00:00
What percent of men could get through it? I think 80% of men can get through it. There's a but coming. It's whether you want it or not. I say that transitioning from the military to civilian life is the hardest military mission I've ever been on. Failure is been the biggest teacher of my life. The hardest part of ending is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.

00:29
Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm excited today, folks. It's a first and only it's a world premiere on the Radcast, the first badass Navy SEAL. What's up, William Branum? How are you doing? Thanks for having me. Hey, man. It's my pleasure. The more you know, it's funny. You start talking with people. We start having people on the show. You get to know them like behind the scenes. And I was like and I was like, I didn't do this enough service, but like

00:58
Last couple of weeks reading up on you. I'm like, damn, this guy is number one. Thank you for your service. Thank you very much. 26 years, brother. Yep. I mean, dude, I mean, we owe you a lot. I'm serious, man. I mean, but 10 deployments. Yeah. 10 total deployments. Seven of those were combat deployments. Yeah. Jesus. I mean, I know we're going to get to a lot of things. I know you're the CEO of naked warrior recovery. Write that down. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to come back to that.

01:27
Uh, and I am actually just going to go ahead and break the seal here. I'm having a little bit of product on set, which is Navy seal, CBD energy drink, and I'm going to let you know how I feel at the end of the show. It's so good. It actually really tasty. They have William. I'm I'm, you know, flavor profile on these energy things is kind of hit or miss. Right. Yeah, it's it is true. So we're going to come back to that. I want to talk to a man.

01:53
We've got to, you know, I have a lot of people on that I'm like, Hey, tell me your backstory and you know, I care about all of them. I, and I want to know in the, in everyone listening wants to know. But again, they weren't Navy SEALs. And I know that, you know, I, you know, I'm excited about that and all and act like that's like just some movie star thing or something like that. But I know the sacrifice having grown up with military and the family and not at 26 years of service, but

02:21
I do want to start there. Just, you know, give everybody your history, you know, maybe before military, but certain leading to it. Yeah. Uh, so I grew up in a little town, Collinsville, Mississippi, right outside of Meridian, Mississippi. Not a lot there. I was heavily involved in the boy scouts. I enjoyed hunting and you know, most things outside. I became an Eagle scout. I always knew that I wanted to be some sort of a commando, whatever that meant. Back in the day, I'm the oldest person in the room right now.

02:50
We had no internet. We had, I had four channels and two knobs to figure out how to get there. So there wasn't a lot of books out there either. I was not a great student in school. I later found out that I am total ADHD and, uh, that's just, you did, we didn't get diagnosed back then. I'm 44. So like, you know, we're not that far apart. They didn't really diagnose it back. I didn't get diagnosed until, uh, much, much later when I did a, you know, towards the end of my career, I went to a clinic to, uh, you know, look at.

03:18
TBIs traumatic brain injuries and some PTSD stuff. And you know, we did a neuropsych eval and they're like, oh, your IQ would be here but your attention is down here. And if, you know, it's like one to a hundred and anything below 25 is attention deficit, I was at 25 on every single one of the, so I'm like, I'm in that gray zone of like, oh, maybe you're not. I'm like, really? Let's just look at the scores. So, but anyway, I grew up watching John Wayne.

03:48
Westerns. You know, he was a he made a movie about being a green beret in Vietnam. John Rambo, Chuck Norris made a movie about Delta Force where they were riding dirt bikes and shooting rockets. And I'm like, dude, I want to do that. I still want to do that. So I've had an opportunity. Yeah, I've ridden dirt bikes, just haven't shot rockets off the front of them. Did you shoot some rockets? We shot some rockets. All right. Yeah, a lot of stuff. Yeah. And, you know, G.I. Joe was like, whatever. Oh, yeah. Back in the day. So I always wanted to be part of some.

04:18
small military elite unit. And I don't even know if I knew the word elite back then. But so I went to a national jamboree in the Boy Scouts and it was at Fort AP Hill, Virginia, where I later came back and did a bunch of training as a SEAL. And the sister troop that was there with us, and I was very poor, but I was very involved in the Boy Scouts. And so the Boy Scout group that I was a part of, they actually paid for my.

04:47
traveled, you know, we went up to DC, we did the jamboree, we came down, we did some whitewater rafting, we did all sorts of events, and it was super cool. But one of the other guys in the sister troop that we went with, I said I wanted to be, you know, maybe an Army Ranger or a Green Beret, I didn't really even know what those things meant, or something else, and he was like, I'm gonna be a Navy SEAL, and I'm gonna be an F-14 fighter pilot. I'm like...

05:11
Oh, I know what an F-14 is. I've seen the movie Top Gun, that's pretty cool. What's a Navy SEAL? He's like, oh, they're like special forces, but they are more focused on the water and they're the most elite and it's the hardest training in the world. And I was like, oh, that's what I wanna do also. Yeah, even though I wasn't, I didn't play sports because my dad said my grades weren't good enough.

05:33
I still had the desire to be a part of an organization that was better than anything else. That's why I became an Eagle Scout. I was always trying to excel at whatever I was doing. So I'm like, oh, the hardest military training in the world. Let's go. I did not intend on joining the Navy, but you cannot become a Navy SEAL unless you join the Navy. My dad was in the Navy, my grandfather was in the Navy. There was a Naval Air Station in the town of Meridian. And I always saw these young Navy...

06:02
kids right out of boot camp, they were a bunch of idiots out in town, obnoxious and what, I was like, I will never be one of those guys. Well, guess what? I turned into one of those guys, but it's just part of the process and hopefully people forgive me for being what I was. An arrogant seal? I've never been an arrogant seal. I don't think. Most guys, not all, but most guys, once we...

06:26
You know, I had aspirations of like having a, you know, a trident tattooed on my chest and all these other things. And what they really teach you is to be a silent professional. And when I retired from the military, most of my time in the military, I didn't tell anyone what I did unless I needed to. If you were like, let's just say we were on a plane and we're chatting back and forth, what do you do? Oh, I'm in the Navy. What do you do in the Navy? I was a gunner's mate and no big deal.

06:56
If they kept pinging me, then I would say, OK, yeah, I'm a seal. But if they were like, OK, yeah, whatever, Navy, I don't know anything about it. So they didn't really show the interest. So I'm like, OK, I don't I don't need to divulge more than you need to. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so when I got out, it was very hard for me to like even tell people that I'm that I was a seal for 26 years. It was actually was 23 of 26 years. I had to pay some dues before I actually got to to seal training. But because I made some tactical errors along the way and I almost didn't get to go.

07:25
How tough was SEAL training? Like what percent of men could get through it? I think 80% of men can get through it. Yeah, there's a butt coming. It's whether you want it or not. And this is kind of the analogy that I use is when I showed up, I was in mediocre shape. I'm in better shape now than I was when I showed up into SEAL training. There were guys there that were phenomenal athletes and everything that we did physically, they seemed to...

07:55
it seemed to be effortless for them. But mentally weak. Yes. You know, I had Olympic alternates in my Buds class and they quit and I couldn't wrap my head around it. You know, Buds is six months long. I got injured several times, so it took me 13 months to graduate six months, to finish six months of training. And I'm watching these guys quit and I'm like, what are you doing? Like, this is like, do you understand the repercussions of quitting?

08:23
You're going to go to the fleet. You're going to like ride on these big gray ships that is I did that for two years. It's absolute misery, but some people love it But there was no thought of not graduating from SEAL training. There was like Unless I died And there was one time where I was injured the second time and they're like, oh you clearly didn't prepare enough We're going to kick you out. But because it took me so long to get there. I just started crying and I told the story of

08:48
So the way that I actually got to SEAL training is I went to bootcamp, I took the SEAL screening test, I failed it because I didn't prepare. Then I went to my A school, which was a Gunners Mate school where you learn how to do hydraulics, electronics, and pneumatics. Then I went from that school to another school and this was my tactical error. What I should have done is gone and taken the SEAL screening test again, passed it and then gone to Buds.

09:13
but I took this other school where I thought I would have four more months to get in better shape than take the screening test and go to SEAL training. But what happened is because I took those orders, I was obligated to 24 months of service on a ship in Yokosuka, Japan. Well, when it came time for me to rotate out and go to SEAL training, the guy that tells you, like the HR guy of the Navy, that tells you what your next job is gonna be, he said, that's great that you wanna be a SEAL, but I'm not gonna let you go because this.

09:41
four-month school that you took once upon a time, you're too critical, you're too critical of an asset to the Navy, so I'm not gonna let you go. Wow. I got letters of recommendation, I got all this other stuff, he wouldn't let me go. Until one day, the chief of naval operations, who's the most senior guy in the Navy, the only people that are senior to him are, is the secretary of defense and the president of the United States. Most senior guy in the Navy came to my ship, little ship in Yakuza, Japan.

10:08
and had CNO's call and he was like, so does anyone have any questions after he gave his vision of the Navy and whatever, which I did not care about. And so I raised my hand, he's like, hey, does anyone have any questions? I was like, oh, me, this guy right here. I joined the Navy to be a SEAL, I think I deserve a chance to go, but my detailer won't let me go. What do you think, I think I deserve a chance. He turns to my commanding officer, he's like, is he a good guy? He was like, yeah, he was a sailor of the quarter this quarter, which is kind of like employee of the month. So I did a good job, you know, doing my job.

10:37
And he turns back to me and is like, check, you'll be in the first class after your PRD, and which is planned rotational date. Six weeks later, I'm off to California to seal training. So now I'm injured and they're like, sorry bro, you need to go back to the fleet. I'm like, no, no, no, hold on. If I leave, I may not have a chance to come back ever. Cause the CNO, actually that CNO took his own life several months after that, which was tragic. So I'm like, I will probably never get another chance. And so they're like, okay, go back, heal up. And while I was going through, I never healed up.

11:07
going through the next class, my back was against the wall. So my leg basically didn't work. So I just was hobbling everywhere. Everyone hobbles. I was taking 1,600 milligrams of ibuprofen three times a day. At each meal. I was trying to do it smart, like take it at least with the meal. And I was barely getting by, but I got by enough in order to start Hell Week. And so eventually I,

11:37
We got through hell week. I had been limping on one leg for the last eight weeks. And somehow just during hell week, it healed up. Wow. And then because of all the limping I had done, I had created a bunch of stress fractures on the other leg. So I graduated hell week and then I couldn't run from the other leg. But because I had made it through this milestone of seal trading, they rolled me to the next class. And so.

12:04
But it was interesting. I was at Bud's for like six months before I made it to Hell Week. And that boat crew that I started with, they were...

12:13
they didn't have the same desire that I did. I wanted to crush everything that we were doing. There were guys that still were wanting to quit and not wanting to put out and not put forth the effort. And I saw another boat crew, boat crew three, I was in boat crew four at the time, boat crew three, they were winning all the races. So Monday night, evening of Hell Week before dinner, we had lost enough people, like I remember this one kid, he's like, I don't wanna do this anymore. And guys are like, no, no.

12:40
keep going, you got this. And I'm like, no, no, you need to go. I, in the beginning, when I first started, I would have had the same attitude. But now I have like, I'm like, I have no patience. You're in my way now. Let's go. You don't wanna be here, leave. Little bit callous, but that's okay. And really that's what you want. You want people who wanna be there. And so we did a, you know, we had enough people quit at that point. We got new boat crews. We, you know, you line up in a hotline.

13:07
And I was like, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, that's boat crew one, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, boat crew two, one, two, three, four, that's me and boat crew three. And when I got into that boat crew, I realized that there was no superstars in the boat crew. Everyone was average. But what everyone in that boat crew had that was different from everyone else is this uncommon desire to win. They wanted to win every single race. And so I tell people, you have two options when you're in steel trading. You can either quit or keep going.

13:37
Your other option, if you decide to keep going, is you can be mediocre or you can be awesome. I choose to be awesome. And there are events where you can be mediocre.

13:48
There are other events where you have to dedicate 100% of your capacity to doing it. I wanted to dedicate 100% of my capacity all the time because I wanted to win. I talked to a lot of people and there's a lot to unpack there. But it's fascinating to me, guys like you that have this will to win, the will to succeed, totally driven, but you're a shitty student. Shitty. And you know like,

14:17
And I was a B student and I was just lucky enough to like try enough to get B's, but I wasn't a great student either, but I'm, it's fascinating talking and listening to you and 99% of that was drive, drive success and all that. But I go back to where you started and I always find it fascinating. Like you're so driven. You're so, you have that will to win. It got you through so much on one leg on then on another leg, then

14:44
Bunch of average guys and you guys are going to win everything because you're all driven, but there's something about you though. And I guess it's just, you decide what you care about and what you don't. And I guess that's what it is at the end of the day. Cause there was a few times where not just the grades, you mentioned a few things, so I didn't care about that. I didn't care about, you know, but when you care about it, it happens. Yeah. And, but I don't know, I find it fascinating when talking to people that, but the delineation of certain things that they absolutely excel at. You excelled something that

15:13
I know you said 80% of guys could do it. Let's just say 5% of guys maybe could do it, but, uh, and you've done it and you did it for 26 years, but yet there's something about you. There's certain things that, you know, no big deal, you know, I don't know where it seems like it would be all or nothing. You know, like I'm going to be, I'm most a straight a student. I was always driven, always did this perfect. It did this perfect. And I'm a will to win, but it's just not always that clean. It is not that clean ever, ever.

15:42
I mean, even if going back to my starting in the military and wanting to become a SEAL, when I go back and I look at the scores that I needed to get for pushups, pull ups, sit ups, swim and a run, they're not that big of a deal, really. When I look at them now. I quit during the first test that I took. I did fine at the swim and I was doing the pushups and the minimum score that you have to get is like 52. They're like testing the floor and up and down.

16:12
full extension. Yeah. And I think I quit at like pushup number 38. That decision to quit, actually the decision to not do the work prior to getting there changed, like it could have been very different. My entire career could have been, my life could have been different. And that's what's so interesting. That's what, and cause you said that, that was part of it was like, you didn't prepare. Like once you got in the mindset, you crushed it. But like- Right. I was kind of in the mindset of like, how hard can it be? Pretty fricking hard. I'm gonna ask you this.

16:42
On subject, but also, because it's fascinating. I don't get to talk to I've never had a Navy SEAL on the show and I don't get to talk to military that often. How scarce should we be? Like, you know, the news is so bad, I don't watch the news anymore. Right. And this isn't even a political question. Yeah, like we don't even have to go down that road. We can. We don't have to. But it's more like you you were deployed 10 times.

17:11
seven times combat, 26 years. You know what's out there. You know, the boogeyman under the bed. And look, we're insulated in the U S like let's be, you know, I'm not stupid enough to not know that, but I also know, I only know what I know. And it's like, should we, should we be more nervous? Let me.

17:34
Two things. I don't want to scare the shit out of our listeners, but I just but I'm curious. I'm kind of going to answer your question, but I'm kind of not. All right. Two things. You're familiar with Maslow's pyramid of hierarchy. We're at the top of that pyramid. We have all of our needs met in the U.S. And we still won't even after a global pandemic, air quotes. We have every need that we possibly could want. And when you hit the top, that's when we become very comfortable.

18:04
Now we have to make up stuff to show that we're in need. And so because we're at that top, it's hard to stay on top. So you're gonna fall back at some point. So I, you know, and maybe this pandemic-y thing is part of it, I don't really know. Well, what do we have going on right now in the US? And really, we have- The whole world. Yeah, so we have this messaging that's going out that-

18:33
We, someone is controlling the narrative. I don't know who's controlling the narrative, but it's best to not watch it because it's very easy to get sucked in. Like entitlement and all these other things. I don't believe in entitlement. I believe in helping people that need help, getting them back up and going forward. I don't believe that anyone has owed anything ever in life. I believe in hard work. I did it. I went from like, I was a poor kid in, poor white trash in Collinsville, Mississippi to...

19:03
I actually have two companies now. So you're saying we don't need to be worried about China or Russia. China. We have to be very careful with China. China has a hundred year plan. Easy. And we don't know what that plan is. They know what the plan is, but we don't really know what the plan is. But I mean, are they really going to occupy the U S length? I think no. I don't think, you know, how much we keep, we feed them, right? If our people aren't buying their shit, like, you know, I don't know.

19:31
Yeah, so I don't I'm not too concerned about Russia Russia is more concerned about you know, taking back control of lands that they once owned China is really the same way. Yeah, you know, they built these islands in the south china sea They say well this is because of you know, the bathymetry, you know of the of the sea it comes up over here It's actually attached to china over here hundreds of miles away Therefore that land is ours. And so what they're doing they're

19:59
They're trying to take control of the Pacific, complete control, and with military power, and by being there, because that is a major trade route. And if they take control of the trade route, they're already affecting supply chain stuff. As long as they control that, I think that's their bigger plan, control the ocean, control the sea, and that's really the purpose of the US Navy, is dominate.

20:29
the ocean. And that's what I believe that China is doing right now. They're doing it in the Pacific, but they're also going to these other little countries and they're like offering them support, protection, support. They're doing things like that. They're doing it in every continent to include the US. They're going in, they're buying stuff. They're offering great deals. You can't say no to this amazing deal because we're going to make you rich and famous and powerful and whatever.

20:55
they have a bigger agenda and I don't know what that agenda is. I also have to kind of be careful because I still do some government contract work where I do work in a facility that is, you know, we handle classified material and we'll talk about this maybe a little bit later is I still get drug tested for drugs and things like that. Cause you still have your clearance, right? So I'm a security clearance. I still do some work with that. So, so I do get a little bit more access to information. And so I have to be very careful on what I.

21:25
I get it. Say based on where I read that information. William Branham, James Bond of the U S. All right. I want to transition a little bit. William, um, you served our country proudly and with honor. You come back, you know, you've are retiring. This is 2018. What's your mental and physical health like at that point?

21:49
So I say that transitioning from the military to civilian life is the hardest military mission I've ever been on And i've been on a few And i'm still on this mission of figuring it out because when I was in the seal teams I had a badass mission. I had a badass team. I had purpose. I had a reason to get up in the morning when I retired It was all gone instantly. It's like your entire world is gone and retired was only because you know at my rank

22:16
that was as long as I could stay in. I would stay in for my entire life if they would let me because there's mission and purpose there. When I retired, I no longer had that mission and purpose. I thought I had a good plan, but I didn't practice that plan and I did not execute that plan with extreme violence. And what I mean by extreme violence, I mean giving it 100% of my effort. I had other things, I had a lot of baggage. I talked to people about, you know, I don't say I have PTSD.

22:45
I say I have baggage and baggage can come from anywhere and every one of us can have baggage and we probably do. And some of it, we fill up these bags that we carry around these packs with our own crap and sometimes other people put their crap on us. It can be, you have a bad relationship with someone in your work environment. You have a bad, a toxic relationship at home, something with your kids, an ex, whatever, the media, all of these things can...

23:15
All of these things can and will negatively affect you. They're gonna have a toil. I mean, it's weight. It's like you don't know it. Sometimes you add five pounds, five pounds, you don't know it until, holy shit, it just takes you to the floor. It's that frog in boiling water, one degree at a time. And all of a sudden now he's been cooked. And we don't see that, but pain is cumulative. And so if I were to tap you on the arm, you're gonna be like, that's no big deal.

23:43
And if I keep doing it for a week, there's going to be a bruise there. If I keep doing it for a month, it's going to like your entire arm is going to be bruised. And then maybe I stopped tapping you for a little while. You still have that damage. You still have that pain and you just put on your shirt and that hurts. And then maybe I come back and I just one tap and you're like, but that's, that's just the way that, you know, we end up carrying all of this baggage around. You know, it's all cumulative. We never take stuff out. And so that's kind of I've come up with this.

24:14
So a couple of things. Number one, I was drinking myself to sleep at night. I have so much noise in my head that I could not turn it off. And I know where it comes from. Some of it's from work and some of it's from toxic relationships that I've been a part of. And those things just fill my mind and I'm not able to fill my mind with the things that I want to. So what I would do is self-medicate with alcohol. And I would pretty much just drink myself to sleep at night. And I had heard about this

24:43
little molecule called CBD while I was on active duty, but there was no way that I was going to do anything like that. The guy that I was, the podcast I was listening to, the guy was like, everyone knows about medical marijuana and what THC does, but there's this other molecule, and this was before it was legal, called CBD. And it's been shown to reduce chronic inflammation, it's helped people sleep, it helps with different kinds of

25:12
Epilepsy, it helps with sleep, stress, anxiety, and all these other kind of medicinal benefits. I'm like, I for sure need some of that, but I'm not gonna go down the marijuana road. I'm active duty. I got, that's a bad way to end your career. So I retired in 2018, and I still didn't try it because I still maintain my top secret clearance because I wanted to keep my options open about what I could and couldn't do. And eventually I was in...

25:41
Virginia having lunch with a former teammate of mine. And we finished lunch and I was like, hey, I'm gonna go try, I'm gonna see if I can find some CBD here in Virginia because what we have in Hawaii might be not be as good what you have here. I didn't know anything about the industry. I just knew that I should probably try it because alcohol is not the answer. Alcohol can be fun, but it is not medication. So he was like, you want CBD? I've got some at home. And

26:10
So we went back to his house, he gave me a bottle because another brand gave it to him. And I tried it. I maybe slept a little better, maybe I woke up a little less pissed off the next morning, maybe, maybe not. And then I finished it. I don't know if I noticed anything right away. But what I did notice after I had finished that bottle is that I like to say that water boils at 212 degrees. I was probably living at 210 degrees.

26:40
And there was this the same way that we were talking about, you know, you boil the frog, the temperature started turning down one degree at a time, five degrees at a time. And so I went from like 210 degrees to 205 to 200 to 195 to 190 to maybe 185. Got out of that red zone and into like the northern orange zone. Never really yellow yet. Certainly not green. But when I stopped taking it, I noticed like. My trigger, I started like going back that direction. I didn't notice.

27:09
you know, getting away from the boiling point until I was there and I started getting closer. I was like, wow, maybe there was something to that. I don't know, maybe. So I tried a different brand and I had similar results. Then I was at a business conference with Bedros Kullian. I don't know if you know Bedros. Yep. And there was a girl there in the CBD industry and she was putting CBD into kinesiology tape. And I'm interested in, I'm very interested in CBD at this point.

27:37
And I want to figure out how to like get in the industry. And I would like she got up and she was like, how do I market this? Because you can't market anything on social media. This Google, you know, doesn't really support it. It's crazy. So they gave her, you know, maybe use influencers or things like that. And so I was like, OK, CBD, everyone else here is like a gem owner and whatever. And something. So I'm like, CBD, CBD. When the when the Q&A event ended, I tracked her down. I was like, hey, you're the CBD girl, right? She was like, yeah.

28:07
weirdo. Can you step back, please? Yeah. Wow. I want to know. I'm like, sorry. And I was like, I'm super interested in CBD, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, so do you want to do A to B, B to B, B to C? And I was like, I want to do C B D. And she was like, well, why don't you just start your own CBD company? And really, I want her to hire me to, like, help sell it and process it or whatever you do. And she was like, just start your own CBD company. I'm like, I don't know how to do that. She was like.

28:37
you're a Navy SEAL, go figure it out. It's like, oh. Oh, you're going to go there. Can I, can I, may I please have my man card back? Yes, exactly. Your Navy SEAL card back. Exactly. So she, she handed it back to me. If I was a Navy SEAL, I would carry around. Like I am an opera member, even if you had to create it yourself. And so she gave me a little bit of education. And then I started really digging into the industry. And what I found is most CBD companies are dirty. The industry is very dirty. It was very wild, wild west, you know, no government oversight, no, nothing.

29:07
And so I was like, well, that's not good. And so the FDA had gone out and done a bunch of spot checks and they found that most CBD products on the market are mislabeled. We'll just say mislabeled or they're completely misleading. Yes. So they found that most products, more than 75 percent don't have CBD in them. They don't have the CBD they say they have in them. They have high levels of THC above that point three percent legal limit for to be considered hemp. That means it was derived from marijuana.

29:37
heavy metals, mercury, lead, arsenic, things like that, that are a poison to the body. So if you're putting something in your body to be a medicine, you don't wanna be putting a bunch of poisons in there. And so I was like, oh, this is, wow, this is not good. And so what I did then is I went and I found the highest quality suppliers in the market. I partnered with them and that's, I still believe, because I continue to research and continue to look for suppliers, that what we currently have is the highest quality product on the market.

30:07
We primarily produce a broad spectrum product, which means you still get most of the minor cannabinoids and terpenes, which are essential oils, from the hemp plant, but we remove that molecule called THC that many people have a problem with for that point, for that purpose, to still provide a high quality product, but without the stigma of THC. And CBD took me a long time to try it.

30:30
because I am a child of Nancy Reagan's war on drugs. Just say no. Yeah, the egg in the frying pan. Completely, yes, exactly, yes. This is your brain. And this is your brain on drugs. Yes. So I'm still a part of that. And so when I was brave enough to try it, it was the modality that helped turn down the noise in my head. And it also helped some of the CBD made many of those sharp pains. Maybe it's anecdotal, I don't know, but I had the result, so I'm going with it. And I still...

30:59
have the result today. So I still have the pain, it's just not the stabbing pain. It's a dull pain. It's more palatable, more manageable. It's just improved my quality of life. Naked Warrior Recovery is the name of the company. Correct. So, and I gotta tell you, I've been drinking, started the show here with the Navy Seal CBD Energy Drink, I'm about halfway through it. It's probably the cleanest energy I've ever had. Like I'm...

31:25
I've sat here and you made the, you know, people kidding off Adderall or something like the focus. I've been like laser focused on like your every word. And I'm always that way with my guests anyway. Right. But like ears, definitely a clean focus from that. It's great. I love it. I mean, you know, the way that I drink it now is I've made a commitment to myself. I don't do New Year's resolutions. Yeah, me either. But I do make commitments to myself. Yeah. Whenever that happens.

31:52
and I committed to drinking a gallon of water a day. The way that I do that now, because water to me is boring. Yeah, it is. Is I have a half gallon hydro flask, I fill it with ice and water and one of those packets of CBD and I do that twice a day. So I get through it about noon, one o'clock, and then I usually work out in the afternoon. So I fill it back up and use it as a pre-workout, post-workout and just, you know, I don't.

32:18
crash after working out even if I kick my own ass. I still have some energy to get through the rest. Let's talk about some more of the products. What else is in the product lineup for Naked Warrior? We've got, you know, all CBD companies have, you know, a tincture that you, it's an oil, a CBD oil that you put under your tongue. So it has an MCT carrier oil to help cross that blood-brain barrier. We have some soft gels. The soft gels that I like the most right now, if I were to pick

32:47
one product that I would recommend for me would be our Sleep Soft Gel. So they have 25 milligrams of CBD in them. They have three milligrams of melatonin and three milligrams of CBN, which is the sedative. So again, going back to the minor cannabinoids, CBD, THC, CBG, CBN, there's over 120 minor cannabinoids and terpenes in the hemp plant. So you have things like pining, which is an essential oil from like the pine plant. It's also...

33:17
in the hemp plant and that has been shown to be a, to help with neuroplasticity. So people with TBIs or anything like that, just to protect the brain. And so the more placid your brain is, that water hydrates the brain also, that helps also to prevent future TBIs or to help recover from any kind of traumatic brain event.

33:39
This is the ABCs of CBD. Right. And I had no intention of like going down down the road. I'm like, I'm keeping up with all the acronyms as best I can. And so so it has we put three milligrams of CBN into each soft gel. And, you know, I have a little bit of, you know, I've got some ADD, I've got some FOMO and things like that. And if I'm.

34:05
I can easily fall into whatever, scrolling social media or watching YouTube and whatever late at night. And then all of a sudden it's like, whatever. I get tired. I'll push through it and lo and behold, it's midnight or one in the morning. And I'm like, because I didn't go to bed when I was tired. I wasn't disciplined enough to do that. And so now I'm like, I'm already behind the power curve for the next day. I usually take two of these soft gels and I'll hit that tired point, but I never get that second wind to recover. So at some point I...

34:35
I go ahead and tap out and I go to bed like I'm supposed to. Yeah. So it just helps me stay on my plan. Yeah. I take it about an hour before I'm ready for bed. So that is my favorite nighttime product. I also have several topicals that I use or that we sell. One of them looks like a glue stick, but you can use it for like, you know, just like joint pain. The body has this thing. It's called an endocannabinoid system. And this endocannabinoid system is connected to every other system in the body.

35:05
It's connect, you know, think about your central nervous system, your respiratory system, your digestive system, your endocrine system, your immune system. It's connected to everything. And the reason that people think that CBD like cures or make the claims of it cured my cancer, it cured my what, like it doesn't do any of that. What it does is CBD is like a super multivitamin that supports your endocannabinoid system. And you have these endocannabinoid receptors in your skin. So you can.

35:35
it's not quite as effective as taking it internally, but you can still get the effects of CBD topically. And I have a product that is a, it's like a micro dose. I don't know if I should micro dose with CBD. Micro dosing. Yeah. But it's a, I call it the M60 because it looks like a, what we would use as a M60 fuse igniter in the military to light, to basically blow stuff up. So this is the way that you light the time fuse that blows up your, your stay behind claymore or something like that. And what you do is you,

36:04
delivers a perfect four milligram dose of CBD, and you put it in very thin skin areas. And I've had people, it's a brand new product, a brand new technology, and it goes, it's more efficient going into the bloodstream than taking something orally, because you missed that first pass metabolism. So it helps your body heal itself the way it's supposed to. It also reduces chronic inflammation, which is where chronic illness comes from and things like that. So that's the value, the beauty of...

36:32
of CBD. Ask you this, how does the military look at CBD? They do not. They frown on it. And I believe the reason that they do is, I mean, they've made, you know, policy. You will not use any product topically or ingestible that is made of hemp that is derived from hemp or any other. Is that just going back to the, you know, the Nancy Reagan stuff? It could be, but I think there were enough people when CBD became legal that they popped positive on drug testing because.

37:01
they were taking CBD, maybe they were, maybe they were taking one of these products that had high levels of THC. So I still maintain my top secret clearance, I still get drug tested, I take a lot of CBD, I take my product only, and I have zero, zero issues. Actually the last drug test I took, I was drinking my energy drink, because I worked out in the morning, to hydrate on the way to give my sample. You know, that's, I guess that's like the bro science of CBD, like it doesn't cure anything, but it does reduce inflammation. It...

37:30
helps reduce stress and anxiety and things like that. And what it did for me, it was a mode. So it's a modality. It's a tool in your toolbox. And for me, I had all of this noise in my head that I couldn't turn off and I was using alcohol to do it. And when I started taking CBD, the noise got less loud. Now I have to figure out what am I gonna tell myself? What do I need to do? How do I improve my life? What do I need? Like I'm lost, I need to figure my shit out. And so what I ended up doing, what I eventually...

37:59
did and I didn't I couldn't really do it on my own or I could but it helps to have a team it helps to have outside support. Yeah. Things don't happen in isolation. You need teams. You need support. You need. Yeah, I came from the SEAL teams. Yeah, I had like it and you know when we're when we're clearing how you know, we're going through houses or buildings. We're clearing the rooms. We're so well trained that it doesn't matter if.

38:28
If you're in front of me, it doesn't matter what direction you go or what you do. I'm going to read what you're doing and I'm going to do what I need to do to fill in the gaps. We call it pick up basketball. If you go left, I'm going to go right. If you go straight and I see a danger area, I'm going to jump off and I'm going to, you know, cover down that danger area. And the guy behind me is going to pick up your, your security and you know, do what we need to do. Or you're pointing down the hallway and you see like something more dangerous this way and I'm behind you. Well, you're going to go that way. I'm going to keep going. Or maybe I'm going to.

38:57
follow you into a room and the guy behind me, but I make sure that you know that there's at least three people back here, will take up security on the long hallway or on the big room or whatever. And so we pick up basketball. So in the teams, we have that support. In civilian life, we don't always have that. And so now that I had left the military, I'd been out for at least a year, still struggling, trying to figure it out. I started putting my team back together, figure out who's on my team. I went and reached out to...

39:26
former former teammates that were in the entrepreneurial space and you know, other people like Pedro's Coolian and other, uh, other business coaches that I've hired to help be on my team so that I can figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. And during that process, I looked back on my career as a seal and the lessons that I've learned. And I came up with this, this thing called the get naked mindset and, and naked.

39:53
You know, it's a little bit edgy. It's a little bit of a hook, you know, on the marketing side of it. And that's my message is really, you know, get naked. And get naked is about taking your ego off. It's about taking your ego off and setting in the corner because we hide behind the shield that we, you know, is our ego. And we don't want to try new things or we don't want to face the things that we need to that are going to help our personal, internal, whatever healing that we have.

40:21
And so when I learned how to take my ego off and set it in the corner, be a little bit exposed, be a little bit vulnerable, I was able to heal a little bit better, a little bit faster. The other side of that, and that took, I mean, because I've been hiding behind that for my entire life, and it wasn't until I got out and I realized that I need to be brave enough to get naked, to take that ego off. And that's really the hardest part. We spend our entire life hiding behind this shield.

40:51
that's protecting us from whatever it is. And we're never brave enough to take the armor off. And in the SEAL teams, we do that. We go into harm's way, we put our body armor on, we go do our thing, we come back, we take it off, we hit the showers, we get naked. We don't do that in our regular life. So now my goal, so CVD is a modality, so now my goal is to teach this get naked mindset.

41:20
And NAKED is an acronym and it stands for never quit. And when I say never quit, I don't mean, you know, never quit smoking or drinking or getting out of talks or relationships. I mean, never quit on yourself, never quit, you know, trying to improve your position. You're gonna have, you know, things are, it's gonna be hard. And if you say, I don't know if I can do this because it's too hard, it's too, it's unattainable. Well, I will say, yeah, good, go do it. And I tell myself that, good, that's hard. Let's go figure it out. Because it goes back to that, you know, 99.

41:49
percent, one percent rule that the one percent do what the 99% won't do. So yeah, do, do hard stuff and don't quit. And so there's a tool that I teach that helps people, you know, not quit. And this is something that I learned in, in, in seer school, which is POW school, uh, where they learn you teach you how to be a, a prisoner of war. And they teach you to make small victories. So the, the, the captors are, they're trying to break you down. They're trying to break you down physically, mentally, emotionally, make you

42:18
They're trying to get their small victories on you. The other thing is during Hell Week, which is the most famous week of military training in the world, I've been all over the world, and everyone knows that Hell Week is, they think that Hell Week is all of SEAL training. It's actually one week of 26 weeks. Hell Week is hard and it sucks, and you're cold and you're wet and you're miserable, but there's one thing that's constant. No matter what, no matter how bad it sucks, they're gonna feed you four times a day. So.

42:44
You can be laying there in the Pacific Ocean, shivering, jackhammering, uncontrollably. All you gotta do is make it to that next meal. And that's, you know, every meal is a victory. Every time you make it to that next meal, you've won. So, it doesn't matter how hard the task is, the project, the whatever it is, how unattainable it is. Cause people are like, oh, how do you become a seal? That seems unattainable. It's totally, it's one day at a time. It's one step at a time. It's one more small victory.

43:12
And that's what I mean by the end is for never quit. The A is except failure. Failure, biggest lesson. The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. One bite at a time. And I'll actually come to that in just a second. Failure is been the biggest teacher of my life. You can tell me how to do something until you're blue in the face. I may go and do it and be successful, but then I'm gonna test it. Well, what if I did it like this? I know you told me to do it like that, but I'm gonna do it like this.

43:41
I have to learn on my own how to do it wrong. Michael Jordan is potentially the best basketball player of all time. In this crowd, we can just say he is. Deal. So, but why is he the best? He has missed more than 9,000 shots in his career. He's lost more than 300 games. He missed more than 30 game winning shots. What he did at the end of every game, when he missed a shot, he went back to the gym that night. He didn't go party with the...

44:11
with the team, he went back to the gym and he practiced those shots that he missed in every scenario possible until he didn't miss them anymore. He took that failure and turned it into a success. So failure, if you want to be successful, you have to accept those failures, the lessons that you learned from it and use those lessons as a, I look at failure as now as a foundation to success. There's all sorts of memes out there with like, the first step is the biggest or whatever.

44:36
You know, for me, failure is like the staircase. Like there's the wall of like the thing that I'm trying to accomplish or I fail, I fail, I fail. Fail all the way up. All the way to the top. You know, it's either a staircase or a ladder rung. Every time I get a little bit closer to the top, I get over that and now I have to start all over again. That's fine. But you accept, I accept that failure as a lesson on how to do it right and how to be successful. So that, so it's never quit except failure. The chaos kill mediocrity because we're, I mean, we kind of talked about it a little bit earlier. Like we're surrounded by mediocrity.

45:05
We're at the top of that pyramid. We don't have to really work that hard at anything. And the, you know, I know this will be on social media, but social media has made us mediocre. Technology has made us mediocre. We're at war with mediocrity every single day. We find excuses to not, to not attack our goals, to not stay disciplined, to not work out, to not, to not just...

45:30
do the things that we need to do every day. We get stuck in like scrolling or sitting on the throne playing a game or doing whatever. And so those are the things that make us mediocre. So we have to have an uncommon desire to kill that mediocrity in our life and to be successful. So we have to kill that mediocrity. And the way we do that, and when I give the presentation, I have a picture of a guy in SEAL training doing this event called Drownproofing. And Drownproofing is where you're tied up, hands behind your back and feet are tied together.

46:00
and they throw you in the water, it's about nine and a half feet of water, and you have to survive. And the way you survive is you start, you bob, what you have to do is you have to commit 100% to this evolution. You have to expel all of the air out of your lungs and sink to the bottom. And then when you get to the bottom, you squat down and you jump. And don't jump too hard, but you wanna jump just hard enough to get back to the surface so you can get that fresh breath of air and then blow all of it out again.

46:27
If you only let about 70% of it out and you keep 30% in, what's gonna happen is you're gonna stop somewhere in the middle. Not be able to kick. Now you have a choice. You either let the rest of that air out or you have to kick your way back to the surface. A lot of energy. That's a lot of energy, that's a lot of oxygen, that's a lot of wasted. Like it's easier to commit 100% to the thing than to be mediocre, it only left about 70% of the air out. So you do that, you...

46:54
Then you learn to float and then you learn to swim a hundred yards, all tied up. You come back and they, you bob some more. And then you do a front flip underwater and a back flip underwater. And then you lay down on the bottom of the pool, all tied up still, grab your mask off the bottom of the pool with your teeth, get back to your feet and start bobbing again until they're like, okay, you pass. And then they pull you out and untie you and you're good to go. But you cannot do that evolution with any amount of, without 100% dedication and commitment.

47:24
to doing every action 100%. So, kill me theocracy, the E is exposure fears. And I don't mean lions and tigers and bears, I mean the fears that live in that deep dark place in the back of your brain. Like the noise that I was dealing with every night that I was trying to drown out with alcohol were these fears that live in the back of my brain that I don't wanna tell anyone about, you know, whatever they are. And you know, we as humans,

47:53
We generally use fear to take action. You can be driving down the road, you got the red light. And by the way, you're not on your phone looking at text messages or emails. You're paying attention, you're driving, you got the red light, you think you're good to go, and then out of the corner of your eye, someone is running the red light. As you're entering the intersection, you hit the brakes, you steer away, holy shit! You're super pissed off now, but you didn't hit that guy or girl, or they didn't hit you, because you were scared enough to take action.

48:21
So now that you know that you can take action, why don't we take action of those other fears that are living in the back of our brain? I look at fear like a vampire. Vampires live in the darkness, and they suck the life out of you. Fear does the same thing. It lives in that deep dark place in the back of your brain that you don't want to tell anyone about, and it sucks the life out of you every single day. How do you kill a vampire? You expose it to sunlight. How do you kill those fears? You expose them. And if all of that, you don't want to do all of that.

48:50
A friend of mine, also business coach, Sharan Srivatsa, he took a $300 million a year real estate business that they were struggling, doing 300 million a year. In three years, he took it to $3.4 billion a year. Wow. So, but he still, so he has a B behind his name. But he still struggles with stress, anxiety, and things like that. And he says that fear does not exist on paper. So, what he does is he'll be driving down the road,

49:20
All of these noises will be floating around his head stress it. He'll pull over to a starbuck He'll get a cup of coffee and he'll take a pen and a piece of paper or pencil And he'll write down every one of those things that is bugging him And he reads it. He's like really that's really what's bothering me. That was that one tap on the arm And and so now he's exposed those fears onto paper because there's this magical thing Scientific, I don't know that happens from the your brain to that pencil or pen not on your phone pencil or pen putting on paper

49:50
The fear, that stress, that anxiety dissipates. Now this is not a one trick pony. This takes time and effort, and maybe you need to share it with like, you read those things that are bothering you, those stresses. Maybe you share them with someone. Maybe you don't want to, maybe you're not ready for that. But every time that you do it, you get stronger, you get better, you get a little more, you get braver to be more vulnerable and to take that ego off. And so once you learn to expose those fears, now you control the fears and they no longer control you.

50:19
And then the last and the D, never quit except failure, kill mediocrity, expose your fears, and the D is to do the work. And that's where we fail most of the time. We're not willing to do the work. And I remember in SEAL training that when I graduated, I was like, I graduated the hardest military training in the world. Everything's gonna be easier for me now. And I couldn't have been more wrong. That was a mistake to think that. Because in the SEAL teams, when you show up and they don't care what your rank is,

50:49
how old you are, how new or how old, you were expected to perform better today than you did yesterday, and that's why they say the only easy day was yesterday. And some people don't really get that, and they're like, people do something and they're successful once, and then they never go to climb that next peak. And you talked about the elephant one bite at a time. I talk about Rome. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I guarantee you Rome was built every single day.

51:18
as it became an empire. And that's what we have to do in our own life. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's gonna be complicated. Yeah, it's gonna be stressful. You just do it. You just show up, get up and do the work. Maybe you're putting the big rocks in that analogy of doing the 80-20 rule. Sometimes I need to do the 80%. Sometimes I need to do the simple task to get that momentum of even just getting up in the morning. Okay, brush my teeth. Admiral McRaven.

51:47
has the, you make your bed. You know, he has that famous speech on YouTube of make your bed. That's one of those small victories. But, you know, oftentimes doing the work is like starting off doing those, getting those small victories in and then building the momentum and then doing the big project that you need to do for the day. So that's really the get naked mindset. It's about taking your ego off, exposing yourself, being a little bit vulnerable and then never quit, accept failure, kill mediocrity, expose your fears and do the work. And I have this actually on a PDF.

52:16
And I don't think I sent it to you yet, but it's if if your listeners go to the website five the number five seal secrets.com You can download the uh, the the pdf and get this and and you can share it with people All you have to do is put your name and email in there. I'll email you the A copy of it. It's about a seven and a half eight page pdf. It's got some cool pictures in it And uh, I I shared it with a buddy of mine recently And he was having some problems with his ceo

52:43
And I was like, Jim, like check this out. He's in the outdoor apparel industry. They just got a bunch of VC money. And so VCs, they want you to like double your profits quarter over quarter and it's a high stress environment. Yeah, they brought a bunch of money, but they want results pretty quickly. And so that pressure was getting pushed down onto my buddy Jim who's doing the design work for the apparel stuff. And something happened, I don't really know what.

53:12
But I'm like, Jim, figure out what the goals of the company are, but also check this five seal secrets out. And so he printed it out, he laminated, he pasted the things up on his wall so he could continue to go back to it. And he didn't tell me this until months later. And he went into the CEO's office and he was like, okay, first of all, I'm afraid I'm not gonna be able to perform for you.

53:40
because of whatever. And the CEO was like, what? First of all, why are you saying you're afraid? And number two, why are you being honest with me? No one does either one of those things, and why are you doing that? Both of those to me right here in this office, in this meeting. He's like, so my buddy shared this document with me, the E is expose your fears, I'm exposing my fear right now. I'm not going to be able to perform for you if you, whatever, you talk to me like this in front of people, blah, blah, blah, whatever the scenario was. And he was like, the CEO was like, really? Got it.

54:09
Can you share that document with me? And so like that's like, it's gone throughout the company now. That's awesome. And so I'm turning that into a, into a speaking engagement. So I can go out there and like share some stuff and maybe do some coaching because I'm starting to do, you know, more public speaking and coaching now. Five seal secrets. Five seal secrets.com. Yes. Love it. Just your name and email and I'll send it to you. And the CBD is nw.recovery.com. Dash recovery.

54:35
Dash and W dash recovery dash recovery. So I and when I if I Google naked warrior recovery, well, I find you will. And actually, if you do naked warrior recovery calm, you'll go to the website. But I changed the website. I still I own that that domain. But I changed the website to NW dash recovery. Because I didn't know if people wanted to put naked into their search engine. So so I was like, Oh, yeah, this is awesome. And then all that shit. Right. Yeah, exactly. So I

55:05
What were you searching for, honey? Yeah, exactly. I don't know what's gonna show up in your browser, so NW-Recovery or Naked Warrior Recovery. I also have some apparel that, the hat, we talked about the hat earlier. It's at, you do have to type naked in here. Or you can go to NW-Recovery and hit apparel. It'll take you to the other site, which is Naked Warrior Apparel, and you can get hats or shirts or whatever that say get naked. I got a question for you, William, as we close out here.

55:35
Another minor of my random ones. This wasn't about are we safe, but your Navy seal, your bad ass, I'm going to call you a bad ass. You know, your fucking Navy seal. Like when you go into like places now, is it what like, I know it's not like movies and stuff, but like, are you scouting every room you go in? Yeah. Is that, is that just part of being in your training? I, you know, so for me, it's, it's just me.

56:02
And that's not necessarily every Navy SEAL. I think most probably do. I'm not every single one, but I think most do. And when you learn how to do close quarters combat and you learn how to go into rooms, you start seeing threats. That's different. That's what I that's probably what I meant. An open door, a closed door, a long hallway or whatever. And so, yeah, what I walked into here today, like it's a big open space. Yeah, it's dark. I'm like, oh, eyes change quickly. People, people, people. OK, what? OK. Who would I need?

56:32
Who do I need to talk to about how to start? But like if you go to a gas station or restaurant, or is it? Always, yeah. I mean, I always try to sit with my, facing the door. Sometimes I sit with people, they wanna, I'm like, so I'm not gonna fight about it. I'll give it up, but I have to trust you that you're gonna like, at least give me a heads up. I met with another buddy of mine who I'd only talked to on social media. And he's a Krav Maga, you know.

57:01
Supermaster whatever guy. And so I was comfortable and he was comfortable with me. Like we're good. Like, you know, you see something weird, you're like, okay, it's like, it's cool. But yeah, it's, I am, maybe I'm a little twisted that way. But yeah, I always wanna be, I don't ever wanna get ambushed. Like there's enough life ambushes. And my friend Jason Redman really talks about life ambushes. I mean, he got ambushed in Fallujah.

57:30
Shot in the face. He's lucky to be alive. It just wouldn't be right if you got ambushed. You've been on 10 deployments and seven, you know, like in, I guess in war or in, in action, whatever you call it. And you can't get ambushed once you're back in the States. It's that's very embarrassing. Dude, William, it's been awesome having you on man. I appreciate you having me on here. And I really appreciate your service. Thank you. And look, folks, I'm going to cut it to you.

57:59
He's putting the best CBD product out on the market. He served our country with honor for 26 years. If you are even remotely interested in CBD, you need to go after this. Go to, just Google it. We'll tell your wife you can look up Naked Warrior. All right, do it. Naked Warrior, nw-recovery.com. Go check it out, go follow William. Everything he's got going on. Really appreciate it, brother. Thank you, sir.

58:25
Hey guys, you know where to find us. We're at theradcast.com. You can search for all of today's content. Look up CBD. This gentleman right here will come up, William Branum. We'll see you next time. You know where to find me on the Radcast.