EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 45 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who feel like the business they built to give them freedom has quietly become the thing running them

Key Outcome: A simpler way to look at your day, your thoughts and your environment, so you stop carrying weight that was never yours to carry

He rebuilt everything from a car, a tent and a borrowed roof. The turnaround did not come from doing more. It came from taking things away.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You built this thing from nothing, and somewhere along the way it started running you. Bryan Blackmon knows that feeling in a different form. He lost everything, then rebuilt from absolute zero. The thing is, his story is not really about addiction or homelessness. It is about who holds the controls in your life. Bryan and Roy get into why you can only control your own mind, why adding more (the raise, the new car, the extra hours) rarely settles the noise, and why taking things away is where the real change lives. For a business owner working 55 to 80 hours a week, that idea lands hard. You have spent years adding. This is a conversation about what happens when you stop.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU

You feel guilty resting and guilty working. Bryan and Roy explain why that comes from an internal voice you can actually change, and what happens to your whole day once you do.

If everything runs through you, the chaos in your head is part of the problem. This episode shows how clearing that noise creates room to think, so the business stops feeling like a cage.

Bryan makes the case for subtraction over addition. For an owner drowning in tasks, that is the first honest step toward stepping back.

The cost of ignoring this is another eighteen months of reaching for your phone before your feet hit the floor, and another eighteen months of your business owning you instead of the other way round.

KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

Taking responsibility for your environment gives you power, not blame. The moment Roy accepted he controlled how he walked into a room, the weight shifted. For a trapped owner, that means the bottleneck is not a life sentence, it is a decision.

Growth often comes from removing people, places and things, not adding them. You keep adding staff, tools and hours hoping for peace. Bryan found the opposite worked. Less noise, more clarity.

Accept the worst case and the weight lifts. When Roy sat with losing everything, the fear that had frozen him loosened. Once you can face the worst, you can ask the smaller question, what can I do to make it a little better today.

Look at where you were two months ago, not just where you think you should be. Grab a pen and paper. Momentum is easier to see backwards, and seeing it makes the next step lighter.

Protect your first 30 minutes. Bryan does not touch his phone for half an hour after waking. For an owner whose day is hijacked by everyone else's needs, that first half hour is the one bit of the day you can actually own.

GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"I can only control my mind and my feelings." Bryan Blackmon

"When I took responsibility, okay, I am in control of every single thing in my environment. Realising the power that gave me, that power was really something." Roy Castleman

"You can look at your past, just don't stare at it." Bryan Blackmon

"You can control your sail, you cannot control the storm." Bryan Blackmon

"You can't start anything if you don't know what you want." Bryan Blackmon

QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS

00:00 - Introduction: Roy's morning of meditation, ice bath and breath work, and why how you start the day sets everything after it

03:30 - Bryan's story: From Fort Worth to sleeping in a car in California, and the moment 942 days ago that changed direction

09:00 - Taking responsibility for your environment: Why control starts with your own mind, not the outside world

13:30 - Subtraction over addition: The counterintuitive lesson that removing things, not adding them, created real change

18:00 - Accepting the worst case: How facing losing everything lifted the weight and freed up the next step

23:00 - Momentum and compound interest: Small daily disciplines and why looking backwards shows you further than you think

30:00 - The voice in your head: How you talk to yourself, celebrating small wins, and the meditation that clears the noise

38:00 - Morning and evening routines: Protecting your peace, your energy and your time, and building the Crab Transformation Experience

43:00 - Conclusion: Bryan's one piece of advice, get clear on what you actually want before you try to change anything

GUEST SPOTLIGHT

Name: Bryan Blackmon

Bio: Bryan Blackmon is the founder and operator of Crab Crew Life, a high-accountability transformation platform designed to force real-world behavioral consistency. After successfully rebuilding his own life from absolute zero following years of severe adversity, addiction, and homelessness, Bryan bypassed generic motivational tropes to engineer a structured, daily execution methodology. He now leads a global digital community focused on dismantling "survival-mode" psychology, building authentic peer-to-peer accountability, and redefining what real, resilient leadership looks like in practice.

Connect with Bryan:

Website: www.crabcrewlife.com

LinkedIn: https://linktr.ee/bryanandelaine

YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Do not touch your phone for the first 30 minutes after you wake. Notice how the rest of the day feels when you own the start of it instead of the inbox owning you.

This Month: Grab a pen and paper and list the people, places and things that add noise to your week. Pick one to remove. Then look back at where you were two months ago and mark what has actually moved.

This Quarter: Get honest about what you actually want from this business. Write it down without editing. That answer decides which parts of the day-to-day you keep running and which parts you finally hand over.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Crab Crew Life and the Crab Transformation Experience, Bryan's daily discipline methodology, at www.crabcrewlife.com

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, referenced by Roy

Dr Joe Dispenza's meditation work, referenced by Roy

The Wim Hof Method breath work, which Roy teaches as a certified instructor

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READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?

Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/freedom

Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.

Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.allthepower.co.uk/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

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CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN

Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of The Owner's Thrive Method, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to grow without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI as a thinking methodology, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.

Website: www.allthepower.co.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

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Bryan: Foreign.

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Roy: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in

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the world. And today we have Brian joining us. Hello

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Brian, welcome to the podcast.

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Bryan: Well, good morning, good afternoon and good evening.

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Roy: Well, your morning and our evening.

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Bryan: Yeah, this is true. It is 8:04am here in California,

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404 in the UK.

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Roy: It's amazing what we can do in this world. Run.

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Amazing. Yes.

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Bryan: Wait, it's 404am or p.m. p.m.

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Roy: Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not that, I'm not

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that eager.

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Bryan: Man, you are an early riser, my friend.

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Roy: I will get up early, but I'll then go and

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do my meditation, my ice bath and my breath work.

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Bryan: Yeah.

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Roy: Before I get the day going. So tell us, tell

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us a little bit about your story, Ron.

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Bryan: Well, I am originally from Fort Worth, Dallas, Texas. I

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had a dream from a young age to move to

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California. I grew up in a musically inclined family and

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yeah, just hence the guitars and stuff behind me and

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I, I just always wanted to, I started watching MTV

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at a young age, you know, and started seeing all

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these hair metal bands, living the sex, drugs and rock

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and roll lifestyle. And off Sunset Boulevard in California. I

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just had a dream to do that. So I told

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my dad, he told me it was a pipe dream,

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I would never make it. That planted the seed for

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me to prove him wrong. And so I,

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I got into drugs and alcohol really early, struggled with

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it my whole life. Rehabs, sober living homes, jails,

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prison, all of it. And then at 42,

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moved in 2020, right during the beginning of COVID I

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moved to California. Just packed up everything I could and

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left everything and everybody and moved out here. Ended up

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in a really bad situation. When I got out here

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for anything from homelessness to sleeping in my car, tents,

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moving around a lot, hostels, you know, and I just

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been through it, been through it man, it, it became

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something a lot different than my mind had had pictured.

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When I got to California and then moved to Huntington

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beach on a, on a, a guiding feeling, a guidance

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feeling if you will. Met an 85 year old lady

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when I was sleeping in my car out here and

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gave me a, gave me a chance, man, help me

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a roof over my head. And at that point, once

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I had that, my alcoholism and, and my drug addiction

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got to a really, really scary place. And then two

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years ago, two years, six months and I don't know,

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28 days, something like that, 942 days ago, I made

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the decision to get sober. And she helped me with

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that and started making tick tock videos about our Life,

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explaining my story and sharing what happened. And next thing

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you know, it went just crazy viral. And kept doing

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it. Started live streaming and built crab Crew. And I

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was just taking off in ways that I could have

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never even imagined.

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Roy: Amazing. Amazing. Well done. Well done for. So. Yeah.

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Beating some demons. Yeah. So tell us a little bit

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more about. About the company, about what you're doing, about

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how you're doing it.

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Bryan: Well, I started live streaming, like I said, and there

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was nobody watching me. I think, like, seven people doing

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this. It was maybe seven months into me getting sober.

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I had a lot of people reaching out, saying, you

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know, you should start live streaming and kind of sharing

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what you're going through and what you're doing. And I

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just didn't really have an interest in it. I just

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wanted to keep making videos. But I did. And I

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noticed that I started getting a lot of the same

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people showing up every time I did it. And it

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just kept getting bigger and bigger. And it gave me

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a way to get the creative side of me out.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: And just share my story, you know, thinking that maybe

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somebody could be going through something similar.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: And if it helps by me sharing what I'm going

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through, you know, it was all in. It's still. It's

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all in real time. You know, I don't. I don't

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hold anything back. I don't, you know, try to sugarcoat

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things. And, you know, I share my struggles. So I

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started doing it out by the Huntington beach pier, and

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people kind of started to get to know me and.

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And see my. Because once I go live, dude, my

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whole. I change. Like, I go full on wackadoodle mode.

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I just have so much fun with it and have

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a good time. Well, one day, this. One of my

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followers sent me this crab gift. And it. This crab

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cartoon thing dances on your head and it moves its

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little pinching things around. And I had yelled out something

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silly like, why did you just give me crabs here

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on tick tock in front of everybody? And it just

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turned into this funny, fun thing. And next thing I

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know, I'm getting crab gifts from all over the world.

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People are sending me crab everything. So I listened to

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my internal. You know, I don't talk about religion or

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politics, but I do believe in a power greater than

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myself. And I was this moment, this

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movement thing that was happening, was getting. It happened so

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fast and just kept growing that I thought that there

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was something here. So I just started researching crabs and

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come to find out they're resilient, they're adaptive, and I've

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been learning how to become resilient and adaptive, not only

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through my struggles, but being sober. Right. So how. I

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don't know what it's like to be sober. I don't

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know that, Brian. I don't know who that guy is.

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So I started really thinking about my own life in

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terms of a crab. Not only are they resilient and

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adaptive, they're able to move in so many different directions.

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They're able to claw themselves out from these deep, dark

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holes. And I was in a deep, dark hole and

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was able to climb myself out of it. And then

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I stumbled upon the crab mentality, which is a real,

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real thing, and it just. It blew me away. So

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if you put crabs in a container, they'll try to

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climb out and the other ones will pull them back

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down.

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Roy: Okay. Yeah.

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Bryan: And it's called the crab mentality. So once I stumbled

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across that and started really thinking about my own life

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and the past of all the stuff that I've gone

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through and choices I've made and poor decisions, and I

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started looking at all of that and then who I

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am today and the different things I was going through

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and learning how to figure out who I am and

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learning how to, you know, live in this new spirit,

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this new life. And so I started thinking. Well, often

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times it wasn't necessarily. I mean, it was, don't get

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me wrong, other people pulling me back down, you know,

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in that circle that I was living in. But a

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lot of times it was me, you know, not only

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allowing myself to be pulled back down, but also me

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letting myself pull myself back down, if that makes sense.

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Roy: It.

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Bryan: I was never ready, right. And so I would. I

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would pull myself back down. And that could have been

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through all the negative thoughts, like, you're not going to

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be able to do anything with your life. This is

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just who you are, you know, this is how everybody

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knows you, you know, you're comfortable here, you know, this

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lifestyle. And. And so I stayed in that lifestyle.

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Roy: There's something there about taking responsibility for your own environment,

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Right? Because, you know, one of my. My most powerful

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moments was when I realized that I had full control

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of my environment. And I took responsibility for that environment,

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right? Because when I took that responsibility, I was in

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a situation where I then had control of it. Because

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while you're in victim mode, while you're like everybody else

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is doing this to me and the universe is not

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fair, and yeah, you've got that whole native flow as

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you intimate. You can't take, you can't see Any way

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out of it. Right. But when I took responsibility, okay,

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I am in control of every single thing in my

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environment. How I walk into the room, how I present

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myself, the emotions that I put in there beforehand. Realizing

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the power that gave me that power was really something,

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you know, really uplifted, Right?

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Bryan: No, absolutely. So to add to that, I

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can only control my mind and my feelings. So

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if I start letting the outside world, things that I

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can't control, dictate how I feel, you know, it jumbles

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up everything. It becomes messy. Right. And so you start

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trying to control things you can't control, which creates feelings

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that are really unnecessary because you're projecting almost in

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a sense that, you know, you are going through this.

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Well, there are things you can control, but all those

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outside factors, you know, start creating anxiety or depression

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or, you know, just nervousness and all those type feelings,

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and then you kind of just spiral out. So, yeah,

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man, I had to learn how to just control my

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mind. And controlling that and, and has led

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me to take away things out of my life

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instead of adding to them. So what I've learned for

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myself is that when I, I think, you know, by

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adding things, we feel like we're doing something right. We,

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we get a new car, some clothes, a raise, whatever

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it may be, and we think, okay, I'm making progress.

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But you still have those unsettling nervous anxiety type feelings.

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What I had to learn to do and what I

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realized was taking away things out of my life. People,

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places or, or things that were making me have those.

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I'm not really an anxious person, but just having those

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unsettling type feelings and just the constant chaos in my

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brain. Once I started taking things away, I found that's

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where the real growth for me was, you know, getting

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used to, to getting people, places and things out of

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my life that, that are unnecessary.

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Roy: And when you, when you really, when you're forced to

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be in that situation where there is not much. Right.

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And I was in a situation also during COVID where

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I bought this really big adventure center. So this, this

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was indoor surfing and indoor scar diving. And it was

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just, it was a dream. And then the government basically

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took it away, right? Yeah. And I lost a lot

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of money, I lost my sanity. I went to some

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really dark places and at one stage I had to

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sit there and say, right, what do I actually need?

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Right? What, what, what do I need to survive? And

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I worked out that I just need a roof over

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my head and some food. Hold.

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Bryan: I gotta stop you right there. Every morning before my

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Feet even hit the floor. There's five things that I.

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First thing when I wake up, I say, thank you

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so much for having another chance. I have a roof

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over my head, shoes on my feet, clothes in my

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back, and food in my stomach. It's those basic things,

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you know? And then everything after that is like a

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bonus. So, yeah, I get it.

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Roy: And when you, when you get to that point, accepting

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the worst case scenario is what? Because when you're so

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tied into, okay, what's this person going to think? What's

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that person? I should be here in my life. I've

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already done all this. Why am I not there? You

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don't have control. But when you accept the worst case

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scenario, okay, I'm going to go bankrupt. I'm going to

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lose everything. I'm just going to have this left in

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my life. Suddenly the weight lifts, right? It's just this

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big weight that goes off your shoulder. And then once

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you've accepted the worst case scenario, what you can do

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is, what can I do to make it a little

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bit better every day?

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Bryan: Right?

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Roy: Yeah. And I just started working through that process and

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I was like, okay, step by step by step, I

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lost Adventure Center. There was no ways that was going

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to be saved, but I managed to save a bunch

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of other things. But I learned so many, so many

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lessons along that journey that I would have never learned

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anywhere else. And I look back at that time beforehand,

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I look back at it very much as a, you

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know, woe is me, you know, so it's not fair.

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Yeah. All these kind of emotions. Now I look back

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at it with. With gratitude. You know, I'm grateful for

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having been through that experience because I am the product

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of my experiences. Being able to share the

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shortcuts out of those pain points, be able. I mean,

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I work with business owners and business own. We have

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this. This pressure we put on ourselves for the outside

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world, how people see us, what we should be doing.

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We're doing this for our families. We're doing this for,

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you know, serving the purpose we have in the world.

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And we forget to look after ourselves. And the business

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that you bought to get yourself freedom is the thing

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that gives you. It becomes your biggest prison. So, yeah.

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How do you learn to look after yourself first? Right.

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Bryan: I think you said something that I've struggled with for

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a while, especially during the. The beginning of my sobriety

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was, you know, why did this happen to me? Why

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was I this way? Why did God make me this

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way? But I started looking at life from a different

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perspective. And instead of looking at it as, why is

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this happening to me? I started looking at it as,

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this is happening for me.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: And it immediately changed my perspective and the outlook and

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the outcome of where my life was going, because I

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started taking that information, looking at it like, well, if

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this is happening for me, that means there's a lesson

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in it. That means there's something different waiting on the

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other side of all of this. And when. When that

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switched in my brain, it started allowing my footsteps.

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I think we want to make these huge jumps. Right.

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To notice this difference. Like, I've got to do this.

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I've got to do that. Well, just being able to

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put one foot in front of the other is compound

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interest.

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Roy: Yeah, yeah.

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Bryan: Right.

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Roy: It. It.

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Bryan: You'll look at yourself if you start making these little

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discipline changes. You'll look back in, you know, six weeks,

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you know, two months. Six months. And look in the

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mirror while brushing your teeth and like, whoa, I've come

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a lot further, you know, than I could have ever

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imagined. And it all changes when you start looking at

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life as it's happening for you and. And not to

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you, and you're able to kind of start looking at

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life from a different perspective and making better decisions from

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it.

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Roy: You know, I love that I talk about momentum, any

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type of momentum. If you can be moving forward, you

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know, then you can change direction, you can. You can

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move, you know, sideways, you can move faster, you can

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move slower, but if you don't have the momentum. And

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that's where we get stuck. Right. We get to a

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point where I can't move forward, you know, and, you

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know, with no momentum, you're going to be static. Yeah.

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So what can you do to make a small step?

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You know what?

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Bryan: Even sometimes, though, that. That stopping and just breathing.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: Is not killing the momentum.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: But once you allow those thoughts to start creeping back

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in of you think you should be doing A, B

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and C. Well, if you look back from where you

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start, let's say you started this whole mind shift two

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months ago. Grab a pen and a piece of paper

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and look at where your life was before you started

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making these decisions and life choices and looking at it

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from a different perspective, then look at where you are

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now. Even in two months, you'll see that momentum. And

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once you start moving, you know, you start realizing that,

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man, I am doing a lot more than I thought

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I was. And then you start getting proud of yourself

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and you start thinking, man, I can do more. And

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you're right. That momentum just continues to snowball in A

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good way, not snowball in a bad way.

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Roy: And picking up on that and going a bit deeper

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into it. There's this challenge as humans that we face,

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which is we look at ourselves right now and we

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never, you know, stop and say, right, how far have

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I come? Right to, to exactly. To your point. Right.

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And yeah, you're going to be a totally different person

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tomorrow than you are today. Every single day you change.

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And we are, we are such an amalgamation of all

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of our experiences. And if we can take lessons from

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those experiences, that's the, that's living. That's life. Yeah. I

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believe we're together, we, we're here to learn, to grow,

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to become more than we were yesterday. So long as

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you're not sitting in the same place, banging your head

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against the same wall, then you're learning.

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Bryan: Absolutely. And if it. So we all like fun experiences.

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Like, we're, we are experience driven people. Right. We like

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to go to Six Flags, we like to go swim

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with sharks. We like to, you know, do all these

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things, take vacations. And these, these are all experiences. Well,

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if you can wake up and just realize that your

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entire day is just going to be a bunch of

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experiences, good, better, indifferent, you're here to live through

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those experiences. And, you know, a lot of times I

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don't like to look backwards. You can, you can look

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at your past, just don't stare at it.

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Roy: Right.

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Bryan: But if you, if you do it for just a

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second and you think, well, man, I remember when I

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was going through a divorce or I was betrayed, or

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I had a, whatever, you know, horrible situation that you

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faced, if you could think back to that moment when

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you thought, there's no way I'm going to be able

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to go through this. The tears, the hurt, the crying,

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the sadness, the depression, the freaking out, the chaotic thoughts,

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whatever it was, you're here now.

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Roy: Yeah.

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Bryan: And you made it through it. Right. And oftentimes I,

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I, I noticed in my own life that I would

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forget that there was always a lesson. And it's not

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that, you know, you, you learned it the very next

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day. It could be two, three years later, and all

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of a sudden you look back and you're like, oh,

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my gosh, that's why I went through that. Because whatever

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you're going through or whatever you're facing now. Yeah, that

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had built you for this moment. So, you know, we,

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we tend to think that we cut ourselves short or

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we're not doing anything, you know, and we're not gonna

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be able to survive it. When you've survived so much

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in your life and you made it through it. You're

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gonna make it through this as well.

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Roy: And I think one of the sets of work that

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I've been doing a lot of work with is meditation.

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Bryan: Oh, man. Big old meditation, bro. It is a morning

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and evening routine.

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Roy: Yeah. So I've been doing Dr. Joe Dispenza's work and.

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Bryan: Oh yeah, yeah. Love that guy.

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Roy: Yeah. I literally just came back from a retreat in

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Denver with him. Yeah.

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Bryan: Oh, how cool. What about the sun gazing? Do you

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do any of that?

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Roy: Yeah, I'll do a bit of that. Yeah. Yeah. And

373

he, he talks a lot about emotions and he talks

374

about the power of our mind to make emotions and

375

then. Yeah. So our mind makes an emotion and then

376

it puts that, it creates a chemical and that chemical

377

goes into your body, right. And yeah, so that's why

378

you feel, you know, you feel because your mind has

379

perceived a situation and. And then it put these chemicals

380

into your body and these chemicals stay in your body.

381

Right. And then you think, have the same thought again

382

and then you have the same chemicals come into your

383

body. And yeah, you keep on doing that. And you

384

train your body, you know, to be that way. Right.

385

And as you're going through this process, yeah. You're trying

386

to get out of this emotional washing machine that you're

387

in. So when you train yourself out of it, you're

388

taking your history, you know, you're taking the bad emotions

389

and you're making it your knowledge. Right, right. To what

390

you were saying is that. Yeah, let's. Let's take those

391

bad feelings and make it into our knowledge. Make it

392

into our knowledge base. Because then we can use them.

393

Then I can look back on, you know, standing at

394

the top of 130 foot tower at the adventure center,

395

getting ready to end my life.

396

Bryan: Right, Right.

397

Roy: And I can say, okay, yeah, what did I learn

398

from that? And yeah, what I. Yeah, I learned that

399

I can be at the bottom of the barrel and

400

I can still climb out and I can still claw

401

my way, you know, to. To being successful.

402

Bryan: Right, right. Well, we. So like I love Joe Dispenza

403

and the, the way he describes what

404

you and it, it's one of my favorite sayings ever.

405

It's an old. It didn't come from Joe Dispense. It's

406

been around forever. But as within, so without, as above,

407

so below, so what you're constantly feeding yourself. I mean,

408

this goes down to your scrolling write your Internet clicks,

409

your feedback.

410

Roy: Yeah.

411

Bryan: Before you Paige, you know, the Thoughts that you have

412

constantly putting in your head is creating your own reality.

413

If you can think negative, okay, you can think positive.

414

Roy: Yeah, yeah.

415

Bryan: But you have to become conscious of those thoughts. So,

416

man, I really want to start this tick tock channel,

417

but I'm so afraid to put myself out there. I'm

418

too old. I don't really know a lot, but, you

419

know, I have this desire to share about flowers, but

420

I. I don't know how to, you know, do it

421

or whatever. And you keep telling yourself all these negative

422

reasons not to do it, but you have that passion

423

to do it.

424

Roy: Yeah.

425

Bryan: You can flip that around and say, I know a

426

ton about flowers. I know about the soil. I know

427

about the sunlight. I know about the watering. I know

428

about, you know, the position to put them in when

429

the sun's gonna be coming. You know all these things,

430

but you. This is just a simple example, you know,

431

but you keep telling yourself these reasons not to start

432

it. Your outside world is going

433

to reflect everything that your internal world says about you.

434

Roy: Yeah.

435

Bryan: Right. So if you can. If you could think negative,

436

you could think positive. If you can. If you can

437

sit there and bash yourself, you can uplift yourself. It's

438

just sometimes you just have to stop and realize that's

439

what you're doing.

440

Roy: I think the manifestation of that is that we talk

441

badly to ourselves. We talk worse to ourselves than we

442

would talk to anybody else. I spent like six

443

months when I realized how badly I was talking to

444

myself. I was like, okay, that needs to stop now.

445

And I'd get up in the morning and I'd walk

446

into the bathroom and I dropped my keys in the

447

toilet, and I was like, oh, you idiot. And then.

448

Yeah. And then I'd go out and I'd kick the

449

dog and I'd. Yeah. And as I went through this

450

process of just talking negative to myself, my body believed

451

I was in a negative position. But when you can

452

flip it around and say, oh, well, there goes the

453

keys, and suddenly all those bad things stop happening to

454

you, like you say, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah. So

455

this. One of my favorite books is the Four Agreements,

456

but I've got two copies of it. Yeah.

457

Bryan: Why I have two, I don't know, but I've got

458

two copies of it. I love that book.

459

Roy: Yeah. And it's just this. This poison that you put

460

out in the world and the poison you receive. Yeah.

461

It's all words, Right? Words are so powerful.

462

Bryan: Yes.

463

Roy: Talk. Talk to yourself. Yeah. That's the old cliche of

464

love yourself and that's so, so easy to say and

465

so hard to do. Right?

466

Bryan: Right.

467

Roy: Yeah.

468

Bryan: Would you tell your best friend, if you're sitting there

469

telling yourself those thoughts internally. Right. Would you turn around

470

and tell your best friend? Would you say those things

471

to them?

472

Roy: Yeah.

473

Bryan: So why are you telling yourself that?

474

Roy: Yeah.

475

Bryan: For instance, dude, celebrate your little wins throughout the day.

476

Roy: Yeah.

477

Bryan: Yeah, dude, I will. Water. Yesterday, I'm at work and

478

I had to do a bunch of taping and sanding

479

and all this kind of stuff at this theater, and

480

I was ripping up all this tape and I would

481

crumble it up and I would just throw it in

482

this large garbage can. Right. If it went in, I'm

483

like, when celebrating, you know, in the most fun, silly

484

way.

485

Roy: Yeah.

486

Bryan: Celebrating those little wins, the little things in life create

487

again that momentum. And you're like, all right, that felt

488

pretty good to say. I want it doing something so

489

silly.

490

Roy: Yeah. Yeah.

491

Bryan: Dropping keys in the toilet and it's like, well, apparently

492

I was supposed to reach in the toilet this morning,

493

you know, and you just pull them out. You know,

494

it's not the end of the world. And it's not.

495

You start telling yourself, oh, my God, that was so

496

stupid, Brian. Why did you do that? That? Are you

497

not paying attention? All those things? Well, again, you tell

498

yourself internally those things. Your outside world is just going

499

to show you more of it. Your subconscious mind does

500

not know the difference between reality and the truth.

501

Roy: Yeah.

502

Bryan: So if you tell yourself that these are just bad

503

experiences, this is. I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. I'm too

504

old. I'm not smart enough. I don't have the right

505

education, whatever it may be, your subconscious mind is going

506

to believe that, and it's your reality. Your outside reality

507

is going to reflect nothing but more situations to prove

508

that.

509

Roy: Yeah. Yeah.

510

Bryan: So why wouldn't you start telling yourself the exact opposite

511

so your outside world would change? It's not easy. It's

512

not easy. None. Sit here and smile about it and

513

get excited about it because I work at it every

514

single day.

515

Roy: Yeah.

516

Bryan: You know, it's not something that changes overnight. But if

517

you want anything bad enough in this world that is

518

worth something to you and meaningful and valuable and loving

519

and caring and brings you peace and joy, it's probably

520

not going to come easy. It's like praying for patience.

521

God, please. This is going on in my life right

522

now. I just. I need the patience to do this.

523

Well, you think you're going to get patience dropped into

524

your lap, you're poorly mistaken.

525

Roy: But what you are going to get dropped into your

526

lap is all the opportunities to prove you have patience.

527

Bryan: Bingo.

528

Roy: Yeah. All the opportunities in the world to prove that.

529

Yeah. I mean I, I came out, I came out

530

of this adventure center, adventure per se. And I lost

531

pretty much everything. Right. And you know, slowly but surely.

532

Yeah. Positive mind. I did. I do. I don't know

533

if you come across Wim Hof.

534

Bryan: Oh, yeah, the breath guy.

535

Roy: Yeah.

536

Bryan: Always in the cold.

537

Roy: Yeah.

538

Bryan: I'm a warm hobby, out of control, crazy. Just awesome.

539

Roy: Yeah. So I'm an instructor for him, so I instruct

540

his things. So I went. Met him. Yeah. Yeah. So.

541

And yeah, this, this idea of. Yeah. All these things

542

that you can put yourself through. The, the, the, the

543

breath work, just so powerful. Right. I'll send you, I'll

544

send you some breath work if you'd like some.

545

Bryan: I love it because all I do is the four

546

in hold and then six out. Like the box breathing

547

type stuff.

548

Roy: Yeah.

549

Bryan: Yeah, I would love some of that.

550

Roy: Yeah. And. And that changed my life, right? That, that,

551

yeah. Changed 20 minutes of breath work in the morning.

552

Yeah. Makes me feel 20 better. Yeah. And that just

553

makes my whole day 100 better. Yeah.

554

Bryan: More compound interest proof.

555

Roy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And yeah. You go through,

556

you go through life and I would never have learned

557

that if I hadn't been through the adventures, anything.

558

Bryan: Right, right.

559

Roy: Yeah. And that, that just so many things compound when

560

you can look at them in a positive way. Okay.

561

That's why. Yeah. Like you said, that's why that happened.

562

This is why that happened. Yeah. Yeah.

563

Bryan: Sometimes it takes just stopping. And that's why I believe

564

meditation is so important. Right. It's learning how to. You're

565

not being asked to stop the thoughts. Right. Because

566

that is. And it's an impossibility. It's learning how to

567

let those thoughts race through and not try to control

568

them and not sit there and dwell on them and

569

just let them go. That's when you really start learning

570

how to control your mind. And then you add breath

571

work on top of that. Dude, there's not one. After

572

going through the things that I've been through and especially

573

getting sober, I have learned that my peace and my

574

energy and my time will not be messed with by

575

anybody but myself.

576

Roy: Yeah.

577

Bryan: Right. I, I refuse to let people, places and things

578

come into my life and control my day. That's why

579

my morning and evening routines are so important. Right. I

580

don't touch my phone for 30 minutes plus before I

581

get out of bed. You know, I don't let emails

582

and text messages and social media control my morning. And

583

when I go to sleep at night, I do a

584

gratitude journal that allows me to get all those thoughts

585

out. So you start like getting things, letting yourself

586

control your day by your own thoughts, your own emotions,

587

your own feelings guide you throughout the day. And then

588

at night you let them all go and return to

589

that gratitude. Right. And oftentimes, man, you just wake up

590

feeling so much better and so much more peaceful. So.

591

Yeah, man, that, that's just, I, I, those are non

592

negotiables in my life right now.

593

Roy: You know, let's, let's flip down. That's, that's really beautifully

594

said. Yeah, let's flip now to what the future looks

595

like for you. What's, what's, what's the plan? Where are

596

you going? How are you taking your message out to

597

the world?

598

Bryan: Well, I created CrabCrew.com and I,

599

I built what I feel has helped me.

600

So I've gone to aa, I've gone to sober living

601

homes, I've gone to rehabs, I've gone to jail, I've

602

gone to prison. And they all have these rules of

603

getting to Oz, right? That's one way. And if you,

604

if you go against that or you don't follow the

605

AA 12 steps, if you don't do exactly what the

606

sober living people or what the rehab things are telling

607

you to do, then 99% chance you're going to relapse.

608

Yeah, I started thinking about all of that. And yes,

609

I did go to AA meetings for the first seven

610

to eight months of, of me getting sober. It was

611

a huge help. I, I knew that I needed something.

612

But once I started realizing for myself that I was

613

able to get through my day in, in different ways

614

by staying grateful and doing these little disciplines, I just

615

grabbed a pen and a, and a piece of paper,

616

man, and I started writing down all of these steps.

617

So I created what's called the Crab Crew or the

618

Crab Transformation Experience. There's no right or wrong way to

619

do it. It's just doing it right and it,

620

Roy: and it, it has right for you. Right. And we're

621

all different.

622

Bryan: Exactly. But these little disciplines can change

623

your life because it's everything that we were just talking

624

about. The not touching your phone, the state, you know,

625

controlling your day, all these little daily habits that I

626

started building and continue to do when no one was

627

looking, no applause were coming,

628

Roy: no

629

Bryan: one watching and doing it just solely for me. Things

630

started changing, and I mean rapidly. They just started becoming

631

so Much more joyful and peaceful. And the gratitude was

632

just overwhelming to an extent that I just started writing

633

down all. All the things that I had to do

634

to. To get to this point, which was the C

635

was for clean. I had to get clean, first of

636

all. But that wasn't just getting the drugs and alcohol

637

out of my system. It was the mind, body and

638

spirit, right? I had to clean all that, that chaos

639

and the nonsense and the lies that I've been telling

640

myself for so long out of my head sometimes just

641

one by one, right? Just daily at least doing something

642

and then resilience, you know, when life hits, how are

643

you going to get back up? It's not even so

644

much don't think about what you do. It's just make

645

sure you get back up, right? You can. Staying down

646

is easy, but building resilience when life hits and learning

647

how to bounce back up, sometimes that's all it takes.

648

Then you can start putting one foot in front of

649

the other and they don't have to be huge, they

650

don't have to be monumental. Again, that compound interest is

651

what builds over time. And then the adaptability, you know,

652

you can control your sale, but you, you can't control

653

the storm, you know, so adjusting your mindset and

654

your thoughts and your actions just 1% on a daily

655

basis and then believing became the foundation of that, right?

656

So believing that you're worth it, believing that you could

657

do so much more, believing that you can have the

658

best possible experiences even when things get hard and difficult,

659

and being able to look at internally, believing that you're

660

here for a reason and there's somebody that would be

661

devastated if you weren't in their life. So, you know,

662

believing in yourself became the. The pillars of the crab.

663

And then I just started writing down all these daily

664

things that I do, and it's a transformation experience. It's

665

not a course, there's no rules to it. It's just

666

listening and finding out where that person is at and

667

then building off of that with these daily disciplines and.

668

And for me, sharing that and being able to help

669

people do that is. It just is my passion. And

670

that's where, you know, where the road takes me from

671

here. I'm just doing what I feel is the right

672

thing to do and what brings me joy and. But

673

I do want to take this whole thing because my

674

story is pretty nuts when I really dive into all

675

the things that I've been through and done and the

676

experiences. So I just love sharing it and want to

677

take it, you know, as far as I can, just

678

to help the next person.

679

Roy: Amazing. And if you could, to wrap up, if you

680

could give people one bit of advice on how to

681

start, how to take that first step, what would it

682

be?

683

Bryan: I think you really have to get serious about finding

684

out what it is that you want. Grab a pen

685

and a paper and just let it go. Just let

686

it go. Don't try to control the thoughts. Don't try

687

to make sense of any of it. Just find out

688

what it is that you want in your life and.

689

And that will lead you to finding out. Are you

690

in a position to want to change? Are you really

691

to that point where you're just talking about it, or

692

are you at that point where your life has come

693

to. To really want something greater? Yeah. You

694

know, and so my suggestion would just be getting all

695

those thoughts out and. And figuring out what it is

696

that you want, because you can't. You can't start anything

697

if you don't know what you want. And if you

698

want peace, well, all right, you can have it. You

699

know, you at least have to start and figure out

700

what it is that you want. And, yes, that would

701

be my advice to you.

702

Roy: Beautifully said, man. Beautifully said. Thank you very much for

703

joining me. It's been a pleasure talking to you, and

704

we thank you so much for having me.

705

Bryan: Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much.