E122 Navy Seals, CBD, and Getting Naked with William Branum | Mental Health Podcast

Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're having an amazing day, wherever you are in the world. Today, my guest is William Branum, who is the founder and CEO of Naked Warrior recovery CBD company focused on the recovery of veterans and first responders. Williams is also a Navy seal and a bad mofo. William, my friend, what is going on? How are you today?

William: Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me here. I'm good. All is good out here in Hawaii.

Michael: Good. I bet it is, man. I'm super jealous. I wish I was there with you, too. You know, I'm super excited to have you on today but before we dive in, tell everybody a little bit about your background, your history, and how you got to this moment today.

William: So, let's see, I grew up in Meridian, Mississippi, or just outside of Meridian, Mississippi. If you've never been to Mississippi, probably not missing a whole lot but it, you know, it was a great place to grow up kind of out in the country little Country bumpkin, I guess. I was heavily involved in the Boy Scouts and because of that, I think that helped me to really have an appreciation of the outdoors, I learned how to shoot guns, I learned how to hunt, I learned how to run around in the woods and do lots of like cool life skills and some of my role models, I guess, growing up were like, John Wayne in the movie, Green Beret, Chuck Norris in the movie, Delta Force, John Rambo, who still making movies today. Those are kind of the sort of role models I had growing up to that kind of pushed me in the direction of maybe joining the military and wanting to be part of a kind of a little more of an elite unit. I also watched a lot of concrete theater. So I wanted to be a ninja when I grew up also and I'm still trying to acquire my ninja, my ninja earnest and so at some point, you know, someone told me what a Navy SEAL was, I'd never heard of Navy SEALs back in the day and because there was, you know, we didn't have internet, we had there were no books or movies written about them.

So, but someone told me like, hey, there's this organization called the Navy Seals and they're like, the best Special Forces Group out there. And so, one day, you know, the Navy called me to, as a navy recruiter. I was between my 11^th and 12^th grade of high school and he's like, hey! Man! have you ever thought about joining the Navy? And I was like, yeah, I mean, only you just recently because I thought, Marines were cooler because they had cool uniforms and the commercials that it's growing up in the recruiting videos where they were like fighting dragons with swords and shields, and I was like, that's pretty cool.

So maybe I want to be a marine but you know, you guys have Navy Seals. So I want to go become a Navy SEAL, so I went down to the recruiter's office. I watched a really cheesy recruiting video and I was like, okay, where do I sign? Oh, and by the way, I also want to fly F-14 Tomcats because the movie Top Gun was out at that time and so I was ready to sign up. So I joined the Navy and then I started my path to get, just to the SEAL Teams and that took me about three years from the day that I actually went. I graduated high school went to boot camp and then you know by the time I got to the SEAL training. It took me three years because I made some errors along the way and have a lot of lessons learned from there, but then I finally eventually got to seal training and spent 26 years in the Navy, 23 of my 26th was part of the SEAL Teams, then I retired had some issues I guess, maybe some baggage, I like to call it bags. I don't call it PTSD or anything like that and CBD was a modality that helped me kind of work through some of that stuff. What it did basically is, water boils at 212 degrees and I was probably living at 210 degrees, it didn't take very We much for me to hit that, you know, my fuse was very short So, you know, I was only like to two degrees away from you know self-combusting at pretty much any day and taking CBD, really kind of, you know, went from like 210, 225 to 200 to 195, I'm still pretty close to that, you know, living in that red zone, but my fuse was just shorter and then I stopped taking it because I ran out. And I started getting closer back to that kind of boiling point and I took another brand of CBD and notice that I was getting further away, it wasn't anything I noticed right away. It was like, you know stepping back after about 30 days, looking at myself and like my quality of life, and so then I was like, there's got to be something to this. I was at a business summit that I got to go to for free because a friend of mine was a keynote speaker and I met someone in the CBD industry and she was like, oh, you want to do a to be B2B B2C, unlike I want to do CBD, that's what I want to do and so she's like well, why don't you just start your own company? And I was like, I don't know how to do that, and she was like, you're a Navy SEAL, why don't you just go figure it out? And I was like, all right. So that's how I started, you know, as I kind of dug into the industry, that's how I started making worry recovery, you know using CBD as a modality to kind of help, turn off the negative thoughts in my head in order for me to really reach back into my all the lessons that I learned as a seal to, like, create positive self-talk and really bring you help, my own mental health, in my own sort of personal healing, which was both physical mental and emotional.

So, I'm nowhere near that 212° anymore CBD was the modality that got me there and then you're changing my mindset was a whole nother piece of it. So and then here and then here we are today, that was the short version that I could go a lot longer and a lot more details about a lot of things in there.

Michael: Yeah. And William, we're going to dive in, and one, as The Unbroken Nation knows I'm a huge proponent for CBD, it's a part of my daily life, it is a life-changing even dare I say, life-saving medicinal apparatus because it's so incredible what's been able to be changed in my life through it. But before we dive in, you know, I'm I feel some beautiful parallels here. I have to call attention to and we're going to dive into your experience as a Navy SEAL but first, I have to say this; Growing up, I was a Boy Scout and I was a Boy Scout through my church, even though I was like, growing up in the hood and I love, the boy scout has such an amazingly beautiful experience and I found myself wanting to be a Marine Corps scout sniper after I saw Tom Berenger and sniper, I was like, this is it! This is the pathway and then I found myself when I was 18 years old, actually destroyed my knee, couldn't get in through maps, and then I was like, okay. Well, what's next? And so, first and foremost, as someone from a military family, my brother has served, my uncle has served, my cousin's, has served. I thought I was going to serve, it's just such a part of our nomenclature. I have so much love, respect, and admiration for everyone who's a part of this, so thank you for that. I love this conversation about Navy Seals. I'm obsessed with it and I want to talk about the mindset around it and kind of the experience of going through it.

One of the things that I noticed is and maybe this is my interpretation of it outsider looking in and so I love that, I get to have this conversation with you. Being in Navy Seal, going through really the first part of that is a mental test. It's not as physical, right? Can you kind of talk about and dispel what it's actually like to go through Navy SEAL training? And is it mental? Is it physical? Is it both? Like everyone obviously to reference they'll go to David Goggins, as like, this guy went through it but the truth is, I think that the people who make it through and don't ring out, there's a level of mental fortitude, right? How did develop that, how did you move through it? How do you test yourself and probably arguably one of the most challenging environments known to man?

William: That's a good question. And, you know, I get the question a lot, is it more mental or is it more physical? And I'm going to say, you know, some people are like it, 70, 40, 30, 20, or whatever, you know, the numbers are. And I'm going to tell you that, it's a hundred and a hundred, it's a 100% physical, and it's a 100% mental. And once you're able to kind of comprehend that, it's not that hard and quite honestly, I tell people this all the time, Seal training buds is not that hard. All you have to do is not quit and the other thing that you have to do is just you can either not quit and be mediocre or you cannot quit and be awesome.

And I'll kind of go into what that means in a minute but when I showed up to Seal training, I was not prepared, really physically, or mentally. I was just like, how hard can it be? It took me a long time to get here and now I'm here. Now, I have to figure it out and I learned very quickly, that it is very hard unless you prepare for it, but I'm one of those guys that I'm not good at anything. I kind of suck at all of it. And so I have to work harder than most and it doesn't matter if it's academically if it's physically, it's whatever. I can keep up and I can beat you but I feel like I'm working harder than you on every single thing that we're doing.

And so, we show up and there were all these guys that were just amazing performers. Like athletes, they're smart, they're fast, they can swim fast, they run fast, they can do the obstacle course faster than anyone else and they get a little bit of cold water on their body, after a few days and they quit and I was like what happened? You're so much better at this than me. How did you quit and or you know, you're guaranteed to fail in buds, but it doesn't matter how awesome you are, you're going to fail and many of these like star athletes, they're only used to winning their used to, like crushing everything that they do. They're putting in work, they're working hard, but they're not used to failure and you're gonna fail in, but it doesn't matter if you're maybe you're not fast enough, maybe you're not strong enough, maybe you're not smart enough, maybe you're not working as a team, maybe someone in the team wasn't in the group, didn't show, get back there fast enough or maybe your boots aren't quite shiny enough or your belt buckle has a scratch, it doesn't matter. You're going to fail multiple times a day, you know every single day and in a lot of these guys were just not okay with it. And it doesn't matter how good you were at things, you still were punished.

And so, it's a physical event, but it's also, it's also a mental event, like, and really these guys were, like, this is not cool. I don't fail. I don't quit. I don't like they quit, actually, they quit, I don't fail at anything, I've never failed at anything in my life and now they're like, failing left and right, and they're blaming other people, that's part of the program.

You're going to fail the end, just accept it and move on. And for me, I was used to like, failure and working harder than everyone else is like, no big deal. I'm here. I'm having a great time. It sucks. Yes, but I'm having a blast, like this is where I want to be. I mean, it took me three years because of some tactical errors that I made prior to getting to Seal training. It was like, the Navy said, no, you're not going to be a seal because you took this other school and you're too critical to the Navy and it took the chief of Naval operations is just kind of give someone an idea of who the chief of Naval operations is. He's the most senior guy in the Navy and his so the only two people that are more senior to him is the Secretary of Defense and the president of the United States. I was stationed in you Cusco Japan on a ship, trying to go to buds, I had submitted my package, the guy that tells you when you're going to go or whatever. He's like, sorry, you're too critical. I'm not going to let you go become a seal because you have the school that we need more people like you and I'm like, but I don't want to do this job. I want to be a Navy SEAL. He's like, sorry, you're not going to be a Navy SEAL and so the chief of Naval operations, the most senior guy in the Navy came to York Cusco, Japan to my little teeny tiny ship, there were many ships in Japan. They only came to mind and he had, see it, as call as I can. Does anyone have any questions? I raised my hand. I'm like, yeah, I joined the Navy to be a seal I think I deserve a chance to go, but my detailer won't let me go and so I think I deserve a chance, maybe I make it, maybe I don't, and he turns to my commanding officer. He's like, hey, is he a good guy? He's like, yeah, he was a sailor of the quarter, this quarter.

He turns back to me is like, you'll be in the first class after your PRD, which is planned rotational date, six weeks later, I'm headed to, California. And so, I had a lot of adversity that I had to overcome just to get to Seal training. There was no way I was going to quit; I didn't care how hard it was, how cold I was, how many broken bones I had, I'm not quitting. I'm gonna be here. And if you guys want to kick me out, I'm going to still, like, dig in and try to stay here anyway, so, you know, it was mental, but for me, it was like, dude, I don't have another option. This is there's no other options in my life, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to be, so that I want let's do this. So that was kind of to get there was hard and then getting through it, you know buds is six months long and it took me a short 13 months to get through that training. Had some broken bones, a bunch of injuries and so I really was in four different classes before I graduated.

Michael: That's such a testament to the human will because I think and you didn't say this, but I'm going to name it and if I'm wrong, please tell me you embrace failure and that's it so much about what life is. If you're not willing to look at failure and acknowledge it and go this is a part of the experience, you will never find success. And another thing that I want to call attention to, which I think is really powerful that some people may have missed over, is the part where you raised your hand and you said, I want this, we get opportunities. And I want you to talk about this, because we only get so many opportunities in life to ask for what we want and to use your voice often can be terrifying especially in that you're like, oh my God, this dude only reports to the Secretary of State and the President, like Oh! Man, this is terrifying, but you did it anyway and I think a big part of it as embracing the fact that you have to commit to your dreams, no matter what. Talk to me about, what it's like for you to step through and be like, you know, what? I'm going to face the fear. I'm going to face the ridicule, the guilt, the shame, the getting recycled multiple times over. I'm so into this idea that I can make this dream happen. I'm willing to really effectively die for it, right? What's that process for like you? And what was the pivotal turning point in which you understood that about yourself?

William: I think in the beginning I didn't maybe I was too dumb or naive to like really care about like they were telling me, no, like everyone was telling me no, or at least one guy, the guy that was holding the keys was telling, you know, everyone else was like, maybe but other guys that had gone to Seal training and had quit. They're like you're never going to make it, you just need to give it up and whatever and I'm like whatever dude I don't want to, this is not my life, that's my life, that is my goal, that's where I want to be. And so I just didn't have any other options. I mean, I could live on a ship, I could do all that stuff and people make a career out of it and they love it, it's not me, like I need the physical thing, I need the problem solving thing, I need to be pushed every single day and that was one of the beautiful things about being in the SEAL Teams, your always, it didn't matter if I was like, older guy or a newer guy, or, you know, senior or junior. Someone is always pushing me to get better. And so, it's interesting that, you know, when I was younger, I didn't have the fear of asking for help or that being brave and it wasn't until I got older and I had more to lose or I thought too much about what other people might think, and I think really when I was older was when I got scared to ask questions or ask for help.

I had a little bit of that in the beginning and it just got kind of worse as I got older, and I think this is true for a lot of people but you know, once it wasn't until I actually got out of the SEAL Teams and I like figured all this stuff out where I really became I'm not afraid to ask for help anymore and I learned it really in the SEAL Teams when I was like as a senior guy, that I should know how to do certain things and I didn't and so I had to find creative ways to ask for help without showing weakness or anything else. Now, I'm just like whatever, you know what? Hey! I don't know how to do that. Can you show me? I don't have any problem saying hey, I'm the dumb guy in the room. I have a PhD, a public high school diploma. I know all the other people are smart. Maybe you can help me figure this thing out. So it wasn't until I got brave enough to kind of accept that failure and just not on who cares?  Where's if someone thinks I'm not smart or not strong or not? Whatever! I know who I am and but it took a lot of growing, a lot of kind of work, and kind of self-reflection to get there and, like, kind of figure that whole thing out for myself because, it kind of a misconception in the SEAL Teams or for people like, oh! you're not scared of anything, and my son has told me this, you know, before I'm like, dude, I'm terrified of stuff. And I just don't show it or I kind of figure out how to get through it or ask for help like I'm no longer afraid to ask for help. I don't care who it is. If this one person, I don't care if you think badly of me, I'm going to ask you for help and you have two choices, you can help me or not. Help me. The end.

 Michael: I love it. And like, that's the truth about it too. And I often think about the reality of the difference in your life. Whether you find success or not, could literally be about extending yourself through this place of vulnerability and saying; You know what? I can't do this on my own. I need assistance. I need a team, and William, I'm sure you'll agree with me on this but no one has ever done anything great by themselves, that's not how the world works, that's not how it works, and speaking of, you know, you mention it, like you transition, you started getting into this place where you were exiting being a Navy SEAL moving into civilian life, you know, this seems to be a place where a lot of people struggle. I've seen it in my family, I've seen it with my friends, I understand it from an outsider's perspective looking in obviously. What was the transition like for you to go from this is the only thing I've known for as long as I have known this, to welcome to civilian life?

William: That is a great question and I tell people that my transition from the military to civilian life is the hardest military mission I have ever been on. And I'm still on that mission because I've been in the military my entire adult life, I spent 26 years in the military and when I got out, I no longer had a team, you know, when I'm in the military at a badass team, a badass mission. I knew what I was going to do every day when I got up in the morning. I knew what I was gonna do when I go to went to bed at night, like I had Mission, I had purpose, I had everything that I needed. I didn't come even, you know, so and that's always a good thing. And then when I got out, I lost all of that and it wasn't I didn't get out because I wanted to get out. I got out because, I had spent my time I was a E-8 which is the second to highest enlisted rank in the Navy and they're like, okay, your time is up, time to go, 26 years, see you later.

And so, when once I left the Navy, I was like lost at no team, no mission, I had no purpose, I had no nothing my income went down to pretty much zero, and it was a difficult time for me. And I had already had a bunch of baggage from, either toxic relationships or sometime, in the job that I doing and so I was pretty much just drinking myself to sleep every night. Just to kind of quiet the noise in my head and try to figure out what the hell I'm doing. And so, you know that transition I can't tell you, and since I've been out, I've met lots of other like sort of high performers, sports athletes, in different Industries, different CEOs, maybe they like, a sold a company, and they're like, okay, now what I do? Why do I get a bunch of money? But I don't know what to do. Like, I don't have a purpose. I don't know how to grow anything anymore, and so that I find, that's true for anyone.

Anyone who has any kind of transition in their life, they go from like having a mission and a purpose to having no Mission and no purpose, and so now they can become lost, they maybe fall into drugs or alcohol or other things to kind of consume their time and it's an ugly path that we can go down. And unless we have our mind right, we have a plan for getting out and transitioning to that next ridge line that next purpose and next mission, then it's really hard to kind of get started going up that hill again.

Michael: And when you're in this position of transition and you're coming into civilian life and you're finding yourself, like you must have had, I don't put words in your mouth but this has been my experience in which you see massive change happens in someone's life, we call it Rock Bottom.  We're you able to mitigate that or did you go? Oh, shit! There's something really wrong right here. I need to course correct. What is going on? What actually happened that became the catalyst for you recognizing that you were going down a dark path?

William: I think I was going down that path before I got out of the military, I had some stuff going on in my life and again, I just use alcohol to kind of mask it and cover it and sort of work my way through it but there was a point, there was probably a lot of points where I'm like, I could do the self-reflection. I still want to perform at a high level, but I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. And you know what I end with I think the thing that helped me was reaching out to former teammates, who were performing, who were doing great things, and again going back and being brave enough to ask for help and I wasn't saying; I need help. I'm just like, hey man, I'm have it, like, can you help me out with this? Or what do you think about that? or just like little baby questions.

And they would help me out and what I eventually ended up doing is surrounding myself by, I kind of had to make my own kind of seal platoon on the outside.

So now I have, other seals, who are entrepreneurs, who were mindset coaches, who are doing all these things. I've hired some coaches, and a lot of people don't want to hire a coach. And I'm like, you know what, in the SEAL Teams when we we're pretty good at doing a lot of stuff, but we're not the best shooters, we're not the best drivers, were not the best climbers, we're not the best anything. We're really good at some of the things that we do, but if we want to get better at something that's just say driving, you know, off-road high speed at night, on with night vision goggles, and it really rough terrain, we'll go find, you know, the best off-road driver in the world and they will teach us how to drive off road at high speeds and then, we will take those lessons that we learn and implement them into our tactics techniques and procedures. If we're climbing buildings, the sides of buildings in, downtown Iraq, we will go out and find at night, full equipment, body armor, bullets guns, the whole shooting match and we'll go find, you know, the best climbers in the United States and tell them what we're trying to do, they will go out, they'll show us what gear, we need, what tactics is, what techniques to use to get up, you know, the size of these mountains or the sides of these buildings and then we'll take the things that they teach us, and we'll implement those into our own tactics techniques and procedures.

So, you know, finding a coach in like, this is what we did in the SEAL Teams. Why wouldn't I do that in civilian life, when I'm like, I don't really know how to do this better, so, I went out and found coaches. So now I have several coaches that helped me on the business side, but also on the mindset side, just being surrounded by these, super high performers, these guys that they've seen a ton of other guys, struggle through and girls struggle through, whatever, they're struggling through starting a business to whatever it is. And so now I've surrounded myself by these other high performers. So it's kind of like I'm still in the SEAL Teams just because I've surrounded myself by people who are better than me and they're going to push me to get better every single day. I'm sure I answer your question. I have no idea how answered or not.

Michael: No, you're right there. That's spot-on. And I think that one of the things I often reflect on is the idea that when you're in life, you are the general manager, you are the leader of your life and your trying to move towards this idea of a championship or a goal or however it is that you want to define it, but you have to have the support system in place to do that.

One of the things that people don't understand that you have the benefit probably of recognizing as well in the sales and the Boy Scouts like it's kind of right there in front of you. And then when you're in real life, excuse me, I want to use it that way when you're a civilian life or if you've never been in the military and you're out here in the world, it feels like you're on your own, but the truth is, you're not but you're going to have to invest time, effort, energy, or money to build a team around you, to help you move forward into what it is that you want in life.

Now, part of what I think is really important in that is having clarity and understanding what it is that you want to accomplish. And you said, one of the reasons why people will come out of the military and just kind of be stuck rudderless without in a boat, is not having a mission any longer. Let's talk about this. This mindset about the seal mindset and this naked acronym, that I know is a big part of your life and discovering this mission. Talk us through this journey of how you kind of went from that transition of, okay, life's a little chaotic to, ah, I'm going to be the one to create the mission now.

William: Right. So that's a great segue. So, you know, kind of like what I talked about before, I went out and found coaches, business coaches, I decided after someone calling me out saying, why don't you start your own, CB company, you know, all the business coaching out there are the sort of high-end, they're like, you know, you need a mission, you need a why, what is your why? And I've talked to some other people about this. And so I looked at my own journey from like joining the military to transitioning out of the military and then I'm like, well, I'm a veteran. I have some disabilities here and there and so let's see if what I'm starting to CBD company naked warrior recovery can help other people and maybe other veterans and I look, just look to see like how many Veterans kind of suffer as they get out of the military and when I was doing that research, I found it 22 veterans take their lives every single day. We've lost more veterans to suicide, then we have to 20 years of sustained combat, and this is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. So we've lost more veterans to suicide than 20 years of sustained combat. And I was kind of looking at this, you know, very recently and I was like, oh my God, my dad killed himself, my dad is one of those 22 a day. So, our mission at naked warrior recovery is, you know, 20 to 200 and like I said before, CBD is a modality that helps me get there and helps me every single day, you helps with pain and other things that I have going on with my body, but it also helped turn off the noise in my head and get me from that hundred that two ten down to like, maybe I'm like a 110 now, but, you know, the other part of it is, is mindset.

And so I came up with the get naked mindset and what get make it is and I love wearing shirts out there or hat and people like what is get naked and I'm like, it's really kind of about mental health in about thinking, like, changing your mindset. And so part of getting naked is is taking your ego off and being, you know, not being afraid to ask for, help taking your ego off and finding that healing and being a little bit vulnerable.

The other part of get naked, NAKED as an acronym.

So the “N” is for never quit. I mean, if I can point to that on my shirt, so the N is for never quit. And I don't mean, like, never quit, smoking or drinking or doing drugs or pornography or whatever your vice is. I mean if you start something then you should it's never quit on yourself. You should follow that thing all the way to the end, and I know it's hard and it could be unattainable and many people think that SEAL training is unattainable. But you know, how we do it in Seal training is we go from one evolution to the next and so, hell week.

I'll just use hell week as an example. Hell week is five and a half days, it's you get no sleep at actually we slept for about two and a half hours during hell week but they feed you four times a day because you're burning a lot of calories, you're around your cold and wet and miserable, and you carry this boat on your head and your boat team but all you have to do is like it doesn't matter how bad it gets.

They're always going to feed you, so all you got to do is make it to the next meal or you just have to make it to the next evolution that they're going to only keep you in that Pacific Ocean, which the water is really cold but those of you who don't know, Southern California, the water is cold, except for about two months out of the year. And you're shivering jackhammering completely, you know, lose total bodily function and then at some point, they're going to get you up and they're going to start running you around and warming your body core temperature up again. So all you got to do is make it past that one thing. You just got to make it past the next evolution. You just got to make it to the next meal to get through that. And that is all buds is just like small victories and this is something we also learned in like POW school, like when I was a prisoner of war.

If the interrogators were told you not to do something if they said don't look left, you know when they're not looking at you, you totally look left and maybe you want another little small victory there and you totally look right. And what when you achieve those small victories in your mind, you win every single day. So you just start stacking those wins and that is such a huge win for your mindset.

Like when you like, dude, I'm a winner. Like, I'm not losing at everything in my life, it doesn't matter how bad it is, it doesn't matter that I haven't eaten for a bunch of days of this matter that they don't let us sleep, it doesn't matter I'm cold and wet and miserable. I won again and I beat you again, and I won and I won for myself and you stack those small wins those victories. People say that Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was built every single day, so, you just have to go out there and achieve those small victories every single day, doesn't matter what you're trying to achieve, just never quit, the N is for never quit.

The A is accept failure. And we talked about failure a little bit earlier. And if you think about some of the biggest successes in history, you know, let's just say, I always forget his name, Thomas Edison. He that guy, he discovered 10,000 ways to not create the incandescent light bulb. Elon Musk fired as a CEO from the first first company he started. Steve Jobs, same thing fired from Apple, he started Apple fired and then, failed, created another company, then came back to Apple and made Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world. Michael Jordan, arguably, the best basketball player of all time, he is missed more than 9000 shots in his career, I think he's missed more than 29 game-winning shots, he's lost more than 380 games in his career but still, you know what he would do after he failed, if he missed his shot, games over, maybe he won, maybe they lost, he didn't go celebrate, he went back and he practiced that shot that he missed every single hours, just like go back to that spot, play it again, shoot, go back to that spot, played, getting until he never missed that shot again, and so he took that failure as a learning process.

And so, you know what, I what I like to tell people. This failure is the foundation of success. So, you know, you have this like obstacle in front of you. Maybe you fail and you fail and you fail and then pretty soon you create this giant foundation of failure. All you have to do is hop over that obstacle and you're going to be successful. So accept failure.

The K is kill mediocrity. You know, we're surrounded by mediocrity every day and I think mediocrity is kind of quitting on yourself a lot of times and I'm certainly guilty of it. I've certainly had moments of like quitting on myself, the first time I took the seal screening test, I quit during the test because I was like, oh, I'm so tired doing these push-ups. Now, when I look at it, I'm like really, how did I quit during that but I did and so my mind was it strong enough. I wasn't ready for that at the time, and so I have some regrets for that but I also I'm grateful for that.

But we're surrounded by mediocrity everyday, we can push a button on our phone and a car shows up, which is awesome, but I can also push a button on our phone and Amazon Prime delivers ice cream to our house in like 30 minutes or less. And so we're used to like scrolling and getting sucking into our phone and just becoming mediocre and finding excuses to not do things that we need to do. Like work out or get that project done or hit the snooze button and the morning and not getting up and getting after it.

So we have to kill mediocrity kind of in our own life and then we will achieve success, we will get our mind, right? Will have purpose, will have mission.

The E is exposure fear, and I don't mean like, you know, the things that go bump in the night. I mean, the things that are living in the deep back in the back parts of your brain, in those dark places fear. I like to say, fear is kind of like a vampire. Fear that it lives in the darkness and it sucks the life out of you.

You know, really expose your fear when I became brave enough to expose my fear to other people might be your failure, might fear of like what other people might think of me, all these other fears of looking weak and you know, not successful in whatever.

Once I learned how to, like, reach back there, in the deepest darkest, recesses of my mind and pull that fear out and expose it to the light. You know, those that fear turn into ash, but it didn't happen, right away. It like, maybe I could only pull one out.

So a friend of mine who's also a business coach, his name is Sharon Srivasa. He has a really cool technique for this and he says, fear does not exist on paper, so what he does is he will, maybe he's driving, he's started and sold many companies for billions of dollars, and but he still has stress and anxiety and like fear of things, and he says that he'll like pullover, like things will start bugging him, he'll pull over at a Starbucks, go order a coffee, sit down with a pen, and a piece of paper and he will write down the things that are bothering him. And when he looks at and reads those fears, those things that are bugging him. He's like really, that's what's bugging me because the Fear does not exist on paper, it only exists in the back of your mind and that deep dark place. So if you can expose the fear, you can control the fear and the fear no longer controls you.

The D of get naked is do the work because it all requires work. We can be lazy, we can be mediocre, we're not going to be successful, we're not going to move the ball forward, we're not going to improve where we are. It doesn't matter if you're working out and you put one more pound on the bar, if you're losing one pound or a half a pound or ounce, it doesn't matter, as long as you're making progress, and moving forward, that all requires work but as you can't be successful, you can't get your mind, right? You can't change who you are for it to be better if you're not willing to do the work. So it the D is, do the work.

So it's Never quit, Accept failure, Kill mediocrity, Exposure fears and Do the work.

 The mindset of a Navy SEAL, it's kind of five secrets to to think like a Navy SEAL.

Michael: Man. I love that! That's so powerful. And something you can carry with you because look, you gave actionable and practical tips there that people can apply to their life starting right now. You could literally take one of the things that Williams said and add it to your life in the next 5 minutes, and your life will be different. I guarantee it. One of the things I'm super curious about and I love the acronym and love the brand concept. I love CBD. I'm a huge proponent. I'll tell you right now. I've dealt with chronic pain and inflammation and anxiety, depression, you know, suicidal ideations the whole nine, right? I used to turn to alcohol. I used to turn to heavy drugs, used to turn to sex, whatever coping mechanism that I needed. And then I started getting healthy and I recognize that even though I was getting healthy like I still would sometimes be in pain. I didn't want to take aspirin; I don't want to deal with like the Pharmaceuticals to get my mind right. I turned a meditation. I got in a journaling yoga, all those things are super beneficial and I found that CBD from myself became this beautiful serum for lack of better term of really helping me step into what's next in my life.

There's rarely a day that I go without it for no other reason, that it really helps me focus, takes my mind off chronic pain because, you know, I've had injuries and things of that nature but most importantly, it calms my mind right? It takes my temperature from 200 to like 97. Why CBD, like, you can do could a lot of different things even in this, you could just go and be a speaker and talk about being a Navy SEAL and the naked mindset and you could do that but what about it is about CBD and why did you decide to really dive into this so hard?

William: So, I mean it was CBD, was the modality, just kind of like what you talked about that helped improve the quality of my life. It doesn't cure everything. It doesn't like, you know, I still have triggers. I still get angry. I take CBD. I'm a little less angry and it helps my mind. I know a lot of the science behind CBD and kind of how it works, but it is a new modality. It was only becoming really legal, January 20th of 18 after Congress passed the farm bill. There's a lot of good companies out there and there's a lot of bad companies out there but really it was a modality that it's all natural, you know, it comes from the hemp plant and depending on what kind of CBD you get, like all sorts of other terpenes and minor cannabinoids that help with other kind of synergistic effects of your body, because all mammals have what's called an endocannabinoid system. And what that means is, it's what the endocannabinoid system is a giant neuro receptor that's connected to every other system in your body. Just think about your respiratory system, your circulatory system, your digestive system, your immune system, it's connected your central nervous system, your autonomic nervous system, it's connected to all these other systems in your body.

And so if something gets kind of out of balance out of whack and you create endogenous cannabinoids that help feed your endocannabinoid system, but CBD is sort of like the super multi vitamin that helps to augment what your body is not creating, it helps bring your endocannabinoid system back into homeostasis. So everything else in your body can work properly. And it's just a good everyday supplement to take and if I can help people by spreading get naked mindset and and giving them another modality to help their body, then it's a win, even if I only help one person. Awesome. Yeah, I think that's really the why I will continue down the CBD route, as much as possible and try to help as many people as I can because the feedback that I've got I mean, I even have a CBD energy drink, which is kind of an oxymoron a little bit but what they found is that small doses of CBD, help with can actually give you some energy. And so this has about 75 milligrams of caffeine a bunch of other cool ingredients in it and about 12 and a half milligrams, 12 and a half to 15 milligrams of CBD in it.

And I've gotten responses back from people where they're able to get off of there other, you know Pharmaceuticals but you know specifically Adderall where she's like, she was like, I don't have to take my Adderall anymore because I still get the same focus and the same kind of focus on doing stuff and fighting my ADD, but I don't have the jitters at the end of the day. And so she's completely off Adderall, and she just takes our CBD energy drink, and I've had tons of other people say, they're able to get off of other Pharmaceuticals, painkillers, some depression meds just by taking our products and I'm like, dude, that's awesome. And I got an email yesterday from a guy and he was like, you know what, I take your gummies first thing in the morning and I don't have the anxiety that I generally have throughout the day and that's kind of the way that CBD work. It works different for different for everyone. You know, it's not like, you take it and you get like, you know, rob, rainbows and unicorns, or anything like that. I just say that you the paint is just less pain. I mean, I'm a hundred percent disabled through the Veterans Affairs, which means I'm 250 percent disabled, from all of the injuries and all the stuff that's wrong with me if you added up and CBD has helped my sleep, it has helped my pain, you know, that was one of the things that I didn't talk that earlier I have pains that they're just stabbing me when I move now, they're just kind of dull, they're a little less stabbing, they it hurts a little bit less. So, you know, combining CBD with changing your mindset and really changing your mindset every single day. You wake up in the morning, it's a new battle. In the SEAL Teams, we say the only easy day was yesterday. You know what? It's true, every single day, you wake up in the morning, it's a new battle ahead of you and you have to have the right mindset to go into combat and battle the day, whatever the day, whatever that combat is are you and it's different for everyone. My combat is different that your combat that's different from someone else's combat. So, you know, CBD helps, kind of helps, it's a tool, it's a weapon to help us go down that road.

Michael: I love it. And I love what you said and it's so true. There's so many benefits to it. And I know there's more information on your website. I'll have you give that to folks here in just a second. You said something and I'm just going to reiterate it because it was so beautiful. The only easy day was yesterday, like that's so incredible because we're always going to face battles, were always going to face challenges, we're always going to have to pull ourselves out and use that naked mentality to go to what's next in our life, William. And before I ask you my final question, my friend, can you tell everybody where they can learn more?

William: So, I have, I'll give you two websites. Number one. The first website is to CBD website. It's in nw-recovery.com or you can say, nakedwarriorrecovery.com I made it in NW because maybe people don't want to write naked into their search engine. I don't know. And then, if you're just looking for the seat for the five steal secrets the get naked mentality I created a website specifically for that, you know, and that website is www.seannal.com, the number five, 5sealsecrets.com, and you just put your name and email in there, and I will send you a link to this document that document that I created it, and actually I go back and I read it sometimes, it's right here on my desk and I read it sometimes just as my own I created it, but I still need reminders and so you can print it out, you know, put it on a wall, put it in a folder, whatever and go back and review it. Share it with people and so yeah, so in nw-recovery.com and the for just the 5 SEAL Secrets is 5sealsecrets.com

Michael: Awesome. Thank you so much, my friend. I appreciate you being here. I could literally talk to you all day. We didn't even get into the depth of the military stuff I wanted to go in but we can nerd out on that later together. My last question for you, my friend is, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

William: That's a good question. I think being unbroken is about being your authentic self. We're going to go through challenges in our life and we're going to break and that's okay but it's that healing process like how you come out of it, you break a glass, maybe you can put it back together, you break something, you put it back together and in being unbroken is not being perfect, it's not being impenetrable, it's about having the tools and the skills and the mindset to heal yourself or to ask for help and become as a new version of yourself.

You know, religion, there's baptism and all sorts of other things out there and you have to break before you can heal. And that I think that's really what being unbroken is about. You're never really unbroken, you break, and then you heal.

 Michael: Powerful testimony, my friend. William, thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for listening.

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-I'll see you.