the PDF, we'll also send you the, a link to this training and it's, and it's me really talking about ways for you to implement a different kind of leadership style in your life, your business, your family, because I believe leadership is not specifically for. The office or the business, I believe you need to lead yourself and, and, you know, lead your family, lead your life.

Amin Ahmed: 37:20

This has been fun, William. I'm glad you took the time. I know you're traveling. I really appreciate you. And I'm so grateful that we had a chance

William Branum: 37:25

to talk. Yes, sir. Thanks for having me on here. I appreciate you. Awesome.

Amin Ahmed: 37:28

Thank you so much.