From Cut to Coach | Brandon Burns

Episode Topics:

• Brandon reveals how he went from getting cut four times to coaching a championship team.
• You’ll learn why authenticity is the foundation of all successful leadership.
• Brandon breaks down exactly how to connect with any audience through vulnerability.
• This conversation destroys the victim mindset with practical steps to take control.
• Brandon shares actionable techniques for speakers and coaches that you won’t find anywhere else.

 

 

Rick Jordan  

What’s shakin? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan, today, we’re going all in. All right, we’re here, and I’ve got an amazing guest for you today. We were talking a little bit ahead of before we hit record for today’s episode, and it was awesome, because he’s like, I want to talk anything motivational. I’m like, You know what? That’s not me at all, not at all, not a bit. You know, if you’re listening to this for the first time, just take a listen to, like, literally all of the 400 episodes, and you’ll find that’s totally not true. So today, this is going to be an amazing synced up in each other’s heads, conversation with Brandon burns. What’s shaking, Brandon?

 

Brandon Burns  

Oh man, I’m super excited to be here, super excited to dive into this conversation. You know, I didn’t mention this before we hit record, but I think your content is super necessary in today’s environment. Because, as I was checking you out when I was first introduced to your stuff, I was like, man, all of his clips are like, 15 seconds or less, and I love it, because you’re not trying to be, like, super deep. You’re just trying to tell people the truth and like, here’s what works in real life. So I absolutely love that. I think we’re gonna have some fun today.

 

Rick Jordan  

Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. You know what’s interesting about that? I was just reading this week and going through with my team that Tik Tok and I think Instagram will follow, because YouTube shorts kind of starts as the algorithm is apparently starting to favor longer form content, like 90 seconds and more. Well, what you’re saying is, like, Dude, I totally agree with you, because I love those bite sized chunks. It’s like, I believe in this is motivational stuff, right? I believe that those small things can make a huge impact in people’s lives, because I know they have in mind, right? So those little things, it’s like, you can you can sit down. You’re a keynote speaker, so much you can sit down in front of an hour long keynote, but it could just be one or two sentences that change your life for the rest of your life. That’s why I love that stuff. So thank you, man, thank you. 

 

Brandon Burns  

100%. It’s funny. You mentioned that actually, I was just speaking at an event in Orlando this past weekend, and one of the other presenters, he had maybe a 30 minute presentation that he gave, and he said this one sentence. I’d never heard anybody say it before. He said, only dead fish go with the flow. Success is upstream. And of the we were there for three days. Rick, nice. We were there for three days. I was one of the speakers. The only thing I remembered from the entire weekend was that one quote. I was like, that’s the freaking one, you know, and it’s so small and bite sized, but it’s memorable. So no, I’m right there with you. Those little like proverb like little one liners, those are so good.

 

Rick Jordan  

Right on, man! That’s interesting that, you know. Let’s talk about this a little bit here. First, let’s introduce everybody to you, right? Because, I mean, you’re, you’re a keynote speaker, as you said, you know, an elite athlete, viral influencer with over 50 million views on social media, but I love this right two time Big 10 championship winning coach. Can you tell me a bit about that?

 

Brandon Burns  

100% so I was born and raised in a small town in Alabama, right outside of Huntsville. I started gymnastics when I was 10 years old. Gymnastics was my first love, through and through, loved everything about the sport. When I was 18, I walked on to the University of Michigan, so and I’m skipping a lot just so we can get to the meat of this, but understand I left everything right. I had never been more than one state away from Alabama. I grew up broke, so we never traveled anywhere. I’d been to Tennessee and Florida a couple times, but never really gone far away from Alabama. Both my parents were sick, so I left, I mean literally left everything. Moved across the country, from Huntsville, Alabama to Ann Arbor, Michigan, walked onto the team. Was cut four times in five years. When I say that, most people think it’s like a Rudy situation where there’s this miraculous comeback on year five, it was actually the exact opposite. I was on the team year one cut every subsequent year, time after time. And then I actually ended up staying in Ann Arbor for two more years, and I was two time Big 10 championship coach, like you said, from the same team that I was cut from. So it was just a crazy journey to go from, as I like to say, from cut to coach. Tons of learning involved in that, a lot of stress, but a lot of lessons that came from it, for sure.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, no joke, can we dive into that a bit? Because that’s intriguing to me, right? You get cut from the team, but yet at the same time, they see you as being able to coach, which is a that’s, is that like a lane thing or like a talent thing that you found out? Or what were your learnings from that experience?

 

Brandon Burns  

You know, I think it taught me to be authentic. Because what’s interesting is, I knew from day one that I wanted to be Phil Jackson and not Michael Jordan, right? And what I mean by that is I always had a very strategic mind. I could look at something and say, Oh, if you go cause and effect, seven steps back, here’s the root cause of why that skill went wrong, and here’s exactly how to fix it. And here’s a step by step plan on how to how to figure that out. I was just naturally good at identifying those gaps and explaining that on the competitive side, I hated competing. Like to be honest with you, the only reason I even wanted to walk onto the team at U of M was because, in my mind, as 18 year old kid, I thought that was the only. A way to stay involved in the sport of gymnastics, because I loved practicing, I loved training, I loved getting better, I loved the constant pursuit of excellence. I loved all of that. But you wanted me to get out there in front of hundreds of people in a big arena and then have this super competitive mentality? I didn’t like that, and I knew that that wasn’t really me, but in my mind, I thought, well, that’s a, it’s the only option and b That’s what everybody expects of me, right? I thought that it would be looked down upon if I said, You know what, I think I can actually contribute to this team more as a coach, I would enjoy it more as a coach, it would be less stressful. I would be more impactful. But I didn’t listen to that inner voice, you know? And I tried to do the competitive thing. I got really good in the process. Learned a ton got disciplined everything else, but I was, it was never meant for me. I was way more effective as a coach from day one.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s intriguing, man, because I’m even thinking like with business, right? Because I’ve got some, some of my own learnings I’m going through right now. The company just went public a few weeks ago, and as a CEO with a with a company with a little under 100 employees, now we’re going to have double that and just probably about another six months, because we’re buying through acquisition. We’re growing through acquisition, and I start to understand it’s like I am. There’s way better things than I’m a coach at, than there is things that I can actually do within the company, and I like to surround myself with those smart people. So I think it’s an important lesson there, man, because it’s, it’s still a coach’s job to help the team win the game, yeah, or do whatever it is, you know, score the best points, because you were talking gymnastics right, to to get the 10s all across the board, to win the tournaments, to do everything that they can do, so that the team that you’re there can represent itself properly, as a whole, as a Unit, right where I can see like the individual athlete, or even like the individual performer, in a business, those individual roles, there’s some of it to where it’s wrapped up in yourself, versus a coach has to zoom out all the time. That is like the 100% focus of the coach is to zoom out all the time, versus being able to focus just on your own individual performance. It’s a completely different mindset, bro.

 

Brandon Burns  

It is, it is, I think it’s a matter of the ability to zoom in and zoom out almost simultaneously at times, right? Because one of the biggest thing that I learned just from a leadership perspective going throughout that whole process was I had kind of assumed that, because I was good at the technical aspects of coaching gymnastics, that I would be able to walk into the gym on day one of this new role, and it was just going to work out for me, like I was going to start getting results immediately. And I kind of noticed from the bat, I was getting half of the guys really good results, and the other half it was like there was this invisible barrier between what I was saying and then what they would receive. And I knew, from a technical perspective, the things that I was saying were correct, but it wasn’t hitting home. And I learned pretty quickly that a shotgun approach, you know, maybe hit the target some of the times, but how much collateral damage you cause in the process. So I said, Okay, I gotta treat each one of these guys as an individual. So absolutely, I’ve gotta zoom out, see the big picture, be able to help make some of these decisions that maybe on an individual zoomed in level, these other athletes aren’t going to be able to make in terms of overall strategic direction. But also, I’ve got to be able to still zoom in enough to be able to connect with each individual athlete and say, Oh, here’s how you prefer to receive communication. Here’s how it makes sense to you. Here’s what you’re motivated by, here’s what’s important to you, right? Because it wasn’t the same for everybody. I think with a business perspective, it’s exactly the same way. If you try one size fits all, it’s probably not going to work. 

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah! dude, I love where our Convo is going because, I mean, for our listeners, it’s like, I think some of them want to be that coach, right? And also, I believe everybody, like, I just dropped an episode or recorded it the other day, about like five things you need to do for this coming year, right? And one of them was, get a mentor. You know, which, which we could call a mentor, a coach, and in that whether you’re going to be that coach or whether you’re looking for that coach, I think it’s so important with what you’re saying is you need to have one that has the ability to zoom in and zoom out. If you have one that’s just taking a shotgun approach, you’re only going to get so far with that individual. And that was actually one of the points that I make, too. It’s like you can actually have coaches for a specific season of your life, and then you outgrow what that coach is able to give to you. And I actually hope that, right, even for you, dude, even for me, I always hope that that somebody outgrows what I’m able to teach them, which means, means they can move on, and they can do bigger things than what I was even able to but I still contributed. There’s no ego there, dude. Yeah, I still, like, a win that’s still ingrained in me, right? But at the same time, it’s like, cool, I taught you everything I can do, and I’ll go out and do something greater and and get a different coach who can actually pour something different into you that I cannot.

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, no. 100% I think that a coach has to take part ownership in both the wins and the losses, right? Whether we’re talking about a CEO who’s leading a team or a company, or we’re talking about an actual athletics, you know, situation, the coach is a part of both the win and the loss, right? And it always used to strike me. When I was coaching, it always struck me how many of these guys, after a tough loss, would stand there on a camera doing an interview and say, Well, I can’t compete for them. And it’s like, well, yeah, but when they win, you’re talking about, oh, well, I gotta thank the coaching staff. And we all work so hard. It’s a team effort. It’s like, wait a minute, how come you put yourself in there with the win but not with the loss. When we know the leadership starts from the top. You set the culture, you set the tone, you set the standards. And by the way, you are what those guys are modeling. Those guys and girls are modeling, whether again, coach of an athletics team or the coach of a business team. Because I think that the reason I was able to get buy in with a lot of my guys at Michigan gymnastics, even though a lot of these guys were the same people who had watched me go from training with them to literally a week later on my hands and knees cleaning trophies in the lobby of the gym, right in that transition period from being a cut athlete to then becoming a coach, you know, they were still able to respect me, because they saw the discipline, they saw the commitment, they saw the dedication. They saw the wrist surgery, the shoulder problems, and still fighting after four years of getting cut over and over and over again.

 

Brandon Burns  

That was my rehab. Was just the feather duster right there for the prince.

 

Rick Jordan  

That was the image I had when you were saying that.

 

Brandon Burns  

Right? But they saw that, and so I don’t think that you necessarily, as a coach, you don’t necessarily have to be that person that has gotten all of the accolades yourself. Now, you can’t just suck at whatever you’re trying to teach, like, you have to have a certain level of credibility with the thing itself. I was still top 1% in the world in terms of athletics, whatever. I just wasn’t able to compete at that particular level. So you got to have some sort of foundation there. But at the same time, they’re looking for it, man, do I trust this person? Yeah, like they’re looking at, do I trust this person in their decision making? Do I trust this person their commitment? Do I think that this person has my best interest in mind and shows the personal qualities to lead me there? So, yeah, everything that you just said is spot on. 

 

Rick Jordan  

 Dude, I hope everybody’s listening to you right now, because it it’s still that world out there to where everybody wants to be an influencer, everybody wants to be a coach on on Instagram. And everyone looks at someone like you and is like, man, if, if they can do it, so can I right? But you’re laying out some huge points for everyone today, that there has to be that foundation to begin with. There has to be areas and think about like, keynotes, right? I’m going back to your shotgun approach, dude. Do you think that the same criteria, or the same lessons applied to when you’re on stage, because that’s another thing that people look up to. It’s like, oh, I want to be on stage too. Sure, I can’t wait. But that shock and approach even on stage is something that you got to understand. It’s like half the people are going to hate you because of what right you’re saying, just right off the bat, right? Because you have a specific message when you’re on stage, and that message is really only for, like, a subset of people that are in the audience, depending on, not so much where you’re at, but even where they’re at. So it’s a little bit difficult to go walk into a room and understand, oh, this is where everybody is, unless you have a really targeted audience.

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, yeah. It’s funny that you mentioned that one of my mentors or coaches in the speaking realm was Eric Thomas, and he still is one of the top motivational speakers in the world. And after that whole saga, you know, of getting cut from the team and coming back to coach, once I left Michigan, I actually started out my first job out of college was an unpaid internship with et and climbed the ranks, started out doing admin work and customer service for free, and then got hired full time initially, again, admin like literally spreadsheets all day long, right? Climbed the ranks, became his agent. Started negotiating gigs for him. He helped launch my speaking career, and now we got a couple of JVs together, just crazy arc of that whole relationship. But one thing that I learned from him really early on was two things. Number one, exactly what you just said. You know, half the people are not going to like what you have to say, and the other half are only going to like what you have to say if they believe that you are convicted, like if you stand on it and you really believe it, then you got that other half. If you’re kind of one foot in, one foot out, you’re a little timid, then even the other half who’s resonating with the message, even they’re not gonna like it because they feel like you’re just full of it and you’re just there for the money or the check or being on stage or whatever. So step one, believe in what you’re saying from the bottom of your heart. Step two is and he learned this because he was a pastor before he was a speaker, and so he was accustomed to having a different message every single Sunday. Really, I didn’t know that, yeah, so he was used to that same thing, having a different message every single weekend. Yeah. And so with our process, because I still do a lot of the booking for him, now, we say, hey, client, what do you guys want? Like, what’s your audience struggling with? What are the takeaways that they need? What’s the context? What situation have you found yourselves in as a company, as a team over the last six months, and then we build a completely bespoke keynote out of that. And I do my speaking the exact same way. To me, it just shows that you care more about your audience than when you write your book and do the same four points and 45 minute keynote for the next 20 years. You know?

 

Rick Jordan  

For sure, dude, there’s a it’s funny. You mentioned that as I was tapping. You know, most people listen rather than one. Watch of the show, and it’s like, yeah, I was, and regular listeners know that I was, I helped plant three churches, and you’re right about that. I did stand up on Broadway a few years ago, and it was, yeah, but when I walked off, right? Because it’s a there’s a skill set. So maybe there’s, maybe there’s, I don’t know, maybe there’s some pastors listening today. They’re like, you know, I want to expand and do whatever I’d you know, they feel like they’re growing into a different area of their life. I don’t know. I don’t know, but when I was on there, you know, of course, there’s some things, right, as jokes. When you’re in there, they the sizzle reels, dude for stand up, there’s there’s laughter. They find the best spots and everything. And even, like the Netflix specials, you know, they’re like an hour long for, like, fluffy, right? You go see them in person, it’s like two hours long because they’re only taking the best stuff and putting it up there for the for the for the whatever. But my coach for that, I had a coach for that, for stand up when I did this challenge, I had a coach for that too. He’s like, Dude, you got that Pastor blood running through you. I’m like, What do you mean? He’s like, when some jokes didn’t land, it didn’t phase you, you just kept rolling like you were preaching the sermon on Sunday. That’s hilarious.

 

Brandon Burns  

Oh man, that’s a great skill set to have. The hallmark of a pastor turned speaker or anything else is when you close for 30 minutes straight, it’s like, all right, I’m getting out of here. This is my last thing. And then 30 minutes later, you’re still on stage. That’s hilarious of a past, man.

 

Rick Jordan  

Oh my gosh, I have intentionally tried to eliminate that from all of my talks right there, for the clothes, for whatever to end powerfully and swiftly. You know, that’s gotta be, it has so much more impact. You know, at least I’ve learned since those days. Anyways, yeah, the first, the first lesson that you were talking about for me to, you know, tailoring the message to that specific audience. I think that’s something that, in addition to having like five signature talks for a keynote speaker, because you should have those, you absolutely should things that you can go back to, because then when you know them. I didn’t know when you get into speaking tips today. You know when you get when you get to that point where you have those five signature talks and you know them. Beyond memorization, you can start to have fun with them. You can interchange stories with those and everything. But at the same time, dude, that’s brilliant. I love your approach to be like, we’re gonna tailor it to everybody who’s in here today. And same thing, it’s like with et he knows. It’s like, if you read your audience and all of a sudden it’s like, something lands really, really well. You might, within the first five minutes, you might throw out the remaining 30 minutes of your keynote and just focus on the depth of that one single point because of the response and where everybody’s condition of their hearts and their mind is in that room.

 

Brandon Burns  

No. Literally, and for anybody who might be listening, I don’t know if we have any aspiring speakers on here, but the way that I always teach people to do exactly what you’re talking about there. Yes, absolutely. Have your core three to five keynotes that you can do in your sleep. That’s super important, especially for marketability, right? If you’re coaching other again, planners, you can say, hey, here’s exactly what I talk about. But the key to being able to improv on stage as a speaker is, I always tell people, write down the top 10 moments of your life, write down the top 10 low points of your life, right? And then give me a story for each one. So for me, one of those would be cut from the team four times in five years. One of the low points would be suicidal ideation when I was in my teenage years, right? So and I got stories that go along with each of these of how I got there, how I got through it, etc. Then give me three different morals of the story. So for the gymnastics thing, I can talk about work ethic. I can talk about staying committed even when it’s not easy. I can talk about persistence. I can talk about resiliency. I can talk about getting back up. Like there’s a bunch of different nuanced little ways that I can break down that story and it changes the way that I deliver it. And then it’s like, it’s your life, so you’re not going to forget it. And now I’ve got 10 highlights, 10 low lights, with three different lessons attached for each put in a story format. That’s 60 stories that I can tell on stage. If it takes me 10 to 12 minutes to do that, I’m never running out. I don’t care what you want me to talk about. I can do 45 minutes, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

 

Rick Jordan  

Right on! Dude, that’s brilliant tactical advice. Dude, that’s amazing. Well, we’ve gone directions that I hadn’t anticipated. Today we ended up getting into, like, coaching all the aspiring speakers and all of the aspiring what else did we talk about? The coaches? It’s like, wow, we’re just having such a good time. But, dude, there’s something that I that I caught in your bio, that I do want to get get into here a little bit, because it was about family trauma during your childhood, yeah, and being able to overcome a victim mindset. And there’s something that you said that that et believes in, right, is where you have to believe what you’re saying, right? I actually had one of those snippets you were talking about on my own content a little bit ago, it’s like you have to believe what you’re saying before people are believing what you’re saying. Yeah, so that’s good. It’s it applies. And when you’re in a victim mindset, I believe it’s impossible to do that, to actually believe what’s coming out of your own mouth, because no matter what, you’re always going to revert back to this. Phase to where everything else is, what’s doing things to you, rather than you choosing to continue to stay in that same spot without making the change that you need to be in a different place. So can we dive deep? What is the childhood trauma, man, that you had?

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, it was, it was a few different things from a couple different angles. So first and foremost, biological father left before I was born. So I think there’s a little bit of a hole there of why didn’t the person who should have loved me the most not think that I was worth sitting around for? Right? It to a point where, in my mind, I was like, Okay, you didn’t even give me a chance to quote, unquote, win you over, which is a crazy thing to even think about. But I remember as young as eight, nine years old, I was having those sorts of ideas, then you add on financial stress, right? Grew up with two parent household because my stepfather actually stepped into our family also before I was born. So to me, that’s my dad, through and through, can never repay him for what he’s done for me. Raised me like his own. That’s cool, but you know, still we never, as a family, made more than 60,000 bucks a year combined, mom and dad. Mom got sick, incurable autoimmune disease that took her income away. Dad got laid off when I was still pretty young. He was driving trucks for a while. So and my mom again, autoimmune disease. My dad, like I said, step dad, but I call him dad. He’s had cancer twice, and so when he got medical bills that pile up 60 grand doesn’t go that that far, right? Yeah. And I remember literally sitting in my room as a kid one day, probably at 1213, years old, and asking, God, like, Why? Why us? You know, and my mom would get phone calls from the car collection agency. Hey, you’re late on your car payment. We’re looking for your car right now. We’re going to come take it off the street and tow it away. And thankfully, that never happened. We always had a roof over our head, because we could always eat. But I remember seeing the tears fall from my mom’s eyes and having that affect me so much, and me going, God, why? Like, why is this happening to these good people so financial stress, feeling like I didn’t belong, feeling like I wasn’t loved by somebody who who should have and then just being a misfit man, I mean, you’re a male gymnast in Alabama. Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of people around that are super supportive of that. And, you know, there’s a lot of stereotypes and stigmas and everything else that don’t even apply to me. But when you’re nine years old, people looking at material, right, right, exactly. It’s like, if you’re gonna get bullied, that’s like, prime suspect, right there. And I was super shy. I was an introverted kid, literally to the point where when I was 21 years old, as a senior at Michigan, I would have panic attacks on the first day of class because I’d have to stand up and say, Hi, I’m Brandon. I’m studying economics and psychology like super social anxiety. So the fact that I’m a speaker now is just a testament to the change that somebody can actually have in their life. But I think you said an important word with all that, which is a choice. You got to make a choice to take a chance, to create a change. If you don’t make the choice you like, what’s the alternative? Because here’s what happens. Rick people are so enamored by their comfort zone that they literally will sacrifice the version of them that they could be at the altar of their comfort zone, like you’re you’re it is so scary to you to take that step to just say, Hey, I wonder what’s out here for me. I wonder if I just push all this stuff aside and just try to see what I can make of myself, right? And yes, you’re absolutely right. The people who love you, they weren’t there for you. That sucks, and that’s real. That’s not an excuse. That’s real. Yeah, you grew up broke. That’s real. But guess what? What are you going to do about it? You know, and the people who are willing to step up and make that choice, it’s incredible what can happen with their lives.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s brilliant, man. So coming back from that, because you talked about financial stress even growing up, right? And I can relate to that a bit. It’s like my dad used to say he was the he had the best part time job in the world, you know, really never made more than like, 40k but he was always around, right? A great, great foundation. And my mom, she would watch kids in her house, you know, to help make ends meet. You know, it was like a daycare in my home for six or seven years with another, like, eight to 10 kids at any point in time. Yeah, it’s like, I look back on it, and even though I know the details of those things to where it’s the church would bring us food right when we needed it. And there were several Christmases to where the church would even like drop off Christmas gifts, because there wasn’t money to to even exchange, right? We just came out of Christmas, at least when this is being published anyway, so it makes sense. It’s like, most people go into debt, but there wasn’t even the debt that was available to buy all these things, right? To go into debt. How did that affect you? Because for me, I’ll give you an example. The only thing my parents ever fought over was money, period. Otherwise, amazing marriage, right? So that’s something that I recognize, and it drove me to be like, I just never want to have to worry about it. I want to be able to be able to spread it around to everybody else, so I can affect most people to where they don’t have to worry about it either, especially, obviously the core family that I’m responsible for. How did it affect you in that stress growing up?

 

Brandon Burns  

Man, it’s kind of funny, because I didn’t realize that it affected me at all. And. Until maybe three or four years ago. So I grew up, of course, being in that environment, that was what was normal to me. And of course, all the friends that I was around, neighbors and anything else, they were in the exact same situation that I was. So I never really recognized that that was different. As matter of fact, I remember, my dad has always been into airplanes and stuff. He was an aerospace engineer, and we were living in Huntsville, right over the flight path for Huntsville airport. And every once in a while, you see these big 747, go directly over our little, 900 square foot house, and you could feel the house shake, so you knew that they were coming. And my dad and I would always get up and run outside, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and just point up there and look at it and looking back on it, I remember thinking, even as a kid, six, seven years old, that’s how rich people travel. We don’t do that. And I never thought I was going to get on an airplane. I was 18 by the time I got in on an airplane for the first time, and I paid for the ticket myself from the coaching job that I had coaching gymnastics. And so there was always that separation of them and us, right? I think another time that comes to mind where that separation really became clear was I had one friend who was a little bit more well off. I don’t know how much his parents made, probably, you know, two, 300 grand a year, or something like that, but they lived in the the nicer neighborhood, which in Huntsville, Alabama. That’s enough to get you into the nicer neighborhood, right? And I remember one time I invited my friend who is my age, over to my house for, you know, to hang out. And his parents said, Well, we’re not really comfortable with him going TO to your neighborhood, but you can always come over to our house anytime you want. And again, even as a kid, you’re like, that hurts your ego a little bit. You’re like, Oh, am I not worthy? Am I not enough? Am I not okay? Is something wrong with us, you know, and it just it gives you that feeling of us versus them. I didn’t realize how much it affected me until three years ago, or four years ago, when I got linked up with Eric Thomas, Jamal King and all these other people who all of a sudden, to them eight figures, is like, Oh, well, this is normal. And that was a crazy thing to happen in my head, coming from where I came from, like, Oh, you mean to tell me that you guys fly private, and that’s not a thing. Like, you don’t have to pull your phone out and take a picture of the jet. It’s just the way that you live that changed everything for me. So now that I look back on it, now that I’ve got a little bit more conscious awareness of everything that happens, I think it instilled a drive that it was never gonna be us and them ever again. It was just going to be, it’s just us. It’s just I’m part of I can go back there and love those same people that come from those sorts of environments, and I can get it, I can understand it, and then I can hang out with the people on private jets, and I can completely belong and not feel out of place there, too. I think it gave me a drive to eliminate that dividing line between us. 

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s cool. Now I’m gonna, I’m gonna flip this real quick you could call a devil’s advocate or whatever, because there is the the opposite experience, right? Not yours, but those that you used to hang out with when you were young, too, yeah? Because now that you’ve ascended into an area to where you have some money, right? Everybody sees you as the same as they see me. It’s like, Oh, those are the rich guys? Yeah, right. And it almost in the opposite perspective, eliminates the relatability, because I just don’t understand, right, like where you came from, or like me when I had no electricity for three days, when my twins were born and laid off with zero income whatsoever, and a 900 square foot condo in a family of four, it’s like, those are the stories. You know, I’m always curious to find out how everyone else helps still try to make that bridge. How do you try to do that so that you can be relatable, whether it’s on stage or anything else, to what they’re going through?

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, so it’s something that another one of my speaking mentors. Her name is Valerie Humphrey. She was one of the head coaches of one of E T’s speaking programs, where I teach the speakers and that kind of thing. One thing that she told me very, very early on in my career was you have to get through your story to get to your story, meaning, if you don’t make that transformation, and you don’t make peace with where you came from and where you’re at now, then you’ll never be able to relay that to an audience, because words can be empty. Words can be hollow if you just try and make up some sob story about this is where I came from, and but if you don’t genuinely make peace with hey, here’s my story, this really happened, you’re never going to be able to connect with an audience with that same story, and also, you’re not going to be comfortable even saying it. So I think, to answer your question, it’s a matter of just being authentic and being vulnerable and really getting these stories out there and telling people, Hey, I didn’t come for money. Wasn’t born for money. Was born with zero exposure. I never knew anybody who made six figures or seven or anything like that. When I was growing up, I was hanging out with a bunch of other people that probably never thought they would fly on an airplane at one point either. I’m talking about, like, Spirit Airlines, by the way. I’m not talking about flying private like, I didn’t think that I would be able to fly on an airplane, right? I think it’s just, it’s telling people those stories and being vulnerable and authentic enough to where people can see themselves where you were, and at that point, that’s what makes you relatable. All these people on Instagram that are like renting Lamborghinis for a day, and they take pictures with it, and they try and sell you a course, and they don’t tell you their story. Dude, stay away from those people, because it’s not they don’t know. They don’t a they don’t know, actually, how to get you from point A to B period. They just don’t know how to do it. But B, it’s like if that’s the version of yourself that you’re trying to portray on social media, if you’re trying to portray this perfect lifestyle where you have no flaws, you don’t ever lose your temper, you’ve never been broke, you’ve never done anything wrong, you’ve never made a mistake. Nobody can relate with that. Because, like, you’re not Jesus, nobody relates with that. People need somebody that they can relate to, and so when you’re willing to show them that you’re a real person, that’s how you get buy in. 

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s funny. You’re not Jesus. That’s a great quote to pull out from this man for real.

 

Brandon Burns  

And you’re never gonna be so stop trying. 

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah. No joke, I’ve had, I blocked out the parking lots before, and had individuals because I I had an ass in Martin up until just a couple months ago, when I dude, I traded it for a BMW XM. It’s like a Batmobile. I love it, right? It was a good it was a good trade, especially living in Chicago when I could only drive the ass in like five or six months out of the year. You know, it got to be annoying during the colder months, least since I can drive, but I would walk out. I remember a specific time at Costco. Yes, millionaire CEO shop at Costco still, you know, but that’s the point. It’s like, we still do, we still do everyday, normal stuff too. You know, walking outside, they’re like, Hey, someone just was taking pictures with themselves in your car. I just wanted to let you know, like, that’s okay. They’re probably an online coach. I did that. Yeah, yeah, but the authenticity, man, that’s so important, because I believe this is relevant, not just for speakers, not just for coaches what you’re saying, but literally for everybody, even in one on one conversations. Because if you’re looking to move into a new place of your life, you have to incorporate who you were. You know, you take the learnings from that. I’m sure you’ve had it, man, where you’ve heard that there’s almost like people have lived two different lives. It’s like where they say, but I’m not that person anymore. It’s like you are that person. You are now a grown and evolved version of that person. It’s not that you’re not that person anymore, because if you exclude what you were, it completely minimizes all the growth and everything you’ve been able to accomplish in the meantime. To get to where you are, you need to acknowledge that you still are that person from 10 years ago, at your core, you have just grown and had better behaviors and become more enlightened and had some growth of your heart, your emotions, your behaviors, everything since that point in time. I don’t know you’re taking notes right now. You seem to be, yeah.

 

Rick Jordan  

But think about it. Incorporate who you were. You wouldn’t be able to tell your story right now. You probably wouldn’t even be able to have a relevant conversation with somebody at a coffee house. Everything would be so superficial if all you do is just talk about what you are today, almost pretending like you didn’t exist 10 years ago.

 

Brandon Burns  

No, I’m pulling up just because you mentioned you were a former pastor, right? Almost use this trademark. Let me go. Let me go.

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah. I mean, there’s no depth to that. And as you were speaking, it reminded me of the Scripture. And this is not like a bible thumper type of thing. This is just something that came to mind, and I think is it’s a fundamental truth, whether you believe in the rest of the story or not. But this is from Philippians 413 right? And that’s the one that everybody knows, which is, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Nobody ever quotes 412 I think that’s really interesting, because 412 is what gives you the context for 413 412 says, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I’ve learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. And it’s like, if you don’t learn to appreciate the times where you’re in want, the times where in your where you’re in need, the times where you’re hungry, then how in the world can you claim to have any sort of insight or depth of wisdom for it, for the other side of the spectrum, right? It’s like, if you just want to get rid of all those experiences, then you’re getting rid of a core part of the growth and development process that made you the person that you are today who is even worthy of living in that abundance. So you’re spot on with that. You can’t just discard half of your freaking life like it didn’t exist.

 

Rick Jordan  

No joke. Dude, I love that. You’re quoting that too, because coming from the pastoral realm, you know, the misquotes and everything that was taken out of context, which, which, that’s what that is, right? And you know, again, it’s not, as you said, it’s not a bible thumper show. But just imagine this, right? We talked about victim mindset, if you are only hanging on Philippians 413 and saying that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, that, and you’re just saying, What’s the opposite of that? Right? You’re just saying that you can’t do anything unless there’s like some kind of divine intervention. But what if that divine intervention was actually like divine partnership? Up in everything that precedes that verse, saying that, you know what, I’ve been through a bunch of crap. I’ve learned my mistakes and recognize that I actually had everything I needed to begin with, because it was already provided to me. I just had to get out of my own shit and move into a point to where I recognize that God, you already gave me everything. I’ve been blind to it. I’ve been avoiding it because I’ve just been hanging on this one thing about saying, Oh, come in and save me. And he’s in there. He’s like, I already did. It’s past tense. I already did. I wish you would just open your eyes and be like, Hey, you got everything right there. You still have the responsibility to make the choice. You know that free will thing, it’s on you right now. Make the move.

 

Brandon Burns  

I got a buddy who’s he’s a celebrity personal trainer, and he told me one time that faith moves mountains the same way that a bicycle moves mountains. You get on your bicycle and you start pedaling, all of a sudden, that Mountain’s moving underneath you, but only because you were pedaling. If you don’t do your part of it, you can’t sit around and just pray. I mean, hey, listen, prayer is great. Visualization is great. Affirmations are great. Like all the personal development guru stuff is great. But if you don’t do something to and it doesn’t have to be a monumental step, right? One of the things that I said to the audience this past weekend was, no brand new parent, and I don’t have kids yet, but, of course, coaching kids all my entire life, I kind of get it. But no new parent would ever go look at their infant, child or their toddler and on their very first step, their first day walking, say, Oh, you didn’t set a new record in the 40 yard dash trash. Bring it back. I don’t even want it anymore. You’re terrible. You suck. It’s like dude the universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it, is looking for baby steps. It’s looking for you to take the first step and then it’s going to help you something. Et says all the time, if you have a car breakdown and you’re just sitting there, you got your thumb out of the window, how likely is somebody to stop their car and get out there and help you? Pretty, pretty small likelihood. If they see you out and you’re pushing that thing, everybody’s going to want to come and help you, because they help you, because they see that you’re taking that first step. You don’t have to say, how do I go from broke to seven figures in three months? You don’t have to say, how do I go from Super obese and overweight to losing 200 pounds in three months? You just have to say, How can I put myself in a marginally better position that is more conducive for success than what I currently have right now. And forget, I want to cuss too much. Forget all the excuses, forget all the real life reasons that are probably completely valid and completely true of why you’re in the circumstances situation. And just say, You know what? Let’s figure out what I can do to not sit here and cry about it and just get 1% better. And then you do that every single day. You look back a year from now, five years from now, you won’t even recognize yourself. And the bigger piece of it is the empowerment that you’re going to get from understanding that you had that level of control the entire time.

 

Rick Jordan  

Man, Brandon burns. Everybody take his words, apply him to your life and watch things change for you. Dude, where can everybody find you best place, because you’ve inspired me today. That was fire, by the way.

 

Brandon Burns  

Oh man, I appreciate that I am b burns, it’s pretty much everywhere. I try to keep it simple, all the different social medias, the website, it’s all I am. B burns.

 

Rick Jordan  

Oh, I love it, man. Thanks so much for coming on, dude. This was amazing. 

 

Brandon Burns  

Man, I appreciate the opportunity. And I would just encourage the audience one more time, anything that I said, or anything that Rick said, Please don’t just listen to it and go, Wow, that was really deep. Go take action on it. Take one little thing. Pick it out from this podcast. Go take action on it. Do the same thing again tomorrow. It’s gonna change your life.