Behind the Brand with Bryan Elliott

Life Advice That Doesn't Suck  aka "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" flips the self-help script. Instead of telling you to think positive and chase happiness, Mark Manson argues that life is full of problems and always will be. The goal isn't to avoid struggle. It's to pick the struggles worth having. What you choose to care about defines who you are.

Manson builds his case around a simple idea: you have a limited amount of...

Perhaps one of the most aptly named individuals I’ve met, James Clear possesses a clairvoyant ability to articulate his understanding and mastery of habit formation.   

His book Atomic Habits, which eclipsed the sales speed of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has sold nearly 20 million copies and is one of the top books recommended by high performers. 

However, he didn’t set out to write bestsellers...

Jocko Willink’s story reads like an adventure novel that takes us from the serene landscapes of a small New England town into Navy SEAL training, the Iraq War battlegrounds, and a multifaceted civilian life of entrepreneurship and leadership consulting. “I always wanted to be a commando of some kind as soon as I realized that you could actually get paid to carry a machine gun,” he says.

Joining the Navy out of high...

Seth told me, "It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going if you’re headed in the wrong direction." He's right. 

Here’s my attempt to create a hierarchy for this idea:

1. Strategy = This is your approach, given all the factors, systems, games, players, and environments. It’s about who, how, and why.

2. Objectives = To-do items or steps on the path to help you achieve the goal. It’s about how you&r...

Do you ever stare at a beautiful product and wonder what stories are hidden behind its journey?

The culinary poetry of the HexClad brand products begins with a hypnotizing hexagonal pattern with an intricate layer that looks like a futuristic industrial honeycomb. The brand’s hallmark design isn’t just for style points but is the result of countless refinements, merging non-stick convenience with the resilience of stainl...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’s Chad Smith is betting that music education is key to preserving the creative thinkers businesses need most...

In 2006, Sir Ken Robinson stood on a TED stage and asked a simple question: Do schools kill creativity?

76 million people have watched that talk. It’s still the most-viewed TED Talk in history. It was my honor to sit down with Sir Ken in 2014 and talk about this subject at length, and i...

Alex Hormozi built a portfolio of companies worth over $200 million before he turned 35. No outside funding. No famous co-founder. No viral moment that handed him an audience. He did it by studying the math of business more seriously than almost anyone in his generation, then teaching everything he learned in public. That last part is what separates him from most founders. He gave away the playbook.

The question worth asking is whet...

Nobody warns you about the first time…

One morning you wake up, look in the mirror, and your face has started doing something on its own. You have hair! It starts by looking like peach fuzz or dirt above your lip. But it’s not a problem and you’re proud it’s there. 

And usually without anyone showing you what to do or handing you a manual, you pick up a razor.

Just like that—...

In 2015 Todd Meleney, a young inexperienced newcomer, helped build Nobull from a three-person startup to $250 million in annual revenue. Then just 18 months ago he walked away to do it again, from scratch, in one of the most competitive markets on the planet.

The result is While on Earth, a performance wellness footwear and apparel brand he launched in fall 2024 out of Providence, Rhode Island. Less than two years in, the brand is i...

Eugene Alletto went from making cold calls in a Wolf of Wall Street style boiler room to building bedgear into a top-10 sleep industry brand serving 33+ million customers. In this episode, he shares the counterintuitive strategies that turned bedding from a commodity into a personalized science.

Key Topics:

• Why he avoids big box stores and focuses on trained salespeople instead
• The "$20 shirt vs $2,500 suit" approach to testing bu...

In both business and life, endurance, not speed, is of the utmost importance. Jesse Itzler's first book was rejected by 15 publishers before number 16 gave him a shot. 30 is how many years Jesse’s been running races without winning a single win. And 100 is roughly how many miles Jesse covered in his longest ultramarathon, races that taught him the one business lesson most entrepreneurs never learn: you don't have to be the fa...

Nir Zohar, President & COO of Wix, is not your typical tech bro from Silicon Valley. After doing 3 years of mandatory military service in his home country of Israel, his skills were noticed and he was asked to extend his term to 6 years where he spent time on small vessel ship helping to keep his country safe. 

By the mid 2000s he was out of the navy and back on dry land trying to figure out his next move when he was approa...

Kentaro Yoshimura and his business partner Ryan Chen built Neuro from zero to nearly $100 million in just ten short years. This is just part of the story...

Check out Neuro here:
https://neurogum.com/

Special thanks to our sponsors:

About a year ago I was working out of a co-working space with a private office and studio in West Hollywood, and honestly? It was fine but felt more like a college dorm than a professional works...

If you've ever bought a car from a dealership, there's a good chance it was one of your worst experiences in life. 

I promise you that this podcast will teach almost everything you need to know about how to never get ripped off at the car dealership again! 

RussFlipsWhips is one of the most popular automotive content creators on social media and he really shares all the secrets. 

Check out more of Russ' content ...

Kass and Mike Lazerow are serial entrepreneurs and investors in brands like Liquid Death and best known as the cofounders of Golf.com and Buddy Media, a software company that sold to Salesforce.com for $745 million. In this episode you'll learn how to pick your next big investment.

Check out their new book:
https://kassandmike.com/the-book

With a lifetime of stories from decades of building businesses and helping o...

In an era where companies wage costly battles to solve the return-to-office puzzle, Industrious has quietly cracked the code on harnessing the power of experience. What began in 2013 as a single location founded by childhood friends Jamie Hodari and Justin Stewart has grown into the world's largest premium flexible workspace provider, with 200 locations across 10 countries. The company's meteoric rise, culminating in its recent acq...

The world's largest hotel chains spend billions on marketing, yet if you closed your eyes inside their rooms, you couldn't tell them apart. Meanwhile, a $200 sneaker company can instantly make you feel something about who you are and what you stand for. Why? Marketing legend Seth Godin reveals it comes down to the difference between having a logo and building a true brand.

Seth Godin revealed three transformative insights about mode...

Kevin Espiritu, a guy from San Diego, makes over $50 million a year from Gardening. Kevin started out playing poker online to pay for college. He tried to be an accountant, drummer in a band, web designer and SEO expert-- and eventually discovered blogging and Youtube. In 6 years he's built an Epic Gardening business https://www.epicgardening.com/ 

Special Thanks to our Sponsor!
If you know me, I have a few key thin...

This segment is called, The One Thing...

If you asked me what's the one thing you should learn from negotiation boss, Chris Voss, it's this:  Splitting the difference is actually terrible negotiation advice.

Conventional business wisdom about finding win-win solutions and meeting in the middle is fundamentally flawed, according to former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss. After years of high-stakes negotiations w...