From Rock Bottom to Recognized Authority: Jeremy Knauff's Blueprint for Rebuilding

speaker-0: They'd hooked me up to all the EKG, you know, you got the 12 leads all over your body. My heart rate is bouncing from about 50 up to about 180. And it's just like up and down, up and all over the place, like completely all over. Everything that could go wrong was nothing was functioning properly. And then around that time, that was when an autoimmune condition got triggered, where basically I had massive systemic inflammation. It was like this massive crushing level of. pain that felt like being burned and electrocuted at the same time. I certainly did not want to die, but I got to a point where I understood how people chose to take their life. And as I hit this level of pain, and it was twenty four seven, you know, for at this point now weeks and weeks and weeks, I got to a point where I understood it. And, you know, marine vet, probably no surprise, there's firearms all over the house. And I would be walking around the house and you know, ⁓ here on a shelf, you you see a a gun. You see a gun in a corner over here.

speaker-1: Every great story has a moment, the one where everything shifts. Welcome to the Become Empowered podcast, where real leaders pull back the curtain and show you exactly how they did it. I'm Sabine Kwenberg, performance communication coach, keynote speaker, author, and your host. I have spent my career on stages, real ones and invisible ones, and I know this: the most powerful transformations don't happen in the spotlight. They happen in the quiet moments. of decisions, resilience, and radical courage. Before we dive in, if this podcast moves you, challenges you, or gives you that one thing you needed to hear today, please follow, like and share it with someone who needs it too. That's how we grow this community together. Some episodes I'm sitting down with entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, coaches, and bold leaders who have faced the hard stuff and kept going. Other times, it's just you and me going deep into the mindset, strategies, and the gumpchant it takes to become who you were always meant to be. Either way, we talk confidence, leadership, resilience, and the real story behind the growth. This is because Empowered. Let's get into it. Today I am talking with someone whose story fits perfectly with what this show is all about. Overcoming adversity and turning your experience into impact. My guest is Jeremy Nauf, a US Marine Corps veteran, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Spartan Media, a PR digital marketing firm that helps experts. Get featured in the media so they can become recognized. He spent nearly two decades running a successful marketing agency until a severe health crisis nearly killed him and destroyed the business he had built. From the rock bottom season, he rebuilt his life and created a new model focused on public relations and authority building, helping clients get featured everywhere, from local outlets To tier one media like Entrepreneur and Fox. So before we dive in, a quick reminder: if you enjoy these conversations, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend who needs encouragement today. Jeremy, welcome to Become Empowered.

speaker-0: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you again. We've ⁓ both had a pretty crazy period of weeks here since ⁓ the last event we were at.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm so grateful ⁓ that you're here. And you mentioned the event it was social media event in in Ohio and we both were one of the speakers and we met in the green room and we had wonderful conversations. And we know at that very moment, ⁓ yes, we have to do something together. And we learned that we live so close, literally around the corner.

speaker-0: What are the odds? What are the odds? So

speaker-1: I know. ⁓ For the listeners who are new to you, how do you describe who you are and what Spartan Media does today?

speaker-0: ⁓ well, you know, that's a great question. Your your introduction did a wonderful job of kind of breaking that down, but ⁓ a few details that that people may not know about is you know, like you mentioned, I I I had run an agency for nearly two decades, ⁓ very successful, things were going great. When I faced that health crisis, I was basically gone from the world for two years. And in the marketing world, If you're gone for two years, you you're no different than some rando on Fiverr at that point, right? So I basically had to rebuild my entire reputation from the ground up. And I didn't really have much of a plan. I just jumped right in and started taking action. And I've always been a good writer. I've always enjoyed writing. So I immediately started writing, but then from there, I started leveraging that with public relations. Right. I I wrote some articles that got a lot of attention. Then I leveraged that to get on a few podcasts. Those podcasts ended up being the most listened to episodes on those particular podcasts. So then I used that to pitch myself. ⁓ back at this time we were heavily involved in the SEO industry. So I then took that those podcasts and I leveraged that to write a guest article at two of the top publications in the SEO industry. Then that turned into a column at both publications. Then the next thing you know, it was Forbes, Entrepreneur, you know, Inc., all these different places. And I was like, well, hell, you know, this had so much impact for me. ⁓ every entrepreneur needs this same approach, right? They need there's so many great people out there doing amazing things, but they're not so great at telling their story, at getting out there and getting the exposure. Meanwhile, you've got a lot of people who are really great at telling their story. But let's be honest, they suck at delivering results. So I that was when I decided to kind of pivot a little bit and focus entirely on PR. And we basically built the agency around that model that I use to rebuild my own reputation and, you know, become an authority again. ⁓ we then turned that into basically a done for you service that we started doing for other people. And, you know, we've been doing it ever since then. And obviously there has been a lot of refinement along the way, but you know, that's where the basic model came from. And so I mean, that's what we do now today is we take people who are experts and we turn them into a recognized authority in their industry.

speaker-1: I love it. I love it. So one of the things that I read up about you, ⁓ you had a tough upbringing, right? So if if you can share with us ⁓ the the upbringing, how you grew up in you know n in very very humble circumstances and then also serving in the marine corps before becoming an entrepreneur. What are one or two defining experiences from those early years that really shaped your resilience and the way you lead today?

speaker-0: Well, you know, we did we grew up pretty poor. we didn't realize it at the time, right? I I think when you're a kid, I think you generally just don't know that until you get to a certain age. ⁓ but we never we never knew that as kids. ⁓ I remember I essentially almost got my start as an entrepreneur, I don't know, somewhere around first or second grade. ⁓ but my mother actually kind of shit on that idea. I I remember I was I was digging in the sandbox in the backyard. And the as I got down deep enough, there was like this black soil down there. And I knew like my mom did gardening and you know, she would grow flowers and vegetables and stuff in the yard. And I knew that she would go to the store and buy this, you know, rich black soil. So I'm like, well, hell, this is something people want. Like I know that people go to the store and buy this. So I went into the house and I grabbed all the little sandwich bags. You know, we had those little, you know, paper bags that you would put inside your ⁓ lunch bag. And ⁓ I started packing them full of this black soil and I loaded up my wagon and I wrote, you know, five cents on all these little paper bags. And I went and I told my mom and I was so happy and excited. I'm like, hey, look, you know, ⁓ I I'm gonna go around the neighborhood and you know, sell this soil to all the, you know, the little old ladies. And she's like, ⁓ well, nobody's gonna buy that. Nobody wants that. That's just dirt. And I'm like, ⁓ okay, well, so that didn't quite take off the way I was hoping. ⁓ in hindsight, I should have just ignored her and went and did it anyway. But ⁓ you know, as life went on, you know, things were not easy. We, you know, we were never wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. I ended up moving out by the time I was sixteen. And so I was renting a a house. Essentially it was a room in a house. ⁓ I worked two jobs while going to school and renting my own place at sixteen years old, which is not something people generally do. And then When I finally got to be old enough, I I went ahead and enlisted in the Marine Corps. And that was a plan that I had long before that point, right? I had been planning this for years. Went into the Marine Corps. Initially, I had the plan that I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna do 20 years, I'm gonna retire from the Marine Corps at some point, and that's gonna be like my career. life has a way of not going the way that you plan. There were some things that Gave me ⁓ I I love my time in the Marine Corps. I love the brothers that I served with, would not trade that for anything in the world, but I did have a commanding officer towards the end of my enlistment that was a complete garbage human. And ⁓ it really kind of soured my taste for sticking around. So I I chose to get out. And, you know, for a long period of time I had wanted to start a business at some point anyway. So I got out, started my first business. First one failed. And then I spent a few years kind of regrouping. I had to rebuild my credit score. I had to ⁓ you know, make up for some pretty significant financial losses. And then a few years after that, I started my next business and had been running one ever since then. So here we are now, two decades later.

speaker-1: Yeah, wow. What you shared is such a picture of what an entrepreneur looks like. I mean, starting out in the sandbox, right? And having the idea, right? ⁓ my gosh, people buy this. I can also pull it up and put it in little bags. That is such a beautiful story. And then also the the independence, like moving out and ⁓ working two jobs, making it happen. And then I'm I I'm sure that the time in the military also shaped that leadership and what you learned from it. And then yes, first business failed. Didn't we all have failure? Didn't we all have maybe not all, but many. Let me put it this way. Me included, right? I love, love, love what you shared with us. I think this gives also our listeners some encouragement to say, you know what? It's okay to fail. It's okay to start different things, right? Now you you build your business and finally it was all sus, then everything changed. What happened when the health crisis hit? And how did it impact you physically? Emotionally and financially.

speaker-0: I'm going tell you, that one was a mess. That was probably one of the hardest things that I went through in my entire life. ⁓ it was more difficult than my time in the Marine Corps, frankly. ⁓ in a nutshell, what happened was I had a reaction, an adverse reaction. ⁓ there was a pharmaceutical product ⁓ that I had been on for a while, and my body had an adverse reaction to that while some other things were ⁓ at play as well. And it kind of created that. Proverbial perfect storm. And I felt like, and mind you, this this initial phase kind of went on for about two months where I was constantly vomiting, couldn't hold down any food, couldn't hold down any water. ⁓ I had no appetite. My my hands would just like tremble, like I was dizzy. I couldn't sleep. I was very sensitive to sounds and light. And it was just like every every possible thing that you can think of, it was like a raccoon got into the circuit breaker in your house and just mangled all the wires and everything's all short-circuited, right? Literally everything was wrong in my body. So much so that like I was in the ER at least a couple of times a week. And it got to the point where they were just rolling their eyes when I would walk in because The medicine that we have in the the Western world is great for emergencies, but it's not real good for actual health, right? And so, like if you go in and you're having a heart attack, they're really good at solving that. When you go in and there's something weird outside the norm, they're not so great at solving that. And like I said, everything was going haywire. Well, One of the times that I went in, they'd hooked me up to all the EKG, you know, you got the twelve leads all over your body, and they were ⁓ you know, doing the EKG and they're like, ⁓ I guess something is wrong, right? 'Cause my heart rate is bouncing from about fifty up to about a hundred and eighty and it's just like up and down, up and all over the place, like completely all over. And they're like, ⁓ well, ⁓ you know, I guess something is wrong. And I'm like, I've been trying to tell you that, you idiots of that for weeks. But ⁓ so yeah, basically everything that could go wrong was nothing was functioning properly. And then around that time, that was when an autoimmune condition got triggered, which you and I have talked about, where basically I had massive systemic inflammation and it was like this massive crushing level of pain that felt like being burned and electrocuted at the same time, head to toe, skin to bone. And it was It was brutal. I I certainly did not want to die, but I got to a point where I understood how people chose to take their life. And that was that was a thought process that had never even registered, it never made sense to me. I could never understand how someone could take their life. And as I hit this level of pain, and it was 247, you know, for at this point now, weeks and weeks and weeks, I got to a point where I understood it. And, you know, Marine Vet. Probably no surprise, there's firearms all over the house. And I would be walking around the house and you know, ⁓ here on a shelf, you you see a a gun, you see a gun in a corner over here, whatever. And it's like, well, not that I want to go, but if I did, that's that's an easy, fast way out. And I had those thoughts a little bit more than than I was comfortable with. And so I I called a buddy of mine and I was like, Here's another vet. I was like, Look, man, we're not at a point where we need to be worried, but I may be calling you. And asking you to store this at your place for a while. And I had already, you know, unloaded everything, disassembled everything, tossed it into a great big duffel bag. ⁓ and it was within like a day or two of that of that phone call, one of the toughest mar one of the toughest Marines that I served with ended up taking his life. And that was a That was a huge a turning point for me because I know how tough he was and I know what he's gone through, what he's overcome and what he's endured. And he took that path. And I knew, you know, how tough I was and what I've gone through and endured and all of that. And I know where where my head is. And that was when I started being very vocal about everything, ⁓ everything that I was going through, but the from the physical side to the emotional side, everything. ⁓ and kind of the thought process was it was twofold. Part of it was cathartic, right? You gotta get the shit out of your brain and like vocalize it in some way. But the other side of it was A lot of people when they're going through that kind of shit, they think that it's just them. Nobody else feels that way. It's just it's just me. I'm just being weak. I'm I'm this, I'm that. And they feel alone. They feel like they're less than. ⁓ especially men, and even more so for you know, the guys in the military, but particularly those who were in like infantry or like, you know, it's your job to go out and put yourself in harm's way and and take care of and protect other people. So I started being very vocal about all of this. And that kind of it was awkward as hell, first of all. ⁓ man, let you when you're the one who is always the strong one, you're always the one looking out for and protecting everyone. ⁓ sharing that side is is not easy. But what ended up starting to happen was I would start getting these DMs or these text messages or these emails saying, hey, you know. You don't know this, but I was going through XYZ, and what you talked about really helped me get through it. And then it started leading to people reaching out and asking for help. And then it started leading to people introducing people to me who were struggling. And, you know, as a result of that, how that kind of unfolded, at this point I've probably counseled, and it's not through like a nonprofit or any kind of organization, it's just me in my spare time. ⁓ but I have counseled probably thousands of veterans who were struggling with issues all the way up to you know potentially suicide. And as a result of that, there's a certain number, and I have never and will never disclose the number, but there is a certain number of people who I definitively know that I have saved from suicide because they explicitly told me this. There's also an undetermined number of people who have some have mentioned to me that they've been impacted, that that that I've helped them get through something. And other people, there's who knows how many that just haven't said anything but but they were impacted. So as shitty as the whole situation is, there was definitely a silver lining that came out of all of this.

speaker-1: Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that so honestly. And I know many listeners will probably recognize themselves in those moments of this is it or can I come back from this? And obviously you showed that there is a way and that there is more to life and the giving part. I I think for me personally too is when we shift from ourselves to how can I make a difference with my experiences? How can I be the light? That's when everything changes. That's when we take stuff away from us and focus on others. And let's talk about the rebuilding, because this is where your story becomes a roadmap for others. Once once you could start working again. So how did you decide what to rebuild? Why ⁓ did that ultimately become Spartan media as we know it today?

speaker-0: That's a great question. So when it comes to a service based business, right, whether you're in digital marketing like I was, or you're a lawyer or a doctor or whatever, your ability to generate business, which if you can't generate business, if you can't land and close new clients, you're not going to be able to impact people, right? So you have to be able to do that. And having been gone From that world for two years, that wasn't really an option. Like, I can't go to somebody and say, hey, you know, we can help your, you know, improve your digital marketing, help you get more leads. They're like, you know, they look you up, you're nowhere to be found. They're like, who are you? There's no evidence that you're anything other than somebody saying that you're great. And Lord knows, there's a lot of people online talking about how awesome they are, and most of them have no clue what the hell they're doing. So you need some amount of social proof. So I knew that. So what I did was, like I said, the first thing was I started writing articles and I was publishing those on my own blog. And they were ⁓ a lot of them were focused primarily around the search engine optimization world, right? Getting things ranked well in Google. And I was always a very good writer and I'm very technical. I understand ⁓ complex things very well. And so I was explaining things in a way that the average person could understand it. And there was a lot of things going on in the industry that were evolving very rapidly. So I was looking at what was going on, I was analyzing it, but then I was also predicting the impact and what comes next. And that resonated with people. It's not just, you know, you're not just out here regurgitating the same shit that everyone else is. You're out here making a bold statement, right? And you talk about this a lot with, you know. Telling your story. Same kind of concept. You've got to step out of what everyone else is already doing. So I was out there taking a very different direction with my content than most other people, which I then leveraged into ⁓ being a guest on a few different podcasts, right? Prominent podcasts in the industry. I then worked my way up to ⁓ a guest article at the two top publications in the SEO world. Then that, like I said, led to entrepreneur Forbes and then. God knows how many. ⁓ and since then there's been countless ⁓ there's probably thousands of media features out there with me right now. But I took it a step further. So it's not just get featured and then that's it, right? Because that's what most people do. They get featured in some publication and then they're like, ⁓ hey, you know, I'm I'm proud to be in Entrepreneur Magazine. That's the last you ever hear of it. I didn't I didn't do it that way. I would then go take that piece, that article. Or that podcast or that TV segment, and I would turn it into a mountain of content. So let's say I wrote an article for a particular publication. It's pretty damn easy to go through that article and extract maybe a dozen or so quotes, right? Powerful little one or two line things that you said that will provide value to people in some way. Well, now you can turn those into little quote graphics, right? Those little, you know, it's got your little quote and it's got your words and your picture and maybe ⁓ you know. Your website and all that information. But it's a cool branded thing. It shows authority, but it's also presenting useful information. And then within that, so like let's say you share that on Facebook, it's just a graphic. It's it's a punchy thing. People can see it, digest it really quickly, because people have the attention span of a goldfish these days. But it's something they can quickly digest and make sense of. And then within that post, you can then put the link to the actual article that it came from. So now You've shared the article the first time, but now here's a dozen new ways to share it, right? Now you can also turn around, you can go make a video. So in that article, there's only so much you can say. What about all the things you didn't get a chance to say? You can do a big long video breaking all those things down, go deeper into that topic. Then you can also go and chop that video up into micro content, right? Stuff under three minutes. Throw that up on TikTok. As much as I hate TikTok with a fiery passion. Throw it up on TikTok, throw it up on Facebook Reels, Instagram reels, ⁓ YouTube shorts. You've now got this massive network of content out there. So it's a matter of getting the authority from these third-party sources and then leveraging that in a in an exponential way. And then what some of the cool things that happen from there is ⁓ if you've got enough media coverage out there, Google will algorithmically trigger what's called a knowledge panel. Right. So if somebody searches for your name, across you'll see across the top and then down the right sidebar there, you'll see ⁓ you know, a bunch of information about that person. Like you look up a famous person and you will usually see a a knowledge panel. That's triggered algorithmically by certain things Google is looking for, and media features are a key part of that. So now if somebody Googles you, you look instantly more authoritative than some rando that it's just the regular search results. The other thing that happens is the more that's out there, the more likely that the media is to reach out to you. Right. So most people are out here busy pitching. They want to go on a podcast. They want to get featured in the media. They want to go on TV. But the game completely changes when there's so much out there. Let's say a journalist is like, Well, I'm looking for an expert on ⁓ storytelling. And they look something up and and they find three media features that you're in, and they're like, ⁓ well. Hell, this person clearly knows what they're talking about. Let me just reach out to them. Why waste my time with a bunch of randos? So it creates this kind of snowball effect where all of the results start to compound on each other.

speaker-1: Yeah, that is brilliant. Some fantastic advice. I know our listeners will probably write down, okay, I have to do it this way and this way. So literally when one opportunity arises, what you can do with that and the catalyst that it ⁓ that it is. Now, y you often say PR is about authority, not vanity. In today's noisy AI driven world. How do you define authority and what does it look like in practice?

speaker-0: That's a great question. And that world has changed things dramatically. So it used to be if you didn't show up in Google, right? If somebody would come in and search your your personal name and your business name, if you didn't show up in Google, you had no authority. And that's still the case. Like you still have to show up in Google, but now there's an added kind of bar, a hurdle that you have to get over. And that's you have to show up in these AI tools. Right. If somebody goes into Claude, they go into ChatGPT or Grok. And they ask for information about you. What are these tools telling people? Are they saying I don't have a lot of information about that person? Or are they saying that person, there's a lot of complaints about them and you should probably be careful? Or are they saying, hey, that person's a a pretty well-known authority and they're a recognized expert in their field? Right? This is what Google has been for the past 20 years now. And that's one of those things where You have to take a much larger scale approach to move the needle on that. So what you put on your website, it matters a little bit, but that's only part of the equation because if AI tools were going to go out and just absorb everything from your website and then regurgitate that, there's zero value to that, right? So what they do is they they look for third party validation first. So that's legitimate features in media outlets that are known and trusted, right? So not these bullshit blogs or these fake outlets. You and I have talked about this before. There's a lot of fake media outlets out there that look legitimate, but it's just pay to play garbage that any idiot can spend a hundred bucks and get this puff piece put out about them. The AI tools ignore those. They look at legitimate media outlets. You know, Fox Business, CNN, ⁓ MSN You know, all of the big authoritative media outlets, that's where the AI tools are going to determine if you are a legitimate authority in your industry. Now, if all of those data points are there and all the signals tell the LLMs that power these AI tools, yes, this person is a legitimate authority. Well then that's when the stuff on your website starts to come into play, right? Now that they've validated that you're legit, now they start pulling stuff from your website to include in there. ⁓ but there's a there's a lot of things, your website, social media, ⁓ Amazon, there's a lot of places that you can put stuff that will help kind of inform the LLMs, but you do need legitimate third party validation in order to kind of trigger that next level where they do start citing you.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's so interesting what you said because ⁓ more and more things come across my my desk where hey, we want to feature you here and there and then ⁓ by the way, this but you have to pay this and you have to pay that.

speaker-0: If you're paying to be in a publication that's not legit, you're chasing vanity. And it's fair to say that some people won't know that that's a bogus publication. But I'll tell you who will know. Legitimate high-level entrepreneurs, first of all, but more importantly, journalists. And journalists hate those kind of publications. So if you're out here trying to get featured in the media, And a journalist goes and looks you up, and now they see that you paid to be in a bunch of these garbage publications, they're going to be a lot more skeptical of you. They're gonna think that you're another one of these snake oil salesmen who's just, you know, paying money to go out here in these bullshit publications to create a false persona. So it can actually harm you in the long term. And my suspicion is that the AI tools are also looking at those and specifically. not just ignoring them, but also maybe putting like a a red flag in their systems that, hey, this person's trying to manipulate the system by doing this. So maybe let's, you know, demote them a little bit. And Google used to do something like that with backlinks. this was around God, this was it's been a while, so the I may not be accurate on the timelines anymore, but I feel like it was around 2012 when Google had the Penguin update. And basically They decided what they felt was a legitimate versus an illegitimate link, right? If you were getting editorial links, like someone liked what you did or or they linked to you for some reason that you did not influence. You didn't pay them, you didn't ask them to link to you, you didn't do anything to influence that link. ⁓ those are good. But if you were buying links, if you were doing anything to influence that, they considered those bad. And so what they actually did was they nuked the internet. And millions upon millions upon millions of websites were completely destroyed to the point where that domain just didn't even work anymore. You couldn't fix it, even if you got rid of all the backlinks. So they permanently nuked those domains and they did it as a penalization. ⁓ and it was kind of a scorched earth approach. They were doing it to kind of teach everyone a lesson, so to speak. They wanted to make sure that people stopped doing the things that they didn't want them to do. So logically you would have to assume that the L LMs are doing something similar. If they see someone using tactics intentionally to manipulate the L LMs, man, I I feel like they have to be flagging those people and pushing them further down.

speaker-1: Yeah, and and one of the things too is the amount or the time that you've been active in your business, posting ⁓ blog posts, YouTube, whatnot. I remember when I first started out my my entrepreneurial journey online in the coaching business, I had one of my mentors with Brendan Bouchard that Who really got me going many, many, many years ⁓ ago. I remember one time he was saying, right now you have about three years. You start now and put out content, put out content if you want to be recognized or want to make a difference. And back then I said, ⁓ okay, yeah, now I know. Because when I obviously too, when I interview people, I always You know, first of all go to Perplexity or other AI tools. Not even Google anymore, even though now it's Gemini there. So I I look them up. So who are they? What do they do? What comes up? And this is how people will find out about you and what you do. So it's important. Now and obviously what you offer is kind of a shortcut, even if somebody is starting fresh. So, you know, when when I Google mys myself, I see all the things and all the pictures over the years. So that automatically ⁓ establishes credibility and what are you known for and whatnot. But what I like what you do is that you can provide a shortcut. So before we wrap up, there's another piece of your story that I think is so important for empowerment, and that's

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: the emotional side, the mental side, right? ⁓ you've shared already publicly about veterans' mental health and the loss, and you shared the story earlier today. If someone is listening right now and is in the middle of their own crisis, maybe it's health, maybe it's business, maybe it's both. What is one message you want them to hold on to They feel like giving up.

speaker-0: Yeah, so that's a great question, Sabine. And ul ultimately it comes down to this, and you've already kind of touched on this a little bit earlier. You need to find a mission that's bigger than yourself, right? Where people tend to go wrong when they find themselves in that situation is that it's all about them. ⁓ poor me. Look what's happening to me. Look at how tough my life is. Right. And they they start whining, they start complaining. And look. You may have a million legitimate reasons to complain, but it doesn't do a damn thing for you. So what I have found is I'll give you a good analogy. In the military, all right. So think about this. Like, let's just take the heaviest load you could possibly imagine, putting into a backpack and putting it on and going up a mountain, right? ⁓ whatever that amount is, right? We've all got a different number in our head. My number would be much larger because I have a frame of reference because I've done it with obscene amounts of weight. ⁓ but everyone's gonna have a different number, whatever it is. I know how far I could push my body, I know you know what I can do. But let's say I'm carrying something and it feels like too much and I'm I'm tired and I can't breathe and my legs are getting shaky, but I'm trying to work up this mountain and I'm like, well, let me just stop and take a little break. Well, in that world, I stop and take a little break. Maybe I have ammo in this backpack that the guys up there need. And if I don't get up there, they're gonna die. Right. So the mission Is far bigger than myself. It's not about me. It's not about how tired I am. It's not about how worn out I am. It's not about any of that. It's about I've got to get that mission done, otherwise, other people are going to be hurt because of it. So whenever you're facing something like this, you have to find a mission like that. So when I was going through my shit, which I'm still going through, yes, exactly.

speaker-1: On we all.

speaker-0: One of the things like you know, like I talked about, I I started being very vocal about it. I started sharing, ⁓ you know, sharing my story, sharing how I was working to overcome it. I shared what I was experiencing, right? So that other people would know that they're not the only ones feeling that way. And there was a really good article. I don't know if I ever showed it to you, ⁓ but Fox News ran a feature on me on the home page on it was either on Veterans Day or the Marine Corps birthday. I forget which. But Like, holy shit. First of all, that was amazing. Like to be the Fox News featured story on it was either Veterans or Memorial Day. ⁓ and it was about me and and kind of the mission that I had given myself on on saving other veterans from suicide. But one of the things I mentioned in there, and I'd never really thought about it, but I was talking with the with the journalist, ⁓ Breck Dumas, still great friends with her. You know, we talk we talk regularly. She's since moved on and started her own company. But ⁓ In the conversation, something came out of my mouth that I had never really given any thought to, but it's kind of stuck with me over the years. And it's kind of funny how those things we don't even think about them, but then they come out and it's like, ⁓ you know. Yeah. But but one of the things that I said during that interview was in a nutshell, you know, I'm out here, I'm very public, I'm doing what I'm doing, and I know I've got all these veterans looking up to me. I know that they're saying, Well, I can do it because he's done it and he's He's gone through something, you know, worse than me and and and he's still out here doing all these big things. And I'm basically serving as an example, as a role model. It was like, so now I can't quit. Because if I quit, I'm giving all these other veterans, the thousands or millions of other veterans who may have been watching my story. I'm giving them permission to do the same, right? So now that's a mission, right? Aside from saving the people, I have to keep going, regardless of how I feel, because If I don't, now they have permission to quit.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And you know, even for for me, when I started my newsletter, I always have my Sunday notes. And that developed to a very like personal sharing and being very open, even when I have bad days or when I felt like a failure or was overwhelmed. And always what I've learned from it. And I get so many people said, you know, thank you so much. That's what I needed to hear. I was down and now I'm feeling better or whatever it is. So I know sometimes it can feel you're in a silo just by yourself. You put things out and don't get the feedback. So if anything, ⁓ for everybody who is listening right now, make sure you give whoever gives you a piece of advice or encourages you, inspires you. Give them some feedback as well so they know that it ⁓ that it matters.

speaker-0: You know, and and that touches into something else that that you've talked about a bunch as well, and that's authenticity, right? So if if you're always winning, people are gonna not believe you because nobody always wins, right? If if every time you talk to somebody, it's ⁓ I just hit this next new revenue goal, I just had this next big huge new client, and you're never, ever failing, and people are gonna know that you're full of shit. So it it

speaker-1: And and they also think I never can do this, ⁓ what what she or he does, and then they turn away. Jeremy, this has been such a rich conversation. Thank you for your transparency and ⁓ for giving us both your raw raw story and the roadmap for rebuilding and becoming the authority that's being recognized.

speaker-0: My pleasure.

speaker-1: For those of you listening, if you want to learn more about Jeremy and Smart Media, we link his website and all his books in the resources and the show notes so you can dive deeper into his PR strategies and authority building frameworks. And if today's episode encouraged you, then please share it with someone who might be in their own rebuilding season. And don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review so more people can discover, become empowered. And if you're ready to take your own story from your book, your talk, or your life, and bring it to the stage or to the media, check out the links in the show notes for ways we can all work together. Thank you so much for being here, Jeremy, and sharing your wisdom and your story.

speaker-0: My pleasure. It's always awesome to connect with you and ⁓ love our conversations.

speaker-1: Thank you for spending this time with me on Become Empowered. If this message spoke to your heart, make sure you follow, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Until next time, let your voice rise, let your light shine and keep becoming empowered.