Inside the Mind of a Navy SEAL | William Branum

Justin Stoddart  
So the big question is this: How do those of us in the real estate industry, with crazy amounts of ambition, how do we Think Bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously seek success AND significance, income AND impact? My name is Justin Stoddart, and this is the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.

Justin Stoddart  
Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. Today, my friends, we are going to get into the mind of a Navy Seal. I can't wait to introduce this gentleman to you and talk about what he brings to the marketplace, and what he's going to bring to you in helping you to live your best life. Before I go there. Let me remind you that inside of the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook we go deeper. We're gonna introduce William, and even give you access to him to where you can understand again, what he brings to the marketplace. That's where learning happens, when you engage not when you just listen. So we're glad you're here, but again, go over to the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, where you will be able to become and implement the things that we talked about today. 

Justin Stoddart  
Today's guest His name is William Branum. He and I became fast friends as we have a shared mentor. He's doing some really cool things. But before we get to what he's doing to help people deal with stress in a more healthy, sustainable way, we're going to get into his mind the mind of a Navy SEAL. William Branum, thanks for coming on to the show today. 

William Branum  
Thank you for having me. I'm pretty stoked to be here. 

Justin Stoddart  
It's a total pleasure. I have to laugh, you're wearing a shirt that says "Get Naked" and you're sitting in a hotel room. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a family show. No worries about what's going to happen here. Before I go too much into that let me just state that William owns a company called Naked Warrior Recovery. It's It's It's a CBD company. He's on a mission to help veterans to reduce the suicide rate. And veterans can believe that people who who served our country at the highest level is 22 of them a day commit suicide, he's on a mission to reduce that even eliminate that entirely. So please stay tuned to the end of this out of respect to him, and what he's done for our country already and what he's doing, I want you to hear what he's got that again, can help people in a big way. So, William, let's talk a little bit about your background. Right. I think Navy SEALs is internationally known as some of the baddest dudes on the planet, right? You just don't mess with a Navy Seal. At what point did you decide I want to be I want to be one of those guys, I want to be a navy seal? 

William Branum  
So I always knew as a kid that I wanted to be a some sort of a commando, and also a ninja. I'm still working on the ninja piece. You know, some of my role models growing up where we're in not just talk about my age too much here but John Wayne, he was a Green Beret in Vietnam, at least in the movies. He was there was John Rambo, I think he was an Army Ranger. Chuck Norris was part of Delta Force and they rode dirt bikes, and they shot rockets off the front of those, I'm still trying to get some one of those. But I was you know, I was heavily heavy in the Boy Scouts. I always knew I wanted to be a commando. And, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted, I didn't want to be part of like the big army, like a big movement of a lot of people. I wanted to be part of a more specialized force. And so I was looking at like maybe Green Berets or Army Rangers or Marines because, you know, the commercials of Marines. When I was growing up, they were fighting dragons with swords and things like that. And I was like, those guys are cool. And they have pretty cool uniforms as well. Like, the one organization that I would never join is the Navy, because they have ugly uniforms. You know, there's a Navy base in the town I grew up in all those kids act like a bunch of idiots. And, you know, of course, when I joined the Navy, I was one of those kids that acted like an idiot so I, whatever, however, that worked out, but someone told me the you know, hey, I was at a on a Boy Scout adventure and from Meridian, Mississippi, and going to the national Jamboree, and I met a kid and he's like, I want to be a navy seal and I also want to fly F-14 Tomcats because the movie Top Gun had come out and and we also won like the first Gulf War really with airpower, you know, dropping bombs and pilots are really were really the heroes there. And so the my the summer between the 11th and 12th grade of high school, the Navy recruiter called me, and I had finally decided, yeah, I want to be a Navy Seal. I didn't really know what that meant. I didn't because there were no books. There were no movies, there was nothing like that when I was a kid. And there was no internet when I was a kid.

William Branum  
And, you know, we he said, Hey, have you ever thought about joining the Navy? I was like, Well, actually, I was thinking about becoming a navy seal and fly f 14 tomcats. And he was like, Well, why don't you come down here and we'll talk about it. So I came down to the recruiting office, he showed me this super cheesy video of like, you know, these guys jumping out of a helicopter and getting it a little rubber boat and going to the beach and then you know, looking through binoculars at a building and then the next thing you see them like running out of the building and it like this really terrible GCI explosion behind them. And I'm like, Yes, that's what I want to be. I want to be the best of the best and so, and that was really all I knew about it, I knew that they were the best they because they jumped out of airplanes. They scuba dove, they, you know, ran around in the woods, they shot guns, they blew stuff up. And they were like an elite small unit. And so that's what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a part of something like that. So I joined the Navy to become a seal. I made some tactical errors, and it almost cost me becoming a CEO making those it was just really about like, choices that I made as far as like maybe jobs because there when I joined, you couldn't like join and say, I'm gonna be a seal and being a seal was your job, you had to become a gunner's mate or a bonus mate or a Quartermaster, whatever, those Navy jobs in order to advance in the Navy, and so that those jobs took me down a rabbit hole that put me on a ship for two years before I was able to, and that was actually almost didn't get to go, I had to ask the Chief of Naval Operations, who is the most senior guy in the Navy, there's only two people in the military more senior to him, which is the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States. So this, this super senior guy, the guy that's in charge of the Navy, came to my ship in Yucosco, Japan, after everyone told me no, you can't go be a seal. And I raised my hand and I said, Hey, I joined the Navy to be a seal. I think I deserve a chance to go. And my you know, all these people won't let me go and he's like, you're right. You do deserve a chance to go, you'll be in the first class after your PRD which is planned rotational date. And so I went to BUDS and it took me a short 13 months to complete a six month block of training. So I don't remember the question, but I just started talking and here we are. Now I have graduated SEAL training. 

Justin Stoddart  
So I've read the book can't hurt me by David Goggins. I'm in the middle of Leif babban. And Jocko willings book, Extreme Ownership, they paint a pretty gnarly picture of Navy SEAL training. Is it that bad?

William Branum  
Um, it's very difficult. It's very difficult. I got hurt several times, and almost got kicked out. Because, you kno...