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About Brandon
For the past half-decade, my mission has been to serve others in helping them take control of their mind and body, to obtain the ‘edge’ they’re seeking; to help them live their purpose.
In my early 20’s I did well for myself; great job, nice car, beautiful wife, but I still felt empty. I didn’t know WHY I was doing any of it. My reasons weren’t good enough. Through many coaches, courses and self-education, I’ve found that fulfillment comes from taking what comes natural to you, and using it to serve others; the capacity at which you do this is completely up to you!
I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders and entrepreneurs to uncover their purpose, use it, and expand their influence so they can reach more people. I would love to work with you, to help you become unstuck, feel good about your work, and help you to truly make a difference.
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How To Change Your Life By Going ALL IN | Brandon Eastman
My guest has worked with hundreds of leaders and entrepreneurs to uncover their purpose, use it and expand their influence so they can reach more people. Have you ever felt stuck? You’re about to get unstuck because my guest, Brandon Eastman, is here. Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Rick. It’s a pleasure to be here.
I’m excited to talk to you because I have felt like this myself many times to where I can see this wall in front of me in business and I don’t feel like I can get beyond it. The crazy thing is I think put that wall there myself.
We tend to put ourselves in those situations but sometimes we don’t even consciously realize that that’s what we’re doing. We’re not even aware of it.
Why is that? Is it self-sabotage? What’s the reason why we put this own wall up in front of our own success?
It is self-sabotage in it. I’ve read books like The Upper Limit which talks about you accumulate a certain level of success and then a subconscious part of you is like, “Do we deserve all this success and this happiness and this fulfillment that we’re experiencing?” It causes us to bring these barriers and challenges into our lives. It makes me think of when I first realized that I was encountering these challenges. For me, I didn’t have any role models in my life. I didn’t have people who taught me how to set a direction, operate a business and sell. Sometimes it is that self-sabotage but other times it’s just the lack of education.
What kind of education are you talking about? You’re talking about role models. I felt the same way. The only role model that I had until I was sixteen, I feel, was my dad. He died when I was sixteen and then after that I’m with you. Until I hired my first coach, I didn’t have a real role model that jumped into my life.
The same for me. My dad was a great role model for me too. He’s always been a hard-working guy. He does construction, he builds houses. I’m the exact opposite of my dad in the sense that I’m not the guy out there building houses, framing. He was a role model in the sense of he taught me the value of hard work and the value of getting out there and going after it. I started doing that. The thing about that was my definition of hard work was making a lot of money. I did that. I was 18, 19 years old making the upper five figures. After my third year in sales, I was up to six figures. It was that for me though. I was making a lot of money or at least a lot of money for my reality at the time. I was unfulfilled in all the other areas of my life. I was overweight. I was negative. I wasn’t the guy that you’d want to have a podcast conversation with, that’s for sure.
When did you realize that you needed to shift your lifestyle?
I realized it when I was in my third year into sales, I wanted to continue making money but I didn’t have any goals for myself. I knew I wanted to be a leader. I had a conversation with my boss at the time. His name was Keith. He’s in great shape. He’s an energetic guy. I said, “Keith, I want to move up into leadership here.” For context, this is a wireless cellphone sales company, which you can do well.
You can make a lot of money there. I was eighteen and I have a $30,000 commission check from selling wireless in one month.
It’s a great industry to be in. Sales, in general, is a great industry to be in. It matters what company you join on that stuff. I told him I wanted to become a leader and he’s like, “There’s no way you’re going to be a leader.” I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Do you want me to be frank with you?” I said, “I’d prefer the honesty.” He says, “You’re overweight. You’re negative. You’re doing very well but no one wants to spend the time with you. It’s unlikely that you’re going to be a leader anytime soon.” When he told me that, I felt crushed, ego. Back then I was a high ego individual. My ego was brought down. I felt small. I felt little to the point where my decision at the time, I was 20 to 21 years old at this point, I was like, “I’m going to leave this company. I’m going to go to a different company who will treat me better. A company that will appreciate me where I’ll have the opportunity to move up into leadership.” As you can probably tell, it was the complete opposite mindset of what I should have had.
I feel you. There have been moments in my life too. I had the same thing that I share with you to where when I was overweight. It took somebody else telling me because there were so many that didn’t tell me. Thank God for the Keiths in your life. For me, I could say thank God for the drunk guy walking down the hall at the movie theater. Everybody reading needs to understand that. Pray for a Keith in your life. Hope to God that Keith drops into your life or your version of a Keith. In that statement, he was supporting you. It was straight-up honesty, not from a position of condemnation whatsoever but from support saying, “You need to have a starting line. I’m calling you out and saying this is your starting line. Will you start the race? Are you going to walk away to another company and not even jump in the race?”
He stuck by me. I was about to leave the company and they sat down with me, him and a couple of leaders who were above him even. They said, “Brandon, you’re making a mistake. You’re making $80,000 to $100,000 here. You’re about to go to a different company where you’re going to make half the amount of money. The commission structure is different.” I was like, “I don’t care. I want the opportunity.” They said, “If you are willing to work on yourself and if you’re willing to repair the rifts that you’ve created for yourself here, you can make something for yourself here.” I left. I’m driving home. Keith calls me again, he’s like, “I’m not just saying this because you’re on my team. I’m saying this because you’re a friend of mine and I care about you. I want you to give it one more shot.”
I said, “What do I need to do?” As cheesy as this sounds, he’s like, “I read this book several years ago in my life. It helped me to get out of bed.” Keith was bedridden at one point. He’s probably someone that you’d enjoy talking with in the future here. He read this book, which I’ve heard you talk about on your show before, your guests talked about it, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. He read The Secret. For those who might not have read it, it’s all about thoughts become things. It’s about the Law of Attraction. What you put out there, you get back and waits.
I was like, “How’s the book going to help me?” He’s like, “Try it. Read the book and practice what it says.” He gave me a copy. I started to follow the principles in the book. At first, I was like, “This is cheesy stuff.” If you want more money, think of checks arriving to you in the mail. Think of an abundance of money. If you want great relationships, imagine that you have great relationships in your life. What you think about you will get more of. I had no choice. I had to change something. That’s what I did. I went all-in on the principles that the book talked about. That was a major turning point for me.
When you started this path, I’m sure it took several tries to get on the right track. How many times did you fall off that boat? Did you jump overboard?
There were a lot of challenges. The first challenge isn’t even one that you’d expect. The first thing that I had to work on was my own emotions. I had to work on being conscious of the thoughts that I was putting out there. I was the guy where if someone made a giant sail around me or someone else was enjoying success, I would be like, “They must be lucky. They’re only getting that because that’s who they are.” I didn’t have the wherewithal to be like, “Maybe they’re a more skilled individual. Maybe they’re attracting that to them.”
The first thing that I had to get over was I did a complete 180. I was this negative guy but I started reading the book and I started to become very conscious of my thoughts, what I was thinking and how I was feeling more so. Emotion is the number one thing. The way that you feel brings more of those feelings to you. I became conscious of that. Within a week I was a pretty different individual. I was different because it wasn’t completely authentic at that time though. It was me saying to myself, “I’m not feeling great. What can I do to feel good?” I would start thinking about things that made me feel good.
The people around me were like, “This isn’t Brandon.” They called me fake. They said, “This isn’t who you are.” It was hard to hear that because they didn’t like me then. They don’t like me now when I was making these changes. I went around and I asked people like, “What is it that I need to do in order for me to mend this relationship of ours?” I literally asked the 7 to 10 people I worked with at the time that exact question. They said, “We want you to be there for us. We want you to help us. We want you to be a friend and not be this cocky 19, 20-year-old kid.”
After I had that conversation, I kept doing. I kept being conscious of my thoughts and my emotions. Within six months, my whole life did a 180. That was an authentic change. A week it wasn’t but 6 months to 8 months in, I lost 60 pounds at that time. I started going to the gym with Keith. He benched over 900 pounds. He’s one of the top in the world. He’s 220-pound weight class. Unbelievable. He wasn’t back then. He started bringing me into the gym with him. I started working out, started getting my body into shape. I was 260 pounds. I was pretty chubby. I was very obese. I felt gross. I didn’t feel confident. I wasn’t showing up. I don’t know your fitness story but it’s difficult to go all-in when you look in the mirror and you’re not happy with what you see. That was one of the first things I changed. It didn’t take six months for it. Once I started going to the gym for three weeks to a month, my mind started to shift, my finances started to get themselves in order. Everything changed for me.
It’s so key to make that first change something that you can see. You chose weight, I chose weight but it doesn’t have to be necessarily weight. It could even be something as small as at your desk, the arrangement of your desk to say, “There’s a shift in my life. I’m going to put something on my desk that’s an anchor point for me from here going forward.” I don’t know what that is. For me, the shift for anybody to make that lifelong change has to be something that’s visible. It is your environment. Your environment can be that mirror that you’re seeing in yourself every single day. It could be something simple that’s on your desk or change the paint on your walls. Do something that’s visible to mark that from now forward things are different.
You mentioned your watch and how when you wear your watch, it gets you into a specific state of mind. That watch for you is that one thing that’s like, “I went all in and my level of success got me this point.” It sounds crazy but for me, I was nineteen and balding. I was losing my hair. I was in complete denial of it. I was like, “I’m not.” People would literally point it out and they would touch the back of my head and they’d be like, “You’re balding. It’s right here.” It was the worst feeling ever. I always tell people, “My identity shifted once I started going to the gym and I grew a beard and shaved my head.” It sounds weird. If any one of your audience is going through that, it’s a game-changer.
It’s something you can see. That’s what I’m saying. It can be anything. You made a huge shift in the first week. You said over six months, you’d lost 60 to 80 pounds. You don’t lose 60, 80 pounds in a week but you can shave your head. You can grow a beard, for a dude, you can change the paint on your walls. It’s still something visible to mark that shift.
You’re right where you say you can’t lose it in a week. In that first week, the biggest thing for me was I decided what I was going to do. Up until that point, my only decision was I want to make more money. I bought the brand-new BMW, the nice suits, the nice watches, Movados, all those things. Not a $30,000 watch but nice watches. I felt empty still. I had all these things but I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do with my actual life. Once I started going to the gym and being conscious of how I thought and building great new relationships and earning more money as a result, that’s when my life started to change. That’s when I started to move up into leadership with the company that I was in. In that first week, that’s when I decided to go all in. I said, “I’m not going lollygag around. I’m going to do something. I’m going to make something of my life and make something of my career here.”
How did that transition take place for you? What happened when you made that shift in your job or where you were working? Would you see it transpire?
Once I made those changes, it was about five months in and I wasn’t even pursuing leadership at the moment. I was just doing my thing. I was selling phones. I was working with the people around me. I was approached by leadership and they said, “Brandon, it’s been five months. You’ve made big changes in your life. What are you looking to do?” I said, “That’s a great question.” I knew I was great at sales. I knew I love training people. I said, “I want to train salespeople.” They said, “Your trainee will come on next week. We have someone that’s literally being onboarded now.” I started training people. It led to me training one person to then training a team of salespeople in the Albany, New York market. It was about 17 to 20 salespeople. I did that for six months.
That’s when the dream job opened up for me. My ultimate goal at the time was to be the new hire trainer, which all the new salespeople that came into that company I would be the face of the company, the guy that they saw, the guy who taught them how to sell, the guy who taught them how to show up, how to be presentable, how to feel confident, set goals and all these things. That was like the seed being planted for what I would do with my business now, for who I would become now and for what I’m doing now. I realized that I don’t just love training people in sales, I love to train people and the things that I did in my own life through the guidance that I received, to be conscious of my thoughts, to attract what I wanted. These things aren’t taught. I’m grateful that I had a Keith come into my life to show me these things because I meet so many people in their late 20s and early 30s, even some people in their 40s who have no idea what they want. They just go through the motions of everyday life not because they don’t want more but because they’ve never had that person, that resource or whatever it might become into their life to help them make that transition.
I’ve come to realize too that even when you have that person in your life, it could be the fact that what you’ve found already and what you’re doing could even be your purpose already but you don’t even realize that you’re in it yet. Somehow, things have worked out to your benefit over the course of the years. You’ve been guided down this path that is your path. You could feel unfulfilled for one, you haven’t found your purpose yet like a lot of people out there. Two, you may have found it and you’re in it but you don’t even realize it because you’ve put that wall up. You still need a Keith either way. You can be in the right position and not understand that, “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.” It’s because now you’re desiring yourself and either way, you’re running from yourself.
I had to try a lot of different things to figure out that that is what I wanted to do. I had to have a lot of those life experiences in order for me to figure that out. It sounds cliche but I’ve found these people in this space that I started to admire and started to follow. People like Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins and Les Brown. All these gurus and people who spoke insights and ideas that I’d never heard of before. At that point in my life, I was like, “I don’t care. I’m going to try anything that’s different than what I’m doing right now.” I want to get some kind of different results. After listening to these individuals, this is while I was training all those new salespeople. I did this for four years. I wanted to do what they did. I wanted to be the person who hosted events where I had awesome guests, speakers and trainers come in to help thousands of people.
That’s when I started to transition to what it is I do now where I help people to achieve self-mastery. It started because people were asking me, “What did you do to lose the 60 pounds? What did you do to eliminate the $20,000 in credit card debt?” Which was a lot for me at the time. I didn’t get sick of telling people but I was like, “What if I could put this into a book or put this into some kind of resource that I could give people to give them the strategies that I used?” That was the turning point that led me to where I am now.
Where do you start with people who come to you to where they say, “I don’t know my purpose. I don’t know what to do.” What’s the starting point for everybody that you coach?
There are a few different things. The first thing that I would ask somebody who felt like they were floating through life is what is it that you want? It sounds like a cliche question but a lot of people don’t have the answer to that. You ask a lot of people, what do you want? They look at you and a lot of people even say, “What do you mean by that?” It’s like, “What do you want your life to look like five years from now? A lot can happen in between. I think of where you were five years ago, it’s huge leaps and bounds.” I remember where I was a few years ago and it was me starting to build up to who I am now. People, it gets them to think and visualize what will your life look like in a few years if you had the ultimate perfect lifestyle for you. A lifestyle where you would feel good, a lifestyle where you felt fulfilled, anything that you want. Imagine there are no limits, no financial barriers. That’s the first thing.
I would have someone take a pen and paper and literally write down exactly how they wanted their life to look. I asked them to help them determine what the vehicle might be to get there, “What are you good at? What are your unique skills? What are you passionate about?” Passionate not just being like, “I love to sing but I’m not a great singer.” What are you passionate about? What is the change that you want to see in the world? What do you want to see differently? For me, that was the education system. It’s not that the education system a bunch of evil people, not the case whatsoever. I feel like we weren’t necessarily taught what we could have been taught growing up. We were never taught about goals or how to get in shape.
You went to gym class. You kicked a kickball. You had fun with your friends but we didn’t learn the things that could help us to shape our life into who we could be. We were told to go to school, go to college, get a degree, get out, find a career to pay off that debt. Hopefully, you like the career that you choose and find a job in an industry that your degree is even in. There’s so much uncertainty with the education system. For me, it was, “How can I help people who were in the same position as me?” I would ask them, “What do you want? What are you good at? What are your unique talents? How can use those talents in order to help and serve other people who need them?” That’s what I’d recommend for someone.
What about the individuals that start out by saying, “I want to make more money. I want to have financial freedom. I want to have a bigger house.” How do you redirect them from those very inward–focused questions to what they’re truly designed? Those are surface–level desires. I know that. How do you redirect and reframe them?
I think about me, I had a 2012 Kia Optima. I loved the car. It was a great car but my boss Keith had a BMW. It was a brand-new BMW. It was silver. It was beautiful. If someone had told me, “That car is not going to make you happy. Don’t go for the car. Don’t go for the house. Don’t go for any of that. It’s not what you want.” I would’ve probably looked at that person and be like, “You have no idea. You want different things to me.” It wasn’t until I got the car. I still have a brand-new BMW. I love it. It’s something that I wouldn’t want to get away. It’s that visual for me. I walk out, it’s all blacked out. It’s got the black rims. It wasn’t until after I had it that I realized, “This isn’t going to make me happy.” It took me having it to realize that it wasn’t that. I don’t know a great way to reframe that other than, “Go for it. Make more money. Do those things. Get those things. Maybe once you have them, you’ll determine whether that is what’s going to bring you that satisfaction.”
I’m playing devil’s advocate with you since you’re into cliche is your money won’t solve all your problems. I always like to say it sure helps. There’s nothing wrong with desiring to want to make more money. There’s nothing wrong with desiring to want to have financial freedom or have a bigger house. Those should almost be like symptoms of you driving after your purpose. They’re like the side effects. What do you want? You want happiness, connection and be supported by people. You have all these things and you’re throwing that into the world, I feel like that’s what the world ends up giving back to you. It’s because, in order to achieve greater plateaus, money now becomes a tool. I’ve said this before on the show too where that helps you get to those next levels. It does help. I’d rather be rich than poor. That’s the truth for anybody. I’m not going to say that I don’t want more money. I always think back to Billy Madison or something like that too, he’s like, “Money, I have some. I’d like some more.” That’s where you come in. When he’s interviewing for a job.
When I was in debt, when I wasn’t earning a lot of money, even when I was but I had the debts and I had to throw that money towards them, it was very difficult for me to think about what the next step was going to be for me. It’s hard to future plan and to go all-in on anything if you look at your bank account and every time you look at it, you get that sinking feeling in your stomach. It puts you in a bad state. For someone who doesn’t even have an idea of what direction they want to go whether it’s their career or personal life, their business, whatever it might be. The number one thing you can do is do whatever it takes to get yourself into a great state of mind as often as possible.
When you’re in that great state of mind where you can determine what happiness even means to you because I feel like that’s not a question we ask ourselves either like, “What makes me happy? When do I feel most successful in my life when I’m doing these specific things?” Personally, for me, I feel most successful when I’m creating content to post on YouTube. When I’m talking with you now because I know this might reach one person who might read something we say that says, “I’m going to do that. I’m going to completely go all-in on this concept, try it and see the result that I get.” If it does that for one person, that’s the ultimate use of our time is making a tangible difference in somebody else’s life.
Being a risk–taker is part of being an entrepreneur. When you’re guiding people along with your coaching plan, however you do it, they get to the point of the word that they’re not ready to step over the edge. I know it because as a coach, even when I see potential in people, I can see that the breakthrough is right there on the other side of taking that risk. How do you help people cross that threshold to be like, “I am going to go all–in now. I’m taking this risk.”
You just got to do it. It’s like when you go out to eat with somebody and they’re like, “I’m not going to try that sushi.” It’s like, “Why aren’t you going to try it?” They’re like, “It looks gross.” They try it, 50/50 they might like it, they might not. It’s the same thing for anyone trying to do what they want. At that point, if they’re still tentative about taking that step, it truly means that they haven’t yet decided that that’s what they wanted to do. To give you an example, for me, that moment of taking that step to go all-in was when there was a course that was released, it was called the Knowledge Business Blueprint. At this time, I then became the Training Director for the entire state of New York for this sales company, where I created all the training. I was doing well for myself but I still knew I wanted more but I didn’t want to go to the next step in the company.
This course came out. The course was $3,000. For me, at the time I was doing well but that’s still a pretty solid investment for somebody who’s even making $100,000 a year. I knew I’d have to sell my wife on the idea. I knew I’d have to fully sell myself. That was that moment for me where I said, “I’m going to do it.” I pulled my credit card out. I typed in the numbers and I bought it. I got that sinking feeling at first of, “I did this.” I knew that after I did that, I would have to go all in. I knew that I would have to go through the entire course, do what it said. My wife was all in with me. She was like, “If it’s what you want to do then do it.”
It’s a lot easier if you’ve got the support system. It’s a lot easier if you’ve got the coach, the mentor and the spouse where I’ve been blessed to be with my wife since I was seventeen. Now, we’ve been married for several years. I’ve always had that support. For me, it’s always been “easy” to go over that threshold. For others, the answer might be to get around people who were doing that and find people who are also taking that step over the threshold because seeing them do it is going to be pretty inspiring and most likely motivates you to do the same thing yourself.
Seeing people around you take that position of strength and move into it helped me because when I dropped weight, I saw a lot of people around me dropping weights. For me, it was even a documentary, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. I’ve mentioned this before too where that’s one thing. I started asking like, “Do you juice?” “Yes.” I’m like, “No wonder you’re looking pretty good.” That was a big reason because I started asking the questions. That’s a huge part of this too because if you don’t understand where to begin, it’s okay that you don’t know where to start as long as you can ask the questions. There are people around you that will have the answers. If they don’t have the answers then that’s okay. Find different people. That’s perfectly fine too. What motivated you to focus on entrepreneurs specifically? You’ve come from a sales and corporate background. How did you shift over to entrepreneurs and saying, “This is who I want to help?”
I love to help entrepreneurs. I also do love to help leaders inside of companies too because I feel that entrepreneurs now exist outside of companies. I feel that entrepreneurs exist inside of companies. I love helping those individuals because not everyone is meant to go do their own thing and start their own business. I do believe anyone could do it to a degree. I feel it’s for the right people. I feel like other people might be better off being inside of a company continuing to grow with that company. I believe that there are some people who just want to sell and make money and pursue their own personal goals. What helped me to transition over to that was after being in this for a few years, I wanted to help the person who I was when I was trying to figure out this whole entrepreneurship thing at the very beginning. Starting my own personal brand, creating the website, the branding, that first piece of content, that first podcast episode and clicking upload. I’m sure you remember the first time you put yourself out there and said, “The world can see what it is I’m doing.”
You go back years later and say, “I sucked.”
I did that. I said, “I want to help people who are going through that same exact time that I went through.” I love helping people with that. What I do mostly is I work with companies and help mostly entrepreneurs inside of businesses. I help sales teams to make more money but I also help the leaders of those sales teams to do the same for them. I help them to make the transitions that I’ve made myself.
I truly feel too because there’s a key phrase that you said in there, you helped them make the transitions that you made yourself. It’s difficult to lead somebody to someplace. I’m not saying it’s impossible because some people are intuitive like that, they can see strategies and pull knowledge from other areas. It’s difficult to guide people to a place that you haven’t been on your own already. That’s for all the leaders that are out there. It’s almost like you can’t skip the steps in that area because unless you gain the experience on your own, you need a multitude of people around you to give you the guidance for that and then you can step into it. You can then bring a multitude of people under you. You need a multitude of people around you before you need a multitude of people under you.
It’s important too to understand that no matter who you are, you have something about you that you can use to help other people who were even in the same situation as you. You don’t have to be 500 steps ahead in order to help somebody and be perceived as an expert. I feel like this idea of self-sabotage and of imposter syndrome, it’s a factor of thinking that you don’t necessarily have what it takes to help people but ask yourself how far ahead am I. Even if it’s one step ahead of somebody else, you can do a lot in order to serve somebody else with that one small step.
You’ve inspired me. I appreciate the conversation. You’re going to help me level up. You’ve also inspired me to have sushi for lunch. Thank you. Where can everybody find you?
They can find me on my YouTube channel. If they type in Brandon Eastman on YouTube, they’ll find me right there. They’ll see my face pop up. If they want to find me on my website, they can go to BeBetterIndustries.com. Type in your name and email. I’ll send you over a copy of my book which talked about how I made those personal changes in my own life.
Brandon Eastman. Thank him and find a Keith in your life.
Thank you so much, Rick.
Important Links
- Brandon Eastman – YouTube
- The Upper Limit
- BeBetterIndustries.com
- https://TinyURL.com/fdwefh2v
- https://www.IMDB.com/title/tt0112508/
- https://Linktr.ee/mrrickjordan
- iTunes – ALL IN with Rick Jordan
- Castbox – ALL IN with Rick Jordan
- Google Podcasts - ALL IN with Rick Jordan
- Spotify – ALL IN with Rick Jordan
- Stitcher – ALL IN with Rick Jordan