Brodie Kern:
Addicted to Success
Episode 162: #DroppingBombs with The Real Brad Lea (TRBL)
Just because you hit rock bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.
If you’ve ever really screwed up, you know how hard it can be to bounce back. It means taking a critical look at yourself to change the habits that got you there in the first place.
But, what if you could use your worst traits, turning them into your greatest strengths?
If you’ve ever fallen on hard times or just feel behind, don’t miss this interview with the man who went from crackhead to CEO of a six-figure company in just three years.
Brodie Kern never did anything halfway. Even as a kid.
I started smoking pot at like 13. I loved baseball and video games. I was pretty normal. But, I also loved to experiment with hard drugs.
By 16, Brodie had tried cocaine and moved on to crack. At 18, he was a self-described hardcore drug user. Once he hit 21, Brodie was in and out of the hospital constantly — at his lowest point, he visited the ER three times in a single week. Recognizing he’d hit rock bottom, Brodie checked himself into a rehab facility.
Brodie opens up about the moment he realized he had an addiction problem.
Getting sober caused me to have to deal with my bullshit. I was cocky on the outside, arrogant, and entitled, but I was insecure as fuck on the inside.
And, how he channeled his obsessive personality to start healing.
Self-help, like traditional self-help, is like, ‘Okay, a problem comes up. I’m going to give you a toolkit to help mitigate the problem right when it happens.’ So, let’s say that you want to be a more confident person, right? And you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m going to act more confident, be more confident, all this stuff.’ All you’re doing dude is reinforcing the fact that you’re not confident, in my opinion, this is how I see it.
But if you trace back the problem, a lot of times it takes real, like I mean journaling forever, figuring out where the fuck that issue comes from and you address that.
Brodie describes his two-step self-development process: Analyze and attack.
You deal with the resentment. You let it go, then you can actually make progress. You change, you transform. That is like, that’s what I call deep work. Real cell transformation. If you want to really change, you got to find the root cause.
Addiction was just a symptom. Brodie started to recognize the real issues stemmed from his childhood belief that, if he was better, he could stop his own mother from drinking. As a kid, he interpreted her battle with alcoholism as him simply not being good enough to give her a reason to quit.
Brodie Kern got back on his feet and earned his real estate license.
The same reason that I’ll make millions in my life is the exact same reason that I will literally drink myself to death. The only time I got a ton of fulfillment wasn’t in my businesses but was when I was helping other alcoholics.
During his sobriety, Brodie had become an expert in personal development and self-optimization. Over time, he figured out that he got that same feeling of completion from helping others.
But, Brodie still felt like he was barely scraping by.
I had been at a point where I was working 80 to 90 hours a week. I was sacrificing my health. I was sacrificing my relationship with my fiance.
I got into social media and you know, I hadn’t had time to sift through the bullshit yet, but I saw that there were guys who made a lot more money than me. They were more fit than me. They were more spiritual than me and they had better relationships than I did. And I thought, well fuck man if those guys can do it, there is a way.
Too rebellious to work for someone else, he became an entrepreneur.
I found a new addiction. I’m an addict to success. I’m ruthless in my endeavors. Like the shit that I would do to get loaded is the same stuff that I’ll do to provide a kick-ass life for my family.
Brody started Wake Up Wealthy, a podcast on which he speaks about his battle against drugs and alcohol to inspire and empower others to overcome their addictions. From his rough start to now, he now owns Bravado Marketing and The Brodie Kern Group, as well as delivering keynote speeches about motivation and self-mastery on stages around the world.
About Brodie Kern
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Brodie currently travels the country with his wife, Hannah, speaking and attending a number of events on the topics of addiction, personal development, fear, motivation, and entrepreneurship. Brodie uses his past experiences with his battle against drugs and alcohol to inspire and empower others to overcome their afflictions.
