S3 #38 | Intentional Change: Creating The Life You Want With Bryan Bush

 

With intentional change, you can take control and design a life you love. US veteran and chief motivator Bryan Bush knows the power of intentional change firsthand. In this inspiring episode, he joins Glenn Bill to share his incredible transformation from feeling lost to finding his calling to empower others through The Reboot Project. Discover how intentional change helped him overcome challenges, build successful businesses, and ultimately create a program that transforms the lives of veterans and first responders. Bryan explores what it truly takes to conquer your mountains, achieve your goals, and make a lasting impact. Tune in to learn how to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Intentional Change: Creating The Life You Want With Bryan Bush

Hello, GAPers. This is Glenn Bill, Founder of the University of Attitude, keynote speaker, and author of the International bestselling book, The ABCs of Attitude. I have been so fortunate to help tens of thousands of people get attitude, the secret formula to success in your business and in your life. This show will help you get yours, so let’s get some.

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Welcome, everybody. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. If you love what you are getting here, share this show on all your social media things. We are very fortunate to have somebody here who has reinvented himself from Marine to entrepreneur, to the founder of what I believe is going to become one of the biggest movements and nonprofits for our military veterans in America.

The cool thing is we see stuff here first, and we have had a lot of people that came here and started here, and then two years later, they are doing unbelievable things. If you want to learn about who you are and how to become who you want to be, our guest, Mr. Bryan Bush, the Founder of The Reboot Project, and his organization is here to help us learn how to bridge that gap. Bryan, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Bridging The Gap: Understanding Attitude

It’s my pleasure, and we are so happy to have you here. We just got to meet and I was so excited about what you are doing. I can’t wait to help you spread the word about The Reboot Project. As you know and as we discussed, we are here to help our audience. We are here to help those people who are walking on the beach, driving in their cars, and walking in their neighborhoods understand how to bridge the gap between who they are and who they want to become and where they are and where they want to go. We always like to start by trying to understand and get your perspective on your definition of attitude and what you believe attitude is.

That’s the most loaded question that I should have been prepared to answer. Attitude, my definition is how I approach my daily challenges.

When you wake up in the morning, you get daily challenges. How do you approach your daily challenges? What goes through your head? What questions do you ask yourself? Do you have a routine in the morning that helps you approach your day? Give us that look inside.

Alternatively to most people, the first thing is love. I wake up in the morning and I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife who I love dearly. My focus first thing in the morning is how I honor her and our relationship. That sounds cheesy but that’s the attitude that I wake up with is, “Did I wake up?” Yes, check. Next, “Did she wake up?” If not, I’m going to wake her up and have that morning with her coffee. We spend that time cultivating that family before we go out there. Around 9:00 AM every morning or 9:30, I start to flip that switch and it goes into action mode. I have a big project ahead of me and it’s something that I came up with on a couch in our house and turned into a national phenomenon of helping individuals thrive.

I love that. First of all, I never heard that answer before. Second of all, all of you GAPers that are in relationships and in marriages, don’t you wish you would have answered that freaking question that way? It begs the question. There’s got to be a cool story. There’s got to be a lesson learned. Tell us the story of how you and your incredible wife met, but second of all, what I’d love to know is what she does for your attitude. Maybe what is her attitude or what has she taught you about attitude as your wife?

We met in California. I was a new Marine at the time and quickly knew that I wanted to marry her. We went to Vegas and eloped. Six days after we got married, I deployed for two and a half years and came back. We had a beautiful place in California on the coast. She decided that she’d stay married to me, through all the wonderful stuff that I came back with. We ended up moving from California to Indiana. We’ve been married for 23 years. On the way over here, she called me. I took a break from listening to my hype music, which is always the Grateful Dead. I was jamming out to some St. Stephen.

She called and we have a rule to always answer no matter what. I take it in the middle of my deep jam and she goes, “I wanted to let you know that I support you, and I’m so excited that you are becoming who you are supposed to be in this next chapter of your life.” That’s the type of support that I have. That’s her attitude. She reads books on other individuals, strong figures, relationships, and studies. She gives me all the latitude to be who I need to be and 100% why I’m successful now.

Is she from the Midwest?

California.

She’s from California and you drag her out here.

I drag her out here and she won’t leave. I have been trying to leave but the school systems are good and taxes are cheap and 100 other things that go along. I have got my family out here and my diehard friends. We always go back to California in the summer. I have that California vibe. I love the West Coast, but there’s something cool, calm, and collective about Indiana. Good people. Smile a lot.

The Evolving Attitude Of A Marine

How many times were you deployed?

I was deployed once.

How many tours? Are those two different things?

Tours would be combat veterans. That’s one of the interesting things about my story. I’m probably 1 of 17 guys out of the hundreds of people that I was in with that didn’t deploy to the combat action area. I got sent over to the armory. I was in charge of the base camp. That’s a good point that you brought up there. Not every military member or marine or even Special Forces person has a war story. I have none. I also think that that makes me qualified to take the other stuff that I learned and did and come back to that group and say, “Let’s take a look at this and move forward,” and help reframe their attitude.

By what you said, you were gone for two and a half years. Is that what you said?

I was gone. We got shipped to Okinawa, which was a standard deployment. That’s when the first invasion of Fallujah happened. We got stuck there because there were fears that other things were going to take place. Okinawa was a base that we had. We were there for that. We then came back, and then I had only a couple of months left on my enlistment. I didn’t get sent with the rest of the group. That next time around was a bloody time. A lot of my friends did not come back and a lot of those calls did come through. We went to a lot of those funerals. I still had that. Part of my attitude was like, “Who I am today, I had to deal with? I wasn’t there with those guys.”

I think about it a lot and it hurts, but I also know that, if you know me, I’m not the warrior guy. I am not a war guy. I’m not built for war. I’m built for what I’m doing right now, which is helping people recover back from that, and then also being an advocate that not all of us have a war story. There’s some great stories out there that are super cool. I’m glad I wasn’t there because I don’t know what I would have done in this situation.

During those two and a half years, what was the hardest day you had?

When we found out we weren’t coming home, they had a thing called stop loss, stop move. It was supposed to be six months, and then again, they are like, they called it shock and awe. That’s what took place, and we got the word, and then we were there for an undetermined amount of time after that. I didn’t join the Marine Corps to be in the war. It was a peacetime thing. I don’t know why I joined. I don’t have the story of it was September 11th and I’m going to go save and do this. I didn’t feel that. It was more like I joined, and then the day that I graduated from the school that I went to, that was on September 11th.

When I showed up to get the graduation medal for the school that I went to, they said, “Get in formation,” and they told us what had happened in New York City. That’s my 9/11 story. I was like, “I just graduated from my school, and everyone that’s in charge goes, “You know where you are going, boys.” I was like, “I didn’t know I was going there. This is not what I signed up for.” Everything got very serious.

That may have been your toughest day.

It may have been. My toughest day altogether was when one of my best friends in the Corps was killed in Fallujah, and then we lost a lot after that too. That was my toughest day being in Camp Pendleton, getting that call in the admin office and then the text messages going around. It was devastating. That does not go away.

Let’s talk about what that’s like. You said the text messages fly around. Is that a daily thing? Is there an official text ring that says these five soldiers died?

No, and you got to know too. Text messages were a thing at that time, and so we had that and we also had snakes on our Nokia phones. The technology, you got to go back to what it was like in 2003 and 2004-ish. It was just the word was getting out for those that were still stateside, and those are the people that were here, that we were taking casualties out there. These are people that were in Okinawa with us at that time. The first wave is normally Special Forces people going and handling business, and they keep coming in and setting up shop and they are rolling through. That was the worst when the casualties were names that you know.

For a guy that was never there in the war, that’s when the war got serious for me. It wasn’t just, “You are going to get these ribbons.” That’s when training mattered because everything that they taught you, you are supposed to know how to do that. It’s not a dry fire. That’s it. A lot of people get in these situations where they don’t realize how real it is until it’s whizzed past your head. To understand the GAPers and what this is all like, I listen to Sean’s story about the bullets whizzing by it, and that feeling and stuff like that. Those are not good situations to be in.

When you said that you ran a base camp, I’m guessing the warriors were at the base camp then. Is that right or not? The people that went into combat. You had a base camp. Were you with the guys and you said, “See you, fellas.”

It wasn’t that way. I wasn’t in the country, so I wasn’t in the Middle East. We were at Camp Pendleton and then they said, “You either have to extend to go or you have to not.” I had a baby on the way. We had three months left. We were talking about transitioning back to Indiana and all these things. I had to make a decision, “Am I going to go?” I made the decision not to go for all those reasons. There was so much uncertainty with that.

I will be honest, with the uncertainty, it never crossed my mind that I could die. It crossed my mind that I love this woman. I have already been gone forever and I want to have a relationship with her. Is she going to be back? I was already thinking post-Marine Corps. I’m thrilled to be a Marine and I will always carry that with me, but honestly, it’s such a small part of my identity because I have spent more time not being a Marine than a Marine, but I also understand the thinking and I have dealt with some of that same stuff.

Base camp. What was your MO and what was the attitude of being in base camp? We have had the warriors on, but this is still a vital part of their success.

My job was an amphibious assault vehicle. I drove Amtracs. These are tanks that float. We jump off the back of a ship. Have you seen Saving Private Ryan? Do you know that it’s called ship-to-shore movement? If you think about it from the perspective of that opening scene when they are rolling up to Normandy and all those troops in the back, I was in a modern-day version, so that’s an AAVP-7A1. My job as the new guy was to drive, and then the officer was normally sitting back there. Sometimes hitting me in the back of the head with a hammer to get my attention on something, and then we’d have a crew chief who was in charge of the turret, and that’s the gun.

It had a 40-millimeter grenade launcher that’s the red cap over to the side, and then that machine gun in front of you is a 50 cal, and then those are smoke grenade launchers, and those things provide cover. They don’t have these anymore. They discontinued them. They retired them, and so that’s how you feel old when you are like, “They retired the vehicle.” This is what we did and our job was to take care of it. We were on the base in Camp Pendleton, and that’s the standard base, and then everyone else would deploy off of there to wherever you were going in the world.

For those of you who want to see what an AAVP-7A1 is, you can go to Spotify. You can see our beautiful faces on Spotify’s platform. Make sure you do that if you want to see what we are doing and follow along with our lovely producer, Jason, who is always on the spot with stuff that we look at and talk about. You were working on and maintaining these big machines.

We took the infantry. The infantry would be like the ground pounders. They were the ones that had rifles, helmets, and a backpack. Their job was to get out of our vehicle and run an assault on the area. We took them. The troops normally come either from airplanes or they come from the Navy ship. We would move from navy ship to shore slowly.

These things are fun to drive and to take care of them. They are rust machines. You are always with a brush. It’s awesome that looking at it brings back so many different memories. The other side of these things too is that these are what we are rolling through the Afghani towns. These were in these. This is it. They were taking troops to different areas. Unfortunately, these things can be blown up fairly easily with rocket-propelled grenades, so they are not bulletproof.

I’m glad that you didn’t have to check that out. Let’s talk about Okinawa. What’s the attitude of Okinawa? Did Okinawa teach you anything? I guess you get time off or leave. I have never had anybody who lived in Okinawa. What did you learn from their culture?

The first thing is when you say, “We are going to Japan,” and you are the guy from Indiana. It’s exciting. The dopamine is rushing. We touch down. We go to these bays. It’s tropical weather, and so a lot of people think of Japan. I don’t know what I thought of tropical weather, but it’s tropical. Humidity is 80%. I remember long days working. Beautiful areas. We’d go to the beach and play horseshoes or pool. There are lots of different things off of work, but during work, we had the opportunity to sweat profusely and down at the ramp where we kept all of our vehicles. I remember times when you’d sweat through your clothes completely out there. The humidity was so great.

As far as the culture, I got a cool tattoo once from somebody on a back alley street who didn’t even speak English. I just showed him a picture, and I laid there in pain for five hours while they tattooed my chest. They had gargoyles up in this window, and I remember she did the circle and it was only a circle. I had a St. Christopher Medallion tattooed on my chest. I wanted to quit so badly, but I didn’t know how to communicate, so I just suffered it out, but very nice people. It is a very beautiful place. It’s in that circle. People in Okinawa live the longest. They are very healthy, active, and polite.

From a guy from Indiana being there, I would say that we caused a lot of ruckus out there. For those of you who have been out there, you know what I mean. We are young. People in Indiana, it’s like they have got broad ripples out there for the young kids. They have got a ton because we are out there drinking and spending money. They had this stuff called Habu Sake and Habu is a snake. It would be like a moonshine with a poisonous snake inside with its fangs, and they would age it in there and they’d sell it to us Marines and we’d drink it. That’s it. It’s a good story. It tastes terrible.

I can imagine. We are going to talk about The Reboot Project as we walk through this. Your focus on health and what’s going on. Did the fact that Okinawa had the longest-living people strike you at all, or did you not know, or is that an afterthought?

I didn’t know that I was 21. All I knew was that you could party. Honestly, that was before any of us knew where we were going, so we knew that things were serious. We were living every day like it was our last day. They call that the ring or whatever. I didn’t think about that until I was older. I saw something on Netflix and I was like, “I have been there.” Honestly, it’s the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. Okinawa. I would suggest. There’s a place on somebody’s list. The people are amazing. The food is amazing. It’s beautiful.

The Influence Of Military Background On Attitude

When you think about your time in the military, being a Marine, and I love Marines and know a lot of them. We have interviewed a lot of them. They are so passionate. There are so many lessons that 99.9999% of people in America don’t know, but I always like to know when you were in that time, who is the one person that affected your attitude the most? Maybe the most positive or negative, and what did you learn about the attitude of becoming a marine?

I have got to give it up to my drill instructor who broke me, Troy Small. That guy made me a Marine. I did not want to be a Marine. Once I found out how they were making Marines I was like, “Nobody would sign up for this.” It was intense. Everything you did was wrong. Even when you weren’t doing anything, they would be like, “You did something wrong,” and you didn’t move. I got to give him the credit for my first interaction with what it was to build myself, and you have to lose your soul. I felt like I lost it. I had to lose who I was.

Bryan, from the block, had to become Bryan the Marine. That’s a three-month intense process that you don’t get at your high school or in the neighborhood. No one’s holding you accountable like that. Their initiation program is extreme but it’s necessary because if you don’t move, shoot, and communicate the right way, there are casualties. That’s why they do it that way because you are going to be put in that situation.

I don’t think I grasped that even through bootcamp and everything else. I thought I had to get through these different stages, and I never realized that I was learning all these skills to perform, and the performance would be in a desert and war. That was never in my mind. Hindsight, going back, I probably would have been more ready for something like that mentally had I taken the opportunity to take it seriously like I’m studying for a test, and the test is to save your life.

I am a Marine but there are some amazing Marines out there. My friends are amazing Marines. When you say who influenced me or what was the impact, my friends did. They kept me out of trouble. They knew that I was cool to hang out with and a real good friend, and I was there for a good time. My ability to win friends and influence people made sergeants like me. It also helped that I was 21 so I could buy booze, and that was a big deal. I could hang out with the guys in charge whereas the other guys that were in charge of me day to day couldn’t go to the club with the sergeants because they weren’t old enough.

I was already a 21-year-old. I had my birthday on Camp Pendleton and bought my first six-pack of beer there. It is all codified that way. There were a lot of people that took care of me outside of the Marine Corps. There’s a lot. I sitting here talking to you because there were a lot of people who gave me a shot and saw something in me, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I was bumping around.

Did it shock you at all when you were over there and deployed? It’s like looking at an 18-year-old kid going, “That dude looks young,” even though you were 21.

It shocks me now and then didn’t know because I felt like I was 21. I felt like I looked like they did. The only difference was that they were giving me cash to buy beer. We are all doing the same shit. Drinking the same stuff, partying, listening to the same music, going to the same club. I could tell you, I could name twenty people that have dragon tattoos on their bodies or snakes because we were in Japan, and that’s what you do. It’s that type of vibe.

We’ll wrap up the Marine phase of this. Did you graduate from college?

I didn’t go to college. I went straight from high school to nothing for two years and then joined the Marine Corps.

What was the day when you sat down and were you hung over, were you not, or were you drunk? What was the day that you said, “I want to freaking join the Marines.” What was the attitude? Do you remember it?

I remember it vividly. I remember I had to talk with myself the night before like a self-talk that my life was going down the shitter fast. I was making bad decisions. I wasn’t doing the things that you would want your kids to do. There was no success for me whatsoever. Maybe the fact that I’m a reflective person, and so I had that ability to realize that things weren’t going well for me. It was at that time that I was like, “If things don’t get better soon, I’m going to have to make a change.” I just didn’t know what that meant.

 

The very next day, my house got robbed and it was like, “There’s the sign.” I walked down to the Recruit Depot in Castleton here in Indianapolis. I walked in there and I don’t know that I even knew I was going to be a Marine. I just knew that these people could probably take you out of town and give you some type of something fast.

I walked in that place and, in the back, I kept walking. The Army, the Air Force, and all these people were like, “Can I help you?” I don’t even know that I acknowledged them. I walked back to the very back, talked to this guy, and I was like, “I want to be a Marine. What does that mean?” He goes, “When do you want to leave?” I was like, “Tomorrow.” He was like, “Alright.”

I think they had a fast one, and then they piss test me. I think I was high. I smoked a blunt before I walked in there anyway. They are like, “We have never seen a line. You need to come back in 30 days,” and so I stayed clean. I went and I did it. It took about a zero to hero. Took about attitude, nobody would even talk to me and my family. It wasn’t because they hated me. It’s like they couldn’t depend on me. I was not doing good stuff. Instantly, once I signed that paper, it was like, “There’s a party and I had a cooler, a Rolling Rock, and people were stopping by and everybody was so proud,” and that’s what gave me the attitude to suck it up and not quit bootcamp.

Chances are and you know it well. There are people right now probably going, “I need to make a change.” I don’t know if it’s hit rock bottom. I don’t know if it’s an instinct. It sounds like you had an instinct that said, “I need to get this done.” That’s why I wanted Bryan on this show because Bryan is an everyday Joe. He’s an everyday guy. He listened to his instincts. He said, “Look where I am. Where do I want to be? Look who I am and who do I want to become?” His answer was to walk into a recruiting facility and become a Marine. Maybe yours is something different. Any thoughts on that?

I don’t know what else to say. I think I said it all. It starts with awareness. It’s awareness that there are other opportunities out there, and then you match that up with your desire. It’s at least what I know. It’s, “Who am I today? Who do I want to be?” I don’t know that there’s an answer that I ever have that says, “Who I want to be forever,” because I like the process of change, and I feel like that’s growth, but in the absence of that, I pick a road and walk down it. There are lessons.

There’s somebody out there who may or may not be getting it, but I hope they are. Let’s imagine you are talking to some new guy here who’s broken and who doesn’t know what to do. What’s your best advice for somebody who feels lost and they don’t know where to go?

I would say they are barring any type of chemical or mental thing that’s medically related. I have to caveat that because this advice wouldn’t be relevant. You’ve got the answer. Every time I went back and I was like, “I tried so damn hard,” and I was like, “I already had the answer. I just didn’t take action.” I had to get rid of the fear. You have to dissect that fear.

GAPers you got the answer. We all have the answer within us, don’t we? Talk to me about the day you knew you were going home. How cool was that? How was it communicated and how long was that 24 hours? They said, “You are going home on this date.” Did they give you a day’s notice or a week’s notice?

We had a week and we were excited. I remember we were on the bus and we flipped it off and we talked, “If we get a flat tire, what are we going to do?” There was a lot of planning. We were happy. We jumped on a military plane. We all flew back. We saw our significant others. That was the first time that I got the, “We are going back,” and then the second one was when I was getting out and when it was time to get out of the Marine Corps.

You talk about attitude. That was a completely different attitude because I had these new standards. I am not the same guy. I have been Bryan of the Marine, and my behavior was right hand, right knee, left hand, left knee. I sat up straight. Yes, sir. Yes ma’am. I thought the world was my oyster. I was pumped to come back to Indiana where you could get an apartment for $500 a month because in California, it was like $2,100 a month.

As we have heard from several of our guests, you are back. You are not a Marine anymore.

Still a Marine. Always a Marine. I will put that up. Not an active Marine.

But always probably an active Marine.

I’m a former Marine. Marine’s mindset too.

Amen. I love this. I love talking to the Marines coach. Isn’t that great, Jason? He loved these guys.

I love it. My brother was a Marine from ‘84 to ‘88. Scout sniper instructor, so oorah.

Did he train the guy that we were talking about or did he know him?

He was trained under Carlos Hathcock.

Go ahead and give us the attitude lesson of Carlos Hathcock, please.

Maybe shoot first and ask questions later. He’s the number one confirmed killed scout sniper at least that I know of. There are historians out there. I’m not good with facts at all, but I did remember him when it was brought up, but I was like, “Carlos Hathcock, yeah. I know who that guy is.”

Is he still alive?

I have no idea.

What about the one the movie was made after?

It was called Sniper and that was Tom Berenger. That was the ‘80s.

There was the other movie where the guy got killed.

American Sniper.

That guy was supposedly the number.

That was somebody else. That was Chris something.

From Military To Civilian: Overcoming Challenges And Shifting Attitudes

Anyway, what’s the attitude there? You are back and not deployed.

I’m a civilian, so I’m back in Indiana and I quickly realized that the best thing I had was I was drug-free and I didn’t have any skills that differentiated me, so I did what most Marines do. I’m going to get a job as a police officer, a security officer. At that point in time, for those who live in Indianapolis, our police department merged with the Sheriff’s Department. They stopped all of the recruiting. There were no camps. I remember my dad going, “You got to get a job,” and I was like, “Shit, I do. Where am I going to get a job?” I applied at a community hospital and became a security guard overnight. I was terrible at it. I had a bad attitude. That’s why I was bad at it.

How did you know you had a bad attitude?

Because they fired me.

How long were you working there?

Maybe 6 or 7 months. I had a chip on my shoulder. I had a lot of mental stuff I was processing through. I’m a marine and I came back and no offense to these guys, and it wasn’t just. I was probably the typical arrogant EAS jarhead. I don’t know if any of these guys ever even shot their gun. Not that I did, but that’s the gang I was rolling with. It wasn’t the culture that I needed to be in.

When you said you came back with some stuff, which is common. That’s to be expected. What was your attitude for you where you’re like, “Something is not right?”

I didn’t know. I was unaware at that time. It took 10, 11, or 12 years. I’m still learning things about myself and what I was going through as I’m getting older, reading new things, and hearing new stuff. Guys don’t talk about this stuff. Personally, there are things that stay in you and you don’t talk about. There’s a shift. I exist all day. I want my guys to talk about it because there’s a problem out there. These guys are broke. I know why they are broke. I wasn’t in a lot of those broken situations. Not financially broke. Mentally broke and isolated. That’s where it’s like, “I got something that can help them in my own way,” because I can do anything I want to do. That’s what I want to do.

The Entrepreneurial Journey: Building Passion And Success

We are going to get to that because that’s what this reboot is about and you can feel it. I’m sure you guys can feel the passion coming, but what I want to get to is this entrepreneurial thing, and I know that we can’t talk much about it.

I will tell it in its own way.

What’s your entrepreneurial journey? What’s the attitude? How did you build it?

From nine years old, I was influenced by a grandfather who had a lot of businesses, from real estate to flea markets. I would work with him on the weekends and I had a booth and I would sell baseball cards to adults. I was in the game before the game was the game. That transpired into an entrepreneurial mindset. Always buy low, sell high. That’s the easiest way to get some freedom, and that was the attitude. How do I get freedom? That was always the value in life that I wanted and tried to achieve that more than anything, which is awkward because I went to the Marine Corps where there’s no freedom, and that’s why I hated it.

[bctt tweet=”Always buy low and sell high. That is the easiest way to get some freedom in entrepreneurship.” via=”no”]

There’s no creativity. “Here’s all your tools and you are expected to do it this way,” and I was like, “I’m just a robot. I’m whatever the hell number I am.” For me as a character, it doesn’t fit that story, but outside of that, I’d always been an entrepreneur. I got let go at the hospital. I went to work in a retail job. I got let go from there. It’s twice I’d struck out and I’m spiraling.

I’m at BW3 playing cards and no offense, but I’m not a card player, but that’s where I was, eating bad food and drinking all the time, and I didn’t know my self-esteem was in the gutter. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily one of the guys I was playing cards with was like, “There may be an opportunity for you.” He was working at the local Goodwill here in Indianapolis.

He referred me to their head of HR. A guy that was working in HR was a Navy guy. He got me and I got a job and it paid like $0.14 more, but I knew I couldn’t fail. I had to do everything. I was so embarrassed to come home to my wife and be like, “I lost my job,” because I’m like, “I’m a smart guy. How the hell am I losing my job?” That comes back to that reflection later in life. Now I know how I lost his job and what happened, but what I saw at Goodwill was the actual culture where there was investment.

Investment backing their people. I had to show up and do the work but the work was easy compared to the stuff that I was used to going through. I quickly got some leadership, and there’s one particular guy who saw something in me, and he gave me opportunities he didn’t give other people and I started leading. I worked my way up their corporate ladder into their HR ranks and started a career. I went to Ivy Tech and got an Associate’s degree. I went to Indiana Wesleyan and got a Business degree and a Bachelor’s. I ended up at Purdue University to get an MBA, but I didn’t go. That was the only education I quit after six months. I did it well, but I wasn’t looking to learn about business that way. Entrepreneurial classes are what I probably should have taken. I didn’t care about macroeconomics or accounting, and they do it at a high level. I was like, “I don’t want to be here.”

I left and went to Case Western Reserve, and that changed my life. Talk about attitude and positive organizational development. Positive psychology in a workspace. How do you get people to do things that? To me, it’s to add productivity. That whole class was on self-reflection. The entrepreneurship came in and I was already first in line at Ticketmaster to buy tickets to sell them for a couple hundred dollars more. I was determined. I was like, “I want to be rich,” and I knew Goodwill wasn’t going to do that. Goodwill was giving me rich in all of the good behavioral stuff and they do.

That community especially.

It’s huge. It turned me into a social entrepreneur and taught me how to do things in different ways. Through that, one of the jobs that I was given was I was asked to help keep their staffing company alive. They had this version of a staffing company where they charged employers for resources, and they took a markup like any other great staffing company.

I met a guy at a park while I was pushing my kid. He said, “What do you do?” I was trying to get sales. I was like, “Run a staffing company,” and he was like, “I will come and do this.” I did all this work with him. I went down, I saw saws, nails, and lumber. They are all lumber-heavy manufacturing, but dangerous stuff.

I went back to Goodwill and they were like, too dangerous, and I was like, “I’m broke.” That was my moral dilemma. What am I going to do? I went home and started my own business. I called that guy and said, “Do you care?” I don’t think I had a work comp. We had saved up enough money to buy a house. We were going to close in two weeks. I had to convince my wife to roll that money into payroll for this thing that popped up in our life. She said, “Yeah.” That wrote history. For many years, I was always in the employment space.

Even while I was working at Goodwill, I had this organization that was pumping and moving and it did well and it scratched all that itch, and it taught me a lot about how to do business. I was living these two lives where I was going to be the HR guy for this great nonprofit, but I also was an operations guy on the other side, and I put people in the right place.

It’s not like I was running it day to day. I put people in these places, but it got big. I’m like, “Goodwill was growing while I was growing.” I was like, “How can this be real?” People would always be like, “Why do you still work there?” I was like, “I don’t know.” I was always afraid to leave that place because it was like a church. They are doing so much good and their heads are in the right places.

Eventually, the crossroads hit and it was like, “It’s time for me to leave.” In 2022, I took off. That’s the gist of my entrepreneurial journey is that it’s not one thing, it’s who I am. I’m a builder and I like to build those pods, and you find out what you are building by how many people you help or how much money you make. I was helping a ton of people, but not making a lot of money at the Goodwill, but on the other side, I got to build something and it was cool.

 

I can’t help but think that Goodwill was maybe the fuel that was driving the car while you were growing.

A hundred percent, and there were so many people there and they are still there. They care and I had a great network. They did good. Leaving was a very difficult situation for me, and it was hard. Even when I left, I had to remind myself I didn’t get fired. It hurt that bad. Honestly, that’s what led me into The Reboot Project. I had to find myself because I was so lost that I was like, “I got rid of something I love. Why did I do that?” At the same time, it’s like, “I needed to do that.” I needed to transition into this new version, but I don’t need money. I was scared to leave the neighborhood that did so much for me. To some degree, this creation that I have done right now is like, “I have taken the best of all that and put it into something.”

Words Of Encouragement For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

I get accused of this and people have told me, “Be specific to be terrific. Stay in your lane,” and here you are working 2 jobs for 14 years. What’s your message to those people who are like us? They know something is inside of them. They know there’s more to me than this one job. I can do more, but people keep telling me to be specific, to be terrific, and stay in your lane.

I don’t believe that.

I don’t either. What are your words of encouragement to those entrepreneurs out there that are sitting there shaking their legs like we do and they are going, “There’s more to this in me.”

The first thing is don’t quit your day job. That’s a myth. If Goodwill hadn’t given me the stability my wife did not think I was crazy to follow this path. Before it got successful and scaled up, I started to learn how to do business at a different scale. It was everything for us. Still, my logo color for The Reboot Project is green. I bleed that brand. They do some amazing stuff at a scale, and now I look at it and I never thought when I left I’d be able to move that into anything.

For those that are working a job, if you are truly going to do something, you are going to do it in your free time and there’s free time. There’s free time to go to the gym. There’s free time to watch a movie with your wife. There’s free time. You have to make that free time happen. My advice is don’t quit your job and also don’t be stupid and think that passion and profits always intersect because they don’t. You are going to have to work a giant. I was taking donations at a Goodwill. That’s not my passion, and it didn’t equal a profit either, but it gave me bandwidth, growth, and opportunity. In my free time, instead of playing video games or doing those other things, I was working on my craft on the side.

The entrepreneurial journey was successful, and now you are in a position to be able to do what you want to do.

Still in the entrepreneurial journey.

Don’t stop that. Don’t quit your job.

Building this nonprofit is just as hard, even harder than running a business. Talking about having thick skin to go back to the startup phase. They are two separate books. They are two separate businesses. One is broken and my wife is like, “Quit feeding the broken machine. You need to fight some people to help out.”

[bctt tweet=”Building a nonprofit is just as hard, or even harder, than starting a business. Going back to the startup phase requires having thick skin.” via=”no”]

I feel you. University of Attitude. Have you ever heard of it?

I’m living it. Are you kidding me?

The Birth Of The Reboot Project

I know. I’m finding it. Let’s go there. It’s time because this is great for the veterans, but as I have looked into this, as a person, as an entrepreneur, and as anybody. What you are getting ready to put into people is pretty awesome. Number one, I got to know. When was the day you came up with The Reboot Project? Did it pop into your head or were you looking at a sign? I want to know. I love asking that.

It’s not just veterans. It’s also first responders. We use an acronym, HEROES. If there are firefighters, police officers, medics, or people who are there on the front lines, you are 100% qualified for the program. I want to talk to you because it’s hard to find those people. I have got the military. I’m looking right now for first responders.

How did it come about? I left Goodwill and did all the things that I thought I’d want to do, skiing, surfing, biking, and hiking like all the stuff that if I was an Instagram guy, there’d be cool pictures and they’d be like, “This guy is living the dream.” It was empty. That’s when I realized, “I have to find this purpose.” I was working with a company trying to craft my vision and social brand and all this stuff, and people don’t know me because I have been way off the grid or I have been this guy related to Goodwill. I was like, “I need to revamp this and do all this weird stuff.”

After the second pitch of Bryan Bush and me going, “That’s not my style,” I finally decided what my style was. I hired a bodybuilding coach, and I hired a nutritionist, and started working on my overall body and physicality. I started walking 25,000 steps a day. I was eating 6 times a day and I was eating my macronutrients, which are 200 grams of carbs, 200 grams of protein, and 70 grams of fat, and starting to feel like how my body is reacting to this. What happened is it gave me this new confidence to finally start to explore what’s next.

I don’t want to underestimate it. Leaving that job was like a divorce. When people talk about getting divorced, I imagine that’s what they talk about. My identity was wrapped up in the mission. When The Reboot Project, I’d call it the Bryan Bush project, but there’s no marketing. I have no idea. I look at the logo. I’m so proud of it. I went to a marketing team and I said, “I have got this idea. It’s called The Reboot Project, and I want you to make a logo that people would get tattooed on their body.” I told them, “Once we get $1 million in funding, I’m the first tattoo, but then everybody else needs to get one. I expect you to get one.”

Have you gotten your million yet?

No. I’m so far away from that.

It’s coming, but that’s the tattoo.

That’s it. Some variation of that. Reboot, it’s synonymous with unplugging and starting over and it’s what it felt like emotionally for me. It caught my attention. It’s a guy who has everything. All of a sudden I made a move that I needed to make anyway, and I felt like I had nothing. Who am I going to talk to? “I had this business success and then I quit my job.” Come on. I don’t have friends who are coddling that. They are like, “What’s wrong with you? I’m working a factory job in a smelter 70 hours a week, and you are at another dead show. Tell me about how your life sucked.” “I was miserable and depressed.” The Reboot Project, I built this to help me. I’m saving myself with this program.

 

Was there a day when you hit a reboot button? How’d you get the name? That’s what I’m getting at.

I wish I had a cool story. There’s no lore behind it.

Were you at a dead concert? You are like, “Yeah.”

No, I’m deep in the jams in the concerts. The Reboot Project, anecdotally, I knew this was the reboot. It was the change. It was me. I wish I had a cool story.

Transforming Lives For Veterans And First Responders

You never let the facts get away with a good story. You’ve trademarked Conquer Your Mountain. Talk about Conquer Your Mountain and what that could mean to the people. What does that mean?

Conquer Your Mountain has finally registered a trademark. We have to update our website, but Conquer Your Mountain is the program. It’s twelve months long. It’s macronutrients. It’s physical fitness. It’s the transformation of your life through building an intentional life plan. All of which is evidence-based. We have got a beautiful application. The application, we don’t taunt it because it’s the least important part of it. It’s the relationships between your coaches. It’s the intentional change theory. This is all evidence-based stuff. One of the perks of working at Goodwill is I saw what a good product is. I saw what it’s like to build something at a scale. I’m not the guy who comes up with this idea like, “I put these things together for a reason.”

I went and found the cheapest, best marketer I could find, and said, “Build a brand around this thing,” and I’m very proud of what he put together. It differentiates the level that we are trying to come out and swing on, but that’s Conquer Your Mountain. The idea was how do we offer this at first? It’s morphed. Pivots. The Conquer Mountain was for business people, and then this was the charitable arm, but I fell in love with the charitable arm. I have people all the time saying, “We could do this for this group,” and I’m like, “Yes we can, and yes we will,” but I got to get this thing up and running because this is what I’m focused on 100% of the time.

Some people are at the beginning of their quest, and you are right here with Bryan. Bryan is starting this, and that’s why it’s so fun that we are doing this because a few years from now, who knows what this is going to be. I hope that those of you out there who want to start your own 501(c)(3) or who are starting your 501(c)(3), see some synergy here and can learn. Do you have a clear five years? Do you know like, “Here’s how many people we want to help in five years?”

What happened was it started out that this was going to be what I did, and I was going to coach it, all of it, and do three people. Three people a year, and this will be cool, and I will take a little group of people out and we’ll climb up a mountain. I’m a builder like you. I build a lot of things. The only thing I notice is energy. The energy around this is insane. This is the first time my authentic self has shown up with no fear. The fact that I’m even on a microphone talking to somebody. This isn’t what I like to do. I can talk about it and be passionate about it, but to an audience that I don’t know, it scares the shit out of me.

It takes people like Josh and other people around me. They will spread the word and I can be like, “Shucks.” It’s because that’s how I feel, but I have five people in the program right now who have lost over 140 pounds. I have got a guy who’s enrolled in college, and another one’s getting a certification. All of them have different life goals, and it’s a real thing. I had a guy call me and say, “Tell my wife if this stopped.” I have already learned so much and had so many new opportunities. I’m a completely different guy seven months into this than I would have ever been on my own. Thank you.” I will show up for that every day.

There are tons of coaching and life-altering programs. You are another one. The cool thing about yours is first responders and veterans get to go through this program for free.

It costs about $10,000, and it’s money that I have put over to the side. Honestly, it’s not my money anymore. My accountant always reminds me, “You already took your tax deduction on this,” but I built up enough pot over on the side that this is what I’m doing. I’m not giving to these different charities. I’m creating my own infrastructure so I know exactly how it’s working and the level of transparency.

For so many other reasons, we are not a coaching program. As an HR guy, the last thing I want to even be associated with is being an HR guy, and it’s not because the HR people are bad, it’s just the stigma is different. It’s always like, “I’m an operator working in HR,” and I am. I am a guy who’s built some businesses and has done some things. I understand it on a different level. I’m a visionary, but I’m also a proponent of helping people get to where they want to go. I would do it for free and I am doing it for free. I did collect no paycheck. This is a break-even deal.

If a real estate agent wants to jump in on this program, they have to pay for it.

Yeah. Essentially, I don’t have a model yet of anything for a real estate agent to be in on the program. We have talked about it in a bunch of different ways, but when the right person comes around that will help front this and take it out to that sector, then I’m all for it, but the last thing I want to be doing is talking all day about this other sector, when this is where my heart is, this is where my tribe is. This is healing me.

GAPers, the ask today is to be a part of something bigger than you, with Attitude Booster number ten. If you know a first responder, if you know a vet who could benefit from this, what do they need to do right now?

Reach out. I’m easy to find be found. Find me on LinkedIn, Bryan Bush. I answer. I’m one of those people. I’m action-oriented. It’s not hard to find me. You can find me.

You can simply go to TheRebootProject.org and you can sign up and get involved there. Anything else you want to tell us about Reboot that would maybe inspire somebody to say, “I got a first responder that needs some help?” My guess is I have a dear friend who passed away at 42 and left behind a young man. You would probably help his wife if she reached out to you.

A hundred percent. In a lot of different ways. It doesn’t mean that they have to go through this program. There are so many different modalities out there. As I was telling you, there are 45,000 non-profits that are veteran-focused. A lot of them are around getting jobs, and you would think logically, why aren’t you the guy doing the job? I don’t have any energy to go out and find people work. That’s never been my passion.

There’s a great agency here in Indiana called INvets. They placed people for free because they were subsidized by the state. It’s amazing. For the first responders out here, it becomes our differentiation. Who are we? We are no bullshit. There’s zero bullshit, zero fluff that you are going to get from any other situation you’ve been in. If you think you’ve seen them all, give us a call. I promise we are different. We are evidence-based.

The guy who built the intentional change theory, I studied underneath him for a very short time, but long enough to remember that that’s the only thing I remember from that school. This guy roped his Magnum Opus. His 50 or 60-year study on intentional change theory. It’s scientifically validated. The first thing I needed to do when I built something was make sure that this wasn’t Bryan Bush’s coaching model because I can’t even tell you four other coaching models and I have a Master’s degree in this, but I still don’t know them because I don’t care. I know that I think that this is the best. Who are you today? Who do you want to be? GAP analysis. Go back, set a plan, get inside of a community, and experiment, but it all starts with a desire. That’s how somebody would even get in. You have to have a desire to win, and we don’t let anybody in.

Knowledge Through The Decades: Life Lessons And Insights

Guys, I bring our guests on because I’m here to help you bridge the gap from who you are to who you want to become. Bryan, you knocked it out of the park for us. We always like to do Knowledge Through the Decades. I know you’ve known a few of these. Maybe you’ve got some canned answers but answer from your heart because it’s always fun. Are you over 40 yet?

Yes.

We get four good answers from you. When we think about either your children or being born, what is the attitude lesson of being born, rebirth, or reboot?

The attitude lesson of being born. The question for you is when I have heard other people answer these because I did listen to some of your catalogs here. Is this me talking to myself or is this me talking to other people?

Whatever. What was the attitude lesson when your kids were born? What’s the attitude lesson of a new beginning? What’s the attitude lesson of rebooting? You’ve hit on it, but that’s what we are looking for. What have you learned about starting over? What have you learned when you saw that baby come out and you are like, “I’m a dad.”

Those are two different things. When the baby came out, I went, “We got a lot of stuff to start doing.” It was slow because I didn’t have a lot to do right away and the relationship that I’m in with my wife. When it comes to myself at that age, that answer already existed in me. I believe 100% authentically that every single one of us already has the answer to what we need to be doing. In ten years, we are flexing into these weird things. That’s why we try so many variations. That’s why I feel like I know about change. I have lied to myself for so many years about who I was. I got good at lying to myself and then I found myself and boom, it was like I was in the flow.

[bctt tweet=”Every single person already has the answer to what they need to be doing ten years from now. ” via=”no”]

I’m going to have to steal that. You were born with the answer. That sounds like the title of a good new book for me. That’s so deep. There are so many of you guys that are out there going, “I don’t have the answer. I got to come to the GAP.” Hopefully, the GAP will help bring the answer out of you, but I hope that you know that the answer lies inside of you.

To engage with the GAP community and to know about guys like Bryan, my mission and my hope is that we are helping you dig down inside to find that answer. Now, this is going to be awesome I’m sure. Ten years old. I bet you were something at ten years old. Tell me about your attitude lesson at ten. It would have been 3rd or 4th grade. Did you have an attitude lesson that hit you over the head when you were ten?

All into everything. A hundred percent all in nonstop. You talk about self-efficacy. I don’t think that’s something that grew with me. I was a ten-year-old with a ton of it. I always had a big sense of self and my skills never lived up to what I thought I could do.

Did you have a teacher, was there an instance, or did you overcome something when you were ten? Did you get in trouble?

Trouble didn’t start until I was in high school, but I had a teacher. I had two of them. My mom and dad kick ass. I have never had anybody believe in me more before I got married than those two.

You are twenty years old, you are out of high school, you are in the military. Do you remember turning 20? You talked about 21, but what was your attitude lesson when you were 20? Do you remember that?

No good. A bad attitude. Twenty years old, I was a punk. I was a punk from probably 15 to 20. Major punk and until the 21st of February, that was my 1st day in the Marine Corps in 2001. That’s when the punk started to wear off.

They undressed punks in the military. “We do not care who you are.”

We are all the same.

That’s a great attitude lesson. Thirty years old. What was going on? You are probably working in Goodwill. Did you have an attitude lesson that hit you over the head at 30? Do you remember your birthday at 30 or what was going on?

I do. I remember at 30. I think I had a year where I made $100,000 on a side business and I blew it all. I remember going, “Damn it. Why did I do that?”

Good attitude lesson.

It was a good attitude lesson. I remember I told myself, “If I ever make this money again, I’m going to save it.” That set the tone for the 30s.

Forty hits. Do you remember your 40th birthday?

I didn’t talk for like a month and a half before 40 and a month and a half after. That one hurt my ego. That’s when I realized that being old is something that’s going to happen. Not that 40 years old, everyone, because it’s not when you are 40. I often forget how old I am. When I think about age, it scares me. I’m always a guy who moves fast. When I was ten, I thought I was out of time. I have always been five years ahead. I retired from the workforce at 44. That’s what people do when they are 60-something. It’s all that angst and anxiety that exists with that.

You’ve dished it out for us. You’ve given us some great nuggets. You’ve given us things to think about. You’ve given us answers on how to move on. GAPers, if you know of a hero, if you know of a police officer, a firefighter, or a veteran who needs a change and reboot, please go to TheRebootProject.org or look up Bryan Bush on LinkedIn and say, “I have a candidate that would belong.” Aren’t you taking twelve people up a mountain here soon?

I got to ice climb and I’m going out. My life has turned into an adventure, which is great. What makes us different too is that if you are a participant in this program and you like to graduate and show that you did what you were supposed to do for yourself, the goals that you set. Part of our program is Conquer Your Mountain. We take you to Colorado. No expense. We lodge. We do cool stuff. You get to meet an amazing group of people. We climbed a 14,000-foot mountain. That’s my drill instructor. I served with Josh and then my buddy Steve. I met him at a Dead show in Mexico. We took him up a mountain.

The drill instructor looks scary as hell.

He’s a kind man. I love that guy.

Bryan Bush’s Powerful Message Of Hope

Bryan, we always end our show, with you speaking one-on-one with our audience and what we call a message of hope. What would you like to tell the GAPers and what’s your message of hope for them?

Quadruple down on yourself. No one is going to do it for you. You can outsource and people say all the time you need to trust and put faith in other people to get there, and I believe that once you get to a scale. When you have that idea, you get to work on your idea. I’m putting in 14 or 15 hours by myself every day because I see the vision. I know what it takes and I have the standards and don’t ever quit on yourself. That sounds anecdotal as hell, but I’m living it every day asking myself, “Is this going to work? Is it big enough? Is it good enough?” The answer is yes every time. Even as a guy who’s had success in business, I have the same emotional stuff that you do trying to start something brand new with maybe no win under your belt. Every new build creates a new opportunity to lose or win, which is irrelevant. It’s how you turn that into your next move, the confidence for your next move.

Such great advice. I’m ten years into the University of Attitude. I don’t even know. I need to get an anniversary. I need to give myself a cake. Bryan Bush, The Reboot Project, thank you so much for coming on the GAP and we appreciate you. We can’t wait to see you in a few years. Somebody in this audience, get us a candidate that he can take up and do a fourteen-tour spot.

We take business sponsorships up to the top with flags too. We have got some of that.

Let’s get some sponsors. If you are out here and it’s moving you like what Bryan’s doing, please give us a call. We will see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Bryan Bush on LinkedIn
• The Reboot Project
• Get Attitude Podcast on Spotify
• University of Attitude
• The ABCs of Attitude

 

About Bryan Bush

🏄Who I Am: Dedicated to a life rich in meaning, adventure, and friendship. With a little work sprinkled in too.

👨What I Did: Developed a strong sense of duty early on, which eventually led me to serve my country as a United States Marine. During this time, I honed my leadership skills, learned the importance of teamwork, and cultivated a deep appreciation for hard work, discipline, and dedication. My service instilled in me a profound commitment to making a positive impact, not just within the military but also within my community and beyond.

🎖️ After my honorable discharge from the military, I barely transitioned into civilian life, then pursued a career in Human Resources. Became a key member of one of the largest national nonprofit organizations, played a pivotal role in implementing effective HR strategies, ensuring that the organization could maximize its impact while also nurturing a culture of compassion and collaboration.

🔨What I Do Now: Driven by the desire to create innovative solutions to societal challenges in a new fashion, I left the traditional world of employment in 2022 and embarked on my entrepreneurial journey. Drawing on my diverse background and skill set, I founded two entities:

– 🏔️ The Reboot ProjectⓇ, a non-profit whose purpose is to aid and enrich the lives of our nation’s HEROES (military veterans and first responders) assisting with the transition to civilian life with absolute purpose through summiting the tallest mountains in Northern America.

– 🚀 ReBOOT USA, we deliver GAME-CHANGING Employer-Sponsored benefits to forward-thinking companies that want to showcase their greatness to the world and their team by building healthier, happier, and more productive workforce, benefiting both employees and employers alike. All profits go towards supporting The Reboot ProjectⓇ.