"Paddleboards, Punching Bags & Paradigm Shifts: A Blueprint for Growth" from Brian Mora

What happens when you deliberately choose difficulty and discomfort? In this powerful reunion episode with Brian Mora, we explore how voluntary adversity shapes character, expands capabilities, and ultimately leads to greater fulfillment.

Since we last spoke two years ago, Brian has transformed his life through deliberate challenge. After taking on leadership of recruiting at Ameriprise Financial, he learned stand-up paddleboarding from scratch to complete the 79-mile Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis event from the Bahamas to Florida. Perhaps most significantly, he fulfilled his entrepreneurial dream by opening a Rumble Boxing franchise, stepping far outside his corporate comfort zone.

The conversation reveals practical wisdom for anyone seeking growth. Brian emphasizes starting with meaningful challenges, identifying potential obstacles, creating progress markers, and cultivating accountability partnerships. He shares how his paddleboard journey through shark-infested waters taught perseverance, while his boxing studio revealed striking differences between financial services and fitness industries—particularly regarding customer relationships and retention.

Most powerfully, Brian addresses the core barrier many face: the fear of being bad at something new. He advocates dual visualization—picturing both the rewards of persevering and the risks of inaction. This approach provides motivation through difficult moments and helps overcome the natural tendency to avoid discomfort.

Whether you're contemplating a major life change or simply seeking to build more discipline into your daily routine, this episode offers a blueprint for embracing discomfort as a path to growth. As Brian notes, "The key to a long life is continuing to challenge yourself"—wisdom backed by neuroscience and demonstrated through his remarkable journey.

Ready to step outside your comfort zone and discover what you're truly capable of? Listen, reflect, and take that first uncomfortable step toward meaningful growth.

Transcript

Welcome Back with Brian Mora

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwbamboolab3.com.

Speaker 2 0:41

Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's show. I want to start off by just saying back in April 24th of 2023, so two years ago this week I did an episode talking to one of the coolest guys I've ever had a chance to talk to, man, Brian Mora. That episode shot to the top 14% of all downloads on the 142 episodes we've done so far. I think it's been so I had to get in touch with him and get him back on the show. So, without further ado, Brian, my friend, welcome back to the Bamboo Lab podcast.

Speaker 3 1:16

Glad to be back. Thanks for having me. It was so much fun we decided we would do it again. It's great to be back with you and your audience.

Speaker 2 1:22

I appreciate it. Brother. Now I know since we talked two years ago I know you have a hard stop everybody. So the couple things we're going to be shutting down within an hour today. Brian's got an important meeting to go to Number two I have a little dog here. He might do some barking. So disregard little eight-pound Cooper. I got all the windows closed up and everything he can see out can't really get distracted, but he finds things to bark at anyway.

Speaker 3 1:45

um, a lot has changed since I talked to you two years ago on the show oh yeah, I mean, if uh, if you always do what you always uh have always done, you always get what you've always got. So we all have to be changing and evolving. I hope that's true of everybody listening right.

Speaker 2 2:00

I hope it is. If not, it's going to be by the end of this next 45 minutes for sure. So for the audience out there, you know the last few weeks we've been talking a lot about purpose and grit and voluntary adversity. We've had a couple of guests on. Brian is the perfect example. It exemplifies exactly that topic of just discipline, structure, doing difficult things despite the fact that sometimes your mind and body does not want to do them. So, brian, give a little update first of all on where things are for you in your life since we talked two years ago.

Professional Growth and New Opportunities

Speaker 3 2:35

Yeah, sure, happy to do it so well. Let's see two years ago. I guess we'll start on the work side. I guess we'll start on the work side. I've spent my entire career at your predecessor firm, at Ameriprise Financial, and I was in a role leading an eight-state region for the company at the end of last year. So I did that work for four or five years and at the end of last year an incredible opportunity came my way to take a new role with the firm to lead all of recruiting for the organization, and in my prior roles, recruiting was an activity and maybe, to be more precise, especially for I know you have so many people in your audience that are outside of financial services For purposes of recruiting.

Speaker 3 3:20

What we're really talking about are experienced and established financial advisors who work at other companies other than Ameriprise, bringing their clientele and their teams to Ameriprise, and that's a really competitive thing in the industry. Most firms are interested in an established advisor being willing to leave their current firm and come to a new firm. It's typically good people, good clients, assets, business, and so it's a really, really, really hard thing in business. It's really challenging. It's also incredibly rewarding and so, right off the top professionally, although I had done some of that work in prior roles. I took a new opportunity in the firm and for the last 100 days or so I've been somewhat in my comfort zone in a topic that I know well, which is recruiting but leading a whole team of new people, learning new things both about the industry, speaking on different venues and doing different things. So I've definitely pushed the envelope professionally in the last hundred days and last, uh, in the last hundred days.

Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis Paddleboard Challenge

Speaker 3 4:26

Uh, and what's funny is I was thinking about the uh, the story, some of the stories that I told, and I told a couple of stories about endurance sports and competing in Ironman two years ago, and I've really sort of moved away from that uh, that sport largely. But I, um, I did complete something we were talking about two years ago, which is I was just geared up to to take on a new physical challenge which I was learning the sport of stand up paddle boarding to participate in a charity event called the Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis. This was a seventy nine mile paddle board from Bimini Island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. So we might get into all of it, but the gist of it is we pushed off the coast of the Bahamas on a Saturday night at midnight 260 paddlers and on Sunday afternoon around four or five o'clock we arrived on the Florida coast of Lake Worth, florida, after 14 or 16 hours at sea. So I pushed myself physically.

Speaker 3 5:29

And then maybe the last major headline is that I had always had a dream of being a true entrepreneur and owning my own business, and I wanted to own a business in a space that I was passionate about, which is fitness, and this month marks one year since I opened a fitness business called Rumble Boxing, and Rumble Boxing it's actually a national franchise. There's about 100 Rumble Boxings across the United States. So just a plug for Rumble, depending on where you're listening, google Rumble Boxing in your town or your city. But I own the R rumble boxing in a community in South Florida called Plantation and it's a. It's a 60 minute fitness class where we help people get their cardiovascular done by hitting a boxing bag, get their frustration and their stress out hitting a boxing bag, and then we we do some weight training and weightlifting and so I'm learning all.

Speaker 3 6:20

For anybody out there listening who's an entrepreneur that's been in business for themselves. For anybody out there listening who's an entrepreneur that's been in business for themselves. My, my tip of the cap goes to you because it's been. It has definitely been a challenge. It's been a lot of fun, it's been very rewarding and I've learned a lot. So those are three. I guess that's two years, three new things, three new ways to push myself into some voluntary adversity.

Speaker 2 6:42

Wow. Well, it's interesting. I think the last time we talked well, the last time we we talked in the podcast you hadn't even bought your paddleboard yet, or you just had your, or I don't think you're. Maybe you hadn't paddleboarded yet, but I knew you were yeah, I think.

Opening Rumble Boxing: Entrepreneurial Journey

Speaker 3 6:56

I think I probably was like waiting for it to come in, the guy who convinced me to do it. I said his name is Jimim. I said jim, I don't know anything about paddleboarding. And he goes that's okay, you'll figure it out. And I agreed with his statement. So I went home and bought a paddleboard after we uh, we finished the conversation hey, can I ask you a question on that, just out of curiosity?

Speaker 2 7:13

were there any encounters with sharks?

Speaker 3 7:16

so it's funny. It's funny you say this. So, um, the and some may even remember seeing it it didn't happen to our group of paddlers with our boat, but it was a story that quite literally got me For this, being a relatively small event 260 paddlers, really sort of only known to the South Florida community, tmz and National News, cbs, abc ran a story the week after the event, because what happened is so. The structure of this event is each paddler is assigned to a safety boat, like a real boat. That's basically your GPS, right. So when we push off the Bahamas, I'm paddling directly behind the boat that I'm connected to and the rest of the paddlers that are in my group are doing the same thing. And there's people on the boat, there's volunteers, there's a boat captain, so there's a bunch of people on each boat that are not doing any paddling. They're just there to help the paddlers get across the ocean. And so one of the boats, uh, it spotted a shark right behind one of the paddlers, and so the video that got picked up by like tmz and abc cetera was like the home video shot on someone's cell phone of somebody on the boat saying I don't know the person who was on the board. But they said, hey, brian, we're going to need you to come over to the boat, but just come over, nice and calm and nice and steady. And so the paddler, literally like, paddles over to the boat and gets off the paddleboard onto the boat and it was a shark swimming circles all around them and gets off the paddleboard onto the boat and it was a shark swimming circles all around them.

Speaker 3 8:48

But me personally I saw we were in the Bahamas for a few days before the event launched and we went out on the paddleboard every day just around Dimini and in the ocean there and it's super, super, super clear. I saw some bull sharks kind of swim by me and swim below me. But once we got going with the event, you know, from Saturday night, which you know, the first six hours was in the pitch black. We left at midnight, so we're in the dark. But you know, from from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, uh, I really never saw any animal life. We didn't see dolphins, turtles, it was in that regard, the event was spectacular. But in relation to sea life, we didn't, uh, we didn't see anything.

Speaker 2 9:21

I tell you that'd be the only thing on my mind would be sharks.

Speaker 3 9:24

Well, somebody asked like hey, how'd you feel? I don't know. The best question I got asked was did did you fall in at all, meaning like, of course you're in the middle of the ocean? Did you fall in and were you worried? Your board as a water burpee. Everybody who's worked out has done a burpee. Like on dry land A water burpee is. You're in the water and you've got to hoist yourself back up with your arms onto the board and the first time you do it, no big deal. On your 50th water burpee it gets pretty exhausting.

Speaker 2 10:02

You've run the Boston Marathon, new York City Marathon, you've run some marathons. I think you probably can handle it. Yeah, we're okay. Well, that's the interesting thing. That's exactly why I wanted to talk to you today, because when we talked two years ago and, of course, you and I have known each other for a while and we have a lot of mutual connections, so your name gets popped up and brought up in many conversations that I have you, many conversations that I have you were at a point then mid-40s, you know where you had a lot of good shit happening in your life. You had a lot of great things going on professionally, personally. The boys are getting older, you're coaching their teams but yet you decided to kind of start doing some things that are outside of your current wheel, or your, at least at that time, your previous wheel. Well, that's exactly what the conversation of voluntary adversity wraps itself around.

Speaker 2 10:46

I do have a question for you, because I know enough about your past. Now you've got this massive role at Ameriprise head of experience recruiting. I mean, that's a big role, and I like to use this word loosely because I think the word pride has had a lot of negative connotations, like you know arrogance or lack of humility. I'm talking about the kind of pride that you share, that we've talked about in the past, that where you just you're proud of something you've done, or you're proud of the role model you've become, or proud of overcoming a fear or a past challenge. What do you say is probably one of the most proud, the most pride you have felt about this new position at Ameriprise, the most pride?

Voluntary Adversity and Trying New Things

Speaker 3 11:24

you have felt about this new position at Ameriprise. That's a really good question, I think, if I'm being really honest about something personal or maybe selfish isn't the right word but something just to me. I have a lot of pride in that it is a really coveted role at a really coveted organization and it was a really competitive interview process and selection process. I interviewed with eight different people over an eight or nine week period of time, so I feel really proud that I've been for the people who were in the decision making seat to make the selection. I do feel personally very proud that I've been entrusted with um with the responsibility to lead the team. But, uh, beyond me, I think what I feel and it's only been a hundred days but what I feel most proud of is the, the receptivity that uh, that that the team has embraced me with um, the, the individual that I took over for um had a long tenure in that position and was was really well-liked.

Speaker 3 12:31

It's easy as a leader to step in If everybody's like ding dong, the witch is dead. Thank God that person's gone. You know that should have happened 25 years sooner and everybody hates him or her. Uh, that that wasn't the scenario. The person was well-liked and well-respected and did a lot of good in their time.

Speaker 3 12:48

In the role that I, by the way, I personally benefited from, I was the benefactor of some of that individual's work, and so in that case, when you're taking over, there's the risk that people's initial response is, oh, we don't like this change because nobody likes change, right, and uh, so I I'm really proud of the, the, the reception of the team, and then the last thing is I'm I'm incredibly impressed by the team. Um, that's the other thing I would tell you is I knew a lot of the people. Just, you know, from a distance, or our paths crossed on certain work projects. Now, having a chance to work with the group more closely, I'm really, really, really impressed with the work that they do and what they produce and what they, what they put out, and I'm even more proud to be leading them now that I actually see them and have seen them in action.

Speaker 2 13:38

Well, they're in good hands. I was really impressed by the interview I watched with you with is it Frank LaRosa?

Speaker 3 13:49

Yeah, Frank runs a consulting firm for advisors in the industry.

Speaker 2 13:53

Yeah, that was a great show. I listened to it and I was hiking on Saturday morning, but I watched it again this morning. I had a 45-minute break between coaching sessions, so I grabbed an orange and a banana and I sat and watched it.

Speaker 3 14:04

Brian, we've got to get you some better music for your hiking session than listening to me on a podcast.

Speaker 2 14:09

Well, I thought it would be inspiring, and it was.

Speaker 3 14:13

I appreciate it. That's nice to know.

Speaker 2 14:14

I don't normally listen to you when I'm hiking. Trust me, brian, you compete there with Joe Rogan. I listen to Rogan a lot, or Huberman Lab a lot, so you were right there with him.

Speaker 3 14:25

So it's funny, right? So you bring up Huberman Lab and and and I I want the group to know that that is that is one of the biggest that there was. There was an episode I think you and I might've talked about this once in a past conversation there was an episode on the Huberman lab where they were walking through the science of what happens to your brain and, more importantly, what happens to your, your longevity of life when you don't do anything new that causes you to get out of your comfort zone, and what happens to your brain and then your life longevity when you do new things. And so it's not that I push myself or challenge myself because I'm. I'm just saying I want to live a long time, but it's a constant reminder that you do have to do hard things and you do have to push yourself and that, literally, the key to a long life is continuing to challenge yourself and attempt new things, and they don't always have to be like enormous things. They don't have to be oh, I'm going to learn to paddleboard and go across the ocean. They could be really, you know, basic things. They could be.

Speaker 3 15:27

For someone that's not, which is me, by the way, I'm not very handy. It could be more basic that, like, instead of calling somebody to do some project, I watch YouTube and I at least make an attempt at it, even if I can't fix the thing or do the thing. Watching YouTube and challenging myself to do something handy when I'm really not handy at all that's a basic example of what the Huberman lab data would say is that you're pushing yourself to do some things that don't have to be extraordinarily hard. They just have to be new and outside of your norm of what your brain can do. Like I can drive home from the office without thinking about the directions. That's an easy example for people to know. You're not challenging your brain in any way when you brush your teeth in the morning or you drive home from the office.

Speaker 2 16:08

So what would you say? I'm a listener out there and I've heard Brian me, brian Bosley talk about voluntary adversity now for three or four episodes and I don't really know what to do. I get the concept of pushing myself, stretching my comfort zone, trying something new. You know, what would you say is a good place for someone to start, brian?

Speaker 3 16:28

I would say a good place to start is to write down. You could start with a piece of paper or your notes section of your phone and start with a good brainstorm of if it were super easy and there were no barrier to entry meaning there was no time, I had to invest, no money, I had to invest, no sacrifice, I had to make, what would be some things I would have or I would do if there were no barriers to it. Right, you know, you and I talk a lot about the physical stuff. There's a whole lot of people that might really be interested in the achievement. Yesterday was the Boston Marathon, which I ran 10 years ago or 15 years ago. There might be a lot of people that are interested in the achievement of. I'd really like to know what that feels like to cross the finish line of a marathon.

Speaker 3 17:14

Okay, put it on the list. Don't let it. Don't let the excuses get in the way yet. Don't start with. Well, I'm I hate running and I have bad knees and I'm not very good at it, and the last time I tried I couldn't even get around the block before I stopped walking.

Starting Small and Building Momentum

Speaker 3 17:26

Don't let the the either the facts of what caused you to fail before with something, or your beliefs about what might lead you to fail with something, get in the way right now. It might be for somebody that's always struggled to make good financial decisions. I want to just be a little bit better with money, or I want to. I want to learn to cook. You know, I, instead of always ordering out, I'd like to actually learn how to go to the grocery store and shop, put it on the list, even if you think the monetary cost is really high, or the sacrifice is really high, or the discipline is really high, or you were told you couldn't do it or you failed at it before, and then just land on one of them. But then you have to build a plan and examine what would be the reasons that you could fail.

Speaker 3 18:11

So a simple example on the physical side, like the physical fitness side, is you have to make sure you carve out time, and that's an obvious one, but carve out time that won't get eaten up by anything else. So for me, the discipline that I had to build on physical fitness was the discipline of setting the alarm early in the morning and getting comfortable for the first five or 10 minutes. A lot of people like oh, you must just love waking up. No, the first five to 10 minutes of the day, I really don't like the alarm. The alarm goes off and I don't jump out of bed with this energy. You hear on my voice and go. It's another great day to work out at four, 30 or five o'clock in the morning. I don't do that. I hate the first five minutes of the day.

Speaker 3 18:52

But you build a process and a time and a discipline that allows you to not get in the way. It requires good calendar processing and good calendar management to set time aside for things, to not let the time get in the way. And there's other things that might be on someone's list that might have other obstacles besides time. There could be monetary roadblocks or other types of roadblocks.

Speaker 3 19:14

But I think the most important thing is to actually brainstorm a list of things and not let the excuses be an inhibitor at first and then commit to just one thing, but also identify proactively what could be the reasons that could get in the way of this and then begin to work through what those would be. It's always important, too, to potentially have an accountability partner to share with someone else. This is an important thing for me to achieve or for me to accomplish, and it will require some level of sacrifice here or there. What are going to be the sacrifices to your otherwise normal routine and who can help you with those things? Do you have somebody cheerleading you on and advocating for you, versus complaining at you, that you're spending more time doing something else? Those couple, couple things I think about.

Speaker 2 19:59

I'm really happy you put up there list the things that could potentially, you know, hinder you from hitting that or doing those things, because I think one of the things, brian, I see in goals setting processes that I started it was my problem. I know for years List my goals, I put down what I need to do, I do a tracking system, I have an A team or an accountability team. But it wasn't until about 70 years ago I started realizing wait a minute, why do I do this every year and I almost never hit the exact goal I want? And then I realized it's because I don't put down the reasons why I might not. And I call those traps.

Speaker 2 20:38

You know, if you and I are hiking in the woods, we got a 12 mile hike today and we know there are 10 or 15 bear traps buried in the leaves on our path. I want to know where the hell those traps are and I want to know, I want to be able to recognize the signs of those traps. If I step in one, I want to know how to get out of it right away. And I think we have a lot of these emotional, mental, physical traps that are in front of us towards something that we're trying to accomplish, and if we don't recognize those that those could pop up, then there's a really good likelihood that we're going to get stuck in one.

Speaker 3 21:06

And, in addition, I think a lot of people in life would rather either attempt not to start or they would rather fail quietly versus ask for help and say this would be important to me, but I don't believe that I could do it. Not to continue to stick on the physical fitness part, but I will tell you the two biggest physical fitness journeys I've been on is, you know, we talked a lot on the previous episode, so we won't talk a ton about Ironman today, but I bring it back up only to tell you that, uh, I had two friends uh able to go all the way to the Ironman level, but I just don't think it's possible for my body like to bike that far and to run that far after swimming that far. And they didn't just say, oh yeah, you can do it, and give me like a word of encouragement. They said, uh, we're all going to sign up together and we'll do the training with you. So you know that I mean they.

Being Bad at Something New

Speaker 3 22:08

I guess the point of that is it's less even about. That's not a story of accountability, that's a story of partnership, where sometimes to do something really big, you have to be willing to say OK, I'm not going to attempt it by myself, where, if it gets harder, it gets tough. I lose doubt in myself and I'll just give up. You might have to do it with somebody else. And the paddleboard example is the same way. So, besides my friend Jim giving me some encouragement the first several times on the board, I went with him and I went with a couple of other guys that we were going to go to the Bahamas with, and they gave me tips and techniques on how to paddle and how to get my technique together.

Speaker 3 22:41

And so I think I think the underlying example there is to to be more willing to accept some help, more brave and courageous to articulate and communicate your doubt. I think that does make you courageous to actually it doesn't make you a chicken, it makes you courageous to say man, this would be really important, I'd love to do this, but I don't think I can do it. There's courage in that, actually, because if you then accept help, if somebody is willing to say no, no, no, you can get your financial house in order, you can drink a little bit less, you could cook food at home, you could run a marathon. I'll do it with you. That's what real bravery looks like is accepting some help and getting on the path to do it with somebody.

Speaker 2 23:22

And that's hard for a lot of people to do ask for help. Well, I think, once asking for help for a lot of people is a sign of vulnerability, it's weakness, but really what it is, it's vulnerability, and vulnerability is strength and that's courage. But also, I think once you ask for that help, now you're committed, you're dialed in. It's like you got somebody who's training with you. It's like there's no backing out now, because now you have to let your buddy off or let your buddy down, not just yourself. What do you think the value is, brian, in somebody who's right now struggling with the basics of this voluntary adversity?

Speaker 2 23:56

I'm a firm believer that. I tell everybody the first thing you can do, if nothing else that day for the next month just get up when your alarm goes off, don't hit the snooze button. That's one small thing you can do. And then build from there. Then maybe get up and go for a mile walk, you know, build that up to two or three, then maybe a run. I mean slowly build up your, your um, your slowly stretch your comfort zone, basically to the point where your comfort zone is now accepted as self-evident, as a much larger comfort zone. Do you think there's value in starting small?

Speaker 3 24:31

I think that's actually proven right. No one, regardless of what topic we're talking about it can be, you know, accomplishing goals in business. It can be the physical fitness stuff we're talking about. Very rarely do people go from standstill to driving 60 miles an hour, even if some of the fastest cars advertise themselves as zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds. That's not what the average car does. Right, that's not the performance of the average car.

Speaker 3 24:57

You're passing on the highway and that's probably when we start to think about the prior question that you asked and said. You know what would be the ways that someone should get started. I started I gave a couple of points that I think are helpful around brainstorming all the potential things that would matter to you and then selecting one um and and uh, identifying the places that could go off off track. I think another really helpful tip in that entire process is build some mile markers for yourself. You know there's a reason why in the 26 mile marathon journey they have a huge sign at mile one, two, three, four, five. They don't just have one sign at the end that says 26. They're letting you know every mile along the way you've ticked one off and you've accomplished it. The same is true.

Speaker 3 25:42

I mean, in business we have monthly reports and quarterly reports and semi annual check-ins. A year is a really long time. Imagine my leader gave me my goals for the year and said I'll talk to you on December 31st and we'll have a conversation. Right, that's not leadership, that's just. You know, that's abandonment. Actually, he gave me my goals on January 1 and didn't talk to me for the next 365 days. So we wouldn't do that to our kids, we shouldn't do it to our employees and we shouldn't do it for ourselves and the goals we set employees and we shouldn't do it for ourselves and the goals we set.

Speaker 2 26:14

Well, it'd be like watching a basketball game the NBA finals and all of a sudden the scoreboard shuts down. You don't even know what, how much time is left. You know what the score is. Is anybody in foul trouble? We wouldn't know any of that data. It would just be we're just watching 10 men fight over a rubber ball to put in an iron hoop. It would lose interest because there's no. You just have no concept of the, of the of. You know how far we've gone, what we don't, who's behind, who's ahead.

Speaker 2 26:36

So I think we have to do that more in our personal lives as well. I am curious about, um you, something you told me when we talked last week, and it was something about we have to be okay with sucking at something at first and not being good at it, and I think that's a problem. It's been a problem for me all my life. You know we talk about voluntary adversity and I'm trying to talk to my clients about this. I've been doing shows. I've got guests like you on talking about it myself.

Speaker 2 27:13

Right now, under this fear that I have of starting podcasts by doing podcasts on YouTube and in private or not private, and doing professional videos, as well as doing videos on TikTok, which are two things.

Speaker 2 27:21

Three things I'll be doing this year is TikTok. I'll have a TikTok channel, a podcast channel or a YouTube podcast channel and a YouTube video channel. I've been pushed and pushed and pushed by people to do this and finally, two weeks ago, I'm going to do it and I find this fear, my comfort zone is just screaming back away, back away, back away, and I'm thinking this is exactly what I coach and that's a pretty benign thing to do, brian, to do a podcast on YouTube or put videos on TikTok, that's not a real life-threatening challenge. But I feel now what people feel, even with getting up when their alarm goes off. If we're not used to it and we're not good at it, we're going to avoid it, naturally. So what's a good piece of advice for somebody who says I don't really want to do this right now because I don't want to try this, because I'm really bad at it and other people are really good at it?

Speaker 3 28:11

So it's funny you say this because my older son is a bit so. My boys are 11 and 8, grayson's my oldest and he's a bit like that. He's really really good at some things, but he doesn't like to try as many new things as maybe the average kid or the average person. And I made this sort of offhand comment to my mom at some point about it and she goes, yeah, he's just like his dad. She didn't say he's just like his dad, period. She goes, yeah, he's just like his dad.

Speaker 3 28:43

At that age and I said, really, because I look myself in the mirror and I'm like, oh, I love to try new things that are really hard and and achieve and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that's, that's the movie that's playing in my mind about myself. And she was, you know, she's known me my whole life, obviously and she was reminding me that when I was 10 or 11 or 12, I didn't want to do anything that I wasn't sure I was going to be good at, and if I wasn't good at it right away, I didn't really have any interest in it. So I think I share that quick story because I do actually think that the version of myself that I believe I am, I believe I'm pretty close to that today, that I'm willing to try a lot of stuff that I'm not good at, and I'm going to give two tips about how to think about that. But the reason I share all the way back to my, my childhood is because it teaches my, it teaches me for my son and it teaches your audience that, uh, you can actually overcome that, that you can, you can change in that aspect. And I think I think, for people to be pushed into, you know, push themselves, or be pushed into trying new things that get way outside their comfort zone, they have to do an exercise on two ends of the barbell.

Speaker 3 29:52

And so I'm going to ask I'm going to ask this to you, brian the same way, you're choosing to get into TikTok and YouTube videos, although it's super uncomfortable for you and that's okay at vulnerable moment for you to, for you to admit it, have you envisioned what it will feel like and what it will mean for for your, your listeners, for your business, et cetera? Do you have a vision for what it will mean for your listeners, for your business, et cetera? Do you have a vision for what it's going to look like when you are comfortable with it? Like are you going to feel really great and really proud? Are you going to be thankful that you went through the discomfort, because it'll help bring the entire experience of listening to the Bamboo Lab right? I'll be able to see you on screen, people will be able to see me, they'll hear and see your face when you want to make some quick comments or some quick video content. Have you envisioned a positive outcome for yourself? And then I have a second question in a minute after you answer that.

Speaker 2 30:40

Okay, that's a really good question, because I've never thought about that. So my honest answer is I have not thought about the benefit to the audience. I haven't. I have thought strictly about the fact that I will feel better if I did something that I am afraid to do.

Learning from Rejection and Building Skills

Speaker 3 30:54

So now here's the second question. That's really really, really hard hitting. Have you thought about the risk if you don't do it? No, I listen to things when I run. I listen to things when I drive, when I'm not in a capacity to be able to see anything, but there's things that I watch too, and so what I think to myself is, whenever I'm trying to push for something, I ask myself, especially in business, if I'm going to push myself outside the comfort center. I'm going to push my team positive. That will come from this hard experience, but I'm also asking myself what's the opportunity, cost and the risk of not doing this? And what is it really? The technology Anytime you're thinking about tech, the risk is usually that you get left behind or you become irrelevant, or somebody takes your business or moves in on your market share, and so those are the two tips that I would offer is that you have to have a really powerful visualization and a you know, and for me, the to have a really powerful visualization and a you know, and for me, the all the physical stuff we talk about.

Speaker 3 32:11

I just like the, the feeling that I pushed myself really hard and I achieved the outcome, so that one's really easy, like I can picture myself. You know that at the beginning, the reason I said yes to the paddleboard, I visualized all the way on the other side of it. I can tell you I didn't visualize. Oh, I'm going to love all the training. I can't wait to load the paddleboard on top of my car, cause I don't live on the ocean. I don't just get to drop the paddleboard off my deck into the ocean. Oh, I can't wait to load this thing on top of my car and drive you know 20 minutes to get in the ocean and put the paddleboard in and do hours of training. I'd be lying to your audience if I told you that I was pumped and excited about that. But but I was excited about the idea of you know, on that Sunday at four or five o'clock, I'm going to, I'm going to come upon the beach after doing all that paddling and I'm going to grab the big, the big hammer that they have and I'm going to ring the bell and somebody's going to put a uh, a metal around my neck and I'm going to know that I raised 7,500 bucks personally for cystic fibrosis. That that's the visualization that you have to just keep coming back to to get you through the hard stuff.

Speaker 3 33:10

There was no risk for me in that one right. I didn't have to worry about the opportunity cost or the risk of not doing something physical, but in business I do all the time. What's the risk of me not making? You know I own a small business now. You know it costs money to market. I got to write a check every month to do Facebook and Instagram ads. What's the risk if I say, let me save the money that month? Well, the risk is I don't have enough people coming in to keep the lights on Right. So there's, there's decisions all the time around. That risk and reward.

Speaker 2 33:38

Well, that last question got me because I haven't thought about that and I and I haven't considered the risk of my business, my reputation, my platform and really the risk to the audience, because I'm a firm believer that, if I look at it this way, this is a podcast. All I do is ask questions and I give a venue for my guests to answer. The guests do all the work and I think to myself I took a three-month hiatus from podcasting last fall, brian, because we got to the top 10% of all podcasts in the world. I got really I call it gross. I had a gross feeling because I was always checking numbers and stats and data and how many countries and cities we were in and it got to the point where I lost interest in the podcast.

Speaker 2 34:20

I was doing it for the wrong reasons and so I took two and a half three months. I didn't do any podcasts. I made the announcement I was going to take some time off until I could feel like I kind of got there. I got back to my original reason for doing it, but about a month and a half into it I started getting worried a little bit about my platform. But mostly my best friend, todd, asked me one of my best friends. He said what about all the people who are waiting to hear from your guests, waiting to hear their stories and their words of wisdom, and the people that you would have reached in these past two months, that are out there looking for hope and your platform's not there to give it to them? And that hit me Like okay, now I get it. There are people who are waiting to hear and I think there's a better venue than just doing this over the audio. There's better ways to do this.

Speaker 3 35:09

So thank you for that question and, by the way, a podcast itself is great. You don't need my advice on this. It can be great to to just listen to. But the the the mixed media usage of having YouTube for certain things, for having a, you know, a 90 second Tik TOK for certain things. I don't 90-second TikTok for certain things. I'm not on TikTok, I don't even know how long those are. A 30-second TikTok for certain things. It can just help you expand your audience and get that message to more people. So it's more of like hey, what's the opportunity? Not that I'll lose my podcast audience. What's the opportunity to reach more people, to expand more people, to do more good in the world, right?

Speaker 2 35:52

That could be the powerful vision that you needed. So I think that's cool man, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 35:54

I knew I had you. I knew I called you to come back on it's all rational self-interest for me.

Speaker 2 35:56

I'm looking for ideas and motivation. The problem with me, Brian, is I'm a lone wolf guy. Despite the fact that people think I'm an extrovert, I'm not. I get a lot of wisdom from my. I have many great friends who are in the industry, financial industry and other industries that are like-minded. I consider you one of those guys. I've got amazing clients that I get to speak to every day family friends, and then I've got my podcast guests that come on. That I learned from, but other than that I'm not.

Speaker 2 36:26

I like to speak in public. I'm just not one for like videos and, and so this is a really good test for me to you know, put my metal, my money, where my mouth is, and so I appreciate you kind of giving me a little push there. I got a question for you, Cause this goes back to that question of trying things that you're not good at. You're now the head of experience recruiting at one of the largest companies in the world. I believe that and I don't know this for a fact, but I've known you long enough you weren't always a great recruiter.

Speaker 2 36:58

That's true.

Running a Fitness Business: Retention Challenges

Speaker 3 37:01

Let's talk about how you got to not the best recruiter to leading recruiting. Yeah, it's funny, there was a. There was a job that I pursued inside the company 16 years ago that I that I didn't get and in which is fine. And in the decline conversation, the person who was hiring for the role was very complimentary, you know, gave kind of that balanced feedback that you let you try to give people is. You know, you've got a lot of strengths and here's a lot of things that would make you a great fit and believe in you for the future. But, um, you, you just haven't invested the right amount of time and haven't demonstrated the track record that I would need in in recruiting. And that was the first of all. It was incredibly helpful feedback and a dose of reality for me. It was hard for me to accept. I look back and you know, 16 years ago it was hard for me to accept back then because I think I had a bit of a disconnect between what I believed my skill to be versus what I had demonstrated on paper as far as a track record, versus what I had demonstrated on paper as far as a track record. And it's really funny that that in and of itself, is a lesson around staying extremely grounded in self-awareness. By the way, the outcome of that is, I would say that the person who decided not to hire me and gave me that feedback they were correct, by the way, it wasn't like, oh, it turns out that I was the one who was right and you know, uh, silly them. I'm over here now as the head of recruiting and I really, I really showed them I it's not. That's not the case at all. I think that they were correct in their decision, but the the the reason I'm pointing out how I felt about it at the time is I had a much, a much more. I had a much stronger belief in my ability to do it than what I had actually proven I could do. And so there was a disconnect there. My self-awareness, my confidence in myself, was great. My self-awareness about my actual result wasn't that great.

Speaker 3 39:04

But now you get a window into a little bit about who I am, because I said, okay, there there's something that's a disappointment, some rejection, some adversity, and you can do two things with that right. You can either accept it and then you can let it become a life or career limiter. I just made a decision that I was going to commit to build my skill in that area and deliver a result that would be not able to ever be disputed, that I was an expert in that space, and so that's what I. That's what I decided to do. Now I'd love to tell you it'd be a great story, right? But it wouldn't be true. I'd love to tell you, 16 years ago I said I'll show you, and I'm going to become so good that one day the firm will hire me to head up recruiting.

Speaker 3 39:51

Now, that's, that's really typically not how real success is built, right? You, just you do the day's work. It's right in front of you, and you work to get better. Today, and you stack one day on top of another, and all of a sudden, you're stacking one year on top of five, on top of 10, on top of another, and all of a sudden you're stacking one year on top of five, on top of 10, on top of 15, and and you might actually turn out to be an expert in something it it harkens back to, wasn't it gladwell who said that? Uh, an outliers that it's about 10 000 hours of an activity to become an expert.

Speaker 3 40:21

There's many other examples, you know, in the book mastery and things like that. Those are some of my favorite books that just talk about the long, slow, disciplined journey to becoming successful at anything. But I owe a lot of credit to that person because they could have declined me and either made up different reasons or not given me a specific reason, and I might have spent more time being either resentful or not aware of a blind spot and I might not have committed to work on it. So there's also a blessing there that honest feedback is sometimes really hard to give. But I've tried to do that as a leader too, until I mean, these are conversations I have driving home from from basketball games with my kids. You know, I I always start every conversation, no matter how good they played or how bad they played. I tell them I had fun watching them and I'm proud of them.

Speaker 3 41:10

I always start every conversation, no matter how good they played or how bad they played.

Speaker 3 41:12

I tell them I had fun watching them and I'm proud of them. But we have an honest conversation about what are the things you did well in the game today and what's something you could have done better, and I think that balance is where I'm finding it to be helpful to continue to shape them because life's hard right. People are like, oh, don't be hard on your kids. And you know, don't put pressure on them. I'm not putting pressure on them. I didn't say you have to get a college scholarship or dad's not going to love you, but to not have a conversation about you. Know you're? You know that you were in outer space today and you weren't paying attention to the game or you made a couple of mistakes. That could be life where feedback's going to hit them. I've played a lot of sports and I think I can take that feedback from a leader 16 years ago, because some people actually coached me and they told me when I had a bad game and they told me when I had a good game, and so I think that's important.

Speaker 2 41:58

Well, I think it is too, and I think we spend so much time trying to prepare the world for our children and our job is to prepare our children for the real world. My rule was always when I coached lacrosse and raising Dawson was always three rules you have to give your best, whatever that is you give it, you have to show respect to everybody on that field and you have to make sure you have to try to have fun. And if you're not doing one of those three things, you shouldn't be doing the game. And when I coached the players, I said I don't care how good you are, how bad you are. You're going to be playing on this field according to your time on the field will be in accordance to those three rules. Are you giving your best when you're out there? Are you showing respect to everybody else on the field and are you having fun? And, of course, that was, you know, fourth, third, fourth, fifth grade lacrosse. They were little kids.

Speaker 2 42:40

But okay, I have another. I have two questions. I know you got to wrap up, but I want to under you at your age not that you're old, you're 12 years younger than I am, so you're still a young man but you decided to start Rumble Boxing and buy this Rumble Boxing franchise. What would you say? You know it's a new leadership idea. You know leadership skills needed, new learnings, new expertise. What is one thing that you know? Now, based on that experience that you didn't know, going into buying the franchise?

Speaker 3 43:10

Only one, oh man.

Speaker 2 43:12

Give me your biggest one.

Speaker 3 43:13

Oh, only one, Holy cow. So for your listening audience that works in financial services, this will resonate For those that don't work in financial services services. This will resonate for those that don't work in financial services. I would tell you that the average length of tenure for a client with a financial advisor is a very long period of time. People don't typically switch financial advisors every couple of months or even every couple of years, unless there's a real problem with the advisor. You know, I look at the hundreds or probably thousands of advisors I've worked with. If they've been in the business for, you know, 20 years, and I say, hey, what's the average length of time a client's been with you? You'll get answers like oh, I've got some clients from my first year 20 years ago and 19 years and 18 years. And Brian, you know this cause, you have a financial services background the average length of a fitness relationship is six months.

Speaker 3 44:11

So the first thing I learned was when I get the business report at the end of the month and it says that I got 40 new members to sign up. I'm excited. And then I find out I had 30 members canceled and the first couple of months that happened I wanted to crawl into a hole of depression, like I'm the worst business owner. My business is terrible, my team is terrible, everything about this is the worst decision and and I learned that, uh, different businesses have different cycles and that's very powerful. But I also learned that, bringing my experience from finance like my expectation from financial services I learned a very powerful lesson, which is fitness habits are extraordinarily hard for the average person to keep. I feel blessed that I've built the disciplines that I don't personally struggle with, that I got plenty of other struggles that other listeners might find easy, but I've built a good habit around fitness discipline and so I've begun to install other things in the business to try to help keep more members engaged and stay on the journey.

Speaker 3 45:15

So we look to identify when someone hasn't come for two weeks and we call them and encourage them to come back. Right, because you think about a basic financial transaction, right, if you're a member of my studio, you don't come for two weeks. Okay, credit card bill comes two weeks later. Maybe you keep the membership another four weeks, another six weeks, another eight weeks. Eventually you're going to go. What am I paying for? Let me call the studio and cancel the membership, and we've tried to surround them with all kinds of other fun support. I've even done a financial talk for free for the members to try to give them that kind of wisdom.

Speaker 3 45:45

We bring in other you know, other vendors and other experts to try to just build a community to keep people engaged, because what I've noticed is it's really really, really hard for people to keep the discipline. And so it's now for me it's an even bigger mission than oh, I want to keep Brian's membership, so he keeps paying. It's like what good can I do in the world If I can help avoid you canceling your fitness membership? Yeah, it's good for my business, but you're going to be more. You know you're going to benefit more longer term than I will just from your monthly fee. So that's been a huge, huge learning for me is that I have a chance to impact people's lives in a totally, totally different way by helping them stay the course on something they wanted to do in the first place. You wouldn't have signed up if getting in shape and having fitness and working out wasn't important. Now I'm going to try to hold you accountable to it and keep you on track.

Speaker 2 46:37

And that's really interesting because Ameriprise is so infamous for building relationships with their clients. I mean, obviously, client service and relationship really puts Ameriprise at the top of the pecking order in the financial world. So but that comes over time and you have time to build that. As you said, the average, you know tenure with a client is probably you know it's 20 years, 18 years, 15 years is a long-term relationship there. But with the fitness world you have very little short time. I mean it's not. You know they want to come in, they want to see results and that they're going to be more likely to leave because they expect quicker results than you do with someone.

Speaker 2 47:15

When you're investing someone's money for the rest of their lives, you know, I think you have less time to work with and that's got to be a paradigm shift for you. If you're a long-term relationship builder, you know 20-some years, 25 years or whatever it's been at Ameriprise. If you've been part of that process, of how they've trained, that's where I got my experience from. You know client service and build long-term relationships, but other industries are completely different than that. That must have been a wake-up call.

Closing Thoughts and Key Takeaways

Speaker 3 47:38

Well, it was also because what's interesting is for me if things get more stressful or I have more problems. Fitness for me is my center, so in periods of high stress I'm even more likely to make sure I stick to my workout. I've noticed how fragile people's relationship is with fitness and that it could be an injury. You know I've been injured before. I mean I told a whole story about, you know, when I almost died from an injury. So you know I've been injured before. No-transcript resolved. People find it really hard to get themselves back on track.

Speaker 2 48:38

Well, what do they say? The people are most involved in their fitness routine right at the beginning of every year and right after a divorce Right.

Speaker 3 48:45

Everybody gets a a divorce.

Speaker 2 48:46

They look great on facebook for six months, you know, um, but uh, hey. One last question. I I'm out there in the audience and I'm looking for a good book to read. What is brian moore reading right now?

Speaker 3 48:58

yeah, so, uh, I, I I'm not actively reading, so I want to make sure I tell the complete truth but recently finished a peter holland's book called the the power of self-discipline, so that might not surprise people that we're talking about staying the course and having great visualization. That, um, that I, I, I fed my brain recently with a book on, uh, on discipline, and I think that that's important too. Right, like you're, most people are not just born with that and and you do have to continue to remind yourself and and reflect on ways to you know, to be more of whatever, whatever it is that you want it to be. It could be communication, it could be empathy, it could be love, it could be whatever. Um, discipline's really, really important to me and I feel like it's served me in a lot of ways. So, once in a while, if a book that you know book or a pod that speaks to that comes along, I still, I still invest in that to figure out how I can, you know.

Speaker 3 49:52

I can sharpen the salt. That's the one with the donut on the cover. It is yeah which. Maybe it stood out to me because my, my, my youngest son Sterling, his favorite donut is the strawberry frosted with rainbow sprinkles, and that's literally the picture that's on the cover.

Speaker 2 50:03

I just put it in my cart. I have a book coming tomorrow called the Wealthy Consultant that I've been wanting to read. That'll be read this week. I'll order that as my next read. Hey, I know you got to go, Brian. I'd love to keep you on for another hour. We're going to have you back on and we won't wait two years this time. So thank you so much. I mean, every time I talk to you, I walk away just feeling like I could run through a brick wall. This time was no different. I'm sure the audience is going to feel the same way. I know you're busy. I appreciate you, brother. I really do.

Speaker 3 50:29

Brian, happy to do it. Don't ever run through a brick wall. Just hit the boxing bag you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 50:34

Yeah, definitely I'll go to a rumble boxing somewhere. I did Google. I think the nearest, I know there's success in the rest of your day and thank you again for taking the time.

Speaker 3 50:50

I appreciate it Great to talk to you. Talk to you soon, bye-bye.

Speaker 2 50:53

Everyone. I hope you got a lot. I hope you got what I got out of this, this episode. Brian is one of those, those gentlemen that he's so gracious with his time. He's busy obviously not just at work, which is busy, but now he's got two boys. He's helping to raise big part of their lives. Obviously he's got rumble boxing, he's got all of his other extracurricular marathons and training and obviously, the paddleboard story he shared. The thing I learned from Brian every time is, regardless of how busy we are, we have time to do the right things, the little things, the things that make a difference, those foundational habits that he's established that obviously have helped his life, both professionally and personally, a great deal. So please take some words of wisdom from what he shared today, because I know I took a lot of notes and I'll be going through my notes.

Speaker 2 51:40

I don't listen to a lot of podcasts that I do. Seldom do I actually listen to it, because I've actually experienced it by talking to the guest. This is what I'm going to go back through, because he really nailed me on those questions. Especially, you know, have I looked at the risk of not doing the episodes on YouTube and TikTok. So, anyway, I want to thank all of you. Each and every one of you guys, along with the guests, are what make this show so possible, and I appreciate you all so very much for tuning in each week. I'll talk to you next week, same time, same place. In the meantime, please get out there and strive to give and be your best. Show love and respect to others around you, but also come inward and show it to yourselves, and please live with purpose and live consciously. I appreciate each and every single one of you. Until next time.