In this stunning episode, Brian Bogert shares how a tragic accident in his past led to the discovery of the most impactful secret of living the life you desire.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with a new friend Brian Bogert. Brian is a keynote speaker. He’s a business leader and a human behavior and performance coach. His transformational approach cultivates perspective, momentum, motivation, sorry, direction, to help executives, professionals, entrepreneurs, and athletes to align their life with their true purpose, defy their own expectations. He teaches not just to accept change, but to embrace pain in order to avoid suffering. Absolutely fascinating. I hope we can unpack that. But before we get there, Brian, I’d love for you to just tell us your story. How did you get into the work that you do today? And why?
Brian Bogert
Yeah, so I think we’re gonna go back a little bit further than the actual transition into this specific work because I think it’s important because so much of my life has been shaped over an event that took place 30 years ago, my mom, my brother and I went to our local Walmart to get a one inch paintbrush to help finish up a home improvement project at home. And anyone who’s known me for about 30 seconds knows I walked fast. I talk fast. It wasn’t a surprise. I was the first one back to the car. I was waiting for my mom to catch up and I had to wait because this was back in the days poor key fob for her to literally reach into her purse, grab the keys, pull them out, sticking them doors would go on their way. And as I was standing there waiting for my mom and brother to catch up, we’re only a few feet behind me there was a truck that pulled up in front of the store that we went to part and the driver and the passenger got out, passenger all the way to the right, felt the truck move backwards. So he did what anyone wants to do. He’s got he’s gonna put his foot on the brake, but instead hit the gas, combination of shock and force throw him up on the steering wheel up on the dashboard. And before you know it, he was catapulting 40 miles an hour across the parking lot right at us with no time to react. It went up in over the median and went up the tree in the median hit our car knocked me over, ran over me diagonally tearing my spleen, leaving entire tracks on my stomach, and continuing on to sever my left arm completely from my body. Wow, it was August 10 1992 6:10pm 115 degree day, mom and brother watched the whole thing happen. And next thing we know, they look down, they see me laying on the ground and my brother looks to my mom and says Mom, Brian’s arm is over there. 10 feet away. Fortunately for me, and I can never tell that story without honoring the woman who is responsible for the fact that I’m here. There was a nurse that walked out of the store right when this took place. And she saw the literal life and limb scenario in front of her I’m forever indebted to her for her choice to go into action. Now I met her for the first time two weeks ago on the 30th anniversary of my accident. And what I will tell you is that that comment that I’ve made for years became even more meaningful, because what I didn’t know is that she had a friend with her that day, who was also a nurse who said I’m not touching that with a 10 foot pole. But she went into action, she instead of turning her head to go on with her day and she came over and she stopped the bleeding on the main wound and saved my life. And she instructed some innocent bystanders to run inside, grab a cooler filled with ice and get my detattched limb on ice within minutes. So the reality of it is if it was not for this woman, I either wouldn’t be here with you today, or I would be here with you today with the cleaned up stump. She saved my life and my limb. And so I know that a lot of people weren’t expecting it to go there today. Right? I know, I’ve got a really unique story. But what I’ve also realized in all my time of doing this is that we all have really unique stories. What’s important is that we pause and become aware of the lessons we can extract from those stories, and then become intentional with how do we apply them in our lives moving forward, we all have the ability to do that. We also all have the ability to tap into the collective wisdom of other people’s stories to shorten our own curve to learning. So I know that embrace pain, avoid suffering is one of those core lessons, we’ll unpack that I’m sure today. But the reality of it is is now I just live my purpose by allowing my truth to give others permission to live theirs.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, fantastic. So why don’t we? Why don’t we take a look closer at that? And just practically, what does that look like? What are the things kind of on a on a normal Tuesday Do you find yourself doing with the clients with whom you work?
Brian Bogert
Oh, well, you know, what you talked about was really, really high level, what I do is I help people heal the layers of pain inside shed the layers of armor that protect them from being who they want to be connecting with who they want, and attracting and receiving what they want in their world. The reality of it is so many people are operating as an empty shell of who they once were lacking the ability to connect deeply with themselves, their most intimate relationships, their client relationships, and so forth. So I recognize that strategy and tactics are critically important. Most people think that’s the reason they’re stuck, though. So the first time they get stuck in their life, they go look outside for strategy and tactics, I’ll go hire a new sales coach, I’ll go do this, right. But the reality of it is they never actually move beyond where they were in those patterns continue to repeat in their lives. What’s very definitive and working with some of the world’s highest performers, is the reality of it is the things that keep us stuck our emotional triggers behavioral patterns, and environmental conditioning. And so we guide them through an inside out methodology so they can see themselves more clearly. So they can move faster with less effort, and put themselves into a position where they can truly actually live holistically with joy, freedom and fulfillment based on who they are.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. And and that’s, I mean, like you mentioned, that’s the opposite of what we tend to try, right?
Brian Bogert
We’re the opposite of what’s mostly taught out there too.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s very, very true. So I want to go after this because I think you know, you’re I mean, you’re obviously on to something I don’t need to tell you that but I think for folks listening today, I think it’s really helpful to me a wake up call for lack of a better terms. So someone’s out there. They’ve got, you know, like you mentioned, they’re looking for the sales coach to help turn things around. So what’s happening? Well, sales are not what they want them to be. Right? Oftentimes, this is someone who maybe has seen other success in their life. Now they’re in a role where they not only have to do what they do really well, but also have to hire a sales coach to go with it. But you and I know that the sales coach, especially the sales coach, by themselves, especially if the sales coach just tries to teach them about how to sell isn’t going to work. So what have you found maybe even in a specific instance like that? What is it that they really need to start going after, and maybe even boil it down into a couple of baby steps that folks could start looking at thinking about are working toward today?
Brian Bogert
Yeah, I’ll give you two examples of different people that I’ve worked with. There was an entrepreneur that I worked with and had a conversation and she was a she was a whiz at being able to connect with people. She was able to have quality conversations, she was able to extract what was going on in their lives, so she could really understand the problems. And she was brilliant at outlining solutions to guide her clients forward. But inevitably, she never had the pipeline that she wanted, she didn’t have the consistent flow of business that she wanted. And every time she’d look across her desk, she’d look at that phone, and it looked like it weighed 500 pounds. And so she thought like, Well, okay, I need to get better scripts, I need to better learn how to talk on the phone, I need to do these things. But when we actually peel back the layers of the onion, and we started to understand that the reality of it was she was good at all the things that led to a sale. But yet, she still wasn’t operating in that way. She was actually really good on the phone. But she wasn’t picking it up. She ultimately thought it was a strategic and tactical issue. And so she started outsourcing cold calls to other people to do appointment setting and book setting for her. But the same thing would happen, it was falling empty. What became really, really clear is that she was dealing with a fear of success. And she was actually afraid of it, she was too good at what she did her ability to fulfill it on the back end in her business because she hadn’t built the prop the systems and processes to be able to leverage and scale her business. So the one thing that she was thinking was the issue, which is frontline top line revenue and sales that was connected to the phone. As soon as we unpacked it, this was connected to an element of self worth, as well as her fear of what success actually looked like. And we did some deep work around it. Now that phone no longer weighs 500 pounds, she picks it up readily and excessively. And she solved a lot of our pipeline issues as well as built the systems and processes to be able to execute on. I have another client that I worked with for about two years, we got hired in 2020, right after COVID is in the commercial real estate business, right. They’re in the development side, they’re in the property management side. And they’re they’re also on the investment side. And so the reality of it is each one of these categories was being hit. We knew that people were, you know, extending leases, we knew that people were getting out of that space. And they had already seen a decline in their business. There’s a long tail end of having a $600,000 settlement that he lost. When an area where he got in trouble. He was on the tail end of being $250,000 owed by his own organization because he forgot he was owed his own compensation to ensure that his team could get paid. Right. He also was an individual, he used to ride his bike from coast to coast in the United States. He’d done it twice in his life and used to ride consistently. They wanted to grow and develop their house, but he communicated his team, we have 17 months of liquidity left. He literally gave him a 17 month runway to say, Go start looking for other jobs. I care about you so much. I don’t see a future in this business. I’m gonna do everything in my power. I asked you guys to be a part of this, but 17 months from now we’re probably gonna be out of business. Well, we started working together. And we started to unpack that he had a very deep level of shame. And it was manifesting around scarcity and protection in his life. And it was actually having an effect in ways that he couldn’t understand and measure. So we started to really heal through that we’ve gotten to the root of what was taking place in his life, we really started to build a process for him to be able to reconcile real time and see things for what they were versus the lens that he was viewing the world through in his shame and scarcity. 17 months later, their organization grew by more than three times. Oh my goodness, he extended raises for his entire team and out of the new line of employee benefits. They closed and literally between 17 months and 20 months after this time. They closed on four eight figure fundraisers on new properties back to back to back to back. No issues filling the void of the gap. Legitimately had changed the trajectory of their business. He was riding his bike again 150 miles a week, his wife actually reached out to me to thank me because he’d never been communicating so well at home. They moved to their home that they had grown out of before had actually actually put and took a leap on a property that they wanted. And he netted over $600,000 in 2021 after fully reimbursing himself on top of that, from what the company owed him. It was all connected to a shaman scarcity. But he was thinking that his business was going out of business and he was looking to literally hire an operations person and have someone come in to help with development to try to help on the fundraise side when he was the biggest problem.
Scott Ritzheimer
Absolutely stunning. So question that I want to come Attack on it this is how does it get to that point? Right? Why is it that it because one of the things that you mentioned that really jumped out to me is, and I’m paraphrasing, you said it better than I did, but something of like they’re a shell of their former selves, right? So at some point, we were that thing. And you’re seeing folks come on the other side. So where does it go wrong?
Brian Bogert
Usually in the first 7 or 10 years of life, believe it or not, I mean, here’s the thing we’re born as our brightest, most authentic burning self will ever be. Right? We were anybody who’s got kids or been around kids knows this. They’re raw, they’re authentic, they’re real, they’re charismatic, right? It doesn’t matter that they’re just there. And then parents, teachers, coaches, employers start saying you should do this, you shouldn’t do that you shouldn’t be this, you shouldn’t be that you should want this you shouldn’t want that you shouldn’t make this amount of money, you shouldn’t make this kind of money, you should live in this, this district, you should make this amount of money, you should have this car. All we’re doing is getting these layered narratives on around what and who we need to be should as a shame based word, because it implies that whoever you are, whatever you’re doing isn’t good enough. And so we start embodying these different elements of pieces in our lives that create patterns and triggers one the way that we try to defend ourselves, because we want to be seen and understood and connected at the deepest level. Yet the whole world has told us from the time we’re little that what we’re doing who we are isn’t good enough. And so it starts to build these patterns. Oftentimes, that 40 years later, we don’t even know exist, yet. We’re constantly wondering why we feel empty. We’re constantly wondering how to fill the empty and we’re constantly wondering how to move forward so that we can live authentically to who we once were, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to that literally 50 years, they’ve dealt with something that could have just been reconciled, that they learned how to lean into something and feel it a little deeper, 50 years earlier. And so that’s where one of our core concepts of embrace pain to avoid suffering comes into place. It’s got many, many different places to it. But the world literally tells us to reduce the one in a row Boyd pain at all cost, which makes sense and natural evolutionary thing around survival. 100 years ago, you’d like you could die. But that’s not what most of us live with him. And so we need to understand pain, and we need to understand suffering. And I won’t break down all of this, it just for us to be able to understand where this connects. But I’ll give a couple examples. You can embrace the pain of hitting the gym 30 minutes a day to avoid the suffering of aches and pains of a sedentary lifestyle. We can embrace the pain of a difficult conversation with a loved one or spouse to avoid being stuck in a loveless marriage or being stuck in a marriage and we actually want divorce. We can embrace the fit our kids are sure to throw by having a put down their mobile device dinner table to avoid years of loss, meaningful connection and conversation we’ll never get back. The reality of it is I believe that we all must choose our pain or our suffering will choose us. I’m just asking people to lean into and understand that we need to feel so that we can heal and move forward consistent congruent with who we are, as well as who we’re becoming and want to become.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. There’s so much in there. But the one question that I almost have to get answered, and I feel like this is a free coaching session. I love it. So good, Brian, is are there some pains that we should embrace? First, right? Is there? Is there an order or a significance to that?
Brian Bogert
Yeah, and so again, there’s a layer and a process around this, I’ll just at the highest level help hit this, we need to first understand again, I’ll describe pain and suffering cuz I think it’s important for us to understand that before I give this these three steps. Pain is defined as short term intermittent to direct cause from something and alleviated ones that are caused removed. And we as human beings screwed up, like we do everything else, we put adjectives in front of it like acute and chronic. Acute maintains the definition, but chronic inherently changes, because it implies it’s no longer short term, and it persists. If that drug causes removed, let’s stop calling that chronic pain and call it what it really is suffering. We don’t want to admit that suffering exists, particularly when it’s a direct result of our choices. But the unavoidable precursor to change is acceptance. So until we accept the current state of things, we cannot alter them. I believe we have to begin with acknowledging the suffering we wish to avoid, which looks a lot different. And we don’t have time in the format today for me to give the full explanation of what that means. But the second step is where we have to identify the pains that we tend to avoid and learn to embrace them. This answers your question, right. So I’ll give a great example. Look, I My arm was torn off, I don’t have a tricep, I don’t have a lat in the left side of my back, and my bicep is my gracilis from my leg. I’ve dealt with suffering and physical pain in my life that’s impacted my quality of life more times than 120 years ago is when it started to happen the most. But I realized if I stayed lean, I stayed fit, I ate well, and I could do things to reduce the level of inflammation in my body that I could move. Well, I want to have an active life, I want to be 70 years old and still moving. I don’t want to be 35 and 30 and stagnant because of an injury that took place 30 years ago. Right? So I want to do I want to join the gym, just like everybody does after January because I know that was gonna help me stay lean. And I went consistently for 30 days. And then I stopped going. Now had I not acknowledged the suffering I wish to avoid which in my case, which was the inability to move impacting my quality of life. Right, I probably would have just gone and join the exterior joined the cyclebar I would replace the strategy and tactics around a different gym thinking that wasn’t my environment. But because I acknowledge the suffering I wish to avoid. I’d ask myself an additional question. Is it the pain of working out? Is the pain of lifting weights is the pain of plyometrics and the pain of stretching that I’m avoiding? Or is it the anxiety I get in the crowded gym? Right? The reality of it is is that wasn’t my environment for success. So the pain I needed to embrace was to acknowledge and admit the fact that that wasn’t my environment for success. And I had to embrace the pains to build out my own home gym over the course of the next couple of years so that I could be successful to avoid the suffering that I wanted. So there was a ripple effect in my decisions. But again, I didn’t just approach it like, well, I’ll just swap it out for another way to stay healthy. Because the reality of it is, that’s not what I was avoiding. I was avoiding what at that time was impacted by my shame, the judgment I would get from having to look and do things differently in that gym because I wasn’t centered in who I was, then. Yeah. But that’s an example. Sometimes we just have to ask the question, What Are we avoiding? And typically, that points is that what’s important and what we actually need to focus on? Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
And that’s so good, because the reality of it is, too I think lots of folks have experienced lots of success. But the way that we go about doing that is basically fumbling through the dark, right? It’s, it’s doing the process that you described, that you didn’t do, which is it didn’t work, try something else didn’t work, try something else didn’t work, try something else. And what separates those who achieve a level of success from those who don’t more often than not, is that they looked upon the right one earlier in the process than someone else did. Would you agree with that?
Brian Bogert
Ah, yes and no, I think there’s some of that. I think that there’s also not just necessarily replacing and trying something else, but raising your level of awareness to really understand what are the patterns that have developed. Sometimes it’s not just about lucky, although that it does exist. But I will tell you that some of the people who I know who’ve reached the highest level of success internally and externally based on the way that we define it, are the ones that were rattled to a place that they were forced to raise their level of awareness to do more work to become more intentional, and to actually align their lives in more congruence so that it could work for them instead of against them. Now, external success in terms of finances, yeah, somebody might have just gotten lucky and struck gold literally in their first business and printed money as a result of it. Right. I mean, some would argue the same thing took place for me. I mean, the first 15 years of my professional career, I was in risk management, play benefit consulting the last decade, we built and scaled a business over $15 million. And I had everything I’d ever thought I wanted. Right. But it cost me who I was, because I had taken a non traditional approach to achieve external success without ever even understanding what the definition of success was for me internal. Right. So I almost cost me who I was.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I can. I can certainly relate to that. And so yeah, I would say to those who have done the work, like that’s a separate thing. But I think where I was going with the initial question is that sometimes we look out. And we think that folks who have the success that we can see, I’ll put it that way that they’ve got it all figured out. Right?
Brian Bogert
Totally misinterpreted your question. Yeah, yes. And so and I would tell you that by the way, that that was a part of my story that I didn’t talk about, was it 27 years old, Iwoke up having looked around having every what I ever wanted, fitting the definition of what everybody thought I had it all together. 27 years old, I had the house, I had the car, I had the money, I had the wife, I had the successful business, I put myself into that external definition of success. And truly, that was the case, everybody around me looked in there like, oh, man, it either was so easy for them, it happened so easy for them, or Oh, my gosh, Brian’s got it all together. What they didn’t understand is I was a complete wreck inside, because I had all the what, but I never did the work to connect with who I was. And it almost cost me who I was. And then I woke up running in circles with people making multiple, six figures, seven figures, eight figures in some cases. And I wasn’t the only one. There were so many other people that were miserable. And so the reality of it is, is that was based on the external definition, because that’s from a financial metric, which is how often we define it. Yeah, my definition of success at this point is joy, freedom and fulfillment. Money is and will always be an important tool and vehicle in this world, I have made a lot of money, and I will continue to make a lot of money. But the reality of it was is that I used to chase money to feed my ego, believing and convincing myself that I was chasing it to feed my family, when in reality, I was chasing money truly for the wrong reasons not to create the joy, freedom and fulfillment in my life, and the impact in the lives of others that I can work with. So I fit the exact definition of the question you were asking. It seemed as if I had it all, but I really didn’t have any.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Especially a personal story like that, because it’s so true. And what it does, it leads to two questions that I ask everybody, but I think it’s more pertinent than has ever been. And that is, the first question is, again, in light of all of that what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret? What do you wish everyone listening today knew that for some reason or another many of us do not?
Brian Bogert
You are the answer. One of my favorite quotes comes from one of my friend Alec Scharffen. He says if you’re constantly putting out fires in your life, in your business, there’s a good chance you’re the arsonist. There is a better way, but the reality of it is so many people are waiting for a savior. They’re waiting for someone to ride in on a horse and just make sure that their problems go away to fix all their problems for them. But what I want to help everybody understand and here’s the secret. Here’s the secret that’s tied to it. You are here today, which means that you’re a survivor, which means you’ve overcome which means you’ve dealt with adversity which means you’ve dealt with resilience, which means you’ve dealt with loss, despair, probably also love joy and connection in some form or fashion. So what are you doing to extract the lessons from your life to understand the patterns of your past so that you can free yourself in your future? You are the answer. You may need a guide, but you are the answer. And you’re the only one that can give you what you’re seeking and who you want to be.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so good. Okay, last question. And then we’ll make sure we have a way for everyone to get in touch with you. Because I know that some folks are listening to this, and it’s just hitting them right in the center of the chest. But the question before we get there is that I’ve worked with enough coaches and advisors and consultants, folks in that world to know that we’ve got a habit of spending our best energy on our clients and can forget to spend the time we need on ourselves in our own businesses. So I’m going to have you take off your, your, your speaker, coach hat, and I’m gonna have you put on your CEO hat for a second and tell us what’s the next phase of growth look like for you and your business.
Brian Bogert
We have been very focused, because I executed my by selling my last business in May of 2020. So though I was coaching for five years beforehand, we’ve really only been in this as a full time focus for just over two years, well, we’ve been so focused on foundation, we’ve been so focused on impact. And we’ve been so focused on building and surrounding ourselves with the relationships to create that collective impact, because we’re on a mission to impact over a billion lives as quickly as possible. So what’s next for us is that we are now in the process of really starting to leverage and scale multiple different revenue streams across three different businesses, in a place that we’ve done a significant amount of beta testing, we know where and how things fit, the coaching stuff is got a rhythm that’s been existing for a long time. But what’s nice is that we are now in a place where we’re just getting to be very, very intentional about putting ourselves in the right places with the right people at the right time, in a way that we’ve not had the ability to do. So right now. We’re also taking a pivot internally. And we’ve shifted some of our focus around our team structure around our flow, and around the systems and processes that we’re using to leverage our world. And so I am like everybody else that I talk to, I have my own emotional triggers, I have my own behavioral patterns, I have my own environmental conditioning, and those permeate into my business. I don’t believe in balance, and I don’t believe that I take on or take off my CEO or my coach hat. I am both of those in every moment, real time. It’s about the integration of who I am, and the alignment of all the things I’ve created in my life, that allow it to become self regulating, and I know what fits and what doesn’t. So for me, I am coaching myself real time, I have two coaches as well, real time, because I don’t know what I don’t know. And we all have blind spots. So I’m just literally practicing what I preach. But we’re in a leverage scale and amplify mode right now. Because that’s what now that the foundation is set, we know we can go vertical. Now, as it relates to where and how we can create the impact in our world.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. And hearing you share it. What I love about it is it helps and at least for me, and I think for our audience that helps to draw the line between what can seem very touchy feely and or right and the real practical world that that we live in, and those two are knit together. But sometimes they can feel like different things. And so the way that you describe that and how you laid it out was fantastic, because it really draws those two together, at least for me. So thank you so much for sharing. Now, again, I think some of our listeners are saying, yes, absolutely. Maybe I’ve tried the strategies, maybe I’ve had the success. But there’s something about this Brian guy, I got to talk to him, how can they best get in touch with you and your team.
Brian Bogert
Your social media person, you can go to https://brianbogert.com, shoot us a DM, follow engage wherever possible. I also do have something that we’ve developed, that I’m happy to give everybody as a tool and a resource. So whether they know who they are, they have no idea who they are, they’re somewhere in between. If you get to nolimitsprelude.com It’s access to a free course that we develop. Now, here’s my here’s my disclosure. Yes, I get your email in exchange for it. Yes, you get a handful emails through it. Yes, you’ll get three or four emails at once you’ve completed it to outline other opportunities to engage further, this is not a perpetual process of spamming, there is real value in it because you get over 30 minutes of video content with the introductory part of our program that helps you begin with the end in mind and align your life based on who you want to become and the legacy and impact you want to have. So nolimitsprelude.com You’ll get access to a really valuable interactive course. But again, I just wanna be really clear. My goal here is to move you not to sell you or feel make you feel forced or manipulated into a program.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. So nolimitsprelude.com We’ll include the link in the show notes for everybody. Please do check that out. You know if this conversation is any indication of the quality of the content that you’re going to receive, you do not want to miss it. So no limits. perlier.com Brian, thank you so much for being on the show today. I greatly appreciate it.
Brian Bogert
Well, Scott, thank you for building the platform for me to be able to come together and pour good into the world and also for your patience with our technological glitches today.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, Brian’s video has a mind have its own, but, but we’ve worked through it. You did a fantastic job despite the circumstances. I know technical glitches while you’re communicating are just one of the worst. So way to be a champion through that. So appreciate your resilience even here in the conversation and for everyone listening. We thank you so much for your time and attention mean the absolute world to us. Thanks for being here. I hope the conversation was as rich for you as it was for me. I can tell you most podcasts I listened that like 1.5 – 2x, I think I might have to go back and listen to this one like 0.5x. There was so much rich content in there from Brian, that I just gotta go back and listen to it again. So thanks again. We look forward to seeing you guys next time. Take care.
Contact Brian Bogert
Brian is a Keynote Speaker, Business Leader, and Human Behavior & Performance Coach. His transformative approach cultivates perspective, motivation, and direction to help executives, professionals, entrepreneurs, and athletes align their life with their true purpose and defy their own expectations. He teaches not just to accept change but to embrace pain in order to avoid suffering.
You can find out more about Brian and his work at brianbogert.com and nolimitsprelude.com