Welcome

Todd 0:00

This is the cluttered path, a compass for midlife.

unknown 0:03

The path is long, the mouth is born.

Introduction

The Question: Who Will You be Next?

Todd 0:14

Everybody has dreams for the future. But here's the thing. Fear and comfort? These are the quiet killers that just keep us from making our dreams a reality. My guest today is Bradley Charbonneau. He spent nine years dreaming his dream until one day on November 1st, 2012, he finally started taking tiny daily actions to make his dream a reality. Since that day, he's authored 39 books, hosts multiple podcasts, runs a YouTube channel, he's a public speaker, and he's truly living his dream. Bradley, welcome to the show. I'm tons, great to be here. Good to have you. Now, before we get into your story, can you talk about your life today? We want to hear the end result, where you are today, and just give us a breakdown of your mission in life, some of the books you've written, and the podcasts that you host.

Bradley Charbonneau 1:05

Today, the timeline of my the brand kind of sums it up quite well. It's who will you be next? So it's not who's your ideal life, who will you who will you be someday? What's the greatest idea or dream of all time that you've ever imagined that's going to be the greatest uh thing ever in existence? Nope. It's just who will you be next? What's the next version of you? Because I don't want to get into big, giant, humongous goals that we'll never achieve. Just the next one. And let's let's go for that. So short-term successes, tiny wins to build the success and then build the confidence to keep going and then make a real change through through tiny actions, ideally, daily.

Todd 1:57

Yeah. Yeah, that's my tendency is to boil the ocean. I I I create this big mountain of ooh, I want to accomplish this, and it's Mount Everest, and then it's like, okay, well, how do you do that?

Bradley Charbonneau 2:09

So Yeah. Boil the ocean. I've never heard that one like that.

Todd 2:12

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 2:13

Very visual. And sounds very difficult. Boil the ocean.

Todd 2:16

Well, the first thing you gotta do is just start getting in shape. So yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 2:20

Yeah.

Todd 2:21

Start walking.

Bradley Charbonneau 2:23

Yeah, exactly. That's it. Just walk around the block. Training for the marathon. And then if if the marathon's on Saturday, and today's Tuesday, I shouldn't be signing up for the marathon on Saturday, for one thing. Right. And then how about I walk around the block? You know, have I have I I I had okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna date myself here. I wrote an article called For For Writers Digest, which I'm pretty sure is still around, but used to be sort of the end-all be-all in the writer's world. And I wrote an article that they accepted for their magazine, and it was called Just Put On the Shoes. And it was about it was sort of about jogging, but how I hated jogging, even though I jog, but I how I hated jogging. But the most important element of my training regimen was putting on the shoes. Because that started, it was the first in a step of habits, first in a tiny step of actions, a collection of actions, that got me to actually jogging, which is which which was the goal. But I just need to put on the shoes. And I made the sort of connection with writing and how I just you know just pick up the pen or just turn on the blank screen or just get started.

Todd 3:37

Right.

Bradley Charbonneau 3:37

And that's really helped me.

Bradley & Sacagawea

Todd 3:39

Yeah. Everyone can relate to it's hard to get to the gym, but once you're there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Put your put your workout clothes on. Get moving. Yeah. Now, here's a random question. Are you related to Sakaweia?

Bradley Charbonneau 3:54

Yeah. Yes, I am. Some some of my family members are big into family trees and ancestry, and it goes way back and it goes all the way back to Toussaint Charbonneau, T-O-U-S-S-A-I-N-T. Charbonneau, who was it married? I think they were married some relationship with Sakawea. And then they had a baby, Jean-Baptiste. And then it just from there, of course, there's lots of so long ago, there's lots of relatives. But but yes, it goes way back. And so there's also my name is spelled with two N's. There's some version with one N and I'm two, and so were they. And yeah, so that goes way back. That was uh that's pretty cool.

Todd 4:35

And Saka Jawea, so she was kind of an escort guide to was it Lewis and Clark? Is that it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. That's it. So as they were adventuring across the continent in North America, uh Saka Jawea was uh Sakajawea, sorry. But uh yeah, so she what what was her role then? So she was there to guide them across and help them? What what what did she say?

Bradley Charbonneau 4:57

Yeah, and I think also uh a translator as far as I know, and sort of a help uh sort of a middle person between uh uh Indian and or Native American or I don't even know how you say today, and uh you know, the locals and the and the new guys. And she was sort of an intermediary also with language and culture to help uh connect. So which I kind of think is cool today, and then also the old travel uh element too and adventure. Yeah.

The Story Brand: A Hero’s Journey

Todd 5:29

Yeah, you've I mean from what I've read of uh of your work and the communities that you run, you're kind of a guide for for writers and whatnot. So yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 5:38

Yeah.

Todd 5:38

Now, do you would you view yourself as that, as helping others like that?

Bradley Charbonneau 5:42

Absolutely. In fact, I have uh, you know, Heroes Journey, right? And there's there's a guy I admire, his name is Donald Miller, and he wrote a book called Story Brand and has an entire business and courses and programs and everything called Story Brand. And he boiled down the bigger hero's journey. I think it's like 12 steps or a whole bunch of steps that I frankly found sort of too complicated and I couldn't figure it out. But Donald Miller has his story brand where he took sort of seven of the steps, and it's there's a so here's why I'm a guide. So there's a hero, there's seven steps. There's a hero who has a problem, who meets a guide who has a plan to call to action to avoid failure and achieve success. Wow. And and the key there is that this is really hard for most people to grasp. I'm not the hero of the story. I'm the guide. Just like Luke Skywalker. So Luke Skywalker's the hero. Who's the guide? Nope, Obi-Wan Kenobi. So in my role as as teacher, as speaker, as author, I want to be the guide and I want to make the listener or the reader or the client the hero. I have a plan to help you get there and avoid success and achieve failure and success, avoid failure and achieve success, blah, blah, blah. But that's the role of guide that I have found, that I have come into. And don't get me wrong, I've been a hero and I want to be a hero, and everybody wants to be the hero. I think the guide is sort of the next level up. Right. Because what a hero is for yourself. I'm a hero, yay, I succeeded, yay, me. It's awesome, fantastic. But I found that the true joy and meaning and purpose is in guiding others to become heroes.

Todd 7:50

Right. In in reality, heroes they do it out of love. So it's for other people that they're acting like a hero. Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 7:59

Yeah.

Todd 7:59

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 8:01

Because the further back than a hero is the villain. And I and I don't mean villain in the sense of you know the Joker and Batman, but villain, the villain of our own selves. Like like today, I'm sure we're going to talk about it procrastination, imposter syndrome, perfectionism. So I see those as the villains that hold us back from becoming heroes, much less guides. Right. But these villains within our own selves are what hold us back from from moving on, which we'll sure we'll talk about because there's a lot of villains.

Todd 8:38

You just named off my villains in pocket. I know.

Bradley Charbonneau 8:41

They're brutal.

Todd 8:42

Yeah, yeah. Perfectionism, all that, yeah. They know.

Bradley Charbonneau 8:46

Yeah. Yeah. And they're not big and scary, right? They don't have masks and big fangy teeth and stuff. They're they're like your friends, you know, procrastination. You know, tomorrow, you know, why put off something to tomorrow that you could put off until the day after tomorrow.

Todd 9:01

Right. That sounds so familiar.

Bradley Charbonneau 9:05

I know.

Todd 9:07

Well, let's get into your life. You had a wake-up call. Prior to 2012, your life looked successful from the outside, and you just weren't happy though. Who were you back then? I just said the magic scary word, imposter.

Bradley Charbonneau 9:23

And so to the outside world, yeah, I was a success. Living in San Francisco, I had a house, my my European wife, and we went to Europe every summer, and on the outside, things look great. Keeping up with the Joneses and my own company and life is great, right? But I was secretly, I call it the creative closet or the writer's closet. And I came out of that closet. I came out of that author's closet. And because I was scared. I was scared to admit it to the world what I really wanted to do. Because, and this is where for many, many years, I think like eight years or nine years, I was just pretending to be a writer or talking about being a writer, or I have this terrible graphic of a calendar, and there's a post-it on the on a date that says someday. And it's like a fake calendar because someday doesn't exist. And someday was when I had the plan to become a writer. But of course, someday I someday is pretty much the same as never. So I was saying I'm gonna be a writer never. And that but the beauty of that, if not taking action, is safety and security. Because if I don't say that I want to do this thing where I can potentially fail, then there's no danger. I don't put anything out on the line, then I am safe where I am, and I cannot fail because I'm not putting out anything on the line that I care about. It's easy to put stuff out on the line that you don't care about. But I cared, it was like my my lifelong, not lifelong, but since I was 20, dream to become a writer. And I was so scared of admitting that and coming out of the closet of being public about it, because then if I went for it and I failed, then I would be seen as a failure. And so I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna play it safe and not uh disclose it, not go public. And just let me keep it as my little dream and I'll hold on to it. But the dream, just like a I I mean, I hate to say this word, but like a cancer, you know, growing in me that was just like metastasizing, but metastasizing into something bigger to the point where I'm I'm I'm not gonna be well at some point, right? Because I've got this dream uh living in me, which is a a bad thing, like cancer's bad, but it's almost if I go public with it, somehow it turns into good energy or a good metastasizing thing, and then I can go for it. But that clip was too scary, so I couldn't I I couldn't do it. I didn't do it.

A Simple Invitation Lights the Flame

Todd 12:34

I think we can all relate to that. Yeah. And and you mentioned the date, November 1st, 2012, yeah, as the day you finally said, Look, I've got to make a change. What happened? What what happened on that day?

Bradley Charbonneau 12:47

So this is that date changed a lot for me. And I wish I could say that I'm such a strong guy, and I have such will and determination and strength and power that I manage to on my own decide that I'm gonna become a writer now. And this is where this is one reason I'm a guide today. I say guide like it's a true guide, but like I'm a guide today because I know how hard it is to make that decision on your own. And if I only look back to myself on October 31st, 2012, for example, when I wasn't making that decision, still after years of pain and suffering, internal secret pain and suffering, of having this dream and knowing it would probably never come true. And still not doing still not taking action. I know how bad it is, I know how scary it is, you know what I'm still not going to make the decision. So I had to wait for the I call it an invitation from a third party, from somebody else, to ask me, also known as kick my butt, to do the thing, to take action. And this is crucial for me, and this is another reason that I like to be a guide, and I like to call it an invitation. And I like that word, like invite as well. If I ask you to do something, hey Todd, can you do this thing for me? So I just put the burden sort of in your court. I say, Hey, can you do this thing? Whereas if I invite you, just like now, you invited me onto your podcast. So for me, it's an honor. Wow, I'm invited to his thing. He's inviting me into his world. Whoa, that's that's an honor. I would I would love to, John. Thank you so much.

Todd 14:44

Yeah, I better clean the place up.

Bradley Charbonneau 14:46

So it's such a different, uh even just those little words, right? Like ask or tell or do, and whereas invitation or invite, I just think it's a a real powerful thing. So I was invited by John Muldoon to he had a project called he calls it an experiment. That's why that's why I got so big on the word experiment. And he had the monthly experiment. And he had studied habits and habit creation and habits stacking, and habit stacking is super powerful. And uh what can happen in in the span of just a month, 30 days. And he had stuff like don't drink coffee for 30 days, or wake up at 5 a.m. for 30 days, or whatever. And you he had these groups go through and they would do these different things. And and of course, because he was the leader of this thing, he knew after you know 15, 20 days, there'd be some usually kind of some breakthrough and the coffee or the wake up early or the whatever. And so for me, he's like probably in November, November 2012. It's just now, well, 14 years ago. And he said, for November, I'm gonna do a custom one for you. Because by the way, he he he found out about my secret. He could we were friends and we were colleagues, yeah, and he found out that I was secretly wanting to be a writer. He's like, dude, we've known each other for years, we worked side by side for years. How can you have never told me this? He was really annoyed. And he said, Well, what kind of friend am I if you don't even tell me this stuff?

Todd 16:21

Yeah, I thought we were friends. Come on.

Bradley Charbonneau 16:22

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I'm not telling him not like not deepest, darkest secrets, but kinda was a big secret for me, and I hadn't told him, and he was annoyed. He was like, We're gonna fix this. He's like, I don't you you gotta come out of the closet, dude. Yeah, so that's when he said, All right, November's gonna be for you, it's gonna be right every day. He had the group go through it, and I was just one of the group, and I and I did it. And for the first time in years, I was actually taking action and writing. And he he was so brilliant, he didn't have any rules, no quality rules or quantity rules. He's like, I don't care. It's just your definition of writing every day, I don't care what you do or how you do it. And and me, I'm like formerly techie dude, and so it was a long time ago, right? But even WordPress, I would I often I knew WordPress really well, so I'm just gonna make a post on WordPress and I'm gonna make it public, which was super scary for me. Remember, I was like the previous day I was in the closet and nobody knew about it. And then I'm going, not only am I gonna write every day, he's like, You can just write in your journal or write on a blog post. You don't have to make it public. He didn't say that. But for some you know, self flagellation reason, I said, I'm gonna uh I'm gonna make it public, and I did. So I went on for 30 days, and of course, as he knows, after 15, 20 days, Mike, I I actually said, This isn't so hard. Nice. This isn't so bad. What am I what's all that fuss been about?

Todd 18:03

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 18:03

I just needed to write every day and and and write junk, write bad stuff. Who cares? Nobody doesn't matter. Just like you said earlier, get in shape. Just get in shape. And so I was not in shape because I was I was talking about going to the gym. Yeah. Not quite the same. So that kicked me off. And then I tend to be a pit bull and hold on to stuff. And so I wrote for 30 days, then I wrote for 100 days, then I wrote for 365 days, and everyday publishing, right? Everyday publishing, public, public, public, right? And these are all still accessible. And then I then I just wasn't unstoppable. And then I went for a thousand days, you know, almost three years. And then I I finally stopped at 2,808 days in a row, never missing a day of hitting publish and writing something every single day. And I I stopped on the day my mom passed away.

Todd 18:57

Oh, yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 18:59

She didn't tell me to or anything. I just felt, you know what? I think 2,808 days. Let's get in shape. Yeah.

A 30 Day Experiment Changed His LIfe

Todd 19:06

That's cool. Yeah. You gotta take a break sometime. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. In in that first 30 days, what changed about you? Because when you're initially starting something out, that's when you see the biggest changes, right? And so what happened in those 30 days?

Bradley Charbonneau 19:22

I had it in my head that this whole fantasy of writing was this big giant mountain. And I had just blown it up so big, nowhere near reality, right? Had nothing to do with reality. It was just this gigantic mountain. And I still have this vision in my head of I need to go to a lake uh in the fall, but it's warm outside enough, where I can sit on the belt on the terra. I ideally it's like one of those wraparound uh patio decks, and I can see the lake, and the sun is setting, and I have my laptop and my my lovely beverage of choice, and then and only then will I write. Well it's fantasyland, right? I guess I could make that happen, but I was waiting for this like Disney, Disney version of fantasyland so I could start this dream. And so I'm never gonna start it if that's my version of it. And what really happened was I needed my friend to kick my butt on November 1st, 2012 and say, you just gotta write every day. I don't care what you do. See it. We'll talk in 30 days. Bye.

Todd 20:37

Boom. Just get after it.

Bradley Charbonneau 20:39

Yeah, that's it.

Todd 20:40

I like that. Simple but not easy. Yeah, I like it. I like what you said about you know, you we have we build in our minds this perfect situation, no matter what it is. Let's say you're going to become a Navy SEAL or whatever, and then you actually get into doing the thing, and you're like, oh, these are just normal people. Because you you have in your mind you're gonna meet your hero. You end up meeting that person, and it's like, oh, they're just a normal person like me. Okay. It's kind of refreshing, I think.

Bradley Charbonneau 21:07

So the Navy SEAL, it it's not every single day jumping out of a helicopter on Mount Everest, right? It's just that's not everyday life. Everyday life might be much less glamorous than that, much less, you know, from the movie. Just like the writing, it's not on the wraparound jack in the cabin by the lake with the Yeah.

Todd 21:34

When I when I was in boot camp in the Marines, basically they would bring in recruits that were further ahead in training than us to try to motivate us. And they would talk to us and they would we had these daily, we had these mantras, and it was like, hey, you're basically just trying to live from every meal to the next. We just called it chow to chow. And that's what we kept encouraging ourselves with that. You know, you know what, just take the next step, make it to the next meal. That's what you're doing.

Bradley Charbonneau 22:01

Yeah.

Speaker 3 22:02

It's not glamorous at all.

Todd 22:03

And then you you just get into the thing and you find out, oh, just normal people like me. These aren't like giants. And you know.

Bradley Charbonneau 22:11

Yeah. So chow to chow, that's kind of cool. I I because I could say now, because you know, I've written a gazillion books, right? Like, how'd you write all those books? Like, okay, do you remember that part that I wrote for 2,808 days in a row? I'm in excellent shape. Right? And and guess what? All that content, um just like a it's like a graph of it. Most of it's terrible, some of it's good, some of it's excellent, and a tiny little bit is amazing. But but you can't only choose to do the amazing stuff. Yeah. Right? The Navy SEAL can't own I only want to do the helicopter jumping stuff. Nope. I don't want to write up the report later. And I don't want to do that. Well, sorry, it's sorry part of the job. Yeah. It's just that daily activity. And that's that's the big secret. It's the boring secret.

Todd 23:05

Yeah. To get on that helicopter, there's a long hike that you gotta make and stuff, usually that uh before you get to that point, and then there's that five seconds of, oh, cool. But yeah, it's interesting.

Bradley Charbonneau 23:18

Right. Right, it's like this little blip.

Grief & Loss Trigger HUGE Life Changes

Todd 23:20

Yeah. Now you've you also developed a daily habit of meditation. How did that start? And and you you've written about this, you've written about the power of meditation and how it helps you. Can you talk about that?

Bradley Charbonneau 23:34

I think growing up, I was such a so stubborn and typical, you know, male. I got this, you know, I don't need a map, you know, I don't need help. I'm gonna figure it out my on my own, right? And similarly, I didn't, you know, I don't want to, I don't want help. I'll figure it out. And it was gonna take me 10 times longer until my dad died. And then or actually when he was diagnosed with cancer, that's when it hit me. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, this happens, you know, to other people. I don't have not my immediate family, not my dad, who I dearly loved. No, no, no, no, that no no wait, that that can't happen. And then he did pass away, and then it just threw me. And I then, because this is now it's 2015, so 2012 was when I started writing daily, but it doesn't mean I'm publishing books or anything. I'm just doing my daily thing, and that was sort of my little world, but I still had my full-on company and I'm doing my normal life and everything. That was just sort of a little side tiny bit, right? But then when my dad passed away, you know, you take assessment. You're like, okay, am I happy in my current, you know, work situation? Well, no. Am I happy where I'm living? Am I happy you know with this, this, this, and like no either. And I just wasn't. And I thought, wait a minute, if my dad can die, and I and in my playbook, that was that was on the never calendar. When my parents are gonna die, never, no, never. Not later, not when they're super old, nope, never. So that one it really shook me. And I know I might seem so like naive or like a little kid or something, but in some ways we are, right? And I thought, no, not my parents, they're never gonna die. And then my dad did die, and it totally freaked me out because I think it it showed me mortality. I thought, wait a minute, if he can die, I'm gonna die someday. What? And I was so like innocent or naive, or whatever you want to call it, maybe just unrealistic. But then I thought, well, I'm not happy with this, this, this, and this. Well, who's gonna do something about that?

Todd 25:53

Right.

Bradley Charbonneau 25:54

And I said, uh, oh, wait a minute. Oh my oh, I know me. And so within one year of my dad passing, we threw our lives in in California out the window. We sold our car, took the kids out of school, and we moved to Europe. Wow. And my it sounds super crazy, and well, it is super crazy, but my wife is Dutch, and so I wanted my kids to have half of their mom's upbringing and existence in Europe, and not just the American existence that they'd had, but and they were 10 and 12 at the time, so I can highly recommend to not move your kids at 10 and 12. That was brutal. Before, before 10, what doesn't matter. So uh it was super hard, but I didn't care. And we're we're making a big change, and I promise your kids it's gonna be for the better. And only today, 11 years after that move, can I honestly say it was absolutely worth it? A huge change. And it all came from my dad passing. It's because I know we started this question with with you know what triggered all this and what started all this. And you got you were talking about meditation, which I have gone a complete rabbit hole. But with with my dad passing, that's when I went off the spiritual deep end. And I needed to find a way. At first, I was looking to save my dad. Can I save him? Like medically. I went west, I went, east, I went, any way I could find how I can save him, cure this cancel, heal, heal him from cancer. And so I went western medicine, I went eastern medicine, I went any uh spiritual trying to find something that would help him. My first goal was sort of medically, but as I kept digging and reading and listening and educating myself, I got more spiritual, looking for spiritual answers. And I was so thankful that I found any version of spirituality that where I could connect with my dad. And I thought my dad, my dad was conservative, engineer, worked for a defense company, full-on that uh rigid conservative type mathematician, you know, mathematician undergrad, which I I was at point to. Um and I was at that point, you know, more the artist and the writer and the creative guy, but we really connected in his last few years. Wow. Sounds so crazy to say this, but through spirituality, and there's that connection and getting less scared of death. And then I even have a a relationship with him after his passing. And I I thank meditation for that, for reaching these these higher levels of consciousness through meditation to um to connect with him.

Todd 29:09

That's deep, man. That's yeah, I wasn't expecting that. That's that's really, yeah. I mean, because I mean, while I'm reading about you, I mean you talk about meditation as part of how you write and how you develop ideas and stuff like that. But that's yeah, dude, that that was that was deep. It goes so much deeper than just uh you know what we get out of it. So I yeah, I pr I appreciate you you sharing that.

Bradley Charbonneau 29:34

So you had a guest on your show who did uh vipassana. Yes. And uh the 10-day yeah, yeah, that was a fantastic interview, by the way.

Todd 29:44

Cool, thank you. Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 29:46

And uh he did this 10-day silent meditation retreat by Vipassana, and I did it too. It was my dad was still alive. I remember it, my mama dropped me off at some like remote mountain village or something like that in the hills of California, somewhere near Nevada. Again, because I was on this mission to find a connection with my dad, yeah, kind of spiritually, but even after he passed, how can we have a connection after that? And the more I read, the more the deeper I went, I'm like, wait a minute, I can have a connection with him, even after his he leaves his physical body. Yeah, and we do have a connection. And that those ten days, that that silent meditation retreat, that was the toughest thing I've ever done. Wow. It was brutal. Uh it was super hard, and I don't regret it for a moment. That's cool. It was it was really hard, but it really Yeah, the answers are within.

Todd 30:48

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 30:49

The answers are always within. I think that that the guy on your interview, he said something like that. He said something like, you know, we're speaking the answers outside, but the answers are outside coming in, but no, they're inside coming out. He had this nice line. You guys had a you guys had a great connection in that interview.

Todd 31:07

Yeah, there's a book called Inside Out Revolution, and we we often we look to if I could just change the circumstances. I'm in a bad marriage. If I could just if that other if my wife would just change, then everything would be good. Yes. That's not no. No, it never works like that. We need to change ourselves. Exactly.

Bradley Charbonneau 31:25

See, that that's sort of exactly like the oh, if only I could be at the lake with the cup of tea and the laptop and the sunset, and I got the view and the wraparound deck, then I'll be a writer.

Todd 31:36

No. Never. In reality, you didn't get much sleep the night before. You're tired, you're trying to sit down and write, I've got a deadline, and yeah. And then at some point in that process, you hit a moment of greatness internally and go, oh, and then it starts flowing. So, but yeah, there's so much leading up to that.

Bradley Charbonneau 31:59

So yeah. Yeah.

Developing the “Repossible” Brand

Todd 32:01

Now, switching gears here, you've experienced tremendous personal transformation through your life. And that led to the development of a concept that you called repossyl. What does that mean?

Bradley Charbonneau 32:13

So a very visual memory, and I can remember myself me talking with again, John Muldoon, same guy who changed the trajectory of my life on November 1st, 2012. And soon thereafter, uh, so he and he and I were business partners, and we were looking for a new domain. I can't remember why. And he found it. He found this name, repossible.com, and he says, he's like, Bradley, it's available. I'm gonna buy it right now. If you don't buy it right this second, you know, it was nine dollars, right? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, if you don't buy it, I'm gonna buy it. I'm like, fine. So I bought it. And uh like it's kind of unbelievable that that name, which sounds like such a big corporate, you know, could be some giant behemoth company, right? Re-possible, sort of the it's as you said, right? Uh re- I like how you said it. You said redefining what's possible. And I also think like re like repeat, repeat possible, repeat possible, repeat possible. Or like R-E colon, you know, as regards to possible.

Todd 33:23

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 33:24

So it's just a fantastic name, and it goes along very much with sort of my philosophies and strategies of you know making it possible again. And these repossible, re-possible, make tiny small steps, not shooting for the moon, or you know, shoot for the moon is fine, but to take that first step, just put on the shoes, right? Just put on the workout gear, just pick up the pen and write some garbage. So that's where that came about, uh, these tiny little steps to taking to taking action. And then again, thanks to John Woldoon, thanks to my dad, accepting an invitation to act, to take action, and finding your guide. You if you want to be the hero and you want to overcome your problem, overcome your challenge, accept an invitation from a third party. Don't have to do it alone. You don't have to just all always go it alone. Even stubborn guys like me, I think, no, no, no, I got it, I got it, I can do it, I can do it, I'll be fine. No, well, you probably can. I spent nine years proving I couldn't do it alone. I never did. So John Mo John Muldoon walks up and says, 30-day challenge starts uh, you know, November 1st. Okay, let's go. That's cool. So yeah. I see it as a guide. It's wanting to I see as that higher aspiration of us as villains. So we're talking about procrastination, imposter symptom. We were the villains, we all are the villains. And let's shoot, let's strive to become a hero. Awesome. That's great. Hero is ego, hero is me succeeding. That's great, nothing wrong with that at all. Then I think that the higher power, the higher aspirational goal is to become a guide. Because I think there is nothing more powerful or rewarding than helping others. Yeah. And reaching out your hand and come on up and let me lift you out of that ditch and let me help you. Allow me to invite you to your future success.

Todd 35:36

Yeah. And that's the feeling I got when I was reading your book, Repossible. It felt like an invitation. You weren't on a pedestal talking down to anyone. You were just, hey, here's me. Invitation is the right word. I felt like I was being invited into this world. So that was yeah, that was motivating. So I like that.

Bradley Charbonneau 35:55

Oh, good. I'm glad you felt that because that's what I'm I'm going for. Just the pushing stuff, I don't think that works. I can I can push it at you, I can throw it at you, I can give you all the best sales pitches or whatever. But just like you said, it has to come from within.

Meeting Your Future Self

Todd 36:10

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't feel like I was being sold anything. It was yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. And the writing is very light, and there was heart there. So that's and I felt like I was being invited in. So that's I really enjoyed reading that. But yeah. And I'm looking forward to the series. So I read the first book in the Repossible series, and I'm gonna do the rest later. Now, you talk about meeting your future self. How does that help people take action today?

Bradley Charbonneau 36:38

Well, um, so again, I've had this fascination with Europe. Like since I was 14, and my parents dragged us to Europe. I didn't want to go, and I'm gonna hang out with my friends. Europe, what a waste of time. And parents dragged us over there, and I just sort of had opened my eyes to wow, this whole other world. You know, especially as Americans, America is such a big country. There's so much to offer, there's so much to see, there's such variety, there's why ever leave. And so, and as a young boy, I'm like, I'm gonna be with my friends and waste all summer doing nothing. Right? My parents like, too bad, go to Europe. And uh it's just it opened my eyes into this whole other world in our on our planet here, and I was just amazed, and I just fell in love with Europe immediately. And then I went back when I was 18 with a buddy, and we did the whole typical, you know, like gazillion countries in 30 days, and and traveled. And but then I thought, how how can I how can I live here? How can I be just not just a tourist and uh uh roaming around on a train being a guest or a tourist? How can I be here more? And so that's when I looked into school, and that's when I I eventually ended up going to my junior year abroad in France, and then I after France, I got a job in Germany and all just all like pre-internet research. It's like literally going to the library looking at books, like how can I work in Germany? Clueless. And so that all of that led me to yeah, it led me to how can we change? How can we become different people? Again, I want to go with the smaller stuff because if we if we strive to make these gigantic changes, then it it's gonna seem too big. Yeah. And like now, I I mean, I've I've had a wonderful career and successful this and that, and I've done a gazillion things. And if some 22-year-old compares themselves to me, like, oh yeah, but you have all these books and all these and you live in all these countries and all that, and I say, Yeah, I know it's a lot, but also you've got many years to catch up, right? Right. And it's not it's not a race. Yeah. And it's just help with that that first step. Yeah. And so these days, I'm I'm I met somebody on a train to back to meeting your future self. I'm on a train, and here's the kind of totally dorky stuff I do. I was in between, uh uh, I was working in France, I was a volunteer at this abbey, and I was making stained glass, I was helping at the church repair the broken stained glass. It was amazing, it was super cool.

Todd 39:37

That's cool.

Bradley Charbonneau 39:38

Yeah, it was really neat. And then in the meantime, I I was waiting for the next like volunteer gig, and I'm in Germany with a friend, and I went to Poland, I can't even remember why, and all I wanted to do, there was a town in the very north of Poland, and it's spelled H-E-L. It's at the tip-tip-tippity top, and I only wanted to go so that I could say that I've been to hell and back. I'm like such a dork.

Todd 40:13

So delightfully dorky. I like that.

Bradley Charbonneau 40:16

I am a dork of Rama, and I I love doing things like that. So I meant there was this guy in the train must have been 80 years old. And at that point I was, you know, 20 or something, and he just seemed like this wise old wizard.

Todd 40:30

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 40:31

And he s said in in so many words, like, imagine when you're 80, like me on the train. And what would you say to your 20-year-old self? And how can you make decisions from your on your 20-year-old self? Try a little bit to think of the future and look back. Yeah. And so it's a little bit like when those people on their deathbeds, you know, they never say, they never say, Oh, I didn't work hard enough. Right? Stuff like that. Yeah. And so so for me, the whole the 80-20 thing is a bit of a stretch. That's kind of hard. When you're 20, it's hard to think of, well, when I'm 80, I don't know, I'm gonna be super old. But what what if just just a year out, yeah, just one year out, and try to imagine, envision your life in a year, where you might be, what you might be doing, where you might be living, what is your job, what is your relationship, what is your world, and try to envision that, try to see that, and then from that perspective, from that viewpoint in the future of your own self, try to speak to your current self and give like advice or what might it look like to get to that point. And I've done this exercise with my kids, and they're usually like, well, you know, I I won the lottery and I bought a Lamborghini. I'm like, okay, okay, okay.

Todd 42:04

Yeah. That's great. Out of your control. Yes, yes, yes.

Bradley Charbonneau 42:12

And a little closer, a little closer to Earth.

Todd 42:15

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 42:16

But it but it helps to think if you're if you're mapping out or visualizing that future self of you, where are you walking? How do you feel? What are you doing? What makes you proud? What is something proud that you've done that you're something you've done that you're proud of? And that ideally you're looking in the future and say, oh, you know what? And then very much into words and speaking and how we say things, just like I like the word invite. But if you're you're in the future, and if you if you write this out, it's it can be very powerful. And you can if you write in the past tense, write it today, but it's in the past tense. So 2026, what a year. Well, I finally uh achieved XYZ. And I also finally did ABC. And it helps to be specific. And we moved to XYZ. Right. And I finally got this one thing done. I've been waiting to do, and I finally did it. And not the moon, not the Lamborghini. Yeah. Relatively accessible things that you really would be proud of having accomplished. Right. And talk them through and write it out and be specific.

Prayer, Meditation, and PRACTICE!

Todd 43:34

And I heard um, I heard it said, I can't remember where, but when we pray, when we visualize, when we meditate, we look to that future, what what what happens psychologically is our cognitive processes orient themselves towards those goals. And we can't help but think about them. So then that helps day to day for us to align our actions to those goals. I heard that said. That's not original. with me, but uh what you're saying triggered that. Yeah. But uh yeah, meeting your future self. I love that.

Bradley Charbonneau 44:07

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, like you said, pray, meditate. Because ideally, when you're praying or meditating, you're in a calmer state. And you're not, you know, oh yeah, I'm also doing the dishes and taking out the trash and walking the dog. Although you could be, but you could be ideally one of those things, I guess. I walk my dog a lot. And I can be definitely in a calm state because it's just so natural to walk my dog. That's when I'm in a very calm state that I'm not being I've got nothing else going on. Just walking the dog. And that can because meditation people often think, oh, you gotta sit cross-legged in the corner in a on a pillow and wear an orange robe and shave your head. And it doesn't have to be that right it can be as simple as walking the dog or in the shower or whatever. Wherever you can sort of achieve a tiny bit of a higher state than your normal daily, daily, busy, busy life.

Todd 45:09

Yeah. We're always looking for fancy, but that's just not the case. I give you this as a as an example. Marines are known for marksmanship.

Bradley Charbonneau 45:18

Yeah.

Todd 45:18

And then you go to boot camp and literally the whole rifle range training is a two-week period in boot camp. The first week you're sitting out in the grass and they take these 55 gallon drums, paint them white, and they paint these little targets on them. For literally for a week you're they call it snap in week and you're sitting there just aiming at this barrel, pulling the trigger, dry firing, click, and then you cock the weapon, click. So for a week you're doing that. And then the shooting part is, you know, kind of an afterthought after you've done that for a week. So there's nothing fancy about any of it.

Bradley Charbonneau 45:55

So dry firing, you're not actually shooting your bullet that first week.

Todd 45:59

No. You're just click and then you'll have your buddy sit behind you. It this is there's there's nothing highly technically advanced about it at all. Your buddy will sit behind you at some point and pull the pull the the rod back to cock the the the rifle and then you just sit there and breathe click. So yeah nothing fancy. Yeah meditation nothing fancy about it at all. So you can do it anywhere. Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 46:23

I like that I like that you're just you're going through the motion you're not even doing what you think it's supposed to be about you're still you're still doing it. You're in that you're practicing I guess right you're without actually the bullet coming out of the rifle.

Todd 46:42

Yeah you're focusing on and they and and and when you when when you finally shoot it should be like oh you know it kind of should shock you a little bit. And uh so that's how they train marksmen in the Marines.

Bradley Charbonneau 46:56

The question about that that's interesting because also since no bullet comes out you can't judge yourself whether or not it was a success right I guess.

Todd 47:07

Yeah. Well you can feel it you know if you're doing it right because you're fo you're not the vo you're not focusing on the shot. You're focusing on all the things leading up to it. And then you're you're meditating when you're doing this you're there's an acronym called Brass F that you're saying in your head while you're you breathe in, you relax and then you're just you're focused on the front sight post and then you're slowly slowly squeezing the trigger and then bang and then it kind of scares you and you're like oh oh yeah I shot so you're not focusing on the results you're focusing on that process leading up to the firing pin striking uh the bullet and uh see you just said the magic works you just said the magic works you said you're not focusing on the results.

Bradley Charbonneau 47:50

Right. I think I think that's the key to I I that's been my secret. Yeah. And that's I think that's such an interesting story. I'm so visual right I can just see you there rifle on the ground buddy behind you and you're pulling trigger and what you think is going to happen is not actually happening but that's not even the point.

Todd 48:07

Yeah.

Bradley Charbonneau 48:08

Because the point is going through the motions is doing the thing. Yes and that's similar to my writing every day. I I didn't I didn't plan on writing all these books. It wasn't my goal oh I'm not gonna my goal isn't sell a hundred thousand books which I've done but it wasn't that my goal was write every day. Yeah get up in the morning and write the deadline part I never forget we were on holiday or in Barcelona and it was like a quarter to midnight and I'm out with my it's late life in Spain right and I'm out with my wife and two kids and my it's at the quarter to 12 I gotta go. I'm like what are you talking about? We're out here we're on the beach rather than night so I'm like I'm so sorry and I literally went back to our Airbnb and I cranked out some garbage and it didn't matter but from what did matter for me was that deadline and I was my own accountability partner and then my accountability partner was the calendar was the daily remember no quality control no quantity control I could type today was okay period done publish that that didn't matter that was okay it was that daily habit that I was so strict about that ended up being my success just like you're there rifle no bullet but I'm gonna still pull the trigger and as if because then when it the real time comes when I'm actually writing a chapter for a book I'm already in shape because I've already been practicing all that time.

Todd 49:38

Yeah it's it's you don't have to think about it. So you get in that flow state.

Bradley Charbonneau 49:43

Yeah yeah so uh I also like chow to chow I haven't forgotten about that chow to chow.

Life is an Experiment, NOT a Plan

Todd 49:48

Yeah that's how we encouraged one another it was like yeah just gotta live chow to chow man yeah oh oh so switching gears now um yeah you you describe your life as an experiment instead of a plan. Can you elaborate on that?

Bradley Charbonneau 50:05

Yeah I'm I'm back how often do I mention Sean Muldoon? It's it's his thing it's his experiment and the idea of an experiment the reason he calls it an experiment is because in an experiment there's not necessarily failure or success. There's just like a report or results or here's what happened. And so it's a like a learning experiment. And so oh what happened of your you know with your 30 days of no coffee or your 30 days of writing every day what happened tell me and so you tell him the story this is what happened. Oh great that was a great experiment thanks that's it and so it the idea of it not being about the result just like uh like many things we've already been talking about the yeah it's the it's the going through the motion it's the idea of doing the action without being so concerned about the result. And and this is where I think the secret to my I am a machine when it comes to creating I've written a gazillion books. I have I have over five thousand videos on my YouTube channel. A lot of shorts shorts are easy but I just crank it out and this is from a guy who spent nine years not publishing a single thing because I was so worried about what the external world is going to think about it. When I finally got over that I just opened up the dam. The dam broke and I'm maybe I'm catching up for lost time but I I just kept going. And so that's where experiment like you could say that every single chapter I write or blog post or video or audio I record is an experiment and what are then the takeaways or the the learning moments from that experiment. Not necessarily oh was it a success or failure? Well you can say that if you want but yeah for me get it out see what happens right and it's an experiment. So that's then a word again as you'll notice I'm very specific on certain words like invitation and experiment because they have real power. Yeah so that's that is so cool.

Sparking Imagination in Kids

Todd 52:24

Yeah now here's the fascinating story that you shared in in Repossible. You once read a children's book with your eight year old son and after you close the book your son goes hey we could do better than that what came out of that conversation

Bradley Charbonneau 52:43

that's so cool that you you found that so this is me early on wanting to be a writer being a writer and then back then like where do the ideas come from where does the creativity come from and this was with my little boys and we're reading the story and that's where one of them said like yeah we can do better than that so I'm like that sounds like a challenge if I've ever heard one yeah and so then we I helped them I said let's have you guys write the book but they're kids so they don't really understand that. So what I wanted was I wanted them to sort of write it out. That turned out to be too complicated. All I did was I said you guys just tell me what happens next and then I'll kind of write it out a little bit in words that make a story. But it's your story. I'm just sort of the translator and then we'll make a story. So we did that for a while and then I read back to them the story that they told me and I knew that I was on to something when I I still get to chill today. I'm reading the book I'm reading the words to to my boys one night and then one of them says and then what happened I say did you forget this is your story. You created this story you get to determine what happens next yeah and they they were as baffled like wait a minute we created this thing what do you mean we created this thing like you've been telling me this story I've been just sort of typing it up I know it's not my story it's your story you are the creator you are the founder of this story and it's yours so you get to determine what happens next right and eyes are like the kids are just like we have the power you know and they could create the story and so then then they're like it's just amazing it's like I gave them the tool of imagination and I let them create the story of what was going to happen next. Yeah and it was just a cool powerful thing. And all I did what did I do? I invited them yeah to share their imagination with me. Yeah that is so cool. I didn't ask him I didn't I didn't tell him to hey kid tell me tell me what happens to the dog next yeah no now I'm asked now now I might as well tell them to do their homework yeah right or eat their broccoli but I invited them yeah to share with me your imagination what what is my dog's gonna go into the cave what what's gonna happen to the dog what's gonna happen to the dog I I don't know tell me right so it was it was amazing and then I even I I told this story this this is zillion years ago I told the story to some dad at some whatever some kid party and the dad is like okay dude if you can get that if you can get me to have that relationship with my son I will pay you whatever you want right yeah yeah and so that's when I started a program called Spark I I sparked the imagination of the kids yeah and the parents then sort of write it out depending on how old the kids were the parents sort of write it out and like no editing no editing it's just you're just a translator just they'll tell you the story you sort of type it out or whatever and then you're gonna tell them this is their story. It was so fun. It was really fun. Yeah so the kids wrote a book together called The Secret of Kite Hill it's literally on Amazon today.

Todd 56:43

What's the name of the book again?

Bradley Charbonneau 56:44

The Secret of Kite Hill Ah yeah yeah yeah so the the boys wrote that book I did well I typed the words but they told so cool the secret of Kite Hill yeah I'm making a note to go look that up yeah then yeah because the kids were young and you know more innocent and and willing to do silly stuff with their dad like that. Yeah so there's a there's a small window with kids when you know they're yeah you're not annoying enough yet as a parent. Right. And you're you're still kind of semi cool.

The Greatest Joy is Helping Others

Todd 57:18

Yeah and they want to hang with you that's tight. Yeah yeah yeah so last question may not really be a question but maybe a statement on my part. But one of the books in the Repossible series is called Spark, right? Yeah yeah and the subject matter of that book really touches my heart and I want to read a quote from that and in the book you say well I don't know if it's in that book but maybe I read it in Repossible but here's a quote you said personal development is great and all but when you can help someone else you'll feel a bolt of lightning strike and a rumble of thunder will rattle your heart end of quote. Man the heart behind the life you're living is really coming out sparking things in other people can you can you elaborate on that?

Bradley Charbonneau 58:04

Yeah I think that's the secret to the big statement but like to all happiness it's helping someone else or opening up something in someone somebody else is it gives you such sort of joy and meaning and purpose. And I think there is there's nothing greater than that. And what once you so when you're younger you just think you know oh I want the Ferrari or you know I I keep mentioning Ferraris on Lamborghinis but I want to succeed. Like hello hello I want to succeed remember me? Hi I want to succeed. I want to be the hero I get it I totally get it it's absolutely normal and 100% human and I I wanted to be the hero too. I still want to be the hero in certain ways. But once I once you achieve hero status you achieve success or whatever you want to call it then you you can have this sort of plateau like okay I've succeeded in this and I've succeeded in that or like okay that's all great. Well I guess I'll succeed in some other thing it it plateaus because I find that the our true heart is is filled when we can help others succeed.

Todd 59:22

Yes.

Bradley Charbonneau 59:23

That's for me the big secret and so when me helping others if if you put like a number number on it like I can earn a hundred dollars but if I can help someone earn one dollar it's it's even more valuable right so this is where like the mathematics don't make sense because you would think like well $100 sounds better than one dollar to me. Yes but they're not equal value you know like the I don't know why I brought dollars into this but the the the dollar of someone else that person succeeding is worth more to me than had I earned a dollar. Even worth more to me than I earn a hundred dollars than that person early one dollar. And that's if I can have any influence on them having any kind of success or happiness or joy or confidence is one of my favorites. If I can help that person I I think I actually think confidence is we haven't talked about confidence a lot but I think confidence is another sort of secret characteristic that if you could just get a little more it can it can help you sort of exponentially with a little more confidence. And so I I truly believe it with kids as well. Just like then I gave the kids the my two boys the confidence that they have imaginations and I'm writing their story and that they can create a book you know at age whatever six. Whoa I can do that I can that's cool.

Todd 1:00:59

Yeah that is fascinating man yeah this has been it's been an awesome conversation Bradley thank you so much for taking time with me. What I'm gonna do is put links to uh where you can find Bradley so he's got several he's got his YouTube channel he's got his his main website he's got the Repossible site I'm gonna put links to the in the description there and uh also links out to the Repossible series he's also got an author authorpreneur series we didn't talk about that but I'll include links to that series as well but um man this is this is good and that that that invitation is is what came out in your book. So for the listeners I invite you to check out Bradley's website check out some of his books his YouTube channel and uh we'll include those links. Bradley thank you so much man I appreciate your time.

Bradley Charbonneau 1:01:50

No if I can say one more thing. Yeah I want to thank you because what you're doing here you are you invited me into this conversation and if if you had asked me hey Bradley go do an hour presentation on these topics here's some questions that's that's one thing. That feels heavy yeah exactly that's like oh I have to do what that's a bird whereas you are are providing you are also providing an invitation here to have people open up and tell their stories. Yeah and and what you're doing is also you know you're creating a legacy for yourself and for the people on your show. And I think it's it's fantastic and wonderful that you're doing it. And so I would like to really thank you for doing what you're doing.

Closing Thoughts

Todd 1:02:42

Oh man I that's humbling. I appreciate that. Absolutely. But just my closing thoughts here when you're thinking about your life and dreams and things you want to accomplish if you're waiting for the right time it's just not coming. There's nothing special about it. Before you read another book before you listen to a podcast watch a video take a class whatever just pick one tiny thing you can do today and do it. Celebrate that victory because it will help you with the next step. And then just pick it up again and do it tomorrow. And then as you're succeeding take some time to share that with others. Create that spark in other people because you can amass millions of dollars you can become a billionaire you could build the biggest companies and you could do all the things but unless you're really inviting others along and trying to help them you're not going to experience any fulfillment that's what I'm taking away from this conversation with Bradley today. So just get off the sideline stop being a spectator in your own life check out the links in the description read the books sure but today just get started do something make a plan to just do one little thing each day. I think the Japanese call it kaizen one small improvement every day. Take time make that happen and I hope this has been encouraging for you and if you enjoyed the episode or even if you didn't please leave us some feedback. We've got links in the description you can send an email you can send a text and if you would please consider leaving us a review we read those and uh we appreciate your your listening maybe share this interview with your friend but until next time see you on the pathing