Survivor to Advocate: Brandon’s Path to Healing

In this episode of Resilience Reborn, we feature Brandon Peacock, an embodiment of resilience. His journey unfolds from a life-altering drive-by shooting to defying medical expectations through rigorous recovery and completing a marathon within a year. Brandon discusses medical liability, innovative physiotherapy, and his impactful work with spinal cord injury survivors through Hit the Ground Running. Discover his story of physical and emotional empowerment, advocating for trauma survivors through essential treatments and mentoring programs.

Key Takeaways:

• Personal Responsibility in Recovery
• Innovative Approaches and Mentorship
• Holistic Focus on Physical and Psychological Healing

Connect with Brandon: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hit-the-ground-running/

Website: https://www.htgrcharity.com/

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

00:14 - Business Pursuit Rooted in Upbringing

05:56 - Legacy Realization Sparks Life Transformation

09:45 - Recovery and Achievements with Trusted Support

11:29 - Mental Health Struggles Lead to Self-Improvement

16:18 - Guiding Friend and Ineffective Physiotherapy

18:04 - Pursuing Recovery to Steer Clear of Victim Mentality

21:10 - Canada's Criminal Justice System Critique

25:55 - Mentor Empowering Spinal Injury Survivors

29:15 - Perseverance Driven by False Hope

31:51 - Nonprofit Consultation and Charitable Support

35:48 - Aid Through Fundraising and Mentorship

37:13 - Growth Amid Business Challenges

37:53 - Outro

Quote of the Episode: "Starting a business means believing in profitability. Encourage kids to strive; self-discovery awaits, even after setbacks." — Brandon Peacock

"Embrace recovery with the goal and find happiness in the person you become on that journey." — Brandon Peacock

Transcript

Angie:

We are so excited today. We have a really amazing person today. Brandon Peacock here. Brandon, if you will just, start out and give us, you know, your story, and what you're about and how that came to be.

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. For sure. I mean, a high level super quick snapshot of my story is, I actually got shot 3 times in a drive-by shooting, as a bystander in June 2020. So just a couple of years ago now, I was hit three times. So I got hit in the left side of my chest, which actually the bullet entered just below at the bottom of my left shoulder blade and came out the top of my left collarbone. So broke a bunch of my ribs, but missed my heart and my lungs, which was pretty fortunate. Hit in the left knee as well. And then the 3rd bullet that hit me burst my femoral artery in my right leg.

Brandon Peacock:

So I was left with pretty devastating, I guess, injuries at the time. I've been able to recover very well, thanks to great resources around me, a ton of hard work and time invested, and a good community, obviously. So, yeah, that's kind of a high level of everything I've been through. And now I run a not for profit registered charity in Canada and the United States where I help other trauma survivors access resources the same way that I had, after I had been through everything. And I also run a consulting agency that helps not for profits with social strategies. So in, like, super high level, that's, that's me.

Trey:

That's amazing. Now what did you do before all this happened? Were you know, I doubt you had all this other stuff in mind until this kinda happened to you.

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. My favorite question to answer, honestly. Before I got shot, I was working as a corporate consultant at the time. I graduated university, with a degree in business law. So the whole plan from childhood for me was to go to law school. I actually ended up working at the supreme court of Canada when I was 18 years old, through a government work position. I got to know a bunch of the supreme court justices and it was through connecting with them and becoming friends with them that I realized I actually hated the law. I was not built to be a lawyer.

Brandon Peacock:

I liked business. I liked a lot of different things, but I knew that it wasn't gonna be law for me, but I still wanted to stay in the corporate world because that's what I'd been told was the only pathway to success for most of my childhood, especially coming from a family. You know, I didn't come from a lot of money. My dad's a UPS truck driver, and my mom's stayed at home for most of my childhood. So I was supposed to be the golden goose, I guess, or whatever you wanna call it of the family. Like, go out, work hard, make a bunch of money. That was kinda something that was pushed on me from a young age because I never had that growing up. Though, my parents did an absolutely incredible job of giving us access to sports and everything otherwise we could have wanted.

Brandon Peacock:

But, yeah, I ended up working as a corporate consultant, and it was literally going for a haircut for that job to maintain a nice fresh, you know, shortcut look that I got shot. So, I never anticipated working in the not for profit space. It was something that I never would have pictured myself in, Even, you know, just 5 years ago. I've always loved people and working with people and helping people. I did a lot of stuff as a kid with kids with disabilities. So did other kids who had disabilities in the sports community. But I never pictured myself actually working and spending a significant portion of my time in the not for profit world. I was very, very business oriented, from a young age, really.

Angie:

What was, I guess, I would like to dive a little bit into after this happened to you, where was your head? What was your mindset? What were things that prompted you to start this type of work? I, you know, I just kinda wanna know what surrounded all that.

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. There there's a lot of different things. You know, I I I was excited, honestly, as as weird as that is to say, after I got shot because I realized I had an opportunity to do some incredible things with my life that I probably wouldn't have had otherwise and that most people will never have the opportunity to do in their lives, thankfully. So I was able to reframe everything pretty quick with a positive spin, though I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. But the real moments kind of that pointed me in a different direction, I guess you could say, is while I was on the ground literally bleeding out from 3 bullets. Right? Like, the bullet that hit my right leg That's so big. Was happening so quickly. Yeah.

Brandon Peacock:

So it's actually that a lot of people don't know this. A lot of people die. Believe the second most deadly kill shot. So you're more likely to survive a bullet to the head than the femoral artery. So at least one of what one of my doctors told me because you bleed out so quickly.

Trey:

Yeah. Absolutely. One of my favorite football players of all time, Sean Taylor, got hit there. Yes. And died like that.

Brandon Peacock:

Yep. Sean is so yes. I know Sean Taylor's story very well. And it's something I look at to you know, I just realized how fortunate I am. So basically, what happened is there was a police officer on scene in 4 minutes who got a tourniquet on my leg immediately. So everybody that was in the shop because of how quickly I was bleeding out, basically just assumed I was gonna die. Right? The woman who was helping me compress my wounds handed me the phone to call my mom to basically tell her, you know, I love her before I die. Right? So so, yeah.

Brandon Peacock:

I was very fortunate to survive the injury. And in those moments while I was bleeding out on the ground, the thought that kept echoing in my head is if you die tonight, are you proud of the legacy you've left behind? Right? Are you proud of what you've done for the Peacock name? Are you proud of how your friends are gonna remember you? Are you proud of how your loved ones are gonna talk about you at your funeral? Right? And at the time, the answer was no. And it wasn't that I hadn't done a lot of things and built up a great community and and you know, done things that other people would consider successful. It was that I hadn't left a mark on other people's lives in the way that I wanted to, right? I'd left, you know, an impression of myself, right? I did some things that I set my mind out to for sure, but, I hadn't helped others in the ways that I would have, you know, valued, I think. And I realized pretty quickly that time is such a fleeting resource that I could literally end up on that barbershop floor a month later. You know what I mean? Like these things happen and after going through something like that, like in those moments, I realized I needed to kinda make a change to living my life in a way that supported my dying thoughts. If that makes sense. And that's really how I changed everything very quickly.

Brandon Peacock:

I mean, even within 2 days in the hospital, I was already kind of forward thinking about what I was gonna be able to do, down the road in my recovery. And I I think that I was really lucky to have that perspective shift at such a young age.

Angie:

Oh, yeah. That's amazing.

Trey:

And I feel like, though, you bring that point up. I feel like a lot of people, if they were in a situation where they had to self-reflect in an instant, they probably think that they would. Maybe they didn't leave the mark that they wanted to, you know, and it does help change that mind shift.

Angie:

Yeah. That perspective is really awesome. So what did your recovery actually look like?

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. It was intense. It depends on what angle, I guess, you wanna go into, but the physical and the mental recovery were both very different. Okay. But both are also very good, they were 2 full time jobs I was working at the same time. So the physical side of the recovery is the one that everyone's most interested in. And, honestly, I just worked out a lot. So I had, I didn't have a lot of connections when I got shot, but my best friend happened to be a physiotherapist who wasn't working because COVID in Canada basically locked down the whole country.

Brandon Peacock:

You really couldn't do anything, at all. So because I had a best friend who graduated as a physiotherapist, but couldn't practice in a clinic, and he genuinely just loved me and loved his profession, We worked out together 5 hours a day, 7 days a week for two and a half months. We didn't leave each other's side. He went from being my best friend to my brother. I mean, he was honestly probably more like a brother before that anyways. But we spent almost every minute together for those two and a half months. You know, if he went to a family cottage, I went to that family cottage. You know, if wherever he was, I was.

Brandon Peacock:

And I just worked out nonstop, and it's not like I was benching a bunch of weight or anything, but it was I was doing these little tedious mobility exercises to slowly regain range of motion and slowly build my body back up from nothing to something. Right? And it was with that consistency and that time invested. I defied all the odds in my recovery. I mean, I walked into my first medical appointment after I left the hospital 3 weeks out, without crutches. And, you know, the doctors that saw me were shocked. They didn't understand how I could do that. But it was because we worked so freaking hard. I got back.

Brandon Peacock:

I ran my first 5 ks two and a half months later. I I ran my first marathon 13 months after that. I did all these things that I was just really fortunate to do because I had a best friend who helped me recover. But the biggest part of the physical side, you know, was having that care 5 hours a day, 7 days a week from somebody who I trusted so deeply that I let them basically push me through the hardest and most, you know, and most traumatic pain you could ever imagine, right? Like when you go through a shooting or at least in my case, there's not a lot of pain, Right? You have so much adrenaline. The physical pain isn't really that intense. When you go through recovery with bullet fragments still in your leg and you have to push that bullet fragment further into your leg to bend your knee back to straighten it out, man, like, that's a lot more painful. But it's when your best friend is the one administering that pain, you trust him. Right? And I just legitimately followed everything he said and worked hard and that the physical recovery otherwise was easy.

Brandon Peacock:

You know, I just had to show up and do what I was told. The psychological recovery was a little bit different. It was a lot more challenging because I had to figure it out on my own. So I had government or not government provided, I had workplace insurance that provided physio or psychotherapy for me. And what the psychotherapist did was basically validate all of the struggles that I was going through. And the unfortunate reality is I I didn't need somebody to do that because I knew it was valid to feel, you know, PTSD and hyper anxiety and all of these things after legitimately being shot

Trey:

by a carver shop.

Brandon Peacock:

Right? Like, I knew that the feelings I was feeling and the stresses I had and the panic attacks that came up in public for me were valid, but I needed to know how to fix it. Right? How to solve the problem, how to work through it. And I found that the therapist that I worked with at the time didn't help me do that, for whatever reason, you know. So what I started doing is I, every day I would work out, let's say 5 hours a day, then I would read for 2 or 3 hours, whether that was just going through and finding online resources, whether that was reading books about trauma and PTSD, whether that was, I I don't know, like watching YouTube videos. So I guess I didn't. It wasn't all reading, but I just spent so much time trying to learn, you know, about how I could reintegrate into society. Mhmm. And what I ended up doing, I had two moments that were, like, totally life changing. One of them was at the gym.

Brandon Peacock:

I had a full blown panic attack. I thought the people on both sides of me were there to kill me, and it was like a 65 year old man and, like, a middle aged white woman. Like, there was no like, you know, it was like a soccer mom. Right? Like, there was no threat to me. Mhmm. But my body and my nervous system had just fully shut down. Right? So what I started doing is I did this thing called exposure therapy that I I learned about, and I started just putting myself in these crazy situations. So I went back to the scene of the shooting multiple times and just kinda sat outside.

Brandon Peacock:

I would start going for jobs at 2 AM in the middle of, like, the hood for lack of a better word. In the sketchiest part of the city that I live in, at 2 AM, I would show up and, like, hobble a 5 kilometer run legitimately just because if I was gonna die, it was gonna happen there. Mhmm. Right? Like, if people actually wanted to finish me off, I was giving them the chance to do it.

Trey:

Right.

Brandon Peacock:

But I reset my nervous system that way. I reminded myself that, okay. Most of these fears you have are in your head. Right? Most of these things that you're avoiding are things that are unreasonable to be afraid of. Right? And you went through this really hard thing and that's valid and that's fair. I'd obviously remind myself, but you need to relearn that the world is predominantly a good place. Right? And 99.99% of people out there, you know, are good people. Right? Mhmm.

Brandon Peacock:

And they don't wanna go out of their way to harm you. And I kinda reset the mental barriers to everything that way. So it was maybe a little bit more intense than what some people Yeah.

Angie:

That's intense.

Brandon Peacock:

But it was for me, it was legitimately the only way I could get better. And what that actually did is it flipped the script for me. So one of the things I talk about is I remember people talk about having nightmares related to their trauma. Right? Because it's weighing them down. But I remember what ended up happening for me after doing that is I used to have these nightmares or quote, unquote nightmares, it's who you call them, where I'd be shot. And it was like in my dreams, I'd, like, resurrect almost. You know, like, I'd be shot, but I'd get up and I'd kinda fight back. And it was really correlated with those runs.

Brandon Peacock:

Right? It correlated with all the work. I had my friends popping balloons around me when I wasn't looking to simulate gunfire. Right? Mhmm. I just did all these crazy things, and I felt like I took control of my situation back and regained a lot of the power that I actually didn't even have before. Mhmm. You know, going through everything I went through. Right? And I feel like it made me rebuild myself to be a significantly more confident and, you know, proud version of myself by pushing myself in these situations that I probably would have told me to avoid, if that makes sense.

Angie:

Yeah. 100%. Me a lot.

Trey:

Yeah. And I think that you make a great point that I think a lot of people miss is, you know, when they go into something like that and they start listening you know, listen to your doctor. But if they say you have x amount of time to live or you probably won't use that leg again or whatever it is, at some point, you have to take control of your own life, your own mind, and do what you think is gonna happen. And that's a perfect example. You took control of your mind and your body, and you made what you knew could happen, and then you had the support of your best friend, which is amazing. And that's Yeah. You know? So that yep.

Brandon Peacock:

Well, I think it's important too. Like, what a lot of people forget is that doctors and, you know, psychotherapists too, these industry professionals, they have standards of liability that they're held to. Yes. Right? So they're afraid of the people who are going to come after them and sue them and, you know, call them out for things and try to tarnish their reputation. They're afraid of that. Right? And they understand why these industry professionals would be afraid of that, of course. You don't wanna lose your license. Right? Right.

Brandon Peacock:

But because of that, they don't give you the most intense recovery recommendations. Right? I had a best friend who knew I wasn't gonna sue him. Right? Like, he knew I was never gonna go after him. So he just used me as a test dummy and tried all these new things and that relationship really helped me a ton whereas the initial physiotherapist that I had that my insurance company provided for me once a week with respect to him was totally useless. Like, he did nothing of benefit to me. Right? I was this 23 year old athlete who wanted to be an athlete again, and he hooked me up to a stim machine like a tens machine for 30 minutes, massaged my leg for 10 minutes, and then spent 20 minutes bouncing from room to room. Right? And then the second my appointment was done, kicked me out of there. Right.

Brandon Peacock:

And if he was the only physiotherapist I had, I would have never recovered. Right? I would have lost my quality of life long term. And, you know, it really hurt me to know, especially having experienced both, that there's a lot of kids out there who had a chance. Like, I I had and took advantage of and never got to act on it because of, you know, resistance, I guess you could say from people who are in these positions of power and blindly just trusting what they say is valid.

Trey:

Right? Absolutely.

Brandon Peacock:

Another thing that's maybe important there is I work with a lot of spinal cord injury survivors, and most of them are told you will never walk again. Right? If you have a vertebrae fracture, you know, most of the people who go through those fractures don't walk again. It's the reality of the situation. Right? Right. But every single one of the kids that I work with, I tell them, you know, pursue your recovery as if you are going to walk again. Right? If that's what gets you up, if that's what keeps you fighting, then who knows? These things happen. Right? They happen. And I'm not a doctor.

Brandon Peacock:

It's not medical advice. But if you pursue your recovery as if you're going to walk again, even if you never do, you're gonna be happy with the man or woman you become along that journey. Right? Whereas if you sit here and just feel like a victim of your situation and don't try because you're never gonna get better, the people who put you in that situation won. And you could have taken back control and been accountable and and you've chosen not to. And it it breaks my heart so much and people think I'm I'm people think I'm almost insensitive because I I really, really encourage the people I work with not to be victims of their situation, but it's actually just because I love them so much, and I have so much just belief that people can do more than these industry professionals set expectation wise.

Angie:

Well, I feel that you bring so much to the table, you know, all those different perspectives, and I'm sure, you know, those young people or whoever you work with, you know? It's so valuable what they're getting from you. I think that's really amazing, and your perspective blows my mind. It truly does. The way that you persevere through that, it just is, I don't it's so amazing, and I love that you're doing this. What other questions do you have?

Trey:

Well, I actually wanna go back. Did number 1, did anybody else get shot in that drive by?

Brandon Peacock:

Yes. So there was a target of the shooting, and the target got hit once, and then I got hit 3 times. So, fortunately, there was a woman I was able to kinda shield as the 3rd man ended, so she didn't get hit, which is, like, exceptional. I would take that bullet again a 100 times over the bullet that actually we've seen on camera. The bullet that hit me in the chest, like, square like, her head was on my chest. So had that not hit me, it could have been a totally different situation. She's got 3 young daughters. I I think they were kinda my guardian angels through the recovery journey.

Brandon Peacock:

But yeah. So fortunately, I was the only bystander who got hit. But the dude who was the target did get hit, once.

Trey:

Okay.

Brandon Peacock:

Yep. Oh my gosh.

Trey:

Yeah. I mean, it and you know, when someone says drive-by shooting, the first thing you think of is, oh, they must have been in a bad part of town or they must have been doing something they shouldn't have. Right? But I'm assuming that you weren't in, like, a really bad part of town. You were on your way to get a haircut. You know?

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. If it wasn't it wasn't necessary it was like a fringe part of town, I guess, you could say, where there's $1,000,000 homes to the left, and then there's kinda the hood to the right. Like, it was a little bit of both in fairness to the area. Mhmm. But I wasn't involved in any of this. I mean, I Yeah. I mean literally just walking in for a haircut, but there was a target and it was gang affiliated. So it was 2 gangs who it was a retaliation hit basically for a hit that had been previously run by one of the gangs and it's all well known and well documented.

Brandon Peacock:

I I think, you know, the situation in Canada where I live, people don't really go to jail for things like this. And people are gonna say I'm speaking hyperbolically, but I've just seen so much of the legal system over the past 3 years. And there's not a lot of recourse for this sort of activity right now. And it leads these situations to happening, you know, and I don't hold resentment for anybody involved. It's not the kind of person I am. I don't really care to have the book thrown at anybody. Mhmm. I just wish that maybe they weren't doing these sorts of drive-by shootings at 5:45 PM in public settings.

Brandon Peacock:

Right.

Trey:

You know? Right. Yeah. Right. Absolutely.

Angie:

Okay. So now tell us a little bit. You talked about physical and mental recovery. Tell us, I wanna know a little bit more about the people that you're helping and just, you know, what you're doing right now.

Brandon Peacock:

Yeah. My favorite part to talk about. I think if you asked any of my friends, my story is obviously such a big part of the work we do, but I'm so sick of it. I love talking about the kids that I work with. Mhmm. So right now we've worked with over 5 people, which is kind of a small number, but considering the cost of recovery, it's actually a huge number. Mhmm. Like, you know, $1500 a month for physio bills adds up the more

Trey:

you

Brandon Peacock:

start rolling it over. Mhmm. But we initially started out. The first kid we ever worked with was also a gunshot survivor like me from the same area as me. So I'm from Ottawa, Canada, and he's from Ottawa, Canada as well. He got hit in the leg kinda similar to where I got hit with the bullet that hit me in the right leg, except it just nicked his femoral artery. It didn't separate it. But he was left with pretty bad nerve damage. Similar kinda he was told similar things to what I was told that it was gonna be a lot of long term issues.

Brandon Peacock:

He wasn't gonna be able to really be who he was before, but he was gonna be able to, you know, walk and stuff. Right? I wasn't gonna be paralyzed, But I worked him out, like, I so what I did is I found this kid. I brought him to my buddy who was now working in a clinic, the same physiotherapist, and I just showed up to every appointment that he had and mentored him and put him through a workout regimen basically in the physiotherapy gym where my buddy was working with other clients.

Trey:

Nice.

Brandon Peacock:

Totally unlicensed. I was just like a friend that was there, not, like, clinical or anything like that. Didn't pretend that was clinical, but you know what I mean. Mhmm. Gotta say that for liability reasons, I guess. But I I watched him go from this kid who was in pain all the time because the nerve pain after an injury like that is so bad to this kid who is now squatting over £300, he's returned to being an athlete. He's come so far. I'm so proud of the progress he's made.

Trey:

That's amazing.

Brandon Peacock:

Right? First kid we worked with, and now we've been predominantly working with spinal cord injury survivors, Really just by chance. I think they're a group of the population who is really underserved when it comes to insurance provided physiotherapy and support and government support. They basically do what they do in Canada, and it actually is very similar in the United States. I'm pretty familiar with the way that your health care, I guess, works. Mhmm. But individuals who go through spinal cord injuries lose their recovery coverage, so physiotherapy, if they're not making immediate progress towards the long term goal of walking. Right? But the reality is going through injury like this, it's a 10 year, 20 year. It's a lifetime recovery.

Brandon Peacock:

Right? It's not 6 months and you're gonna be back on your feet like a torn ACL. Right? It's a lot different. And insurance companies, because the progress takes so long, cut these individuals off. They don't give them a true fighting chance, and they do it under the guise of, you know, you've been reintegrated in society at the level that you're gonna peak at. Right? And I thought that was really unfortunate, especially after working with some trauma, survivors who've gone through spinal cord injuries and are now walking again and doing these sorts of just, you know, things that most people write off. Right?

Trey:

Right.

Brandon Peacock:

So I started working with a group of spinal cord injury survivors. And right now, actually, I'm super proud. I'm sending my videographer next week, to Medellin, Colombia with one of my grantees for his second round of stem cell therapy, which is about $50, all in to provide to him. Thanks to my network and my fundraising efforts, that I've been able to do. And he's making a ton of progress towards walking again. Again, it's a long term play. It might not ever happen. Right? I don't I don't know.

Brandon Peacock:

But I have so much confidence in these guys that I wanna give them at least the tools to keep fighting when no one else believes in them. Right? And even if they don't get there, I'm gonna I'm I'm already very proud of the men they've come along, you know, they've become along the way. Mhmm. And I've also had the luxury of mentoring them very closely when it comes to the mental side of recovery and helping them access all of the things necessary to keep pushing forward. Mhmm. And through that, I've kinda created these individuals who are so resilient and so empowered that they can actually now mentor, like, new spinal cord injury survivors who come into my network. So it's just awesome.

Angie:

Domino effect, and it's so good.

Brandon Peacock:

It is. Yeah. And it's what I would do if I could spend a 100% of my time mentoring trauma survivors. I would do it in a heartbeat, you know, especially the ones who are willing to buy in because it is tough. Mhmm. One thing I think I have in my corner that others, you know, mentors and a support system individuals might not have is I've been through what they're going through and I prospered through it. Right. So I can hold the kids that I work with a little bit more accountable.

Brandon Peacock:

Mhmm. Right? I can be a little bit harder on them because I've done it. You know? I'm just sharing my lessons now. Right? Yeah. Whereas I think that I've seen some mentor groups, in particular that maybe you're coddling each other a little bit more. It's more of, you know, it's more of a support group than it is like an empowerment group, I guess you could say. And I I love that idea. I think it's important to have communities talk about this stuff with and and openly vent and do all these things.

Brandon Peacock:

But for me, I just have my group of core guys that I really hold accountable and see them make this progress, on their own, honestly. Like, I really just I kinda direct them, but they have to show up and do the work every day. Mhmm. It's literally I would get shot a 100 times over to be able to make that impact on their lives. Right? And, talking about things I'd be proud to leave on my family name if I was to die tomorrow, let's say. Like, that's it. You know? I'm now cool with the legacy that I'm leaving on the world, and that's something that I'm so lucky to have.

Angie:

That speaks volumes.

Trey:

I mean, people, you know, they would go their whole lives and can't say that sometimes. So I think that's amazing. And I and I I really believe that, you know, what you said, whether or not you know, hopefully, they all can physically get better, but it just sometimes, it's just not gonna but when you empower the mind, you know, whether their physical body is working correctly or not, their mind will push through anything. And I think that's the, you know, the biggest work that you're doing is just amazing.

Brandon Peacock:

Mhmm. What's what's so it kinda sounds cheesy, but, like, hope is everything. Yeah. Right? And when I say that, people have, I think, a misunderstanding of what hope is, but I just tell these kids that they can do what they set themselves out for. Mhmm. Right? And I empower them to believe in themselves when everybody else writes them off. Right? And like I said earlier, there are these systems in place that have liability standards. They have you know, they can't provide what's called false hope.

Brandon Peacock:

And I kinda think that's bullshit. Yeah. To be honest with you, I I think that false hope if you're able to, you know, if you've got a smart enough sense and head on your shoulders to realize that maybe you might not get there, false hope is incredible. Right? Like, why else would you show up every day to rehab, you know, and keep fighting if you didn't think you'd get anywhere? Right? Why would you go to the gym every day if you thought you were actually, you know, not gonna attain your fitness goals, let's say. Right? Percent. Yeah. Why would you do anything if you didn't believe you could get there? Why would you start a business if you didn't think you could make money? Like, tell these kids they can do stuff, and if they can't, they're gonna find themselves along the way. Right.

Trey:

The journey that

Brandon Peacock:

builds you. Right? It's not that end goal.

Trey:

Yeah. Absolutely. Ugh. 100%.

Angie:

Okay. I want you to tell us in our audience, like, how can we help you? How can we support you, all of your stuff, like, where they can find you, all these things? Because this is such amazing work you're doing.

Brandon Peacock:

I appreciate it. Yeah. The best way to support me and my mission is to donate, to hit the ground running charities. So our website is www.htgrcharity.com Mhmm. Like hit the ground running charity.com Mhmm. We're fully tax deductible in Canada and the United States both.

Brandon Peacock:

So, yeah, if anybody wants to donate, that's the best way to help and where those resources go. So just like a full transparent breakdown. The donations that I have that come in through social media and individual donors typically go towards physiotherapy or psychotherapy costs to towards our grantees, like monthly, rehabilitation costs where we get them into the clinic 5 days a week, to to really actually give them a fighting chance instead of just giving them one day a week

Angie:

One day a week. Yeah.

Brandon Peacock:

To get me on more people. Mhmm. But I've got my likes, Gavin and Isaiah and the kids that we're working with now. That's where that money goes. Unless we're doing a side campaign, like, for Isaiah right now, we're fundraising for his stem cell therapy

Trey:

Mhmm.

Brandon Peacock:

Which is like regenerative medicine to help heal the damaged muscle tissue in his spinal cord area Mhmm. With hopes that that'll give him more range of motion and it'll give him additional, like, neuro function Mhmm. In his legs. So like motor function. So that's where the resources go. And then typically what I'll do is I also do, like, keynote speaking and stuff now. So I do these kinda speaking engagements or donations from my larger partners, and I use that to pay myself Mhmm. Which, you know, is something I'm really proud of because now I can actually focus so much of my time growing the charity.

Angie:

Right.

Brandon Peacock:

So, yeah, my long term goal though is full transparency, and I think it's something that's just important to be open and honest about. I want to keep hitting the ground running long term open and I don't wanna be paying myself for it. So my long term goal, I'm now consulting not for profits on social media strategy and growth because I've used my platforms to fundraise probably over, like, $200,000 now. Mhmm. I'm trying and that's all organic fundraising. I'm now starting my consulting company to support others not for profits. And my goal long term is to pay myself entirely through my business ventures and then keep it the ground running as Mhmm. A charity that's gonna be a percentage of all my revenue in and then everything we do fundraising wise.

Trey:

Mhmm.

Brandon Peacock:

So we could take on more grantees and help more people, and help them long term too. It's another thing that is biggest part that's challenging about what we do is these kids, they need to be in our care for 4 or 5

Angie:

Right.

Brandon Peacock:

Years. Right? And if you're paying for, you know, if your monthly bills are 10 k alone, let's say, in just therapy for the kids you're working with, it's hard to run a startup. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, I absolutely love it. And if you know, you ask those kids if there's one thing I'm good at in the world, it's figuring it out. And I'll make that bill every month.

Brandon Peacock:

And, it's really thanks to the individuals who donate and help kinda drive this mission forward. So if nobody's watching and they want to help, that's the best way to do it. And it doesn't you know, it helps me help these kids. Like, you're helping Gavin and Isaiah. You're not helping me if that makes sense. Right. No. I guess that you're helping me in the sense that, like, I love it and I care about them.

Brandon Peacock:

But

Angie:

Yeah. You're getting to do the work that you love, and you're so fit for it. And you just I. I'm so happy that you agreed to be on our podcast. I am just a wealth of knowledge that you have given our audience today. And so for the audience, like, Brandon said, he runs Hit the Ground Running, and, it's htgrcharity.com Correct?

Brandon Peacock:

htgrcharity.com

Angie:

We'll put the link in.

Brandon Peacock:

And then if anyone wants to find me on my Instagram as well or TikTok or peacock, like the bird, underscore brandon, brandon. Okay. And that's kinda where I document. Like, we'll do our fundraising efforts and kinda show the work that we're doing. I'm also gonna be Ironman trading for next year. So I'll be doing that as a fundraiser for the charity as well and learning how to swim and bike, which I don't know how to do. So, if anybody's interested in that stuff too.

Trey:

And the water got a cold up there in Canada?

Brandon Peacock:

It's not that we did a couple nice ones. Okay. Outside of June, July, August, and September, it's cold. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

Angie:

Oh, well,

Brandon Peacock:

That's down to Florida.

Trey:

And, also, what I want I wanted to touch one more thing before we

Angie:

let you go.

Trey:

What about people that need your help?

Brandon Peacock:

Mhmm. Yeah. So they can reach out. We did have a fan- like, grantee application form on the website. We've taken it down just because we have limited capacity right now. But the good news is I'm launching a mentorship program come November for trauma survivors. And the goal, it's gonna be a really low barrier to entry. Like, it may be, like, $15 a month or something like that.

Brandon Peacock:

But Mhmm. We want people to have a little stake so they're committed to it and showing up and caring. But I wanna make it so easy to access these individuals and create this community of empowerment and, you know, post traumatic growth through community.

Trey:

Yeah.

Brandon Peacock:

So if anybody's going through a life altering situation and they've heard this podcast and they wanna reach out, message me directly on Instagram right now. I'm really bad at answering my Instagram DMs, but if your message ends up in my requests, I do go through them, let's say, every 2 weeks or something like that. So if you don't hear back immediately, that's probably why.

Angie:

Okay.

Brandon Peacock:

But I do go through and and sift that just because if there's individuals who can benefit from the work that we're doing, I do take a lot of pride in in trying to find a way, you know, and, if that's simply maybe trying to run a one time fundraiser and helping them, you know, share their story and and self fundraise or using my platforms, you know, that's something that's always an option or just joining the mentorship program. Or, you know, fingers crossed, we grow a ton and, we can help more people, and then we could bring more people in.

Trey:

Yeah. That's the hope. Right?

Brandon Peacock:

If anybody's doing this and wants, you know, need that sort of support, message me directly because this is what I love to do. I I love just helping people who've been through these situations, and I might not be able to offer you the farm right now. But if I can help in any way, I'd really, really go out of my way to try to make that happen.

Angie:

Oh, that's so amazing. And I just commend you for all that you've done and for that one thought that you had when you were in such, you know, critical condition that just you're like, I'm not leaving the legacy that I want, and all that you've done is just absolutely amazing. So

Brandon Peacock:

I

Angie:

I am so excited that you were on our podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you very much.

Trey:

And thank you for what you do. I'm sure I'm it it sounds like that that

Angie:

Oh, it's just gonna grow and grow. Oh, yeah. You're making an impact on so many people. So thank you for that.

Brandon Peacock:

Yep. I I appreciate it. We're we're slowly we're we're getting there. It's been tough , it's been a tough grind. I think making it all happen and learning a lot. Right? I'd never run my own business before, and this is kinda how I treat it. Hit the ground running. You know, I treat it like a business, and we've been able to grow pretty, you know, pretty much like a pretty fair amount over the last couple of years.

Brandon Peacock:

But again, it's just time, consistency, and hopefully by this time next year, we'll be a hell of a lot bigger at helping, even more people.

Angie:

Yes. Amazing.

Trey:

Awesome.

Angie:

Well, thank you again, Brandon, for being here with us, and we thank our audience for listening.

Brandon Peacock:

Thanks, guys.