How To Develop A Never Quit Mindset -Brenda Neckvatal - The Drone Farm

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Brenda, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Oh, thank you very much. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Oh, I'm doing great. I'm glad you took a few minutes out of your day to hang out with me here on the uh what show is this? Oh, yeah, the Beyond the Story podcast. That's right. I tell people's story. Well, I'm hosting three shows these days. I need to post it notes on what show is what on here.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah, right. You gotta know where you are, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Absolutely. So glad we got a chance to connect. You reached out to me. I didn't have anything available on the calendar at the time, moved some stuff around. And next thing you know, here we are. So I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Um, and excited to learn more uh about your story. That's what I like to do here. I like to go back to the beginning of the story. Where did it all begin uh when you started doing that one job that led to this next opportunity, et cetera? So let's back up um and to you know to the beginning of the story, whatever the beginning is uh for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Oh, dude, I'm 51. That's a long road ahoe. You do know that, right? Uh so shoot, where I am today is I have surprisingly become a serial entrepreneur. I did not believe that I was going to be working on building the number of businesses that I'm doing right now. Um, but I'm I'm in a position where I'm able to do it smartly, wisely, quickly, efficiently, and cut out a lot of the garbage that most people who become an entrepreneur get sucked into. And um, that's going to set myself up and the future for very fast, rapid growth. And um, that has taken about two years of my time to figure out how to do this. And I'm there and I'm really excited about it. So uh I am a little background. I'm a recovering HR professional. Um, I don't do the really the HR work very much anymore, but I still teach it. I still help other people who are trying to figure out how does this whole HR infrastructure thing work.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

And when did you start doing all that? When did you start doing HR stuff?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

I started getting into it about 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

That sounds crazy to say, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

It's like 30 years ago, I started doing yeah, it's different hearing it than saying it.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

I keep I keep telling people I just moved back to Miami from Southern California. That was in 2008, that was 14 years ago. Like I just moved back.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

It's like two thousand, it's like we see reruns of like the big bang theory, and we still think it's 2008, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yes, I just well I just watched The Office for the first time. So I just you know I we we see the office. We're I I didn't think I could either back in the day when it was on, and then I started to have an appreciation for Steve Corell, and then I did enjoy it, and then he left the show and the it was all downhill from there. That's the difference of opinion. That's a very unpopular opinion, by the way. We define our own timelines around here, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

That's right, exactly. We know who we know our own mind.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So uh started working, getting out of that, looking at different passive income opportunities. Uh, started getting I found an opportunity to do something new at the ground level, and that's working in the drone industry in several different ways, between being a drone range uh partner and operator to teaching and working with law enforcement, public safety, um, how to actually utilize drones from a tactical perspective. Um, on my team, there are a cadre of Navy SEALs, retired SEALs that are familiar, um, and they they really care. So it's nice when we can get them paired up with different um law enforcement agencies to be able to say, hey, listen, have you ever thought about looking at something like this? Have you ever looked at doing it this way? And really helping them build that kind of effective mindset. So the ultimate goal is to, you know, really increase the ability to effectively help and defend and protect, you know, public, you know, private citizens. Um and and it and it's pretty amazing. Um, I'm actually working on a in a I almost want to say it and I don't want to say it because I don't want to jinx it, but I will tell you this that we're I won't tell anybody, I promise. Yeah, I right, keep it to yourself. Um, we are about ready to actually work with a group that um to utilize drones in the effective scouting and rescue of sex trafficked children.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Huge, yeah. So I'm very wolf. That's where I have to stop speaking. I don't want to I don't want to jinx anything here. Okay, cool. Yeah, it's not common knowledge yet, but we are working, we are working on a on a project that will address it. Once it once I can talk about it, trust me, I'm gonna be blabbing it all over the place because I have a big mouth and I know how to use it. Yeah, um, the other pieces is that you know, really working with business owners, uh like drone entrepreneurs to figure out how they can become better business owners. I I find that fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I find that fascinating because you said um that that's a huge community. We were talking about this before we started the interview, that whole drone community. But just because you're talented, you can use a drone doesn't mean you know how to run a business. So that's a very, very, very, very, very good niche. Yeah. Um, and I'm excited for you. Let's let's talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah. Um, and then the last piece is just passive income, you know, different different e-commerce opportunities um that pretty much can roll on autopilot with a little bit of you know tapping and keep the ball in play on the field.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Right. So what what type of things are you are you putting together for these for this drone community to help them, you know, get their get their ducks in a row?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, so in October, on October 28th, um, we are going to be we'll we'll actually start taking registrations here soon. Um, we're actually doing a um business planning event. Um, we'll have 20 seats available. Uh it's gonna be over at uh iFly. And if anybody wants to get into the indoor wind tunnel, we'll go ahead and do it. Um, you know, it's it this is a great place down in the Virginia Beach area to make a weekend out of something like that. So, like Saturday, we'll take, you know, anybody that wants to stay for the weekend down on a ghost tour um in of the area. We know some pretty spooky, haunted places, and it's Halloween weekend. Um, and it's October's a really good time, honestly, to start thinking about what is your next year going to look like because your business literally changes every 90 days. It changes every month, but really the only way that you can effectively pivot is is really looking at okay, so what are you what are you forecasting for the next 90 days? And what have you learned from the past 90 days? And the process that I've been using for many years, personally myself, teaching it to other business leaders, I've now formulated it into an annual planning event, and that's what's going to take place this October. We'll actually invite people to come back and open up to more people who want to come in in February on how they can effectively look to plan for Q2 in Q1. And then likewise, Q, you know, in Q2 for Q3, and really really, really take a hardcore look at like where are the opportunities, what kind of help do you need to be successful? And what are the tools out there to do it?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So you basically empower them to learn what they don't know, uh, that they don't know uh in the world of a business.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Right. Or even remind yourself, not that you've forgotten, but just remind yourself because there's like through the, you know, when you do your own individual self-development, we like we've heard a lot of this stuff over years. I've heard the same thing, and we're both part of Apex, love Apex. Yeah, and I've heard a lot of the same things over the you know, last I don't even know, 20 years that I've been 30 years that I've been working on developing myself. But you don't remember to use them, you don't forget them, but you don't remember to call them into an existence and and figure out how does this work to empower you to move forward? How does it support you? And sometimes things fall off. And there's nothing wrong with revisiting those things over time periodically because where you were when you first heard them is not where you are when you have been refreshed on them.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah, you are isn't that the truth, but uh it's a constant refresher. I mean, it it it's not uh it's not the I used to I remember I used to be a personal development junkie. I was actually, if you ask me, I'm a personal development virtuoso. I mean Tony Robbins landmark form, you name it. Oh, landmark form, and then I don't do shit after the event, and then I wonder, you know, why I'm not getting results. But I went to the event, but I don't understand. I thought it was a breakthrough. What is a breakthrough?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

It should be magically implanted in me.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, I speak the language, all but all of the breakthroughs and all of the aha's or whatever you want to call it moments, those unpack as we learn the lesson, as the journey continues to unpack and we finally ah, got it. I get it. I never used to understand this. I'll give you a quick example. People would say, Sebastian, when you step into your power, it will absolutely be a game changer. Everything you could ever imagine will be available. And I'm like, step forward. I'm in my power. And I would say it. The only small deficit there was the belief system. I didn't literally believe that I was a powerful, lovable, authentic leader. I could say it. It rolled off my tongue. Now I say it, I feel it, I embrace it, I embody it. It's a whole different ballgame. And I think that that's that that's the downside with personal development. We go, we learn a bunch. It's like church. Go to church like sermon was all about, all for me. Pastor was talking right to me. And you go home, we go right back to our life, we flick somebody off in the church parking lot, and it's all downhill from there. And that's just pretty much how you know the world works. But personal development works the same way. You know, we get we get into this, we get, we it's it's it listen, there's there's that nothing feels better than being at a Tony Robbins event and walking on fire and doing it. Oh my god, nothing feels better, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I I had I went to one, I had like my mom bought tickets years ago. I had no idea who this dude was, and I was like, oh my gosh, right? I even heard Trump speak at one. I heard our uh Schwarzkoff, he spoke. I swear to God, listening to him, I thought I needed to stand up and like be attention. And it was it was you know, Larry King, a chance to hear him speak, yeah, a bunch of other amazing people. And but you know, the thing is is that if you're going to everybody should be working on developing themselves if they don't, and and people who are frustrated, it's because you're not expanding yourself, you're not putting yourself in a learning capacity. What you learn, you now have to, you know, as as humans, we're only going to absorb what's relevant. Yeah. And we may recall or remember something that doesn't really necessarily apply, but we will only execute on what's relevant. But if you only absorb what's relevant and never execute on it, it doesn't really mean anything. So the first hour after I get up, get the dog walked. We have a little fox that likes to walk with us. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

He's a baby.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

He is. I even nicknamed him Braveheart. He just trots right along with us. He's like, you know, 20 feet away. He's like, how's it going? You know, sniffs everywhere where my dog pees. And it's just, it's hilarious. And so we get back, and the very first thing I do is I grab my coffee and I spend an hour literally working on myself. I mean, Tony Robbins calls it his power, his hour, power hour or hour of power, whatever he calls it. But that's what I do. I sit down and I nourish myself first. And all those things that you just said that we don't do when I sit down and I take care of myself first thing in the day. I actually have a stronger mindset to get me through all of the stuff, positive and negative, that happens in the next 12 hours. And it has made a huge difference. I sit down, I do that. The second thing I do, I do all my social media stuff. Takes me about an hour now because I got a lot of channels. And a lot of this, and this is the stuff that I can't schedule or don't schedule, but I have it pre-planned out. So all I need to do is just follow my roadmap. And then by nine o'clock, I'm sitting down. If I've got client work, I'm doing client work. If I have to send emails, I can send emails. And literally by 12 o'clock, I have put in more in one day than most people are capable of doing in like 14 hours.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, I mean, it's all about uh, I don't know if I'd necessarily see even say time management. I think it's uh what what you know what we're choosing to spend time to. I'm the same way for first thing in the morning, it's all about fueling up with some caffeine, which I shouldn't even be able to drink coffee. It should be illegal for individuals like myself to drink coffee. I get a good couple uh hooked on that, on that, uh, on that Hawaii coffee after spending 10 days over there. I was I came back, found found imagine I come back with just the coffee from which one did you get? I didn't get the one I wanted, I wanted Kai.

unknown 13:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

A I I had in Waikiki, he was mind blowing.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I'm like, let me buy a pound of that. And then I was like, no, I'm not gonna spend 40 bucks on a pound of coffee right now, and then I never did, and I ended up just grabbing something from uh ABC stores. ABC stores that are on every corner, they're like everywhere. And it was like, oh, it's it's okay, but the K cups that I get from the Kauai Nepali Coast blend on Amazon, far superior. So they were on sale for six bucks per box. So I ended up just loading up on that the day after I got. I probably should have brought some home, but I I think I did track down the Kai coffee. Um, and I'm sure I can get it shipped to me for some ludicrous amount of money, but that stuff was liquid gold.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

I know when I when I go back home, that's because that's one of my homes. I I sort of grew up in Hawaii, and uh I go back as often as I can. And the first thing I do, like literally within the first 24 hours, I go to Long's, I go and I get my favorite Hawaiian coffee. It is the Hawaiian Islands in the white bag. Yes, vanilla macadamia nut. The vanilla and the macadamia nut is amazing. Okay, and then I ship it all back so then by the time I get home, it's literally waiting for me when I get back. Hold on a second. You said Hawaiian coffee company. Hawaiian coffee, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Hawaiian island, yes. I had this in, I had just the medium Hawaiian island.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Oh, you gotta get the vanilla macadamia nut.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Oh no, I'm I'm all about it. But I'm talking they just had the K cups in my hot in my in my um Oh dude, don't do the hotel room.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, don't do the K cups. Get the little get the little filter thing, and then you you scoop the coffee and yourself. I no, I got that too.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

That's what I did with the uh with with the ABC story. Oh, I I got you. This Kauai coffee on Amazon automatically comes in the eco-friendly little cups, and it is but now I'm intrigued because the I I oh no, because like it was I kept on telling my mom, I was like, this it's is it Hawaiian paradise or Hawaiian Island?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Hawaiian Island.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Okay, so it was Hawaiian paradise too.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, that's what that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's a Kona blend, is what it is, and and it's just it's super smooth coffee, and then that vanilla macadamia and that okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I'm I'm doing it, I'm gonna hunt it down. I'm I'm I'm totally going to uh to to hunt it down. So, what would you say you've been your biggest lesson over the past 30 years through HR and now getting into doing several different ventures and becoming a serial entrepreneur? What's the biggest lesson?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

You know what? My biggest lesson is stop listening to people who are telling you you can or can't do you can't do something or that you should be doing something when they've never walked the path. You know, I grew up a I don't want to say confident person. I I wasn't, but I didn't have a problem saying what was on my mind. And through a series of uh encounters with a lot of people in my life, I actually suppressed that because I was told that nobody wants to be around somebody like that. And I I literally thought I was broken. I literally thought I was a defective human being. And it wasn't honestly until just a few years ago when I made the decision to like I was miserable forever, my whole life trying to figure out why I didn't feel like I was liked or why I just why I didn't fit. And I just went, you know what? Screw it. If you that love me or leave me, and and I have no problems leaving you behind if you're not you know aligned with who I am, and you can't accept me. I accept everybody for who they are. It doesn't matter to me, you know, because you're out here. Why would I focus my attention on what you're doing in life? If you want to go do this, if you want to go do that, if you want to go be whoever or whatever it is that you want, go do it. Everybody should have that, but nobody has the right to tell me how to live, and nobody has the right to tell me how to be. If I want to be a badass, and and what I mean by that is literally exist in my own empowerment and with my own confidence and believe in who I am and what I stand for, and be okay with having an opinion about something and you not agreeing with it, then I'm gonna be that badass.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, but it's a decision, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

It is, it's a complete decision. And the hardest decision to make around that is to be that around the people that you love the most that aren't willing to accept you for it.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

And it's okay to love those people from a distance.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yes, you do, certainly is that's even if they're even if they're your own family, you have to love.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Those are my number one. I mean, my my my family, that's like top of the list of uh compartmentalizing in a healthy way and loving from a distance. So much freedom available when we uh make a decision to go and do that. Family does not equal uh toxicity.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

No, yeah, I would agree. So, you know, and and to be a badass, but yet know that you're not arrogant. Know that I mean some people are gonna perceive you as being arrogant, and that's not on you, that's on them.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

If you know where you're coming from, then you're not arrogant.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Exactly. Well, you stand in your truth, and you know, I I always like to say, you know, humble with a splash of Kanye.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Brenda, it's been so I'm humble with a splash of Jack Daniels.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

That too. Yeah, Kanye and a little splash of Jack. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what I want. It's uh it's been so fun getting to know you uh a little bit better through through means of this conversation. And uh, I'm encouraged by what you're up to. You got your uh thank you, you got your hands in fire over there, up to some really exciting, really cool stuff. And uh I can't wait to hear about it. You got that event coming up at the end of October. Uh, if you're in the drone community in the Virginia Beach vicinity as well, make sure you connect with Brenda. I'll make sure to put all of your information in the description of this podcast episode so you can reach out and connect with her uh as well. Uh Brenda, thanks again for your time.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Thank you so much. This has been a blast and enjoy the coffee.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Absolutely. I totally am. I'm gonna screen share as soon as we get done here, and I'm gonna be like, is this the one? I think I found it. I have found the golden, the golden coffee here. The golden eggs. Absolutely. Thanks again, Brenda. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.