Kenneth Brenneman is an Army veteran, passionate advocate for veteran entrepreneurs and the incredible work of the Warrior Rising nonprofit organization where he currently sits on their board of directors.

Kenneth provides us with an in-depth look at the Warrior Rising program, walking us through the crucial steps it takes to support and empower veteran entrepreneurs. This invaluable program provides a structured pathway for veterans to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams, fostering innovation and success.

Mentorship plays a pivotal role in the journey of veteran entrepreneurs, and Kenneth sheds light on the significance of mentorship within the Warrior Rising community. He shares inspiring stories of veterans helping veterans, highlighting the power of guidance and support.

Our conversation explores the concept of franchise ownership as a viable option for veteran entrepreneurs. Kenneth discusses how this approach can provide a solid foundation for business success, leveraging established brands and systems.

We also delve into the fascinating world of business ideas and problem-solving. Kenneth emphasizes how entrepreneurship is about identifying and addressing real-world challenges, sparking creativity and innovation.

The conversation takes a poignant turn as we discuss the challenges, failures, and the mental health aspects of entrepreneurship. Kenneth opens up about his experiences and the importance of resilience and self-care in the face of setbacks.

In This Episode We Cover:

• The Warrior Rising Program Steps

• Mentorship

• Franchise ownership

• Business ideas = problem solving!

• Entrepreneurship, failure and mental health

• Personal growth as an entrepreneur

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

https://www.warriorrising.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-brenneman-60191110/

Transcript from Episode 115 with Kenneth Brenneman:

Keith McKeever 0:01

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. Got a great guest on today to talk about business, entrepreneurship, running the business and a great program called warrior rising. If you are a business or prospective business owner, you may have heard of warrior rising. You may have some questions about where you're rising. Today, we're gonna hear a lot more about it. We're gonna kind of walk through the steps and learn a lot a lot more bad to kind of peel back the layers of the onion, if you will, and learn more about it. I've got a personal friend and fellow veteran, Frank man TAO, the original Korean eater. He's been on the show a couple of times. He connected me with our guests. They Kenneth Frank speaks so highly of moisturizing and what it's done for him that I was so super excited to Frank connected me and Kenneth to be able to highlight for all of you exactly what what your rising does. So without further ado, let's dive into it. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. So welcome to the podcast. Kenneth.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:01

Thanks, Keith. How's it going today?

Keith McKeever 1:03

Man, it's going good. How about yourself?

Kenneth Brenneman 1:06

Doing all right, just enjoying life?

Keith McKeever 1:08

That's good. Well, it's better than the opposite. Right?

Kenneth Brenneman 1:10

Exactly.

Keith McKeever 1:11

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about about yourself and your your story.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:16

Yeah, so my story. I'm an Army veteran, nine and a half years between active and Ready Reserve. You know, spent a lot of time in the Wyoming National Guard after getting off of active duty actually got off of active duty in 2010. So right and you know, 2009 2010 ish, right at the end, they're right into the middle of an economic pretty much disaster if anyone's remember that. Exactly. A great time to get out. Yeah, not exactly a great time to get out. And, you know, not exactly a great time to find a job. So I became, you know, what, me and a few of our my buddies on the way writing word say, we became accidental entrepreneurs. I had a couple of great skills that I had learned in high school, graduated with computer science degree, and founded my first computer networking business. From there, you know, travel around quite a bit, played a little bit more college football, which I did before the military as well played professional and college rugby, traveled the world with that played for the military team, and then founded my second business. When my first business got back then we started growing exponentially, started another business, because I can't just do one thing at a time really was running two businesses doing all this other stuff, playing sports, finishing up my college degree. And then I was getting ready actually, to go to medical school, had acceptance into medical school for an MD PhD program. And two weeks before I was to start classes, I turned them down. And I said, I prefer business instead. Ended up going back and getting my MBA from the University of Wyoming and the University of fourth time in Germany. It was a dual degree program that was offered. And, you know, ended up working at Credit Suisse. And then worked six years at Goldman Sachs before leaving a little bit earlier this year, to found yet another company, Main Street bond, which is going to be a crowdfunding website to help entrepreneurs, as well as starting my own little VC fund. So venture capital funds so that I can actually invest in entrepreneurs. So, you know, lots of things going along there. And during this kind of crazy time period, my buddy Jason Van Camp is a former Special Operations Officer Greenbrae decided to start warrior rising, which, you know, he asked if I would be a volunteer and a teacher at first, which I did, and then eventually, oh, that's four years ago now, five years ago, he asked me to be on the board. And so I've been on the board.

Keith McKeever 3:58

Awesome. Now is a heck of a story. And, you know, like you said, you get involved a lot of things. I'm kind of like that. I think a lot of vets we either find ourselves involved in a lot of things, or you find yourself involved in like nothing. It's like, like a feast or famine thing. Like, you're like one of one of the two it seems like but but but football and rugby, that is interesting.

Kenneth Brenneman 4:24

University of Wyoming. Okay, so yeah, played there. You know, I'm a bigger guy if, you know, Frank, so you've met Frank in person. And so, I tell ya, I tower over Frank. I'm about six for about right now walking around about 280 You know, I also fought MMA, so all of this kind of just retired as a champion in MMA last year, so you know, it was just constantly have to constantly on the move. But yeah, I mean, it's always been fun. Played for the Denver barbarians played for a few other teams. Well, so I mean, at the high level, so I mean, it was great fun, actually, while I was in Germany, for my MBA, played on a professional football team out there. And you know, that was, so I just constantly have to have my hand in something.

Keith McKeever 5:14

No, that's awesome. If for any listeners out there who has not explored rugby, I highly encourage you to do so. I will admit, I do not know and understand all of the rules. But I discovered Rugby Sevens a few years ago. And I was like, Man, this is awesome. Like, where's this been my entire life? And why is this not on TV more? Yeah, well, I know, there's differences between the different levels and you know, have many players on there. But like, man, rugby is awesome.

Kenneth Brenneman 5:43

Yeah, and I was I was mainly so I played fifteens and sevens, under union rules. And then for sevens, it's just one big rule, set sevens super fast pace, it's seven minute halves. So it's a 14 minute game, you have seven players on the field. And think of it kind of, you know, in terms of kind of like seven or nine man football, right. It's a lot quicker speed than union rugby. But it's wonderful to get people involved in the sport, it's also a great physical activity, you know, we can all lean back to it, it's kind of back to our military days when we had to run, you know, the two miles and 13 minutes to get your dot score on APFT. Always for the army. And that's what you're doing with sevens rugby. So the only thing is that you got hitting tackling everything else. I got a couple of gnarly injuries from that, which I mean, obviously, no pads and guys like me running around and going into each other full force you, you tend to get a few injuries. But I mean, it's a it's a great time. And it teaches the same things that we all learned in the military, and just really continues to build on them. That teamwork, you know, working towards individual excellence, everything else?

Keith McKeever 6:58

Oh, there's no doubt about it. I mean, like most sports that are team sports, it requires teamwork. But it definitely one of those definitely requires teamwork and coordination and communication to be awarded the ball up and down the line and get it to the right person to break open and go score a try. Right? To try. Yep, yep. Yep. See? I know a few things. So back to the water rising thing. So you kind of alluded to, you know, kind of the story there to help to help veterans. But who is water rising? For what?

Kenneth Brenneman 7:32

Yeah, so where you're rising is for veterans and their immediate family from any time period. So originally, we started with focusing in on the post 911, the G watt, the global war on terror. Excuse me. So just so that I figure all your listeners know, but

Keith McKeever 7:50

hey, you know, they might have somebody older, you know, a dozen or so man and mouse who doesn't, you know, doesn't know exactly.

Kenneth Brenneman 7:56

And so we did you know, we originally focused on that. And then we broaden our focus to any veteran. And then we said, Well, who else gives, you know, sacrifices, and we also said, Hey, anyone in their immediate family. So that's where kind of who we help, which is a very broad group, right? Military Spouses, sons, daughters, military veterans. And the key point here is that our entire service is absolutely free for everyone. So all of all of those people that qualify, it's absolutely free throughout the entire course.

Keith McKeever 8:35

So I know the first step is an automated intake. What What exactly is that?

Kenneth Brenneman 8:41

So I'll take you through kind of the five steps. But first and foremost, I want to say, if this brings with you, head on over to warrior rising.org. Which you're right. Oh, awesome.

Keith McKeever 8:56

It's an amazing show notes to everybody. All my usual listeners know, I've always got in the show notes.

Kenneth Brenneman 9:02

Awesome. So our automated intake basically, you go through and you fill out some forms which tell us how long did you serve? You know, we asked for that information. We've actually got a connection into the DOD to where we can verify as soon as you say, Hey, I'm you know, Keith, I served you served in Army or Air Force. Sorry, apologies on that. You made you made the smart choice. I made kind of a dumb choice. I love my time in the army, but looking back on it, I wish I would have joined the Air Force. Then, so you go through, automatically validates if you're a spouse, you fill in your spouse's information, everything gets automatically verified, and you get an email from us. Now, what that does is it's all like what is your business? What do you need help on? etc, etc, etc. Once all of that is combined. You get a link to the warrior Academy and a login to the warrior Academy. Now the warrior Academy is kind The next step, you know, we have a six step process, as you already alluded to the warrior Academy is, I like to put it as a ranger school MBA. Right? We basically took the idea behind Ranger School is, you know, one of the most elite leadership, it is the most elite leadership course, the military has to offer, they combined it all into 60 days, to be mentally tough everything else, we did the same thing with an MBA program or like, that's our gonna have two years to go to an MBA, most of that are with an idea like this don't want to do two years of an MBA program. And even more, so some of them haven't gone to school for business before they don't understand business. So how do we do this, we turn that entire Academy and MBA into military lingo that you and I are used to, you know, if I tell you to go fill out an awkward, you can go fill out an awkward an operations order for those that aren't in the military. But you know, when you go do that, that tells you where you need to be what what your target is everything else? Well, that's how we designed the business plan. So it's all like everyone in the military knows how to write an OP word. That's how you can write your business plan. So it really takes all these key and have almost Matt, I don't want to say imaginary, but you know, non physical aspects of the business process, and then passes it into a way that veterans and their family can easily learn. business terms, lingo, accounting, everything else, to where they can very, they're prepared to pitch their business and prepared to start their business, whether it go to a bank for funding or anywhere else.

Keith McKeever 11:42

Well, it's great, because like I said, not everybody has a business degree or had any business training. Because those of us that are veterans, we know that like the GI Bill and education benefits, like some people qualify, some people don't qualify depends, if you're active duty, Guard, Reserve, how long you serve, when you serve, where you serve, like, all of the charts and graphs that determine what benefits you actually get all that crap, you know, you know what I mean? But like, it's stupid, but it is what it is, right? So like, not everybody has those benefits or spouses even, like, you know, I didn't serve exactly six years. So like, I could never transfer my GI Bill to my spouse. One of those things, I mean, there's a lot of people like that I'll serve for years, you know, and you know, I'm doing something, but my spouse is trying to do business, they're trying to launch it, but I didn't serve, you know, as a listener for years, or, you know, maybe they serve five or whatever, and they didn't transfer it over. And that kind of sucks that they came, you know, so it's great avenue for them to be able to use something like that.

Kenneth Brenneman 12:47

Yeah, and the other thing, you know, you said stupid, but our entire model is kiss, right? Keep it simple, stupid. Like, it's designed for anyone to be able to understand that it's the same way that you know, we train everything in the military, right? You should be able to do every job that you're capable of. And with the correct training, so that's what we did. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 13:10

well, don't overcomplicate stuff, right. Yeah. No need to overcomplicate it.

Kenneth Brenneman 13:15

I mean, think about it. Like, for anyone that's gone through the VA, there's obviously a ton of jokes within the veteran community about dealing with the VA. We don't want that experience for anyone that comes onto our program. We want it very quick, simple, you know, let's get to the Get Moving to the point. Because, you know, it's efficiency of movement. You know, if I'm going out on a mission, or anything else, it's not like I'm gonna take a 10 loop de loop, go into the background, and then come back, it's, you know, find your target, acquire your target, and then destroy.

Keith McKeever 13:51

Absolutely. So, that's the Academy. And then so let's next

Kenneth Brenneman 13:57

Yep, so the academy once you complete the academy, by the time you complete Academy, you're gonna have a business plan, you're gonna have be able to do some financial projections, everything else, then we go into our monthly coaching sessions and mentoring sessions. So you know, for each of us, we have quite a few different avenues that we mentor and coach on. For me mostly, it's finance. You know, I spent six years on Wall Street, doing finance, doing like you're uniquely

Keith McKeever 14:27

qualified to mentor and

Kenneth Brenneman 14:31

it's, you know, and then we've got people that have done nothing but strategy. So it's all like, Hey, here's your go to market strategy. We have some people that they're super good at retail, and they mentor on retail. You know, we do this and it's a monthly session will normally bring in a few different guest speakers to talk through it and then you know, move forward. Normally, we try to do picking mentors and also If you want to be a mentor or a coach, you know, beyond all that, that are out there, but anyone else who's listening to your podcast and might want to be a mentor or coach, we do have open volunteer spots for those as well. So, you know, we, we bring on the mentors, the coaches, we try to do it right now I'm a little overloaded on mentees, I have about seven right now, that, you know, I'm helping, and are all different types of businesses. It's a little bit interesting, but you know, I've run enough different types of businesses, you know, I gave some of the highlights, but we're about seven different types. So I'm able to use that learning. But we have a ton of coaches and mentors, just like me, that are mentoring. And this goes on this can go on for months, right? Starting a Business isn't something that happens overnight. And the other big thing about this is most of us that are mentoring and coaching were older. I know that in recent business stuff, everyone's all like, well, we have all these 20 year old multimillion dollar entrepreneurs, and it's all like, that's not statistically Correct. They're kind of the extreme example, your average successful entrepreneur is about 42 years old. So like, when you actually look at the statistics, the vast majority fall into about 42 years old, why is that? You know, you have an expertise, or you have a passion. And you had to go through the cycles of learning. You know, in the military, we we learned our leadership characteristics, right. And the corporate world, your learning your trade, this allows for people to mature a little bit, you know, I'm a lot different. Right now as I am than what I was, as, you know, I joined the military when I was about 21. So no one I was 21 and didn't have a clue and was very immature. So that's where we see a lot happen here. But you know, but we have, we have these coaching sessions that, you know, until you're ready to go forward, you know, people can stay there for two years. And it's, it's perfectly fine. And then once you feel ready to really kick off your business, we go in through something called that CEO. Now I've seen people go straight from the warrior Academy to that to CEO, I've seen some come in and say I finished with warrior Academy, stay a year and a half in our in our mentoring sessions, before they feel ready to go on to the next step. Really, it's all about your comfort, this is entirely self driven. That the CEO is basically giving more of what the warrior Academy did. So this is where we're going to bring in, you know, nightly classes, I shouldn't say nightly, normally their weekly, we'll do weekly classes, you know, we'll get to, and it's a nine week program. So this one is literally nine weeks of, you know, you have set classes, things like that, to ensure that you're ready to start your business. And that you've thought through, you know, this goes into financial planning, this goes into content creation, this goes into just about everything possible that you could think of, to run a business.

Keith McKeever 18:34

Okay, yeah. That's a, that's a very, very valuable step. So the people that tend to skip that are those people tend to have a little bit more business experience or business background?

Kenneth Brenneman 18:43

So we actually don't, we used to allow people to skip it, because we were still building it out.

Keith McKeever 18:48

I mean, I skip the steps to that. So

Kenneth Brenneman 18:51

yeah, so you really can't, you can't skip the warrior Academy. But when you go into, like the monthly mentoring one on one, if you have business experience, if you've been to B School, things like that, you know, that fly through it a little faster, you're gonna you're gonna feel you're gonna feel more comfortable to say, you know, think of it think of it this way, right? If you come in and you were in like JROTC, all of that you've been running the army PT test since you were 14 years old. And you go to basic training is, you know, you're not going to need as many hand holding things as someone who doesn't understand anything about the military. So a lot of sense. Yeah, it's one of those where the monthly mentoring, it's a great value add and, you know, even a lot of people in the that CEO are still going to monthly mentoring meetings. You know, Frank, Frank, I don't think he's missed one. And he's been in our, for the monthly mentoring. I don't think he's missed one mentoring session. And he's been with us for about three years now. Three and a half years. Every month he's on a mentoring session. because he's always trying to clean something

Keith McKeever 20:03

that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, he's trying to soak up every every bit of knowledge he can and grows. And he's done amazing with his business.

Kenneth Brenneman 20:11

He has I mean, when I can, I'm super proud of Frank. So Frank has been one of you know, he's one of my mentees. He's a great friend as well. Him and one of my other if you've ever heard a Luke seminar, but he runs cluesive. So to blind software, him and Frank literally came to me came to warrior rising with ideas, and I've been able to help mentor them from the idea stage, all the way to where they have very viable companies now. So that's, that's a big thing.

Keith McKeever 20:43

I think, two and a half years, probably about two and a half years ago that I first met Frank, and he was kind of a little past the idea stage, I think he had made, he had made some prototypes, and kind of sold them to some friends and family and stuff at that time. But he still hadn't even kind of perfected even the final recipe, he hadn't figured out where to make them or you had to go through all those hoops and jumps that he had to go through. And I'm in real estate. And I mean, it's totally different industry. But we're in a business networking group. We were in one together for a while. And I just love sitting there hear his story and his challenges. Because it's totally different business perspective than what I have, like totally different challenges that I'll never face in my industry. So it's really, it was really informative for me.

Kenneth Brenneman 21:31

Like there was there was one time it was actually this summer. So Frank gave me a call. And he's like, Do you know how to stop chocolates from melting when you're mailing them? And it's a problem that I'd never thought of?

Keith McKeever 21:44

That would make two of us.

Kenneth Brenneman 21:46

Apparently, there is and so you know, I have some good connections in the food industry. So I was reaching out there. And I'm just like, this is something I never would have thought of, I've never, you know, I've been in finance. I've been in SAS, I've been in construction. I've been in computers. This is something. So with a lot of these businesses, you get a unique perspective, especially where I'm sitting and seeing some of the day to day challenges. So

Keith McKeever 22:13

when there's a challenge, there's an opportunity to solve it. Exactly. Yep. You know, we both know Frank, Frank with Frank will find a way somehow to solve that problem.

Kenneth Brenneman 22:25

Well, when I when I have always introduced Frank, Frank is, if you can imagine what an old Marine NCO is. That is Frank, no matter what he's going to accomplish his objective, even if it takes him battering down the door with his own head. So I mean, he's, he's, he's very, very stubborn. And I, it's something that I very much appreciate about Frank is that they're all the challenges and a lot of our almost shouldn't say, all of our veteran foreigners, but almost all of our veteran foreigners that come through warrior rising, have that same tenacity to just push through any issues.

Keith McKeever 23:05

Yeah, he's Yeah, he's got that. Never give up, gutsy push through, like, I don't care, like that infectious, startup kind of mentality of like, like, you really feel the passion, like, nothing's gonna stop them. He was gonna find a way even in the beginning, like, it didn't faze him, like, he's gonna find a way had no idea how aware, you know, have 50 million steps in between now and then but he was gonna find a way one way or another, you know, that's why I said, it's amazing to see all those steps to have heard some of those conversations, you know, behind the scenes to get there, which is, which is amazing. And I'm sure you've heard even farther in depth. But

Kenneth Brenneman 23:53

Frank, and I mean, Frank used to call me about three times a week to pick my brain on stuff and so, but that's the great part about this is that you know, when you get those mentoring and coaching, and then you roll into that CEO, you know, you click with certain people, you know, and another person that maybe I'll introduce you to is Kurt polish with Polish heart with Polish woodworking. You know, another vet that has done amazing things through warrior rising.

Keith McKeever 24:23

I've never actually talked to Kurt But Kurt and I are connected on Facebook. We were in St. intrapreneur tribe on Facebook together. But but we've never had a chance to talk but I know he's one tremendously talented woodworker.

Kenneth Brenneman 24:36

Oh, he is and that's like, for me, that's one of my hobbies. So him and I go back and forth on some stuff. And you know, he was he's another one. He was my mentee for a while. I guess still is but really is business has taken off so much where he doesn't require too much of me. He just gives me more of a call every now and again to tell me how he's doing. But he's a tremendous woodworker and a tremendous businessman and that's where are following the steps of this program, right? So we're on step four with his debt to CEO program are we writing program in the vet to CEO course. But that nine weeks truly allows. And this is kind of it's almost like a filter, right? There are certain things sound really, really good on paper or in your mind, and then when you start betting and betting it against other people, it doesn't sound so good, right? So this is another portion of that, that CEO, where it's all like, Hey, I've got a great idea of going through the warrior Academy, boom, boom, boom. And then here's where it's like, Can the rubber get traction on the road? Right? This is what is it

Keith McKeever 25:43

really a good idea? Like, or is it a crazy?

Kenneth Brenneman 25:48

And, you know, this is where we talk a lot about monetization, right? Businesses need to be able to sell a product to earn money. If you can't do that, it's not a good business idea, right? So this is a very, very important step of being able to understand monetization, etc. It's a great program, I've gone through it. You know, I've gone through everything that we're going through, just to test it, but love it, you know, we have a ton of great people teaching these courses, myself included. So you know, and it's all recorded, so that you can apply to go to the next step, which is called a business shower. So this is actually where Frank and I originally met, outside of me just reading a business plan. Now, what is a business shower? Right? You have a wedding, you know, if you're, you said, but when you get married, you have a wedding shower, right? Get presents to help you start your new life. When you have a kid, you have a baby shower, so you have all the stuff ready for that? You know, we have throw showers all the time for everyone, why don't we throw business showers for new entrepreneurs. So that's what we do is that we take them aside, we get them a custom business suit, we get them a laptop computer, we get them marketing, digital SEO, I mean, a website was goes on and on. And if you get invited, you get a little bit of capital as well. So that's, you know, to defray expenses. Again, this is all no cost to the entrepreneur. Now, after at the business shower, you go through something called a shark tank. We've all watched the show Shark Tank, right?

Keith McKeever 27:34

Of course. It's like one of the few shows on TV I watch.

Kenneth Brenneman 27:37

Yeah. I mean, it's a great show, but we want to give them so you know, I've been a judge it pretty much. I've only missed two business showers. So out of I think we've thrown 10 Now 11, I've missed two of them. But they're wonderful, right? And you get live feedback from industry professionals. You know, you're you get a full day of mentoring, and a chance to win $20,000. Now, $20,000 is a huge amount of money for an entrepreneur that might be self funding or anything else. So, you know, Frank came in second, I think I believe he won $10,000. And I'm using Frank just because I know Frank, if he told me I could talk about things that we've done together. And everything

Keith McKeever 28:22

he sounds about, right. I mean, he posted that on Facebook and stuff.

Kenneth Brenneman 28:25

So, you know, it allows one, he got all this stuff, he got everything he needed to start his business, then he got a little bit of extra startup capital to push forward. And, you know, made a ton of connections. So one, when he did that, all of a sudden it goes 100 miles an hour, where now we're mentoring on how to production everything else. But the business shower is kind of the culmination of this program that can take anywhere from the quickest I've ever seen anyone go through both the warrior Academy and that to CEO was three months, four months. But some people you know, have been at it for two years. But then they we all get to meet we're doing all kinds of fun stuff. You know, they're getting mentored. And then here's the kicker is that a lot of a lot of times when you deal with nonprofits, and I don't know if you ever go on like hunting for heroes or something like that, they take you out hunting, you're gonna go hunting for a weekend and you get a great bull elk, right? Yeah, I'm gonna have a European mount of a huge bull elk on my wall for for the rest of my life. But it's one day. We don't want to be just a one day or a one year support system. So after the business shower, and even if someone doesn't go to a business shower, up Come part of our tribe, right? And we call it the warrior tribe. So what does it do? It's, it's helping support. Right? Frank came to a business shower in 2021. You know, I've known him since before that. So I guess we've known each other once for years. But so we met in 2020, he is still a part of the warrior tribe, he's still getting mentorship from all of us, every single one of our business owners, whether they've gone to a business shower, whether they've just gone through the program, they're always invited, always there at the events, getting mentorship, you know, moving forward with what they need to do in their life and for their business.

Keith McKeever 30:43

That's awesome. I'm sure there's some extremely tight connections that are made to because I you do things. You do some of the stuff in cohorts to us on your website. You got some groups, can you can you talk to what what those look like?

Kenneth Brenneman 30:57

Yeah, so the courts, basically, we want to give people you know, just like Ranger School, right? Ranger School, you go through the cohort, so you can talk to other people. I haven't gone to Ranger School, just so everyone knows.

Keith McKeever 31:10

But they still listen. Yeah,

Kenneth Brenneman 31:13

unfortunately, I just long story there. But I

Keith McKeever 31:18

Oh, we all know, those are super cool that, you know, badass guys, you know, we'll give them their credit. Yeah,

Kenneth Brenneman 31:22

we're given their credit. A lot of them are really my really, really good friends. But that's where we we modeled this after is that you really want to have that support system. So the cohorts come together, you know, normally they're anywhere between 15 and 20. People that are going through the exact same things that you are, and one of the things that we're looking at creating is kind of almost like a Reddit chat, subject for the cohorts. Normally, they connect themselves on Facebook, they give each other their text numbers, and text each other do all that. But that's one of the things that we're looking to do soon, is to create like a group cohort chat online within the warrior Academy. So there might be someone that's super good at marketing. I suck at marketing, right. But my friend, Nick, you know, he's amazing at marketing. So if we were in the same cohort, I could be like, Hey, Nick, I need some help here with marketing. Can you help me write up this marketing plan? By the same token, he could flip it over to me and say, Hey, can I need some help on this pro forma? Can you build out some financial projections for me, and then we can learn off we can learn from each other? While we're learning from the course. And that provides like a really tight knit. I don't know if you're an officer enlisted. But you know, when you go through basic training, you know, for me, I went through OSA you know, spending 16 weeks with the guys, you tend to get pretty tight knit, especially when you can't do anything else.

Keith McKeever 32:54

Yeah, I, I wasn't I was enlisted. But yeah, I mean, when you're with a certain group for a long period of time, you either get tight or, or you really hate each other when two things happen. So but, and that's why I was kind of wondering with these cohorts, because I've been in some some different groups like leadership, academies and whatnot for some things and like, they tend to just get really, really, really tight it like very, very quickly, usually. And I was I was assuming it's probably the same way, they probably stay really, really close. And like you said, I figured they probably ended up kind of mentoring and counseling each other in different ways, too.

Kenneth Brenneman 33:36

Yeah. And I mean, I haven't seen any blow ups. So, you know, that's, that's a fun thing. But I think it's also the professionalism that we all bring, you know, if you're, if you're in the military, or your military spouse, you understand the professionalism that needs to be brought to anything that you're doing. And so, I see it more ago that, you know, you get really tight knit with the cohort. And, you know, they're providing their expertise across the, across the playing field.

Keith McKeever 34:06

Sometimes I think, too, there's an element of that. Well, I'll borrow from the Air Force's core value of service before self, right, or that military mentality of like, you train your replacement, not that you know, your cohorts or your replacement, but you just you help you train the people around you, like you just make better make people around you stronger, and you make them better because what's, what's it to you? You know, if you're running if you're running a pig farm, and I'm running a restaurant, we're in totally different industries. What does it do for me other than a little bit of time to offer you some advice on your business? If I happen to have some specialty that might help you? Right? I can, that's where it's not cost me anything with time.

Kenneth Brenneman 34:49

Yeah, and that's where one of the things is, is that people are, they need to understand that, you know, even with a lot of Isolite mentors, mentees and a lot of friends that I went through schoolwork and such, that we bounce ideas off each other all the time. Because that's who we are as people. And that's what you need to do to become successful in life. I mean, regardless of how many quote unquote Self Made Millionaires are self made business magnets you see out there, they're not everyone has had someone to help them.

Keith McKeever 35:28

Yeah, and a lot of those people have I choose my words carefully here. One thing has always really bugged me being in business, and I won't pick on my own industry here sometimes in some ways, but the real estate industry is one of them sometimes, but the like, fake it till you make it kind of thing. The the fancy cars, the watches, the clothes, the, the the Living the lifestyle, kind of things like that, like man, people can just read through that man be genuine, be who you are, like, you don't have to go buy a fake Rolex and go lease that $100,000 BMW, when you make $10,000 a year just just to try and look cool. Like I think everybody knows what I'm talking about, like, I didn't post all your whole Instagram feed is that, you know, with you model next year car, like

Kenneth Brenneman 36:28

what I've seen, I've seen that, you know, I saw that on Wall Street quite a bit, obviously. I mean, I just, if you look at me, I've got this beautiful, wonderful beard, I haven't shaved and actually shaved one time I had my last muster, you know, that I had to go to. So I took. And it was a week that I make up for all the drills that I had missed while I was in Germany, shaved that week. And that's the last time I've shaved.

Keith McKeever 36:57

Garbage. never bought another one.

Kenneth Brenneman 37:01

Pretty much and that's but the ice kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. Because I I agree with like this whole fake it till you make it thing. It's stupid. Like, live within your means. And grow within your means for your business. Right? That's the biggest thing that I see people make mistakes on in real estate, like, you know, I have a lot of friends that are in real estate as well. They they aren't genuine. And when you're not genuine, it makes it harder to sell to people. Like no matter what you're selling, like every business is selling something, I don't care if you're consulting, if you're consulting, you're selling your your mind, if you're running a retail business, right? You're selling cupcakes, you're selling whatever you're selling your house, you're everybody's selling a product or a service. Exactly. So the more genuine you can be, is the better. You know, I think one of the things that I always joke about is that I was the only person on Wall Street, going banker on Wall Street with a with a CDL. You know, had my CDL for a long time. I'm just I'm never getting I'm never getting rid of it. You know,

Keith McKeever 38:17

you might very well, I would not be surprised if you weren't the CDL. So, but very good possibility

Kenneth Brenneman 38:24

when you're when you're talking about things like this. And that's one thing that I tried to incorporate into warrior rising as well, when I'm talking to everyone. Just be yourself. Like don't be a robot Don't be you know, don't be just another cog in the machine. That trends 10 veterans in their family members tend to be very, very good operators of business. Because we're so used to creating SOPs, right. For those that don't know, SOPs or standard operating procedures. So we can literally and what you're saying is training replacement, right? When we're starting to build things, we build it from the ground up to where, regardless whether we're there or not, you know, if we get shot in the middle of a firefight, someone needs to take up and step up, step up into our place. That's why we have our whole hierarchy in the military. Right in that's how most veterans treat their businesses is it you know, we're going to train you here, here, here, here and here. Let's go out and execute a plan what's create a great business

Keith McKeever 39:35

and I totally feel that I can kind of somewhat consider myself like a policy and guidance nerd. I love those kinds of things. But like that, and checklists and just yeah,

Kenneth Brenneman 39:47

I totally I am I am not. So I have one of my good buddies, another veteran who he loves it. Like, legit. That's what he does is he is I just want check Question one SOPs, the more you handle that side, I'll go handle getting connections, you know, doing everything else for the business.

Keith McKeever 40:09

So, I think that's a really key thing. And I've noticed that in my own business, probably over like last six months, I'm like, I have certain things that I that are my strengths. And I've realized those, I also painfully obvious that I have weaknesses. And it's like, oh, boy, you know, I need to really put the focus on my weaknesses, or find somebody who can, who has those strengths to, you know, you, the only way you're going to succeed is if you either bulk those up or fill somebody find somebody to fill that gap.

Kenneth Brenneman 40:45

And that's the other part about like that CEO, the warrior Academy, you're going to find your weaknesses. Right. So moving back to like the army, physical fitness test. I can run, but I am not the best runner. I am a sprinter. I'm not a long distance runner. And I say long distance anything over a mile to me is just killer. But that also comes with being six, four and built like a tank. You know?

Keith McKeever 41:16

I'm not six, four, and I was 100% fill you on that I did not like did not like running. Yeah, but that's done it like I didn't even like sprinting. So I mean,

Kenneth Brenneman 41:28

say I love sprinting. But when we really look at it, that's you know, I knew that was going to be a weakness of mine coming in. I've, I've always known that as a weakness, I for sprinting, 100% sprinting long distance running, I hate it. But that's what warrior rising also allows us to do. And it allows a lot of introspection. So you have to start looking yourself in the eye and say, Am I good? Am I good at this? Am I good at that? I know, for a fact, I am not good at operations. Like I can plan high level put out, you know, basically your battle plan, I can put a high level battle plan out, I have to rely on someone else to say, well, if this is happening, then we need to I can put out high level stuff when it gets down to the nitty gritty, I need someone to do that. Or your or your academy. And that CEO they you know, I've known that about myself for a long time. So it one helps people turn that back. And you know, you're I hate the saying turn your weakness into a strength. You're never going to turn a weakness into a strength No matter. You know, there's some people that you know, we and I'm just going to put this out there again, going back to physical fitness. There are some people that are just born naturally good at running.

Keith McKeever 42:58

Oh, yeah. They're there love it. Good at it genetically, like just, they're they're running right? Yeah, yeah. All the time, or like why

Kenneth Brenneman 43:10

that's punishment, then there's, but then there's people like me that I will never be able to compete on their level. At long distance running, I just can't. So I hate that phrase, turn a weakness into a strength, you can turn it into less of a weakness. But I also I always have someone that can fill that gap for me. That's what they're naturally good at. They're good at putting together a checklist. All the more power to you, I can give you what I'm doing in my mind. But I could never really write it down and say this is all the check. They'll sit there and they'll write out a checklist. They'll write out an SOP, they'll watch me do it twice. And they'll be like, okay, yeah, this is how you're going to do it. Here's how we're going to write the SOP for it. So I highly agree that you need to surround yourself with people that are not yes, people are yes, men, you know, we have a saying in the military, you know, the brown nose or the Yes, man, the person that's never going to challenge you. Either surround myself with people that are going to challenge me and have a different talent set that I have. That are my weaknesses that are their strengths. their strengths probably aren't mine, like my strengths. I can get out and talk to people, I can sell them something every day of the week. Some of those people, they they never want to sell in their entire life. You know, they've told me they're like, We don't want to be on the front lines. Let us be back here. Not not facing customers, anything else, we'll just have everything running in the background for you. So that's an important aspect and kind of an introspective aspect that you have to really as you go through where you're rising, but again, in your overall life. You have to understand what you're good at.

Keith McKeever 44:57

I think I think there's a lot of strength in real life. Using, like you said, you won't turn a weakness into a strength, but just the perspective of realizing what your weaknesses are, so that you're aware of them. And just be like, Oh, okay, now I'm aware that a, b, and c is a weakness for me. And then now I can I can find a solution to deal with it, whatever that looks like. And then, you know, then you can, then you can find a way to move forward.

Kenneth Brenneman 45:27

Exactly.

Keith McKeever 45:29

So that's, yeah, that's awesome.

Kenneth Brenneman 45:33

I mean, overall, like. The other thing I would say about warrior rising is that,

you know, we don't want people to become part of the Forgotten generations and the Forgotten wars that this country has fought, right. Unfortunately, if you look at historical examples, like Vietnam, you know, people forgot the sacrifices that all of us made, that all the veterans made. And, you know, we don't want that to happen, especially with, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. There's been a lot of political upheaval within the past couple of years, obviously, with the great Afghanistan, you know, withdraw. Well keep that a little bit here. But I mean, there's there's been a lot of things that have happened was what it was, right. It was what it was. We don't want current modern veterans to face the same hardships that a lot of the Vietnam veterans did a lot of the Desert Storm veterans did.

Keith McKeever 46:43

Things like right, well, it's it's interesting, you say that I've been volunteering with the the Honor Flight network to take veterans to DC for for many years, actually, this next week, we have our, our last one for the year. But you know, we we can't really find any world war two vets anymore. And I've had these conversations with some of the volunteers before, there's a huge difference between the generations to World War Two vets would get huge turnouts, for when we would bring them back from these trips. Because everybody's aware of the sacrifices they made. And the Korean wars, the Forgotten War, and Vietnam, we all know what those guys were subjected to when they came back. And for the last 20 years, we just went over and over and over again. But the pup, the percentage of the population of us as younger vets that went, I think is like I don't know, if like one and a half percent or less, or something like that. It's pretty, very, very low, compared to the other generations. And if you talk to like Young kids these days, like they don't really know much of anything. Of the last 20 years, what happened? I mean, nobody went to war, but they really don't know anything. And so like, you, it's very important to keep those.

Kenneth Brenneman 47:58

Yeah, and I know, we've had a history. Yeah, it's very important to keep the history and like, for my family, you know, just saying, My mom actually just got promoted to Colonel. So she's, she's in the Wyoming National Guard, still, dad retired after 25 years. And you know, just all the impacts it has on on the family, right. So my little brother, you know, he was he was born like, as Afghanistan started. So it's just been just seeing the impact on the different members of the veteran community in the families. I think it's another important thing. And that's another big part about why we call ourselves a tribe why we call, you know, it's more than just when I want to, I want to phrase my words right here. It's more than just a program for business. It's truly a family like you had back in the military. So that's why we do call it selves, the tribe. But you know, there's been times where I've had the intrapreneurs call me at one o'clock in the morning, because something was going wrong in their life. And they, you know, I was their friend that I could talk to. So, you know, it really provides that sense of just family that you had when you were in the military. And I think that's something that a lot of us miss when we get out. I think that's why a lot of people are scared of transitioning, especially like the lower enlisted levels, right. So I'm totally it's, you're scared because you're going into something you don't have your battle buddy right there beside you, right. Sitting on the battle buddy, your podcast. I think that's the first time I've said it, but that's really what we're doing is we're creating a network of battle buddies for business. And so

Keith McKeever 49:58

I think when you get to the upper echelons, if you will, of the military, you know, they say like it's lonely at the top right? Yeah, it probably is. You know, like when you're a senior leadership, you have less people that you can confide in and talk to. And when you're at 2025 30 years and you're like, Okay, well, my time is up. There is no more time. I have to retire, you have no choice. You can't realistically you can't, you know, take take another you know, contract, whatever. Like, you're done. But when you are four years in and you could re enlist if you really wanted to, you could make it a 20 year career. You do have all those, you know, friends and connections and battle buddies that you're all on the same rank or within a couple ranks of each other. But when you're a colonel or Sergeant Major or chief or petty out, you know, Senior Chief Petty Officer, whatever, like it's got to be super super lonely at the top. I don't know I never really asked any. Anybody but it must be pretty, fairly lonely.

Kenneth Brenneman 51:04

Maybe I'll have to ask my mom. Hey, Mom, how lonely Are you?

Keith McKeever 51:10

How many connections do you guys really have at the top? Do you guys like get together and have parties like the lower enlisted? Yeah. Maybe not like maybe not dorm parties or barracks parties but you know

Kenneth Brenneman 51:22

the good old barracks parties

Keith McKeever 51:25

like yet we don't know about it. Are you hiding it from us?

Kenneth Brenneman 51:27

No, they got their clubs you know those clubs that US enlisted people weren't allowed into that. Okay, I was figured it was the Hardy TOIDY you know

Keith McKeever 51:39

what happens behind those doors?

Kenneth Brenneman 51:41

It is any any active duty lower enlisted we will we will pay $5 A photograph if you can get into the senior officers club. I shouldn't put that challenge out there. But it will happen it will happen

Keith McKeever 51:56

how about this any officers that are listening that would like to provide a story since stories into us email to me battle buddy podcast at gmail email me whatever crazy stories you have behind the doors of the club. I want to know I may just do a special episode and read aloud the stories because why not?

Kenneth Brenneman 52:23

We should put the crazy like K we want the craziest stories here we want the craziest Oh Club stories that you had craziest NCO Club stories that you had and for all of us lower enlisted you know for for those that were lower enlisted. We want your your crazies barracks again, they should be semi you know, craziest, as in? No one should be getting arrested for this. But we still arrested now

Keith McKeever 52:51

for this I like this. Yes. That challenge out there. I know. It'd be a little while before this. Yeah, so I will. Yeah, once once I released this podcast, I want to put that out there. I tell you what, we're put that out there and I'm gonna I'm gonna put this out there for a little while. I'll put a timeframe on it. I don't know what yet, but it'll it'll be in the show notes. It'll be all over my social media go look at I'm gonna put a challenge out there. Just like you said. lower enlisted NCO and officer. I want the craziest stories. What happens in the barracks, the the enlisted club and the officer club. I want the craziest story that will not get you arrested now.

Kenneth Brenneman 53:30

Because yeah, we had so we had s NCO club, so we didn't have like a senior NCO. You're antsy so it was like I think I think it was a seven and above on my on most of where I was at.

Keith McKeever 53:42

I was going to go to Japan we just had an enlisted club and an officer club and when I was at Scott Air Force Base, if I remember right there was just one club I don't know if there was two parts to it or not. I don't know I think only one of their like twice so yeah, I think one of their for airman Leadership School graduation and

Kenneth Brenneman 54:02

I know I've ever met so we had just a few but I mean this is like bedding so Benning had you know the senior enlisted and then the officer club so well I guess it's not called betting anymore it's what is it?

Keith McKeever 54:20

I have no idea they renamed so many so many different dragons

Kenneth Brenneman 54:23

Liberty now. I forgot what they renamed betting

Keith McKeever 54:29

please me but this will definitely be an interesting I can't wait to read the submissions on this this this will be this will be interesting. I'll either do a podcast episode or I'll just do I'll just stream it out as a live recording and read them out loud and I'll make it a try not to laugh

Kenneth Brenneman 54:49

which is good got just from just from some of the stories I could tell you I don't know like you that's gonna be a tough one not that will be a tough one. Yes. Fort more fort more how more more how more That's, that's a good one. I mean, yeah, at least at least it was named, you know. Yeah. But I think bragging, biting will always be bragging betting to me. Like,

Keith McKeever 55:09

some things be hard for a lot of people to rewire their minds. You know,

Kenneth Brenneman 55:14

I think I still have a, my dad got me a shirt that said, Fort Benning are betting school for boys when I went to Benning, for OSA. So I mean, for that, for that you just have to have those things. But overall, I can't wait to hear about this challenge. I don't know how much longer you have. But you know, I'm pretty open. So

Keith McKeever 55:37

yeah, well, is. Just kind of curious more on the mindset of some of the people that go through this DCDC a lot of people kind of get to a certain point and just kind of drop out and just like drop the plan and business. I'm just kind of curious like, or do most people just kind of stick it out.

Kenneth Brenneman 56:01

So I have a pretty big sample size, we've helped over 16,000 veterans, that's definitely pretty easy. So of the 16,000, about three quarters make it through the warrior Academy. Worse, or at least within they get past the halfway point. the halfway point is where I see a lot of people drop out. Because that's when they realize that their business isn't viable. Right.

Keith McKeever 56:31

That's kind of what I was getting at. I was thinking there's probably a point where somebody says, Hey, man, either my business is viable, or this is more work than I ever thought.

Kenneth Brenneman 56:41

So and Yeah, normally that's, that's about four weeks into the warrior Academy, when they start having to draft a business plan. When they have to say, Will this work for me? You know, like there's, there's one guy that's gone through twice with two different business ideas. First business idea was great in his mind. But it was for a very select, there was like 50 people in the world that do this. Right. And it was it was basically like embalming. Not going to say his name. He's but basically involving animals in epoxy. So you can create scenes out of it, right. I was like, probably never going to be your sole source of income. I could be wrong.

Keith McKeever 57:45

I would agree with that assessment. Probably not. But

Kenneth Brenneman 57:50

but there's some weird, you know, there's some weird there people have, I can't say weird data on how you market

Keith McKeever 57:55

it. Yes. And I don't know what the market is on that.

Kenneth Brenneman 57:59

Apparently not very. So I sent him some market. Like I told him where to go look at market research and things like that. Not very much of a market on that. So his first slew through the warrior Academy. He was there for about four weeks, and then he dropped out. Then he came up with the secondary business, or then he came up with another better business idea. Which is basically just a mobile franchising kind of computer repair business. And he's gone through with that.

Keith McKeever 58:25

So do you find a lot of people coming through with like franchises and stuff, or Yeah, and

Kenneth Brenneman 58:29

that's one of the things that we do is that sometimes people don't want to start up their own business idea, they want to start up a franchise. So right now, if you actually go onto our website, we've partnered with dirty dough, which is a very large national chain of cookie restaurants. And we'll be giving away a free 30 Day franchise. People have to go through the warrior Academy, that CEO so they can run it. But yeah, a lot of people, you know, it's like, hey, let's just let's go this route.

Keith McKeever 59:00

Yeah, well, I mean, it takes some of the ideas, the branding, some of that stuff, it's just Well, I mean, you know, that one was giveaway, but you know, other franchises just buy into it, and a lot of stuff is taken care of.

Kenneth Brenneman 59:14

Yeah. And you have the support of a national organization. So it's, you know, dirty dough, they have their own marketing machine, they have everything, you don't have to do any of that. Like me starting up another new business here with Main Street bond. I have to do all that myself. So, you know, Warrior rising does help, you know, franchise owners and veterans start to own franchises.

Keith McKeever 59:38

Yeah, I noticed. You know, I mean, being in real estate I'm my licenses with a large independent brokerages in 37 states Fathom Realty 3730 states wherever they're at now, but before I did that, I had thought about starting my own real estate brokerage. My mother and I do an got together? And you know, just just even that the regulatory side with the state of Illinois, and the requirements for certain things, it was just like, man, no, it's so much easier to even just join another company. Or if you wanted to just go get a franchise agreement and bring a franchise to an area, then to start a new business from scratch in this space, it's, it's wild, how much paperwork you have to do. But man, it's relatively easy in real estate, like, yeah, office space, but they were like, Oh, you don't want to have a physical office space. That's cool. But we need to be able to tap into all of your records electronically, and be able to look like or like something like that like, or we need to be able to come into your office and check on things. Make sure your whatever. And I was like, look, look, man, I'm techie but I'm dead techie. Like, I don't know how you do this. is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:01:02

And that's, I mean, that's where we're at is like for my business. Right now. I'm a federally regulated by FINRA. So because your deal, I'm dealing with people's money, everything else it gets. difficult, but that's one one reason why we like, even though we say it's all entrepreneurship, owning a franchise is entrepreneurship. Right? I don't want like no one should ever bash a franchise owner. Why? Because it takes it's a little bit different flavor of entrepreneurship. But it takes the exact same amount of dedication and everything. Some of my best friends and mentors have been franchise owners. So that's, you know, want to make sure that's clear to everyone that yes, we do support for your rising support franchise owners. And it's not a cop out in any way, shape, or form of being a traditional, you know, brand new business. It's your idea.

Keith McKeever 1:01:59

Yeah, I mean, it's like, How much work do you want to put into it? Do you want to come up with the only idea and the logo and all that back to work? Or do you just want to just fork out some money and take a model that's proven it works, and hit the ground running? Whatever? I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to, you know, a franchise if I was, if I was looking to do something different. Yeah, but, you know, I mean, teach his own. But I think everybody should look at, you know, look at all the different options. But I'm sure I'm sure what 16,000 People you had come through, I'm sure you've had some, some ideas you guys have looked at and been like, Man, that is a genius idea. And you probably had some come through, you could probably make a few different faces, or a few different comments in your head, like what, you know,

Kenneth Brenneman 1:02:45

I try to go into every business idea, pretty open minded. Because I mean, if you were to look back, back in the day, you know, when we were growing up, Uber, you know, don't get it. Don't get into the car with someone you don't know, things like that. So, because I've also seen all the businesses that my previous jobs come through, I keep a very, very open mind. But you know, things like putting a dead animal and epoxy. I was like, That one might. I mean, I you have to. And that's the other part is that I'm going to be brutally honest with you. Like I told Frank, going back to Frank, I told Frank, it was probably not the most. I mean, it's probably not like $100 million scalable business. But Marines are gonna love it.

Keith McKeever 1:03:34

Oh, yeah. I think same thing. I'm like, this is a novelty thing, right? It's not a it's not a mainstream thing. But this is a, this is a novelty thing that you sell a Christmas, people put these in their stockings. These are things that like, I don't know, if you've ever been to a Cracker Barrel, but like, where do you see those kind of novelty things on the shelf? And you're like, Okay, I'll pay a little bit more for it. Because this is really cool, because the packaging is cool, or the ideas cool, or you're connected to the military somehow? And you're like, Yeah, I'll pay that. Because I'm curious.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:04:02

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, that's the thing is, you get to see all different types of ideas. And you have to I mean, you have to be brutally honest. And I try. When I say brutally honest, I should say, 100% honest, when I see an idea that I don't think will work. I'll give them that assessment. I'll say, I don't think this ideal work. Why do you think it will? And then that gives them the chance to think through it, because I, I can tell you the answer on why. If you and I were to be taking a math test, right? I can give you every answer on that math test. And you will not have learned a dang thing. But if I teach you you know, it's kind of that old adage. Teach a man to fish a fish. You feed him for a lifetime. Give a man a fish. You feed him for a day. Absolutely. So I want to encourage that. business mindset, that problem solving mindset, every time someone comes to me with a business idea.

Keith McKeever 1:05:07

Yeah, that's really good. I think it took me quite a few years in my business, cuz my mother and I were business partners for a few years. It took me a few years, I would go to her all the time, because she was, you know, younger, my mother, my trainer, my mentor everything, right? And in real estate business, it took a few years before I finally got to the point where I would go to her with a problem. But when I would go to her with a problem and ask her a question, I would already have a solution in my head. And I'd go to her and be like, alright, mom. So here's what happened. Here's what I think. Should I should do? Is that right? Or is that wrong? Right? And then I would let her tell me okay, that's, you know, that's right. That's wrong, whatever, here's why. Right. But at least I'd come with a suit, you know, here's what I here's what I'm thinking. So that she would know where my head and my thought process was, and she could help me course, correct. Wherever, wherever I needed to be and turn it into a learning lesson. And that was that when I flipped that mindset and approach things with that. Yeah, that was that was huge for me.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:06:10

Yeah, that's, I mean, I learned that fairly early on, actually had a good chief, He is the former Chief Warrant Officer, the state of Wyoming actually left being an OT, so he transferred from being an officer to being a warrant officer. But I read his TacOps section for a long time. So talk cooperations and he, every time that I would come to him, and I'd be like, Hey, this is our problem. He's like, you're just complaining to me, if you bring me a problem without a couple solutions, you're just complaining. So that's, that's something that I always try to instill in all the, I mean, our program does that as well. But I instill that in all of our men, and all my mentees, and then I instill it, you know, in our program tries to instill it is that, you know, if you're bringing a problem without at least some type of solution, all you're doing is complaining, and complaining doesn't get anyone anywhere.

Keith McKeever 1:07:08

That's true. Yeah. And complaining is a negative attitude.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:07:12

It is an especially with entrepreneurship, you know, I know, you. This is the one point that I will say you have to fake it till you make it. Sometimes you have to fake being happy and being ecstatic. When the weight of the world is on your shoulders, you know, you've got 10 different bills coming due in the next two weeks. And you don't know how it's I mean, I've been in that situation many times where, especially when I was first starting out. I didn't know how to manage cash flow, I didn't know how to do all that. And so you had to be happy for your employees. So that they didn't know, you know, the world was about to fall in. So, yeah, one time, I would say, you have to fake until you make it just to maintain a good attitude.

Keith McKeever 1:08:02

Absolutely, I would agree with that. You know, sometimes you just kind of have to just it is what it is. So you just grin and bear it and smile and press on and realize that, you know, better days better days can be ahead. And another another thing I think you probably see a lot of this a probably have challenges with this is failure. And people kind of dealing with failure. And you know, it took me many years to kind of wrap my head around, but you know, to be okay with failure. Like that's the only way to grow, is to fail. Not that you want to fail. I obviously want to try to succeed, but it's okay if you do fail, because that's how you learn. That's the only way to learn and press forward. You don't learn as much from successes.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:08:54

Yeah, so if you ever watched Rocky Balboa, it was last boxing Psalm that? Yeah. So he's got a great speech in there, right? It's one of my favorite speeches of all time that's done by a non historical character, you know, are you sitting there? He's all like, I can't hit as hard as life you can't hit as hard as life nobody hits as hard as life. The thing is, is that life and I mean, it's the same in life and business is that life and business if you let it knock you down and keep you there. Life will just continue to curb stop you. Like that's just the way it is. So when I when I learned how to deal with failure, and you know, taking going back into like my MMA days, Jujitsu, you're going to fail. Like, you have to go into it. Knowing you're going to fail in some aspect doesn't mean the business is going to fail, but you're going to fail somehow or some way. It's how you react to it. That's different. So for me, I've seen a lot of business owners with great businesses get knocked down by one failure And then curl up into the fetal position. For me, when I get knocked down or fail, I tend to get my reaction is almost always I get angry at myself or, you know, and then it makes it gives me an internal drive to push even harder. But you have to figure out what your reaction to failure is going to be. If you're someone that as soon as you fail at something, you're going to curl up on the floor and cry. As long as you pick yourself up pretty quickly after that, you're good. Otherwise, you know, just like, the movie, quote says, life will keep you down forever. So learning how to deal with failure. And, you know, it's the same thing. I'm a big proponent of mental health as well. So I know you are. So that's one of the reasons why you started this, you have to learn your strategies, to be able to, you know, to be able to accept some hardship. Like We've all lost friends in one way or another, whether it be in combat, whether it be the suicide, anything else. A lot of people's reaction is to go buy themselves a bottle and drink away the feeling. In business, sometimes that's the same thing is that people will, oh, if I failed here, so I'm going to go, you know, drink for a week or whatever. I don't know what they're

Keith McKeever 1:11:25

Yeah. This, this didn't work in my favor. So stop at the liquor store.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:11:31

So you have to find the healthy coping mechanisms. Whether it be you know, for me, it's jujitsu, it's fighting, it's working on cars, it's woodworking, all of that. But for the business owner, you have to be able to say you're going to have failure, it's going to affect your mental health. And you have to have those coping mechanisms almost installed, ready to go. So, you know, like, for me, I'm in the middle of starting a new business. Things didn't go my way about two weeks ago. I mean, it was tough. I was supposed to be in DC, ended up having to speak at a conference I had to deal with FINRA, in dealing with the government, every time is just a wonderful thing. I mean, my regulators are super, super awesome. But, again, why if I wouldn't have had my internal coping mechanisms, that failure would have crushed me, because here, I was looking at an end of October launch. Now, now it's looking a little bit further down the line. Some of those failures were on me. So yeah, it's unfortunate.

Keith McKeever 1:12:41

Yeah, but you know, at the at the end of the day, my philosophy is, well, it is what it is. And some things are outside of your control, some things are in your control. And if it's in your control, and you messed up, okay, well learn from it and press on. Exactly. It's all you can do, you know, or, you know, you'll military, adjust fire Move, move. She moved, communicate with us, whatever, whatever. But I think it's I think it's good place to wrap up. I appreciate you coming on here. KENNETH is sharing with us.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:13:11

Next Next time, we'll have to chat more about just entrepreneurship and where you're rising. I mean, Warrior rising is near and dear to my heart. And that's why this one we want to chat. But definitely want to come back on chat a little bit more about mental health and things like that things that I've learned. So

Keith McKeever 1:13:26

yeah, no, I think that'd be a great. Yeah, we'll also do that we'll have to have one on entrepreneurship and mental health and kind of merging the two of them. I love that. Because it's, you know, it can be a challenge. You know, sometimes you can have a good day, you can have a bad day, and you have to have those tools. So, yeah, we'll put together some for that, for sure. So, and anyway, I really do appreciate it. I think this is super valuable painting a good picture for everybody, if they're interested in it. I'll throw that up there scrolling across the bottom, it's in the show notes again, where your rising.org if you're listening to it, and you're too lazy to look at the show notes. You can go there. Everything's on the website. They've got a lot of other information and resources on there. So go check it out. If you've got that business idea, that nugget in the back of your head, go play, you know, today's a heck of a lot better than tomorrow, and you couldn't do it yesterday. So. So, anyway, I once again, Kenneth, I appreciate it.

Kenneth Brenneman 1:14:29

Thanks, Keith. And we'll talk soon. Yep.

Keith McKeever 1:14:33

There you have it, folks. As always, if there's a resource out of the website you think should be please let me know. Remember, the website is battle buddy podcast.net. And if you are struggling for any reason, remember the national suicide hotline number is 980 Press one