From Basement Meetings to Boardrooms: Bryan Arzani on Real Courage

In this powerful episode of Courageous Crossroads, host Jeff Johnson sits down with entrepreneur, consultant, and small-town mayor Bryan Arzani, whose journey from a paperboy in Iowa to founder of the Results Group is anything but ordinary. A former athlete, missionary, and corporate strategist, Bryan shares how he built a successful consulting firm by combining multiple psychological models to unlock human potential—but it’s his deeply personal story of overcoming alcohol addiction that reveals his truest act of courage. With raw honesty, he opens up about faith, fatherhood, loss, and the quiet resilience it takes to confront the struggles no one sees. From starting over 45 days from bankruptcy to helping his daughter rebuild her life after unimaginable tragedy, Bryan embodies his own definition of courage: leaning into the thing you don’t want to do.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. I got a fantastic, fresh interview for you with my new friend, Brian Arzani. You’re going to learn a lot about Brian, a lot about his thoughts on the topic of courage. And yeah, just another insightful interview on that very powerful topic. And I know that you’re going to enjoy this greatly. I do have to have one offer one caveat before we start, and I apologize for this. I inadvertently did not have my studio microphone hooked up when I conducted the interview. You’ll hear Brian, he comes through just fine. But my mic was just my laptop. And so I’ll sound a little bit distant to you. I’ve rectified that. That won’t happen going forward. My mistake, just a bonehead kind of a move, but God willing, we’ll have good sound quality from here on out. But anyway, I know you’re going to enjoy the interview. Thanks again for joining us today. And make sure to reach out if you’ve got something that you’d like to share on the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. I continue to have more people raise their hand and reach out to me and say, Jeff, I know somebody or I’ve got something to say. So is that you? Please, please reach out. But without further ado, here is Mr. Brian Arzani. Enjoy. Well, I’m a big believer in that iron sharpened iron stuff. And if you can get into an environment where there’s confidentiality and camaraderie and all that kind of stuff, man, that’s where it’s at. Hey, man. So, okay. So Brian, here at the Courageous Crossroads, we come down on the one question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And I’m not going to ask you that just yet. I want to get to know you a little bit. So can you tell me some of your background and some of your history? Tell me tell our listeners who it is that we’re talking to.

Bryan Arzani: Oh, we’re already going, man. Freakin’ hey, okay, cool. You know what? I’m the son of a Vanavie diver born in Hawaii, you know, Groton, Connecticut grew up. He got out in 79. He’s from the Bronx, New York City. My mother’s from Madison County, Iowa. Okay. And very serendipitous. But when he got out in 79, he moved just to Iowa. So I want to raise my family in a place that’s naive. I grew up an amazing life. My mother and father weren’t religious at all when I was younger. And then they decided they would get into faith. And my dad grew up hardcore Catholic, you know. And so we literally have like confessional. And you know, you can’t do these certain things. And it was absolutism. But I grew up really kind of my view of God at that time as a kid just was this like God is a punishment, punishable God type of thing. But we were poor and didn’t have the money to go to a wrestling or any type of activities. So I went out and I got a paper out and I learned to succeed from a gentleman by the name of Mike Landy was a graduate from Ufalley High School, Iowa State wrestler, Pan American Games Guy. He opened my mind to the power of intention and goals and worked my butt off. I was going to be a state champion lost and literally had probably one of the most amazing things in my life happen where I lost zero to one due to mental just breakdown. And then what was interesting was I’d always position God as this guy that said, if you do this, you get that. And so I was I was entitled to it. So I even had a goal with the guy buddies and I was like, hey, if you don’t, if I don’t win state, I will drink, I will have sex. I will do all the stuff that I would never have done. And you know what? So I spent about two years becoming a just everything I thought I was better than I became. And you know what, went to college, wrestled on a scholarship for baseball and wrestling got hurt like the second week. My arm got broken backwards.

Jeff Johnson: Where’d you go to?

Bryan Arzani: And I thought, you know what? I’m going to I’m going to do something that matters. I went down to Brazil about 20, 22 months did volunteer work. And learned about what real joy is real happiness, not to tell people what to do, but just to be there to serve them. So when I came back to Iowa, married my high school sweetheart that I hadn’t seen for five years. And she had a little girl and you know what, my life started right then and there. And then I figured out I was a pretty crappy employee, but I was very interested learn technology built the first close fiber optic network that allowed multiple ISPs on a municipal utility in Spencer, Iowa. And got a big check and they’re like, hey, you should go do this. I’m like, nah, I’ve done it once. I’m done 2000. I leave the corporate world to help a guy start a consulting practice. And I figured out why I didn’t like training. I usually used to think all the trainers were just a bunch of blowards that could make it in life. So I started bringing other products into the consulting practice. John Deere wanted me to do a project for them using multiple psychologies. And in 2002, 2003, I spent 100 hours a week learning psychology, understanding the dimensions of human performance at a level that nobody else was using different psychology is like everybody uses personality stuff. But I wanted to go to the core. And for some reason, it made sense to me wasn’t going to be a consultant, but they wanted me to do it because they said I felt more real to them than the guys that read the big books and use the cool words.

Jeff Johnson: Disco now, I’m just that kind of stuff and things like that.

Bryan Arzani: Yeah, disc is that yeah, I here’s what I tell you, disc doesn’t mean anything, but I use it because it just shows you what’s on the outside. I want to know the core, right? So you talked faith. Jesus fights for hearts, not for you know, and I just am genuinely interested in the heart. So I found some instruments that went deeper and I combined all of them together to find the whole human. And then in 05, I said, I know what I would do when I grew up. So I left 45 days from personal bankrupt. See, because I was so good all my money into this firm that I might own it. Yeah. My wife got blessed or we had four kids. And so I started results group October of 2005 with another individual. And now to this. So then I was buying these instruments from different companies trying to put them together. I didn’t take any clients with me. In fact, I flew around the car trying to credit card to the CEOs and presidents that knew me. I said, look, I’m not asking for your business hat in my hand. Can I stay in your basement? And will you introduce me to some other presidents? 2010, the founder of these instruments, not in terms of the creator, but the EEOC compliance psychological associations to have said, hey, you understand these better than anybody else does in the world because nobody was combining different psychologies. He said, would you teach consultants across North America how to do that? So today, 2025, we own the rights to North America, we support and train hundreds and hundreds of consultants and HR professionals and leaders, not how to buy a test, but how to understand the application of the data. And rather than selling them, retreated like software and make it super simple. So I get to do what I love because I still work with clients, any pastor of any denomination wants access to it. And they want to work with families. We’re in human trafficking centers. We we love working with anybody that’s been objectified. Any of those folks that like I call it that Jesus hung out with, those are my people. And so I try to make money on the business side so I can go and do things on the really what I believe the the heart side.

Jeff Johnson: That’s fantastic. Okay. So a couple of clarifying questions. Where did you go to college?

Bryan Arzani: You know, I’m a university. Okay. And but I dropped out. So don’t don’t anybody think that I’m like a super amazing college grad. I mean, I, I got hurt. Now I’m like, this is a man. I am not your friend.

Jeff Johnson: at Buena Vista. Wrestling in baseball, you know, and baseball, Buena Vista. And you dropped out and you went to Brazil and did some heavy duty stuff and then you came back home and started your own thing. Are you familiar with strategic coach?

Bryan Arzani: Oh, yeah, those kind of pro.

Jeff Johnson: So there’s all kinds of personality profile models like disc and the stuff that they use that at strategic coach and all of this kind of stuff. But what you’re saying is you, you, you took, you were familiar with all of those things and then you created your own.

Bryan Arzani: I didn’t create a moment, but I was I was I was introduced to a deeper instrument that’s axiological that measures the valuing of logic at the synaptic level. So because nobody owns this. This is just a theory, you know, William, Marston released it. Pretty much predictive index any of your grand Myers breaks strengths. You name all of them. They kind of do the same thing, but the academics like to use different vocab words to make them feel sexier and cooler. All instruments are amazing. I have no judgment on which ones are better. I just want to see different dimensions of the human.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, I can’t remember what they used at strategic coach. I did a couple years as strategic coach and there was one. It wasn’t the INTJ Myers breaks or disc or anything. It was something else. And they promoted it as a, as a deeper dive. So I know that there are all those different elements. But what you’re talking about sounds really fascinating. So you, you kind of made your own car from a bunch of different things.

Bryan Arzani: So yeah, you know, it’s a really thing. I mean, I was introduced to it and a lot of people wanted to buy into it. But when I was putting this project together for John Deere credit North America, I was having to work with the behavioral scientists and then I was going out and comparing the data with the humans I was working with. And then I would go to the attitudes and value scientists. And then I would ask them to those two people to get in the same room. And they’re like, whoa, hey, ours solves all problems. We don’t like to talk to the other camp. And then I’d get the axiologists because axiology, the valuing of thinking isn’t really predominant because it’s not easy to see. It’s super deep. And so I tried to get those three different academic camps to work together. And it was kind of like trying to put a seventh in the Adventist of Jehovah’s Witness of Mormon and a Baptist in the same room. And you guys agree on God. And I’m sitting back saying, dude, it’s a human. If we all believe in humans, let’s come together and let’s because all these dimensions are accurate. And that that was, it was such a fascinating. So yes. In a lot of ways I did, I was able to get exposed to different ones. It made sense to me. And so I went out and I started working with humans in a way. And everybody says it. Anybody that does this kind of works like, well, mine’s different. I can tell you clients and customers after 24 years will tell me, dude, you can see things at a level. And you understand how to negate other things, you know, to use a disk or just because someone’s a high eye, disk doesn’t measure if you actually like and understand people. It just measures how you tend to talk and interact. So there’s people that are super, you know, socially awkward that are deeply connected to humans. They just don’t show up right.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Right. Whatever it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an extra vert or it’s some other flavor to, so do you take people through testing? Is that the front door? Is it a, is it a rigorous testing or is it observation or coaching or?

Bryan Arzani: We have, we have counselors and therapists all over the country that license the tools from us. Here’s why I start with it because it speeds up the process because people don’t buy tests training. They want to buy change. Yeah. And they, they don’t have a lot of time. And so let’s, let’s diagnose as quickly as possible. If this is going to be a decent relationship. And then we’ll decide on a mutual agreed upon prescription. And so that we have, you know, can be training. It can be coaching. It can be, you know, mitigation. It can be hiring practices, succession planning. I can’t tell you how many, you know, organizations we’ve been behind the scenes. As the basically the money ball, you know, like a money ball to do with the propeller head. Yeah. Like that, that’s really at the end of the day when, because I can, we do all of those things and we teach consulting firms all over North America how to do those things. But really, if you point it out, they click their finger pointing me and go, why are we doing that with this guy Brian? So it’s just a, it’s another voice.

Jeff Johnson: The business is called results group.

Bryan Arzani: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: That’s your full time getting. Now, where are you? Where are you?

Bryan Arzani: I mean, I’m in Des Moines Island, man. I live in, you know, I live in the family farm that was built in 1918 house.

Jeff Johnson: God’s country. That’s all brother. Amen. Yep. So I built here in, in, in innocence

Bryan Arzani: siblings. Yep. I’ve got younger brother. For your younger brother brother brother and sister. So I got three, three younger siblings.

Jeff Johnson: Fantastic. Alright, so you’re, you’re describing Little Rags to riches. Somebody coming from nothing. Self-starter that sort of thing, would you call it that, a self-starter entrepreneur. Would that describe you in it in the most general sense?

Bryan Arzani: Yeah, brother. I still don’t feel. Yeah, I still don’t feel worthy to do what I’m doing. Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Can you give me your definition of courage? How do you define courage?

Bryan Arzani: Courage for me is leaning into the thing you don’t want to do. I don’t know that I’ve ever slowed down to really define it that way, but it’s just leaning into the thing you don’t want to do.

Jeff Johnson: Who represents courage to you? I mean, you’re talking about your dad being a Navy diver, and it sounds like your parents probably had quite a bit of resilience, but give me a description of somebody that represents courage that you describe it.

Bryan Arzani: Man, you’re going to hit some emotion here. I’ve had a lot of different humans that I would describe as having courage. The most courageous person I know is my little girl, my daughter. She’s 32. Her present to me when she turned 18, as she asked me to adopt her. But last October, her four-month-old son, my grandson, had his life taken by an adult daycare provider. And the individual was arrested from murder, and the trial hasn’t happened yet. But why do I say she has courage? Not only did she lose her son, then the Department of Human Services came in and took her daughter while they were doing the investigation. So on October 8, she left with two beautiful children and came home on the 12th after Bo donated his organs to save other lives. My daughter came home with nothing. And my son-in-law. And so I said to my daughter, I said, honey, I’m in this world, right? I talk about courage. I talk about leaning into struggle. I talk about, what are you going to do? And being a man and all these kinds of things, I’m like, I have these opinions. And I said, what I do know about courage is you’ve got to pick the one thing that you have control over and you step into it. And so, ask my daughter what’s the one thing that we have control over right now? Childless in the worst of tragedies you could ever dream of. And she just said, you know what, I hate my kitchen. And so, I said, OK, let’s go. So she took down every cupboard, every drawer, and didn’t sleep for three days, and we did that. And then she had a goal to finish her second book. She’s a published author. And she finished her second book. And then that took about five days of just nonstop leaning into the darkest moment. And that’s only five days into it. And a lot of other noise going on. And then she said, you know what, I love books. I’ve got a ton of books. So let’s build a library. So my wife and her build a library, gave them a credit card. They go to minards. And so my daughter built a library. I mean, so my daughter, now today, her and her husband go on therapy, leaning into every day, setting her chin. I think the strongest humans on this planet are females because they’re co-authors of life with God. Yeah. And I believe that with all my heart. So my daughter, I mean, I’ve got so many examples of it, but prior to last year, it would have been different. But one of the most courageous people I know is my daughter.

Jeff Johnson: And I’m so sorry to hear about your grandchild. A couple of clarifying questions. And you’re under no obligation to answer these if you don’t want to. But you said that she asked you to adopt her when she was 32. So this is not a biological child of yours.

Bryan Arzani: Oh, sorry. Yeah. 18. When she turned 18 years old, she asked me to adopt her. Yeah. Her biological dad chose not to be a part of her life. When she turned 18, I think you would $66,000 in child support, which was never an issue. From the time I started with her mom, I just, I said, you know what? I get two for the price of one. And I’m never going to make an excuse. I’m never going to talk about your biological father. And I treated her like mine. And I’m grateful that God bless my wife and I with three boys. So I only have one princess, right? And then three aren’t real little shits. Right.

Jeff Johnson: Another, another probing question, if you don’t mind, how did she come to lose her children in the middle of the year?

Bryan Arzani: I mean, I mean, my, okay, so my grandson was, his life was taken, okay, by a day, a provider. And my, the Department of Human Services in an effort to determine if the traumas had occurred at home or not or in our house, they put her into the base of the state, took custody of my granddaughter for 39 days.

Jeff Johnson: I see. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be.

Bryan Arzani: I tell you, man, I’ve heard of panic attacks and I used to kind of always go, nah, that’s not real. But if I didn’t have the connections I have, I don’t know if we would have got her back in the, in the time we got her back. I mean, I’ve got county attorneys. I’ve got, you know, I’m a mayor of, of Toro, Iowa. I’ve, I’ve got a lot of connections in business. And I even got on the phone with director Garcia on my birthday, October 31, 2024. So, I mean, I pulled every lever, hired any attorney I could. So yeah, it was a, it was a very, while we’re still, you know, trying to deal with the loss of a, a grandchild and a child in a way that is never acceptable in any circumstance. So.

Jeff Johnson: So sorry. I’m, we’re coming down to the question, Brian, but before that, how did you come to be a mayor?

Bryan Arzani: I was appointed. I, I, when you moved to a small town, it’s obligation to serve. So I was on the city council for several years. And then I was done. The gentleman that got elected received a bunch of phone calls between the time of his elective, elective date in October until January 1st. He called me up. Dennis Viller, he’s passed away for, you know, last year’s amazing man, but he called me, goes, Brian, I can’t do this. So they appointed me. I was mayor of 809, 10. And then I jumped on the school board. And then I was reappointed back four years ago when the city was getting into some prop, prop troubles and problems. And so I’m, I’m mayor today, not being out of anything. I just want, I love to help donate my salary back to the voluntary fire department. But it’s a blessing to serve because I mean, these small towns, we have, we have about $890,000 a year to run a town of, you know, 500 nets, sewer, water, streets of volunteer fire department, all the equipment, the library, all of the budgets. I’ve got one full time city guy. I’ve got a part time clerk, you know, a library, a librarian. And it is, we, I wake up at night, hoping and praying that we can still have toilets flush, water run, and citizens can be, be able to sleep without worrying. So I worry for him.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. That sounds like a big job.

Bryan Arzani: Yeah, but I’ve got good people, man. I’ve been, I’ve been blessed with a lot of the other different things, but it’s, it’s fun. I want to throw myself into chaos to see if I can make a difference.

Jeff Johnson: Last, last question before I ask you the big one. You mentioned being raised, the Catholic and coming up with the paradigm of a very judgemental God and that sort of thing. Where’s your face stand now?

Bryan Arzani: Well, I tell you this, my, my dad was a hardcore Catholic. My mother was a hardcore Methodist. They converted to the Church Jesus Christ under the Saints. I grew up with Mormon beliefs, which in a lot of ways, there’s a lot of doctrinal, you know, rigidity to it as well. Served as a bishop at the high, you know, it’s a pretty high level in terms of that. But here’s, here’s where I’ve been and where I’m at. I think the religious lines that man desires to create on this planet to help them get closer to this deity thing that they, every human has a desire to connect with. I’ve never, I’ve never been okay with lines. I don’t like political lines. I don’t like racial lines and I hate religious lines. So when I served as a missionary in Brazil, many times I would take my name tag off because I just wanted to be there to help them without making them think that I was forced to be there or that I was trying to, you know, put upon them a belief. So I would go into the places like I’d go into a bar and just play pool with a guy and just start a conversation or I would, we’d go out and build houses. I didn’t want it to be under a name that could cause anybody to feel strange. I just wanted to be a human with another human and one of the love on them and not, not inflict a belief or a doctrine on them. So or I’m at today, I can vibrate in any discussion with anybody and not be worried about, is it right or wrong? It’s just, let’s find the common love and I learned that by watching the example of Jesus. It didn’t hang out and with all the people that were on the day, he went to the people that were objectified, those that were, and he never, he never did it. And so I just, I feel that and I’ve always been that. And so I upset people in the church because I’ll say, you know, you think, right? You say these words, you are, you are, I think the most hilarious thing is anytime, you know, you go to those family vacations or, you know, the, in that one ant or uncle gets saved and then they come back and they’re like, you guys are all going to hell, right? And I just, that drives me freaking crazy. I don’t care what religion it is. And so anytime somebody takes a stand to look down at somebody else or elevate themselves above, I just, it doesn’t make sense to my heart. So I struggle with some of the statements in a lot of ways. And so I go to a Lutheran church, a whole Bible study, you know, with a bunch of men because they basically say no churchy entity when you walk in. And I’m down for that. I’m down for, let’s just, let’s just talk the word. Let’s just break some bread because that’s what Jesus did. And I, the one thing that triggered my dad, my mom to convert was this one thing and one thing only, the belief, whether it’s right or not, but it feels right in the heart, will be married together forever. I want, I want to be with my family forever. Other than that, I don’t see any difference between me and any other Christian on the planet.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Um, okay, I promise you that was the last question.

Bryan Arzani: You go anywhere you want, brother. I’m down.

Jeff Johnson: I’m sure there’s going to be some more, some more investigating on the other side of this, but I’m curious, Brian, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Bryan Arzani: I quit drinking. January 2nd, 2022. I’ve been close to bankruptcy. I’ve been blown up. I lost family members. I’ve had somebody shoot at me. I’ve had a lot of things happen. The one thing I was not able to overcome was alcohol. And I really, it, I was afraid. Nothing in my life makes me afraid other than the, the eye of my wife. But I’m not afraid of anything. I will. I will go after it. You, yeah. But that was the one thing. And so when I learned, um, yeah, that, that’s, yeah, I, and I can say this, my heart has changed. I don’t go to meetings. I don’t profess. I don’t say, hey, I’m an alcoholic. I do not say I will never, um, because I, I think I came into unity with what God blessed us all with, which is free will. And where free will starts, in my opinion, is in my thoughts, not in my actions. So I got really honest with myself, started telling my wife the truth for about two years. And as I got more honest, I started learning to pray differently. And I said, you know, Father, I’ve read that scripture. Bless me in my own belief. I read the scripture about the seed. I read the scripture about Peter walking on water. And so you know what? I’m just going to focus on Jesus. I’m going to ask him to bless me in my own belief. I do have a desire, but my desire sucks, um, because I keep putting other stuff in front of it. And so I kind of had a business meeting with God and said, dude, I am literally asking you not to, not to take this away, not to give me strength, but help my seed, my desire to grow. I woke up, Jan and her second 22 and all of the sudden my desire became perfect. But I didn’t tell my wife for two weeks, because I was afraid to go to sleep at night. And I rolled over to her two weeks into it, because I was afraid I was so afraid I was going to fall back into it. And I said, Hey, honey, how do you think I’m doing? She goes, what are you talking about? I said, what do you mean? You’ve been going to bed next to a guy who smells like an alcohol, just ridden human for 20 years. Honey, you don’t see it. She goes, what do you mean? I said, I haven’t had a drink in two weeks. And my wife, the love of Jesus, she looked at me and she goes, Oh, that’s so good, honey, I’m proud of you. I’m like, she loved me just the same, man. It was the same love, right?

Jeff Johnson: That’s fantastic. So let me be very on the nose with it. What’s courageous about that? Quitting drinking.

Bryan Arzani: I had to confront my own. Yeah, I mean, I, and here’s the thing, it was the most private, the most intimate, nobody knew. I mean, I started a company 45 days from bankruptcy. I’ve done some crazy, crazy stuff that people are like, no, wait, that didn’t take courage in my opinion. That, that was just life. But to truly, brutally honestly say, I don’t have this. I’d never said that about anything in my life. I don’t have this. I don’t have the ability. I need something else in it. It was a tearing down. Took me five, six years, probably to just rip that ego away and get rid of all of the boxes I check and the lines I write down, which are all external. And it took courage for me to look at my wife and say, dude, I am just, I can’t. And I have never said the word I can’t. And then that started that process. But yeah, man, it’s, it’s weird to say that took courage, you know? I don’t know. And I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t say nothing to anybody for over a year. Because I was, I’m like, dude, I don’t, I’m not going to brag.

Bryan Arzani: And if I talk about it too much, I’ll probably get that desire back. So even this morning at 4.30 when I rolled out a bed, I rolled out on my knees and like, dude, God, I don’t know why. But holy crap, thank you for, I got another day of not desiring it. It even threw all the stuff with my grandson being in heaven’s life taken and all this stuff. I haven’t had that inkling come back. And that is the biggest miracle I have ever felt in my life.

Jeff Johnson: I, I, our listeners know I’m not sure if you know, but I share that recovery journey with you. I’m 1992 and I do, up 10 meetings and get myself surrounded by groups. Kind of like the, the breakfast club and the other clubs that I’m talking about, you know, it’s that same iron, sharpened iron. And that’s helped me greatly. But I recognize that putting the plug in the jug as a courageous, axiast Lewis has this thing where he said, and I can only paraphrase it. He says, if, if the whole, if all of your indiscretions were flashed on the screen behind you for the whole world to see, they’d run out of the room and shock and horror. And I, and I associate that cry for hell as being a little bit of telling the world the truth about yourself for the first time, which definitely takes a lot of courage, strips away a lot of pride and all that. And do you agree with that?

Bryan Arzani: Jeff, on levels I can’t even describe. I mean, when I listen to the story of Adam and Eve, the first thing Satan did when they became awake was he told the first real lie to man, which was, you can hide your sins. So go put some fig leaves on and hide because God will see your nakedness. And that’s what I lived. I mean, I lived in, when you grew up in a very drunken, doctrinally heavy authoritarian type religion, then you start to worry that you might not measure up. And it’s not measure up in the heart. It’s measure up on the outside. So I lived that. And that was seriously, brother. It was to just get into that and to rip those fig leaves off and just to stand up and show the stretch marks and the nastiness that, and not just to anybody else. The first thing was to recognize in that mirror, I am naked, right? I am totally vulnerable. I want you as part of my life, God, Jesus. I want you in that. I’m my wife. There’s no difference. I want you in my life. I want to give you all of my heart. I’m going to take it back and be a ding dong on and off. But that’s why I also don’t go to meetings because I mean, I’ve never been one that could say to somebody else because I would commit for the wrong reason. And I would be like, oh, yeah, brother, I’m in. And then I go hide. So for me, I feel like I got to be alone and a wolf and just be like, you know what? I’m doing it because I want to. So when people ask me, you want to drink? I’m like, no, why not? I don’t want one. Do you drink? I don’t right now. I might later, but I used to, here’s the thing. I think this, anytime somebody blames their behavior on their religion, that is the devil. And I don’t know, it sounds weird. That’s an extreme thing to say. But it’s, I do it because God blessed me with free will and free will is my desire. And every time I externalize that somewhere else, that’s evil because it’s not really being truly honest. So I, for three, four years, I come on, my good wife would say, hey, was it a hard day? You want to have a drink? And I’m like, no, it was, it wasn’t a hard day, but yeah, I want a drink, right? That was the, that’s when I started to become more honest with myself and with her. And that honesty gave me the ability to feel comfortable taking the fig leafs off. Does that make sense, Jeff?

Jeff Johnson: It totally makes sense. And you, you described your upbringing, your, your entrance into wrestling without a lot of athletic ability into baseball, you’re dropping out of Buena Vista and going down to Brazil and do it. I mean, in starting companies and taking initiative with a lot of these tools that are out there to, to be an entrepreneur and manufacture something that’s in your own, to put yourself into iron sharpeners, iron groups. You’re describing somebody to me from my perspective that, that demonstrates a lot of courage already, I’m curious. Did the courage that it took when I asked what’s the most courageous thing you said it was stopping, drinking a couple of years ago, was that something that changed your perspective going forward? Or is that part of who God made you to be anyway? You’re an initiative taker, you’re a frontline kind of a guy anyway. Or was this kind of courage something very different?

Bryan Arzani: Yeah, sticking up for others and just putting myself in the fray to help others, I never put myself in the fray for myself. As a kid, you know, I was in a special ed to like six grade because I stopped talking as a teacher made fun of me. So, but so all my friends were the objectified, you know, the kids that developed wrong and looked weird or whatever. So I would get in fights and get beat up for them all the time. I’ve never forget my buddy Lloyd Lee was an Indian three older kids were picking on him and I literally stood there fighting these three kids. I’ve been sixth grade while Lloyd’s looking at me out the picture window, you know, and I didn’t care. But that didn’t, that didn’t seem courageous to me. It just felt natural. And it was dude, I mean, for me to be totally brutally honest to have grown up in a life where I believe that if I hid and just said the right things I was accepted by man, by by the human, that I was good. And it was man, it was the most courageous thing that I’ve ever done. And I pray tomorrow I still have the courage to be wherever I’m at right now. And I’m excited for what’s to come. But yeah, man, it’s, I’ve always been the guy that leans into it. And I don’t know if I’d call quitting drinking courageous, but I love, I love the theme. So I guess yeah, leaning into the thing you don’t want to do because I did not want to quit. I still love it. Dude, honestly, goodness man, I love being drunk. It feels so freaking amazing.

Jeff Johnson: It’s amazing. Right. I quit smoking cigarettes many, many decades ago. And I wish the Lord would turn those into vitamins or something like that. I was so good at it. I really don’t want to quit smoking Marble O’Reds. I mean, they just looked cool and it was fun to have something in my mouth all the time and the aroma and everything. So I did not want to do that, but I did because it was something I didn’t want to do. You know, I had to move from that. This is very, this is very interesting to me. You know, the Bible talks about how the love of God and fear cannot coexist.

Bryan Arzani: Amen. Amen.

Jeff Johnson: When you’re passionate about the Lord, which I hear you being, it wipes away all of that fear. And so it’s a biblical concept that once you become fearless, life becomes limitless. Describe that. Do you feel that? Because that’s coming. That’s jumping out of the microphone to me about you, Brian. You seem fearless to me.

Bryan Arzani: Brother, I’ve been joking around, not joking, but in my studies in the morning, I’ve thought about like this book called, you know, Fire, Waves and Lions, you know, and just basically to your point of every story in the Bible to me is the same story. Keep your eyes on me and you’re going to be fine. Get distracted by this mortal moments and you’re going to struggle, but don’t worry. I’m still here. He said it. It’s done. Okay. I believe in Jesus, which I believed in Jesus for 48 years. I believe in him. Now I believe him, right? And I think, you know, Peter, I got, I got a big picture of Peter on the water and I just fascinated by that man because he sank when he looked at the wind, you know, I could feel sinking and, you know, the waves, the storms, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the civil unrest, the uncertainty of this economy, every business out there is wonder and what’s coming next. And it takes a, it takes a certain heart to, in the moment of tragedy to, to just pray and go, help my eyes stay up. Not give me the strength. Not remove this. And as I drove my vehicle from, um, walkie to blank children’s, that was my prayer. I said, God, I didn’t know. I didn’t know the severity. My, my grandson was in a helicopter and I said, two prayers. Now, my little girl, second prayer, bless my eyes, ears and heart to be open so that I can help navigate this moment. So to your point, yeah, it is, it’s, it’s about where I look and looking isn’t my physical eyes. It’s how I choose to, to dwell. It’s how I choose to think. And so that’s, that’s the power that God used to create the earth. He said before the world was the world was the word, right? And he spoke it into existence, which was, it means it was a thought and I have that. You have, we, every human, regardless, has the power of creation based on where we choose to dwell our thoughts, not physically. And, and you know, I don’t know, man, it’s, I feel like I’m, I’m almost 52 here and I feel like I’m barely getting started, brother.

Jeff Johnson: Now that I can relate to, I’m 58 and I feel like I’m just getting going.

Bryan Arzani: Yeah. Who’s God for that?

Jeff Johnson: Amen. Do you think, do you think courage? Now, I’m thinking about your business, you know? Do you feel like courage is something that can be taught or is it something that is fundamental to human existence and needs to be tapped into or is it not either, are you either courageous or you’re not?

Bryan Arzani: But all men of faith have courage. That’s what I’ve found in my walk. It just, you know, to one extent or another, they do. But I’m curious what you think about that. You know, I believe in the, in the Bible when God tells Jeremiah, I knew you before you were in the womb. So I believe that we’re all spiritual beings, having a mortal moment, which means all of us have the divinity. I believe everybody has different gifts and characteristics to naturally be certain ways. But if I really believe that every, every human on this planet is a child of God, then I believe that same ability is there. I think the magical moment because I’m so deep in psychology, I know that the brain can acquire and create new synaptic patterns, even including it up to the day that we die, which means we can gain skills. So maybe courage is a skill that can be acquired. I think every human that chooses to get into a relationship has to have some courage, right? I think every human that just wants to get up and work, go get an interview, go talk to someone they don’t, that takes courage and it’s incremental, right? It’s stacked and it grows. And then through familiarity, our cerebral, that frontal lobe starts to tell our amygdala, dude, it’s okay. You know, they know now through FMR, I scans that there’s a, there’s a bi-direction relationship between the amygdala, which is the protective part of the human and the higher level thinking that can compare, contrast, you know, formulate different perspectives. And so that, that, that, that two way highway is masterful and that some people don’t work on the return messaging. So when I lean in the difficulty, the first time it sucks, it’s scary, public speak, whatever, it’s that girl to go out with you in a little note, take sick courage because it’s vulnerability. But when you do it a second time, the amygdala goes holy crap, but then the frontal lobe, or that says it goes back a mess, it goes, hey, do we’ve been here? It’s okay. And then the third time and the fourth time. And then all of a sudden, I get this relationship between that fear mechanism that God created to keep me safe. And my frontal lobe, which has courage and says, dude, there’s options. So I think awareness creates options and that awareness is, you know what? Nothing, nothing physical has anything to do with nothing. If I choose to think about it from a different perspective, so the question I’ve learned to ask is, what can I learn? What can I learn right now no matter how crappy it is? And because I know that the human mind cannot ignore a question and isn’t it amazing the Holy Spirit creates curiosity, right? In Jesus always taught with questions, which means he was using the formation of this human body biologically and psychologically to not tell them what to do, but to have them seek it out in their hearts. And then that bi-directional courage of being a Christian, it takes on a different meaning, right? I find joy. This body that’s filled with free will, but it’s absolutely created by God. So it’s an amazing thing.

Jeff Johnson: I learned this thing in recovery. I’m curious to your opinion about this. It’s like I’m a mechanical engineer by education. So I like these little formulas and stuff like that and kind of doing proofs and everything. So one of the things that I heard in recovery was be careful what you think because what you think you’ll eventually say and be careful what you say because what you say you’ll eventually do. And be careful what you do because what you do will become a habit and be careful with your habits because your habits will become a destiny. So I remember hearing that and then the other thing that they married that up to was we don’t think our way into better actions, but we act our way into better thinking. So I was always thinking I need to not do this, but that needing to not do this never seemed to result in not doing it. You know, I mean, whatever. But instead you act your way into better thinking. So what I would do is I would go to I would go to recovery meetings or I would talk to people that have been there before and done that, you know, that sort of thing. And that would create that action would transform my thinking. And then it goes back to the other equation. Be careful what you think is what you think you’ll eventually do. So if I could take good actions, positive actions, my thinking would change. And then those would end up resulting in actions and habits and destiny. What do you talk about that a little bit?

Bryan Arzani: I think it’s it’s both. I think eventually we because again, you can do things and here’s the thing that’s amazing by humans. Humans never do something with the intent of feeling bad. Now feeling bad is relative. I can make a very bad decision to create chaos and a relationship. But honestly, maybe I had so much trauma as a child that that releases dopamine because that feels familiar. So humans don’t engage in behavior seeking to have cortisol released. And they’ve proved that they engineered rats that literally were not capable of releasing dopamine. And they engineered them. They put them in this, you know, cage they observe them and they start them and they put food in their mouths and they ate and they stayed alive. And then they moved to the food three inches away in the rat tide of starvation. So they’ve now figured out that humans only engage in action to feel good. And so for me, the problem was is that I would do things, but my thoughts still were other places because my desires of my heart or my physical broken, Adam fallen body was like, dude, I like this dopamine, right? So I started working on releasing dopamine in the struggle very conscientiously in terms of how I work out, in terms of teaching myself to go, dude, I love struggle. It’s so freaking cool. And then I started removing words from my vocabulary like need to have to can’t because those are words that victims use. And I started saying things like I will or I won’t, I’m not going to, I choose not to. And literally when I work with businesses, because I believe that’s a God principle, because there’s nothing that we need to have to and can’t do. It’s just what do you want? And so whether the fruit causes me to go back to the fruit, because it then teaches my mind that it’s good or whether, you know, I desire, I think it, I think they both can go, man. I think some people, because of their gifts and talents and will develop that thinking because of what they do, I think that some people can think their way into kind of like that Napoleon Hill thinking, grow rich, whatever, all those different books in the forties. So I don’t know that there’s a way, which brings me joy because most trainers or most types of structures, models are all about follow this algorithm. But the beautiful thing about humans is we’re not freaking algorithms, bro. And that’s the problem with the educational system. We line kids up, treat them like things, tell them they can’t move their legs. You got to sit in here, memorize this shit, and then you can pass a test. And you know what? I’m sorry. That didn’t work for me. But now I’m a deep student of all things knowledgeable, who love it. It just came at a different point in my life.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, you’re a very courageous person, Brian. This has been a very interesting interview. Do you think that we live in a society that lacks courage or that has great courage?

Bryan Arzani: Yeah. I think we have created because of the human nature, that thing, I’ll go back to the amygdala. We are designed to feel safe. So when the immigrants came over, my grandfather came over from Italy, my grandmother spent three and a half years in a Japanese concentration camp. She was born in Hong Kong. But that’s another day, another story. All these immigrants came over and where they go, the Irish hung out, what the Irish, the Italians went through the Italians and they looked at each other. You know, so we are designed to feel comfortable by familiarity, whether it’s the congregation or the group of people we camp out with. That is a human thing. And so what happened with the social media is it created a broader spectrum of echo chambers where people could start to feel comfortable. For me, it takes courage to not talk about my religious belief, but talk about my spiritual connection. And that’s what Jesus did. Jesus didn’t teach a religion. He disrupted all things by saying, just love, say you’re sorry and be grateful, right? That’s pretty much it. And so I think we’re in a society today that has not been taught how to be courageous because the reward system gives them the reward for not being courageous, but being an assimilator or a conformist. And that validation comes through my echo chamber on social media through my friends at school. And it’s no different than the Irish hanging out with the Irish or this political or social you know, justice group. There’s no difference. And it feels natural to humans. And I think it’s the Christian’s journey and Muslim, I don’t care what it is. The human journey to rise above all of those lines that man, human fallen man, all are fallen have created to feel comfortable, right? That’s it’s it’s scary man, but I mean, I got two boys in the military. Trust me. When you bring up other people from other divisions, the first thing in Marine goes stupid chair forks, right? Crail the eaters. It’s human nature, right? Oh, I’m a Baptist. Well, you’re a Lutheran hell with you, right? You’re going to come on, bro. Let’s just rise above it all and just find the same thing Jesus found, which was, I’m just going to love you. And here’s the best story of courage. When the Roman soldiers finally figured out who Jesus was, he’s sitting on that cross. And all of a sudden, the heaviness and the weight of what they had been a part of came upon them and there became a hush among the crowd. And the first thing Jesus did after all the multitude understood what was going on, Jesus taught them. And how did he teach them? He went to the two dudes on both sides of him that were just based on the law and based on being a human, they were not good humans. They’d done bad things to other humans. And he looked at him when everybody knew who he was and he goes, Hey, you’re going to hang out with me with my father’s kingdom. I love you. Can I rise to that level to look at humans that my amygdala tells me are not good? Can I find that same love, dude? And that scares me because that’s the heart that God wants. And I know that Jesus will make up the difference. I know that. And I still feel the weight of my human nature to go, not good, not good. That’s bad. And so that’s my fun little story about, you know, this is society courageous. They want to be courageous. But what is real courage for good and good isn’t about a list of things. It’s about what brings me peace and joy and what helps me to love myself, how God created me. Whoa, right? So I don’t know, man, that’s a way, probably a way lengthier answer than what?

Jeff Johnson: No, and that’s a fantastic, that’s a fantastic example. I, I’m here interviewing you. I’m not interviewing myself, but I’ve got a, I’ve got an issue with the great schism, which happened in 1056 where the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics, they were up, they were arguing about a verse in the Bible, you know, pointing in one direction or the other. And that’s where the schism happened and what were downed from that were all the other different denominations, the Methodist, the Lutherans, the Baptist, you know, and it all kind of unfolded from there. And so I, I, I like to look back before the great schism and go all the way back to Jesus and recognize, you know, my savior didn’t come to build a church. He came to bring dead things back to life. And if I can get that right, that helps me understand the rest of the Bible. Do you know what I mean?

Bryan Arzani: Yep. And I see a lot of courage in that. Jesus, Tesla, Nicola, Jesus, Nicola, Tesla and Charlie Kirk. Ready for this? No, I’m not saying I’m not liking it, but here’s the characteristic I like about them. Jesus said, it’s free, right? Tesla said, energy is free. Let’s just give them this thing. And Charlie Kirk didn’t preach religion. He preached. It’s free, right? Let’s, let’s give you an unlock in you this critical thinking thing. They’re just having the courage to challenge how you choose, which is free will to see the world, how you choose to see your echo chamber, right? That’s courage, man.

Jeff Johnson: Sykes. Brian, Arzani, wow, what a, what a background, what a history you have. What kind of a man you are. And I’m grateful that you spent time with us here today to share your thoughts on courage.

Bryan Arzani: Thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate it. You’d thank you for letting me feel some feelings that I locked down a lot to stay in the moment. So I appreciate the work you’re doing, brother. Thanks for it’s, it’s, it’s humble honor to listen to the podcast you’ve done. It’s neat because I think as a man and a woman who is driven, to be successful, it is so lonely. Every CEO, every president I work with in those behind closed doors, they, they, they describe the loneliness they feel. They don’t want to talk to their wife about work because they want to have that other thing when they’re with their buddies. It’s not do that. And they can’t talk to their subordinates because heaven forbid their subordinates think they’re a little bit uncertain. So it’s just a blessing to be around men like you. Um, and other guys that have been on your show that I, I respect and love because in those moments, even if it’s just an hour a year, man, I can get 13 minutes of iron sharpening over a coffee, man, or something like that. And it fills my cup. So you filled my cup for an hour today. Thank you.

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