Episode 406 - Brandon Young - Army Ranger, Afghanistan, Divinity, Author, Entrepreneur, Leader

Cleared Hot

Society & Culture

4.9 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 141 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brandon Young is a former US Army Ranger with four combat rotations to Afghanistan. He has spent more than 25 years building and leading teams in the military, corporate healthcare, and nonprofit sectors. Brandon has built partnerships with some of the world’s most iconic brands, including Nike, Walmart, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon. He is the recipient of the Quest Diagnostics Regional Excellence Award for Commercial Leadership for his work in cancer diagnostics.

He’s been published in various magazines and peer-reviewed academic journals; assessed, mentored, and trained more than 1,000 Ranger leaders while serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment; and placed third in the 2006 Best Ranger Competition. Brandon lives in Littleton, Colorado, with his wife, Kelly. They have two adult children: Jaden is a Soldier in the US Army and Elliot is a student at the University of Colorado.

Brandon holds a master of Divinity in leadership from Denver Seminary, and his passions are faith, family, community, and adventures. Brandon Young cofounded Applied Leadership Partners in 2020 (with Blayne Smith) to share hard-earned leadership wisdom with leaders guiding teams through growth, change, or adversity. Applied Leadership Partners is a boutique consulting firm that supports leaders in creating tightly knit, high-performing teams through leadership development training, keynotes, and executive advising.

Perseverance Is Greater Than Endurance: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Perseverance-Endurance/Blayne-Smith/9781637746271

Applied Leadership Partners: https://www.appliedleadershippartners.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, got the red smoke. Gun runs. North and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on winter, baby. Give it to me. I need it. You're cleared hot. Copy, cleared hot. God, it sucks. Classic. Dude, let's start with the book.
0:21.8	Yeah.
0:22.2	Perseverance is greater than endurance.
0:26.1	Whose idea?
0:27.4	Yours or Blaine's?
0:28.5	I would say ours.
0:30.9	That's not fun.
0:32.0	I know.
0:32.6	It's more fun with somebody drag you into it.
0:35.4	I know.
0:35.9	Well, Blaine's dragged me into a lot of stuff over our, what, 16, 17-year friendship, one of them being conning me to leave my corporate job, take a 60% pay cut, and help him at a upstart veteran nonprofit. Turned out well. But that's the kind of friend you get with a Blaine Smith, you know. Yeah.
0:56.1	Were you happier after the pay cut?
0:57.2	Oh, man, so much.
1:02.3	How do so many of us get trapped in that where money equals happiness?
1:04.1	And it just doesn't.
1:04.7	Yeah.
1:06.4	You get some cool things.
1:07.5	Sure.
1:11.6	But as we all learn pretty quickly, the things aren't that important. Yeah, but I'm a journey to constantly relearn that.
1:15.6	You and all of us, we call it the 80s, 90s playbook, I think.
1:19.6	You know, we followed the playbook, you know, the be successful, reach the achievements, get the money, get the girl or the guy, whatever, get the
1:30.0	house, get all the kind of stuff, the car, and then you wake up one day and you're kind of like,
	...

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