Cut to Coach | Brandon Burns Part 1

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Episode Topics:

• Discover the inspiring story of Brandon Burns’ rise from rejection to championship-winning coach.
• Gain valuable insights into effective coaching and leadership techniques.
• Learn how to adapt communication styles for impactful leadership.
• Explore the parallels between athletic coaching and business leadership.
• Get motivated by Brandon’s journey of resilience and dedication.

 

Rick Jordan  

Hey, what’s shakin, hey, I’m Rick Jordan today. We’re going all in. All right, we’re here and I’ve got an amazing guest for you today. We were talking a little bit ahead of before we hit record for today’s episode. And it was awesome because he’s like, I want to talk anything motivational. I’m like, You know what, that’s not me at all. Not at all. None of it. You know, if you’re listening to this for the first time, just take a listen to like literally all of the 400 episodes, and you’ll find that’s totally not true. So today, this is going to be an amazing synced-up in each other’s heads conversation with Brandon Burns, what’s shakin, Brandon?

 

Brandon Burns  

Man, I’m super excited to be here. Super excited to dive into this conversation. You know, I didn’t mention this before we hit record. But I think your content is super necessary in today’s environment. Because as I was checking you out when I was first introduced to your stuff, I was like, man, all of his clips are like 15 seconds or less. And I love it. Because you’re not trying to be super deep. You’re just trying to tell people the truth. And like, here’s what works in real life. So I absolutely love that. I think we’re gonna have some fun today.

 

Rick Jordan  

Thank you, brother. I appreciate that. You know, it’s interesting that I was just reading this week and going through with my team that tick-tock, and I think Instagram will follow because YouTube shorts kind of start as the algorithm is apparently starting to favor longer form content, like 90 seconds and more. Well, while what you’re saying is like, Dude, I totally agree with you. Because I love those bite-sized chunks. It’s like, I believe, and this is motivational stuff, right? I believe that those small things can make a huge impact on people’s lives. Because I know that have in mind, right? So those little things, it’s like you can sit down, you’re a keynote speaker, so you can sit down in front of an hour-long keynote, but it could just be one or two sentences that change your life for the rest of your life. That’s why I love that stuff. So thank you, man. Thank you. 100%.

 

Brandon Burns  

It’s funny, you mentioned that actually, I was just speaking at an event in Orlando this past weekend. One of the other presenters had maybe a 30-minute presentation that he gave, and he said this one sentence I’d never heard anybody say before. He said only dead fish go with the flow successes upstream. And we were there for three days, right? We were there for three days. I was one of the speakers. The only thing I remembered from the entire weekend was that one quote, I was like, that’s the freakin one. You know, and it’s so small and bite-sized. But it’s memorable. So no, I’m right there with you. There are little proverbs like little one-liners. Those are so good. Right on, man.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s interesting that you know, let’s talk about this a little bit here. First, let’s introduce everybody to you, right? Because I mean, you’re you’re a keynote speaker, as you said, you know, an elite athlete viral influencer with over 50 million views on social media. But I love this right-to-time, big 10 championship-winning coach. Can you tell me a bit about that?

 

Brandon Burns  

100% So, I was born and raised in a small town in Alabama, right outside of Huntsville. I started gymnastics when I was 10 years old gymnastics was my first love through and through love everything about the sport. When I was 18, I walked on to the University of Michigan. So I’m skipping a lot just so we can get to the meat of this. But understand I left everything right. I’ve never been more than one state away from Alabama, we grew up broke. So we never traveled anywhere. I’d been to Tennessee and Florida a couple of times, but never really gone far away from Alabama. Both my parents were sick. So I left I mean, literally left everything moved across the country from Huntsville, Alabama, to Ann Arbor, Michigan walked onto the team was cut four times and five years, when I say that most people think it’s like a Rudy situation where there’s this miraculous comeback on your five, it was actually the exact opposite. I was on the team, your one cut every subsequent year, time after time. And then I actually ended up staying in Ann Arbor for two more years. And I was to time Bucha and championship coach, like you said, from the same team that I was cut from so it was just a crazy journey to go from, as I like to say from cut to coach, tons of learning involved in that. A lot of stress, but a lot of lessons that came from it for sure. Yeah,

 

Rick Jordan  

no joke. Can we dive into that a bit? Because it’s intriguing to me, right? You get cut from the team, but yet at the same time, they see you as being able to coach, right, which is that’s is that like a lane thing? Or like a talent thing that you found out? Or what were your learnings from that experience?

 

Brandon Burns  

You know, I think it taught me to be authentic. Because what’s interesting is I knew from day one, that I wanted to be Phil Jackson and not Michael Jordan, right? And what I mean by that is, that I always had a very strategic mind, I could look at something and say, Oh, if you go cause and effect seven steps back, here’s the root cause of why that skill went wrong. And here’s exactly how to fix it. And here’s a step-by-step plan on how to figure that out. I was just naturally good at identifying those gaps and explaining that. On the competitive side, I hated competing, like to be honest with you. The only reason I even wanted to walk onto the team at U of M was that in my mind as an 18-year-old kid, I thought that was the only real way to stay involved in the sport of gymnastics, because I love practicing, I love training, I love getting better. I love the constant pursuit of excellence. I loved all of that. But you wanted me to get out there in front of hundreds of people in a big arena, and then have the super competitive and I didn’t like that. And I knew that that wasn’t really me. But in my mind, I thought, well, that’s it’s the only option. And that’s what everybody expects of me. Right? I thought that it would be looked down upon if I said, You know what, I think I can actually contribute to this team more as a coach, I would enjoy it more as a coach, it’d be less stressful, I would be more impactful. But I didn’t listen to that inner voice, you know, and I tried to do the competitive thing, I got really good in the process, learned a ton got disciplined everything else. But I was it was never meant. For me, I was way more effective as a coach from day one.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s intriguing man, because I’m even thinking like with business, right, because I’ve got some some of my own learnings I’m going through right now, the company just went public a few weeks ago. And as a CEO, with a company with a little under 100 employees, now we’re going to have double that and just probably about another six months, because we’re buying through acquisition, we’re growing through acquisition, and I start to understand it’s like I am, there are way better things that I’m a coach at, then there are things that I can actually do within the company. And I like to surround myself with those smart people. So I think it’s an important lesson there, man, because it’s, it’s still a coach’s job to help the team win the game. Or do whatever it is, you know, score the best points because you were talking gymnastics right to, to get the 10s all across the board to win the tournaments to do everything that they can do so that the team that you’re there can represent itself properly as a whole, as a unit, right, where I can see like the individual athlete or even like the individual performer and a business, those individual roles, there’s some of it towards wrapped up in yourself, versus a coach has to zoom out all the time. That is like the 100% focus of the coaches to zoom out all the time, versus being able to focus just on your own individual performance. It’s a completely different mindset, bro.

 

Brandon Burns  

It is I think it’s a matter of the ability to zoom in and zoom out almost simultaneously at times, right, because one of the biggest things that I learned just from a leadership perspective, going throughout that whole process was I had kind of assumed that because I was good at the technical aspects of coaching gymnastics, that I would be able to walk into the gym on day one of this new role, and it was just gonna work out for me like I was gonna start getting results immediately. And I kind of noticed from the bat, I was getting half of the guys really good results. And the other half, it was like there was this invisible barrier between what I was saying and then what they would receive. And I knew from a technical perspective, the things that I was saying were correct, but it wasn’t hitting home. And I learned pretty quickly that a shotgun approach, you know, maybe hit the target some of the times, but how much collateral damage you cause in the process. So I said, Okay, I gotta treat each one of these guys as an individual. So absolutely, I’ve got to zoom out, see the big picture, and be able to help make some of these decisions that may be on an individual zoomed-in level, these other athletes aren’t going to be able to make in terms of overall strategic direction. But also I’ve got to be able to still zoom in enough to be able to connect with each individual athlete and say, Oh, here’s how you prefer to receive communication. Here’s how it makes sense to you. Here’s what you’re motivated by, here’s what’s important to you, right? Because it wasn’t the same for everybody. I think from a business perspective, it’s exactly the same way. If you try one size fits all, it’s probably not going to work. Yeah,

 

Rick Jordan  

deliver our Convo is going so because I mean, for our listeners, it’s like I think some of them want to be that coach. Right. And also, I believe everybody, like I just dropped an episode or recorded the other day about like five things you need to do for this coming year, right? And one of them was gonna mentor, you know, which we could call a mentor coach. And in that, whether you’re going to be that coach or whether you’re looking for that coach, I think it’s so important with what you’re saying is you need to have one that has the ability to zoom in and zoom out. If you have one that’s just taking a shotgun approach, you’re only gonna get so far with that individual. That was actually one of the points that I made too. It’s like you can actually have coaches for a specific season of your life. And then you outgrow what that coach is able to give to you. And I actually hope that right even for you dude, even for me, I always hope that somebody outgrows what I’m able to teach them, which means they can move on and they can do bigger things and what I was even able to but I still contributed there’s no ego there dude. I still like a win. That’s still ingrained in me, right? But at the same time, it’s like cool, I taught you everything I cannot go out and do something greater and, and get a different coach who can actually pour something different into you that I cannot.

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, not 100% I think that a coach has to take part ownership in both the wins and the losses, right? Whether we’re talking about a CEO who’s leading a team or a company or we’re talking about an actual athletics situation. The coach is a part of both the win and the loss. Right, and it always used to strike me when I was coaching. It always struck me how many of these guys after a tough loss would stand there on a camera doing an interview and say, Well, I can’t compete for them. And it’s like, well, yeah, but when they when you’re talking about, oh, well, I gotta thank the coaching staff, and we all work so hard. It’s a team effort. It’s like, wait a minute, how come you put yourself in there with the win, but not with the loss, when we know the leadership starts from the top, you set the culture, you set the tone, you set the standards. And by the way, you are what those guys are modeling, those guys and girls are modeling whether again, coach of an athletics team, or the coach of a business team. I think that the reason I was able to get buy-in with a lot of my guys at Michigan Gymnastics, even though a lot of these guys were the same people who have watched me go from training with them to literally a week later on my hands and knees, cleaning trophies in the lobby of the gym, right in that transition period from being a cut athlete to them becoming a coach, you know, they were still able to respect me, because they saw the discipline, they saw the commitment, they saw the dedication, they saw the wrist surgery, the shoulder problems, and still fighting after four years of getting cut over and over and over again,

 

Rick Jordan  

even with your hand cleaning the right drill.

 

Brandon Burns  

Right, that was my rehab was just the feather right there.

 

Rick Jordan  

That was the image I had when you were saying that, right?

 

Brandon Burns  

But they saw that. And so I don’t think that you necessarily as a coach, you don’t necessarily have to be that person that has gotten all of the accolades, yourself. Now, you can’t just suck at whatever you’re trying to teach, like, you have to have a certain level of credibility with the thing itself, I was still top 1% in the world in terms of athletics, whatever, I just wasn’t able to compete at that particular level. So you got to have some sort of foundation there. But at the same time, they’re looking for a man, do I trust this person? Yeah. Like they’re looking at? Do I trust this person in their decision-making? Do I trust this person their commitment? Do I think that this person has my best interests in mind? And shows the personal qualities to led me there. So yeah, everything that you just said is spot on. Dude,

 

Rick Jordan  

I hope everybody’s listening to you right now. Because it’s still that world out there where everybody wants to be an influencer. Everybody wants to be a coach on Instagram. And everyone looks at someone like you. And it’s like, man, if if they can do it, so can I right, but you’re laying out some huge points for everyone that I that there has to be that foundation to begin with. There have to be areas and think about like keynotes, right, I’m going back to your shotgun approach, dude, do you think that the same criteria or the same lessons apply to when you’re on stage because that’s another thing that people look up to, it’s like, oh, I want to be on stage to, you know, I can’t wait. But that shotgun approach, even on stage is something that you got to understand, it’s like, half the people are gonna hate you. Because you’re just right off the bat, right? Because you have a specific message when you’re on stage. And that message is really only for like a subset of people that are in the audience, depending on not so much where you’re at, but even where they’re at. So it’s a little bit difficult to go walk into a room and understand, oh, this is where everybody is, unless you have a really targeted audience.

 

Brandon Burns  

Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned that one of my mentors or coaches in the speaking realm was Eric Thomas. And he still is one of the top motivational speakers in the world. And after that whole saga, you know, of getting cut from the team. And coming back to coach, once I left Michigan, I actually started my first job out of college as an unpaid internship with et, and climbed the ranks started out doing admin work and customer service for free and then got hired full-time initially, again, admin, because like literally spreadsheets all day long, right? climb the ranks, became his agent started negotiating gigs for him, he helped launch my speaking career. And now we got a couple of jayvees together just the crazy arc of that whole relationship. But one thing that I learned from him really early on was two things. Number one, exactly what you just said, you know, half the people are not going to like what you have to say. And the other half are only going to like what you have to say, if they believe that you are convicted, like, if you stand on it, and you really believe it, then you got that other half. If you’re kind of one foot in one foot out, you’re a little timid, then even the other half was resonating with the message, even, they’re not gonna like it because they feel like you’re just full of it, and you’re just there for the money or the cheque or be on stage or whatever. So step one, believe in what you’re saying from the bottom of your heart. Step two is and he learned this because he was a pastor before he was a speaker. And so he was accustomed to having a different message every single Sunday. Really? I didn’t know that. Yeah. So he was used to that same thing, having a different message every single weekend. Yeah. And so with our process, because I still do a lot of the booking for him now. We say, hey, client, what do you guys want? Like, what’s your audience struggling with? What are the takeaways that they need? What’s the context? What situation have you found yourselves in as a company as a team over the last six months, and then we build a completely bespoke keynote out of that? And I do my speaking the exact same way. To me, it just shows that you care more about your audience than when you write your book and do the same four points in 45 minutes, you know, for the next 20 years, you know, for sure,

 

Rick Jordan  

do there’s it’s funny you mentioned that as I was tapping, you know, most people listen rather than watch the Show and it’s like yeah, I was and regular listeners know that I was I helped plan three churches. And you’re right about that. I did stand up on Broadway a few years ago. And it was Yeah. But when I walked off right because it’s there’s a skill set so maybe there’s I don’t know, maybe there are some pastors listening today they’re like, you know, I want to expand and do whatever. They feel like they’re growing into a different area of their life. I don’t know. But when I was on there, you know, of course, there’s some things right as jokes when you’re in there the sizzle reels dude for stand up. There’s, there’s laughter they find the best spots and everything, and even like the Netflix specials, you know, they’re like an hour long for like fluffy, right? You go see him in person. It’s like two hours long because they’re only taking the best stuff and putting it up there for the for the shit for the whatever. But like a coach for that, I had a coach for that for stand-up. When I did this challenge. I had a coach for that, too. He’s like, Dude, you got that Pastor blood running through you? I’m like, What do you mean? He’s like, when some jokes didn’t land, it didn’t faze you, you just kept rolling like you were preaching a sermon on Sunday. That’s hilarious.

 

Brandon Burns  

Man, that’s a great skill set to have the hallmark of a pastor turn speaker or anything else is when you close for 30 minutes straight. All right, I’m getting out of here. This is my last thing. And then 30 minutes later, you’re still on stage

 

Rick Jordan  

to learn as a pastor, oh, my gosh, I have intentionally tried to eliminate that from all of my talks right there for the close for whatever, to end powerfully and swiftly. You know, that it has so much more impact, you know, at least I’ve learned since those days anyways, the first, the first lesson that you were talking about, for me to you know, tailoring the message to that specific audience. I think that’s something that in addition to having like five signature talks for a keynote speaker because you should have those, you absolutely should have things that you can go back to because then when you know them, I didn’t know what to get into speaking tips today. You know, when you get when you get to that point where you have those five signature talks, and you know them beyond memorization, you can start to have fun with them. You can interchange stories with those and everything. But at the same time, dude, that’s brilliant. I love your approach to be like, we’re gonna tailor it to everybody who’s in here today. And same thing, it’s like with the tea, he knows, it’s like if you read your audience, and all of a sudden, it’s like something lands really, really well. You might Within the first five minutes, you might throw out the remaining 30 minutes of your keynote and just focus on the depth of that one single point because of the response and where everybody’s condition of their hearts and their mind is in that room. Now,

 

Brandon Burns  

literally, and for anybody who might be listening, I don’t know if we have any aspiring speakers on here. But the way that I always teach people to do exactly what you’re talking about there, yes, absolutely have your core three to five keynotes that you can do in your sleep. That’s super important, especially for marketability, right? If you’re searching for other event planners, you can say, hey, here’s exactly what I talked about. But the key to being able to improv on stage as a speaker, is I always tell people to write down the top 10 moments of their life, write down the top 10 low points of their life, right, and then give me a story for each one. So for me, one of those would be cut from the team four times in five years, and one of the low points would be suicidal ideation when I was in my teenage years, right? So I have stories that go along with each of these, of how I got there, how I got through it, etc. Then give me three different morals of the story. So for the gymnastics thing, I can talk about work ethic, I can talk about staying committed, even when it’s not easy. I can talk about persistence, I can talk about resiliency, I can talk about getting back up like there’s a bunch of different nuanced little ways that I can break down that story and it changes the way that I deliver it. And then it’s like, it’s your life, so you’re not going to forget it. And now I’ve got 10 highlights and 10 lowlights with three different lessons attached for each put in a story format. That’s 60 stories that I can tell on stage. If it takes me 10 to 12 minutes to do that. I’m never running out. I don’t care what you want me to talk about. Yeah, I can do 45 minutes. anytime, anyplace anywhere. Right,

 

Rick Jordan  

dude, that’s brilliant. That tactical advice, dude. That’s amazing. Well, we’ve gotten directions that I hadn’t anticipated. Today, we ended up getting into coaching all the aspiring speakers and all of the aspiring what else did we talk about? The coaches. It’s like, wow, we’re just having such a good time. Alright, dude, let’s stop right there for today. Because this has been an amazing conversation. We’re gonna move into part two. Everyone. In the meantime, go check out Brandon because this has just been incredible. Even what he’s told you today has been just insanely awesome. That’s why we’re gonna have a sequel to this coming up at the very next dates, which will be in two days or it’ll be next week. One of the two. All right, Brandon. Dude, you’re amazing. Where can people find you in the meantime? Man,

 

Brandon Burns  

I appreciate that so much. All my social media is exactly the same. I am b burns on all social media or you can check out I am B burns.com.

 

Rick Jordan  

All right, part two coming up.