Brave Men S2E36: Brian Boyd - The Courage to Live Through Transition

Paul the Apostle was on a road journey to Damascus. It's called the Damascus road experience. What really happens? He got knocked off his horse when he thought he was doing the right thing he was going from Jerusalem to Damascus He was going to arrest a bunch of Christians and even though he knew he was right and everything about him and all his context said you're right He was wrong and he found out when God knocked him down But the real story of Paul's life has not just a Damascus road. It's what happened afterwards the time he spent in training the time he spent a working with a man who mentored him and So the story today and what we want to talk about on brave men today is how do you get back up and Get back in something even though your filter is shifted and the way you do things is pivoted How do you restart? We'll talk about that today on brave men It's brave man with Paul Lewis Cole Wisdom encouraged for the journey So I had to restart my computer today Paul because it didn't work Really? Yeah, so I think everything needs to restart once in a while It seems like when you restart your computer it cleans it out and it's better and ready to go. It's faster Well, yeah, because it When you restart it's like hard-starting back going back on your phone and doing a hard Yeah, because it and it all seems to work better because you've recalibrated it So recalibrating is is what we're talking about today restarting. How do you get knocked down and get back up and You know for this entire second season Brian. You've been co-hosting And what's funny is you know as I listened back to some Episodes of brave men and you've done a great job. By the way, we've got we've gotten a number of compliments I think they must I think they were all relatives But nonetheless the number of compliments of people who said man, I love the way you guys talk to each other, you know The interaction you're easy you're easy to talk to and and you've been great, but as I listen back it was kind of like Hey, I'm Brian Well, here's Brian and I was like well, we've never explained who is Brian and I think to me it's a fascinating story here the executive vice president in North America at wings brand activation You've also owned and had companies that you've built in this whole Field of advertising marketing media All those areas. I mean you can tell us more And so that's who Brian is you're married. You're your wife. You've got kids Yep wife is a cancer survivor You started running jogging right I did in response my turn my turn 50. I started that It wasn't till you turned 50 Wow Yeah, 50 Wow, and you've actually done marathons Yep, five five full marathons and your wife has done more than that 25 I think Including the including the world majors, which is the five big ones around the world So in other words, and you have to qualify for those you don't just get to go with most you do If I'll see Boston is a qualifier, but you can go via charity, and so that's how fragmented it she did it via charity and what's your wife's name again? Fran Francis, right. I knew that but I want to make sure we Tell her they have to know All of us Sarah she's she works in New York City for Verizon in the marketing department and And then our son Brian Jr. is a software engineer at standard in pours S&P in Manhattan Wow Now tell me about you were in New York for many years Yeah 15 years Yeah, and you built a company there we did we I had spent time in New York working in the communications industry for a couple of communication companies and migrated to kind of after the 9-11 time frame Started a company in the in the IT space and in that morphed a couple years later into a social media digital agency Which was called media connect partners which we had for a long time. Wow, and it became very large very successful Yeah, it did pretty good. Yeah, we had I think we ended up with about 30 30 employees or so and wow and some contractors and in in In the states that a couple of their continents and really It was a lot of fun. It was a great company to have. Yeah, and then you you guys moved sold the company Yep, and you had to do you had to actually do what we're talking about you had to recalibrate oh my gosh and and at You know in Late late, you know late 40s early 50s. Yeah, age wise. It's old. Yeah, age wise. Yeah, it's one of those things were You know you think to yourself. Am I is it too late to do this? Why am I 50 and I'm rebooting? Wow, you know Yeah, I know you have friends in business world who have In fact your friend who owns the restaurants, right? Yeah, who who's restarted even later than that and yeah Try it again. So yeah, so that same same age basically same age restart So what was it? What was it you held on to because when we say you had to restart Essentially you thought you had built something that was gonna Provide an income and it didn't quite work out that way You know, I think just times change. I think I think our company was focused on Tactical social media strategies for 501c3s for nonprofit organizations and And the world keeps moving and everything changed everything changes and you can't you can't stay You can't stay you have to be fluid and you have to watch the world around you in marketing and digital stuff you can't just You know, Paul if you and I were recording this on our Atari 2600s And For those of you who don't know what that is it's an old video game system from like the 70s. I think you could play pong on that wasn't that Asteroids. Yeah, Asteroids. That's right. You can shoot that asteroids. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was all black and white too So people would say you know, why are you recording this podcast on an Atari? You can't do that. You have to move on Wow, as I record this I'm in Florida, you're in Texas and And for all intents of purposes, it sounds like we're right next to each other Yeah, but and but it's all part of life every part of life and I'm sitting outside actually. That's why you hear these birds It's all something like two guys fighting over here at least At least my neighbors on moan as long But but what happens is is it doesn't matter what part of life you're in You change is always constant. There's always going to be change But this was a big change for you guys for you and Fran How did you how'd you pivot that and what did you hold on to Brian? Yeah, it's there's been so many so many of those Paul You know, there is the the business change and at the same nearly at the same time my wife was going through a Breast Cancer journey. Wow and and so you find yourself trying to You know in many in many single let's see in many two family two parent households Parents work, you know, maybe they don't all the time. Maybe the father is or the mother is but in our case We're trying to run a business trying to be a caregiver to my wife. Yeah, I'll put through that journey and With kid we had the opportunity What's that with with children that are oh, yeah, were they teens late teens? Yeah, they were yeah at this point They were they were out of the house. I guess this is me five six years ago. So they were okay, okay? college yeah, but You know you just pray every day for you really have to pray every day for wisdom and that every step is ordered in fact I don't know how you do it without God in the faith because we even met people along the way that we should have met That helped us with this journey. Wow a doctor here or a business person here. Yeah, and And and so you get up and you pray and and then you at the end of the day. I would tell my wife Fran At the end of the day, you put your head down. You're like well that day didn't go all like I like I planned it That's not how I planned that day and and so you know We had the opportunity to sell the agency and so we did that and then we rebooted immediately with a new a new company To help Sea level executives with marketing strategy. Mm-hmm. And so we've had the ability to help you know Sea levels around the world with the high level. I call it fractional CMO. So fractional, you know Chief marketing officer duties and help. Wow. So okay If we had gotten through this whole journey, we wouldn't know that so get good. Yeah, I get that as a fractional CMO So rather than paying a full-time a person to do that you come in and fill it for whatever amount of time that is sure Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow, and that's and that's what you're doing now Yeah, yeah, that's what we're doing now Man, but how do you know did you have someone you know when you read the Bible and you're looking at scripture and stuff was there something that Kind of stood out to you That was resilient Yeah, you know, there's there's a there's a couple things It's a couple verses that that I kind of go back on and and I can On a previous episode we talked about our 9-11 story about how on 9-11 We we found ourselves homeless and we lived about a block away and then then there was Things like this my wife's cancer journey and wow and there's there's a song from the night 1980s from a from a great guy named Michael W Smith. Oh, yeah, who who during the pandemic by the way has had a Saturday night praise Time on YouTube every Saturday night at 6 p.m. Eastern Wow, and he just sings for a half hour and he gives worship. It's called worship around the world But in the 80s he had a song called be strong and courageous. Yeah, and and it really is A nod to Joshua one nine, you know, I'll read this from NIV. It's have I not commanded you be strong and courageous to not be afraid Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Mm-hmm, and You know, that's it. It's it's not there's no hummining around that. He's kind of right there in black and white Don't be afraid. Okay. I'm afraid. Well, don't be it says it right here. Don't be afraid. I'm with you The Lord your God is with you. And then over in Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Jeremiah. Yeah, that's I think that's how they say it in Eastern Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Paul To everybody 29, you know, again, it's right in black weight. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord Plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope in a future. Yeah, another translation not for your destruction There you go. So it's pretty clear and and I just I as I look back at at the journey we've had Every time there's been an obstacle when you kind of you know when you kind of come up to it And if you're listening today you come up against obstacle You know, there've been times when I lay in bed at night and I play um Uh, like Jeopardy in my head Like bill bills for 500 Right Yeah, yeah You know diet issues for 500 And and you lay there and you're playing this game of jeopardy in your head and wow And just you know go back to the scripture, you know, don't be afraid God knows what to do. He's got your plans And and I tell you what we've we've lived through 9-11 we've lived through some some other things And um every time when I look back Really the Lord was there all the time. I don't know why we're still here. I don't know why we're even alive today I don't know why When I ran through the towers to find my kids something didn't land on me. I don't know I know that God had a plan And um, you know this last week uh, Paul one of my clients Is a speaker for kids and he he speaks to kids about self-image and he speak it He's spoken to 9 or 10 million kids around the world right and uh, we helped him with a live webcast to schools around the world Wow, and uh, and at the end of the webcast a day or two later he sent me a note two kids had written their school saying that they were in a In a bad place Maybe going to take their life, etc They watched the webcast and they sought help Wow, so so We were able to put this together via a webcast and we had an impact on kids in our roles And maybe that's why I'm still here. Yeah, I do Yeah, but in other words, we don't know and uh, so the reason right you hold on 9-11 uh business changes Friends got cancer you know There's always drama because we're alive and we're people in a broken world And yet you hold on to this take courage. Don't be afraid And because you hold on and use your gifts and talents and skills to help this guy do a webcast two young people Who might otherwise right now be gone be dead Because of suicide our alive and recalibrated in our lives Shoot man, that's that's why we hold on Brian I mean, that's it right there. That's You know, so we hold on for ourselves and for others, but it's for others. It's um You know for that that whole endurance and resilience is a real thing because a lot of people right now millions of of us right now are are pivoting our lives We're changing the way we do things uh, we're changing the things we do we're changing our businesses Because of all this COVID-19 That's done. It's fundamentally changed the way business operates and some of the businesses but the other side of it is in the middle of a crisis There's opportunity There is You know, you know my my take has always been Paul and I listen I'm I'm not the smartest guy. There's a lot of smart people out there but when You know Whatever 30 years ago when I lost my job one time Uh, I think my wife Told me you know, just get up shower shave put on your dress clothes and get get to work finding a job Right? That's your new job and yeah, that's your new job don't wake up late and and and uh don't brush your teeth and look like a job You know, whatever And when when COVID hit when this pandemic hit Um, it affected me and our business that we you know, we had some clients who who rethought their budgets and so forth And so we had to think and But still for me it was getting up every day taking a shower shaving Put it on clothes at least a shirt I didn't I didn't always wear pants You don't have to if you're on zoom No, I don't wear I'm not wearing pants right now Ah That's not a picture we we needed right then Yeah, but uh Um, you told me one thing it you told me one time that France France said do you you wearing cologne It's true. Yeah, I didn't put cologne on just as you know It's a thing and uh for me that's the frame of mind that gets me going in the day and and and I have a better day Um Well, I bought a little what we talked about in that uh podcast. We did triage for the troubled heart um It's one of the first things we talked about is don't lose your rhythm Yeah, it's true. You know, that's Galatians. I think it's Galatians five or one or whatever Anyway, it's Galatians and uh Paul says to them, hey, who bumped into you and caused you to lose your rhythm You guys are jacked up. What what happened to you? You know, you were doing so well. In fact, he says it that way it's like a race and in your marathoner So you understand this and he says like a race you get bumped into And uh who who bumped into you and caused you to lose strike because you're messed up Remember he was having to tell those guys, you know, don't get drunk during communion Right. Yeah Don't eat all the bread before the guests Yeah, uh hilarious stuff But it was really he's writing them letters. I mean And it's so easy to get off stride man. This is so good Brian. You stay with it. You Your job becomes finding a job You know and and I think kind of like running You can't wake up today and expect to run a marathon tomorrow. Right. If if someone said to you Paul hey This Saturday, there's a marathon You're gonna run it and you you really can't do it. You haven't trained You're not ready for it. You don't have the right shoes You you don't know how to hydrate and eat along the way you have to for the those who you don't run You have to like carry little goos with you and then and hydration because you have to keep yourself energized energy and have it give energy all the way But if you Are trained and you're ready to go you have a good shot of completing the race right And and I think you have to go into life that you know the same way is is you need to be trained all the time So you can complete the race Um, you know what my wife knows is we've talked about this but when she entered her her cancer journey her breast cancer journey Was she's totally healed today she went into it healthy And I know that's not the case for everybody, but but at least she went into it healthy and she was able to complete that journey Successfully. Yeah, she didn't start off on a on a bad foot. Yeah And and I think whether it's your career or your health or getting ready for a job change You know or or running train Train as if you're gonna do it Get yourself ready to go. Yeah, that way with it. Wow, you know, you know when you enter that you're ready to go Um, and uh, I think there's a Bible story in there somewhere but but Um, you know train train as if it's gonna happen. Yeah, then when you enter that journey, you're ready to do it Yeah, well Proverbs talks over and over about If you're gonna be successful you you do the work you need to do ahead of time You know James the half brother of Jesus he he talked over and over about faith and works, but he talked about Um, the works is gonna come out of your faith in other words you get your heart healed Start working through stuff and then take the next step. It's it's something we talked about in just a bartender the book Where we talked about god loves things that start so he created seeds There you go. Yeah So um, yeah, it's been it's been a fantastic to have you on season two Brian and be a part of the Uh, the entire podcast season, but I wanted everybody to hear from you Of this because you are a not only a survivor, but a thriver And you help other people thrive and I think that's a secret I think that's the king the thing that you mentioned earlier about helping this guy do that that uh, webcast worldwide Touch so many people and you do that you help lots of people and um, so thanks for being My co-hosts. It's been a fantastic time to hang out It is well, you're easy to talk to and and Paul you know, I I As a as a kid growing up in Tacoma, Washington I remember your father yeah, and uh, and I know for certain I've met him and shook his hand I know I had wow and um and my grandparents knew Your family going back and there's a lot of As we found out one day when we were just having coffee There's a lot of ways we connected even aren't like a sister. Joanne had photos Yeah, uh, let me think of your dad And my dad wasn't it? Yeah, they might your your sister was at my parents wedding. That's right. Yeah Yeah, which we we just found it was a craziest thing And we had never had never met and and I just want to thank you for everything you do You know taking your father's legacy C.M.N. what everything C.M.N. does all the resources that you work tirelessly at You know for a guy in his 90s you've just done the amazing job And I think you've got a big wedding anniversary coming up in the near future too. Yeah Yeah, we do and I'm not supposed to tell but I mean when you hit 50 years married It's like you can't not tell So judy's you know when when my wife was in her mid 30s my kids thought she was 35 for six years. It's true story How old's your mom is 35 at For six years and so on she doesn't like people adding up numbers She goes if you tell him who've been married 48 years are gonna go. Oh, well then that's uh, let's see that's that carry the three I know So uh, but yeah next year man September 2021 Which might be this year when you're listening to this particular episode All right, it'll be 50 years now hashtag 50-year marriage Yeah, that's true. Oh, there's so many great resources that you you guys have built up at C.M.N. and uh It's great to be part of of the C.M.N. family. So thank you very much. Well, it's great having you a part of it And thanks for being my co-host season two love you brine To blast Thank you for uh everything you do and and for those of you who who listen and subscribe. We're really thankful uh The Podcast is available on every single podcast platform and and I just pulled statistics today in fact Paul I got a send them to you Um, but week over week more and more listeners are tuning in so people must be telling their friends And uh, it's it's a testament to the great interviews you bring on Um, like can you tease any in the future interviews or now you don't want to do that Well, if I tease future they might be on who and you listen to this they might be proud So there's a great one that we the great interview is coming. I could I could that list them all as future That's true. You would go like oh crap, you know, I better step down Because if I listen was all past they'd go well shoot. I missed it. What the heck that's true And it's non-linear world. It doesn't even matter True story Listen, we uh Love to hear from you. So drop us a note Paul at cmn.man Paul at cmn.man. We'd love to hear from you Good bad. Otherwise suggestions Let us know Paul reads every single one of those emails and we may include some of your comments on the future episode of Brave Men podcast That'd be great Lastly, you know, cmn.man go there drop us a note join our mailing list and we'll keep you up to date on the next Season of Brave Men and what you know what's going on here with the podcast Thank you Paul for a great season Fantastic. You're awesome. You're awesome. Thank you very much for Paul Cole. I'm Brian Boyd. We'll see you next time On the Brave Men podcast You've just experienced Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man