Jocko Fuel: How Real Leaders Lead and Win

Welcome to another episode of Making Billions, today I have my dear friend Brian Littlefield.

Brian is the Co-Founder of one of Inc’s 500 fastest growing companies and the hottest Energy Drink companies on the market known as “Jocko Fuel”.  Not only that, but he is partnered with the famous Navy Seal Commander, Jocko Willink, as well as a champion Brazilian Ju-Jitsu athlete.

What this means is that Brian is about to teach you about the key factors of How to Win in Your Market, Implement Effective Leadership, and Develop your Grit so that you not only win, but win big in your pursuit of Making Billions.


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[THE GUEST]:  Brian is the Co-Founder of one of Inc’s 500 fastest growing companies and the hottest Energy Drink companies on the market known as “Jocko Fuel”.  Not only that, but he is partnered with the famous Navy Seal Commander, Jocko Willink, as well as a champion Brazilian Ju-Jitsu athlete.

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved market-beating placement growth in his first 5 years in the industry.

Transcript

Ryan Miller 
Hi, my name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level in the show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it.

Hitting the market just right is a critical component when making billions. So my next guest is the co founder of Jocko fuel. Listen as he walks us through on his product development skills that made him nail his market as well as his personal development skills that gave him the mental grit to get there so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Here we go.

Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Brian Littlefield. Brian is a co founder of one of Inc 500 fastest growing companies and one of the hottest energy drink companies on the market known as Jocko fuel. Not only that, but he's partnered with the famous Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink as well as a Brazilian jujitsu champion. So what this means is that Brian is about to teach you about the key factors on how to win your market, implement effective leadership and develop your grit so that you not only win, but you win big. So Brian, welcome to the show, man.

Brian Littlefield 
Ryan, thanks for having me on. I'm a fan of your work. I'm looking forward to talking to you and your guests.

Ryan Miller 
Awesome man, Yeah, we've been very fortunate to be in top 2% in the world, but we're not here to talk about me. You're very kind. We're here to talk about you. And you know, right out of the gates, let's hit him right between the eyes. Let's address the beginners. So people who are starting out in this industry, whether it's business investment, building a product, any of that stuff, people just starting out, I'm wondering if you can help and just talk to the beginners in the audience? How do they win? And how do they not lose from your perspective, when starting out in this industry?

Brian Littlefield 
Yeah, it's kind of it's a great question. So I like to call it like building a layer of calluses, which like emotionally and physically and really, that's like grit, like you're gonna build yourself some some grit. And I think that it's important that some people have it innately. And then some people don't. But I'm a believer that it can be acquired. It's one of those things that you can learn, just like leadership, in my opinion, you can you can learn to lead. And so, you know, people ask me like, Well, how do I do it if I am not someone who has that kind of grit to persevere and overcome the challenges and things like that. And like, well, there's a lot of things that develop you into that through your childhood and like team sports and things like that. But, you know, physical activities like Brazilian Jujitsu, or CrossFit and even things like exposing yourself to extreme hot and cold like cold plunging and, and extreme sauna. People think that those are just physical things like those are things that are going to rewire your brain, and the one that I have done all those things. Aside from CrossFit, I've never been a crossfitter myself, but I'm a huge proponent of the sport, I think it's a, it's a great thing for people to do. But I found my grit, that I would say that I have my resilience that was built real physical and emotional calluses through Brazilian jujitsu. And so for me, that's what I can speak about the most. And the one thing I found, and you can use this in different situations is it reprograms your brain. So not only is it great for you physically, and as we now know that, like, extreme physical activity is great for the brain, on a physiological level, but it actually like Brazilian jujitsu itself actually reprograms your brain. And what I mean by that is, let's just take a very tactical situation. So let's say somebody and for people that don't know what percentage is, is like, it is a grappling art, and you are trying to submit one another, after you've gone through a fair amount of training, you actually have these live roles. And so you can find yourself in a situation where someone has twice your weight. And they're basically think about Big Brother, like they're sitting on top of you, you're on your back, they're sitting on you holding you down, and you can't get out. And when you think about that, like most people, like most adults, they are not putting themselves on purpose in situations like this on a daily or weekly or maybe ever basis. So they're not, they're not exposing themselves to this uncomfortable situation. And so you're exposing yourself to this on a regular basis. And you're putting this position over and over and over again. Because when you start just like anything, you suck, like you're gonna suck at it, like and that's okay. And you need to embrace the suck, and you need to push through it, because eventually you will be the hammer and not the nail. So as you're pushing through that, and you're reprogramming your brain, you're becoming comfortable in that bad position. So you start with going from being absolutely terrified, uncomfortable, sweaty, panicking, can't breathe to, okay, I'm starting to become comfortable, then you become comfortable. Once you become comfortable, you can think and you can start to escape the position. But until you become uncomfortable in the discomfort that you can't think to maneuver and escape the position. And for me, what I always say in business is there is no business situation. I mean, we've you know, we've had situations where, you know, we'll have like litigation or we have a production run that goes sideways that our manufacturer yet we have orders from retailers, you know, like these, you know, multimillion dollar things that are happening and you're like, and it's weighing on you. And you're just like if you can handle the situation of like for me, for instance, if I have my business partner, B Roberts is a good example. Massive 260 pound Black Belt. Very, very good one. If he wants to put you in that position, he's gonna put you in that position and I've been doing There's a long time, he will be on top of you, and you'll be sweating. And you need to stop. And you need to think and you need to maneuver. And when you get comfortable in that situation, you can overcome all of these business challenges in my opinion, and it just reprograms your brain, you're no longer really in fight or flight anymore, you're thinking about it way more strategically. So for me, finding some sort of physical activity, where you can be under high pressure circumstances to reprogram your brain is like the best way to build this, this grit and perseverance.

Ryan Miller 
I love that. So you're using your physical environment and your body to adjust the internal world as we say on the show success is an inside job. And so while that's catchy, how do you do that and on this show, we talked about how and so what Brian's talking about is like cold plunges physical activity, use these things that kind of put you in these difficult situations. And allow yourself first of all to train your mind as you train your body your physical acumen I guess, or your your physical abilities and use that to get you into a panicky state or from I'm reminded of a saying, Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, right. So one of those things and business can give you that metaphorical punch in the face, as well as physical activities, you can literally get punched in the face. But either way you want to expose yourself, I think what Brian's telling us here, if you want to expose yourself into situations that suck, right, seek discomfort, we could say daily, but whatever it is work up to that. But you want to put yourself in uncomfortable situations so that you can train yourself, train your mind and ultimately develop the grit that is necessary to to win. So I love that I absolutely love that spoken from a true jujitsu master. Now that being said, I'm curious, we're talking about developing grit and how to do that. So we said there's physical means that you can subject yourself to, but what about those people who like yourself might say, I do have the grit? How do you go about maintaining it once you have it?

Brian Littlefield 
Yeah, I mean, so number one is maintaining doing that thing that you are probably doing to build the grit, right. So if it's, you know, like it is cold plunges or sauna, or maybe it's hiking, and rocking and CrossFit, all those things, you mentioned, those physically and mentally challenging things, you got to continue to do those, you can't just build it, right? It's it needs maintenance. So you gotta maintain that grit. And there's a funny story, because we started from zero, like when I say zero, I mean, I remember $0 days where you would go and you know, like, you'd get the alert through through the Shopify app, and you'd see the sale ticketing and but I remember days of $0. And I remember when we started to get traction, and we started to, you know, really started to grow a little bit and grow is relative, because this was, this was my perception and mindset then, right, because it always has to evolve. If it doesn't evolve, you're not gonna evolve, the business isn't gonna evolve. So I remember, my business partner had mentioned before, he had just gone somewhere in the Caribbean came back a couple weeks prior with like some cigars, and we're not, he's brought him back as souvenirs. We don't smoke cigars. I don't smoke cigars. But nevertheless, he had them. And then I remember, I brought in the report to him for the week. And it was the first time we had a $50,000 sales week, that was a big deal for us. I mean, we'd like I said, we've been grinding from zero, that was a huge deal. And for us at the time, and we thought we were shit. You know, we were like, This is amazing. You know what I mean? We fired up those cigars. And we lit them. And I remember going home that night, and like something hit me. And I remember going back in the next day and talking to him. And I was like, Dude, I felt like I had to wash that complacency off, like I needed to get in the shower to wash off complacency. It felt dirty. If the comfort and the celebration felt dirty, literally had this conversation. And we both agreed it was like, Okay, that was cute. But it's time to keep going. And so where I'm going with that is you'll have these points and periods where you start to feel comfortable, you gotta you gotta brush that off, you got to, you know, because that comfort will absolutely crush your growth. As a person, as a business. If you seek comfort, or you embrace that comfort, you're going to stop growing as a business and as a person. So I remember that I still have the end of it. We wrote the date on it. And we actually brought it up a couple weeks ago for the first time because it's been years and years. And we laughed about it on a on a video chat. It's kind of funny, we both had it in our desk to remind ourselves like don't get comfortable,

Ryan Miller 
man. Brilliant. So it sounds like maintaining grit is just avoiding that comfort that we naturally are programmed to go for or some people are. So that was your $50,000 week and you and I've spoken offline totally a hilarious story about you and your business partner. sense of what it was like what maybe you could talk about that time when you guys had your first million dollar month. How did Jocko and respond when when you guys were elated? How did that go?

Brian Littlefield 
I mean, yeah, and this is honestly this is just like one of those instances there were many times when in the early days, it would be Draco, Pete and I, you know, that was really the trifecta. And so we would get on a call, whether it be a weekly call or a monthly call to review, like the performance and things and I remember hitting those individual like 50, 100k You know, million dollar month and just like kind of checking all those boxes. And I remember like the million dollar month I think was I think that was the one I remember Remember that call specifically. And we reported in Pete and I were sitting together Jaga was virtual because we were on the East Coast. He's on the West Coast. We're sitting, sitting, looking at each other and smiling. And Jocko was just he just responds with wheat. Wheat. And what's amazing about that is that wasn't that wasn't a, he wasn't trying to belittle us or anything or beat us down. He was just saying, like, that's cute. Keep going. We're not there yet. And honestly, that was the best thing you could have ever done. Right? It's because I just like I just talked about it. It's it's avoiding that comfort, avoiding that. It's like you're hiking a trail, and you're stopping and sitting down. Did you really need to? Are you really that tired? Like, do you really need a break? Like we really gonna stop and celebrate right now? I think we should keep going. I think we need to sum it. And like, get back on your feet. And let's keep going. And that's exactly what that comment was was was weak and it was honestly needed. It took a long time before we got before we got you know, like a good work. And then eventually we got a dang, I think we got a dang. Okay. All right. All right. That's, that's pretty motivating business partner.

Ryan Miller 
Yeah, no kidding. So. So I think what it talks about here, folks, is that not only so when we're talking about how do you win? And how do you not lose what Brian from his experience on a very successful business with a very powerful team. And the bench depth that he has in the culture that that brings is he was saying, look, if I could give you any early advice, it's get some grit and learn how to maintain it, subject yourselves to situations where you get the proverbial punch in the face, and you got to figure it out. You had a plan, you get smacked in the mouth. And all of a sudden you're like, I What do we do? And what Brian's saying is look, to get it and maintain it, it's kind of the similar thing is embrace the suck, don't sit there and just rest because you want comfort rest when you need the rest, not rest when you need comfort. And so learning just to keep moving. And like you said, we need summits, right? Not these rest stops, we need summits. And so finding those summits and keeping going keeping your foot on the gas, just like a rocket or a jet. Right? Right. When you have liftoff, you don't let go of the throttle, that won't go very well. So you keep that throttle down to the floor. Until you get it would you say that's a fair summary?

Brian Littlefield 
Very awesome.

Ryan Miller 
So love to transition just on the market that you're in, I'd love to just learn from your perspective, where's your market at? Where is it going, and maybe walk us through what you're seeing out there.

Brian Littlefield 
So we play in a lot of different spaces now, which is, which is a lot of fun. You know, so we're in regards to geography, we'll were in energy drinks space, we're in the protein drinks space, we're in the supplement space, you know, we're and we're not just in like you think supplements, that's a, that's a broad space. Like we have health and wellness type products, we have sports performance ergogenic type products for, for physical activity. So like we we have a lot of products that kind of spread across different markets. But it's been fun to like, dive in and try and penetrate any market share in every one of those individual ones. But on a high level when I'm looking at the market, which is what I believe you asked like when I'm looking at that, that market, anytime I'm looking at a new one, I think the thing that I try to look at is a little bit opposite of what other people have done. And I think that's given us a little bit of an advantage. So a lot of times, if someone's getting into a space, let's say they do or don't have experience in that space, I think they have a tendency to say, Okay, what's working, so they go, Okay, what's working, and we're gonna replicate that what's working, we're gonna replicate that. And so let's use energy drinks, for instance, what you found, or what we found was that was working. You know, you had the Red Bulls, you had the monsters, you had these other buttons that were popping up trying to eat market share from these guys. And what they were doing is it was like copycat copycat copycat. And you'd see a little bit of differentiation, but it was like copycat, like this is working. Why, you know, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. But when you get to a point where the market is so saturated, you have to look at things a little bit differently. So we look at like, well, what's working, but let's also listen to what people have to say about what they don't like about the product. And so that's what I try and do. So I try and look at like, yeah, people say they want caffeine and an energy drink. Makes sense. Okay, so what do other companies do? They just keep adding more caffeine. Instead, let's say okay, well, what did they like when they liked the energy, but they hate the crash? Okay, so let's address that. Let's actually formulate with other ingredients that are known to give you cognitive benefits, but don't give you a crash, like excessive amounts of caffeine. Okay, well, they like the way it makes them feel, but they don't want all the sugar. Okay, well, we can address that. And so what you do is you look at the things they want, you try and provide those, and then you also look at the things they don't want. And that's the key that nobody really looked at that nobody said, you know, hey, potassium benzoate, I mean, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbet, and, you know, artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols, like they were not caring that people were complaining about these things. They just kept saying, Yeah, but we have more caffeine, we have more caffeine, you know, it was always like, we have more we have more. And it was a bit of a circling of the drain in my opinion. Nobody was really shaking it up. So, you know, kind of long, long story short, like that's how I like to look at the market when I'm going into a space is not only do I want to give people what they want, but for me the obvious thing, which you know Jocko and I laugh about it, he's talked about it publicly many times is how did nobody see this giant void in the marketplace where people wanted energy, but they also wanted something healthy? And that's what we did. We stepped in and did that and we did it four years ago, really before there was a real need, and thankfully, we were ahead of the curve and right where we needed to be

Ryan Miller 
Yeah, you're being right at the right time. Right so that's that's the secret sauce. And and you're right you know, so building a sometimes we call it a strategy canvas or building a canvas to say, okay, what are they known for our competitors in our market? So this is a key thing in product development, whether it's software, physical products, consumables, you name it doesn't matter. So you say, Okay, what's working now? But what's what's not working right now? Even better and say, how do we give them more of what they want and in less of what they don't? And that's exactly what Brian, Jocko and his team have put together when they're formulating Jocko fuel is to say, look out there, everybody wants energy drinks Great. However, what they don't want is the crash. They don't want this massive caffeine reminds me of the days remember, back in the day, when Gillette and these razor companies were just adding more blades and more blades. And then pretty soon you have just like 18 blade razor and you're like, I feel like you guys your success metric is wrong. And so it's the same thing. It's just like more caffeine, more caffeine, and you're like, Okay, you know what, we're gonna let those guys obliterate each other, we're actually going to say, How about more healthy ingredients, more things that counterbalance the stuff they don't want. And so they went in that different direction. And just like you said, him and his partners, and Jocko, and all them got together, and we're like, how did nobody see that? Like, it seems obvious. So don't think you have to invent this like Mars rover to land and this complicated thing to have a breakthrough. Often, the market is just tied into that hypnosis, whether it's razor blades or energy drinks, is they're just all competing on one thing, surprisingly, when you drill down, you're competing on one thing, and that one thing is probably not exactly what the market gets. And you can to use the term you can outflank your competition. So that being said, where do you see this market going?

Brian Littlefield 
Yeah, I mean, I think like I said, I think we were a little bit ahead of the curve. And you said right at the right thing at the right time, I actually think we were right at the wrong time, because we were a little bit early. So the first like two years, we were really slow in growing the energy drink, whereas now it is taken off, you know. So it's one of the things where we were a little bit ahead, but then again, we're not chasing, so what am I thinking about where it's going? I think that, you know, much like you said, where people, what people want isn't necessarily what you're giving them. So the razor, for instance, is a great it's a really good example, in our industry, I like to use the example of five hour energy because five hour energy was was like the the OG the original shot. And then you started seeing like six hour energy and seven hour energy. And it's, it reminds me of I think it's like an SNL skit where about like, you know, the four minute workout and the three minute workout. And it's, it's just so funny, where you're not really providing the, the customer sees through that. And so those six hour and seven hour energies, they just went by the wayside. So I think what it is in our industry is, and thankfully, we're leading the charge on this as people want the efficacy that they have become accustomed to, and that they know will come with evolution, but they don't want to sacrifice their health. So they're going to continue to demand cleaner and cleaner and cleaner products. People are avoiding all kinds of different types of ingredients now, so you have to be cognizant of that when you're formulating and when you're creating products. So for us, it's like continuing to push the envelope on efficacy, but maintaining that high quality standard for what we deem is clean.

Ryan Miller 
Perfect. Yeah. And and I've noticed what you say, it's fair that a big part of your product development isn't following the headlines where you got these fancy trends, and everybody's like, I mean to this, I'm into that. But you know, I've explored your company a little bit, and I can see you guys are true to your original values, which is healthy, creating a healthy product. So you're gonna have trends come and go. Or sometimes we'll say fads, they'll come and go. And sometimes there's this new chemical or an old camera or whatever it is, but how, like, how has following those trends affected your product development of whether you do or don't? Yeah,

Brian Littlefield 
I mean, it's a great question. So there's a lot of trends that come and go in this space. First things first, when especially being that this is my world when when it comes to formulation and product, just because something is trending doesn't mean it's going to last. And so what I always look at is what is the substance behind it? So if there's a new ingredient, for instance, that's like super hot and trendy, that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to include it in our next formula of let's say, testosterone booster or something like we were okay, well, let's go look at the data. Okay, well, we went looked at the data, and it was pretty weak, and it was in vitro, so maybe it's not as strong as we think it is. We're gonna wait and see how it pans out, rather than jump on the train. Well, a lot of companies will jump on that bandwagon, right and like, formulate with it. And actually, you know, they need to come up with a reformulation because now it's like the next thing being hated on social media because it's fake and it doesn't work. And you know, one of those things in particular, to talk specifics that we haven't done that people were really shocked about was was a branched chain amino acid product BCAAs. And when you look at our lineup, a lot of people even still today are unaware that the all the recent science has shown that absent of the other amino acids BCAAs are mostly useless. So they they're it's mostly like flavored water. Like you're not going to get the efficacy that we thought that Me. I mean, we used to think, I mean, back when I had my independent supplement store many, many years ago, they used to sell the stuff I used to take the stuff we thought it worked. Well, the science has shown that it hasn't. So we're slow to jump on to those trends. And I think that has been protected for because now you get these social media trends that really expose things. So like, all of a sudden, you get a headline about an artificial sweetener, or you get a headline about something, well, if it has substance, it can tear a business down, can absolutely terrible, or product out. So it can be a top selling product. But if all of a sudden people are becoming more savvy in this space, so if all of a sudden like a viral trend goes and it says one particular herb causes liver toxicity, everybody's gonna stop taking it. So we we are very aware that we need to be aware of the trends, but we don't just jump and leap at them, because that's just not our core business. Yeah.

Ryan Miller 
And that goes back to your original point of saying like, you don't want to be reactionary. When we're talking about developing and maintaining grid, you're saying you don't want to be reactionary. So this is one of those areas where it can pull you into that reaction mode and be like, Oh, no, maybe we should change everything that we built. And because there's this new trend, and you're saying no, no study, okay, let's let's stay true to our principles and our product development. I absolutely love that. So we'd like to say I've adopted the saying is you want to follow trend lines, not headlines. So following those trend lines following the data, and not just the kind of where the wind blows every time. So you could see that developing this grit within Jocko fuel within the business, Brian and his team have really developed not only the discipline, but also the product that came from it. Absolutely brilliant. Let's talk about kind of let's let's really get into the heart of the matter. We've talked about a lot of stuff, developing grid, maintaining the course. Now, I'd love to talk about maybe three or so things that you could leave behind as far as some very successful points, some areas where you can really help people to drill down and realize some success with you and your look back with all of your team, all of your experience all of your discipline and grit. What's some of the value that you can provide to give our listeners a competitive edge? From your perspective?

Brian Littlefield 
Yeah, you know, it's, I'm thinking about three of them in, in no particular order, when I would say is one thing that's helped us be successful myself personally, and the business is living into our purpose, like, what, what is the purpose? Like, Why do we exist, and, you know, that's helped in, you know, personal and professional life and professional life, as a brand, we exist because we want to help people be better in life, we want to help them maintain a healthier life, a healthier, really extended their health span, which is so overlooked, you know, we think about lifespan, we want to extend that health span. And so that has been our purpose. And when you kind of run everything through that filter. And you know, it's same thing if you're doing it for yourself personally, when you run things through that purpose. To me, it's like that's, that's your lie. That's that's where I mean, that's where I get my fulfillment from, like, I have a number of things that I'm involved in now, but in particular with Jocko fuel, like our purpose, my purpose is the same purpose as the entity which is we live to get up and work another day to help bring more people into the mix. Because the more people that we can proliferate the message to the more people that we can help live a better and healthier life. And so living with purpose is I mean, one of the top three, like you said, three, top three things. Yeah,

Ryan Miller 
top three. So number one is live with purpose, have that purpose, but also those relationships. And I don't know if you've experienced this, Brian, but on that purpose is because I absolutely agree. And I think people perhaps may not put as much care and thought into what is my purpose? I believe Mark Twain said that we're essentially born twice the day we were born and the day we find out why. So one of those things is the why he's alluding to is your purpose. Why were you put here and too often we're like, Please, my friends, do not let your purpose go to default, which is to get a job and hopefully live long enough to retire. So you can at least afford some Kraft Dinner and a part time job as a Walmart greeter, so no disrespect to my friends at Walmart. But we're just saying maybe that's not your purpose of why you're put here. I don't know. I'll let you figure that out. But the whole reason why we're talking about this, would you say that that represents your True North Star? Yeah,

Brian Littlefield 
yeah. No, I mean, for sure. I mean, I remember being a teenage teenager and a young adult, like I, you know, started off in business school and laughed, and I went into technologies, then I went back school for business, I was all over the place. It's kind of interesting, I thought that I was supposed to determine my, my purpose, but instead, I was able to find my purpose. And sometimes when I think at a young age, at least, I was, I was so because I'm sort of a planner. I try and like plan and think ahead, often, like I'm very much that way, somewhat too rigid in that way, probably. But being that way, at a young age and not really knowing what your purpose is yet is somewhat unsettling. And so when you try to force it, or you try and like, define it for yourself, sometimes it's, it's, it's hard and sometimes you just need to find that purpose. So you got to get it, you know, you got to get outside of your little bubble and your comfort zone, maybe leaving your home state and maybe, you know, finding new circles of people of influence and things like that. But ultimately, I believe as long as you you mentioned, you know, like the, you know, the Walmart warehouse worker or whatever, like, I'm willing to bet that they're not out exposing themselves and trying to to be creative and find their purpose, you know, and just because you find your purpose doesn't mean that you're going to find business or financial success or any of that stuff. But to me, whether you do or don't is irrelevant in the way of living a fulfilling life, but most people, I don't think that their purpose is, you know, working in Hey, in college, like I worked three jobs, and one of which was third shift in a warehouse restocking product for a company, so I fucking hated it. You know, it was the, it was the worst, but it was all part of the process of finding my purpose. But, you know, I could have been complacent, like, I'm sure I know, people that are still there, you know. So it's, it's one of those things where, when you find your purpose, regardless of the outcome, you're gonna live a fulfilling life, in my opinion,

Ryan Miller 
I love that. That's brilliant. So what else would you say you can leave behind for through your experience? What are some other principles that you found most helpful when succeeding in business product development, anything at all? Yeah,

Brian Littlefield 
so in business and life of I would say, relationships, I would say, there's one thing that I've found that's been very beneficial to me in the sense of my development, the other one, that's, that's really I give to anyone in any industry. And so that one would be provide value at all times, like really look at your situation that you're in and find a way to add value. There's many different quotes. And there's many different ways people have said, you know, be the solution, not the problem, you know, don't find fault, like find, you know, you got to have the solution, don't go to your superior, or your partner or whatever it is, with the problem go with the solution before you go to them with the problem. You know, these types of things are all part of adding value. And so when you find a circle, or when you get an opportunity, at a, at a business, or in a career, in a group that you think you can align with, if you are adding value, then you will be well received and you will be able to continue to scale. I think most people, especially people listening to this show probably want to grow in business in life. I don't think they're listening to this show, because they want to be complacent. They want to sit on the couch and eat potato chips and work, you know, a nine to five that pays minimum wage, like I don't think that's this audience. I'm quite confident of that. I think these are people that want to grow into gas in life. And so that is you what I would say whatever circle you're in Barger Wan, whatever you need to do to get in front of the people or with the people that you want to be with. That's one thing we always taught you hear it, you hear these influencers, say, you know, you need to surround yourself by people who, who who want to or do and where you want to do it. Yeah, for sure. What's the next step? When you do add value, find a way to add value? Can you do something for them that they can't do on their own? Can you offer something to them, that they're not being offered? Can you make something of their life? Or what they're doing more efficient and more easy? Can you show that you care more about being in that circle than they care to have you in the circle, like add value. So that's the that's like, the next one I would say is like any situation you're in, especially ones where you're trying to grow, you should be trying to do everything you can to add value.

Ryan Miller 
Awesome. I love that. And you know, one of the things we talked about is having emotional control. Now sometimes grit is a part of that. But emotional development and control how does that play into your leadership thesis your company, I'd love to hear your your thoughts around just having emotional control. Because business when you got money, and you got employees, and you got payroll that you're not sure you're gonna meet all these early entrepreneurs, those early days, if you remember, required a lot of grit, maybe walk me through of how did you maintain your emotional state, you and your team and maybe can speak to that a little bit?

Brian Littlefield 
I didn't, you know what I mean? Like, it's, that's, that's my process seriously. And that's why it's on my I would, I would say it's on my list of things that I would recommend to people is build your emotional IQ, build that emotional control, the ability to stop and think and respond and not react like those, those sorts of things. But it's one of the things that I'm going to I'm an emotional person in the sense that I am driven, I'm very passionate, when when I find my, my mission and my purpose, like I'm putting all of my effort into that at all times. So I've always, you know, I've gotten better over the years, let's put, let's put it that way. So, but it's a skill that is learned that some people are stuck, they just they have that innate ability to totally be just basically a motion level zero at all times. I think that's great. You know, I think that's great. I think that there's opportunities for them to show more emotion, whether that's to instill influence over their people or motivate people or to get people on board with their mission. I think that's that can be that can be a purpose, but it's a it's definitely a skill to be stoic. And, again, I think that's something that is learned and earned. So that's one of the things that I've worked on the most as a leader over the years is the ability to control emotion and stop and really process things and look at the whole picture like 360 view and and make a decision and not you know, react and of course, Jujitsu helps with that. Right?

Ryan Miller 
So I love it, man. That's perfect. So as we wrap things up, just to summarize everything that Brian and I talked about, you know, develop your purpose really understand why you were born and put here. The second thing he mentioned is look constantly provide value. Sometimes we talk about I call it be a Go Giver, right? Be out there, add value. And trust me, things will work out as we like to say if some of you who've heard me say it being generous has made me rich. So be out there be a generous giver of value, and you will find doors will open up a lot easier as they have for me and definitely for you. And then the final thing that he mentioned was just develop grit and emotional control. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions