178: Turning Your Adversity Into Your Advantage With Dom Brightmon

We got a great guest with us today.

Dom Brightmon is a self leadership expert.

He has been certified with the John Maxwell team.

He is also involved with Toastmasters International,

and has the D T M certification through that organization.

He is an author of going north tips

and techniques to advance yourself.

Go and another book,

the best selling book crappy

to happy sacred stories of transformational joy.

He has a heart to help people

to unlock their inner values through reading.

And through other forms of self development.

We welcome to Beyond adversity DOM Brightman.

Oh, my man,

the one and only Dr. Brad Miller,

how you feeling?

I'm awesome, my man.

And it is a joy to have you with us here today.

I'm feeling great.

You look like you're fired up ready to go.

You're ready to go my man? Oh,

yeah, let's go north.

Okay, go north. ]

Well, let's go north.

Because some people have been going south.

What I mean by that is,

we've gone through a year or

two or three of some really difficult times in our world.

And individuals have had their difficult times

to deal with it as well.

And some people have got stuck in the muck of adversity.

But your person is going to help us

to navigate through some some things.

But first of all,

I know that you have some motivations in your life

to going north,

because you've had some of your challenges as well.

And if you will, Don

Would you just have pack for us a little bit

of some of the challenges or adversities

that you've had to face in your life

to kind of give us a foundational story that we can go to we work from,

Ah, sure thing.

Well, for those who were old

and young enough to remember

especially in the US of A

where they thought that the world is gonna end.

And all that really happened is that

when the US baby last took his four month,

that was one heck of a year,

because that was a year

where it felt like a snowball effect happened

had a wonderful three pronged attack. J

uly 30, my father went out for a drive

and then July 31, he had to put out a Silver Alert for him

because he got lost.

It comes to find out what am that morning after

getting on my knees in prayer,

asking for God to help us find my dad

after he got lost for 24 plus hours,

we were able to find him.

And he discovered he had Alzheimer's.

Fast forward about a good month

and a half or so later turned 21.

And well the day was 21st birthday

making a left turn on the depth street

not to know where the break jammed in my car crashed my car.

And I was still alive.

Thank God, she could tell.

And to make even matters worse,

I had a part time job at the local library

at the time where I worked at.

And I was called in at the office for my boss

because there's some moments

where I thought the person wasn't showing up

in the professional life

and comes to find out it was

because there was some miscommunication

there as with some colleagues,

and some all these other lists of

stuff that I was messing up and

jacking up and I'm like, wow.

So that whole snowball effect

led me to realize, Wow,

I need to have a desire for change,

something needs to change here.

And I actually had my own acres of diamonds

in that same library where I found

some leadership books by John Maxwell

changed my life forever.

Because not only reading some of his grade books,

I'm going to turn around also reread the Bible

from cover to cover as well.

And read just became voracious reader.

And every year since then,

one of my forms of self development

is trying to at least read at least 50 Plus books

a year and I was undefeated

When my content intakes which more

to the audio visual aspect of YouTube

and podcasts as opposed to reading books

I'll read 39 last year 11 shot the 50.

But I was still able to really expand business

in a way because the thing about setbacks,

they could set you up for a story

for to help others to realize that

hey, you can go beyond adversity

and create your own success story.

What incredible stories you have

to tell there about overcoming things on your own,

let alone you know the situation

with your with your father

and your own accident

and some challenges in your workplace.

And here you are,

because you took some action.

And you mentioned a couple of them. And really interested now Dom in unpacking a little bit about what I think it's just pivotal that people who get unstuck and that's taking action. You mentioned reading, what are some of the other things that you that you either glean from your reading or other things you did to break out of your patterns. What are some of the actions that you took that led you to success?

Oh, yes,

another one of those things

was joining Toastmasters International

04:51

because one of the major skills

that everyone should be able

to have under their belt is public speaking

because that will give you

an edge because a lot of folks

I'm pretty sure you've heard

yourself to the classic joke

where the guy giving the

eulogy sometimes rather

be the guy in the casket.

Because people don't like

to speak in public. And I

give to what this voice for

years since I was a teenager

and was doing a lot of stuff in church,

and Toastmasters was a great

place to join us not only sharpen

and hone my skills, but also network.

And the main reason I joined

is because one of the books

that I listened to, I believe

was brought by Brian Tracy,

where he mentioned Toastmasters.

And I joined the organization

originally to actually network

with other people and find a

speaker for a public speaking

seminar at my church. And lo

and behold, even though I was

able to build relationships

with people, I ended up

getting a buddy of mine

who also had communication

experience, the event was successful.

And I stayed with the organization

for years and still am a part of

the organization. My goodness,

it's almost eight years later now,

because the thing was, the

original goal was for one thing,

but sometimes as you're going

in this journey of life,

and you have some setbacks,

you realize, oh, this little detour

here might actually take me

to where I need to go and

being okay, with something

that may seem like a shortcut,

but it's actually something

taking you further and closer to your goals.

Because one of the questions

we can always ask ourselves

daily is how can I make sure I

don't leave any blessings on the table.

And that's by having a desire

for change, a desire for

helping others and desire

for bettering yourself.

And Toastmasters is one of the

ways to do that. Because I joined the organization

gave dozens and dozens of talks

and getting better as a result.

And even taking advantage of

the sandbox experience of leading

a group of volunteers in a volunteer

organization because

with a regular paid job, yeah, you can,

people will follow you by default to

to a fault because if they don't

insubordination, they're Bunnelby

out the door, volunteerism,

there's no characteristic, there's no pay,

they're there because they have

their own reasons in their own goals.

So not only just reading, but

putting some my own reading, i

t's a practice and joining T

oastmasters and giving talks based

off the stuff that I actually

read and apply to my own life.

And then eventually

repurposing that concept

into books, and then

eventually take the networking

skills to even start a podcast

on my own interviewing

authors all over the globe.

So those are just a few of the things I've done.

So several

things here, let's unpack a little bit.

Well, first of all, you read you

fed your mind. Yep. And you

know, when you feed your

mind, you also enhance

your soul, I believe and

things of that nature.

You also then applied, you were

intentional about applying

what you read, and you consumed

through Toastmasters and through

public speaking and through

networking, and through that process,

and it would you didn't just stay,

you know, kind of an ivory tower to

kind of use an academic idiom,

you didn't say, just reading your

books, you went out there,

and you applied it. And then also,

I think, very, very important,

what you shared here is we got involved

with some volunteer activities,

which meant that you're starting

to connect with something beyond

the bottom line or beyond the

motivation of a business purpose.

But for something greater than

greater than yourself and others

you got and exhibited some

leadership skills there. So those are

all powerful ways that you took

action in order to move through

wherever you were at to a better place.

But let's unpack a little further Dom,

what you said there about

the motivation of something

bigger than yourself. I just a big

believer in this myself, I come

from a faith based background.

And I've seen the people who've

done really great great things

have not only done it for themselves,

but they've done it for they've

had taken some leap of faith

somewhere along the line. And tell me

about any, any basis of your transformation

and what you teach others as based and

Oh, anything of a spiritual nature are

faith based or something greater

than yourself or meditation,

anything like that, tell us about

any faith element involved

with your transformation process.

Oh, my pleasure, indeed.

And one of the things I like to

do daily is to use my snooze

button as a sensation, a

moment of silence button,

because as soon as the alarm

goes off, usually get out of bed, and then

give myself some time to be

within myself my own thoughts,

and also to pray as well and give

thanks for another day of being

alive because someone else didn't

have that opportunity. And that

really helped me to deepen the

transformation process. And one

thing that notice that all elite

performers have is that they

give themselves the gift of solitude.

So they can masterfully serve the multitude.

And that's just really one of the

major things like we're gonna

have to truly give ourselves silence

and be within ourselves. And it's

probably one of the hardest things to do, especially

as we age in this world

because we accumulate so many things

and Time moves so much faster,

especially after we hit our early 20s.

And things just keep coming

at you fast and you wake up one

day as I go I'm 30 years old.

Now some people, they wake up

the next day, it's like, oh, dollar 50.

So really just giving yourself

that wonderful gift of solitude

so that we can best serve

the multitude because

spiritual awareness is one

of the keys to really being an elite per

former and a lot of elite performers.

Especially, like, Heck, even a lot

of books in the Christian faith.

They are examples of high

performers like love them

or hate them, Joel Olsteen,

he may give you the sugar

gospel, metaphorically speaking,

because he's so easy to take in.

But he's created a massive

success for himself. He's

accumulated a lot in his life

is great a lot in his life, Steven Furtick, l

ike all these other great

Christian preachers in heck,

even some folks that you

may not know, some may even

keep a humble presence about him.

But you may talk to someone else.

He's like, Hey, I met that guy over there.

Because one guy in particular,

he was an older guy, he was

about I believe, 69. And he actually

was a black belt,

World Martial Artist,

when his early 20s. And he actually

owned probably a good 10%,

if not close to 30% of the

construction in Baltimore.

And he was just the guy that

had the humble brains about him.

But he still had that spiritual awareness.

So if whoever's listening I know

you have a faith based artist,

I'm a Christian myself, which I

appreciate and just a have a

faith aspect to your life, give yourself

some silence, give yourself some time

to be not only with yourself, but also

spend some time with the master

if that is your chosen, have to walk?

Yes. Well, some awesome insights there,

Dom about the about taking that quiet time.

Some people, you know, have

a faith based aspect. Some

people you know, use meditation,

or deep breathing or yoga,

any number of other things.

But it is so important to get centered

in your inner life in order to have

some sort of expression in your

outer life. And that makes a difference

and helps us to be I love what you said

about using your snooze button

as a silent reminder to be

silent or whatever you said there.

Because that's it goes to things

like habits or disciplines or

practices that we could have

which he could implement

the things we've been talking

about here, diamond. So let's

go there, I consider this kind

of the part the, the cognitive

part of the process that I teach,

is what do we think? How do we

how do we change our thinking?

How do we change your mindset?

What are some of the what are some

of the disciplines that you do or

that you teach, that are transformative

about the transformation of the mind?

In order to have you know,

you have success in life?

Sure thing, one of the strongest weapons

that anyone has in their arsenal

to really change their mindset for

the better. And heck even put

yourself in a servant leader mind

mindset is to really ask yourself

two questions, especially a question

about preparation of question

about reflection. And I borrowed

this from John Maxwell's books

Thinking for a Change where he asks

himself these two questions every day one,

what good will I do today?

And it's actually better, in my opinion,

from personal experience to ask

yourself that question right

before you go to bed.

Because if you ask yourself that

question before you go to bed,

your brain is cooking while

you're sleeping as it's recovering

and restoring itself for full right

performance state. And there may be

an opportunity that pops

up in the middle of the day

that you weren't consciously

thinking about, but subconsciously,

because you asked yourself

that question the night before,

an opportunity shows itself on

that following day. Another

question for preparation is

what can I share? Can it be a smile,

like icon word with somebody

calling someone I haven't

talked to in a while encouraging

a friend supporting your

friends business, if it's something

that aligns with my life, recommend

referring business to somebody else,

because a lot of folks are taking

the entrepreneurial route nowadays,

thanks to some interesting times

that we're in where folks who've

lost their jobs and a referral will

help you a lot. So focusing on what

you can share with other people

and at the end of the day, is

asking yourself what good I do today.

So if you did something great with

question number one, you're able to

refer some something to somebody

else or share some thing with

somebody else you got somebody

learned something new to occurs

them and you caught up with an

old friend and they really needed

that laugh or that that sounding

board, then you can write down

that question and as you really

continue throughout your days and

document those things, you'll

definitely create a journal of

proof and really being more

ntentional with your life because

one of the one of my favorite

quotes that my mentor shared

with me is that you need to live

your life your life by design and not by default.

I love what you're saying

there about how you begin the

day with an affirmation, you end

the day with all this called a

confirmation or a re formation

of what you are to have done a

while you are to do and I love

your your phraseology about

about what good can I do? One

of the ones I use is to do all the

good that you can I say to myself,

do all the good that I can. And I try

to say to others, I have some

connection with or influence on

do all the good that that you can.

And I love what you're saying there.

And then you also mentioned

about a phrase that I'm not familiar

with. I'm familiar with journaling,

if adequate. My my journal is right

next to my desk here. But you say

Journal of proof, and I love what

you said, I'm not sure if that's

original to you, or maybe you got

off to someplace else. But I love

that kind of a a celebration or

affirmation of what's gone on in

your life. And so what if you know

without revealing anything more

that you want to what kind of

thing kind of things we're gonna

find your journal a proof.

Ah, one of the things you're

gonna find is also List of

victories because some,

like there's the classic practice

that's really popular gratitude

journal. But if you want to flip

that and even make it even

more powerful for yourself, a

buddy of mine. Got it. That's got a

bet. Oh, here we go. Sam leave

what's that's his name. So in today's

pop to my assembly, which he

was on a podcast last year. And

he mentioned creating a victory

log where you write down

all your victories for the day.

So you woke up today, that's

a victory you were able to share

God word or furrow with somebody,

that's a victory. If somebody

shared referral to you and

you're in business, that's a victory,

you're able to get to work on time.

And you usually are the lay person,

if you still have a commute, that's

another victory. And then tracking

all of those wonderful victories, like

heck, even me being on this podcast.

That's a victory today being on

podcasts in the past, being able to

reach out to certain people, were

all my dream guest lists and having

them really accept the invitation to

be on my podcast a heck even if

it's a day where I'm still blessed

that my elderly mother who's still

alive, she has a day where she

isn't feeling too bad. And that's

a victory for me too, because

she's at the point now where

she should enjoy her days left on

earth because no one knows the

day or the hour when we may

have to say goodbye to this

world and move on to the next one.

So just counting those victories,

just stuff like those, it doesn't

matter how big or small like if

you have heard the gratitude

journal and does it resonate with

you try calling it a victory log and

writing down those things

that have happened to you

constantly 24/7 and see

what lines up and then you can go

back and reflect on it. Another

reason why I called a journal a

proof because you get to look back

and see wow, I've actually done

some things with my life. It may

have moved fast, but I've

actually documented a few things.

Now that's awesome. Well, let's

start to shift now DOM towards

all this stuff. You've learned all the

experiences you had with your with

your father and Alzheimer's, your car

crash all the various things you

talk about reading and speaking

and leadership, and your own

processes for self reflection,

spiritual life. That's all well and good.

That is so awesome, man. But you

have gone beyond that. And you

have been shared them. You've

have books, you have training, you

have services that you offer. And

I believe that we truly transform

when we serve others with love.

And with what we've got, you know,

we we consume, and we have

transformed ourselves. But it's you know,

it's not to be a selfish thing.

It's to be shared with others. So

would you share with our beyond

adversity audience some of the things

that you then teach and lead and

advocate, I know you have this,

you really emphasize going north,

your TrueNorth tell us what it what

you're about, what does it mean

for you about going north?

Sure thing. So going north is

really about advancing others

to advance yourself in the process

and bracing your dreams or

helping others to embrace

their as well as getting closer to

embracing theirs. Because we

all have things that we want to

do in life, whether a promotion

to the next level was something that you

want to do it that was your dream at

one point and helping someone get

there. One of the best things

you can do in this lifetime is to

help someone else, especially

someone else reach their next

level. And they get to thank

you for it. And it doesn't even have

to come with a bunch of

accolades. And sometimes it doesn't

always come with a nice shiny

check with extra zeros on in the beginning.

And just really just helping folks realize

that a success is tangible and helping

folks unleash and unlock their value

because that's the thing I'm sure that

we both believe in is the fact that

everyone has value already.

Everyone has value because of someone's

living and breathing. They have

value and everyone has a certain gift

that they've been blessed with.

And they can bless others with like me with my voice.

That's a gift I've been given.

And lately these past few years, I've

been honing my skill of comedy and it's

kind of evolved into me being

metaphorical colonel in the corny

joke kingdom, because the corncob

a day keeps some groaning all day.

Say enough corny jokes. It keeps going,

folks just gonna keep loving you for it.

But you got the corny jokes in my family.

I'm considered the I guess the

dean of dead jokes. Yeah. I send my

I have three adult children and I

on a pretty regular basis in them.

I call it my dad's daily joke, Dad's

daily joke. They, they really, they

really hate it sometimes. And sometimes

they like it. But But yeah, but hey,

you've got to have fun, right? You

know, we've got to have some joy

and celebration in life. Otherwise,

what's it all about? Man? You know, what's

it all about if we don't have a joy and

fulfillment, because so many of us

have a sense of desperation,

or you know, the adversity,

whatever we face. It, we all have

our things, you know, I've had my

health challenges in my life. And

I've had various things to deal

with in my life in terms of relationships

with through divorce many years ago.

And, you know, we all got stuff to deal with.

And especially in the last year or

two with the COVID, and political

stuff, and racial stuff, and violence

and international things going on.

It's just a tough, tough world that we

live in, and you submit to about how

things can be distracting and things

like that. And, but you got to do

something about it. And you're offering us

some some insight here. Tell us about

some of what you've taught here.

Whether it's having a good laugh, or

whether it's something inside of your book,

I'd like for you to share about

maybe a person or persons maybe

an organization that you've worked with Dom where

you have seen some of the you've

had some part to play in some

transformation, that they've had some

way that they've been able to navigate

adversity, come on to a better place.

Tell us a good news story.

Sure thing. So a buddy of mine,

he was actually, he actually

joined the John Maxwell team last

year, too, after helping him out with

some suggestions of giving him

some templates of some brochures

that some folks may use.

And actually, one of the things he

wanted to do, because a lot of folks

are doing it nowadays is starting a

podcast of his own. And he actually

had ideas like that. That's probably one of

the drawbacks of being a creative

person, a person with a bright hidden

shoulders if they have a lot of ideas,

and it can get them down on paper.

But the drawback is it's the action

and the implementation piece.

And sometimes you just have to

sit down and really get quiet

and do at least one thing and do

one thing. And he was having some trouble with self

doubt, heck, even I had trouble

with self doubt, too. And he had a theme

for his show originally called summer

show summer soldiers where it was

supposed to be men giving young

men advice of tools, especially young

black men, since is a black man himself

and the whole George Floyd situation,

it was huge all over the globe.

And he wanted to at least contribute

to helping heal that situation. And it evolved

into just him bringing on other wonderful

people, especially those who are in youth

leadership role of helping out the youth

into a podcast called gift and the gift

podcast because I hooked him up with at

least five good people that ended up

being on his show to give them that starting

boost. Because sometimes if you tell

enough people about your goals, a

nd you can talk to the right people

who will actually be the wind underneath

your wings, then you'll be in a better

place as opposed to those who may

be dream killers. And they just want

to take the air for Monday, and then

chop off the wings of the airplane.

In that cool when you see that

transformation take place

and in your friend, your colleague here.

And you know that if it goes well if

it goes away, and I believe it's a

it's a God thing when these type

of things happen, that if that

transformation happens with

that person, and maybe he has

some influences so that people

listen to his podcast or some of

the people that he has some

connection with, and it goes on and

expands and he gets better and

gets better I'd say ever evolving

thing and I believe that's how

transportation takes place in groups

and in larger organizations is by

individuals being transformed

and they share that with others.

So you got some good

stuff here my friend, and I think you

got a lot more to share and you've

got several books and you've got

several things on your website

DOM Brightman calm. If people w

ant to learn more about you and

how you could speak into their life.

Give him a smile, give him

some energy, you've got infectious energy.

You got it. You got it just a way about you, you got that. That deep, resonant voice, you got that radio voice. And

people tell me I have that sometimes

and I cut, I kind of jokingly call it the voice of God.

Hey, yo, you've got that going on

area kid bears, you know, some

credibility with it. But if you're

going to speak into somebody's life,

that next person, how can they get

connected to you and what you're all about?

Sure thing, and thanks again for

having me on your podcast. Dr.

Brad, I appreciate you for the invite.

This is amazing to do an amazing

work is so for those who want to

keep in contact with yours truly, Dom bryman.com

is the best place to go. If you want to

shoot me an email, shoot me an

email and Dom and Dom brightman.com

as well. And I usually check all my

emails, even the spam ones that e

nd up in the trash folder. So hey,

feel free to reach out to me.

Awesome. And we'll put connections

to your website, Dom brightman.com

at our website, which is Dr. Brad miller.com.

What a pleasure. He is the author

of several books, including going north

tips and techniques to advance yourself.

He has various leadership training o

ther opportunities for coaching that can

enhance your life and help you to

unlock your inner values. His name is

Dom bride been we thank you

for being our guest today on the

beyond adversity podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.