Today's guest is Brant Menswar, a best-selling author, keynote speaker, personal development coach, founder/CEO of Black Sheep LLC, and former rockstar. He shares his personal story of losing his teenage son to cancer, questioning his beliefs, and hitting rock bottom before learning how to move forward after grief. Brant also talks about finding his core values, living authentically, and believing in hope. So, listen up as he inspires us with his insights and experiences. In today’s episode, we cover: Not fitting in Why it’s not just okay to question religion, it’s part of being religious Pediatric cancer Grief Death Core values Living authentically Divorce Hope Legos Starting over Personal transformations What it takes to be a successful speaker You can find the complete transcription at www.iamthisage.com.
Today's guest is Brant Menswar, a best-selling author, keynote speaker, personal development coach, founder/CEO of Black Sheep LLC, and former rockstar. He shares his personal story of losing his teenage son to cancer, questioning his beliefs, and hitting rock bottom before learning how to move forward after grief. Brant also talks about finding his core values, living authentically, and believing in hope. So, listen up as he inspires us with his insights and experiences.
In today’s episode, we cover:
Not fitting in
Why it’s not just okay to question religion, it’s part of being religious.
Pediatric cancer
Grief
Core values
Living authentically
Divorce
Hope
Legos
Starting over
Personal transformations
What it takes to be a successful speaker
Get in touch with Brant:
Listen to Brant’s Podcast:
Get in touch with Molly:
You can find the complete transcription at www.iamthisage.com.
Do you ever feel like you don't fit in? Like your timeline is different than everyone else's and your life feels out of control and like you're just winging it? What if there were a way to ensure that everything you did was aligned with your purpose and values? How might that make you 📍 feel?
Welcome to I am this age, the podcast proving it's never too late.
You're never too old. So go do that thing. You're always talking about I'm Molly cider, a certified professional life coach and motivational speaker. My guest today is Brant menswear, who is a best selling author, keynote speaker, personal development coach, and former. Rockstar.
He's made appearances on Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and he has worked with companies like Netflix, Hilton, Microsoft, ESPN, 📍 and so many more. He is also the CEO and founder of his company, Black Sheep Foundry LLC, a boutique leadership development agency that teaches people and organizations how to cultivate values based leadership.
Brandt is here today to tell us the story of his son, Theo, who lost his battle with cancer. And now Brandt has created meaning and purpose from that experience. And so 📍 many other overlapping things like rethinking religion. And what do you say to someone you love so much when you know it might be the last time you ever see them and how to find hope when you're feeling hopeless.
Make sure you listen all the way through, because just when you think this interview is over, he tells us the most incredible story about hope and rats swimming and for anybody out there who's struggling to feel hopeful, 📍 please listen all the way to the very end. , before we get started, I wanted to mention that I have a few client openings this month, and there is nothing I love more than using the momentum of the change of seasons to help people change.
So click the link in the show notes to get in touch with me. And now, Brent Mensoir.
My name is Brant Menswar. I am a 51 year old retired rock star turned keynote speaker and author these days.
Yes, Brandt was a frickin rock star. He started as a solo act in the early aughts, had a radio hit, met some other guys while on tour, bada bing bada boom.
They formed a band that first signed in the Christian market, and then quickly left that market for the general market, and he toured with that band until 2018. So what happened? Well, somewhere in the middle of his touring career, Brandt felt a calling to start his own church, the kind of church he didn't feel existed.
So he and a friend created one, and it quickly grew to over 400 people. The plan was that eventually Brandt would stop touring and become the lead pastor of that church. But in 2012, Brandt's 14 year old son Theo was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and not only did Brandt leave the very church that he built, he left the religion.
Why do you think you were pulled to leave that place that you had valued for so long in this moment
of
need rather than turn towards it?
It's easy to say you believe something when your life is good.
Yeah.
When your son is taken from you. You question everything. What did he do to deserve that? And why does God spare some and not other? And so, I found myself calling bullshit on almost everything and people mean well, uh, when you go through something like that and they want to, send you scripture and all these, uh, uh, what they think are, are helpful.
tidbits for you to, to weather the storm. But the truth is they're just words. And, um, when you find yourself in the middle of a storm like that, uh, words are not always what you need to, uh, survive. And it's one thing to be able to just say, I'm going to pray for you and all those sorts of things.
And, you know, they set up meal trains and they do all these things and it's great. It's really helpful. And I'm incredibly thankful for it. but there's a, there's a window. I think that once you get past people just sort of forget that you're still going through it. And that grief is something that has no end date.
Um, you don't get over grief. You just learn to manage it. And that is something that I'm still learning to do, but became very dissuaded with it. organized religion in general. And I know what I want to believe. I just can't convince myself to do it regularly. If that makes
Hmm. What do you want to believe?
I would love to believe, uh, you know, that God sent Jesus for us all. And that he, he had the ultimate sacrifice so that. We can live eternally, uh, in heaven. That sounds great.
Hmm.
Um, but the practical part of me knows too much history of how the Bible was created. And, it's the inspired word of God.
As far as I'm concerned, it's not the literal word of God. And when you look at how transcriptions were done and why are there, you know, 20 different transcribed versions of the Bible and how come they're all a little bit different. And when you start to learn the truth about that and how, you know, the early church sort of decided what would be included and what wasn't included, you start to, to question things.
And, and to be quite honest with you, if you're not questioning things, what the hell are you doing? Like, why, what are you, just to to a blind sheep just following because that's what it is. If you believe in a God powerful enough to create the universe, he can answer your stupid questions. I mean, that's, that's ultimately where I find myself today.
And I want to believe in a God that has created everything. Um, but he also knows I'm pretty pissed off and continue to be. And If, if you believe that he is who he is, then you should be fine knowing that he can deal with your doubt and your questions and your anger and all the things that come after you suffer a tragedy like losing your, your child.
Yeah. that's so interesting. It just makes me think of like any sort of relationship, you know, where people are afraid to doubt or ask questions because they fear losing what they have, it makes sense to fear that.
And also. It's so important to do it. It's so important to question and to rethink and to be willing to relearn
and be proved wrong and all of those things.
Yeah. You know, when you're, when you're on the other side and you are pastoring a church and you're running a church, you quickly realize. That what people say they want and what they really want are not the same thing. And when you have a church that we, we built sort of an ax based church, right? So ax two, and we are sort of coming through that going, we're really there just to serve.
That's it. I personally don't believe anyone should pastor as, as an occupation longer that if you're doing it, right.
You can't do it more than two or three years before you just want to run into a brick wall at full speed. You just can't. There are too many problems. There are too many people suffering. And if you're providing the level of care that I believe you should, you burn out. And that's part of the journey.
And it's why I think we should have more pastors who actually pastor for a chapter in their life for two years, three years max, maybe. Because when you get to the, I'll pray for you as the answer, you're done, you're done. It's more than that. It's so much more than that. And when someone comes to you and says, you know, my brother's homeless and he's living out in the woods behind the mall and there's a hurricane coming, what are you going to do about it?
If you, if your answer is I'll pray for him, then you shouldn't be pastoring that church. You should be reaching out. You should be in the car, driving out into the woods, finding this kid and finding a way to help. And that, and that's, that's who I was. And that's why. I became dissuaded towards the towards the end of, walking through what I was with Theo, but also, you know, having people come in and going, you know, what's your curriculum for the pre k class?
And I'm like, uh, the curriculum is they don't die while you're in there,
Right.
getting fed. Um, you know, when they bitch that there's no flat screens in the, in the nursery it's like, what are you doing? What you, you have no, have you ever read the gospel? Because if you have, you would never ask a question like that.
churches is a spiritual gas station. That's what it is. And if you think it's anything else, you're lazy and you don't understand what's being asked of you to follow Christ. That, that is my personal opinion. You should come into church absolutely depleted on empty and needing to be refilled so that you can go out and spend that fuel over the course of the next week.
But that doesn't mean that you don't do things for yourself to refuel the tank. And I find that a lot of people, um, do nothing for themselves to refill the tank. And they put all the onus on the church to give them their spiritual food. And then they bitch and moan that they're not being fed. When they do nothing for themselves and that that is a hard pill to swallow for most and to be honest is is why we've seen both a Explosion of megachurches in the united states over the last 10 years and why everybody's running away now?
post pandemic it's a different world. People had to learn to become self sufficient, um, during that time. And if you are a church who, who desires to build the kingdom, which should be your only reason for existence, um, the kingdom, not your kingdom then, uh, you should be happy when people come.
And if they decide to leave, you should be happy and encourage them to leave and go find what they, what they need to, to fill their tank. When it becomes protecting your flock and the numbers and the tithing and the budget then you should close the doors of that church.
Ooh, well said.
Okay, let's get back to Brandt's son. Theo was very sick and in the hospital for about six months, battling both his cancer and a mix of other infections that popped up, when one night he got so bad that the doctors told Brandt that Theo probably wouldn't survive the night and that he better say his goodbyes.
So, Brant called his brother, who lives in another state, to let him know what was happening.
And that night, as Brant struggled to find comforting words for his son, unbeknownst to him, Brant's brother had made a YouTube video telling Theo's story on pieces of cardboard, where he begged for help, and this video went viral overnight. And Theo ended up surviving the night, and by the morning, doctors from all over the world were calling to help, and they did.
Theo eventually got well enough to leave the hospital, but Brant was haunted by that night for years.
You're never ready for the moment that they tell you that that they don't think he's going to make it.. What do you say? He's, he's 14 years old.
You know, at this point he was 15 years old. Um, he had just turned 15 and, you know, we are uh, sitting there and staring at him and, trying to love, love on him as best as possible. But, but there are no words in a moment like that that are, that is going to do it justice. At least I thought at that moment and so I'm fumbling my words, I am flailing, um, trying to keep it together and I just, You know, he, I hear Theo say, I'm going to miss you, daddy.
And
you know, it, it breaks you in that moment.
And, um,
you just sit there and I just sat on the edge of the bed and weeped and waited, um, to let him know I was there. And then all of this craziness happens and he ends up surviving by my brother's video and doctors coming up with a crazy solution that they never thought of, which led me to a really. Two things.
One really important discovery and then one sort of thing that that has shaped the rest of my life since that moment. Um, the important discovery is sometimes the truth is bigger than the room you were in and Just because you think the truth is is what people are saying it is doesn't mean that it's actually true and sometimes you have to go beyond the room to see if you are taking in all the information that's available to you and and for these doctors who were in the room it was their truth but it was not the truth and and so when we expanded our search come to find out there were some things that they were unaware of that were potential solutions to this you Challenge.
And thank God, you know, we expanded the search because we did find a solution that, that worked in that moment. But, you know, fast forward a couple of months, we're home and, you know, Theo's recovering, but I can't sleep. And I'm replaying that moment over and over and over in my head of just being on the edge of his bed and, and really beating myself up because.
I keep asking myself, I wonder if he thinks I gave up on him and, um, that's it. You know, I, I've had a million people tell me that you can't do that. You can't, you can't ask those sorts of questions, but, but the hard truth was, it was a legitimate question.
Yeah.
Um, And when I dug deeper into myself, I found that I didn't know what my non negotiables were, what, what the values that I Proclaim to be the most important to me that the things that I refused to be moved from and so I decided You know, this was probably 18 months later of just beating myself up that I would finally do the work to figure out what these were and in my sort of discovery and walking through and trying to figure out how this works and doing the research as to how do you discover what your core values are and how do you prove they're real and all those sorts of things.
I came across this, this conversation of, of why black sheep are not valued. in the same way as the rest of the flock by farmers. And that discussion led me to the work that I, that I do today.
how did you, sort of jump from like the beating yourself up to understanding that you needed to figure out like what your non negotiable values were? Like,
Uh, so I'll say this straight up. I'm not a therapy guy. I know I probably need it. Um,
but go on.
The way my brain works it's really hard for me to, to do that and so, um, it's something that I am still struggling with and trying to get to a point that I can find a way to have conversations that might be healing for me.
I'm just not there yet. And so I'm still on that journey. Similar to the, I know what I want to believe. I know what I need to do. That doesn't mean that I'm going to do it. And so, you can only beat yourself up for so long. Before, you know, there's no, there's nowhere left to go down.
You're at the basement, right? And you can't get any lower.
And that's where I was. but my competitive nature does not like to lose at anything. And I felt like I was losing at life and I had to either put my big boy pants on and decide to figure out what was going to help.
Or be okay with losing and that just wasn't an option for me. I'm somebody who is a bit of a data junkie. Um, I like to find, you know, and read white papers and, and, and do the research because the way my brain works, I need to be able to defend something. To the point that I feel like I can't lose an argument before.
I'm willing to accept anything. And so that's what I did. And so it started with just reading some books and some white papers and trying to figure out how this really works. And I, and I found there was actually very little research when it comes to or at least empirical data when it comes to, to core values.
And there are some, but it is nowhere near as, as researched as some of the other, you know, things that, that we deem important, but to me Sort of spending two decades in the music business the sort of analogy I would give you is that if you're going to go in and make an album and you want that album to be incredible there's something called pre production and pre production happens before you ever stepped foot in the studio and this is everything from What you want the album to sound like, and what is the theme that you're going for?
And is there a message that carries through and can you record demos to a click to make sure that It has the right tempo and feel and you, and you do all this work so that when you get into the studio, you just get to work and you're not trying to figure things out while you're spending lots and lots of money.
And for me I felt like. The, the values work we do is pre production and unless we do that, when we get to living life, if you haven't done the pre production, we're simply winging it and winging it requires either luck or accident for success.
This pre production analogy just blew my mind. Okay, let's keep going.
how.
Do you think like what Theo was experiencing while he was at home and, during those nine years, um, where he was battling this disease, how do you think his experience was influencing your healing?
That's a great question. What I would say is every day was a struggle for him, even when he got home, Uh, as you've heard, or some people know, sometimes the treatment is worse than the
Right.
And at that point he had suffered so many other things, um, outside of the cancer. Uh, he needed a kidney transplant.
He, you know, his bones were brittle from being on prednisone for so long. His skin, um, was, would, You know, was stretched to a point of, of breaking and, and constantly causing issues. He had graft versus host disease still which, you know, would rear its head and cause all kinds of problems. And so I would watch him struggle every day.
What I would tell you is that it didn't actually help my healing. It made me more pissed off
And made me question my faith even more and more and more right and that's And ultimately if if I'm being all the cards on the table Made me long to escape my life
Which which has had? incredible repercussions. You know, I'm divorced now. It's, it's, there's, there's so much stuff that sort of was rooted in my unwillingness to face the difficult stuff. Um, and to just try to find a safe space, a different space from what I was experiencing 24 hours a day. It led to a host of decisions that, that were questionable at best.
I was never a drugs, you know, drinking or drugs. I'm, I'm allergic to alcohol. So that sort of stopped uh, you know, my ability to, to lean onto that demon. Um, Uh, I, I guess thank God, uh, because I, I probably would have led to even worse decisions in that moment.
But you know, it was a struggle for sure for me to try to find hope in something else because hope is one of my non negotiable. Black sheep values. And so, when you don't find it at home you search elsewhere. And that's, that's what ended up happening for me.
wrote the book on black sheep values, it's called Black Sheep, and it was published in 2020, And has since been translated into five languages, over 10, 000 people have taken his assessment, and it's the basis of all the work he does now.
I was in my mid forties before somebody explained to me that farmers value black sheep differently than the rest of the flock. It's not that they don't have value. They have incredible value, but not in the same way.
A black sheep's wool cannot be dyed and so in effect every black sheep is 100 percent authentically original and it cannot be made into something it wasn't meant to be. Growing up a lot of my life, um, feeling like a black sheep for different reasons. It's not always that you're an outcast because you're a misfit.
Sometimes you feel like a black sheep because you've outpaced. You know, the group, you are, you're in a different place. Maybe you've had so much success in an area that you are so far in front. You're, you're a black sheep. You're, you're way out there. There's a myriad of reasons. As I did research for the book that people feel like a black sheep for lots of different reasons that are not always negative.
And so when I heard that, I'm like that literally is my life's goal is to just be that 100 percent original creation I was made to be. And, and so why is it a negative thing? So I set out to try to reclaim what being a black sheep really means and. Developed this assessment that helps people sort of start the conversation as to how do you discover what your flock of five.
I believe we have somewhere somewhere between four and six black sheep values that need to be fed every day. All of them, not some of them, all of them have to be fed every single day with deliberate intention. for me, my, my values, uh, creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family, authenticity, right? Those are my black sheet values. Every decision I make in my life gets filtered through those six things. If you looked at my calendar, you would see those words written over and over and over again in my calendar, um, for different appointments, because I am choosing which of those values I'm going to speak into existence during those times.
I don't wing it. Do you know where the term winging it comes from?
This is a really interesting story. In the early 1900s, uh, America's sort of experiencing this huge boom and. There's a bunch of work and people have money to spend, uh, so they start building playhouses everywhere and they build so many playhouses that there are more playhouses than there are actors to portray parts.
And so what ends up happening is. Somebody gets sick, somebody gets hurt and someone has to quickly fill in for the person who can't make it. And so what they would do is go off into the wings of the, of the theater and they would have their lines and they're quickly trying to memorize the lines before they step on stage and say those lines.
And that's where the term winging it comes from is, is quickly learning lines that you are not prepared for to try to. portray this role that, that you are in an emergency filling in for. What I have discovered is that most of us have adopted this as, as a way of living. We, we are simply trying to quickly memorize things for the moment instead of really owning our part so that we can play that role to its fullest.
And so. I don't wing it anymore. Everything I do is, is with deliberate intention and is very calculated. It just has to be for me to feel good because the back half of this is that we don't control outcomes. And as a control freak, that was one of the hardest things for me to
Yeah.
But the minute I accepted that.
And I focused on my performance and not whether people liked it everything changed for me because I can now go to bed at night knowing I did everything possible to, to portray that role as authentically as possible and I can let go of what any potential outcome is. From me doing so,
Yes, yes, intention over expectation.
So not only did Brant write this book, he also started a very successful speaking career, which he started right around the time that Theo got sick. Brant had to stop touring and he had to come up with something to do. And it just so happened he had a friend, a fellow musician from the band Five Star Iris, who was also figuring out what to do after he stopped touring.
So together, they formed a little company as retired rock stars who would teach the art of collaboration to corporations using songwriting. The company is called Banding People Together and it still exists today, although Brandt is no longer involved because he's just too busy.
But banding people together is still going strong. Alan's still doing amazing work. And, uh, and they still do that work today.
That's really, really neat. Do you feel like, this was sort of your way of creating sort of a purpose out of your experience with Theo?
it, it ended up being that it did start being that, you know, for me,
what I discovered. Is the only time I am fully present is when I'm on stage, which is by the way, a problem.
Um, um, but What I realized is that I needed to, I needed to transition my life, but I needed a stage to do so. And so there's not a lot of options
Yeah.
when you're coming off of, of being a rockstar for 20 years. Um, and so, you know, the keynote speaking was interesting to me because I'll say this as lovingly as possible.
The competition is not great.
Hmm.
There are a bunch of really great presenters who present information. There are not a lot of people who leave enough space to capture the truth in the room. And that is what I do best.
Can you say a little bit more about that? Like, what does that mean?
If you come into a scenario like a bowl in a China shop, and all you care about is getting accomplished what you want to accomplish, and you don't leave enough room for what's happening. In the space you're in. Then it is not collaborative in any way, shape or form. And it means nothing to the people that you are running over.
And so when you leave enough space to capture the truth in the room, you capture lightning in a bottle. And people have experienced this in, in many different ways. You know, maybe you were at a concert and the power went out and You can panic, the show can cancel, or you can grab an acoustic guitar and sit on the edge of the stage and bring everybody close and have this sort of campfire moment that becomes legend of people talking about it 10 years after it happened, and that's because you allowed enough space to capture the truth and the truth was there was a problem, and you addressed it, and you addressed it, In a way that created a moment and that moment lives on long after that concert has ended.
And that's what I try to do every time I step on stage. Can I create enough moments for people to talk about this three, four, five years after they see me speak? And, and so far it's worked. So we're going to keep our fingers crossed that that continues. But, um, but that's my goal in there. And, and, and to my point.
If you're a presenter of information, you don't care about the truth in the room. You care about getting across your information. Sometimes, uh, your information sucks. And, and nobody wants to hear it. And if you can't pivot in that moment, you're only doing them a disservice. You know, it's like going into a concert and you play two songs and you go, uh oh.
They don't like this music, so you either have to find something that they are going to like and win them over or you're going to create a moment that they're going to talk about forever and it is not one that you want repeated
Oh, my God, that sounds scary and hard,
getting back to Brandt and his son, Theo, who did eventually lose his battle with the disease, Brandt, unfortunately, had to say goodbye again.
had you talked to Theo about that first time around? Like, was he aware that it had haunted you so deeply?
Yeah, he was, he was, and he's, you know, he was my son. He was, don't worry about it, dad. You know, I think everybody in that moment was. Just struggling to deal with reality and, and that's just what it was. So don't beat yourself up over it. So he was obviously very kind and, and accepting and, you know, I'm sure he didn't think twice about it, But for me, , it was really, it was really, really important. And when we found ourselves in the same scenario, when I had to sit on the edge of the bed again, he was already, um, pretty much unconscious. He was intubated and, and so he couldn't communicate. But I was able to speak hope and impact and show my empathy and feel connected.
And be as authentic as I could be in that moment. And do it proudly knowing that. It was me. It wasn't emotion speaking. Um, And as hard as that moment was,
I'm not haunted by it.
It sounds like he got to sort of witness you go through a pretty big personal transformation,
right?
Yeah, he, he actually drew the black sheep logo that's on the front of the book. Yeah.
So, you know, he was a very big part of, of this work and designing what it looks and feels like. And, um, the merch and
everything else that goes along with it all is, all
has
Theo's
fingerprints all over
Wow. That's So cool. So he was an artist like
you.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. He, um,
was sort of a Lego master. He had, he had his Lego creations on the front page of Lego since the time he was about
nine years
Oh, wow.
he had, uh, done some amazing work and, and would be, he'd do commissions for people. So someone would say, could you make a, you know, 1 6th scale?
Model of the Mars Rover and he would be building these things out in Lego and, you
know, it would be amazing and, and he would sell them
That's so cool.
Yeah, he's, he had an engineer's brain, but really the, the creative artists, Way of in which his brain worked. Um, so not only could he be super creative and what something looked like, but he knew the intricacies of the inner workings to make it actually fold up and transform into something different, which is two completely different skill sets.
Artist and scientist
Yeah, it's, it's, it was crazy. That was his business. He owned a business called Victor Projects and Victor Projects was, a way for him to, pass the time. He, he didn't go to school from the eighth grade on, because of his sickness.
And so, um, this was
the way that he made
money.
Wow. Wow. That's so, it's so impressive and inspiring. He sounds amazing. looking back At that first go around in the hospital, how do you find compassion for the way that you showed up that first time?
The atrocities of pediatric cancer are not really experienced until you spend any time on a pediatric oncology ward. And when you walk through and see kids filled with tubes and, just the horror that, that it
is, you understand that, nobody is trained or prepared to deal with situations like that.
And they're only trying to survive. That's, that's what everybody's doing. They're just trying to survive from the patient to the parents. They're only trying to survive. My job now is to try to equip them. So that they can survive. That's, that's the work I do now. because I promise you, they're not thinking about things like that.
And, and the work that I do now, if we do it enough, we have to do it so much that it becomes part of our subconscious, right? And that's, that's the sort of the mastery level of owning your values is that you get to a point where you don't have to physically write them into your calendar anymore because it's in your subconscious. Um, It doesn't mean you don't need reminders. It doesn't mean that you don't go back to that if you're struggling. But when you do it so much that it becomes involuntary is when you really reach the point that you can say you're being authentic and, and, and that idea of playing a role is now it's your role.
You are the role. And that's, that's sort of that level that I aspire people to get to, um, if they're willing to do
the work.
Brandt has clearly been through a lot of loss and a lot of growth. He's now divorced and in a relationship with someone he feels understands him in a new way that feels right. It's a new chapter for Brandt, which is often exciting and also often comes with some sadness for the parts of us that we leave behind.
what parts of your story are you taking with you and what parts have you left behind?
, I don't think you leave anything behind. I think you have to acknowledge, what got you to where you're at. And the unfortunate truth of losing a child is that it, it just changes who you are, period. Um, I am not the same person that I was, nine, 10 years ago. I'm just not. And It's, it's, it's really nobody's fault.
It's just what life gave us. And everybody deals with those scenarios in different ways. And no matter how you choose to deal with it when it's, when you get to the other side of it, um, you're not the same. And so It's not that I don't love my ex wife. It's not that I don't, love and honor basically 30 years of marriage.
It's that I can't separate all of the tragedy and all of the hardship, experienced over the course of a decade from the relationship. And that's just the sad truth. So for me, I had to find a way to still have hope and still move forward and all those things. And it's the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. Um, It's, it's one of those things that you, you hope you're doing the right thing. but I just know that for me. this was the path. and I know it hurts and I know it hurts more than just me. Um, But I didn't want to spend the rest of my life trapped in a memory that was never going to be what I want it to be.
And so I'm trying to create new memories that will carry me forward.
Thank you for sharing that.
For the new listeners out there, this is the time when I ask Brandt to re introduce himself without using descriptions like musician, dad, speaker, et cetera, because I believe we are not our successes, our failures, our titles, our hobbies. When we can let go of those attachments, it becomes easier to accept and create changes.
And our measurement of success looks quite different.
Um, my name is Brant Menzoir. I'm 51 years old. And I am learning what it means to be happy.
Thank you so much for sharing all of your,
your story and your insight and being so vulnerable. Where can people find you
The best places is just brandtmenswar. com, b r a n t m e n s w a r. com. You can find a place to take the black sheep assessment there. You can see what I'm doing on all of my, uh, uh, different talks that I'm giving these days. Uh, my masterminds, my.
You know, training courses and, and of course, um, all my social media where I try to
stay as active as possible.
Is there anything else you want to say or share before we wrap up?
Yeah. Always. Um, and that's, when you discover what your values are and you discover that you have these non negotiables, um, these non negotiables still exist in a hierarchy, right? And that's one of the interesting things about values. Even though they are non negotiables, they are still some that mean more than others.
Um, At the very, very top of mine is hope. And, and so what I, uh, uh, am very diligent about and, and deliver it with my intention always is to leave people feeling hopeful. And so. You know, what I would say to everyone listening is this, I know there are people listening that have been through some incredibly difficult moments and maybe you're in the middle of an incredibly difficult moment at this time.
Um, What I want you to, to know is that there is hope you might not see it, you might not feel it. That doesn't mean that it's not there in the. 1950s, there was a study done with rats and they wanted to see how long rats could swim before they drown. And, and believe it or not, this was a study in hope. And so they timed how long these rats would swim.
And they found that the rats would swim for about 15 minutes before they gave up. After they came to that conclusion, they decided to do a second study. When the rats approach the 15 minute mark just before they gave up, they would reach in, they'd pull the rats out, they would dry them off, they'd give them a moment to catch their breath, and then they would stick the rat back in the bucket and would time again how long they would swim.
The second time they put the rats in the water, they didn't swim for 15 minutes. They didn't swim for an hour. They swam for 60 hours before they gave up.
I know it seems impossible, but it's the truth. And you can go read the empirical studies. That it is the truth. What they discovered is that when you believe that there is hope and that change is possible, you're capable of extraordinary things.
And so if you're listening to this right now, you need to know that you're capable of extraordinary things if you believe that there's hope and that change is possible. And I promise you both of those things are on the horizon.
Woo.
📍 Mic drop.
I am crying again for the second or third time this episode, and not just because of Bran's obviously sad story, but because of the hope and the purpose that he's found and has applied to this really important and inspiring work that he's created out of a really difficult experience. If you loved this episode as much as I did, if you feel inspired and impacted as much as 📍 I do, chances are other people will feel the same way.
You are not the only person who needs this episode. Other people need to hear it. So please, send it around to one or two other people you think will need to hear this episode Because the more that we grow, the more we can help you grow.
You can find all the necessary links in the show notes. Thank 📍 you to Dan Devon for the music, David Harper for the artwork, I Am This Age is produced by Jellyfish Industries, I'm Molly Sider, catch y'all next time.