August 18, 2025 • 50 mins
In this powerful episode of The Asset Mindset Podcast, host Daniel Fielding sits down with Bruce Parkman—author, entrepreneur, former Green Beret, and founder of The Mac Parkman Foundation. Together, they explore how mindset shapes every challenge and opportunity in life.
From his military career to overcoming personal struggles and building businesses, Bruce shares raw and practical lessons on resilience, mental health advocacy, and mentorship. You’ll hear about his journey of transformation after devastating loss, his insights on leadership, and how maintaining a positive mental attitude can help anyone rise above adversity.
Whether you’re a veteran, entrepreneur, or someone striving for personal growth, this conversation will inspire you to push through obstacles and unlock your potential.
👉 Don’t miss this episode—hit follow, share, like, and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to stay connected with more inspiring conversations that fuel growth and resilience.
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Website: https://www.mpfact.org/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the Asset Mindset Podcast.
Today we got a really coolepisode.
One of my believe it or notmentors from back in the day.
I've heard about him and legendas I was in seven special
forces group.
He was in seven special forcesgroup and he actually, when I
got out, helped me put food onthe table while I worked for him
at NEK.
So I did some cool stuff.
(00:28):
I'm very grateful and honoredto have Bruce Parkman on the
Asset Mindset podcast here.
Live with us today and Bruce,say hello to the Asset Mindset
folks.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Dan, I just can't thank you enough for having me
on this podcast.
Didn't know?
I mean, we had, man back in theday, so many employees and that
was one of the reasons I wantedto sell the company is.
I just couldn't know everybodyand I am so grateful to be asked
to be on this podcast and sharewhatever I've been through to
help you and help other people,man.
(01:02):
So I'm here and thanks forhosting this, man.
I mean, a podcast that has thefocus that you have right now is
so needed in this crazy world,man.
I can't thank you enough forputting this together, man, all
about it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
No, thank you, it's an honor.
It's people like you and othersthat have gone before us that
help teach us how to pay itforward and the lessons we've
learned.
And to kind of sum up, I'llshare a little bit of the asset
mindset.
So we obviously know deoppressor liber to free the
oppressed, or to free fromoppression.
That's our motto.
Well, after getting out anddoing some DOD contract work and
(01:36):
being on the road being a roleplayer and in the hotel rooms, I
decided to take our motto deoppressor liber to the civilian
world and write the AssetMindset, because I think people
oppress themselves with theirown mindset and the way they
think and victim mentality.
So I wrote the book to try andhelp change people's lives.
It's done it and here I am nowwith a podcast with great guests
(01:59):
like you who have also achievedsuccess by using what I call
the Asset Mindset you who havealso achieved success by using
what I call the asset mindset.
So why don't you share a littlebit about your first time when
you realized that your mindsetactually helped define, or any
moment that you want to share,when you really realized that
your mindset was so powerful andcould overcome challenges in
(02:20):
life?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I think you know, in the military, you know as a
Green Beret, you know you kindof, once you get the hat, you
kind of get that attitude rightand we're all through it.
And you know, and I just I knowthere's several times.
The one time I did doubt myselfthe most is when I volunteered
(02:42):
for combat in El Salvador to bea military advisor and at that
time, literally they dropped meoff on a hilltop and gave me a
radio and said call in everySunday, let us know you're alive
, and here's two battalions ofinfantry to work with and go
kick some ass.
I'm like, okay, so I'm a28-year-old E7, and for the
(03:03):
first time I really doubtedmyself.
You know, I just left SWCC.
I got all the certifications tobe there.
I was 0-9.
I was an E7.
I went through A-knock, yada,yada.
I was like, what do I do now?
The guy I replaced was a drunkand all he wanted to do was
drink.
I'm like, dude, we got to workhere.
It was a quiet zone, but therewas work to be done and um, and
(03:24):
then I just said F it, you know,let's go.
What I got to do, you know, andI've been training troops for a
while.
So I just started digging inand and piling on.
Next, you know we're buildingmore to pitch.
It's like we ain't got noindirect fire.
I mean, I mean we're fighting awar with no helicopters, no
artillery, nothing dude, justsmall arms right Getting out
there at night getting on it.
Not that we were that, you knowI went out with them and you
(03:47):
know we weren't supposed to, butyeah, that's what you had to do
and we were in a pretty quietzone anyways.
But that's when I started to.
You know, after about ninemonths of that, actually, I was
in the embassy and I was, youknow, we used to had to come in
once a month and we had to talkabout our what's going on in our
what, our destacamento militarthis is what they called our
bases.
(04:07):
And I remember that we got amill group commander who was an
artillery dude right General.
He was Colonel Hamilton at thetime became a tomb star, but he
became the mill group commander.
He wasn't a SEAL, wasn't aGreen Beret, and we're all going
what the F?
And there's only 55 of usbecause we were capped right.
(04:30):
So this is when I startedunderstanding really what Green
Berets can do, because I wasliterally in the bathroom, on
the throne right, and the millgroup commander comes walking in
with this high-ranking.
It was an Army official thatwas down there just checking on
the war Because everybodythought we were going to go into
Vietnam, right?
Oh, we got advisors, all thisstuff, and they're standing at
the pisser and they don't know.
I'm in the room and thatcolonel told him.
(04:51):
He said look, when I took thisjob and you told me that I could
put a single E-7 by himself ina combat zone with no support
and they can affect change, Iwould have told you you were
smoking more dope than anybodyin the world.
And he, he and I heard him saythese men are amazing.
He said what they're doing, howthey're doing it, like we had
(05:14):
no resources.
Man, I had some butcher blockpaper.
They say get out there.
But and that's when you know Istarted understanding, said wow,
you know, up until then youjust think you want this is what
we do, right.
I said wow, up until then youjust think this is what we do,
right.
I mean, green Berets do this,we go on missions, we do this.
And it just never hit me untilthat moment that being alone,
like many of our brothers hadbeen up to that time.
And getting things done is whatwe do.
(05:36):
And, man, we put together scubaschools, we put together recon
schools.
I mean, anytime somebody askedfor something, man, we got it
done.
Together recon schools.
I mean, anytime somebody askedfor something, man, we got it
done.
And it was a fascinatingexperience.
But that's when I started toreally have the confidence that
I should have had.
As a Green Beret I didn't have alot of confidence.
I was, you know, an abusedchild.
(05:56):
I came in and I, you know I wasnew to SF, I was still trying
to make my mark.
But, yeah, that's.
I think that's when, the firsttime that, you know, my positive
, optimistic side kind ofcrossed my creative side, said,
hey, I got nothing, I got tohelp this Colonel out and and,
and, you know, I got to defendhis quartel.
(06:18):
I, you know he's, he's had ayear of a drunk advisor, didn't
do anything.
So let's, let's get it moving.
So I think that was pretty muchthe first time.
Uh, that and then, um, passing,scuba school was that was.
That was another time where Ijust, you know, I had to put it
all together, man, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, so the positive mental attitude that you're
able to create and things thatyou've done in the experiences
as being a green beret that iscarried over into the civilian
world as well.
How does that transition happenfor a guy like you or a guy
like me?
How can we share that with thenext generation that's coming up
(06:56):
?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
What I would tell the next generation and I think
this is what's happened to me inmy life is that God will always
put doors in front of you andif you don't believe in the Lord
, no problem, doors are going toopen up, no matter how they get
there.
Your choice is do I open thatdoor or not?
And you can open that door andsee what's on the other side and
(07:19):
have the confidence in yourselfto say no matter what's going
to happen on that side of thedoor, I can handle this.
Or you can spend the rest ofyour life wondering what would
happen if I opened that door.
So when I got out, it wasbefore the towers right, it was
tough, bro.
I mean it took you five minutesto send in a resume over AOL,
(07:42):
all that stuff, right.
I had no network.
Over AOL, all that stuff, right, I had no network.
I was unemployed, a retiredGreen Beret sergeant major in El
Paso, texas, with my beautifulnew bride.
I couldn't find a job, man, Iwas depressed.
I mean, I got out, I was like,wow, man, I was beaten down.
Like all you know, when youtransition, you're not ready for
(08:02):
this right, and I think one ofthe points I'd like to get to
with you is that every militaryperson that leaves, especially
Green Berets, has everything ittakes to be successful in this
world, and they just don't feelit.
They don't see it because it'ssomething that they've never
done.
(08:22):
They're not prepared for it.
It's not like, hey, I got to goto ONI school and you G2 the
test right.
Or I'm going to scuba school,you can talk to other scuba guys
.
There is no course ontransition, right it's you know,
unless you want to become adefense contractor, which
unfortunately many of ourbrethren done and deprived this
nation of some really goodcompanies and good leaderships.
(08:42):
But there's other guys thathave made that transition and so
, you know, in 2002, somebodyasked me to bid on a contract.
He said, hey, you know, I'vegot this colonel.
He needs four Green Berets.
Can you do this?
And I said, well, I am a GreenBeret, I know how to write, I
(09:05):
wrote all those risk assessmentsand you know everything for our
missions, all that.
You know all the missionplanning and country studies and
all that stuff.
I thought all right.
So I wrote a proposal and I wonand I got picked up.
But then I had to start acompany and I had never, but I
just won a million dollarcontract.
What is payroll right?
What's insurance?
I was sending guys.
I literally won the contract togo build the WMD search
capability for the Iraq invasion.
(09:27):
I had to hire three of my bestfriends.
I did.
It was crazy.
But it's all about yourconfidence that the military,
just by not even being a GreenBeret, just by being a soldier
right or, you know, male orfemale, we have levels of
confidence and experience thatnobody else in the country has
(09:49):
when they start out in life orwhen they start a new chapter,
and I think we don't giveourselves a pat on the back for
serving and learning.
And then we lack the confidenceto really do something crazy,
like start a business or start apodcast or write a book,
identify a niche, and so I, youknow that would be my message to
(10:11):
the generations.
Like you, have what it takesand everything that you're
pushing for, sir, when you starttalking about optimism and
confidence and and just, youknow the intestinal fortitude
right, everything that we got inthe army right Is is just being
applied.
And it's even easier out here.
Nobody puts a rucksack on yourback or makes you jump out of a
(10:31):
plane in the middle of the nightwith a chem light on the back
of your you know parachute.
I mean, in some ways it'sscarier because there's a lot on
the line, but on the other side, the upside for those that
really can that do well, is, is,is, is.
There's no end to it, there'sno capital.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
No, absolutely.
Can you do me a favor and walkus through your mental process
when facing an overwhelmingchallenge, like in real time, so
in your experiences and allthose things, and starting a
company?
And starting a company so forour listeners, because not
everybody here is formermilitary or whatnot, because you
don't have to be special forcesto have the asset mindset.
(11:10):
You can have the asset mindsetand not be SF or an operator or
whatnot.
But when you're going throughyour mental process, when facing
a challenge, what steps do youtake that you can share with the
audience?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
What steps do you take that you can share with the
audience when I'm challengedand this is where I am at this
point when I was challengedabout 10 to 15 years ago, I just
went for it, I swung and, nomatter what happened, I made so
many.
I didn't plan, I didn't, Ididn't Like if I had an idea.
(11:44):
I have wasted so much money oncompanies and ideas that didn't
pan out because I knew betterthan anybody this was going to
get out there Right.
And we get cocky in life,especially, you know, you sell
your first company, get out as aGreen Beret.
You think, man, I could doanything.
But for those people that are,that are getting ready to start
out, when you're beingchallenged number one, you have
to trust in yourself.
Being challenged number one,you have to trust in yourself.
(12:09):
You have to trust yourself thatyou can do.
Whatever endeavor you'regetting ready to take forth, you
can do it.
Nothing's going to stop you.
The next part, which is equallyas important, is that no matter
what happens, good or bad, it'sgoing to be a learning process
that you're going to, a learningevent that you're going to rely
on for the rest of your life.
(12:29):
You know I always had atwo-strike rule in the military.
I didn't give a crap, even withmy kids, my soldiers, how many
mistakes you made, as long asyou didn't make the same mistake
twice, because experience comesfrom learning and learning
comes from making mistakes.
You have to make mistakes inlife to go forward.
What you can do is minimizethose mistakes through
(12:51):
preparation, through planning,through talking to others that
have been there before.
So you know when I'm challenged, you know with something and I
have been challenged bro.
I mean something and I havebeen challenged, bro.
I mean I lost my son four yearsago.
Now I think I can relate thisbetter.
Is that, first of all, I trustin the Lord, or I trust in faith
(13:13):
?
I cannot control what's goingto happen.
I mean, whatever's going tohappen is going to happen, but I
just got to get on it and aslong as I give it 110%, no
matter what happens, I gave it110% and that's what's going to
get you over the hump.
Is that when times are hard andthey're going to be hard,
(13:36):
whether it's monetary, whetherit's relationship-based, whether
it's personnel, managing peoplenowadays is not, it's not a
birthday party man.
You know people are tough andthey have expectations and
entitlements, or you know it'sjust different generations that
you're going to have to cross inhow you communicate.
But you know, and that's whenyour confidence in yourself and
(14:02):
your trust that you can get thisdone is going to count more
than ever.
And so you know those are, youknow it's.
And no matter what you're goingto do, I'm telling you I mean, I
own a software company thatwe're finally doing something
that nobody else knows how to doand we literally how I fell
into that is a four hour storyand a bag of chicken wings and
(14:24):
some beer.
But trust me, no matter whatyou plan on doing in your life,
there's probably somebody that'sdone something close to it or
done something like it before.
Whether you're going to buy agas station or a chain of liquor
stores, start your own company.
Talk to people that have beenthere, because preparation is,
(14:46):
you know, you know the the thebest, the best path forward, uh,
to, to, to do something.
You know, matt, and it's goingto be new to you.
So you know, those are justsome of the things that pop into
my head.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, and chance favors the prepared mind.
You know, the more you prepare,the better your odds are at
succeeding.
The more you work hard andstudy in the effort you put in,
the better you're going to do inlife.
That's just how it works.
The more you surround yourselfwith mentors or find mentors,
those things are so impactful.
But what happens when someonehas a victim mentality and
(15:20):
they're stuck like, oh, thishappened to me, oh, poor me.
What advice or how would yousnap somebody out of that victim
mentality where they think theycan't because of their past?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
To me.
You know, a lot of victimmentality is based on, you know
how you were raised trauma and alack of confidence in yourself.
All right, and when you say,hey, woe is me.
I mean you're giving up.
All right, and that's just notwhat we do as humans.
We don't give up, and if you'regoing to give up, you shouldn't
(15:52):
start it in the first place.
All right, if you're going tostart something and you have a
tendency to do things half-assed, or if you expect that, because
you start something, that youdeserve a victory, right.
Hey, I'm going to start acompany and I want to make a
million bucks by the end of thisyear.
No, bro, sorry, you know, hey,sister, it's a lot of hard work
to get there, but when you getit you've earned it.
(16:14):
Okay.
So people sometimes expectthings to happen real fast and
they don't want a lot ofconfrontation, they don't want
to climb over obstacles, theyjust want to happen.
Hey, I started this and this isgoing to happen.
Man, murphy's out there, life'sout there.
If you're not in the military,murphy's, that little guy that's
always messing with you, man.
And so we have this thingcalled Murphy out there.
(16:35):
You know you're not expectingsomething.
It's going to happen.
Whatever you don't plan for isgoing to happen and it's going
to be all about your attitude.
But if you do have a victimattitude or woe is me attitude I
would look at your ego.
Okay, our egos.
Right now run our lives, goodand bad, and if you look dial
(16:58):
into ego, death.
And for me, an older man, I'vebeen on a very deep, profound
spiritual journey that has ledme to a point in my life which
we can talk about, dan is.
I am so optimistic now becauseI know whatever's going to
happen is going to happen.
So why am I worried about it?
Why do I worry about what'sgoing to happen next week?
I can't control that.
All I can do is my best.
(17:20):
And if I've done my best, thenwhatever happened next week, I
deserve it.
And sometimes it don't work outand you just have, like this
company here, man, you know, youknow I don't know what's going
to happen to this company.
People tell me it's worth abillion dollars.
Other people are like therecould be a worth a billion
dollars.
I'm like, all right, well,whatever, man, and we've
struggled, man, to get to thispoint.
I don't know.
But the issue is, it's beenseven years of ass pain to get
(17:46):
to the point of where we'restarting to get the look that we
wanted seven years ago Wasn'teasy.
So I would say to your folks youknow, take a look at yourself
and how you can change thatmentality.
Because you know that comesfrom you know the way you
perceive life.
It could be the way you weretreated by your parents, the way
you know that things havehappened to cause that.
(18:08):
Because that's, you know,that's not the attitude that you
should want.
You should be optimistic inthis life.
You know you are a part of theLord's world and you have.
Everybody has so much to offereach other, and a victim
mentality is very selfish.
It's also, hey, it's focused onyou.
(18:32):
And this world, a long times,is not about you.
It took me 63 years tounderstand that my job, the rest
of this life, is to serve otherpeople.
I do not care what happens toBruce Parkman anymore.
Right, I've got a son to makeproud.
I look up to my Lord, I want tomake him proud.
But every day I meet people andit's what can I do for you?
And it took me a long time toget there.
And so you know.
I think that I would definitelytell them hey, stop being
(18:56):
selfish, okay, you can fix thisand get some confidence.
Understand, grab your cojones,put your head in the game and
don't give up.
Whenever you hear yourselfsaying life sucks or woe is me,
or this happened to me again,it's because you gave up the
first time.
Don't give up this time andkeep going.
(19:17):
And then when you can go nomore that's when you've given it
110% then move on, move on, butdo not quit until you've given
something all you have, becausethen you're going to spend the
rest of your life.
What happened if I would havejust gone the next step, if I
would have put in that next$50,000 or whatever?
Because when you can go nofarther, you can't go any
(19:38):
farther, man, that's it.
There's a wall right there.
When you hit that wall, dude,you're done, but don't create
the wall before you hit it.
That's some points I'd putthere.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
No, definitely, and that's some of the same advice
that I got from my first mentor,my dad, who's no longer with us
, and he was always telling meevery day, if you move forward
and you give it your all, nomatter what happens like you're
saying the results you can putyour head on the pillow and go
to bed at peace If people wantpeace and want to have that
(20:11):
relief in their mental capacitywhere they're not stressed so
much.
If every day you did the best,you could guess what You're
going to be able to go to bedwithout regret, without
wondering, oh, maybe I shouldhave done this, or maybe I
should have tried to exercise oreat healthy.
If you're doing the best youcan each day, or taking small
(20:31):
steps in a direction where itleads you to your goal, then,
yeah, that piece and that's whathelped me get through the Q
course and all the differentthings that have been trials in
my life is, you know what?
Every day I'm moving forward,and I think that's a theme that
runs rampant in SF and specialoperations Just keep moving
forward.
(20:52):
And, listeners, I'm telling youright now you can do it.
You just got to stay focused.
Bruce is a prime example of it.
I like to think I'm an exampleof it.
I never thought I would be here, never thought I'd be an author
, never thought I'd work withcelebrities.
You know the things we're doing.
Having a podcast now it'sincredible, life is incredible,
but you have to put yourself outthere and you have to do the
(21:13):
work and surround yourself withgood people.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So Dan.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm sorry.
I was going to ask you, bruce,about mentors with the
surrounding, about good people.
If you want to say somethingelse, go right ahead, but I
definitely want to come back tomentorship.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
No we'll talk about mentors I got some great stories
there but to your folks andwhat you just said, dan, was so
profound is that we often gothrough life and we never give
ourselves a break.
We are harder on ourselves thananybody is ever that hard on us
, and what I hope your listenerscan pull from this every now
(21:46):
and then, like you said, you goas far as you can and if it's an
inch, hey, you got an inch man.
If you're struggling withalcoholism or a failing business
, whatever, every day thatyou're still going on, you're on
this earth or your business isstill existing, you are moving
forward.
And give yourself a pat on theback for that.
Is it all that you want?
No, and I don't care whetherit's your relationships with
(22:09):
your wife, with the Lord, withyour kids, with your business
relationships, your fitness thatyou brought up, how you treat
yourself.
Give yourself a pat on the backfor at least doing something,
and you'll find that, over time,giving yourself a break is one
of the greatest gifts.
Besides, the next greatest giftyou give yourself is to love
(22:32):
yourself.
Love yourself for who you are,what you are and the fact that
you're still on this earth afterwhatever you've done in your
life.
Think of all the times we bothprobably should have been.
I almost died eight times in themilitary.
I only had one life left in themilitary before I got out all
kinds of crazy stuff, right.
But on mentors, dude, you gotto have them, man.
(22:53):
And you know, when I started myfirst company, I didn't have
one.
I didn't know what I was doing,bro.
I mean, nobody wanted to helpme because nobody wanted to see
a young company survive.
Because I'll tell you what.
I don't know what I was doing,bro.
I mean nobody wanted to help mebecause nobody wanted to see a
young company survive.
Because I'll tell you what Idon't care what anybody says,
nobody likes competition.
And these big players in yourspace, no matter where you're at
(23:14):
, will crowd you out, they'lldial you in, they'll try to put
you to death over and over again.
Because everybody says, ah,competition is, it is, it is.
And that's why it's so hard.
Because whether you're a gasstation on the other side of the
street, a defense contracttrying to make it going, or
wherever you're at in life,there's competition out there
(23:37):
and everybody wants to win.
And the big guys don't want tolose.
And guess what they got Moneyand power.
So you got to move out and thatmade me realize the value of
what you said, dan, is mentorsand I've had mentors in my
military career that have savedmy life.
You know quick story.
(23:57):
You know I was an E-4 in the101st and my first sergeant, who
was Mac Visag, in the toughestlittle African-American first
sergeant, who was Mac V Sog andthe toughest little
African-American first sergeanthe had three combat patches 82nd
, 101st and Special Forces Callsme in his office and he goes
he's got his cup of coffee withhis whiskey.
He goes need to make a decision.
Especially, he hands me amanila folder, chapter 7
(24:19):
paperwork.
He says I'm throwing you out.
I go for what.
He goes, you're drunk all thetime, you're fighting all the
time.
He says in the woods, you'reone of my best troops, but I
can't keep you in the woods.
You are not meeting your arm.
He says, unless you do this.
And he has me another middle,middle folder, open up special
(24:40):
forces application.
So I was literally drafted inthe special forces, bro, cause I
had nowhere to go, I couldn'tgo home and that man, you know,
I always looked up to him and bydoing that one thing.
He said the only place yourcrazy ass is going to make it in
this man's army is SpecialForces.
So I went there and over theyears I had several leaders in
(25:01):
the Army that saw my.
I was not a good soldier man.
I just wasn't a good soldier,even as a team sergeant.
My first team, even my secondteam I was.
I was growing up man.
I was a very immature Um, itwas all about partying and
chicks and I I'm a team sergeant.
I got all my badges.
I got CIB and halo school, butI got badges, bro, you know.
(25:23):
But in the end it wasn't until Ibecame a sergeant major and
then I became the mentor to E8sand I started growing up.
That's when I not only realizedhow important it was to have
people to look up to, but thenhow important it is, now that
people are looking up to me, forme to go straight, for me to
(25:43):
stop drinking, for me to be agood father, a good husband, a
good leader, to keep thesecompanies going, because I want
to help them and I have beenable and blessed to put food on
the table for thousands ofpeople.
I have been blessed to help somany people through tragedies,
(26:03):
helped so many people throughtragedies, and you know and now
I'm mentoring you know childrenthat are, you know, suffering
from mental illness as a resultof contact sports, and a lot of
military members are finding usbecause of the impact of
repetitive blast exposure andthe ability to give back.
So, yeah, I mean, whether youneed a mentor or you have the
(26:24):
opportunity to be a mentor,whether you're taken from
somebody that knows it or givenback, those are two absolute
necessities to make it throughlife, because you can't do
everything on your own man.
You really can't.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, no, and there are special relationships.
That's one thing I think.
People you know, we tend toknow that, but they don't
realize how special they areuntil hindsight's 20-20.
You know, you look back at thatfirst sergeant that really
mentored you and then it's now.
It's like it's a wholedifferent level from what it was
that day in his office.
You know other mentors that areout there.
(26:59):
People need to understand.
They want to help you If you'remotivated.
They want to help If you asksomebody that's I don't know,
let's use drums, music.
Someone's a great drummer andthey get some young kid that's
in high school or whatever.
It's like.
Man, I saw you play.
I'd love to learn from you.
They're going to be happy toshare, whether it's a business
owner or a salesperson that youwork with and manager that they
(27:23):
do a really good job.
Ask them about it.
They're going to love yourpassion and your motivation and
they're going to be more thanhappy to share.
And if they don't, well thenthey probably wouldn't have been
a very good mentor anyways.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, and I would add to that point you know, a lot
of times the people that we lookup to we're afraid to bother,
right, look up to we're afraidto bother, right, we don't want
to.
You know we're very, you know,cautious about, you know,
approaching them because maybethey're, you know, a celebrity
or maybe they're just like a CEOor something, and, to
reemphasize your point, thenthey want to help and they love
(27:57):
to help.
And as long as you're notcoming up to them with some, you
know, dumbass request, you knowthey want you to succeed.
If somebody's taken an interestyou, uh, an interest in you or
your project, your life, theywill do everything they can to
get you over the goal line andhelp you win.
So don't be afraid to ask.
Don't think their position,their authority, um, you know,
(28:20):
or their location, whatever itis is, is inhibiting.
You know they, they absolutelywant to help you all they can.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Well, that's great advice and great points.
So let's shift gears a littlebit, because I want the audience
to hear and know about some ofyour work that you're doing to
make the world a better placebroken brains and helping these
kids.
You've mentioned some of thethings about TBI or sports
injury.
Let's share about that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Okay, well, you can see a lot of stuff in the
background.
That beautiful boy on the wallran off a 100-foot cliff and
killed himself five years ago,september 24th 2020, right in
the middle of.
Covid Left me behind.
He was my soulmate.
He was everything I've askedfor.
(29:10):
He was a warm, generous, funny,loving, kind human being that I
try to emulate every day and,through the grace of God, we had
no idea when he killed himself.
We're like what just happened.
I was the last guy to see him.
He was going to football, hewas all dressed up, but he had
(29:30):
been suffering fromschizophrenia and depression for
three years and didn't know howto tell us he just ate it.
So you know, we didn't knowthis.
And then, through the grace ofGod, our coroner mentioned he
asked about contact sports,because there was no reason for
him to die.
Nobody, everybody's dumbfoundedand the loss of a child,
(29:50):
especially when it's not anaccident, you know, and I am
praying so hard for thesefamilies down in Texas right now
when you have no cause, it is abig black hole.
It is a big black hole and wewere able to find out that his
brain had been damaged from allthe repetitive head impacts that
(30:12):
he takes.
And just think about that.
This is not concussions.
These are those knocks that wetake when we tackle, when we
check, when we head soccer balls.
People don't know we have ahuge problem with mental illness
in our elite soccer playersbecause a ball hits them at 100
(30:32):
miles an hour and they hit itall the time.
This is the largest preventablecause of mental illness in this
country because we allow ourchild's brains, who are not
mature until 25, to be impactedby these hits for years, mature
till 25, to be impacted by thesehits for, you know, years,
thousands, tens of thousands ofhits, and we assume that because
they're harmless or becausethey have no symptoms, they're
(30:52):
harmless.
Now, how many AT-4s have youshot off right?
How many charges right have youbeen around and you feel that
blast wave from well, it doesn'tknock you out, it doesn't knock
you down, but after hundreds orthousands of those being in
combat, incoming rounds,whatever, those blasts have an
enormous toll on our veterans'brains.
I'll get to that in a second.
(31:13):
So, anyways, we found out, youknow, we challenged the CTE
community, we had them actuallydo the research and they admit
that repetitive head impacts isthe root cause of CT, all these
football players that are takingtheir lives, hockey players,
wrestlers, are all because ofthese smaller impacts that
seemingly don't impact the brain, but they do.
(31:35):
So we started a foundationcalled the Mack Parkman
Foundation and our job is toreach out because nobody's
trained on this man, dan, rightnow.
This is not trained.
Repetitive ed impacts is nottrained in nursing programs,
doctor programs, psychologistprograms, suicide prevention
programs, all the people thatyou know.
(31:56):
When a child's mentally ill,obviously you know, nobody's
trained on.
So what happens?
They misdiagnose it, oh, you'rementally ill.
Let's look back at yourchildhood.
Oh, somebody must've touchedyou right or whatever it is.
So, because you're mentally ill, what's the next step and we
see this with our veteranpopulations all the time
pharmaceutical intervention.
Let's get you a drug oh, it'sgot a side effect.
(32:17):
We got a pill for that, there'sa drug.
Next thing, you know whetheryou're a child or a veteran,
you're holding on to a bag of 10to 15 medications and you are
messed up.
You know why?
Because you're continuing to bea soldier or you're continuing
to head that soccer ball orcheck, and so we don't treat the
problem, which is a damagedbrain, and therefore you wonder
(32:39):
why our children, our NFLplayers, our veterans spiral
with all these drugs and adamaged brain and the end result
is homicidal ideation, suicidalideation, you know,
schizophrenia, depression, majormood disorders all of it
preventable by reducing thetotal aggregate impact of those
(33:01):
impacts or explosives.
So that's what our job is tolet people know that we can make
sports safer.
We have an exact, I wrotelegislation.
Check this out.
Nobody will touch mylegislation, especially on the
Republican side, because itmakes them appear soft on
football and they want to getreelected.
(33:21):
So they'd rather know thatchildren are being harmed.
And instead of saying, look,let's just not do this Pop
Warner stuff, let's do flag till14 and take the aggregate
contact, take the contact out ofpractice.
That's where most of the damagecomes from.
And then on the veteran side, weget all kinds of support.
I'm on the USOCOM commander'sbrain health team.
(33:41):
Tons of support let's changethe way we train, let's suppress
our weapons, let's uh, you know, we don't have to shoot AT4s
all day.
I mean, look, once you hit abuilding and you hit the same
building with the same bullettraps, they got to flash, bang
it every time.
They got to shoot live roundsevery time.
No, it's skills and drillsskills.
I'm a 1980s guy.
We had sticks, we had duct tape, we didn't have shoot houses
(34:03):
right, we had tire houses rightbam, bam, bam bam.
You're dead, motherfucker.
You know, I mean that's what wehad right.
Well, I mean, and not to say,my brain ain't damaged after
safari taking all this stuff andsafal can be in a sip and stuff
, but you know, just you know.
But we got to be smarter.
So that's the whole focus againis giving back to society
(34:23):
through education awareness thatthat, look, we got to find
these kids, find these vets, wegot to diagnose them, we got to
get them the right treatmentsand we can get them back.
We can literally.
We're not going to cure them,but we can take their quality of
life to a level that'sacceptable, that they can hang
in there for the rest of theirlife.
They're not struggling andtheir brain functions, they're
(34:43):
clear, and this happens all thetime, man, we work with so many
veterans that have come back anddone good.
So I appreciate you letting mebring that up, but that's what
we're trying to do, man.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's part of the asset mindset being an asset to
others and doing positive things.
And if you want to be an assetright now, hit pause, go into
the description and you willfind everything in there for
details on broken brains or howyou can get in touch with Bruce
and what he's doing or hisorganization and, of course,
like, subscribe and follow theasset mindset and share it with
(35:18):
someone who might be interestedin the subjects we are talking
about today.
But let's continue now on.
I want to see more of yourknowledge for just reacting and
dealing with obstacles that comeup, Because I like to share
with people, because a lot ofpeople feel overwhelmed when
(35:39):
something doesn't go their way.
Is this a redirection thing youdo or how do you shift your
mind from not focusing on thatnegative thing to something more
positive or staying goaloriented?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I do a couple things.
When I run into an obstacle,you know, when I feel myself
getting anxious or scared.
When I feel myself gettinganxious or scared now, I start
going back into my mindset.
Look, I can't control this.
Just for an example, I had aventure capitalist literally
bend me over over the last year,told me he had money coming in,
(36:13):
I freed up a lot of liquidity,I kept my company going and in
the end he bled me dry.
You know, hurt me, hurt me hard.
This is my children's money.
And you know what I startedthinking to myself.
I could hate this guy, I couldspend a lot of negative energy
on me because this was a bigobstacle man.
He was between me and a verysuccessful company, this one
right here and in the end I waslike you know what?
(36:35):
There was some reason.
He tried to hurt me.
But now that I went through allthis pain, my company is now
somehow worth a lot more moneythan it was, because we've
created new contracts, new valueand bam, out of that, another
investor came back and we raiseda million dollars in two
investment meetings, just withwhere we were as a company and
(36:59):
and because we didn't give up.
And so you know, it came out ofthe blue.
I just prayed.
I said, look, I just need onemore option because this guy's
killing me here.
Right, but I had the choice,and this is whether it was my
son or with this guy or anyother person, that's really
negatively impacting you.
If you spend more than fiveminutes worrying or hating or
(37:20):
just being angry, that is allwasted energy that you could be
putting towards a solution.
And so there's a great book outthere by Daniel Hawkins called
Letting it Go.
Let it go.
There's nothing that thesepeople that might have hurt you,
but you are wasting time andeffort that you could be putting
(37:40):
towards your company or yourfamily or whatever is out there.
So when I run into an obstacle,I step back.
I'm like, all right, how am Igoing to deal with this?
My preferred action is I'mgoing to do the best I can.
I'm going to come up with aplan.
I'm going to run it by my folksand we're going to say, all
(38:05):
right, this is the plan.
And then we're going to goforward with that plan and we
don't know how it's going toturn out, and again it goes back
to no matter how it turns out.
That's what was going to happen, because you gave it 100%.
And then I usually get angry.
Now, anger is one of thoseemotions that can be so powerful
or it could be so negative.
And when your anger was theanger that I used to have, when
(38:26):
I would literally punch myselfin the head, I'd hit walls.
I had so much rage in me and Iunderstood now that it's from my
childhood, it's from my ego,it's from a lot of unresolved
trauma that I never dealt within my life.
And until I dealt with it andwe can always dial into that too
it bothered, it made me a veryangry man, and while that was
(38:51):
the Pac-Man that everybody knew,it wasn't healthy, like my
heart used to get like tight,you know, and now that I found
out a lot of it was due to braintrauma.
I've been shot in the face.
I've been through all theseexplosions.
I was finally diagnosed by theVA with general anxiety disorder
as a result of damage to mybrain.
I was on the all-army rugby teamfor eight years.
(39:12):
You know I'll, you know.
You know Sepout Separtic.
You know hundreds, thousands of.
I don't even shoot bulletsanymore.
They barter, you know, but itall adds up.
So then you know.
So that now my anger is asimmering.
It's an anger, but it's likenow I'm going to, now I'm just
going to effing do this.
Now I'm mad, and now this isgoing to get done, and if it
(39:35):
doesn't get done, at least I try.
So first I assess the problem,I step back, consult with the
people that I trust, my mentors.
I call up people all the time,dude, hey, have you ever been
here?
And they're like, yeah, dude,hot, don't go down that road.
Okay, thanks, dude, you know,and I do this for people too,
right, and I'll call up likebecause of you know, I now run a
technology company, bro, youknow what I know about codingip.
(39:57):
All right, I fell into thisthing because another dude
wrecked the company.
I had to roll in, I had to layoff 80% of the staff and we had
developed this little plugin andI invested in that.
And over seven years we foughtwith IBM and all these clowns
and we said, look, this stuffdoes good tech.
And then finally, it just tookall this time and a lot of my
money to get it here.
(40:18):
But you know, in the end Idon't know anything about
software.
So I'm calling people all thetime, dude, you know I'm like,
hey man, what do I do now?
So you know, that's where thementors come in.
Consult with your mentors, comeup with a plan, and then you
know, just like in the militaryor in civilian life, you know,
look for having a P pace plan,have a primary plan, an
(40:41):
alternate contingency and anemergency right.
At least have a plan A and aplan B, because when plan A goes
to hell, you got to have a planB.
So think of what that is.
You know, the plan B for thisthing fire sale yeah, just put
it on the market and I'll justdo the best I can.
Plan A, let's go make a big,fancy, big money-making company,
so that and your mentors, andthen trust in yourself and a lot
(41:05):
of people when they'reconfronted by obstacles or
negativity and I see this withmilitary people military people
don't fail.
If you're a Green Beret or aRanger, or even in the military,
you have probably passed everycourse you've ever been through
right.
You're not allowed to fail.
You might've recycled, but youended up going all the way
(41:26):
through right.
You might've flunked SFAS.
Those are the guys thatactually do well in life.
I know several captains thatflunked SFAS, but they failed
and they had to deal with thatfailure.
If you've never failed in themilitary and you pop out here on
this side of the fence, oryou're in civilian life and
you've been like that starathlete and you've done
(41:47):
everything right and you'venever, ever, suffered adversity
in any other way and all of asudden you get smacked with it,
you have two options you cancurl up in a ball and you can
quit, or you can learn and youcan drive on.
So many military people curl upbecause they've never faced it
(42:07):
before, and I see it in mycompanies where I've, you know,
counseled people.
I've had to lay them off,whatever, and they just have
never failed.
And so failure, dealing withfailure, get used to it.
You know, if you're single, goout and get rejected on the
dance floor a couple times.
(42:28):
You're right.
You know what I mean.
Go suffer some rejection.
I used to hate that too, right,but get used to being told no.
Or you know, even if you fail,it's a lesson learned and guess
what, you'll never repeat that.
You know, even failure is agood thing in life, man, because
you're going to have to dealwith it.
You're never going to doeverything completely right and
(42:51):
failure could be just notgetting all the way you want to
be.
So some people's like I didn'tget all the way there.
Give yourself on the back, givea pat on the back and love
yourself, man, you know, and uh,but yeah, I just um, you know
that that's what I.
That's the process I go throughwhen I hit an obstacle.
But the big thing is, no matterwhat happens in the other side
of that obstacle, you know, I'mjust going to deal with it, man,
(43:12):
I'm going to accept it.
It's not going to consume meand if it's negative, I'm just
going to chuck it in the bin andI'm going to keep pushing on
and it's all I know how to do,really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And I like how you took anger and used it in a way
to move forward, or that energy.
So you're converting the energyBecause every human being feels
anger.
We all get angry at times, weget frustrated, but do you want
to let that burn you or do youwant to take that fire and stoke
it so it lights the path whereyou're going to go in the future
(43:46):
?
Good point, yeah, that is socrucial out there.
So if you have anger, don't letit consume.
You Use it in the direction youwant to go, and that will
really change the game, becauseif you're staying angry, you're
going nowhere.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And to your point, that VC, that I was so upset you
know I wasn't angry, I justgave it all up, but I used that
to drive.
It's like you know what.
Now I'm really going to get onthis company right.
Leverage that, redirect, likeyou said.
Like let it motivate you,incentivize you, because you
want to give it back to theperson that hurt you, right, but
(44:21):
you don't want to hurt them,right.
Let them go on their own messedup path.
You know, tormenting other poorsouls, whatever their joy, is
right, but you need to take thatand say, look, I'm going to do
some good with this, becauseeverything that happens to you
in life, no matter how bad it is, can be turned to good.
I turned the death of my soninto a foundation, a book, and
(44:51):
if that can happen from a dadthat didn't know anything, you
can turn anything into anynegative event into good, and
that is so powerful Good andlove.
Love is the most powerfulweapon in the world.
I know a lot of people cannotbelieve that I say this, but I'm
telling you, man, if you, byjust just giving up and learn to
love anybody, dude, you can doso many things, bro.
You know, I agree 100%.
(45:12):
I agree 100%.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And I'm I'm proud of you, man.
I really am For sharing yourstory, for making changes, for
actually putting yourself outthere and I think you're so
inspiring For what you justshared right now for the
audience.
What worse thing as a parent Ihave three kids, I have a son
(45:36):
Like that talking about atragedy and for you being able
to turn that and use that as apositive catalyst in the world,
because you know what your sonwas going to die at some point
anyways.
My son's going to die, I'mgoing to die, you're going to
die.
It's painful and it's horrible,but I know listeners out there.
You can turn whatever pain youhave around.
(45:58):
You really can Listen to Bruceand what he did.
He got empowered, wrote a book,you got a foundation.
You can do it whatever it is,and I'm pretty sure most of the
pain and struggles you have outthere aren't anything like Bruce
had to go through.
So, bruce, I just want to saythank you again for sharing and
(46:18):
doing everything you do andagain, seriously, I'm one of the
people that you help put foodon the table, because I worked
ASOT East for many years, andyAlbright, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Andy's one of my mentors.
That's a good group of boysback there.
Tell Andy hi, man, that's anamazing guy.
I like him.
I love.
Andy, dude man yeah he's great.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
He's absolutely phenomenal.
One of the other mentors that Ijust have been so blessed.
You know, when people in ourcommunity say, hey, I'm just a
regular guy, but I got to walkamong giants, that's how I feel
you know and.
I didn't even do 20 years.
I mean I came in after 9-11.
I'm an SF baby, but you knowwhat?
The people who taught me,mentored me, shaped me and
(47:02):
taught me the ways of theregiment, kept me safe,
downrange and my brothers to myleft and my right.
We made it out on my team.
We lost people in the companyand whatnot.
But it's going to happen.
It's life.
People die here in the streetsin a car accident.
But sorry, I'm going off on alittle tangent there and give
(47:23):
yourself a break bro.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
I want your audience to know this when he says he's
an SF baby, like, I think, about5% of the people that come in
out of the civilian world tomake it to SF actually make it.
I was actually part.
Well, my Green Beret class in1984 was one of the first X-ray
programs and I was an E-5.
(47:45):
I had a bunch of privates Likethree of them made it.
So give yourself a pat on theback, dan, and honestly I want
to thank you for your service,not only to this country, but to
those people that are listeningright now, the message that
you're bringing to them ofoptimism, and to those people
that are listening right now,the message that you're bringing
to them of optimism andconfidence and all that you know
(48:05):
, just giving them the hope that, no matter what they're going
through, they can get over it.
And they can't.
They can get over it.
They can get some things likethe death of my son.
I'll never get over it, but Iwill get through it.
I will get through it till Isee him on the other side and I
will see my son, not evenworried about it.
But the message that you'rebringing is amazing, it's
necessary and it's such a lightin this dark world.
(48:29):
Sometimes you know, and that'swhat we need and God bless you
for having this podcast and foryour mission, man.
I mean that's kind of purpose.
I hope all your listeners findthis kind of purpose, because
once you find your purpose andsometimes it's not there when
you're 22, you're not going tofind your purpose when you're 22
.
All right, your purpose comeslater, all right, but do what
you like you know, enjoy youknow, get you got to like.
(48:50):
But when you find your purpose,like you found, sir, I'm glad
you got on it and you're anexample for everybody that's
listening to this podcast rightnow.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you.
I'm working at the best I canand I tell you what comments
from you, comments from fans,people that have changed their
lives because of the asset,mindset, philosophy and the book
.
That's where, when I wasapproached about doing the
podcast, I really was like okay,god, this is the next level.
You know, we want to keepmoving forward.
This is it.
(49:18):
This is where I'm going.
I never thought I'd be apodcaster, never thought I'd be
an author.
When I was young, I didn'tthink I'd be a green beret.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I saw Rambo and I'm like he's too bad-ass.
I can't be that guy.
But you know what?
I can't even drive a tank.
Yeah, no, you've done amazinglywell and um and uh, yeah,
you're doing a great job, dude.
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Bruce, I appreciate you being on here.
I'm honored to have you.
Thank you for your service, allyou've done, all you're giving
back to the world.
I'm very grateful.
I'm grateful for your time andblessed to call you an Asset
Mindset teammate now.
So for all you listeners outthere again, don't forget to
check out the description.
You can find all the links forBruce and Broken Brains.
(50:00):
You can definitely like andsubscribe and follow the Asset
Mindset and share it with othersand, most of all, always
remember, own your power.
Welcome to the Asset Mindset Podcast.
Today we got a really coolepisode.
One of my believe it or notmentors from back in the day.
I've heard about him and legendas I was in seven special
forces group.
He was in seven special forcesgroup and he actually, when I
got out, helped me put food onthe table while I worked for him
at NEK.
So I did some cool stuff.
(00:28):
I'm very grateful and honoredto have Bruce Parkman on the
Asset Mindset podcast here.
Live with us today and Bruce,say hello to the Asset Mindset
folks.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Dan, I just can't thank you enough for having me
on this podcast.
Didn't know?
I mean, we had, man back in theday, so many employees and that
was one of the reasons I wantedto sell the company is.
I just couldn't know everybodyand I am so grateful to be asked
to be on this podcast and sharewhatever I've been through to
help you and help other people,man.
(01:02):
So I'm here and thanks forhosting this, man.
I mean, a podcast that has thefocus that you have right now is
so needed in this crazy world,man.
I can't thank you enough forputting this together, man, all
about it.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
No, thank you, it's an honor.
It's people like you and othersthat have gone before us that
help teach us how to pay itforward and the lessons we've
learned.
And to kind of sum up, I'llshare a little bit of the asset
mindset.
So we obviously know deoppressor liber to free the
oppressed, or to free fromoppression.
That's our motto.
Well, after getting out anddoing some DOD contract work and
(01:36):
being on the road being a roleplayer and in the hotel rooms, I
decided to take our motto deoppressor liber to the civilian
world and write the AssetMindset, because I think people
oppress themselves with theirown mindset and the way they
think and victim mentality.
So I wrote the book to try andhelp change people's lives.
It's done it and here I am nowwith a podcast with great guests
(01:59):
like you who have also achievedsuccess by using what I call
the Asset Mindset you who havealso achieved success by using
what I call the asset mindset.
So why don't you share a littlebit about your first time when
you realized that your mindsetactually helped define, or any
moment that you want to share,when you really realized that
your mindset was so powerful andcould overcome challenges in
(02:20):
life?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I think you know, in the military, you know as a
Green Beret, you know you kindof, once you get the hat, you
kind of get that attitude rightand we're all through it.
And you know, and I just I knowthere's several times.
The one time I did doubt myselfthe most is when I volunteered
(02:42):
for combat in El Salvador to bea military advisor and at that
time, literally they dropped meoff on a hilltop and gave me a
radio and said call in everySunday, let us know you're alive
, and here's two battalions ofinfantry to work with and go
kick some ass.
I'm like, okay, so I'm a28-year-old E7, and for the
(03:03):
first time I really doubtedmyself.
You know, I just left SWCC.
I got all the certifications tobe there.
I was 0-9.
I was an E7.
I went through A-knock, yada,yada.
I was like, what do I do now?
The guy I replaced was a drunkand all he wanted to do was
drink.
I'm like, dude, we got to workhere.
It was a quiet zone, but therewas work to be done and um, and
(03:24):
then I just said F it, you know,let's go.
What I got to do, you know, andI've been training troops for a
while.
So I just started digging inand and piling on.
Next, you know we're buildingmore to pitch.
It's like we ain't got noindirect fire.
I mean, I mean we're fighting awar with no helicopters, no
artillery, nothing dude, justsmall arms right Getting out
there at night getting on it.
Not that we were that, you knowI went out with them and you
(03:47):
know we weren't supposed to, butyeah, that's what you had to do
and we were in a pretty quietzone anyways.
But that's when I started to.
You know, after about ninemonths of that, actually, I was
in the embassy and I was, youknow, we used to had to come in
once a month and we had to talkabout our what's going on in our
what, our destacamento militarthis is what they called our
bases.
(04:07):
And I remember that we got amill group commander who was an
artillery dude right General.
He was Colonel Hamilton at thetime became a tomb star, but he
became the mill group commander.
He wasn't a SEAL, wasn't aGreen Beret, and we're all going
what the F?
And there's only 55 of usbecause we were capped right.
(04:30):
So this is when I startedunderstanding really what Green
Berets can do, because I wasliterally in the bathroom, on
the throne right, and the millgroup commander comes walking in
with this high-ranking.
It was an Army official thatwas down there just checking on
the war Because everybodythought we were going to go into
Vietnam, right?
Oh, we got advisors, all thisstuff, and they're standing at
the pisser and they don't know.
I'm in the room and thatcolonel told him.
(04:51):
He said look, when I took thisjob and you told me that I could
put a single E-7 by himself ina combat zone with no support
and they can affect change, Iwould have told you you were
smoking more dope than anybodyin the world.
And he, he and I heard him saythese men are amazing.
He said what they're doing, howthey're doing it, like we had
(05:14):
no resources.
Man, I had some butcher blockpaper.
They say get out there.
But and that's when you know Istarted understanding, said wow,
you know, up until then youjust think you want this is what
we do, right.
I said wow, up until then youjust think this is what we do,
right.
I mean, green Berets do this,we go on missions, we do this.
And it just never hit me untilthat moment that being alone,
like many of our brothers hadbeen up to that time.
And getting things done is whatwe do.
(05:36):
And, man, we put together scubaschools, we put together recon
schools.
I mean, anytime somebody askedfor something, man, we got it
done.
Together recon schools.
I mean, anytime somebody askedfor something, man, we got it
done.
And it was a fascinatingexperience.
But that's when I started toreally have the confidence that
I should have had.
As a Green Beret I didn't have alot of confidence.
I was, you know, an abusedchild.
(05:56):
I came in and I, you know I wasnew to SF, I was still trying
to make my mark.
But, yeah, that's.
I think that's when, the firsttime that, you know, my positive
, optimistic side kind ofcrossed my creative side, said,
hey, I got nothing, I got tohelp this Colonel out and and,
and, you know, I got to defendhis quartel.
(06:18):
I, you know he's, he's had ayear of a drunk advisor, didn't
do anything.
So let's, let's get it moving.
So I think that was pretty muchthe first time.
Uh, that and then, um, passing,scuba school was that was.
That was another time where Ijust, you know, I had to put it
all together, man, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, so the positive mental attitude that you're
able to create and things thatyou've done in the experiences
as being a green beret that iscarried over into the civilian
world as well.
How does that transition happenfor a guy like you or a guy
like me?
How can we share that with thenext generation that's coming up
(06:56):
?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
What I would tell the next generation and I think
this is what's happened to me inmy life is that God will always
put doors in front of you andif you don't believe in the Lord
, no problem, doors are going toopen up, no matter how they get
there.
Your choice is do I open thatdoor or not?
And you can open that door andsee what's on the other side and
(07:19):
have the confidence in yourselfto say no matter what's going
to happen on that side of thedoor, I can handle this.
Or you can spend the rest ofyour life wondering what would
happen if I opened that door.
So when I got out, it wasbefore the towers right, it was
tough, bro.
I mean it took you five minutesto send in a resume over AOL,
(07:42):
all that stuff, right.
I had no network.
Over AOL, all that stuff, right, I had no network.
I was unemployed, a retiredGreen Beret sergeant major in El
Paso, texas, with my beautifulnew bride.
I couldn't find a job, man, Iwas depressed.
I mean, I got out, I was like,wow, man, I was beaten down.
Like all you know, when youtransition, you're not ready for
(08:02):
this right, and I think one ofthe points I'd like to get to
with you is that every militaryperson that leaves, especially
Green Berets, has everything ittakes to be successful in this
world, and they just don't feelit.
They don't see it because it'ssomething that they've never
done.
(08:22):
They're not prepared for it.
It's not like, hey, I got to goto ONI school and you G2 the
test right.
Or I'm going to scuba school,you can talk to other scuba guys
.
There is no course ontransition, right it's you know,
unless you want to become adefense contractor, which
unfortunately many of ourbrethren done and deprived this
nation of some really goodcompanies and good leaderships.
(08:42):
But there's other guys thathave made that transition and so
, you know, in 2002, somebodyasked me to bid on a contract.
He said, hey, you know, I'vegot this colonel.
He needs four Green Berets.
Can you do this?
And I said, well, I am a GreenBeret, I know how to write, I
(09:05):
wrote all those risk assessmentsand you know everything for our
missions, all that.
You know all the missionplanning and country studies and
all that stuff.
I thought all right.
So I wrote a proposal and I wonand I got picked up.
But then I had to start acompany and I had never, but I
just won a million dollarcontract.
What is payroll right?
What's insurance?
I was sending guys.
I literally won the contract togo build the WMD search
capability for the Iraq invasion.
(09:27):
I had to hire three of my bestfriends.
I did.
It was crazy.
But it's all about yourconfidence that the military,
just by not even being a GreenBeret, just by being a soldier
right or, you know, male orfemale, we have levels of
confidence and experience thatnobody else in the country has
(09:49):
when they start out in life orwhen they start a new chapter,
and I think we don't giveourselves a pat on the back for
serving and learning.
And then we lack the confidenceto really do something crazy,
like start a business or start apodcast or write a book,
identify a niche, and so I, youknow that would be my message to
(10:11):
the generations.
Like you, have what it takesand everything that you're
pushing for, sir, when you starttalking about optimism and
confidence and and just, youknow the intestinal fortitude
right, everything that we got inthe army right Is is just being
applied.
And it's even easier out here.
Nobody puts a rucksack on yourback or makes you jump out of a
(10:31):
plane in the middle of the nightwith a chem light on the back
of your you know parachute.
I mean, in some ways it'sscarier because there's a lot on
the line, but on the other side, the upside for those that
really can that do well, is, is,is, is.
There's no end to it, there'sno capital.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
No, absolutely.
Can you do me a favor and walkus through your mental process
when facing an overwhelmingchallenge, like in real time, so
in your experiences and allthose things, and starting a
company?
And starting a company so forour listeners, because not
everybody here is formermilitary or whatnot, because you
don't have to be special forcesto have the asset mindset.
(11:10):
You can have the asset mindsetand not be SF or an operator or
whatnot.
But when you're going throughyour mental process, when facing
a challenge, what steps do youtake that you can share with the
audience?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
What steps do you take that you can share with the
audience when I'm challengedand this is where I am at this
point when I was challengedabout 10 to 15 years ago, I just
went for it, I swung and, nomatter what happened, I made so
many.
I didn't plan, I didn't, Ididn't Like if I had an idea.
(11:44):
I have wasted so much money oncompanies and ideas that didn't
pan out because I knew betterthan anybody this was going to
get out there Right.
And we get cocky in life,especially, you know, you sell
your first company, get out as aGreen Beret.
You think, man, I could doanything.
But for those people that are,that are getting ready to start
out, when you're beingchallenged number one, you have
to trust in yourself.
Being challenged number one,you have to trust in yourself.
(12:09):
You have to trust yourself thatyou can do.
Whatever endeavor you'regetting ready to take forth, you
can do it.
Nothing's going to stop you.
The next part, which is equallyas important, is that no matter
what happens, good or bad, it'sgoing to be a learning process
that you're going to, a learningevent that you're going to rely
on for the rest of your life.
(12:29):
You know I always had atwo-strike rule in the military.
I didn't give a crap, even withmy kids, my soldiers, how many
mistakes you made, as long asyou didn't make the same mistake
twice, because experience comesfrom learning and learning
comes from making mistakes.
You have to make mistakes inlife to go forward.
What you can do is minimizethose mistakes through
(12:51):
preparation, through planning,through talking to others that
have been there before.
So you know when I'm challenged, you know with something and I
have been challenged bro.
I mean something and I havebeen challenged, bro.
I mean I lost my son four yearsago.
Now I think I can relate thisbetter.
Is that, first of all, I trustin the Lord, or I trust in faith
(13:13):
?
I cannot control what's goingto happen.
I mean, whatever's going tohappen is going to happen, but I
just got to get on it and aslong as I give it 110%, no
matter what happens, I gave it110% and that's what's going to
get you over the hump.
Is that when times are hard andthey're going to be hard,
(13:36):
whether it's monetary, whetherit's relationship-based, whether
it's personnel, managing peoplenowadays is not, it's not a
birthday party man.
You know people are tough andthey have expectations and
entitlements, or you know it'sjust different generations that
you're going to have to cross inhow you communicate.
But you know, and that's whenyour confidence in yourself and
(14:02):
your trust that you can get thisdone is going to count more
than ever.
And so you know those are, youknow it's.
And no matter what you're goingto do, I'm telling you I mean, I
own a software company thatwe're finally doing something
that nobody else knows how to doand we literally how I fell
into that is a four hour storyand a bag of chicken wings and
(14:24):
some beer.
But trust me, no matter whatyou plan on doing in your life,
there's probably somebody that'sdone something close to it or
done something like it before.
Whether you're going to buy agas station or a chain of liquor
stores, start your own company.
Talk to people that have beenthere, because preparation is,
(14:46):
you know, you know the the thebest, the best path forward, uh,
to, to, to do something.
You know, matt, and it's goingto be new to you.
So you know, those are justsome of the things that pop into
my head.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, and chance favors the prepared mind.
You know, the more you prepare,the better your odds are at
succeeding.
The more you work hard andstudy in the effort you put in,
the better you're going to do inlife.
That's just how it works.
The more you surround yourselfwith mentors or find mentors,
those things are so impactful.
But what happens when someonehas a victim mentality and
(15:20):
they're stuck like, oh, thishappened to me, oh, poor me.
What advice or how would yousnap somebody out of that victim
mentality where they think theycan't because of their past?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
To me.
You know, a lot of victimmentality is based on, you know
how you were raised trauma and alack of confidence in yourself.
All right, and when you say,hey, woe is me.
I mean you're giving up.
All right, and that's just notwhat we do as humans.
We don't give up, and if you'regoing to give up, you shouldn't
(15:52):
start it in the first place.
All right, if you're going tostart something and you have a
tendency to do things half-assed, or if you expect that, because
you start something, that youdeserve a victory, right.
Hey, I'm going to start acompany and I want to make a
million bucks by the end of thisyear.
No, bro, sorry, you know, hey,sister, it's a lot of hard work
to get there, but when you getit you've earned it.
(16:14):
Okay.
So people sometimes expectthings to happen real fast and
they don't want a lot ofconfrontation, they don't want
to climb over obstacles, theyjust want to happen.
Hey, I started this and this isgoing to happen.
Man, murphy's out there, life'sout there.
If you're not in the military,murphy's, that little guy that's
always messing with you, man.
And so we have this thingcalled Murphy out there.
(16:35):
You know you're not expectingsomething.
It's going to happen.
Whatever you don't plan for isgoing to happen and it's going
to be all about your attitude.
But if you do have a victimattitude or woe is me attitude I
would look at your ego.
Okay, our egos.
Right now run our lives, goodand bad, and if you look dial
(16:58):
into ego, death.
And for me, an older man, I'vebeen on a very deep, profound
spiritual journey that has ledme to a point in my life which
we can talk about, dan is.
I am so optimistic now becauseI know whatever's going to
happen is going to happen.
So why am I worried about it?
Why do I worry about what'sgoing to happen next week?
I can't control that.
All I can do is my best.
(17:20):
And if I've done my best, thenwhatever happened next week, I
deserve it.
And sometimes it don't work outand you just have, like this
company here, man, you know, youknow I don't know what's going
to happen to this company.
People tell me it's worth abillion dollars.
Other people are like therecould be a worth a billion
dollars.
I'm like, all right, well,whatever, man, and we've
struggled, man, to get to thispoint.
I don't know.
But the issue is, it's beenseven years of ass pain to get
(17:46):
to the point of where we'restarting to get the look that we
wanted seven years ago Wasn'teasy.
So I would say to your folks youknow, take a look at yourself
and how you can change thatmentality.
Because you know that comesfrom you know the way you
perceive life.
It could be the way you weretreated by your parents, the way
you know that things havehappened to cause that.
(18:08):
Because that's, you know,that's not the attitude that you
should want.
You should be optimistic inthis life.
You know you are a part of theLord's world and you have.
Everybody has so much to offereach other, and a victim
mentality is very selfish.
It's also, hey, it's focused onyou.
(18:32):
And this world, a long times,is not about you.
It took me 63 years tounderstand that my job, the rest
of this life, is to serve otherpeople.
I do not care what happens toBruce Parkman anymore.
Right, I've got a son to makeproud.
I look up to my Lord, I want tomake him proud.
But every day I meet people andit's what can I do for you?
And it took me a long time toget there.
And so you know.
I think that I would definitelytell them hey, stop being
(18:56):
selfish, okay, you can fix thisand get some confidence.
Understand, grab your cojones,put your head in the game and
don't give up.
Whenever you hear yourselfsaying life sucks or woe is me,
or this happened to me again,it's because you gave up the
first time.
Don't give up this time andkeep going.
(19:17):
And then when you can go nomore that's when you've given it
110% then move on, move on, butdo not quit until you've given
something all you have, becausethen you're going to spend the
rest of your life.
What happened if I would havejust gone the next step, if I
would have put in that next$50,000 or whatever?
Because when you can go nofarther, you can't go any
(19:38):
farther, man, that's it.
There's a wall right there.
When you hit that wall, dude,you're done, but don't create
the wall before you hit it.
That's some points I'd putthere.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
No, definitely, and that's some of the same advice
that I got from my first mentor,my dad, who's no longer with us
, and he was always telling meevery day, if you move forward
and you give it your all, nomatter what happens like you're
saying the results you can putyour head on the pillow and go
to bed at peace If people wantpeace and want to have that
(20:11):
relief in their mental capacitywhere they're not stressed so
much.
If every day you did the best,you could guess what You're
going to be able to go to bedwithout regret, without
wondering, oh, maybe I shouldhave done this, or maybe I
should have tried to exercise oreat healthy.
If you're doing the best youcan each day, or taking small
(20:31):
steps in a direction where itleads you to your goal, then,
yeah, that piece and that's whathelped me get through the Q
course and all the differentthings that have been trials in
my life is, you know what?
Every day I'm moving forward,and I think that's a theme that
runs rampant in SF and specialoperations Just keep moving
forward.
(20:52):
And, listeners, I'm telling youright now you can do it.
You just got to stay focused.
Bruce is a prime example of it.
I like to think I'm an exampleof it.
I never thought I would be here, never thought I'd be an author
, never thought I'd work withcelebrities.
You know the things we're doing.
Having a podcast now it'sincredible, life is incredible,
but you have to put yourself outthere and you have to do the
(21:13):
work and surround yourself withgood people.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
So Dan.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm sorry.
I was going to ask you, bruce,about mentors with the
surrounding, about good people.
If you want to say somethingelse, go right ahead, but I
definitely want to come back tomentorship.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
No we'll talk about mentors I got some great stories
there but to your folks andwhat you just said, dan, was so
profound is that we often gothrough life and we never give
ourselves a break.
We are harder on ourselves thananybody is ever that hard on us
, and what I hope your listenerscan pull from this every now
(21:46):
and then, like you said, you goas far as you can and if it's an
inch, hey, you got an inch man.
If you're struggling withalcoholism or a failing business
, whatever, every day thatyou're still going on, you're on
this earth or your business isstill existing, you are moving
forward.
And give yourself a pat on theback for that.
Is it all that you want?
No, and I don't care whetherit's your relationships with
(22:09):
your wife, with the Lord, withyour kids, with your business
relationships, your fitness thatyou brought up, how you treat
yourself.
Give yourself a pat on the backfor at least doing something,
and you'll find that, over time,giving yourself a break is one
of the greatest gifts.
Besides, the next greatest giftyou give yourself is to love
(22:32):
yourself.
Love yourself for who you are,what you are and the fact that
you're still on this earth afterwhatever you've done in your
life.
Think of all the times we bothprobably should have been.
I almost died eight times in themilitary.
I only had one life left in themilitary before I got out all
kinds of crazy stuff, right.
But on mentors, dude, you gotto have them, man.
(22:53):
And you know, when I started myfirst company, I didn't have
one.
I didn't know what I was doing,bro.
I mean, nobody wanted to helpme because nobody wanted to see
a young company survive.
Because I'll tell you what.
I don't know what I was doing,bro.
I mean nobody wanted to help mebecause nobody wanted to see a
young company survive.
Because I'll tell you what Idon't care what anybody says,
nobody likes competition.
And these big players in yourspace, no matter where you're at
(23:14):
, will crowd you out, they'lldial you in, they'll try to put
you to death over and over again.
Because everybody says, ah,competition is, it is, it is.
And that's why it's so hard.
Because whether you're a gasstation on the other side of the
street, a defense contracttrying to make it going, or
wherever you're at in life,there's competition out there
(23:37):
and everybody wants to win.
And the big guys don't want tolose.
And guess what they got Moneyand power.
So you got to move out and thatmade me realize the value of
what you said, dan, is mentorsand I've had mentors in my
military career that have savedmy life.
You know quick story.
(23:57):
You know I was an E-4 in the101st and my first sergeant, who
was Mac Visag, in the toughestlittle African-American first
sergeant, who was Mac V Sog andthe toughest little
African-American first sergeanthe had three combat patches 82nd
, 101st and Special Forces Callsme in his office and he goes
he's got his cup of coffee withhis whiskey.
He goes need to make a decision.
Especially, he hands me amanila folder, chapter 7
(24:19):
paperwork.
He says I'm throwing you out.
I go for what.
He goes, you're drunk all thetime, you're fighting all the
time.
He says in the woods, you'reone of my best troops, but I
can't keep you in the woods.
You are not meeting your arm.
He says, unless you do this.
And he has me another middle,middle folder, open up special
(24:40):
forces application.
So I was literally drafted inthe special forces, bro, cause I
had nowhere to go, I couldn'tgo home and that man, you know,
I always looked up to him and bydoing that one thing.
He said the only place yourcrazy ass is going to make it in
this man's army is SpecialForces.
So I went there and over theyears I had several leaders in
(25:01):
the Army that saw my.
I was not a good soldier man.
I just wasn't a good soldier,even as a team sergeant.
My first team, even my secondteam I was.
I was growing up man.
I was a very immature Um, itwas all about partying and
chicks and I I'm a team sergeant.
I got all my badges.
I got CIB and halo school, butI got badges, bro, you know.
(25:23):
But in the end it wasn't until Ibecame a sergeant major and
then I became the mentor to E8sand I started growing up.
That's when I not only realizedhow important it was to have
people to look up to, but thenhow important it is, now that
people are looking up to me, forme to go straight, for me to
(25:43):
stop drinking, for me to be agood father, a good husband, a
good leader, to keep thesecompanies going, because I want
to help them and I have beenable and blessed to put food on
the table for thousands ofpeople.
I have been blessed to help somany people through tragedies,
(26:03):
helped so many people throughtragedies, and you know and now
I'm mentoring you know childrenthat are, you know, suffering
from mental illness as a resultof contact sports, and a lot of
military members are finding usbecause of the impact of
repetitive blast exposure andthe ability to give back.
So, yeah, I mean, whether youneed a mentor or you have the
(26:24):
opportunity to be a mentor,whether you're taken from
somebody that knows it or givenback, those are two absolute
necessities to make it throughlife, because you can't do
everything on your own man.
You really can't.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, no, and there are special relationships.
That's one thing I think.
People you know, we tend toknow that, but they don't
realize how special they areuntil hindsight's 20-20.
You know, you look back at thatfirst sergeant that really
mentored you and then it's now.
It's like it's a wholedifferent level from what it was
that day in his office.
You know other mentors that areout there.
(26:59):
People need to understand.
They want to help you If you'remotivated.
They want to help If you asksomebody that's I don't know,
let's use drums, music.
Someone's a great drummer andthey get some young kid that's
in high school or whatever.
It's like.
Man, I saw you play.
I'd love to learn from you.
They're going to be happy toshare, whether it's a business
owner or a salesperson that youwork with and manager that they
(27:23):
do a really good job.
Ask them about it.
They're going to love yourpassion and your motivation and
they're going to be more thanhappy to share.
And if they don't, well thenthey probably wouldn't have been
a very good mentor anyways.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, and I would add to that point you know, a lot
of times the people that we lookup to we're afraid to bother,
right, look up to we're afraidto bother, right, we don't want
to.
You know we're very, you know,cautious about, you know,
approaching them because maybethey're, you know, a celebrity
or maybe they're just like a CEOor something, and, to
reemphasize your point, thenthey want to help and they love
(27:57):
to help.
And as long as you're notcoming up to them with some, you
know, dumbass request, you knowthey want you to succeed.
If somebody's taken an interestyou, uh, an interest in you or
your project, your life, theywill do everything they can to
get you over the goal line andhelp you win.
So don't be afraid to ask.
Don't think their position,their authority, um, you know,
(28:20):
or their location, whatever itis is, is inhibiting.
You know they, they absolutelywant to help you all they can.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Well, that's great advice and great points.
So let's shift gears a littlebit, because I want the audience
to hear and know about some ofyour work that you're doing to
make the world a better placebroken brains and helping these
kids.
You've mentioned some of thethings about TBI or sports
injury.
Let's share about that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Okay, well, you can see a lot of stuff in the
background.
That beautiful boy on the wallran off a 100-foot cliff and
killed himself five years ago,september 24th 2020, right in
the middle of.
Covid Left me behind.
He was my soulmate.
He was everything I've askedfor.
(29:10):
He was a warm, generous, funny,loving, kind human being that I
try to emulate every day and,through the grace of God, we had
no idea when he killed himself.
We're like what just happened.
I was the last guy to see him.
He was going to football, hewas all dressed up, but he had
(29:30):
been suffering fromschizophrenia and depression for
three years and didn't know howto tell us he just ate it.
So you know, we didn't knowthis.
And then, through the grace ofGod, our coroner mentioned he
asked about contact sports,because there was no reason for
him to die.
Nobody, everybody's dumbfoundedand the loss of a child,
(29:50):
especially when it's not anaccident, you know, and I am
praying so hard for thesefamilies down in Texas right now
when you have no cause, it is abig black hole.
It is a big black hole and wewere able to find out that his
brain had been damaged from allthe repetitive head impacts that
(30:12):
he takes.
And just think about that.
This is not concussions.
These are those knocks that wetake when we tackle, when we
check, when we head soccer balls.
People don't know we have ahuge problem with mental illness
in our elite soccer playersbecause a ball hits them at 100
(30:32):
miles an hour and they hit itall the time.
This is the largest preventablecause of mental illness in this
country because we allow ourchild's brains, who are not
mature until 25, to be impactedby these hits for years, mature
till 25, to be impacted by thesehits for, you know, years,
thousands, tens of thousands ofhits, and we assume that because
they're harmless or becausethey have no symptoms, they're
(30:52):
harmless.
Now, how many AT-4s have youshot off right?
How many charges right have youbeen around and you feel that
blast wave from well, it doesn'tknock you out, it doesn't knock
you down, but after hundreds orthousands of those being in
combat, incoming rounds,whatever, those blasts have an
enormous toll on our veterans'brains.
I'll get to that in a second.
(31:13):
So, anyways, we found out, youknow, we challenged the CTE
community, we had them actuallydo the research and they admit
that repetitive head impacts isthe root cause of CT, all these
football players that are takingtheir lives, hockey players,
wrestlers, are all because ofthese smaller impacts that
seemingly don't impact the brain, but they do.
(31:35):
So we started a foundationcalled the Mack Parkman
Foundation and our job is toreach out because nobody's
trained on this man, dan, rightnow.
This is not trained.
Repetitive ed impacts is nottrained in nursing programs,
doctor programs, psychologistprograms, suicide prevention
programs, all the people thatyou know.
(31:56):
When a child's mentally ill,obviously you know, nobody's
trained on.
So what happens?
They misdiagnose it, oh, you'rementally ill.
Let's look back at yourchildhood.
Oh, somebody must've touchedyou right or whatever it is.
So, because you're mentally ill, what's the next step and we
see this with our veteranpopulations all the time
pharmaceutical intervention.
Let's get you a drug oh, it'sgot a side effect.
(32:17):
We got a pill for that, there'sa drug.
Next thing, you know whetheryou're a child or a veteran,
you're holding on to a bag of 10to 15 medications and you are
messed up.
You know why?
Because you're continuing to bea soldier or you're continuing
to head that soccer ball orcheck, and so we don't treat the
problem, which is a damagedbrain, and therefore you wonder
(32:39):
why our children, our NFLplayers, our veterans spiral
with all these drugs and adamaged brain and the end result
is homicidal ideation, suicidalideation, you know,
schizophrenia, depression, majormood disorders all of it
preventable by reducing thetotal aggregate impact of those
(33:01):
impacts or explosives.
So that's what our job is tolet people know that we can make
sports safer.
We have an exact, I wrotelegislation.
Check this out.
Nobody will touch mylegislation, especially on the
Republican side, because itmakes them appear soft on
football and they want to getreelected.
(33:21):
So they'd rather know thatchildren are being harmed.
And instead of saying, look,let's just not do this Pop
Warner stuff, let's do flag till14 and take the aggregate
contact, take the contact out ofpractice.
That's where most of the damagecomes from.
And then on the veteran side, weget all kinds of support.
I'm on the USOCOM commander'sbrain health team.
(33:41):
Tons of support let's changethe way we train, let's suppress
our weapons, let's uh, you know, we don't have to shoot AT4s
all day.
I mean, look, once you hit abuilding and you hit the same
building with the same bullettraps, they got to flash, bang
it every time.
They got to shoot live roundsevery time.
No, it's skills and drillsskills.
I'm a 1980s guy.
We had sticks, we had duct tape, we didn't have shoot houses
(34:03):
right, we had tire houses rightbam, bam, bam bam.
You're dead, motherfucker.
You know, I mean that's what wehad right.
Well, I mean, and not to say,my brain ain't damaged after
safari taking all this stuff andsafal can be in a sip and stuff
, but you know, just you know.
But we got to be smarter.
So that's the whole focus againis giving back to society
(34:23):
through education awareness thatthat, look, we got to find
these kids, find these vets, wegot to diagnose them, we got to
get them the right treatmentsand we can get them back.
We can literally.
We're not going to cure them,but we can take their quality of
life to a level that'sacceptable, that they can hang
in there for the rest of theirlife.
They're not struggling andtheir brain functions, they're
(34:43):
clear, and this happens all thetime, man, we work with so many
veterans that have come back anddone good.
So I appreciate you letting mebring that up, but that's what
we're trying to do, man.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's part of the asset mindset being an asset to
others and doing positive things.
And if you want to be an assetright now, hit pause, go into
the description and you willfind everything in there for
details on broken brains or howyou can get in touch with Bruce
and what he's doing or hisorganization and, of course,
like, subscribe and follow theasset mindset and share it with
(35:18):
someone who might be interestedin the subjects we are talking
about today.
But let's continue now on.
I want to see more of yourknowledge for just reacting and
dealing with obstacles that comeup, Because I like to share
with people, because a lot ofpeople feel overwhelmed when
(35:39):
something doesn't go their way.
Is this a redirection thing youdo or how do you shift your
mind from not focusing on thatnegative thing to something more
positive or staying goaloriented?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I do a couple things.
When I run into an obstacle,you know, when I feel myself
getting anxious or scared.
When I feel myself gettinganxious or scared now, I start
going back into my mindset.
Look, I can't control this.
Just for an example, I had aventure capitalist literally
bend me over over the last year,told me he had money coming in,
(36:13):
I freed up a lot of liquidity,I kept my company going and in
the end he bled me dry.
You know, hurt me, hurt me hard.
This is my children's money.
And you know what I startedthinking to myself.
I could hate this guy, I couldspend a lot of negative energy
on me because this was a bigobstacle man.
He was between me and a verysuccessful company, this one
right here and in the end I waslike you know what?
(36:35):
There was some reason.
He tried to hurt me.
But now that I went through allthis pain, my company is now
somehow worth a lot more moneythan it was, because we've
created new contracts, new valueand bam, out of that, another
investor came back and we raiseda million dollars in two
investment meetings, just withwhere we were as a company and
(36:59):
and because we didn't give up.
And so you know, it came out ofthe blue.
I just prayed.
I said, look, I just need onemore option because this guy's
killing me here.
Right, but I had the choice,and this is whether it was my
son or with this guy or anyother person, that's really
negatively impacting you.
If you spend more than fiveminutes worrying or hating or
(37:20):
just being angry, that is allwasted energy that you could be
putting towards a solution.
And so there's a great book outthere by Daniel Hawkins called
Letting it Go.
Let it go.
There's nothing that thesepeople that might have hurt you,
but you are wasting time andeffort that you could be putting
(37:40):
towards your company or yourfamily or whatever is out there.
So when I run into an obstacle,I step back.
I'm like, all right, how am Igoing to deal with this?
My preferred action is I'mgoing to do the best I can.
I'm going to come up with aplan.
I'm going to run it by my folksand we're going to say, all
(38:05):
right, this is the plan.
And then we're going to goforward with that plan and we
don't know how it's going toturn out, and again it goes back
to no matter how it turns out.
That's what was going to happen, because you gave it 100%.
And then I usually get angry.
Now, anger is one of thoseemotions that can be so powerful
or it could be so negative.
And when your anger was theanger that I used to have, when
(38:26):
I would literally punch myselfin the head, I'd hit walls.
I had so much rage in me and Iunderstood now that it's from my
childhood, it's from my ego,it's from a lot of unresolved
trauma that I never dealt within my life.
And until I dealt with it andwe can always dial into that too
it bothered, it made me a veryangry man, and while that was
(38:51):
the Pac-Man that everybody knew,it wasn't healthy, like my
heart used to get like tight,you know, and now that I found
out a lot of it was due to braintrauma.
I've been shot in the face.
I've been through all theseexplosions.
I was finally diagnosed by theVA with general anxiety disorder
as a result of damage to mybrain.
I was on the all-army rugby teamfor eight years.
(39:12):
You know I'll, you know.
You know Sepout Separtic.
You know hundreds, thousands of.
I don't even shoot bulletsanymore.
They barter, you know, but itall adds up.
So then you know.
So that now my anger is asimmering.
It's an anger, but it's likenow I'm going to, now I'm just
going to effing do this.
Now I'm mad, and now this isgoing to get done, and if it
(39:35):
doesn't get done, at least I try.
So first I assess the problem,I step back, consult with the
people that I trust, my mentors.
I call up people all the time,dude, hey, have you ever been
here?
And they're like, yeah, dude,hot, don't go down that road.
Okay, thanks, dude, you know,and I do this for people too,
right, and I'll call up likebecause of you know, I now run a
technology company, bro, youknow what I know about codingip.
(39:57):
All right, I fell into thisthing because another dude
wrecked the company.
I had to roll in, I had to layoff 80% of the staff and we had
developed this little plugin andI invested in that.
And over seven years we foughtwith IBM and all these clowns
and we said, look, this stuffdoes good tech.
And then finally, it just tookall this time and a lot of my
money to get it here.
(40:18):
But you know, in the end Idon't know anything about
software.
So I'm calling people all thetime, dude, you know I'm like,
hey man, what do I do now?
So you know, that's where thementors come in.
Consult with your mentors, comeup with a plan, and then you
know, just like in the militaryor in civilian life, you know,
look for having a P pace plan,have a primary plan, an
(40:41):
alternate contingency and anemergency right.
At least have a plan A and aplan B, because when plan A goes
to hell, you got to have a planB.
So think of what that is.
You know, the plan B for thisthing fire sale yeah, just put
it on the market and I'll justdo the best I can.
Plan A, let's go make a big,fancy, big money-making company,
so that and your mentors, andthen trust in yourself and a lot
(41:05):
of people when they'reconfronted by obstacles or
negativity and I see this withmilitary people military people
don't fail.
If you're a Green Beret or aRanger, or even in the military,
you have probably passed everycourse you've ever been through
right.
You're not allowed to fail.
You might've recycled, but youended up going all the way
(41:26):
through right.
You might've flunked SFAS.
Those are the guys thatactually do well in life.
I know several captains thatflunked SFAS, but they failed
and they had to deal with thatfailure.
If you've never failed in themilitary and you pop out here on
this side of the fence, oryou're in civilian life and
you've been like that starathlete and you've done
(41:47):
everything right and you'venever, ever, suffered adversity
in any other way and all of asudden you get smacked with it,
you have two options you cancurl up in a ball and you can
quit, or you can learn and youcan drive on.
So many military people curl upbecause they've never faced it
(42:07):
before, and I see it in mycompanies where I've, you know,
counseled people.
I've had to lay them off,whatever, and they just have
never failed.
And so failure, dealing withfailure, get used to it.
You know, if you're single, goout and get rejected on the
dance floor a couple times.
(42:28):
You're right.
You know what I mean.
Go suffer some rejection.
I used to hate that too, right,but get used to being told no.
Or you know, even if you fail,it's a lesson learned and guess
what, you'll never repeat that.
You know, even failure is agood thing in life, man, because
you're going to have to dealwith it.
You're never going to doeverything completely right and
(42:51):
failure could be just notgetting all the way you want to
be.
So some people's like I didn'tget all the way there.
Give yourself on the back, givea pat on the back and love
yourself, man, you know, and uh,but yeah, I just um, you know
that that's what I.
That's the process I go throughwhen I hit an obstacle.
But the big thing is, no matterwhat happens in the other side
of that obstacle, you know, I'mjust going to deal with it, man,
(43:12):
I'm going to accept it.
It's not going to consume meand if it's negative, I'm just
going to chuck it in the bin andI'm going to keep pushing on
and it's all I know how to do,really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And I like how you took anger and used it in a way
to move forward, or that energy.
So you're converting the energyBecause every human being feels
anger.
We all get angry at times, weget frustrated, but do you want
to let that burn you or do youwant to take that fire and stoke
it so it lights the path whereyou're going to go in the future
(43:46):
?
Good point, yeah, that is socrucial out there.
So if you have anger, don't letit consume.
You Use it in the direction youwant to go, and that will
really change the game, becauseif you're staying angry, you're
going nowhere.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And to your point, that VC, that I was so upset you
know I wasn't angry, I justgave it all up, but I used that
to drive.
It's like you know what.
Now I'm really going to get onthis company right.
Leverage that, redirect, likeyou said.
Like let it motivate you,incentivize you, because you
want to give it back to theperson that hurt you, right, but
(44:21):
you don't want to hurt them,right.
Let them go on their own messedup path.
You know, tormenting other poorsouls, whatever their joy, is
right, but you need to take thatand say, look, I'm going to do
some good with this, becauseeverything that happens to you
in life, no matter how bad it is, can be turned to good.
I turned the death of my soninto a foundation, a book, and
(44:51):
if that can happen from a dadthat didn't know anything, you
can turn anything into anynegative event into good, and
that is so powerful Good andlove.
Love is the most powerfulweapon in the world.
I know a lot of people cannotbelieve that I say this, but I'm
telling you, man, if you, byjust just giving up and learn to
love anybody, dude, you can doso many things, bro.
You know, I agree 100%.
(45:12):
I agree 100%.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
And I'm I'm proud of you, man.
I really am For sharing yourstory, for making changes, for
actually putting yourself outthere and I think you're so
inspiring For what you justshared right now for the
audience.
What worse thing as a parent Ihave three kids, I have a son
(45:36):
Like that talking about atragedy and for you being able
to turn that and use that as apositive catalyst in the world,
because you know what your sonwas going to die at some point
anyways.
My son's going to die, I'mgoing to die, you're going to
die.
It's painful and it's horrible,but I know listeners out there.
You can turn whatever pain youhave around.
(45:58):
You really can Listen to Bruceand what he did.
He got empowered, wrote a book,you got a foundation.
You can do it whatever it is,and I'm pretty sure most of the
pain and struggles you have outthere aren't anything like Bruce
had to go through.
So, bruce, I just want to saythank you again for sharing and
(46:18):
doing everything you do andagain, seriously, I'm one of the
people that you help put foodon the table, because I worked
ASOT East for many years, andyAlbright, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Andy's one of my mentors.
That's a good group of boysback there.
Tell Andy hi, man, that's anamazing guy.
I like him.
I love.
Andy, dude man yeah he's great.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
He's absolutely phenomenal.
One of the other mentors that Ijust have been so blessed.
You know, when people in ourcommunity say, hey, I'm just a
regular guy, but I got to walkamong giants, that's how I feel
you know and.
I didn't even do 20 years.
I mean I came in after 9-11.
I'm an SF baby, but you knowwhat?
The people who taught me,mentored me, shaped me and
(47:02):
taught me the ways of theregiment, kept me safe,
downrange and my brothers to myleft and my right.
We made it out on my team.
We lost people in the companyand whatnot.
But it's going to happen.
It's life.
People die here in the streetsin a car accident.
But sorry, I'm going off on alittle tangent there and give
(47:23):
yourself a break bro.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
I want your audience to know this when he says he's
an SF baby, like, I think, about5% of the people that come in
out of the civilian world tomake it to SF actually make it.
I was actually part.
Well, my Green Beret class in1984 was one of the first X-ray
programs and I was an E-5.
(47:45):
I had a bunch of privates Likethree of them made it.
So give yourself a pat on theback, dan, and honestly I want
to thank you for your service,not only to this country, but to
those people that are listeningright now, the message that
you're bringing to them ofoptimism, and to those people
that are listening right now,the message that you're bringing
to them of optimism andconfidence and all that you know
(48:05):
, just giving them the hope that, no matter what they're going
through, they can get over it.
And they can't.
They can get over it.
They can get some things likethe death of my son.
I'll never get over it, but Iwill get through it.
I will get through it till Isee him on the other side and I
will see my son, not evenworried about it.
But the message that you'rebringing is amazing, it's
necessary and it's such a lightin this dark world.
(48:29):
Sometimes you know, and that'swhat we need and God bless you
for having this podcast and foryour mission, man.
I mean that's kind of purpose.
I hope all your listeners findthis kind of purpose, because
once you find your purpose andsometimes it's not there when
you're 22, you're not going tofind your purpose when you're 22
.
All right, your purpose comeslater, all right, but do what
you like you know, enjoy youknow, get you got to like.
(48:50):
But when you find your purpose,like you found, sir, I'm glad
you got on it and you're anexample for everybody that's
listening to this podcast rightnow.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you.
I'm working at the best I canand I tell you what comments
from you, comments from fans,people that have changed their
lives because of the asset,mindset, philosophy and the book
.
That's where, when I wasapproached about doing the
podcast, I really was like okay,god, this is the next level.
You know, we want to keepmoving forward.
This is it.
(49:18):
This is where I'm going.
I never thought I'd be apodcaster, never thought I'd be
an author.
When I was young, I didn'tthink I'd be a green beret.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I saw Rambo and I'm like he's too bad-ass.
I can't be that guy.
But you know what?
I can't even drive a tank.
Yeah, no, you've done amazinglywell and um and uh, yeah,
you're doing a great job, dude.
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Bruce, I appreciate you being on here.
I'm honored to have you.
Thank you for your service, allyou've done, all you're giving
back to the world.
I'm very grateful.
I'm grateful for your time andblessed to call you an Asset
Mindset teammate now.
So for all you listeners outthere again, don't forget to
check out the description.
You can find all the links forBruce and Broken Brains.
(50:00):
You can definitely like andsubscribe and follow the Asset
Mindset and share it with othersand, most of all, always
remember, own your power.
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