So very good. Nothing like us as Americans talking
about French people, right? Welcome to the military.
Rich Brown, welcome to Vision Pros Live. I'm
your show host, guys. Jackson Callum, founder
and CEO of First Class Business. And Rich Brown
and I are going to be talking about building
communities that save lives. Incredibly important
opportunity for us to realize how as civilians
and military personnel, we can come together.
We can talk about the role of fitness and shared
struggle. Rich, thanks for coming back today,
man. I know how much it means to spend time as
an entrepreneur doing initiatives like this and
jumping on shows and blessing other visionaries.
I really appreciate you being here. I appreciate
you having me, man. I appreciate the opportunity.
Absolutely. Now, I learned something fun about
Rich just a minute ago. He came into one of my
Zoom calls. And I keep my Zooms linked so I can
introduce people. I worked out perfectly. Shout
out to Jay Setchel, who was in the house. The
man said 70 plus surgeries, died three times.
And he's an amazing speaker and understands not
just how to say it live and live, but how to
live well. And Rich comes in. He's like, hey,
Jackson, have you been working with OpenClaw
yet? And I'm like, yeah, a little bit here and
there. And he's like, I've got 12 agents. coming
out with open cloud i'm like okay so now you're
also an ai expert cool man uh let's start there
i don't think it's possible to be an expert in
today and today i don't think elon musk is an
expert i don't think the guys creating these
uh these these operating systems are experts
the ooda loop is too small by the time you start
to learn something it's outdated tomorrow so
Yeah. Well, I guess that goes back to definitions
of experts, right? And what it is, I think you've
heard mine, and that's the person who's willing
to go find the answer. And that's what I see
you doing. So that's pretty cool that you're
leading the curve on that. I think a lot of people
that are military, a lot of people in the fitness
space would kind of undermine their own tech
capabilities and wouldn't dive into those things.
But here you are. leading the way powering through
it so what what inspired you to dive in and take
advantage of the of the capabilities that technology
is offering right now i think part of it's the
mission of the guidon foundation right so we
are we're trying to end veteran first responder
suicide uh but it's not you know as as we try
to identify different uh kind of target audiences
and different lanes that we can get in to help
people The biggest problem facing veterans is
that, you know, when you're in the military,
when you're active duty and wearing the uniform,
you get a certain amount of reverence and, you
know, you get shown appreciation and people share
love with you. And then you get out and your
community, your tribe, your purpose are just
kind of ripped away from you. you know you can
try to refine that however you can a lot of guys
they they try to they tell themselves that they're
decompressing but what they actually do is go
into isolation and that's a real dangerous place
to be um but in in trying to identify these different
problems and how these problems occur we we kind
of came to the realization that uh you know who
veterans have a lot in common with is mothers
whose children have left the home right Well,
if you think about it, for a lot of mothers,
especially those who are fortunate enough to
be stay -at -home mothers, they've wrapped their
entire identity and purpose into being a mother.
And when there's no more children in the home
to care for, how do you find value in yourself?
And so there's a huge parallel there. And then
I started to think about, well, a lot of people,
their identity is wrapped up in their career.
and a lot of those careers are going away and
they're going to start going away a lot faster
real soon uh and that's all due to ai and robotics
and you know the prediction right now is that
within five years half of all white collar jobs
are going to be eliminated not just types of
jobs but half of all the people working in white
collar jobs are going to have to find a new passion,
find a new way to make a living and provide for
their families, etc. So there's gonna be a lot
of turmoil and a lot of people you and I have
talked before about, you know, we need to help
people figure out their new passion and find
a way to find, you know, purpose in life. And
so I think that together, the veteran and first
responder community can try to lead the charge
in figuring out how to make that work for the
rest of the population. I love this conversation.
My friends, we owe Rich Brown hugely for what
I'm about to share with you guys. I've got a
program called Passion Pro and I've given it
to dozens of people. hundreds of people by this
point who wanted to find their passion live with
purpose and my case what i teach lead with love
and this passions assessment has always been
behind the scenes and rich loved it and he's
like he's like jackson what if we use that and
i was like not in its current condition because
it's not it's not designed for the public to
use but i'm gonna drop it in the comments because
thanks to rich i actually put it all together
in a format where you can go You can go and access
Passion Pro for free. Bam. And so I just shared
that live with you guys. You guys can try it
out. It is not going to change the world for
everybody, but I have seen some amazing individuals
dive into that and come out on the other side
lit on fire with excitement. and what direction
and what they wanted to build and how they wanted
to build it. So Rich, thank you for inspiring
me to do that because if it wouldn't have been
for you, my team would have said, Jackson, stay
focused. Don't mess with that. And so you brought
that to fruition. I want to go back to another
couple of things you said, though. I read a stat
that 75 ,000 people last year lost their jobs
to AI. And while that's a small number, it's
going to be millions. And it's just starting
now. And think about how trashy AI was last year.
It wasn't that good. You could do some fun things,
but you couldn't really do anything productive
with it. And now that's changed tremendously.
And then in addition to that, I'll give you another
audience that relates well, somewhat to what
you're talking about with the moms and with the
military personnel. Member missionaries of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints,
of which I was one. I spent two years out of
the country in Uruguay. 1000 % focus on everything
I was doing in my mission. I got home. I didn't
even recognize homes. I thought homes are castles.
I couldn't even focus when I got to the grocery
store because it was so overwhelming with how
much was going on. Like I was so lost. Um, and
I had to figure out what the heck am I going
to do with my life now that I'm not serving God
24 seven. Um, and what am I supposed to do? What,
what school am I going to go to? What education
am I going to get? Et cetera. There are 80 ,000
of us who come home. every single year. And those
people too, they are all going to benefit from
having access to communities that are focused
on purpose. And as you've mentioned, shared struggle.
So we're going to dive into that. We'll dive
into one topic real quick before we take a break.
I always want to give as much value as possible
on the front end and then get a little bit less
of water. myself but for those who are transitioning
from military service like yourself to entrepreneurship
or non -profit leadership and beyond um what
are some of the what are some of the struggle
struggles and what are some of the strengths
that can help people through that well i think
some of the struggles there's some low -hanging
fruit some obvious ones those are you know translating
your skills and abilities that you've been harvesting
for the last you know 4 to 20 years and translating
them to the broader community as to what you're
capable of what you've been doing etc especially
if you're coming from a a career that doesn't
look readily adaptable to civilian society right
i was in the infantry uh the obvious uh you know
kind of transition might be to law enforcement
or something like that um but you know you learn
a lot of the soft skills in the military as well
You know, one of the things we learned profoundly
is leadership. So while I may not be leading
troops in combat or leading troops at lows, I
can pretty much fall into any personnel management
position pretty easily because you've got all
these tools where you recognize that, you know,
the people are the mission and making sure that
they have everything they need and you've removed
as many obstacles the other way as you can and
that kind of thing. That translates to any industry.
Absolutely. It's not only translating to any
industry. I'm going to take that to the next
level. It's probably the most important skill
set to have when it comes to running businesses,
running brands, running communities. And as much
as we've all got leadership experience to some
degree, it's very hard to be a great leader.
And I see so many people come out of the military
who could use that framework they've been given,
that structure they've been given, and absolutely
crush it. But like you said, sometimes it's hard
to know how to translate that itself. So we're
going to come back if we can refine some of that
in just a minute with Rich. And how he's doing
that with the Guidant Foundation and Honorbound
Fitness. And we'll see you guys on the other
side. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live
with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll
be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there. Hey, what's up, my friends?
Welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros
Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callen, founder
and CEO of First Class Business, and I am...
I am flying solo today. My team in Pereira, Colombia,
they have an electricity outage. And so forgive
me and know that I would never be crazy enough
to do this by myself. I do not believe in solopreneurship.
We call it entrepreneurship. You got to have
a great team to do things well, but I'm going
to do my best to struggle through this because
you guys deserve it. And so does Rich Brown.
This guy is an absolute champion. He understands
the value of leadership. He learned a lot about
that in his military experience, but he also
learned about. that, just to the realities of
life. And I love how he leads. I do want to,
before I bring him on, talk about some of the
programs that we recommend in the world that
are helping us advance like crazy right now.
One of them is Austin Armstrong himself and Scott
Simpson with AI Mavericks. I did purchase a membership
to AI Mavericks. I do endorse it. I love their
community. They're doing really cool things like
Rich talked about, building things with OpenClaw
and diving into perplexity. and creating AIs
that dominate their business and do like, I love
that support and it's advanced stuff. And so
this is where I go for my advanced AI needs.
And they're a team of people who knows how to
inspire others, who understand the value of creating
profitable businesses and who know how to create
things that are also productive. And that's really
important because I see a lot of people missing
that in terms of when they're building stuff
with AI, they're just designing stuff with bananas.
And so I'd rather help. people understand how
to use AI to be productive and profitable and
how to prepare yourselves for the future. So
we also launched the AI marketplace. And it's
not like a gym membership to me, my friends.
We need to be learning as much as we can about
how to be relevant and how to be productive with
the future. And guess what? It's easier than
most gurus are making it out to be. You already
really are an AI expert. You just haven't been
able to correlate with what you've been doing.
You've been using AI since the 1990s. And some
of those include using email and email automation
and filtering folders. Some of it includes filtering
Spotify or Pandora. and also using social media.
What you don't have necessarily are how to translate
the skills that you already have. into the language
that makes you relevant to perhaps your own employer
currently or employers that you want to get hired
by. And if you stay ahead of that curve, then
you're going to be just fine. In my opinion,
make sure that you are actually using your emotional
intelligence and your leadership skills and learning
how to translate those skills, just like Rich
and I talked about. And there's two paths in
this one for professionals who need to revamp
their resume, revamp their LinkedIn and learn
how to interview. And on the other side, there's
the business bottlenecks. What if business owners
need to do and how can you dive in? And I'll
give you one example on that. For instance, when
you go take this quiz right here, it says, why
waste 30 minutes a day reading low priority emails?
Who's not guilty of that process? I shouldn't
say guilty, but you know what I mean? Some of
you have 10 team members who are doing this.
What if you had that automated so that the sorting
was taking place naturally and now they could
dedicate more of their time to this one? How
do I better take care of my customer experience?
So I'm going to move on from this over to the
water project, my friends. I absolutely love.
this cause we're not affiliated with the water
project i just love what they do and the first
time i saw these kids celebrating water like
my kids celebrate their christmas day presents
i was like okay yeah we need to get involved
in this And so we give to it monthly. And I hope
that if you're not in a position to give to it,
that you just talk to friends and family about
this because you never know who's going to give
to this project, even if you're not in a position
to do so yourself. But you can actually pick
the project. And what's really cool about the
transparency with the water project is they actually
show you the results of the community that they
impacted. And again, there's nothing like seeing
these pictures. And so my hope, my friends, is
we've got eight billion people to help in the
world. If you know people who need it and there's
enough. cause out there, you'd like to see us
support, please drop that link in the comments.
I'll personally take a look at it as will probably
most of my team members. And we might contribute
that to it, to it ourselves. And so even if you're
rocking a mic or sharing comments, there's ways
that we can get back and help. We've got 8 billion
people on this planet to help. And my, my job
right now is to get back to helping each and
every single one of you. So Rich Brown is here
to do just that. Welcome back to Vision Pros
Live, Rich. Appreciate you having me, man. Yeah,
absolutely, man. And let's go right into the
next piece. So there's something we call the
loneliness epidemic among veterans and first
responders. I would say that the world in the
event of COVID also got to start to feel part
of the loneliness reality that can exist. And
of course, there's others, but what can be done?
You know, we know why it's important. We want
to save lives. We want to bring people together
and create communities. But what can be done
to help people not fall into a sense of despair
and loneliness from your perspective? You know,
that's why we focus so heavily on events. We
try to get people out of their homes, out of
their basements, et cetera, and, you know, off
their phones and out into parks and around town.
And we do ruck events. We do all kinds of different
fitness activities out in parks and so on. It's
just getting people together, right? Especially
one of the reasons we love rucking, it's a great
fitness tool. You can also hold a conversation
with people you've never met before and you all
have a similar excuse for being there. It's not
about talking to the guy on your right or left
or whatever. And then it's about finding people
that not only have the same interests as you,
but you can align your values and purpose with.
Yeah, absolutely. That takes us back to community
a little bit and talking about building communities
that save lives. I'm a huge fan of the TED Talk
that says everything we know about addiction
is wrong. And in it, his climax, his point for
that TED Talk is that community, a sense of belonging,
helping people feel like they belong and they
matter, that could eliminate the majority of
addictions in the world. So what are your thoughts
on that? Is that the same guy? No, he's got a
foreign Eastern European or Western European
name that I can't pronounce. And I will look
it up while we talk. But what are your thoughts
on belonging in communities? No, I think that's
absolutely correct. I brought up Dave Logan because
I feel like that speech could have been given
by him if you've ever read Tribal Leadership
and his Five Phases of Tribe. Oh, now I know
who you're talking about. That's a phenomenal
book. Yeah, the bottom two phases. It's all about...
You know, the first one is is life sucks and
isolation and so on. And then you get to stage
two and it's like, well, I'm doing OK, but everybody
else sucks. Right. And or I'm sorry, people suck.
Right. And so that's usually where you find those
types of addicts, people who are trying to escape
life, escape their community, et cetera. And
the more you bring them out and include them
and, you know. help them understand that they're
not alone in the world and that they have a purpose
and help them find their strengths and that kind
of thing, the better off we're all going to be.
Huge. Well, I love it. And I'm glad you brought
the book up. The TED Talk provider is Johan.
Hari. Not as hard as I thought, but H -A -R -I.
And I do highly recommend my friends looking
that up. It's not something that can only help
you with building out your vision and helping
others belong, but you can create movements with
this type of information that make a big difference.
And so you got the event side that you mentioned,
and I'd love to just dive into why. Why do you
believe, Rich, that shared hardships can either
break us or build us? A lot of people, I think,
associate adversity as something that only sucks
sometimes. So how can hardships and adversity
build us up? Marcus Aurelius taught us that growth
is found in suffering, right? Everything that
we do to try to make ourselves better, except
for maybe just reading, even if it's the monotony
of reading and studying, it's all suffering in
some way, shape, or form, right? Suffering together,
going through adversity together means you're
probably going to come out of it okay, and all
of you are going to be stronger and better for
it. you can't really get better without putting
yourself through some type of friction and adversity.
You think about what you do in a gym, right?
You're lifting weights. You're putting tension
on your body in order to make it grow. You have
to do that with your spirit and your mind as
well. Absolutely. I agree with that. And so I
guess another question for me, because let's
talk about... your programs, your vision for
what it is that you do. You have Honorbound Fitness.
You've also got the Guidon Foundation. Tell me
about your vision for both of those. So Honorbound
Fit kind of gave birth to the Guidon Foundation.
So Honorbound, as a gym, we wanted to introduce
our region to rucking. And so we started doing
these events, and then we realized that we could
do this for a purpose, right? We had our first
Ruck Hunger in 2024, where we gathered food for
the food bank, threw it in backpacks and said,
you know, if you want to donate this food, you're
not just going to drop it off. You have to walk
it three miles. And we gave them a prize. We
said the team that donates the most pounds of
food in the 12 -hour window by carrying it and
dropping it off wins $1 ,000 and a trophy and
so on. These types of events just turned into,
you know, how can we use our fitness not just
to look good naked, but to serve others and better
humanity. Right. Let's let's help feed the poor.
Let's you know, now we have our this coming weekend.
We have ruck with pups. Right. So we're working
with two local humane societies. We're getting
their dogs out of the shelter, out of these kennels,
taking them for a walk. And instead of carrying
canned goods in our backpacks, we're going to
carry dog food and we're going to donate that
to the Humane Society at the end of the ruck.
right so we just found all these little ways
that we could try to to use these fitness events
for a good cause and that turned into the guide
on foundation because you can get a lot more
done in charitable aspects as a non -profit it
opens a lot more doors for you and so we founded
the guide on foundation of december and that
came out of you know our our big pinnacle event
is guide on 22. it's a 22 mile ruck march with
22 pounds uh it's always a saturday before thanksgiving
um every five miles or so we stop we fix our
gear we hydrate and all that and then we start
each leg by having a family member or a close
friend of a veteran or first responder who's
committed suicide give their story and their
testimony about how it affected their family
and their community and so on uh i work with
a lot of other veteran service organizations
in the community and we bring them out to to
talk about their resources and so on and so it's
it's growing to be a pretty big event and i think
i think 2027 will be our first we have this this
event in two different locations it'll probably
be texas next year we'll do uh you know guide
on 22 east will always be in the quantico area
and that on 22 south will probably be near houston
Oh, man. Houston. All right. That's quite as
far south as you are. We'll find ways to work
on some things. But yeah, San Antonio is ready.
And Austin and Dallas, I'm sure, too. And I'll
be listening if you want to get involved in these
types of things. Of course, virtually and in
person, you can do so. But I want to tie this
to all you guys as visionaries. One, the more
we give, the more we get. That is scientifically
proven. We want to be able to give. And we also
want to figure out how do we create more awareness
for these types of events too. And I'm sure you've
learned some things on your side, Rich. I'll
give two stories while you think about maybe
sharing what type of awareness has this driven
for your brands, who's gotten involved. Even
if it was one or two people like that, I don't
want to undermine the value of those individuals
intentionally finding out about it. But I want
to shout out to Paul Rosai, great friend of mine
from Lifetime Fitness back in the day. And Paul
runs a nonprofit in San Antonio called... Work
out, help out. And so he believes that you could
do good while you're doing your workouts. And
they do community service projects and organize
them as workouts in the process. So what you
talked about, you know, it can go beyond just
looking good while you're naked. I was like,
that's funny. Paul would really like that line
as well. But you and Paul talking to each other.
could lead to mastermind opportunities of understanding
how have you evolved? What have you learned about
optimization, optimizing events like this to
inspire people to get involved? And then I'm
going to shout out to a powerful legend in San
Antonio. His name is Howie Nistel. And I will
get you guys connected as well. Howie Nistel
runs Sharkmatic. He's helped 1500 plus companies
in the San Antonio, Central Texas area. But he
also runs an event more than 20 years running
now called Gotcha Covered. And Gotcha Covered,
every... uh it's the first sunday of the month
of december i believe it is right now when people
come out to this event they end up raising more
than 60 000 pounds of food and clothing and stuff
to fill all the shelters in town uh the mayor
gets behind it he's just he's just learned things
through his 20 years of how to really bring the
community together to to pull these events initiatives
off. And it's so fun to be able to get involved
in. And so visionaries think through how can
you work with others who are doing something
similar to you, as well as the entrepreneurs
around you, because how we then came back to
a bunch of us 20 years later, and it's like,
Hey guys, what if we all put a thousand dollars
in to a random fund? just to do random acts of
kindness for people as we see fit no no 501c3
just us doing it as guys and so a hundred entrepreneurs
all committed to putting a thousand dollars in
so we had a pool of we still have a pool of this
hundred thousand dollars i don't know what it's
down to yet because i'm not in charge of the
treasury but it's and then we just come together
and decide what are we going to do for our city
What are we going to do for the people? Are we
going to go to H -E -B and just hand this out
randomly to people? That's our grocery store
in Texas, by the way. Are we going to go and
do an event of some sort? And we all just kind
of have a casual vote about the process. But
there's so many ways that that has led to creating
great relationships. It allows us to get involved
in the community. just feels good, man. It's
just fun. So I'll get you connected to those
rich, rich. What, what has, what are the events
done for you from a publicity standpoint even?
And what are some of your favorite connection
aspects of having run these events? Yeah. So
in terms of publicity, I don't know that they've,
I mean, people see us out there and they, you
know, they either show love or show hate one
of the two. But you know, it's, it's, it's wonderful.
It's very gratifying to see people who make new
connections on these during these events uh make
new friends and and share their stories etc uh
you know there's testimonials popping up all
over the internet slowly right people talking
about their experience that got on 22 and things
like that so i'm i'm exceptionally grateful for
that um we also you know through these events
and and as it kind of grows we're starting to
develop new programs right and so uh ruck with
pups was easy i wouldn't say it's our first big
event because it's uh it's just rock hunger with
dogs instead of instead of uh you know food for
the for the shelter or the uh uh food pantry
uh our first big project uh as the guidon foundation
is uh service leadership academy and so we're
putting together a program still very much in
development but as it stands right now it'll
be an eight -week program in the summer for rising
seniors in high school And we're going to somehow
convince them to sit in a classroom setting for
four hours a day, twice a week for eight weeks.
And we're going to teach them all about leadership
and they're going to get these lessons from veterans
and from first responders and from other community
leaders. But the first two weeks, phase one is
it's all about self -leadership. And so your
Passion Pros project is going to come into that,
you know, self -awareness and, you know, MBTI
tests and stuff like that to teach these kids
about themselves and how to lead themselves,
because we believe every person is a leader.
You at least lead yourself, right? And then then
we start teaching them about, you know, what
is leadership and assembling teams and finding
ways to lead. And then the last the fourth phase,
the last two weeks will be a community action
project that they head up themselves and take
action on. Wow, man, that's going to be awesome.
And I saw you. Are you going to open that up
to where there's virtual speakers involved as
well? Or is this only going to be in person?
Maybe. I think this first summer, it's probably
going to be kind of a closed beta. We're probably
going to, you know, seed the group with some
of our existing, you know, some of the board
members, children and stuff like that, and make
sure that we've got a good product together before
we start, you know, putting it out to the greater
community, kind of refine these things. But then,
yeah, I think. uh there are a lot of really impactful
people that i think would be more than willing
to help with this that aren't trying to drive
to fredericksburg virginia you know for for a
four hour stay Uh, so yeah, I can't ditch my
South America right now. I got too much going
on down here, but I would love to be involved
virtually. And of course we, the neat thing about
that program, again, you inspired a passion pro
coming together. Um, I got to ask Claude some
things about liabilities with certifying people,
et cetera. And, um, it was really reassuring
and helpful. And so what was cool is like, okay,
we can design this program to where. Those who
come through and find their passion, if their
passion aligns with serving and helping others,
they can become certified to also mentor and
license the materials to use for themselves.
It's like, oh, this is fun. This is going to
be a virtuous cycle of helping create better
leaders to the process. So again, we'll dive
into that more later. But so this program. Service
Leadership Academy, four hours, two times a week,
eight weeks, driven for the youth as the first
round and then beyond. I think it's going to
be awesome. Most youths that I've talked to have
never been in a true leadership program at all,
not for 30 minutes, not for 10 minutes. It's
something that somehow just kind of like has
skipped the curriculum board for them. I want
to switch gears. Veterans and... And civilians
coming together, I think a lot of us as civilians
would like to know and like to see, too, how
can the veterans better facilitate meaningful
inclusion of civilians in these processes? You
talked about people. You're never going to get
escaped to people who hate and who want to come
and hate. But I think as a civilian, sometimes
I'm like, uh -oh. Am I allowed in this conversation?
Am I allowed to have a rucksack? What if I don't
know how to put the backpack on? Are people going
to make fun of me too much? And do I salute or
do I not? Can I say hoorah? I think sometimes
the civilians just don't know how to relate in
that. So what can veterans do to more proactively
involve civilians and help them realize they're
welcome to this process? You know, admittedly,
that's something we've we've struggled with.
Right. Because we built this gym. I know you
can't see it, but we built this gym to be to
feel like home to a lot of military members and
veterans. You know, there's American flags everywhere,
all the branch flags. And, you know, there's
a there's a post that looks like a security post
on top of our office straight out of Iraq with
a 50 pound machine gun and, you know, a mannequin
standing post and so on. But. We constantly have
to kind of correct the record because, yeah,
we talk about being veterans and we're proud
of that and so on. But the amount of times in
the last year that I've had somebody approach
me and say, man, yeah, I really love what you
guys are doing. I'd love to participate, but
I'm not a I'm not a veteran or I'm not a firefighter
or whatever. And I'm like, bro, our biggest demographic
within this gym is like 40 to 60 year old women.
who were never in the service, right? And so,
and we love them and we're so humbled and grateful
that they love us. We are not just for veterans
and first responders. And so, like I said, admittedly,
I think we're trying to figure that out ourselves,
but really it just comes down to one of our core
values is treat people like individuals, not
obstacles or objectives, right? And so just talk
to people on an individual level. The amount
of times, because I've, I was never good at selling
things or asking people for things or asking
for, you know, sales or anything like that. And
so over the last year or so, I've gotten really
good at, you know, when I meet somebody and I
strike up a conversation with them and we hit
it off, I say, hey, why don't you come for a
walk with me in November? And I slow walk them
into, well, this is Guide on 22. It's this big
event we do and you'd love it and all this kind
of stuff, right? And it's just individually ask
people and encourage others to help spread the
word of whatever it is you're doing. Make them
feel like they have some type of body in them
that they want to participate and invite others
to participate. I got some ideas that came out,
too, of that conversation. So one visionary is
sushi restaurants struggle with the same reality.
Um, right. You don't, if you don't know if you
like raw fish or whatever, and you're going in,
like if, if the sushi restaurant doesn't help
you feel comfortable as somebody who's not familiar
with how sushi works, you are not going to eat
there. Um, right. And so it's not because I have
anything against, uh, quality food, but if I
just don't know, fear of the unknown is one of
the greatest, uh, you know, fears that people
have in life. And so, um, one, one idea for you,
Rich, you could read the, you could lead the
cause on this, create a civilian flag. And now
some people might be like, well, isn't that the
United States of America flag? Well, yeah, but
the Marines have a flag, too. And so do others.
And so if you created a civilian flag, that might
be an interesting way to draw some conversation
around it. Two, Civilian Awareness Day. That
could also be something that you play with. And
Civilian Appreciation Day. Right. These are these
are novelties as as what's his bucket? Alex Ramosi
teaches so eloquently about a hundred million
dollar offer. But you could take all of that
and plug in your 12. agentic ai things that you're
building super cool and be like guys run with
us build something for us um because the more
i like a complete 180 you completely went in
the opposite direction of treat people like individuals
right well what if we put all the non -military
people in one in one bucket well that's fair
that's totally fair um i did and you know it's
funny In Bill Gates' docu -series on Netflix,
the person who's been following him around for
three years, he's talking to him about eradicating
polio. And Bill's daughter stops him and notices
a picture of this woman. He's like, Dad, what
did you do for her? And he's like, what do you
mean, eradicating polio worldwide? She's like,
no, what did you do for her specifically? And
he's like. I don't know if we did anything. And
his daughter's all mad about it. And the documentary
guy even jumps in at this point. He's like, wait,
I'd be mad. Like, why? And he's like, so why
do you do this then? Like, if you're not just
going to help the one person. And Bill's response
was optimization. And I was like, that's right.
I was like, why? Because, yes, there's a vanity
feel good about helping the one person that's
right there in front of us. And I'm not saying
we shouldn't, my friends. I'm not saying don't
help the one. But I stand for. you know 600 million
latinos um you know who are in central and south
america and and get overlooked and undervalued
and it's like okay if i'm gonna help all of them
i can't do it one at a time um you know not that
mission but i can when i'm in front of the individual
so there's like that harmony and that balance
if you guys want to jump in visionaries and get
involved in that conversation please do don't
hesitate um but yes i did kind of take that in
the in the exact opposite direction um so you
guys do do what you can with that it's different
perspectives there's nothing wrong with that
So important. I mean, I need food and I need
water. Right. We need abundance in life. So sometimes
we need to go left. We need to go right. All
right. So let's talk about let's return to why
many veterans. Why do you think they struggle?
After leaving their structured environments and
it's like, OK, well, they don't have the structure
now, you know, but what is beyond that? I think
there's other elements and sometimes it's my
military buddies who ask me or bring it up with
me and they haven't figured out that they can
see the challenge, much like an alcoholic is
like and you can be like, well, stop drinking
alcohol. Oh, thanks. You know, it's like I'm
glad you solved that for me. But what is it that
makes it such a struggle? What do you think,
Rich? Well, I think I kind of alluded to it earlier,
right, is when you're in the service, when you're
wearing the uniform, you get a certain amount
of reverence. We have holidays dedicated to our
veterans. We have, you know, programs for military
discounts and all this kind of stuff. And, you
know, you don't not feel a certain way when you
see somebody in uniform and you want to show
their appreciation and respect and so on. To
abandon that and to not wear the uniform, not
get that same reverence like the active military
members do, it's a different world. Like you
said, coming back from South America or the mission
you were on, it's kind of a culture shock, right?
Like, I didn't know it was like this. And so
that's why we're focusing so much on those two
objectives is finding tribes and finding purpose.
So how do you do that? How do you recreate? And
we can focus on one of these individually if
you'd like, but how do you recreate mission and
tribe and purpose once you're in civilian life?
Well, that's why I was so happy to talk to you
about Passion Pros and finding ways to help people
find their next passion. But every community
is struggling with something, right? Every community,
no matter what size it is, they have some type
of problem, some type of... thing that needs
to be fixed and so we call the guide on foundation
the guide on foundation uh because for one we
don't just focus on veterans there's there's
all kinds of veteran non -profits out there and
there's a bunch of first responder non -profits
as well but i don't know of anyone that focuses
on both equally and tries to connect the two
in a shared mission uh and the guide on if you're
familiar with with uh military parades and so
on it's that flag that they carry at the front
of every company or battalion or uh military
unit that has their uh military emblem on it
it has their unit designation etc and it's a
symbol that they rally around and it carries
a certain amount of responsibility when you have
a change of command ceremony because one captain
is leaving and being replaced by another or whatever.
They literally have a parade formation where
they pass the guidon from one commander to the
next. And it's symbolic of that responsibility
that you have to your community, right? Your
military unit. And so the military has guidons
all over the place. Every branch of service uses
the guidons. And the law enforcement and fire
academies use guidons as well. And so it's a
symbol that we all know and can identify with
and rally around. But it's also symbolic of Like
I said, that responsibility, we're trying to
encourage veterans to find that problem, find
that struggle that their community has, and to
pick up their guide on, make their own guide
on, and lead people towards fixing that problem.
And really, it's not about necessarily finding
the one thing that you're passionate about so
much as finding the one problem you might be
able to have a positive effect on and leading
other people to try to have a good outcome from
it. That's awesome. So if somebody wants to,
uh, wants to get involved, get in touch with
you guys, what's the best and easiest way to
do that? I see you got our website there, the
guide on foundation .com. Uh, you can also find
us on Facebook, Instagram, uh, all the socials,
and it's always guide on foundation, no periods,
no spaces. Uh, and the same thing with honor
bound fit honor bound fit .com honor bound as
a social media tag, no spaces, no periods, no
underscores, no nothing. Very good. And my advice
to you guys, visionaries, reach out to Rich.
Send him a message. Happy to include everyone
in our community. It's a big, big tent we're
trying to build. Yeah, absolutely. And the neat
thing about getting involved early in... in processes
or in opportunities like this is you, you have
a bigger role and a bigger opportunity with these
types of initiatives. And so you don't have to
be, you know, the Walt Disney per se. I mean,
most people that, that help great companies and
brands, whether it's Disney, as I mentioned,
or ESPN, which is still Disney, that's not fair
or Harley Davidson or others. Like you don't.
You don't necessarily have to be that front facing
piece. You can make a difference by being involved
in the process. I mean, a leader can't leave
unless he has people there to actually follow
the process and support it. And so get involved.
And then visionaries, those of you who want to
come on the show and share your own visions,
there's a button in the top right corner at visionproslive
.com. It says, be our guest. Click on the button,
come be our guest. While we still got slots available
this year, it's not a bad idea. I think we're
booked through. June or no, I think actually
through July or August at this point. And so
we'd love for you to come on, tell us about what
you're up to, how you're helping in the world
before we wrap up fully the rich. Is there any,
any other pressing matters that you want to talk
about in relation to helping visionaries in relation
to what you're up to? I'd love to just follow
your lead for a few minutes. No, you know, I
keep seeing my my shirt here in the screen and
I made this shirt. We sell it. It's not just
it's it's not a shirt that I wear because I'm
trying to sell a book. Right. I have no book
to sell you. But the smaller print, I don't know
if you can read it on screen. It says live. It
says live a story worth telling. And the idea
is I really I heard a quote that I fell in love
with. And it's I'm paraphrasing because I have
shit memory, but it's. you know the difference
between a good ending and bad ending is when
you just stop when you decide to stop writing
right and so when we when we talk about veteran
and first responder suicide you know uh you get
to decide when to stop writing the story and
and just because it's it's hard now and it seems
like the like your story is going to have a ending
a lot of times you just got to choose to keep
writing and keep you know keep telling your story
and eventually you'll have a story worth telling
and you'll have a positive ending. My friends
last year was a tough year for a lot of reasons.
I'm sure for many of us. Um, but man, it was,
it was hard. And my coach Fletcher Ellingson
said something very similar to what you just
said, Rich. And it lifted me up and reminded
me, it's like Jackson, um, it's like, is this
going to be the last chapter of your book? And
I like, this is, this is your call. Um, you know,
do you want it to end like this? You don't want
to just keep going. Um, you know, and this could
be what gives your book that much more substance.
Um, and so remember this, this is not the end
of your story. Don't make it such you get to
troll. control what that Indian looks like. So
I love what you're saying. That's a really cool
shirt too. We are all the authors of our own
stories. So what a powerful way to head out on
that visionaries. Mitch has lots of books, lots
of chapters, lots of legacies to still fulfill
in his life and bring forward as do I, my friends,
this is not the final chapter of what Jackson
has going on. Whether it's with the AI marketplace,
passion pro, which we just released a power launch,
what we do with clients, vision pros. the beyourbestshow
.com, like it just goes on and on. There's so
many opportunities. And I hope that you also
end up with your visions realizing like, you
know what? My vision might right now be that
mountain range that's over there. And you might
be in a desert and you get to the top of that
mountain range and you end up seeing an oasis
or you see a forest or you see a town. That's
how vision works, my friends. There's always
opportunity. around the corner, but we've got
to be able to get around those corners. And that's
the people around us who I have found that lift
me up the most and help me make it to my next
destination. So Rich Brown, thank you for becoming
part of the people in my life who lift me up.
Visionaries, I hope you lean into Rich and what
he's up to with the Guidance Foundation. And
we will see you guys all on the next episode
of Vision Pros Life. Thank you for being here
today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to
Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.