Brant Menswar, besides being one of the top motivational speakers in the country, an award-winning musician, and a podcast host, Brant is the author of the new book, Black Sheep: Unleash the Extraordinary, Awe-Inspiring, Undiscovered You. During this episode Brant talks about spending 263 straight days in the hospital with his oldest son, Theo, as he was battling a rare blood cancer. The story is in the book and is the reason he wrote Black Sheep. Theo recovered and the YouTube video that helped save his life made national news. Today, Theo studies graphic design and actually designed the Black Sheep logo. In the book, Brant helps you to explain why identifying your Black Sheep values are vital for your success and how to implement them in your life for maximum success.

You can find Brant online at: https://www.brantmenswar.com and https://www.findyourblacksheep.com

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MACHINE-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript likely contains errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.

Welcome to episode number 10 of the Built Unstoppable podcast. I'm your host Justin Levy, and today I'm joined by Brant Manswar. Prior to becoming one of the Top 10 Motivational speakers in the country, Brant was a musician who made a total of 12 albums as both as solo artists and part of two different bands. Thanks for joining today, Brant. 

Thanks, Justin. appreciate you having me.

I'd love if we could start with talking about what you experienced with your family because I think it's at the core of who you are. 

Yeah, absolutely. So in 2012, my oldest son Theo is diagnosed with a rare blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome and he required a bone marrow transplant in order to survive. While he was in the hospital, we had the transplant as sort of scheduled we found it unrelated donor and the original plan was You know, 30 days in the hospital sort of 30 days coming in to get his numbers checked once a week and then 30 days of sort of coming in once a month and just checking to make sure everything was going to be okay. And that wasn't the, the path that that Theo took. Unfortunately for us. It was a much more grueling stay, if you will, at the hospital Florida Hospital for Children in Orlando.

What ended up happening was he got the transplant schedule, but he developed something called graft versus host disease, which is where the marrow that's inserted into the body doesn't recognize the environment from which it's been placed. And it begins to attack the organs and shutting things down. So the way that you treat it is you super suppress the immune system so the body won't fight back. And so that's what they did. And when they did that, he contracted the deadly fungus. And these two things graft versus host disease. This fungus called mucormycosis were killing him. And they had opposite treatments.

So after about 200 days, the doctors sort of threw their hands up in the air and said, there's nothing else we can do. No matter what we treat the other thing is going to kill them. We don't think he's going to make it through the night. So you should probably call you need to call and say your goodbyes. And so you know, when you're faced with that sort of a scenario it's your emotions are running so hot, right? It's, it's, it is a tornado of emotions that are happening. And I didn't have anything to hold on to at that moment, from a logic standpoint, or from trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

So I simply did what the doctors told me to do, which was I grabbed my wife's hand we went got his younger brother and you know, we sat on the edge of the bed and you try to find the words to say goodbye and and it's, it is a horrible, horrible thing to go through. And as we're doing this, I've got a call my, you know, my family.

My brother lives in New Hampshire 1500 miles away. I told him he's not gonna have time to make it. I know it's sudden, but if he's gonna say his goodbyes, he's gonna have to do it over the phone. So you know he does it. He's completely distraught as you can imagine. He hangs up the phone and and that night he feels helpless.

So he decided he's going to sit on his couch. He's going to hold up these poster boards and play the song fix you by Coldplay in simply write on these poster boards. What's happening, my nephew is dying. We're running out of time. He has less than 24 hours. He's got this, you know, mucormycosis he's got graft versus host disease. Here are the drugs he's taking. If you have any ideas, if you know anyone that you think can help, please help us we're running out of time.

 He never said a word. He simply held up those boards until the song ended and uploaded it to YouTube. I sat on the edge of the bed all night. Waiting shorter for Theo to pass and, and he made it through the night. And by the next morning, you know, my phone starts ringing off the hook, I'm trying to be in the moment trying to be present, I don't want to be distracted. 

After a couple of hours, my phone is literally hot, and from vibrating. And so I finally pick it up and I look at it. And I have all these messages. And I see all these phone numbers and names of people that I don't recognize. And what had happened was this video that my brother uploaded to YouTube.

By the time I picked my phone up had been seen 500,000 times. And we started getting calls from doctors from all over the world. One of them was from MD Anderson in Houston, who said I saw this video, and I think I might be able to help. There's this alternate treatment that I'm not sure you're aware of that we are testing here and I'd love to talk to your doctor so we put them in touch. Then I got a call from Dr. Tim Johnson from Good Morning America, who said you tell your doctor anybody he wants to speak to get me a list.

I'll make it happen in the next 24 hours. So we did, and he did. And four different doctors put their heads together, they came up with this crazy plan to try to save Theo's life. And it worked. So we went from, say your goodbyes to, we actually think we have a solution in 24 hours. And why that's such an incredible thing for me is this is that, you know, isn't incredible as a miracle as it was for him to survive.

For the next few years, every night before I went to bed, the last thing that sort of went through my mind was, I wonder if Theo thinks that I gave up on him? Because I said my goodbyes. And what I realized was I didn't have the things that mattered most to me defined, I did not have those deeply held personal core values defined, that would have helped me choose the words that I used when I spoke to him And framed the conversation in a way that honors those things that mattered most. And so it took me years and years and years to get past that thought of him worrying, or thinking that I might have given up on him.

And that's where this book has sort of come from is I don't want anyone to go through what I went through. And so if I can help someone sort of define these things before the biggest storm in their life rolls in, then let's go ahead and do that. And that's, that's sort of the birth of this new book.

It's really, you know, an incredible story. I mean, you hear about various stories all the time on TV or read them in books or in what have you and it makes my story sound infinitely smaller. I think that it's it's interesting when you talk about the core values, because when I went through my situation is when I really started to Analyze the core values I didn't realize that I had used all through my life because I had gone through different experiences. 

And I look back, you know, people were telling me that they could never accomplish what I had went through with my brain surgery, my shoulders and what have you. And to me, it seemed like nothing, right? Sure. There was pain and, and, you know, recovering the brain surgery that the pure going in for the surgery was extremely scary to me thinking I was going to widow, my wife and what have you. But there was a set of core values in the recovery that I didn't realize I had. Yeah. And, and so the book is called Black Sheep. And it hits shelves September 29. Yeah. Where did the name for the book come from?

So, you know, as I worked through this recovery with my son, and sort of this feeling that I had had, in my journey to discover my core values, when I was 47 years old, I finally heard the story as to why Black Sheep aren't valued by farmers like the rest of the flock, because I had no idea and and come to find out a Black Sheep's wool cannot be dyed. And so that's why they don't possess the same value as the rest of the flock does.

When I heard that, I'm like, gosh, you know, this is something that's been demonized for hundreds of years, you know, people being called the Black Sheep, this outcast, this, this idea that they don't fit in, when in reality, they're the only ones who know what matters because every Black Sheep is 100% authentically original. And so for me, our goal in life is to be who we were uniquely created to be. And so if that's the case, then they are The ones who we should be aspiring to be like. And so as I did the research, I discovered that, you know, I, we have what I like to call a flock of five Black Sheep values.

That is these deeply held personal core values that are developed over the course of our lives that rarely change outside of a catastrophic event. They do not change, they are just like aBlack Sheep's Wolf, they are what they are, they cannot be manipulated into something else. And so the book guides you through discovering what your flock of five Black Sheep values are, teaches you how to prove that they are yours and that you're not caring for someone else's sheep, which happens quite often. And then it teaches you how to speak them into existence, choosing when and where they appear in your life for maximum impact.

 And that's the goal of the book.

 Now, one of the things that you talked about in the book is those five values that you talked about. Those five Black Sheep values. And you lead on that some people have six because they can't get past that that plus one. But you talk about when you go through these initial exercises with people they write inevitably 20. right in that you can't achieve 20 it's, it's impossible. And that as you work with them, and you evaluate the things that are, are on those lists, that you're able to up-level them often. To get to that actual five. Can you discuss what you mean by that? 

Sure. So there is a online assessment that you can take to go along with the book at Find your Black Sheep calm, you simply click on Find your flock. And what it does is it presents you with 125 commonly held personal core values in the very first section. Simply asks you to select the words that speak to you. What are the words that resonate?

So if you look at and you go, gosh, accountability, I love that word. Oh achievement. I love that word success. I love that word empathy. So you sort of go through those hundred and 25 words. And what you referred to was, the average person selects at least 30 words. And so the challenge with having 30 things that are really important to you is that you're going to try to honor those 30 things on a regular basis. And even if you were successful on honoring 29 out of 30, if you're like me, you focus on the one that got away. And so we try to honor them, we inevitably fail. And then we invite these feelings of shame and disappointment and depression and anxiety and all these things into our lives. Because we've ultimately set ourselves up for failure.

It is impossible to honor that many things in your life on a regular basis. So the next part of the assessment helps you to group these things into likeness, right, so things like empathy and sympathy go into one box, and things like achievement and success go into another box. And when you're done, you sort of have five different boxes full of words that are similar to one another. And then it asks you to select the one word from each box that you cannot live without. And that's your initial flock of five.

 Now, when you do that, sometimes that first grouping of sheep, I'm going to tell you that in the two years that I've been doing this and the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that have been through this program, the the five that you start with are never the five that you finish with. So the way that it works is two to three of the ones that you initially select are absolutely 100% real.

 These are the ones that you've lived and known your whole life and so they're easy to identify. They're easy to prove, you can give me 20 different examples. Over the course of your life as to why these things matter to you, but then two or three of the ones that are listed are what I like to call aspirational sheep. They are, they are not who you are, they are who you want to be. And so the challenge comes in the tracking of those things.

When you start to try to prove that they're real, you don't find any evidence because they're not real. They are aspirational sheep, they live in the future. They do not live in the present. And so that becomes incredibly difficult. 

So when you look at your initial flock of five, sometimes the things that we select things like faith, things like community, relationship, family, if those were four of the ones that you told me were four of your five Black Sheep, I would tell you that none of those is actually yourBlack Sheep value. The Black Sheep value is connection and you just gave me four are examples of how you experience connection. So you experience it with your family, with your community, with your friends, with your God with your, you know, that is sort of how we, we level up, right? So we level up to a word that is much larger that encompasses the actions that you're trying to describe. And we we find that honestly, with every single person that goes through this, they level up at least one, if not more of the values that they start with.

Now, one of the processes in the book that you recommend people go through and and there's a variety of sub questions that you certainly can mention, but is to watch your favorite movie and listen to your favorite song. Think about your top foods and top smells and this will help you to get to that point of choosing your top five Black Sheep. Can you go a bit deeper on Why that processes important?

Yes. So that's in the proving stage right? So you think you have what you believe are your flock of fiveBlack Sheep values, but then you start to run them through through the sort of this test of, can they can they stand the mustard, right? So for for that scenario, I recommend that you start with your favorite movies.

See, there's a reason that we have favorites of any kind, whether that's movies, songs, food smells, the reason that we have favorites is because our head and our heart connect and when our head and our heart connected, engages your limbic brain, that's where all of your emotional long term memory is stored. It's why you can remember things like song lyrics that were written 30 or 40 years ago. And and when it comes to our values, those values are born and live in our heart. 

But those experiences that we've had from the time that we were born until now really helps cement them and so when they connect to each other, it's a really powerful experience something that masla would call up experience, right? And so the idea here is when you're when you examine your favorites, what you're going to find is that more often than not several of your Black Sheep values are represented in whatever it is that you consider a favorite.

So when it comes to your favorite movie, the thing that I have people do is I want you to watch the movie, I want you to sit with a list of your five black sheet values. And every time you see that value represented on screen, I want you to make a little mark. And for most people, by the time the movie is done, their sheet is completely filled with marks because it's littered with the things that matter most to them. It's why it's one of their favorites. So what is what is one of your favorite movies Justin of all time?

Well, it was actually interested in prepping for this interview. I went back and I was thinking of a movie that I could do this with and when I think too much seizure that that initial night, right or initial date was Sunday, August 10.

And the first thing that comes up for me is Saturday, August 9, besides some other things within the gym and in whatnot, was that my wife and I went to go see Guardians of the Galaxy. And that was part one, but whenever I see part one or part two, it immediately identifies with with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Then Part Two for me not of the movie, but it's not a movie by any stretch is that I had my brain surgery date moved up from when it was originally scheduled to September the 11th. And for me for a long time, identified that with a negative perspective, right, you know, September the 11th is in our country, you know, the worst terrorist attack in our history. And I had brain surgery, which brings together a whole lot of negatives in, in, you know, my life and when you think about it with someone else, but then I had this turning point over the past year or so in my life and talking to friends that my brain surgery actually gave me this new perspective on life and almost started this new version of myself.

 And so I flipped that negative to a positive so well, that's not a movie. It just happens to be aligned with the date, but certainly the movie is Guardians of the Galaxy.

 So it's interesting because as you know, you've got two things that are sort of happening here. So sometimes our favorites can act as a time machine, right? And so we hear that song that that movie that That smell that passes by your nose. And it transports us back to a powerful moment in our past.

You know, for me, every time I hear the song heaven by Bryan Adams, I get transported back to the eighth grade, you know, under the under the bleachers of the basketball game going on where I had my first real kiss, right. And so, every time I hear that song on the radio, even as a 49 year old man, I get transported back to the eighth grade for my first real kiss. And it's it's a powerful thing when you start to, to look at those reasons why, right? But it goes a little bit deeper.

So it's not just the timing of when that happened. It's also the themes that are represented in those things. And so, even in Guardians of the Galaxy, you should start to look at the themes that happen during that movie. So that you can you can Looking go Okay, here are my flock of five Black Sheep values? Do I see these things represented in the characters? Do I see them represented in the storyline? Do I see them represented? sort of in the arc of the entire movie.

And so that is where you start to really get an idea of what you are saying is real or not. And it can be a challenge, it can be a challenge, because sometimes these black sheet values are born out of out of really powerful negative experiences, right? So it's not that you had something happened that was so amazing, you want to just embrace it and have it become part of you. It's maybe something that happened to you, that was horrible, and you never want to happen again. And so you say I've no matter what, I'm never going to become like that.

 I'm never going to allow that to happen to someone else that I love. And so those are the things that you sort of start to look at as to where the roots are of these Black Sheep values. Now, when you went through something like you have, those are those really rare catastrophic events that can shift a value or two, it's not going to wipe the slate clean, it's not going to have you completely say, Well, now I care about these five things. And before that I cared about something else.

What it will do is it will add one, it may change one or two, because now your perspective is completely different. And we've experienced that as well with with pediatric cancer sort of once you once you once you live in a hospital for a year, and you see the realization of what pediatric cancer looks like, well, your perspective of what's important in your life shifts dramatically. And so it didn't change all of my values, but it certainly shifted one or two of them in a different direction because of the experience that we had.

 And that's the same exact thing that you can expect of what you went through to now one of the things that caused me to Laugh through when I was going through the book because a lot of it is, you know, the book is a set of exercises and helping to explain how and why people should go through these things. It's not really a book to laugh at by any stretch was when you mentioned your favorite movie. So can you take a minute and talk about that?

 Oh yeah, not a problem. It is not some. Like you would think it is. You know, Shawshank or you know Schindler's List it. My favorite movie is Happy Gilmore. And it's my it's my favorite for a really some very specific reasons that I was unaware of when when I first started to say gosh, I just love this movie. I don't know why I just love it. You know, the stupid humor. I thought maybe you know, Adam Sandler and I are from the same hometown. We went to the same high school. He's a couple years older than I am. I thought maybe it was just the, you know, hometown boy done. Good. I'm showing him a little bit of love.

 But when you when I really dove into the movie, so myBlack Sheep values are creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family and authenticity. Right? I have I have an extra, as you mentioned earlier, you know, I'm a rock star, we do everything to access. And so for me, I needed that extra one. And what you'll find is that some people have one less or one more than five. So some only have four, some have six, but really anything beyond six becomes really difficult to honor on a daily basis.

 But for me those six values I start to watch Happy Gilmore again, and I go creativity is my first Okay, well, I look at that and I go Have you ever seen Happy Gilmore hit a golf ball? It's pretty creative. The way of which he approaches the sport of golf is incredibly creative so that she gets fed by watching that movie. My next is hope. And I'm like, gosh, you know what? Happy Gilmore is number one goal in life was to play professional hockey. It was his lifelong goal. Well, my lifelong goal goal was to play professional baseball. So I know what it's like to hope for something for that just you hold on to it with with white knuckles, right, so I'm two for two for feeding my sheep.

 Well, my next is impact and if you know anything or if you've seen that movie, you know that when Happy Gilmore joined the PGA Tour and goes out and starts playing these tournaments, people came out of the Woodworks to watch him play and they got off their cutoff jean shorts and their beer helmets and they're, you know, this is not your typical Country Club crowd. But he is having this profound impact in the communities in which he plays. So there it is, I'm 3 for 3.

 When we go to empathy, I look at that and I go, well, Happy Gilmore. never made it to play professional hockey and I never made it to play professional baseball. I got hurt and it just wasn't going to be in the cards for me. But from what I when I look at that I go I know what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes, right? It's a sort of desperately want something to not have a plan B and have it not happen. What are you going to do with your life is you 30 years to figure out. So for me, empathy. It's completely represented there.

 So the last two are family, right. And so if you know anything about the movie, you know, the reason that he joins the tour is to raise money for his grandma's house that's being repossessed by the IRS. And so families covered is where I'm five for five.

 And the last is authenticity. My favorite scene of the movie is, is when he asks out Julie Bowen, who is the PR agent for the tour out on a date, and she says, I'm sorry, I don't I don't take golfers and he looks at her dead in the eye. And he says, Well, that's good, because I'm a hockey player.

 And I just I love the fact that he knew who he was, even though he wasn't doing the thing that he thought he was made to do. And that, to me, is really the goal of discovering yourBlack Sheep values because it doesn't matter what you do. It matters how you honor these things that matters most to you. So whether you are, you know, digging graves or you are trading on the stock room floor or you're teaching the next generation or you are, you know, sanitation consultant picking up trash or it doesn't matter what you are doing, because that's the how, what matters is the what and the why, what are thoseBlack Sheep values?

And how can you use those values to choose a purpose that is in alignment with the things that matter most if you do those two things, it doesn't matter what you do, you can still be your authentic self.

 I think what you were talking about when it comes to purpose, and you mentioned it several times throughout the book and you align it as you go through the book, looking at it several times again and through set different exercises.

 You could go one of two ways. And I think both are very are interested in right you could take your core values, those Black Sheep values in Find that in your current career in your current setup that you identified with them even if you did not realize that and that reinforces why you're great bigger or what have you and there's nothing wrong with that you've now proven why you have nothing to be ashamed quote unquote ashamed of compared to someone that's a CEO of the largest company in the world for for example, sure.

Or you can recognize that you're on a you're in the completely wrong career in the completely wrong potential state or country you're what it whatever it may be, and you need to pull a one eight and shift because if your core about yourBlack Sheep core values do not align with what you're doing today, and you know, for short, those are your values. You may be need to look at what the next step in your life should be and how to get there.

 Yeah, there's two, two definite things. If that is the scenario, if you are doing something that does not allow you to honor yourBlack Sheep values. Two things one is you are never going to have the sense of fulfillment that you desire in your life. It just, it's not going to happen. And number two, you'll never stay committed to the work that you're doing. Because it doesn't matter to you.

 You have to you have to sort of think about the things that matter most. That's what helps us stay committed to the goals that we set. And so when we are out there, if we're doing something that doesn't, so here's the thing.

 For me, I have done many things in my life. I've had a lot of jobs that I was really good at that I hated. I didn't like those jobs. And so I didn't stay committed to them, even though they might have paid me fantastic money or I might have won awards or found myself You know, achieving the higher on the corporate ladder because I was able to perform at a high level, that doesn't mean it's what I'm meant to do or what I'm supposed to do.

 But if those jobs would allow me to honor myBlack Sheep values, and I get to choose how I do that, then those are things that I can stick with, that I can stay committed to. And I will find that sense of fulfillment that keeps me employed at the same organization, you know, longer than the 18 month average that we see today. You know, it's it's a it's a different world, right? Our parents, man, they they got one job. My dad was a high school English teacher for almost 35 years at the same school, you know, and that's not unusual. That's sort of the norm.

 My grandfather worked as a mechanic for 40 years. It is just that that life that sort of honoring those those deeply held personal core values has gone away. And we see it represented in everything that we are experiencing right now from do I wear a mask? Do I not wear a mask? Do I think the pandemic is real? Or do I think it's a hoax? Do I vote for this guy? Or do I vote for that guy? How do I feel about race relations in this country? We see so many things happening right now. And the reason that it is a total and complete shit show of epic proportions is because nobody knows what they really care about. Nobody. And if they took the time to figure out what their Black Sheep values were, you would find that we actually care about much of the same stuff.

 Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I realized coming out of my surgeries and getting down the road a little bit of my recovery after having several people reach out to me because when I started this process, So I have right in every day and what would become the story of Built Unstoppable, which I never even chose that name. It was chosen for me by a few friends and but when I started this process, it was born out of a Facebook status update the night of my seizures when I was laying in a bed at the hospital, because I'm a dork. And that's what I did.

 That was like, Oh, hey, my weekend then in the way I wanted to. But as I got down that path, and I had people reaching out to me, and if I was essentially a couple hours late with putting up a blog post for that day, or when I didn't get into New York until 2am, one night coming home from vacation, and you know, I had come back to multiple messages from people and all these other stories along the way. I started to realize as I sat back and looked at it that one of the things that I wanted Do I wasn't sure that I, I left that legacy.

 And as one of my very close friends talks about, and talks about in episode of this podcast is do you want your life to be a book that you couldn't stop reading or not? Is it a page turner? Yeah. And as I thought about that, it helped to bring about all of the things in my life that I'm doing today or that I'm setting up myself to do into the future. And when you looked at it when I finally looked at it through that lens, as opposed to Oh, well, you know, this is just I'm dealing with epilepsy for the rest of my life. Yep, this sucks MRIs every six months whatever. I took a look at it from the other end.

 You know, it took on this bigger impact you that was greater than myself.

 Sure.

 Now one of the other really interesting things that I think you mentioned in the book is adding your Black Sheep values into your calendar right along and in line with your appointments so that you're forced to look at them before you meet with me, for example, or have a phone call with someone. Can you talk about that? Because in the book, you mentioned, personally, how vast of an impact that's had on your career.

 Yeah, for sure. So that Yeah, look, it's one thing to discover what you think, are your Black Sheep values, it's another thing to prove that they are in fact real. And then finally, after you have found them proven that they are yours, it's still not enough for transformation happens when we shift from winging it, to acting with deliberate intention.

 What I have found over the last couple of years and and talked to 10s of thousands of people at the conferences that I speak at is that, without exaggeration, 99% of us are winging it. And what I mean by that is that if I asked you specifically, can you tell me in one specific sentence, what your purpose is in life? Tell me what your five personal core values are, why you chose them, give me a couple of examples.

 So I know that, you know, their real, most people would stare at me with wide eyes, you know, with zero answers, or would tell me what they think they know is important, but not what their non negotiables are. And that fact, that fact makes it incredibly difficult to live your life on purpose. Because the on purpose for me doesn't just mean intentionality.

 On purpose means doing something in alignment with your purpose. And so that means that your purpose has to be correct. Well, our purpose is born out of our Black Sheep values. So for me, you know, I told you earlier creativity, hope, impact empathy, family authenticity, those are my Black Sheep values.

 My purpose is to creatively impact others by authentically providing hope. Well, it sounds familiar because it has my values in my purpose, they are in alignment with one another.

 And when you do that, I can now choose when and where they appear in my daily life, looking at my schedule, and if I looked at this and said, Gosh, I got this interview with Justin at 2pm.

 Today, what are the values that need to show up to have maximum impact in this interview, so I have to look and I go, okay. I can be a little bit creative. Maybe in my storytelling, so creativity should probably show up. I, you know, I want to leave people with hope, I want to make sure that what they get out of this is that there's something more for them, I just have to make them believe that if they do the work, they'll see that they can change what's possible in their life, we had a death sentence for our son that was reversed because people were united in their value in purpose.

 And so that's what's possible when you do the work. And so, okay, so hope has to show up to, you know, the impact is going to be there if I do my job, right.

 So God, I gotta have at least three things in empathy, probably even just knowing what you've been through and how you are continuing to cope. Those four so four out of my six should probably show up if I want to have maximum impact.

 So that's you're going to see those four words written into the scheduled two o'clock appointment that we had to record this today. And, and that's what I recommend everybody to do, because that's the difference between deliberate intention and when It winging it is Oh, I hope. I hope there is a scenario that happens that allows me to, you know, bring this into the conversation as opposed to No, no, no, no.

 These are four things. I'm speaking into existence, I am going to actively pursue them in this conversation. That's deliberate intention. And that's where transformation happens. And when I started doing that, in January of 2019, my whole life changed within six months.

Within six months, I tripled my business. The amount of talks I was doing on a yearly basis, my tripled my fees that that people were paying me to come and do that. The speaking at conferences. I was named one of the top 10 motivational speakers in the country alongside incredible people like Amy Cuddy and jack Nicklaus and Magic Johnson and these people who have achieved incredible things in their life. And I sat there and I went it's really weird that I'm in this list of people. who have done things that that I have not.

 But this is what I've come to realize just the fact that I've done the work to figure out what truly my non negotiables are, what these Black Sheep values are. And I am living with deliberate intention, speaking them into existence makes me just as rare and unique. As jack Nicklaus, when an 18 majors or Magic Johnson with his incredible NBA career or Amy Cuddy coming from Harvard and doing incredible things, I am at that level because I'm living with deliberate intention.

And that's how rare it is to find that in people. And so I'm just want others to experience what I've been able to that there is something else, there's something more for all of us if we're willing to figure out what our Black Sheep values are, and choose to speak them into existence with deliberate intention.

I think that's one of the simplest but key parts or takeaways of the book is to identify your values, you know, ensure that that you know then creates a simple purpose statement for you and, and then speak those into existence by simply adding them to your calendar to look at and what I mean by that is, people read dozens of self-help, self-improvement type books throughout a year by their favorite author or someone that they see speak at a conference, maybe they get the free book with an autograph or whatever the case may be right. And there's probably an exercise in there to go through and they go through that.

The book goes back on top of a shelf, and they go back to their lives. Right. Next author comes by, they pick up the book, read it thinks that think that their life is going to magically change, go through an exercise, maybe throw it back on the shelf, along with the other one. And their life goes back to normal.

If not, you know, and I think that something like this is powerful, because it is so simple of an exercise to do, but it's recognizable. If you go look at your calendar and you did not do this, and you didn't do this for several meetings in a row or a couple of weeks in a row, you only have one person to blame. That's the end of all of this. 

That's right.

So, I think that it's very simple and it's something that everyone should do after they go through the exercises. Obviously they need to, you know, identify their their Black Sheep values then and know that but then to go this one extra step and I think is really important and really interesting. And they have for you to look back as an example. It's not just, Hey, I think based on research, we should do this. I mean, yeah, I would take three x business and three x speaking fees and in a heartbeat.

You know? Yeah.

It's the, it's interesting. So here's what I'll tell you about that is that is I know, just because I've been doing this now for a bit, I know that even the people who read the book and go, that was amazing, I'm gonna change my life.

I know only a fraction of a fraction of a percent will stick with it. I know that right. So so I'm like, part of me is excited that they that they have found this thing that could maybe change what's possible for them in their life, but I also know human nature enough to know that it's really difficult to stay committed to those sorts of things and living a life like this.

That being said, when you have proof, you do Don't need belief. So I don't have to prove anything to anyone because I've proven it to myself and the people that I work with and coach on a regular basis and I just finished this 40 person launch group for the book, and I'm watching their lives transform. The beauty of that is even during my coaching, I don't have to ask them to believe a single word I say, because I have proof and when you have proof, you don't need belief. And that is one of the best most powerful takeaways from living your life with deliberate intention by identifying what your Black Sheep values are.

Absolutely, and I think you would agree with me on this as I've gone down this path with you know, the various content creations that I'm you know, building around my brand around Built Unstoppable you know, newsletter podcasts. blog and you know, things that come down the road.

I've been asked before, why are you doing this? You don't have to you're kind of past that active point in your life, you know, you're now kind of in the maintenance mode. And when I, some of it is for me, certainly, and but then when I sat back and looked at it, besides wanting to leave a legacy, I took a different point of view, and said, If I impact one person's life, for the rest of my life, that's all I care about.

If I impact one person's life, then all of this was successful. by her if I help one person, one family, and I had this recently happened when someone asked me to speak with their family because they were going through stage four cancer, someone in their family was and that's all the person wants. To do was was have a offline conversation with me.

Yeah.

And that right there, I could have ended the next day.

Yeah.

I mean, because that was proof that the 545 days of writing consistently the hundreds of thousands of boards that were produced, all of that was successful. And so that's where I am. And I think what you said a small percentage of people will actually go through that process that you weigh out. It could be half of 1% to you.

Of however many people go through the process by the book and yeah, and everything that was successful. Someone accomplishes if that small percentage of people accomplish it.

That's it. Absolutely right.

So I asked this of every guest:

What does being Built Unstoppable mean to you?

So, I would relate the word unstoppable to unbreakable right?

And it's in to me, they're, they're about the same thing in my head. And so I always go back to something called kin Sunni, which is this ancient form of fixing Japanese pottery. And so the the legend has it that there was an ancient Japanese Shogun whose favorite tea bowl got broken and he sent it out to be repaired and it came back and it had these ugly metal staples in it, and it was just not pretty to look at and so he handed it back to his people and said, Listen, you need to fix this. It needs to look better than this.

So he gave it to some local artisans who took a different approach. Rather than trying to make the bowl look like it never had been broken. They went out and got the most valuable resource they can get their hands on, which was gold, and they melted the gold down and they use the gold to repair the cracks. And in doing so they did a couple of different things.

Number one, they made the the bowl actually more valuable than before it was broken because now it's filled with gold. And number two, they really illuminated the history of the bowl. And so when I look at that, I have realized that many of us have spent our lives trying to not have our bowl get broken, right, we do everything to avoid being broken.

When instead, I like to tell people this, the best way for you to become unbreakable is to realize you're already broken. And when you do, then you can focus on what holds the brokenness together. And just like that gold, holds the brokenness together of that tea bowl. 

The most valuable thing that you possess are these Black Sheep. values, these non-negotiables they are the things that hold you together. So if you want to be unstoppable, you have to figure out what these things are. Because it's these things that hold the brokenness together so that you're never going to be worried about breaking something that's already broken.

Hey, I already broke my shoulders so I guess I’m good there.

Yes, we're watching a show last night my wife and I and I, I don't remember what the scene was. It was a comedy and someone makes a kind of joke about brain surgery or whatever it was. And I looked at her and I said, Well, I already broke my head. So, I guess I'm good there too.

You have proof you have.

Finally, where can people on the web find you?

So the book website is findyourblacksheep.com and you can always go to my website which is simply brantmenswar.com either one of those they connect to each other. Go find your flock. I am here to help always. Justin, thank you for giving me a little bit of your time and the ears of your audience.

I appreciate your time. I know you are extremely busy with everything you have coming up, both personally and with the launch of the book. So thank you.

My pleasure, brother. 

Awesome. Have a good day. You too.