During this episode, owner of broughtonHOTELS and former Green Beret Larry Broughton, opens up about his personal battles, from grappling with a painful divorce and becoming an empty nester to the crushing loss of his son. He shares his process of healing and how faith, connecting with fellow veterans, and embracing therapies like EMDR and digital psychedelics have been instrumental in finding moments of joy amidst the pain.
He also introduces us to The Compassionate Friends, a support group he found solace in, created specifically for parents who have lost a child. Tune in for an episode that's as moving as it is inspiring, a testament to the power of resilience in the face of adversity.
Guest Links:
➡ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrybroughton/
➡ broughtonHOTELS: https://broughtonhotels.com/
➡ The Compassionate Friends: https://www.compassionatefriends.org/
During this episode, owner of broughtonHOTELS and former Green Beret Larry Broughton, opens up about his personal battles, from grappling with a painful divorce and becoming an empty nester to the crushing loss of his son. He shares his process of healing and how faith, connecting with fellow veterans, and embracing therapies like EMDR and digital psychedelics have been instrumental in finding moments of joy amidst the pain.
He also introduces us to The Compassionate Friends, a support group he found solace in, created specifically for parents who have lost a child. Tune in for an episode that's as moving as it is inspiring, a testament to the power of resilience in the face of adversity.
Guest Links:
➡ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrybroughton/
➡ broughtonHOTELS: https://broughtonhotels.com/
➡ The Compassionate Friends: https://www.compassionatefriends.org/
Welcome back to unarmored talk podcast. Thank you so much for listening and watching each episode and continue pleased to share with your friends and family members and colleagues, and don't forget to leave a rating or review if you feel this is a awesome show. And you can connect to all of my social media on the parade deck just looking at show notes, or you can put in the search engine Mario P Fields parade deck and get all access to my social media. Well, let's get ready to interview another guest who is willing to remove their armor to help other people, everybody. Welcome back to unarmored talk podcast. I'm your host, mario P Fields, and we have another amazing guest today, larry Broad. And what's going on, my friend?
Larry Broughton:Hey, buddy, how are you? It's so good to see you again. Thanks for having me on.
Mario P. Fields:Same here. Seems like we've been trying to get this done for like the last 10 years.
Larry Broughton:Hey, it happens when it's supposed to happen, right.
Mario P. Fields:And everybody too. Before I get to the you know the professor introduction of Larry. He's in Orange County, he's in that. So, cow, beautiful weather, yeah, I miss it. I'm telling you so. I'm living my life through you, man.
Larry Broughton:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you can't beat the weather here, that's for sure. We got other challenges, but the weather is not one of them.
Mario P. Fields:Right, yeah, man. So before we get to our amazing guest today who's willing to remove his armor, have some discussions. That hopefully helps you develop an accurate way of thinking if you experience any of these challenges that Larry had to experience. Thank you everyone again for continuing to support this podcast. You guys know the deal. We keep growing and we keep developing, but the most important thing is we're helping at least one person. That's the goal, that's the metric Help one person per episode. And you guys are helping me and the amazing 80 plus guests do that. So thank you so much and don't forget.
Mario P. Fields:You want to learn more about my nonprofit? Go to wwwsteelservinginccom as this school year starts and we're going to start cutting some more checks for these students and low income communities here in North Carolina. Enough about that. Everyone I have Larry. He is a United States Army veteran, but not just a soldier there, he's a green beret. Not everybody, not everybody can do that, no, but he's, you know, from the special forces community, also in the private sector, business, you know, ceo, author and more. So I'm going to shut up and turn it over to Larry, my friend Larry, welcome.
Larry Broughton:Hey, mario, how are you Good to see you.
Mario P. Fields:I tell you, if you could do me a favor, tell the listeners and viewers just a little bit about yourself, larry.
Larry Broughton:Sure, you know I had a. I had an author or a journalist describe me once as a schizophrenic entrepreneur. I think he meant that in a good way. But the truth is I've got a lot of different interests, you know, and I think what most people know me for in the entrepreneurial space is that I have been in the hospitality space since I got out of the military and I kind of fell into this, working at a no tell motel in San Francisco and that ended up becoming one of the first boutique hotels in the country. I became a partner in that hotel company and then after a few years, I had realized that I was a primary leader stuck in a secondary leadership role. You probably know what that's like, you've probably seen that in your career Right, and so I just wasn't getting my needs met. So I went out and launched my own business and then over the years, as we started seeing some pretty incredible success, I started speaking at events and then I started speaking all around the world on all kinds of things, mainly entrepreneurship and leadership.
Larry Broughton:Based on my experience in the military first in special forces, as you said, and I've owned a few different businesses over the years I do coaching and mentoring now of entrepreneurs and leaders and high achievers. I still do the hotel industry, and over the last several years, I've done a lot of TV and MSNBC, cnbc, hotel sorry travel channel, that kind of things. So I am all over the place and, as you said, I've got a couple of books out, a couple of best sellers. I'm just trying to serve man. Like you said, I'm still serving, and that's my life, and the thing I'm most proud of, though, is that I'm a dad. I'm a dad, so that's the most rewarding thing that I've ever done. Had no idea how awesome that was going to be.
Mario P. Fields:Yeah, there's no book in the library that gives us kind of the blueprint on how to be an effective father and everyone. If you guys want to check out the things that Larry's doing, making a huge impact globally, go to his LinkedIn page. You know, again I wanted to turn over Larry because I went on his LinkedIn page I got my palm palms out. You're talking about someone still serving. I mean, larry turned it up.
Larry Broughton:Well, I think, when you particularly for men, but I think for all humans when you stop serving, you kind of lack your purpose, and when you lack purpose, you start dying. As far as I'm concerned, hey brother, you and I know people who have done the ultimate and that is that they've ended their own life. And, besides the own demons that they're dealing with, many times it's as if they've lost their. They often say they lost their purpose. They don't have the same meaning in their life that they used to have. I went through that phase In my life. I get it, I get it Right and so, yes, I would encourage anyone. Serve, sir, when you don't know what to do, serve someone else.
Mario P. Fields:I like that. You guys heard it before we get into the topic. When you don't know what to do, when you're lost, find someone else to serve. It could be just find someone else. And Larry, that was one heck of a nugget, so don't invoice me, man. I mean, we're trying to build the budget here.
Larry Broughton:OK, all right, tell me where that came from, my friend.
Mario P. Fields:That's pro bono brother.
Larry Broughton:That's a freebie.
Mario P. Fields:That's a freebie, that's a vet discount. Well, and I'm glad we started this discussion without armor. All positive, because let's just jump right into the topic. You've experienced a lot of things. You're almost 10 years in the Army, special forces, lots of challenges, a lot of things you did not expect, but, from my basic understanding, something recently happened that nothing could have prepared you for. My friend.
Larry Broughton:Yeah Well, listen, life's a journey for all of us. It's got ups and downs and we go through valleys and mountaintops, mountaintop experiences. And I'll tell you, when I first got out of the military I had no idea the challenges of absolutely being lost. I had no idea it was. I felt like I was off in the wilderness. I went from serving, like he said, and special forces, a teams where these are Type A hard chargers, excellence is the standard. All of a sudden I was in the business arena, where there's a lot of mediocrity. I was one of those people, like standing at the edge of a six-story building, thinking if I just took a leap, life would be a lot, lot better. Thank God that didn't happen. And then I just survived the economic ups and downs and particularly the pandemic that hit when they wanted to get into that.
Larry Broughton:But for many of us, our businesses were ripped out from under us With no fault of our own. They were shut down, shuttered, and whether it was 30 or 90 days to flatten the curve and our business would be opened. It didn't happen in the hospitality industry and for many folks that are in the hotel industry, they own or operate at hotels that never reopened. In fact, some of the markets around the country, 25% of the hotels they're never going to reopen. So think about this. You still have to pay mortgages on these businesses that have zero revenue coming in right, so that was a crush.
Larry Broughton:I think the thing that you're referring to, though, is that, about a year and a half ago, after spending an amazing day with my son he was 17 years old was in a car accident and it took his life, and I was the first one on the scene. You know, like many parents, you have these tracking devices on your phones to see where your kids are Right, and yeah, and that was the most devastating, crushing experience in my life, and I think you know for you know someone who's a little bit more advanced in age, and I've seen some pretty grisly things nothing prepares a father to see a son in this situation, in this condition, you know. So that was pretty rough. That was pretty rough, and it took me a long time before I got my legs back under me and I didn't know, what I was gonna look like on the other side.
Mario P. Fields:And you and I've talked before this show and I've always kept you, larry, my prayers as the grieving process that I believe it never ends. But you know you mentioned the word devastating and I believe we have a lot of listeners and viewers that have things happen to them that they believe it's devastating from, like you said, a loss of a child or the four sub. If you can help us, how did you think you know? How did you think through that? What did you do to start to get past that devastation of the loss of your wonderful 17 year old?
Larry Broughton:Well, listen, first of all. Thank you, by the way, for giving me the opportunity to share this, because I know there are a lot of people who are suffering with this and we think that there are these five easy steps. If you just follow this grieving pattern or process these steps, that it's all gonna be. You know, it's gonna be easier. I said I've had pain in my life before like I'm divorced, right, and so I now am an empty nester. I'm sitting in my you know, four bedroom home, or right now by myself with my dog, right, and so that was. That added to the difficulty. You know, thank goodness, my former spouse, my son's mother, is remarried happily, has a couple of great stepkids and our daughter, and so she's had support around her 24 hours a day, right.
Larry Broughton:What I did, what worked for me? I didn't think so at the time, but I knew what pain was. I knew that if I ran from it it was only gonna linger longer, right, I've done a lot of emotional work over the years because, you know, like a lot of us, we've got woundings and I've got traumas that go back before the military, and in fact, if you one day we'll talk about that, you know, that's what forced me, that's what led me to the military, is because all of a sudden, I knew I wanted to be the biggest baddest, swinging blank out there, right, no one was ever gonna question Larry again, right? And so I knew that, going through that healing process, that I needed to lean into the pain and I'd try to have. I'd be a stoic out in public.
Larry Broughton:You know, if I were over at my former spouse's house while we're going through the grieving process and families coming to visit or preparing for the funeral, or going through dealing with the coroner's office, all that kind of stuff, I was gonna be a stoic there. But I would come home, mario, and I'm gonna, I'll be honest with you I would curse God, I would bawl, I would scream and I was afraid that my neighbors might be calling the police for fear that something's going on over here. I was not a happy person, right, but I knew that I had to still serve my family members when I could but retreat. And this was between God and me at that point. If you don't mind me getting a little bit spiritual.
Mario P. Fields:Oh yeah, no, we're good.
Larry Broughton:And. But I knew that God's shoulders were big enough to take my anger at him and there was a whole kind of stuff. Maybe this is a dream. Take me. You know who the hell do you think you are? You know this is a pure son. You know he was still had the best years of his life in front of him. You know my garbage.
Larry Broughton:I'm the one that needed this right, but it took some real soulful, sorrowful conversations with God for me to get through it and I started reaching out. I was smart enough at this point to be reaching out to other folks that I knew, but mostly veterans, to be honest with you. A couple of buddies of mine in the special ops community, one of them, jay Redman. Many of you probably know Jason Redman, bestselling author, former Navy SEAL, amazing human. And we were talking and we were comparing grief to an ambush. We don't know where the pain and where the enemy is going to come from.
Larry Broughton:Sometimes I may think I've got it. This is going to be a good day. I'm having a conversation and all of a sudden boom, this wave of grief hits me and it just can be crushing right. And because I got seduced by these authors who are talking about these five stages of grief, and I'll tell you what I learned after I started doing a little bit of research. I'm not feeling these five stages. What's the text going on, the acceptance and all that kind of stuff? Well, it turns out there's a clinical psychologist who had developed those five stages of grief for his terminal cancer patients that he was trying to get to understand to deal with their own death, not the death of a family member, and so we deal with our own pending death differently than we might other people who died suddenly, particularly suddenly around us. So I've actually started taking a bunch of notes on grief and I realized, mario, we grieve so deeply because we love so deeply. Right, if you didn't love someone, you wouldn't grieve for them. And so for me it became a reassurance like, oh, this is actually good, this is good, it reinforces, I love this guy. And so it's just been a process.
Larry Broughton:I reached out to other folks, I did some therapy, I did EMDR therapy at the same time and, thank goodness, I'm on the board of directors of an amazing organization called the Raven Drum Foundation that serves veterans and first responders with complementary alternative medicine, medical treatments, drumming tonality. So I've been introduced to this thing called digital psychedelics. It's an amazing experience at the reality center that's opened by veterans here in Santa Monica. You guys should look it up. So I was trying a bunch of different things and I can tell you after a few months, mario, I started having moments of joy, even if it was just a flash, you know, but I was hanging on to that. And then all of a sudden, you know, after time, I started piecing these things together. The first year was the hardest, of course, because always there's the first Thanksgiving and the first birthday and the first Christmas and the first right. And once I got through that, I realized, hey, I can do this, I've got this. You know, like you said earlier, you never, I'm not gonna say you.
Larry Broughton:I don't know that I will ever get over it. From what I understand from a lot of folks, you don't get over something like this. There is always a hole in your heart. But you can go on, you can adjust. And the last thing I'll say is there was another organization that I got involved with for a short term time my brother. I have a twin brother who also had a son transition, and he introduced me to an organization called Compassionate Friends, and it's specifically a support group for parents whose children had passed away.
Larry Broughton:So that's kind of the journey, but we can go as deep or as shallow as you want on any of those topics.
Mario P. Fields:No, you know, Larry, first of all you have a twin brother, so I, you know I might have to hire you guys for a security. You know, I'm only five foot two and a co is short, as I can't say or hide on air, but we're gonna need some security. It was two Larry's, but you know. But I love you know, I love how you said that you chose to run towards the pain. You know, you didn't isolate, you did not run away from it. You made a choice to go. The pain is I don't know what this is different pain, but I got to go to it and I'm a go of my private residence. I'm going to do things because that's what I want to do right now. I wanted to, god, I got it. I'm a poor little bourbon, little holy, holy bourbon here and I'm gonna crush you out. But to run to it and then not run away from it, using those resources and just looking in the mirror and accepting this is real and how do I move on? You know, I just wanted to highlight that.
Larry Broughton:You know, as you spoke about that, Brother Liston, you are built similarly to I, am in that and many of your listeners are viewers, are my son used to comment on this all the time Reflexively folks like you and I. If you see a car accident, do you drive by or do you pull over and help.
Larry Broughton:We run towards it, you run towards it, right. This is what separates us from a lot of folks, and I'm not being braggadoge, I'm telling you that's how I'm built. I didn't even realize if you just said that like, oh yeah, that's kind of how I'm built, right, because you, you are, and sometimes you don't even realize how you are, until somebody holds the mirror up and said hello, yeah, and well, also, listen, you know, in the recovery community just opened up my kimono. There in the recovery community, they say that my best efforts got me here, alright, so if you're an addict of some sort, you think you got it under control. I can white knuckle this and I'm gonna, you know, live a sober life, but without support, without moving towards the pain and dealing with it, you know. So I knew I'd done enough.
Larry Broughton:Running in my life yeah, you know, for the first, I don't know, 40 some years of my life, instead of dealing with that trauma that I had when I was, you know, in my teen years, I ran away from it and I ran towards what? The military, towards the green Berets. And then, when there's another pain, I ran towards something else, instead of turning around, you know, holding up my shield, taking out the sword and going to battle with that, the source of the problem. I ran to some other challenge problem opportunity. Sometimes you have to fight the demon in front of you instead of go fighting another dragon.
Mario P. Fields:Yeah, and another thing too is how your family dynamics actually put you in a fighting hole. Right, and for my non military listeners and viewers, that's in combat, if you will. When we're deployed not even not in combat week we call it. You know. You call it a one man, one woman. Fighting hole. You know where. You're just in it, by yourself and here you are. You're one man. Fighting hole was your house. Yeah, you know where you are. Now you have all of this turbulence, some uncharted waters and you're by yourself. And I love how you went to your spiritual foundation. You started to call some folks in your network and how you leverage the resources that's, people, that's your spiritual belief system to where we see Larry brought in today Doing amazing things, still helping people, and helping people through removing your armor to have these discussions, and I appreciate it.
Larry Broughton:Yeah, I'll wrap up with this. I think that most of us feel, I think and again, particularly I'm thinking it may speak from a man's point of view, but I do think this is all of us, or most of us. Definitely more for men is that we think, if we let the armor down, that we're going to reveal our weakness. And you are and you are. But guess what? That becomes very attractive to your friends. If they don't know that you're hurting, they can't support you. Right? If you can't say to God, who knows all of us, right down to our every hair and our freaking head, if we can't admit that, hey, I don't know which direction to go, I am really suffering, I need your help, then they can't or they won't help. But vulnerability takes courage. It's a sign of strength. Now, obviously, we need to have discernment. You're not going to walk into a board meeting oh, my cat died and please cut me some slack today.
Mario P. Fields:Mr Chairman. I would like that, mr Chairman. I would like you to know. I need a month off because my parrot died.
Larry Broughton:Yeah, exactly yeah. Let's use some discernment in that right. But vulnerability takes courage. It truly does, and so just reach out to your friends. Do not isolate in these situations is my word of advice.
Mario P. Fields:Well, everyone you guys heard it from Larry Broad and lots of tips Don't isolate, reach out to your network, but the most critical thing is let people know you need help. Let them know, remove your armor. Have the courage, like Larry talked about, being vulnerable is not being weak. Have some discernment. Let folks help you and we believe, I can say I believe that while living whatever life presents, whatever challenge, you can get through it if you just come through it. Larry, thank you so much. I know you're having fun out there. Oh, by the way, everybody's like three in the morning and so can I go out, but it is early. So I appreciate, I appreciate Larry getting up early and coming on the show with me.
Larry Broughton:All right, it's so good to see you.
Mario P. Fields:Thank you so much. Likewise my friend, where everybody you guys know the deal until the next episode. Be safe out there. God bless you and God bless your family and friends. Thank you for listening to this most recent episode and remember you can listen and watch all of the previous episodes on my YouTube channel. The best way to connect to me and all of my social media is follow me on the parade deck that is wwwparadecom, or you can click on the link in the show notes. I'll see you guys soon.