From Setback to SOAR: Turning Adversity Into Impact

Health as well. You better prioritize your health. That better be one of your non-negotiables. Health. What does health mean? Health means getting sleep and eating right. That’s gotta be one of your non-negotiables that I will get at least seven options.

You can’t tell me there’s no excuses. You can’t tell me like you gotta live.

You can’t tell me life goes on and then hold me back from doing the life goes on.

God is my witness. I have never asked God to help me walk. I have just asked to give me the strength to deal whatever’s given me. Just gimme that strength to deal it. Gimme the wisdom, gimme the discernment to deal with it.

Much like Joe,

right? You can’t save other people if you’re dead, so you kind of gotta save yourself first. That doesn’t mean be selfish. It means that if you love yourself, you become a better lover.

Absolutely. You’re a leader, men, women. I don’t care what your position in life is, if you do not learn to lead yourself, you’ll fail.

There’s one thing that all champions have in common. They get shit done. So welcome to the Get Shit Done Experience. Well, well, well, we are back at it again. This is the Get Shit Done Experience, also known as the GSDX podcast. I’m looking at you right now, and again, I’m very thankful. I like to start off every show by thanking you for joining us.

Not only today, but those of you that are playing along and have viewed or listened to several episodes. You have a special place in my heart and I cannot thank you enough, and I know you’re out there getting shit done. That’s what we’re gonna do today. I am here with a fantastic human being who’s been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt.

This is a gentleman by the name of Mr. Brian P Swift. You could call him Brian Swift. He told me. So he’s an author of a book called Up. Getting up is the key to life down, but not out. Slowed, but not stopped. Bent but not broken. You could check it out right here. And by the way, we are going to put all of the information that you need in the show notes so that you can purchase this book.

I’m certain that it’s going to be inspirational for you and practical, and it’s gonna have actionable thoughts that you could apply to life because this gentleman has applied them to his own life. You may notice if you’re watching on camera, but I’m going to say this because those of you that are listening to this on audio would not know this, but Brian is in a wheelchair.

He’s differently abled. And the one thing that I will tell you that is in no way, shape, or form affected is his brain and his ability to communicate. ’cause he’s about to dominate the microphone. So get ready. Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It’s, it’s an honor. I’m not so sure yet. Just give it time.

We’ll, we’ll, we’ll do our best to try and prove that it’s an honor, but, you know, that’s a lot of pressure. I, uh, I’d love to start out by, um, also introducing the fact that, um, you spent 20 years in corporate USA and, um, and then you found purpose in your, your life, um, your new life situation. Um, you dominated the corporate world, the sales world, the management world, training salespeople.

And then, uh, you find this purpose and you say, you know what? I want to allow people in a similar, uh, capacity that I’m in to live a life of freedom and live a life where they have, uh, the capability of doing anything that everyone else says they can’t do, but so that they can do. You go out and start a company called Swift Outdoor Accessible Recreation, also known as soar.

You’re the owner and president of currently. Correct. So, uh, give us some background on how we find you differently abled today.

Well, I, and I’ll try to keep it short. No, don’t we record as long as you want to baby. Alright, so, uh, let’s go back to 1979. Okay. Not that far. Back. Back we had it’s, I told you it was far.

No. Okay, fine. Long story. Go ahead. You go. You go. You. So 1979, uh, back when we had great music mm-hmm. I remember this. It was a different time. Yeah. Day after Christmas, January 26th, after spending, obviously a lot of time with family and friends, I went out, I was 17 years old, senior in high school, went out to play football at a local park with my friends.

I was running with the ball. I got tackled from behind. Why? Because I’m not so swift. Speed was never my thing.

Tough name to live up to.

Oh, I disappointed a lot of coaches. Yeah. I had a coach in high school. Tell me Swift, if you were in a race with a pregnant woman, you’d come in third place. So, um, yes.

Speed was not my forte, but that was good. I loved competing. Uh, and I just got tackled. Somebody grabbed me by the legs. Somebody, you know, bear hug me. I went to the ground. Nobody fell on my neck head. I didn’t get a concussion. Nothing. But unfortunately be the last time I ever walked again, uh, to, to some degree at least I, uh,

broke.

Well, wait a minute. Did you fall awkwardly? No. Or like, was there a chance? My stomach, that some of this had been a buildup of being an athlete for years. And

the, the doctors are puzzled still. I mean, back then they, they were like, we have no explanation why that would’ve happened with what happened. So I end up breaking my C six vertebrae, left me paralyzed from the neck down.

Overnight, I become a quad. Quad quadriplegic. So if you hear me use the word quad, it’s for quadriplegic and, uh, you know, off to the races, you know, you are off to, uh, first getting surgery to fuse your spinal cord together. And then off to the what’s now the shortly Orion Ability Lab back then was called RIC, rehabilitation in school to Chicago, where I would spend four months.

Just trying to see what I would regain in terms of movement.

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We set the bar high. Your people deserve it. Peace of mind. Powerful innovation. tsg.com. Alright, so Brian, we talk a lot about this. Uh, we talk about branding and so, um. That’s kind of, I started off at sales somehow. I was always kind of a promoter, even in sales. I was always somebody that was kind of a brand champion.

I’m a team guy, you know, I do better promoting other people than I do promoting myself. So I thoroughly enjoy the fact that you took this situation and you turned it into a brand. So I’m gonna hold up for you here. This hat. Maybe you could see it, maybe you can, if we could zoom in on it. It says the Quad Father.

So talk about taking a situation and branding it. I mean, that is absolutely fantastic. I have mad respect for any type of creative branding like that, the Quad Father folks, that’s who you’re hearing today.

Well, thank you. It, it took me 40 years to really come out with that brand. ’cause as you said, I started out in corporate.

I was, uh, blessed to really do well in corporate. Uh, I, I vowed to myself at the age of 17 to never let, probably more the age of 18 Pro to never let the wheelchair stop me. From doing the things that I wanted to do. Why in 1979, the statistics for what your life was as a quadriplegic, that that made a Stephen King novel read, like read like, you know, ham and green eggs and ham.

I mean, it was horrible. Like less than 15% would go on to Now, don’t forget 70 now, we didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have laptops, we didn’t have the technology. Mm-hmm. We do now, or even 10 years later. So the statistics of a quad was you either ended up in a nursing home and I mean a nursing home with a lot of elderly people.

Or you went home and you slowly declined and ended up with bedsores and problems that were probably your demise.

Yeah, it broke. Okay. So there’s one thing that has improved over time.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, ’cause I could go, I could kind of go back to like 79, 80, 85 and just stay there. I just felt like the world was awesome there.

Now granted I was a kid. There was, you know, no responsibilities, whatever, and, but. The world was just a easy, comfortable, kind of safe place. And now it’s a little hectic, but there are some advantages to this new world, and this would be one of them.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, what they do with people with broken spines, which they didn’t do, then a lot of damage could be caused by, in, you know, the swelling of the spine.

So they get ’em right into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which wasn’t protocol back then. Mm. So what that does, obviously it floods your body with oxygen and it, it reduces the swelling, which I mean, all your spine has gotta do is swell, uh, an a a a na, you know, the, the length of a or the width of a piece of paper, and you’ve created more injury to it.

Um, but they’ve, they’ve come a long way, like you said, so off to the races. And, and you know, I, I was blessed to have a very faith driven mother and a old school father, but my life changed and I wanna say one conver, not one conversation, because it was a one way conversation back in the day. You didn’t have a lot of two-way conversations with Irish Catholic parents.

Oh, yes. I, I had them myself. There was no, there was, we also didn’t ask why. Oh, if you asked why was, um, it was, uh, the answer was kind of standard. I think it was. ’cause I said so. Absolutely. Uh, and so there’s a big change in the world. It, it is. And partially good.

Yeah, partially good. And, and I can explain that another time in my feelings on that, but it is partially good.

But, you know, I had Italian parents, friends, you know, same way. I mean, whether you’re Irish or Italian, it was a, it was a different world. Mm-hmm. So, I’ll, I’ll paint this quick picture for you. It is a month later. It’s mid-December, and I’m sitting at the rehab. My dad came up to visit, um, he took his overcoat off, hung it up, came to my table and sat down.

Now I’m, I’m at Northwestern Rehabilitation. My birthday, my 18th birthday was at the end of January. This is not how I viewed myself turning 18. Oh Lord. No. I, I played basketball, I played football, I played baseball. I loved competing, period. Mm-hmm. You name it, I’ll compete chess. You, I mean, I just love competing.

Yeah. Um, I, I losing, uh, never bothered me in a sense where it wouldn’t prohibit me from competing. And back then you competed against a lot of older kids. That’s how you became better.

Yeah. Losing, losing, pissed me off to wanna win more. Absolutely. Absolutely. It didn’t deter me. It didn’t deter me at all.

It’s like you’ve watched next time,

right? Absolutely. Absolutely. So he, he, he sits down next to me, and I’ll be honest, I don’t remember the conversation. I’m guessing I was a little salty because my birthday was like a week away and I’m thinking 18, you know, that was kind of the mm-hmm. The, the rite of passage back in the day.

Right. You’re free baby. It was the rite of passage. Here I am, you know, I am, I’m, you know, hooked up to tubes and cords and I’m, you know, turning 18 in a week. I’m guessing I was salty. After five minutes, my dad stands up, doesn’t say anything, walks over, gets his overcoat, comes back to the table, puts his coat on, and looks down at me and I as much as I could, ’cause I had a halo screwed into my head and I couldn’t look much.

He said, if I ever come up here and you’re not in good spirits, I’ll turn around and leave. And then he says, if it is up to you to keep this family going, it is up to you to make this family work. He said, if you’re smiling, we will all smile If you’re down, it’s gonna be difficult to keep the family together.

You said it is your responsibility to keep this family going. Took his coat off. Sat down. That was it.

Wow. Um. So I have a bit of, I, I felt a little, uh, pulse in the heart and a bit of a knot in the throat. ’cause that is just unbelievable daddying. Absolutely. I mean, that’s just fantastic advisement in a stern way.

It was, it’s called old school love.

Yeah. And it’s, it’s also like, Hey, we got a legacy going here man. And just ’cause you’re in a wheelchair doesn’t mean the legacy stops. So we’re gonna find a way to keep this legacy going. I just absolutely love that.

Absolutely. It was just he took his coat off. Sat down.

Yeah. We had the discussion. He never brought it up. Mm-hmm. I never thought about it until

done and done. It

was it?

Yeah.

Move on. Yeah. That night I remember laying in bed and, uh, watching a fly. Not watching so much as listening. So I remember listening to this fly. And I couldn’t move my arms. And just hoping it doesn’t get too close.

’cause if it lands on me, I, I mean, the only thing I could do is really, and I couldn’t even blow at it. And you couldn’t move your head. ’cause you had a, a, a, a halo brace screwed into your head and attached to your chest to keep your neck and spine straight. So I remember when my eyes closed and all of a sudden it popped in my head, damn, I can’t believe you said like, what else do you want me to do?

You want me to keep the family going? I’ve always gotta be smiling. You know, and, and you know, but then I realized he was right. Like, this didn’t happen to me. This happened for me. And it was my responsibility. And there was no way in God’s green earth was I gonna let this destroy my family. And that changed my whole perspective and changed me.

That moment changed me and I went on a tear of therapy. I. Um, if it’s unmatched,

let’s go. Okay. So early in the conversation I asked you, um, do you feel like, um, like maybe you were already injured a little bit and this, like, you didn’t fall funny, right? Nope. And maybe you were a little injured and the doctors say, this is like, we have no idea, right?

This just happens. So then I take that and I connect it to the answer that you just gave. And that leads me to believe that there are some people that God uses in very, very interesting ways. Absolutely. That the person that is being used in that interesting way doesn’t really understand at the time.

Could you imagine Moses being like, why am I talking to a bush on fire? Like, what is happening right now? Right. And, and leading people through, uh, the, the, the Red Sea and through the desert and like all this stuff, he is like, when is this, when am I getting this thing? But we’re not here today if those things didn’t happen.

So I When, when you tell that part. It just, it kind of tickles the heart and soul a little bit. ’cause I’m just thinking to myself like now, if you look back at the good you’ve done, the people you’ve influenced, the lives you’ve touched, the, the inspiration that you’ve poured out to the community, like you are being utilized to be the one who’s strong enough with great leadership from your parents to carry the torch for this message.

Absolutely. I mean, and my mom was, I mean, her message and, and she’s still here today, 88 years old. 87. She’ll be 80. How old’s, what’s mom’s name? Alice. Alice Swift.

Alice. So nice to meet you. I

call her the gritty grandma and I do some videos with her because I’m in the garage lot and I’ll give her two pound weights and I’ll be like, okay, you gotta lift these with me.

So if you look for some gritty grandma out there, she is hilarious. And she is, I. She’s a saint.

Find me a person that doesn’t love a gritty grandma. Like, come on. Absolutely. A little bit of s in there, some toughness. And also we’ll pinch your chin, you know, showing love and all that stuff.

So her message to me was, things happen for a reason.

We don’t always know the answer. You just gotta keep your faith that there is a good reason that God put you in this position. Mm-hmm. And as God is my witness, I have never asked God to help me walk. I have just asked to give me the strength to deal whatever’s given me. Just gimme that strength to deal with it.

Gimme the wisdom, gimme the discernment to deal with it. Much like Job, right? Mm-hmm. Look at Joe, what job went through. Um, he was blessed with the ability to deal, cope, understand, have the right discernment for what’s going on. And I was, I, I feel I’ve been blessed with that.

It’s amazing. So you go, so now you’re, now you’re motivated.

Now you’re motivated, like you’re feeling the fire in the belly, like you’re motivated. And so you go on this, this therapy kick. So explain what that’s like and how you’re keeping your head in the game as you’re going along. And what’s the self-talk that you’re, that you’re using to keep yourself inspired.

And, and because you’re not gonna see chunks right of of success, you’re gonna see real small, incremental, incremental success. And I think this is the reason why people give up on their hopes, dreams, and goals. ’cause they don’t get the chunks of success. So they give up. And, and, and the good part is like right after you decide not to quit, but people quit before they get to the good, the, the gooey noot, you had to hold the line.

So how, uh, what was the process? What therapy are we doing? What’s the regimen and how, what’s the self-talk?

Man you that, that’s a lot. But I’m gonna put it

I do, I’ll ask that nine question at one time

because, you know, I, it brings me to a business que question discussion I have with people, people to your, uh, comment of quitting before the noot.

Here it is. People out there don’t realize that it takes 80% of your effort to get 50% of the way to where that that ot Hmm. And it only takes 20 more percent to get that next 50%, but they quit ’cause they feel I’ve given 80 or 90% and I’ve only gotten halfway there. And they’re right. But they don’t realize it, it only takes 20 more percent to get that other 50%.

Yeah. That being said, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll drift back. So what bothered me was the statistics that they treated you like. So you were a C six quadriplegic. This is what C six quadriplegic can do. Yeah. Here’s what you do now. So you, you know, you probably don’t go to school ’cause there’s, you know, very small percentage that go to school.

You most, less than 10% ever really stay in a relationship or have a relationship less than this percentage go work full-time and corporate. Now this is before technology, so I understand today I understand some, but back then it was just, don’t tell me what I can’t do. Yeah, you’re ne you’re never gonna walk, you know, you can’t do this.

So therapy starts and I’m like, gimme more weights to, to lift on, you know, gimme more weights. Well, you know, early in the rehab, they’re trying to find a wheelchair for you and they’re like, well, we can get him an electric wheelchair. My dad was like, no, he’s not going home in an electric wheelchair. So you better learn to push.

So I get a manual and your dad was a real one. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So get him a, a regular wheelchair. Well, a lot of quads can’t push that. Well, and well, that’s okay. He will figure it out. You know, he will, he, he will do it. So I’m in a manual wheelchair trying to push and you’re pushing slow at first.

Um, you know, and, and, and like everything, like I said, you, you start to grow, you start to push a little more. Um, I asked for weights from the OTPT to bring into my room so that when other people are watching tv, I could be exercising. No, we can’t do that. You know, it’s a, it’s against hot policy and we don’t want you to get hurt.

And so I find a way to, to borrow some weights and, uh, bring them into my room. So, I mean, at night, I’m, I’m lifting, and then, I mean, embarrassing, you know, maybe five pound weights, th then seven, then 10 pounds. And I’m doing this on my own. I go into therapy and they’re like, wow. 10 pound, I mean, how, you know, we usually don’t see that kind of, you know, stuff out of.

Quads like that, you know, I’m just, I work hard. I’m lucky, I’m blessed, and then I’m pushing myself better in a wheelchair and pushing myself better. And, you know, what is that room? Um, well, that’s where they do water therapy. Well, when do I get to do that? Oh, you’re a quad. You can’t do water therapy because it says you can’t do water therapy.

Well, I wanna do water therapy. Well, that’s not what we, you know, quads can’t do that. Put me in the water. If I sink, I sink. You know how they taught kids in the 60, 70,

how to swim? They threw you in the pool. Absolutely. And you swam to dad as dad kept moving back further. Absolutely. And then finally when you started falling, he’d catch you and he, and then he would turn you around to look at the edge of the pool and he’d go, do you see how far you went?

Stop saying you can’t do it. And then, and then you would swim back and he’d push you and you’d swim back and you’d crawl out. And then you, you’d jump in again and he’d keep moving back further. And about a week later you’re on the freaking swim team.

Absolutely. That’s how it was done. You know,

it was, I mean, literally just told you the story of how I learned how to swim.

That’s how I learned.

Yeah.

You know, all pushed off a pier. Yeah. 20 foot water. Don’t wanna drown. Swim to me swim. And, and like you said, then kept moving backwards to see how far, and you know what, he didn’t catch you when you went underwater.

No. He let you feel it a little bit

and, and, and you came back up and he, I, I know my dad let me go back underwater uhhuh to see how bad do I want.

Will you fight? How bad, you know, oxygen’s great, right? I mean, until it’s not there. And then, you know, he caught you on that third Bob, you know, to make sure. Sure. Mm-hmm. Because mom was yelling at him by then, right down there. Right. Mom was yelling at him. So he caught you on the third Bob and, and then still moved back more, just kept out of the water and then said he didn’t drag you to the pier.

No. He pushed you back. He was like,

he lets you figure out I could float and I don’t have to, you know, so yeah, that was old school. So I, I just, I got a, a bug up me about like, you’re treating me like a statistic. I wanna try water therapy. Oh. I make commotion till they let me try water therapy. Wow. You’re a quad and, and you can.

You flow pretty good and you get it. And I had swam before. I mean, I wasn’t, I wasn’t, you know, a great swimmer, but I, I wasn’t afraid of the water. Um, even, even in that, well, of course they have all this stuff on you to keep you afloat. I’m like, well, I wanna take this off. How do you do anything with this stuff?

No, no. You know. Oh, okay. So I, I found a way to take off all the crap they had on you to help you swim or help you stay afloat. I’m like, people naturally float. That wasn’t taken away from me. ’cause I’m a quadriplegic and guess what, if I lay on my back, I could float. And guess what, if I throw my arms back like the back so I could swim, that was my drive.

I mean, when I got after four months, um, when I got home, it was right down to the edge of the driveway, right back up, right back down to the edge of the driveway, right back up, right down to the edge of the driveway. Go to the corner, come back. I. Go to the long corner, come back right around the bar, come back.

My dad, you know, I had a heavy bag, I had a speed bag, I had weights in the garage. I had a couple machines he built, and it was home on a Friday. After four months of rehab, went back to high school on Monday, a month later, graduated from high school that summer, signed up for summer school classes at a junior college.

It was like, you’re, this is like, life goes on you. Yeah. This is the way it’s gonna be. There’s no sitting around, there’s no feeling. Sorry for yourself. One of the stories people love was that summer, so quads don’t sweat. Part of our neurological system, we don’t sweat.

Mm.

Which is not a good thing because that’s how you cool yourself off.

Yeah.

That’s how you rid your, your body of a lot of toxins. Yeah. And so when it gets really hot out. You have to drink mass amounts of water, pour water on yourself, find the shade. And it was in the summer. I must have been out and it must have been hot. And I was having a sarcastic conversation with my mom.

Sarcasm. Sarcasm is my second language.

Yeah. I enjoy quite, I got,

I’ve got a doctorate degree in sarcasm. My dad came in the front door and, and I didn’t know he was there. And my mom, I mean, I wasn’t being rude or ignorant to my mom. We were having fun. What he heard wasn’t,

yeah, he heard. Yeah. He didn’t hear the setup of the joke.

No. Or, or the sarcasm.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. What he heard was something different and I’m not sure what party heard. So he comes walking in and he walks through the kitchen, sets his briefcase on the counter, looks at me and says, you know, if you’re looking for sympathy, you could find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

Picks up his briefcase and just keeps walking. Goes into the family room, turns the TV on and sits watch baseball. That was pops.

Your dad’s really freaking cool.

Oh, it’s, it’s ab, absolutely. Cool. That was it. That’s awesome. I think my mom was, I think my mom had, I think she was shocked more than I was shocked.

Yeah. And I’m like, I wasn’t looking for sympathy. You didn’t hear the conversation, but you didn’t say that. Yeah, no, I see that. You just kidding. Now my mom was like, I think just like, I go, mom, you know, we, we were just having fun. She’s said, no, I get it. You know, and I just, I went probably into my room and did my own thing.

That’s where mom goes and is your agent for about 10 minutes and be like, you got that wrong honey. He was actually saying no, we were having a cool conversation. Yeah, yeah. And you walked in late, so like, lighten up on him and then dad like two years later lightened up on you. Yeah. May, maybe, maybe. But

so that was my dad.

I mean, so that, it was that kind of love. That was love.

Yeah.

That was, I mean, I knew he loved me. Did I hear it a lot? No, I didn’t have to hear it. I know my parents here and loved me, and I knew what they were doing was for my best interest. And I just kept with that push, like, what’s, what’s normal life like?

My friends were all driving eventually, three years later, I, I’m like, I wanna drive. I. I’m gonna drive. Well, you know, so one day they found out, I think my sister ratted on me, that I had taken one of the cars. I got two sticks, I slid into the car with a sliding board and I was using the, and I was around the other side of the block pushing on the gas pedal and the brake with a stick.

And my dad came around and he is, you know, of course, what are you doing? What are you nuts? You gonna get an accident? I was like, I need to drive. I wanna drive. Okay, we’ll put you in classes because we know, like, okay, we’re taking them seriously.

Yeah, you, well, here’s the thing, right? You can’t tell me.

There’s no excuses. You can’t tell me there’s no, like, you gotta live, you can’t tell me life goes on and then hold me back from doing the life goes on shit, right? Like you, you kind of gotta free me up a little bit here. So, Hey dad, I need you to play offensive lineman and figure out how to create a hole in opening here so I can go score a touchdown.

I need you now,

and I know it’s, you’re gonna be afraid, and I know this is tough on you. But because you’ve put me in this position, like you said, I can’t, I can’t stop doing what you’ve created. Yeah. So I learned how to drive. I went through junior college, uh, I started playing wheelchair sports, so I played the crazy game of quad rugby, which now they call murder ball.

And we played it in real wheelchairs, not these,

you should, I could’ve thought of a better

brand name for that than that’s what they call that. They’ve got specials on it. Go, go look up baseball. Yeah, I’m sure it’s awesome. A huge sport. Yeah, it is basically clash of the Titan wheelchairs. Let’s go. And I played that for five years without those monster.

Now they build these wheelchairs that are, I mean

it’s like battle bots with people in them.

Absolutely.

Yeah. 100%. That’s actually kind of cool it battle bots with people in them. That could be, that we could be honest. Something

I. I agree.

Yeah,

I, and I loved the competition. I loved banging, I loved scoring to, you know, so you played it on a, on a basketball court and you played it with a volleyball and it was almost a combination between hockey and football.

Yeah, absolutely. Loved it. Traveled all over Canada, Texas, I mean, it was everywhere. And then I decided to swim for Marion Joy, another big rehabilitation facility out in, um, I believe Wheaton. And I decided, even though the size of me did not look like a swimmer, um, I was not Speedo ready. I was more Ocean Pacific for those who remember those shorts.

And

Well, you and I are not alone in that boat. You’re not gonna find me in a speedo. I will wear the bo, the Bora lime green one every once in a while on family trips. But for the most part, we go with, we go with the,

sure. I mean

the jams they used to call ’em. Right. Okay.

Well, I mean most of the time you swam in jean shorts.

I mean, you didn’t even have a bathing.

Not on purpose.

No. No. It wasn’t, you weren’t planning it just, you ended up in the water. We’re

going swimming. Anyone got scissors?

Yeah. Or just rip.

Yeah,

they’re old. They’ve got a hole in ’em. Rip. So I swim for Mary and Joy. Um, and, and I love the swimming. It, I was amazed at, and, and water therapy’s huge now.

I mean, water therapy, there’s no pressure. There’s, it’s great for your joints. It’s great for your bones. What I really realized, it increased my lung capacity. ’cause I, I lost interesting. Probably 70% of my lung capacity. ’cause your diaphragm is,

you’re not using it. So if you’re not using it sitting idle, it’s not strong.

So that created the strength again.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Unbelievable. And the better you can breathe, I mean, I, I coached athletics for 22 years. I had to teach athletes how to learn how to breathe through things, uh, because people will stop breath. We’re all guilty, right? You stop breathing or you’re not breathing right.

You stop oxygen from flooding your system. Guess what happened? Guess what happens? I mean, you gas. Yeah. You’re done without oxygen. Interesting. It built up my diaphragm and I became better at everything I could ride. You know? Now all of a sudden I’m doing five Ks in my wheelchair and I’m swimming and I’m going to school, and I’m driving and I’m dating.

I, I, I have a fairly normal life. Yeah. And so that’s what I got back to After, after junior college, I went to St. Xavier University and excelled there. And my senior year, this nun comes up to me and says, well, what are you gonna do when you graduate? And I was like, ah, sister, I don’t know. She goes, you’re gonna law school?

I said, no, I’m first generation college, let alone I wasn’t major. Like, I’m not, I was gonna go into the trades.

Mm-hmm.

She’s like, you’re gonna law school. I was sister and you couldn’t argue, you know, she was that, you know, five foot. Nun that wore the habit. That, I mean, like, I, I, I don’t think I could say no to her.

Can I? Like you can’t say no to the nun. I think, I think, I think it’s,

I think there’s some rule about that, um, that, that has to do with a ruler.

Oh,

yeah, yeah.

Ruler, paddle ruler. Yeah. I went to a Catholic High Lightning, so, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Something Yeah. Far greater than

mm-hmm.

Than we could handle. And uh, so she said, I’m going to sign you up for the prep class and I’m gonna get you the study guide as Okay sister.

So all these things you’re kind of attracting, you’re, you know, when you do bold things, big things, things that are kind of shocking. Uh, there is a tendency that you’ll attract powerful people into your life that want to collaborate, be part of that, influence it further. They almost become part of your posse.

Like they wanna see you succeed because they want to have a hand in that. Because it gives them purpose and makes them feel amazing. And all the while they’re actually doing it for you, you then kind of start to carry them with you. ’cause now you’re doing it for them. And I think we always do things a little bit better when we’re doing them for others with ourself in mind.

But if we’re just doing it for others and we’re, we’re, we’re not keeping ourselves in mind. You’ll get resentful after a while. And if you’re only doing it for yourself, you really don’t have purpose. You’re just kind of selfish.

That’s servant leadership.

Yeah.

It’s all about servant leadership. Right. And you have to learn to, and this goes for business more than anything.

Everybody’s a leader. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you’re no title needed. Nope. You’re a leader. Men, women. I don’t care what your position in life is. If you do not learn to lead yourself, you will fail. Yeah. If you do not learn to lead yourself, you can’t go onto the second stage of leadership, which is learning to lead others.

If you never learn to lead other others, you’ll never go onto this third stage of leading groups and organizations and businesses. So yes, you have to learn to lead yourself, and everybody could win in that. Like you said, I’m not just doing it for me. I’m doing it not to shine the light on me. I’m doing it so that others see that they have a light and they have a purpose, and that to shine the light on them and give them maybe some hope and a glimpse of purpose that they didn’t realize they had.

Okay. So we’re 33 minutes into the podcast and, uh, if you haven’t ordered the book up yet, like what do I. I just, I don’t understand. I mean, this is like, are you listening to this? So this is a very inspirational story. Again, the book is up. Getting up is the key to life. I think we can all relate to that, whether it be physically or mentally.

Uh, and I know that I’ve had to do that myself mentally, and so I can’t wait to read this. Uh, this can be purchased. We we’re gonna put the, the links, um, but before I put the links, where would, so could somebody go on Amazon? Amazon. Amazon, yes. Or Amazon. I mean, I just ordered three things on Amazon, like at eight o’clock at night.

They show up at my doorstep at 4:00 AM So you could be reading this tomorrow. Okay. So let’s order the book. Um, it’s for a great cause. And that cause is for your self-development.

Thank you for that. And you know what, it’s, it, it is a story with a, a lot of impact that I hope people can get nuggets out of.

That’s why it was written. Again, not to shine a light on what I’ve done, but to let people know there’s hope, there’s purpose. You’ve just gotta be willing to. Follow a certain path, be honest with yourself. Honesty is so critical, um, to be honest with yourself and then find out what your purpose is. Yeah.

And then find out what your values are. If you don’t know what your values are and your purpose is, it’s hard to move forward.

Okay. Individuals, you hear that? But brands, I hope you heard that too. And I’ve gotten some kickback on LinkedIn, like nobody cares about core values and this and that. I will tell you right now, you’re absolutely wrong.

You may not know that you have them ’cause you haven’t taken pen to paper to write them down. But you have core values, you have principles. Maybe it would be a great exercise to write them down. And if you’re a brand, if you. Go away for a weekend and get your leadership team to sit in a room without interruption.

You will come up with five core values that are absolutely brilliant that you could use to brand your organization, which you then, every recruit that comes into the business is brought into those values. Every partner that you bring into the organization is brought into those values. Every time you market the company, your marketing products and services attached to those values.

That way people will buy for from you for more than price. We don’t wanna sell on price, we wanna sell on values, principles, and outcomes. So that is such a great point, uh, and I hope that brands will do that. So we talked about. Uh, I asked you like nine questions in one, and I think you just nailed the, the answer to like the first four.

Okay.

But one of the things that, and let’s be real, okay? This is not all sunshine and lollipops and roses, okay? This is some real life stuff. So, um, we can’t just sit here and be completely vulnerable and honest and say that Dad gave you great advice and you’re a powerhouse and you’re so mentally strong, and there was never a moment where you had a challenge and you could swim across a lake on your own and all this stuff.

I mean, yes, those things happen, but there was also probably some really low time, some really negative talk in your brain. How did you cope with that and how did you take the negative talk, turn it into positive talk that turns into positive actions, that turns into positive habit? That turns into the Brian p Swift JD that is sitting in front of me right now.

Awesome question. And, and right one is, uh, I lost question because that’s more important than anything else I said. Right now, as a mindset coach, I drive human performance and you cannot drive any type of performance without that person believing in themselves and convincing themselves that they’re capable of.

Because for those of you that don’t know, the average person has approximately 50 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Out of those 50 or 60,000, 80% of them are negative. Mm-hmm. How we ever do anything positive in our life, it’s amazing. And 90% of them of the negative thoughts are repetitive.

Yes. And they create cortisol, which makes you achy.

Absolutely. And it’s not just our conscious mind that does it, it’s our subconscious mind going forward. I, I was blessed to have this amazing faith driven by my family. Faith alone just might not get you where you wanna go. I had dark times, so I was blessed. To learn and understand and with a father, if you’ve heard the stories, would not allow me to sit in a bedroom, lay in bed, and feel sorry for myself.

It is okay to have a bad day. It is okay to have a bad couple days. What’s not acceptable is to let a bad situation, which I’ve had out on a date. I look down, I’ve peed myself ’cause my catheter got clogged. Mm-hmm. I’m on a date. My pants are, I always, you know, I learn quick, don’t wear anything light because that wet spot.

Mm-hmm. I’ve been in corporate meetings where I’ve had an accident and I know I’m sitting at, in a corporate court, in a corporate room with, with 25 to 30 vice presidents, presidents, heads of departments, and I’m sitting there and I’m like, I think you just crapped yourself. What do you do? Well, I mean, I, I was prepared for that.

I always worked something dark. Um, I always had a towel in the back of my wheelchair. How do, how do I sit here through this meeting staying focused and, and geez, you know, I, I’m sitting there. Okay. I know I’m full of crap, but now I’m really full of crap. Um, and those are things that happen and it’s real, and I can’t go in and take care of it myself.

Yeah.

I’ve gotta deal with it. Um, and, and I read a lot. I read a lot of really good books. I, um, back to my original, don’t let a, you could have a bad situation. You could, that could turn into a bad day. We all have bad days. That’s life. As long as you learn from it. Mm-hmm. I’m a believer, and I’ll talk about later, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

I have not lost in 15 years. Just I refuse to lose.

Mm-hmm.

You can have two bad days, but you never, never. This is non-negotiable. One of your non-negotiables should be. Never let two bad days turn into a bad week. And don’t let a bad week turn into a bad month. And don’t let a bad month turn into a bad six months or a year.

Find and understand what it takes to get yourself out of it. And I knew what it took to get myself out of it.

Okay, so as we’re setting up for this, we talked a little bit and I said, you’re like an NFL cornerback, right? A corner. It’s like you’re gonna give up the 15 yard first down, you can’t carry it to the next play, otherwise the next play is a touchdown.

So you better have a short memory. I’m teaching my 15-year-old how to golf. In fact, can I do a shout out to my kid real quick? I’m so better. Griffin, I’m so proud of you. He has broken a hundred, right? Which 95% of golfers never do 30 years in golf. Never break a hundred. He’s been playing for the total of six months.

Th his last three rounds, he broke a hundred. He could, he was rolling the ball for the first two months. This is a guy who was a travel baseball player, like, outstanding. And he was just struggling so bad. It was like, I’m carrying the struggle in my heart with him. ’cause he’s watching me play and he’s trying to do this and he knows he is an athlete and he’s just struggling with so bad.

So I’m like carrying that weight. I know he’s torn up inside. And then something clicked. He just kept going to the range, just kept going and going and going and going. Blisters on his, his hands were bleeding in April. He came home for the range, blisters, hands, bleeding. I’m like, what did you do son? I’m like, lemme check your grip.

Are you holding it right? And he was holding it right. He just hit so many balls and it clicked. And now he’s broken 103 times in a row. So to your point, it’s like the right mindset. You never lose. You never lose. You keep learning, you just keep going. You keep going, you keep going and you keep the mindset right and then eventually really, really good things happen for you.

So, um. What an, what a, a fantastic lesson for anyone listening, but it’s such a fantastic lesson for athletes, salespeople, entrepreneurs trying to start their business. They’re just that man, they’re, they’re pitching their product or service and, and people just are not like rolling over and showing their tummy and saying, I’ll buy a thousand.

Like, like you’re, you have to work it. You have to be patient. What a great message that you’ve lived in life and now brought to business.

Absolutely. And not just business, but life coaching sports. You learn more. Listen this, you learn more from your losses than you do your win facts. Absolutely. You could, you could fail your way to the top in some degree.

Why? Because when you win, what do we all do when we win? I, if you’ve been a coach, a parent, we celebrate. When we win, we talk about how great I am. You’ll short an amazing shot. How I played through the wind, how, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. You know what happens when you lose? That’s where the lessons come in.

Yeah. If

you don’t learn from losing,

which is the key, but you will never get to the top, but with the right mindset. And that’s where you started with. And I, so I have three core principles. I have pillars, right. And for, and I’ve used this for everything. And when I’m off, when I’m off my game, I know I can just go back to the three and I can go, it’s that one.

Right? So my three in a row are mindset, behavior, technique. Without the right mindset, there’s no way you get to the repeated behaviors to become ritualistic and become innate and without technique. There’s no way that you could turn the mindset and the behavior into something that’s fruitful and something that you can repeat over and over and teach others to do.

It’s duplicatable because you’ve got the right technique. I love those. So that’s, that’s, that’s been my thing. I love that. I love when people start with mindset. ’cause it validates the way that I think, and I need validation because I’m not, I’m not very confident. So I love, I love the validation and I’m being genuine when I say that.

I struggle with confidence and self-esteem. So that’s why mindset’s so important to me. I have to force it. It’s important

you’re not alone. I, you know, 80% of the population struggles with, with those same things. Some are better at hiding it.

Yeah.

Some never overcome it. Some are blessed to find ways to overcome it.

Mm-hmm. And having pillars in your life. Are so key along with, you heard me mention the word non-negotiables. What are your non-negotiables?

Yeah,

health is wealth. My non-negotiables, I will get seven hours of sleep a night period. I will find a way to get seven hours. That’s a ball. I will exercise at least a one hour a day.

Yes. Just one. Sometimes it’s three hours sometimes, but if I will exercise, find a way to exercise one hour a day. All you gotta do

is look at his Facebook. He posts it too.

Yeah, I do post some of it. Yeah. Even if it’s just going to the bottom of the driveway, pushing up the garbage cans.

So that was his last post.

Big brown garbage can in front of him. And Brian’s just got a smile on his face and he’s wheeling that sucker right back into the garage. And I can’t even get my 12-year-old to take the garbage down to the corner for gosh sakes. And he’s, he’s quite athletic. So, uh, I mean that’s, it’s pretty awesome, Brian.

Thank you. And so you gotta have those non-negotiables. Uh, my other non-negotiable is I’ll have at least an hour of reading and faith time. Hmm. That’s non-negotiable. Whether I do it in the car, whether I do 15 minutes in the morning, 45 minutes a night. You have to have non-negotiables in life. When I got hurt, one of my non-negotiables was I will not be disrespected ’cause I’m in a wheelchair, I don’t get disrespected.

Mm-hmm. Because of the way I roll in a place.

Yeah.

I learned from my pops. You roll in a place, you make eye contact, you shake your hand, and you act like you belong there.

Belong, own

it. Own

it. And I have,

I I I roll that way. Yeah. And people are amazed. Like you just went into like, uh, an area that said executives only.

Well, nobody’s gonna question me on it. Why? ’cause I rolled in like I belong there. Not timid. And that has served me. Oh so well,

so I’m, I’m really proud that you said that. ’cause uh, one of the things that my, my dad told me early on is when you shake somebody’s hand, they need to know. So you need to give ’em a little squeeze, let ’em know that you’re there.

Right. And the second thing is, um, you look people in the eye when they talk to you. Absolutely. And so, um, I’ve actually freaked out some other parents that have met my children and I looked at my kid shaking this grown man’s hand that he should be respecting. And my son kind of, you know, did the head down and kind of looked away and, and I will say it to him while shaking the hand.

I said, pick up your head and look him in the eye in front of the other parent. The other parent kind of looks at him like, you didn’t need to do that. I’m guilty. And, and I, I do need to do that. Sure

do.

Because if, if you want your children to have a. A strong, fulfilled life where they command a room where they’re confident, where they’re, where they’re strong, where they can do the miraculous as you have, but do it with, uh, a, um, a humility, right?

And a cool confidence. Then, then those things are not just born into somebody. They’re, you have to teach them.

And that’s where our country is failed. Not that we wanna go into that, but is it we as parents are so guilty of allowing our kids to go in a bad direction?

Yeah. Now it’s just like he, this kid shakes a hand, no, no eye contact.

And the parent just goes, okay, run along now.

Nope.

And then the kid goes and sits on the couch with their phone and they text the kids sitting next to them, you know? Um, it’s just crazy. We’re not teaching any of the interpersonal skills that it takes to actually be in a, a functional, positive, productive human.

If your kids are 8, 10, 12 in their teens and they’re meeting your friends, your workmates, your whoever you make ’em stand, you, you have them stand there. You don’t allow, this is non-negotiable. You do not shake your hand, not make eye contact. Mm-hmm. And walk away so you can look on your phone and please make sure your phone isn’t out, because it will be my phone Then, um, parents are afraid to have these conversations.

Yes. Because they, they’re afraid to be not liked by their kids. Yeah. And I remember my dad saying, I don’t, I’m not here to be loved. I, I, I said to, I’m, I don’t care if you ever love me, this will all fit in, but you’ll understand and respect me. And oh my gosh, I couldn’t love a man and respect a man more than my dad.

Yeah. And other people look at him like, you are so cruel to that kid. My dad was never cruel to me.

You probably wouldn’t, you probably wouldn’t Be who you are right now with letters behind your name. A current book, writing another book, host of a radio show, host of a podcast, president of a company, public speaker.

Uh. Uh, mental and physical coach, uh, inspirational leader, like the, and I’m not stroking you, Brian. Okay? These are things that you’ve done. So I’m just reading the resume without looking at it. So these are things that you have done. This is not me, like trying to build you up. I don’t think you need that.

These are facts, okay? So like, you’re not in the spot that you’re in without that type of mindset, upbringing, accountability, and that belief system that I ain’t gonna lose. I, I only win and learn, right? That’s, that’s,

so John Max, I, there you go. So John Maxwell course. I deliver to people, which is called, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

And it’s just about thinking outside the box. You do not lose as long as you learn something. So now, instead of things in life becoming stumbling stones, they become building blocks and you build on ’em when you fail. ’cause there is no failing. If you’ve learned from something, there’s no losing, there’s no failing.

Mm. As long as you’ve learned from it. So it’s it. I’m a John certified John McWell coach and speaker, and I’ve learned so many lessons from that man. But I’ve learned to look at things differently and not always accept those criteria. Like I was judged when I was in the rehab at the age of 18. So here, I mean, here’s an example.

And you know, think about it. Are you a half, is the glass half full or is it half empty? What kind, what kind of person are you?

Me? Yeah. Uh, for years I was, uh, half empty. Okay. And I have put in the work to become a half full and I, and I bounced. I, I had an ebb and flow, and when the ebbs were good, man, you can’t stop me.

Right.

But the, I guess it would be, you know, the ebbs, which one’s good? The flow or the ebbs? I think the flow’s good, good. When the, the flow was good. So the ebbs and flows. So the down part, let’s say that’s humility. Oh man, I was, I was a wreck. Uh, but man, when I was, uh, when when things were rolling, man, I could just, I could just go.

What I’ve had to figure out is how to, how to just kind of, how to, uh, streamline that, that process and that, that came from a lot of work, a lot of journaling, a lot of, um, positive self-talk, affirmation. And to your point, non-negotiables, which I’m going to have to write down after this episode. I’ll tell, because I’m not sure they’re written down.

Which leads me to my next question for you, like when you say non-negotiables, like what’s the exercise you go through? Mentally and then in a practical form to establish those non-negotiables. And then do you schedule them? Because I found if you don’t schedule the vacation, you ain’t going right. If you don’t schedule the, the, the, uh, the back massage or going to church, you’re not going, you will find a way to not go.

So like how do you, how do you determine them? How do you then implement them? How do you repeat them? And then how do you turn them into a habit?

Alright, I will answer that five hour question and, and, and as brief as I can, but I gotta go back to those listening. Are you a half empty person or half full person?

Is your glass half empty or is it half full? Ask yourself that. You wanna know what I am. I am a, you could fill that glass person. It’s never half empty or half full. It’s refillable.

Hmm.

I don’t look at a glass as half empty or half full. I look at a glass and say, I can fill that whenever I want.

You are the glass.

Right? Okay. It doesn’t have to be half empty or half full. That’s that’s something that’s been said for hundreds of years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get out. We gotta get away from this thinking. This is about mindset and who said it, what were you thinking when you said it and why did you make all of us say it for hundreds of years?

I’m may, I could ref. Are you, is that fifth probably

John Quincy Adams. Nobody liked it.

Probable probably was one of those forefathers. Yeah. Or Fifth Fathers. Yeah. I’m what?

I go with the, I go with the, just the John Adams. I don’t know. You throw the Quincy in there. I’m out.

I’m good with that.

Yeah.

But I’m a, I could refill the glass person.

Think outside this box that we’ve been so, uh, I don’t wanna say paralyzed in, but we’ve accepted, you know, are glass half are, you’re half full, half empty. We’ve all said it.

Yeah. Why does it have to be that way? Why? Yeah. How many, let’s refill it. It’s the fallen line mentality I think. Which, you know, this, this is a, um, this is a country that kinda came from military types of, of setups because we were at war so often.

So a lot of like how corporations are set up were post-war nine to five. A lot of the, the process and the procedures, a lot of the nomenclature, um, the, the belief system. And I think that’s really cool the way he just said that. ’cause I think we are awakening to the idea that we need to break what was.

19 50, 19 60 types of thoughts. And we need to restructure those to what actually really makes sense. And we should have, we have enough of a body of work as a society to analyze that and go, yeah, why is it half full? Or why is it half empty? Why can’t it just, why can’t we just fill that sucker up? We can’t.

Yeah. We

believe we can. And, and, and I’ll add this to that, not that what we came from in 1950s, sixties, the twenties, none of that was wrong. No, it needed to happen bad. It needed to happen. You built the fadation. Let’s, some of that is the foundation of greatness in our country. Mm-hmm. But now we need to add to it, like changing our thought process about, is the glass half full or half empty?

I don’t know. You know, like you said, all the nomenclature we use, you know, go the whole nine yards. You know how a first down is 10? It’s exactly, it’s 10 yards. But do you know where that came from?

Mm-hmm.

Nine yard. The nine yards was how many they could put. 27 feet of, I believe, bullets in an airplane.

And so they talk about using the whole nine yards when you’re out showing

it up. Other thing. Because 20 feet is nine yards. Yes. So when, so when they were saying, we’re gonna unleash havoc on the, the, the opponent unleashed the whole nine yards. Unleash the whole, see there’s somebody value in this man.

You know, somebody gave me a whole new ’cause I’ve been saying the whole nine yards. I thought it was just a movie. I had no idea. Like now I actually know some stuff. Yeah.

No, there’s, there, there. Go look at some of the things we use and find out where it started. Amazing story. Yeah. Really cool. But let’s get to your question, which is really important.

I forgot even what it was. Go ahead though. So we’re gonna talk about, I’m just teasing you

non-negotiables.

Yes. How you do it.

Okay. First you have to establish values. What are your values in life? What do you value in life? Mm-hmm. That’s where it starts. If you cannot say what you value in life, it’s hard to go further.

’cause that is the foundation that drives us. It’s not even our why and our how. That gets driven off of our values. So if you do not have written get values, it’s as bad as not having written goals.

So like a value, uh, for me would be lead with kindness.

That’s a value. You lead your family with kindness.

Lead your kid, lead your kids with kindness. I bet you the the last thing to get led with kindness is yourself.

Yeah. Well it’s always been right. It’s the hardest thing to do for me. For all of us. For many of us. Yeah. Some worse than Yeah, I know. I’m definitely not alone in that. Yeah. It’s so much easier.

Well, for some, I think it’s so much easier to be kind to others and then just be destroyed inside and still be kind. Right? Absolutely. But you can, you really be the ultimate transfer of positive energy if you can’t do it for yourself first.

Sure. You can. But it will never be it. You will never be that.

It won’t be authentic, brightest,

authentic star, because you’re not shining on yourself at some degree.

It doesn’t have to be as kind as you’re to everybody else, but you need to learn to be okay and show yourself some grace.

Somebody once told me that loving yourself helps you to be really effective at loving others. And the analogy they used was when you’re on the airplane and they’re given the description of when the a the, the oxygen mask comes down during dur turbulence.

They say put it on yourself first before you put it on others. And then, so when you’re a kid, you’re like, that doesn’t make sense. You know? But then you, you, as you grow a little bit, you start to understand that what they’re saying is you can’t save other people if you’re dead. So you kind of gotta, you gotta gotta save yourself first.

Now, that doesn’t mean be selfish. It means that if you love yourself, you become a better lover.

Absolutely. And, and now explain it this way, if you don’t love yourself, you’re playing a zero sum game. Mm. What does that mean? Zero sum game means there is nothing in the cup to give if you, there is nothing in this cup.

This cup is full of kindness and love and honesty and all these beautiful things. If you don’t give yourself the grace of forgiveness, the grace of love, the grace of kindness, that cup remains empty and it’s zero. There’s, you cannot give from an empty cup. Okay? You’ve gotta fill yourself with some of that grace, uh, forgiveness, uh, and kindness and love to some degree, because if you don’t, you’ve got an empty vessel and you cannot give ’em an empty vessel.

So we start with values. So you establish the values, absolutely. Write those out. Maybe narrow ’em down to the most important. Absolutely. So you can kind of stand to that. Now, what’s next?

So, uh, so you’ve created these values. Of course, you know, everybody talks about your why, um, which isn’t as important to your non-negotiables because those are kind of created, um, based on values.

Now let’s, let’s go to your goals. You’ve gotta know what your goals are and then you take the values and goals and you pri prioritize what your non-negotiables are. I have 24 hours in the day. That’s the only thing we were all born equal with. There’s nothing we are equal at nothing. Giving equally with the exception of time.

Yeah.

And we are given 24 hours a, a day to do what we want with it. That is the only thing that we equally have, period.

Mm-hmm. ‘

cause there is nobody out there like me, and there’s nobody out there like you or you or you listening to this or watching it. Nobody. But you do have 24 hours. So now I take my values.

I prioritize them along with my goals and I come up with things and there’s certain things that we cannot survive without. I said it earlier, people have, everybody has problems. Everybody has a cross. They bear until they get sick. And now they only have one problem. Health is wealth. You better prioritize your health.

That better be one of your non-negotiables. Health. What does health mean? Health means getting sleep and eating right. That’s gotta be one of your non-negotiables that I will get at least seven hours. I have to get my seven hours. If you don’t, does, does it all crumble? No, but you do it enough times and it will crumble.

Mm-hmm. So health non-negotiable. That’s my workout time. That’s my sleep time. That should be in everybody’s non-negotiable

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Like are you a sticky note person that’s got reminders around, are they written into a journal? Um, are you a, a set reminders on your Outlook calendar? And it sends you a chirp. It says, Hey, it’s time to work out, brother. Like, like, what’s your thing?

Okay. So you, the, the last part of that question was, you know, do you plan this?

Mm-hmm. Yes and no. So let’s go backwards Now. You got 24 hours in a day. After I set my non-negotiables, I say I’m sleeping for seven, I’m working out at least one hour a day. I’m setting an hour for faith time and maybe reading, uh, my other non-negotiables. I’m setting, uh, an an hour to return calls and to touch base with family, whatever those non-negotiables are.

So my non-negotiables are, are, uh, 11 hours.

Okay.

That’s my non negotiable. So you’re

reverse engineer?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So now I’ve got 11 hours of non-negotiables.

Ah.

Just think I’ve got 13 hours

to to go. 13. Yeah.

13. What do you do? What? 13 hours? I could do anything.

That’s, for me, that would be like 13 hours, probably, probably five rounds of golf.

I think I could get out at

13 hours and, and I’ve not seen anybody’s non-negotiables. Probably more than 12, maybe 13 hours. Somebody that’s like, uh, you know, whatever. But just think, say your non-negotiables are 13 hours. You’ve got 11 hours to play with 11 hours. Where if I don’t work out in the, in those, I, I still have time at the end.

I still have time here. So no, I don’t necessarily plan it. I reverse engineer it.

I love it. Okay, so real quick, if you don’t mind, um, I know we do this podcast. I know that I talk to all of you about, uh, branding and marketing and inspirational people, and I bring leaders to you and I know you see the signage around me and I know that I’ve embedded ad reads into the podcast, but I just wanna on Eric just.

S uh, just make note real quick that there’s three companies run out of this facility and we’re here recording the studio, recording in the studio, the Get You Done Experience, you’ll see the signage. So GSD Technologies is your absolute it go-to we’re an MSP. Anything you need or want having to do with, uh, IT solutions.

I got you covered. TTSG is a managed print service. If you need copiers, printers, and you don’t want the hassle of having to worry about the, uh, supplies and you need service immediately and rapidly, and you actually wanna talk to a human that loves you and cares about you and answers the phone immediately and takes care of your problems, TTSG is your go-to.

And then 2020 design can handle your marketing, build you a beautiful website, SEO pay per click, and help you to create content that actually stops the scroll that people want to pay attention to. So there you go. So Brian, let’s talk about your business because all of these funnel fundamentals, this origin story of, of overcoming adversity, setting these standards.

Being led by your mom and dad to think a certain way and act a certain way. Embracing that, executing it, turning into habit, teaching other people how to do it. Man, this is good work. Now you get into the business world and you take those same fundamentals in corporate USA and you apply it to building sales teams, to being a top sales performer, to being a a, a trainer.

Then the purpose kicks and you go, how do I take all these things? How do I live out my purpose and monetize it at the same time? So you have the JD behind your name, which means that that wonderful nun talked you into doing something that turned out pretty good and you didn’t just go and become a lawyer.

You became a jd, which is like the next step above that

there. There’s actually a step above that. But yes, I did go to law school. I ended up gonna law school, graduated from DePaul College of Law and earning my jd, which stands for Juris Doctorate. And now they have levels above that. Like yeah, there’s like five bluster level of this.

And then they, whatever, grad, you know, they’ve created other levels so that, that they can obviously bring in more income to teach people stuff they really don’t need to be taught. Um, so that you can have all the, and there you have the truth. Abso it’s absolutely, yeah, absolutely. You, my, my kid learned one in, in one summer being in customer service, working at a, at a wonderful place.

Uh, the UPS store, he learned more in one summer working there about sociology and psychology and anything than he did four years of college. Oh, yeah. And by the way, I made, I made, and I, I’m not embarrass saying that my kids’ choices to go to college or go into the service or go into the trades, they had options.

The way I pitched it to ’em is, do you wanna be a. A hundred thousand in debt. Do you wanna be 50,000 in debt? Do you wanna be possibly 20,000 or debt free? Just tell me which one of those you want. Mm-hmm. Well, nobody wants to be in debt. Okay, well then I’ll help you get there. They all went to junior college.

Non-negotiable. Mm-hmm. You were going to junior college after two years. You can decide, I don’t like school. I wanna go into the service, I wanna go, I wanna go into the trades, or I wanna finish. And then That’s on you. That’s on you, baby. You could, I will support it. I will help you. I’ll teach you how to find grants.

I will teach you how to find whatever it is. And I’ve got three kids. How college with Absolutely zero debt. Zero

How? Well there’s your next course. Yeah. Maybe we should turn that into a course and we only, I’ll tell you what. We had teach people how, like teach parents how to have that conversation and then how to actually do all the things you executed.

So I would’ve bought that course for a thousand dollars. Yeah. Easily.

And we only had saved, and I felt bad about it for a while, but then not so bad, our contribution was $15,000 to each kid. Think about what the education costs. If I’m a business now, let’s bring back apprentices. There was no law school back in the day.

Mm-hmm.

There was no, I mean, you were an apprentice.

Yeah.

And you know what the value of that is? I could form them exactly the way I want successful people to come out of my business. And guess what? I don’t have to untrain them. Exactly.

That’s the hardest,

all the bad habits you could spend, you know, forever teaching salespeople how to get rid of the bad habits.

Oh my

God. Teaching salespeople. Like I’d rather hire a salesperson that’s got like a year of selling something door to door, whatever, and then bring ’em in and just mold that clay. Absolutely. And just be like, just get in my pocket. Let’s go and, and now I think sometimes, you know, you bring in somebody with like 10 years of sales experience, and this is in no way, shape or form saying don’t hire a person with 10 years of sales experience.

I’m not trying to screw up a, a whole population of people that are looking for a sales job. What I am saying from the standpoint of being a sales leader who’s trying to build a team, right, that was on brand that followed a certain course of steps and actions, it’s a little bit faster and easier to build out that team with people that.

Clay that you can mold. Whereas a person who’s a 10 year vet, rightfully so, they have their established methodology, right? It’s a little bit harder for them to adopt your style when they’ve had an effective style on their own. So there’s a little bit of conflict there that is maybe unnecessary where they’re having to acquiesce and you’re having to maybe acquiesce a little bit to find the happy medium.

And I think it kind of slows the process, but I’m not trying to hurt anyone from getting a job, so don’t think of it that way. It’s my personal view

and let me talk to that. The number one mistake leaders make in driving sales professionals is they believe everybody has to sell like them.

No, cannot.

And that’s the mistake they make.

You’re not doing it the way I was successful. This is the way it works. No, you would, the hardest thing for me to do was take sales professionals and stay out of their way. Yes, because they were so good. They weren’t anything like me. I didn’t understand it, but I knew one thing. They were successful. And you know what my hardest job is?

Stay out of their way.

So let me clarify. What I love to do when I was a director of sales or leading sales teams is build the framework. And within the framework there’s multiple different paths. So if I have an analytical, I. Type of salesperson, I got a path for you that’s gonna work totally. If I, if I’ve got a, uh, uh, an emotional salesperson, I got a different path for you.

But both are within the f uh, in the framework. But at the same time, you got somebody who’s amazing at phone calls, then I’m gonna go, I’m gonna essentially design a system where 50% of their activity is the sales calls. The other 50%, they’re still gonna do emails, still doing networking events, still creating content.

But if I have an unbelievable content creator, influencer, then I’m gonna find a way to help them set up a podcast to create as much content as they possibly can. And then the phone calls at that point are gonna be maybe only 10% of what they do. But for an organization right now to say to every salesperson, you will follow this system.

50% of the people are going to adopt it. The rest of it is a crapshoot. You have no idea because you’ve set up a system that only appeals to one personality type. You have to be able to set up a framework and then fit personality types into the framework so they all can be effective. That’s the the critical piece that I loved.

Absolutely. And, and one of my big pillars for success was making a hundred calls a day. People didn’t, and so I didn’t force it and say, by nine o’clock, yeah, you are going to be on the phone till this time. And then from this time I would say, I don’t care. Minimum, you’ve gotta make 75. If you wanna be the best, succeed you, you’ve gotta make a hundred.

Here is one of my keys, nine by nine. Anybody out there that worked for me knows I breathed nine to nine. By nine o’clock you should have made nine calls. If you make nine calls by nine o’clock, you will hit your numbers. Mm-hmm. Again, not forcing it, not forcing them to call between the hours of. But if you’re not making those calls, you have to figure out with my help and guidance why you’re not making those calls.

Mm-hmm.

And some people have to go the backwards route and realize, you know, reverse engineer their day.

Mm-hmm.

To the why, you know, when, when, when so many people are. So one, do not train everybody to be like you. It is a kiss and death. Yeah. Two, do not force their day, but create these pillars like nine by nine ways that work that they can implement almost like a best demonstrated practice so that they can implement in their way so they could create their path to success.

So this is the, this is the reason why I think a lot of folks are catching onto the idea that it’s better to hire coaches that manage than managers that coach, right. Because I. Coaches that manage, just think of this example, the Chicago Bulls, right? You got a star player like Michael Jordan, naturally get the hell out of his way.

Give him the rock as much as possible. If he’s hot, go to him if he’s not, find a way for him to work within the system. Michael Jordan ran within the triangle offense that Phil Jackson and, and, um, his Jerry Crouch and other people. Yeah, the, that, that, that whole crew put that, that triangle offense in place, which by the way, then went to LA and it worked just as effectively there.

So you could see I was a, a system works, but Jordan was the key piece. You knew Robin did his thing. You weren’t giving the rock robin. The rock robin was exactly what he was supposed to do. Clean up the boards. Pippin was exactly what he was supposed to do. Right? And, and within, within the triangle, be ready.

But then he got guys like Steve, Kurt didn’t play a ton of minutes. Role players, but role players. And, and, and by the way, with, you could make an argument with some of those teams. Take Steve Kerr off the team. Really good. Not as good. Take the triangle offense out of Michael Jordan. Jordan never won a championship without the triangle offense.

So you gotta say that there’s, there’s a, a big part of that. Never won a championship without Phil Jackson there. Right? So. Uh, it takes the whole thing. So to your point, like you, you’ve got these, these players, they all play different roles in that you can’t get every player to become you and play like you and think that you’re gonna win championships.

You gotta get them to play the role within the system to the best of their ability. Right? And not every single sales rep is gonna hit 150% of, of quota. And if they hit 80 and that’s where they’re comfortable and they’re living out their dreams and they’re helping you achieve the big number, just tell ’em you love ’em and get out of the way.

I, I’ll

take 80%.

Yeah.

I’ll take it. If that person is giving it their all. Has implemented everything that you think they can, and more importantly, they’re happy and satisfied

and they’re running the system. ’cause uh, you, what we can argue is now you take that same person who comes in and you’re running a triangle offense and they just elect an up, run the play and they just, you know, they bust, they bust the, the whole system up and they start to create infighting.

And there’s all kinds of different things. I don’t care what their numbers are, they got to go right? And those are those primadonnas, right? So, yeah, I, I I just think that, um, I love where you’re going because it’s, uh, it’s all foundational and then how you start, how you start is how you finish. I, I, I always hear people say like, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish bullshit.

It’s a lot about how you start. ’cause if you don’t start well and you’re down by 40 points, you ain’t finishing period. So you have to start. Well that start. Absolutely is the foundation you’re talking about. Absolutely. With mindset, values, principles, you know, building out the system and then plugging in people to be effective within that.

Absolutely. And, and, and here’s another example, you know, not just the foundation, but thinking outside that with every person as an individual does things different? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? More importantly, I used to ask ’em, what do you want me to do for you? Mm. What do you need from me so that you can succeed?

Yeah. How can I help? You know what that does? That puts the ball back in their court. Listen, you told me to do these five things. I did these five things for you. How come we’re not where you wanna be? Mm-hmm. Not where I want. This is what I said. Yeah. Where we wanna be. How come where you are not where you wanna be?

Yeah. We’re in just Oh yeah.

You is better probably than even

we, we, because now you asked me to do this to, to make you the best I did. These things help me understand why you’re not where you wanna be, and I will help you. I built unbelievable relationships with that. But some of it’s thinking outside that corporate box.

Um, I mean, you’re a baseball, a baseball player, or a golfer. What’s the old saying? Practice makes perfect.

100%. Do you believe that perfect practice makes perfect?

That’s what I was getting to. Practice does not make perfect. I’m gonna say it. Practice does not make perfect. It is old and outdated. You know what makes perfect, perfect practice makes perfect

the old way is counterintuitive.

’cause I could go practice the wrong thing and I’m now, I’m establishing a habit that a bad habit’s impossible to break. So it’s absolutely perfect practice.

Absolutely. But you don’t hear it out there that way.

No, don’t hear it. And by the way, Vince Lombardi, I think used that term. In the sixties and won a lot, but it kind of just slips past a lot of people.

I will see it on signs every once in a while on a LinkedIn post, but I don’t know, I don’t know that I hear it enough. Um, it’s a great reminder. This should be a clip. I think it’s a great reminder. It’s about perfect practice. Absolutely. Otherwise you establish bad habits that you, a percent that you ritualize and habitualize and then you’re, and then by the way, we all know it’s very difficult to break bad habits because the, the bad habits can become innate just as and more easily than good habits can.

Absolutely. And you created it and that’s really hard to uncreate. And, and one of the things I’m working on now, I just did a speech at Northwestern University and the topic of my speech was becoming unparalleled. And for those it that might think, you can’t see me, but I’m a quad confined to a wheelchair, my intro might have led people to believe it was about.

Becoming physically unparalleled. It wa as I, as I led them to probably believe a little bit. But ultimately this is about becoming mentally unparalleled and there is more doubt, failure never getting started, a quitting because of mental failure than physical failure. Uh, mentally people quit on themselves far before their bodies or their, their desire even to be successful will ever quit.

It is about mindset. Mm-hmm. And that is not built by reading a one book, two book by having one mentor, two mentors. That is a journey we all go on differently.

Alright folks, it’s, uh, mental health awareness month, uh, which I think sucks because I feel like every day should be mental health awareness right now in, in this world that we live in.

But it is in fact a month. So I’ll play along. Um, that advice that was just given hits me in the heart because I almost quit on myself. Several times, um, and something spoke to me, mindset spoke to me, higher power spoke to me, and you can turn around anything. You’re listening to somebody who’s done it. I was on the verge and turned it around.

And, uh, proud to say, you know, over 500, uh, 500 days sober and a whole bunch of other things. But, um, it’s amazing the power of the mind and what you can teach it to do. So do not give up. Do not quit. If you’re feeling some kind of way you need to go talk to somebody. And the person I would recommend you talk to first would be upstairs.

Okay,

absolutely.

You need, you need to go talk to that person first. And that person, if you’re like me, might talk to you before you talk to them, which is really interesting. Um, and then you need to build a relationship there. And then maybe if you need some additional coaching and therapy and so on, you go do that next because, um, you’ll be in the right spirit and mindset that actually embrace the therapy that you get.

Okay? So, um, I love you and I’m, I hope that for you, so I hope that hits you if you’re feeling some kind of way. And I had a conversation with a beautiful human yesterday that I would’ve never in a million years thought was struggling. I. Uh, open up to me. Why? Because I open up to the world. So power isn’t truth.

It sets you free. So I’m willing to be vulnerable and tell you my truth because it that one person, if I help that one person at lunch, then me being vulnerable and maybe feeling a little bit of embarrassment of where I let myself get to is 1000% worth it. And I think we’re sitting here with somebody right here who’s been through it and is willing to tell the story.

Um, my mental, his physical together, you’re getting a story of, of what the power of the mind could do. I’m really proud to be here in front of you today, and I’m proud that we’re having this conversation. I’m happy to know you. I, uh, I had a chance to, um, you know, take a look at your, uh, your social media and I, I know it was the Allen Stern episode that, that, um, motivated you or touched you or whatever it might be, to send me a note and say, Hey, if you’re ever looking for a guest, you know, and I will tell you I get notes like that and it’s like, I, and, and I’m a lover, so it’s like sometimes I’m like, I kind of gotta say yes ’cause they reached out and then, um, and then it’s like kind of weird.

But in this case, like you reached out. And I had already been aware of your content, so I was already kind of like, I probably should reach out to that gentleman. Uh, but then when you reached out, then I dug in a little bit deeper and I’m like, oh my gosh, like this is gonna be a good one. And you’ve lived up to every second of it.

So I’m like super proud to be here in front of you and, and honored and, uh, it’s so much respect for you. Thank you for your kind words. Just, just so much respect. But the podcast is not done. I just felt like throwing that in right now. So, in saying that,

let me piggyback on something you said to the people out there.

If there’s only one person that will love you more than your mother, that is the man upstairs, that is God. There’s, that is the only person that will love you more than your mom. And if you’re not having conversations with him and building a relationship, you cannot build a foundation to succeed in. He will be part of that success because he helps you.

He could take you from messed up to blessed up and he can take it and turn it around as long as you go to him and have faith and desire and bring all the tools that we’ve talked about and more, and then some. If you bring that to the table, you can go from messed up to blessed up.

It happens. Amen. You gotta talk to him though.

You gotta you gotta know him. And it, and I’m not talking about every Sunday. I’m talking about daily. Yes. Just talk to him in your mind. He’s in your mind. Just talk to him and you’ll hear him back. And he doesn’t always respond immediately. So it’s not, he’s got, he’s got a long list of things he’s doing, but, but he will get to you.

Uh,

absolutely. And there’s not a person out there that was a mistake. If you’re thinking you were a mistake, if you’re thinking, this is all wrong, trust me, the good man upstairs doesn’t make mistakes.

No. There ain’t no mistakes.

No mistakes.

And by the way, Brian Swift isn’t a mistake. What happened to him ain’t a mistake.

Uh, because he’s touched the lives of thousands and probably more than that, that he’s not even aware of because they didn’t have the courage to reach out or didn’t know how to or whatever. But if you’re feeling some kind of way and you need some inspiration, I’m sure you could just send him maybe a comment and a DM to, to Brian and he’ll, he’ll lift you.

Which is the name of his book. So maybe you should check that out. Alright, so now we’ve talked about, we’ve got origin story. The nun tells you go, go get your law degree. You go get the law degree. Um, you, you do this and then you go to the corporate world. You absolutely dominate in the sales game, training game, then management game, uh, and then the purpose hits.

How do I smash the two together? So then we start soar. Let’s talk about soar.

So SOAR at 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit, went into our 10th year. This year stands for Swift Outdoor Accessible Recreation. I have a drive to be outdoors. I will take my computer, I will do my work outdoors, I will do, I’ll shave, outdoor. I, if I, the more I can be outdoors, the, the happier I am.

Ooh, outdoor shaving. That’s a new thing.

Oh abs. I’ll get my hair cut outdoors.

That should be a thing.

I get your hair cut outdoors. Why aren’t we doing it outdoors? On a

beautiful day? Vitamin DI heard is good for you.

Absolutely.

I’ve heard

trick I did with my sales crew. I took, I put a table outside and I ran a phone outside.

What they got, what they, what they got to win that week was an opportunity to work outside the whole day. No money cost me nothing. By the way, those are the best incentives. Do you know what? They loved it. Yeah. It cost me nothing. Yeah. Zero. They wanted to so not be in the office. Yep. Just to be outside in this grass area with their table and a phone.

I got more play out of that than buying them pizza or dinners. It was just, you get to work out soccer.

Gosh, you just hit such a cool point because like money’s awesome, but you know what’s even better is freedom. Oh, like, man, just like giving people some freedom just to be like, yeah, go, go work out by that tree.

You know what, like it was? Yeah, just go do your thing, man. Just, just get the outcome we’re looking for. Just do the thing we’re looking for. What I promised

myself, I’m not going outside once to

like, to like, not

once. Yeah. They were outside the whole day and I was not, I did not go out.

Yep. That was freedom, baby.

You earned it.

Yeah. Freedom. Love

it. Guess what? A week? Are we gonna do the, uh, outdoor thing again?

Mm-hmm. Are you gonna have that incentive? Yeah.

Yeah. I’ll bring it around again.

And the productivity level probably jumped. Oh. Because there was banter going on there. The energy’s going on. They just, they feel the people feel it when people feel boxed in to a thing.

Where they feel like they’re, is having somebody look over the shoulder and like, there’s all this accountability. Like they’re not, they’re, they operate tight. And, and you know this from prior being an athlete, you can’t, you can’t like make a tackle being tight. You can’t throw a baseball as fast as you can, being tight.

Well, you guess what? You also can’t do, you can’t, uh, sell tight. You can’t write a strategic plan tight. You gotta be loose. You can’t get into the flow. We can’t get into the flow state when you’re tight.

Absolutely. And you know what, my guess is that person wasn’t that productive outside. But guess what? I sacrifice.

If I have to sacrifice one person for not being productive, that drives 13 other people to high production. I don’t call me crazy. I think I won.

Yeah. Amen.

Right? I mean, if, if I gotta give up one person to be maybe 80% productive, but I’m getting an extra 20% from 13 other people, you can do that math all day.

I’ll take that all day.

I love that. Yeah. Okay. So Soar. Um, and by the way, it’s SOAR for you crazies out there. Yeah. Okay. It’s SOAR. And, um, uh, give us an understanding of you’ve built the foundation, I’m guessing there’s core values and all these things that you talk about non-negotiables and setting up this business.

Absolutely. And, and getting outside. Uh, is go look at studies that talk about people’s heart rate, people that heal. You’ve heard of grounding, maybe you’ve heard of earthing. You know what? I guarantee that being outside brings this cathartic feeling. And you talked about the chemicals our body makes. You wanna bring on the good chemicals.

Go outside to find them. That is the best medication you can

find. I just thought of, so something, you know how our construction folks are like the toughest people, like our, our men and women that do like the out, like physical labor? Physical labor, they’re outside. Like they’re the toughest people. Like they don’t get sick, they’re up.

They’re up before most of us are doing a thing, they’re up and going and they work like grueling jobs, but they’re still happy and they just kick ass. Like there’s gotta be something to that. And then you look at somebody who’s in an office at a desk job. A square building with, um, suicide prevention, uh, paint color, um, you know, the, the, the mental institution paint color in the, in the room.

Like that’s what they have to look at. And they’re in a cubicle and it’s like they’re, they’re stuck in a Tetris game and that’s the environment that they work in. And we wonder why they’re 10 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early and like, don’t do, they don’t flip on their laptop at nine o’clock at night.

’cause there’s no joy in doing like, Hmm, maybe we could put two and two together there.

All right. And, and I’ll, I’m gonna play devil’s advocate. I’m gonna say that is not a call for people wanting to work at home.

No, it’s not a call for people work. I wanna be in an office, right? And, and, and with people, but I want it to be open spaces, freedom to go outside.

I wanna create content outside. Like I wanna go, I want to go, I wanna go host, uh, you know, clients, uh, on a golf course, you know, and, and well, what a great way to present your products and services to people. Four hours in a golf cart, shooting the shit and don’t play against each other. Do a, do a scramble.

See how low you could shoot. Like that kind of stuff. Like that’s just to me that. A, a bad day on the course

beats a good day in the office. Fishing, right? Bad day of fishing. Yeah, it’s a

good day. Clean. Take a customer fishing. I mean this is, this is what I’m talking about. Like, like you should be in an office a a portion of the time because you’re on a team and you need to be part of that team and collaborate and you need to feel something with the team.

So I’m not a proponent of the full work at home experience. What I am a proponent to is people should just go, go. If you have, you’re working on a project, go sit at a picnic table and go do it. And I don’t need to trust whether or not you’re doing it. ’cause if I hired you and you’re here, I should already have trust.

And if I don’t trust you, you shouldn’t be here. Like so. But

you earned that trust. You earned in that trust. You were in that trust. There were people I would, you know, everybody starts off with a ball is a ball of twine. Now some people turn that ball of rope into a thousand yard piece of rope. And you know what?

If you tell me you’re gonna be in late tomorrow, I don’t even ask why. I don’t care why. I know it’s for a good reason. I don’t need to know that. If you ask can I leave early? I don’t need, if you’ve earned that rope, I’m not asking you why. Okay. You left her and documenting it. Yeah. I trust you. And when I go to that guy and say, listen man, I need you to have, you know, I need you to lead the team.

You know, put up some big numbers on call volumes. You know, do this. Just, you know what, they don’t ask me why they don’t, they don’t, they don’t frown. They get it. Mm-hmm. They get it because that is a reciprocal relationship.

Treat, treat ’em like adults. Get adults, yes. Love it. Okay. So sore.

So yeah, insurance does not pay for anything that is not a medical necessity, which is bare bones.

You want a a hand cycle that costs 5, 6, 7, 8, $10,000 that comes outta your own pocket. A lot of people with disabilities, the cost to survive with the disability is outrageous. You are kind of hamstrung ’cause you’re probably not working, which you should be working for a lot of people that aren’t. But our government puts restrictions on that.

You cannot earn a certain amount of money if you are disabled because you’re maybe on, you know, disability. Yeah. May be on social security may be on. So without being able to get outdoors and do the things you love, you’re stuck. And I wanted to be that bridge for people,

isn’t it? The government keeps you in the matrix.

Man. I. Like, you can’t go make money. You can’t go make money and work a certain amount of stuff if we’re going to keep the insurance working for you and the disability working for you. So we’re just gonna keep you in this chair, in this box until you just kinda wither away. Like, what in the freaking world are we doing?

Wanna hear how ridiculous insurance systems? So I said,

I don’t know. That might have to be episode two, but yeah, go ahead. It’ll

be, it’ll be, it’ll be truly one minute. It’ll be one minute again. And, and I’m gonna look at you. So the, this is the way goofy insurance works. We all sit on cushions that help prevent us from getting a bedsore, okay?

You can only buy one or get one through your insurance, say once every five years. They’re pretty durable if you don’t abuse ’em. But sometimes you get one that breaks and you patch it with a tire kit. They would rather, if I know people that have gone months and months without the cushion because it cannot be fixed and because they only had it three years.

The cushion’s like 500 or $700. So the insurance company will not get ’em one because it’s not five years. So this person gets bed sores and pressure sores, and now they’ve gotta spend hundreds of thousands of dollars paying for wound care and hyperbaric chamber or stuff. One more ridiculous one I had, I my, I had a wheelchair 20 years ago.

Loved it. It was not, not a problem. The back, the back rest was a problem. It started to break. I, I had, I was duct tape in it, called the insurance. It was a $400 back. I’d like a new back. Well, do we purchase the chair for you? No you didn’t. Well then we won’t fix it because we didn’t purchase it. Do you? But we will buy you a new one.

So they were willing to spend, ’cause it was a titanium chair because I am out and pretty aggressive. It’s not that I’m hopping curbs, but they would rather buy me a nine to $11,000 wheelchair, which they did. I didn’t want it, instead of paying $400 for a new back. Crazy.

So this is why, uh, insurance companies spend so much money on marketing and branding because perception is reality.

So if they can give you this perception that you’re in, right, or whatever, like they give you this perception that you are taken care of, uh, good hands through the, yeah, right through the, through their marketing and their branding. And it’s brilliant by the way, insurance companies, great marketing and branding.

Congratulations. It’d be great if the product matched the, the message or the service. Or the service. That’s pretty crazy. And by the way, it’s like, again, it’s, once again, it’s counterintuitive. Um, but, and this is why we, we saw, talked about it. This is why I said I don’t like corporate. This is why I like small to mid-size business.

’cause small to mid-size business leads with heart relationships. It’s harder to get. Opportunity. They don’t have endless amounts of cash to invest in the marketing and, and branding and surveys and market research studies and SEO and all these things. So small to mid-size businesses have to lead with heart, actually deliver value, uh, uh, on a repeat basis.

And, uh, lead with kindness and deliver. Or they ain’t gonna have a business.

And that’s why they have this philosophy, whether you’re an entrepreneur or small business, it’s all about we, not me. Yeah. And if you don’t have this, we philosophy, eventually you will lose. So we help people get therapeutic trikes, hand cycles, wheelchair attachments to get off the beaten path.

You wanna go skiing? I got a guy in Colorado that’ll take you skiing. We’ll pay for it. You wanna go snorkeling off of the keys? I’ve got a guy with a handicap accessible boat. What do you wanna do? You wanna, you wanna do photography but you can’t handle a camera like me. Your hands don’t work. That’s the most my hands work.

Then I’ll get you this arm that attaches to your wheelchair that holds a camera. So all you have to do is push a button or bite this mouthpiece that snaps off the pitcher. I don’t care what you wanna do. You wanna go hunting? I’ll get you crossbow. That’s self cocks because you can’t cock at yourself.

I’ll get you handicap accessible. Hunting blind. You wanna go fishing? I can get you a, an electronic fishing reel, whatever. I just want to get you outside. And don’t forget, for every person that I get something for, it’s not about that per that’s affecting a community. Oh my god. Their family, their friends, maybe their kids.

I got this young sense of pride. I got this young man two years ago. All he wanted to do is go out and play in the snow with his wheelchair. They make little skis that attach to your front. Yes. His mom sent me a video of his brothers and sisters and neighbors pushing them into snow piles, and this kid had this biggest smile on his face.

How long did you cry? You can’t help but get it here. Damn right. I mean, that’s selfish. Selfish. I’ll help you all day.

Like the water works. Be I, it’s, I cried at a song on TikTok the other day. Fuck, I’m sure as hell crying into that. Oh my gosh. It’s a gift. It’s amazing. It’s a gift I get to give. All right.

So I need to know how the sausage is made. Brian, this like, so is the law degree playing into this? ’cause you said we’ll find, we’ll find a way. So is there things you’re having to weave in that regard? Like is it more of the sales talent? Is it what, what’s like, give you some of the attributes that you’re using to achieve this and what you’re, what your team is actually doing?

Is it advocacy? Is there sponsorship involved? Are people donating time, talent, and treasure to help you to make this work? Like how, how do people get involved to support you? It’s a 5 0 1 C3, right? Absolutely. Okay.

Yes. Um, my law, the law degree has nothing to do with. How we’ve

succeeded. Well, we’d to waste that money.

Yeah. How about I more so I wasted three years of darn loss school. Yeah, no, that law school built a confidence in me. Oh, I’m certain. And there’s certain things in me, but I don’t use those skills. I might use ’em more than I think and not realize Negotiation. Yeah, negotiation. I was gonna say, you know, you learn a lot about destroyers are pretty persuasive.

We can be. Yeah, we can be. So, I, I can’t say it. It hasn’t helped. It has, yeah. But it’s not the main thing. So raising funds. Oh. To be able to buy an, an electronic free wheel that attaches to your wheelchair, that allows you to go out and ride on gravel on the grass uphill buying a hand cycle that, you know, it’s, there’s a lot of money to that.

Now here’s 10 years we’ve run. 100% voluntary. Nobody has been paid from our organization, with the exception of, you know, you’ve gotta pay for your website, you’ve gotta pay for sure. We send out, you know, our, one of our biggest things is probably our, you know, sending stuff out to people. Um, if we don’t get it delivered right to the house.

When you say nobody’s been paid, you’re not talking about your employees, you’re talking about like the things that you need to operate within a business?

No, I’m talking about everybody who has contributed has done it 100% voluntary, freaking crazy.

It’s amazing

because they understand

the world is good.

There are good people out there, and they may only date donate 10 hours a week or a month, but you know, those 10 hours when I need them, that’s money.

Mm.

I need ’em. I need ’em to be there. And we’ve been blessed. We’re at a point where we probably have to start to bring in people. And this year, like we got our website re redone, we rebranded.

That costs some money, but we’re at a point of busting with. Our bandwidth is busting. Biggest thing and it 90% falls on my shoulders, is the blood sport. And it is a blood sport of raising money that is a blood sport. How do we do it? We do it a lot through, I do a lot of grants. I write grants, I research grants.

We get some grant money from a lot of philanthropists, um, philanthropic organizations, foundations, other nonprofits. That’s probably the biggest. We do do some fundraisers right now, if you are a bourbon whiskey drinker, I partnered with a company that is veteran owned and all the money they raise goes towards the veterans that it’s like special ops.

I mean, they go to some of these military organizations, you don’t hear a lot.

Mm.

But they’re veteran owned and so there is a, uh, a little bit of a, a fundraiser and it’s gotta be local. Unfortunate. ’cause I cannot ship. Alcohol through the mail. Yeah. So unfortunately it’s a, it’s a local one and I live in the south suburb of moa.

Um, but we’re doing a fundraiser for them and we partner with them. One, help, help them get the word out. ’cause they’re doing a, a, a great service to us. They donate, donated so many bottles, whatever that we auction them off for that the organization gets to keep that. So we do some fundraising like that, but it’s about raising funds.

And then we made the grant process very simple. It is a three and a half page grant. We don’t ask you for a retina scan, a blood test, your taxes for 10 years. You make it as simple as possible. Uh, but there is a process and you wanna hear sad. Nobody wants to hear something sad. But here’s the thing, if I get a request and send out 10 grants this month, unfortunately we will probably only get four of them back.

People want things out there in life, but they’re not willing to work for, I’m sorry, I could only meet you. As far as you’re willing to come to me,

if you have a family member that perhaps this would affect in a positive way, a neighbor, a friend, uh, and you’re not aware of it and you’d like to play along, you can go to www.soarnonprofit.com.

That’s soar nonprofit.com. When you go to the homepage, you’re gonna see a little button on the top right that says Get involved. And I would imagine that means that you could donate your time, talent, or treasure right, uh, in helping out. But I would also, uh, say that if you have a loved one. Uh, could use some of the resources for this.

You probably wanna reach out to Brian as well. That would be a great idea. And you can find ’em on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. And by the way, those, those, uh, handles are right next to the button that says get involved. And all you gotta do is type in Brian P Swift, JD on LinkedIn or Facebook and you’ll find him.

And he’s very responsive. And, um, and we will connect with you. So there’s a lot of ways that you could be using this. I would imagine if you are a business owner and you have done amazing things in your life and you’ve led people and you’ve been a steward leader and the universe has given back to you because of that, and you know somebody that is dealing with this, this would be a really good way to add it onto your purpose stack.

You know, we talk about what’s your tech stack? How about we add on to our purpose stack? That seems like a better stack. Um, so if you want to add onto your purpose stack. Um, you could find a way to, uh, get involved and help out Brian and his, cause this purpose, he has to unlock the outdoors for indi individuals with disabilities.

Like that’s just awesome in itself. I had a guest on, um, also the beautiful name of Brian. His name is Brian Floe. And, um, he is also the owner of a 5 0 1 C3 called Bernie’s Book Bank, where he’s closing the literacy gap by getting donated new books that he’s distributing to the underprivileged and economically challenged communities throughout the Chicagoland area.

Now he’s gone into Wisconsin. He’s gone down to Florida and opened an office. And again, you, you close the literacy gap. You give children the ability to imagine. And imagination is a beautiful thing, but you also give them practicality, imagination, and practicality. Um, it creates our next leaders and innovators.

It’s the future of our, of our society and our world. Brian talked about when he’s raising funds. That, um, he’s talking to successful people who don’t need more success. They have millions of dollars. They’ve done brilliant things, but you know what? They crave significance. Yes. And so if you are craving significance because you’ve already had success and the successful continue because you created it, but you are craving significance, you want to be remembered for doing something that is beyond what you’ve done already.

You wanna be remembered. Nobody’s gonna say, um, at, at your eulogy. Oh my gosh. Jim Smith was so amazing because he sold so many copy machines or he sold so much toilet paper. Uh, what they are going to say is, um. How amazing you were in life because of how much you gave back, how many lives you touched, how you changed the world, how you were the master of your dominion, and you kept expanding that dominion.

And that’s exactly what you could do, whether it be this Brian or the other Brian, or several of our other guests. But in this case, I would strongly, uh, advise you to take a look at the website and I would also ask you to reach deep down into your heart and to reach out to Brian and play a part in this amazing journey that he’s on to change the world for people that, uh, that are in a similar situation to him to have the great life that he’s had.

I’ve been blessed. Um, I, I try to help people live a life of purpose and inspiration and thriving and. Thriving is so important and can be done in so many ways. It doesn’t take a million dollars. But as you talk to, it does take purpose and significance, um, to do that. And we create, we help create that because when I give somebody, we donate somebody, a hand bike or a therapeutic trite or some piece of equipment, I’m not giving them equipment.

I am giving them purpose. Hmm. I’m giving them hope. I am giving them freedom to get out and do things. It’s not about freedom, the chair, it’s not about the bike, it’s not about the crossbo. It is about providing them opportunity, purpose, hope those things are worth more money than anything, and when you provide them, you become significant.

Alright, so I’m inspired, um, and. I know that you do inspirational conversations, so we’re gonna wrap this bad boy up, but I, there’s a couple things I need to get out before we do this. Number one, there’s a new book being written, so give us the elevator pitch on that. And then the second thing is, where can we come see you in person at a speaking engagement or running?

One of these things, if somebody wanted to maybe have you come talk to their sales team or maybe their whole organization or to do an SKO or, or perhaps they just wanna come to an event where you’re the speaker. Sure. Give us the next couple coming up. So let’s start with the book name, elevator pitch, and then a couple of events and uh, and then we will name

in the book is Be Becoming Unparalleled.

And it is all, regardless of what you might think and people might think, it is not about becoming un physically un paralyzed. It is about taking off the handcuffs, the ropes on your mindset. It is all about how to become. Mentally unparalleled because mental paralysis stops more people from starting thriving purpose than than anything else.

So that’s the book I’m working on now in terms of my next event. I, I, I, I, some people out there, I know it’s big out here. I, last night I was at a Tony P event.

Oh yeah.

So if you know Tony P

Yeah.

Um, I am, uh, they just had me yesterday, last night at one of his events. They are going to have me back. They are starting a couple new programs that I’m gonna be a part of.

So, find that out. Come look at LinkedIn. Looked at, look at Facebook. You’ll find when I’m talking or having, uh, an opportunity to speak or to present or to host. It will be out there. It’ll be on there on, on the, on the website, uh, brian pw.com. That’s my website. You can go to brian pw.com. Um, and, and I, I don’t throw a lot of it on a soar, which I should do, which I’ll start to do is put more of my events on SOAR because, um, I, I, I think, and it’s not about me speaking, it’s about the purpose of the entire event.

Tony P had some other amazing speakers there, and with the culmination of us all, um, there was so much takeaway. Um, I even had tons of takeaway. Uh, I love learning. Mm-hmm. Never stop learning. Um, so check out my social media, go to Amazon. Um, I have authored nine books. And two of them are Amazon bestsellers.

So if you wanna look up Brian p Swift on Amazon, you’re gonna find my other books. Uh, and just reach out to me. I will respond. And thank you so much. That’s a been a blessing.

A that’s a fact. Well, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to come out and, um, I’m so glad that we connected. This is the power of social media.

This is the power of networking. This is the power of putting yourself out there and creating content and telling your story. There will be somebody that will find you, that becomes part of you, that becomes part of your clan, your team, your squad, whatever you want, and becomes, uh, an advocate for you becomes a, a multiplier for you.

So, uh, if you’re looking to build your personal brand. I would suggest that you start with a few things that Brian talked about. What’s your core values? What’s your non-negotiables? What makes you unique, different, and spectacular? You all have it. Talk about it. You don’t have to do a post about what you do every single day.

You need to do a post about who you are, what you believe in, and why you believe that. And if you do that and you put that out enough, you’re gonna find your people and those people are gonna rise with you. And that’s what it’s all about. And Brian, I wanna remind you, sir, you got shit done.

Thank you. And that I, I am blessed to be able to get shit done and if I don’t get shit done, I do not sleep well.

So getting shit done is part of my purpose.

Well, somebody’s gonna sleep well tonight. I hope so. Thanks for being on, Brian. Thank you. God bless. It’s cheers.

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