Blown Up But Not Broken: A Combat Vet's Speaking Journey with Brian Fleming

How do you turn life-shattering trauma into a powerful speaking career? Combat-wounded veteran Brian Fleming reveals the answer after surviving a suicide bomber attack in Afghanistan that left him with second and third-degree burns requiring 14 months of grueling recovery.

The pivotal moment came when Fleming met a Vietnam veteran who showed him how personal pain could transform lives—including his own. Sixteen years later, Fleming has spoken to over half a million people, worked with Fortune 500 companies, and built a thriving career sharing his resilience strategies.

What's surprising is Fleming's counterintuitive approach to storytelling. "One of the biggest mistakes new speakers make is that they talk about themselves," he explains. Instead, successful speakers position their experiences as solutions to problems their audiences desperately want solved. This shift in perspective transforms a personal story from self-focused to audience-focused, answering the two questions every listener silently asks: "Why does this person understand me?" and "Why should I listen to them?"

Fleming breaks down his profitable speaking framework into three essential components: Problem (identify what pain your audience experiences), Promote (market yourself to the right decision-makers), and Present (deliver value that solves their problem). This approach works whether you have an extreme story like Fleming's or more common life experiences—the key is addressing problems your audience recognizes and hates.

Ready to share your own story and get paid for it? Fleming offers a free Share Your Story Roadmap at useyourstory.com that shows how to make your first $500 speaking within 30 days. As he reminds us, "Your story has more power than you could ever possibly imagine, and your story matters."

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Brian Fleming's Journey
• 6:33 Combat Injury to Speaking Career
• 10:38 Crafting an Impactful Story
• 14:20 The Three Keys to Paid Speaking
• 19:34 Podcasting as a Virtual Stage
• 23:45 Resources and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Carl: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride. Let's dive into today's episode. Lots of people want to share their story with the world and even get paid to do it, but they have no idea where to begin. Well, Brian Fleming is a combat wounded war vet who was injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. He's turned his journey into a highly profitable and influential speaking career and has been a professional speaker, author and a resilience trainer for over 16 years. He's a sought-after podcast guest. He's a fairly new podcast host that I'm sure will come up in conversation as well. We are so blessed that Brian is joining us today. Brian, welcome to the podcast.

Brian: 1:15

Hey, thanks for having me, Carl.

Carl: 1:18

Let's talk about your journey. Let's give you the opportunity to share how it is that you and I know that obviously pieces of your story. Let's give you the opportunity to share how it is that you and I know that obviously pieces of your story. Let's give you the opportunity to tell your story. What brought you to where you are today with this wonderful experience that you have.

Brian: 1:34

Well, the big piece of it started when a suicide bomber tried to kill me in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I served with the US Army's 10th Mountain Division back in 2006 as a team leader in an infantry platoon and I was there from March to late July of 06. During that time, one of my vehicles got blown up on April 18th of 06. We ran over a double stack of anti-tank mines buried in the road. Two of my guys injured but returned to duty a month later. I was uninjured physically at the time. Then, a few months later, a suicide bomber as we were driving through Kandahar down Highway 1, he got right up next to my vehicle, slammed into my door and blew himself and his van into about a billion pieces. And I woke up laying face down in a ditch on the side of Highway 1 in Kandahar. It was about lunchtime on July 24th. I was burned and bloody burned second degree on my face and neck, which is now healed, then third degree on both of my hands.

Brian: 2:32

I ended up spending 14 months a year and two months at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, texas. Burn treatment, reconstructive surgery, had my skin scraped off razor blades. They had to get the burn-charred skin off or I would have died of infection Terrible process called debridement. But they have to do it to keep you alive. And while I was there just to give you the short version I met a guy who was a Vietnam veteran, who was injured in Vietnam, and he came and gave a speech and he couldn't tell us about pain without making us laugh hysterically and it was very healing, and so I met him afterwards. We ended up hitting it off, becoming friends, and he basically said Brian, I'll show you how to do something with your story if you're interested. And not only did it change my life, it changed my family tree, because now I've been able to go all over the world speak, help people, be financially productive doing it and do something meaningful with one of the greatest pains I've ever been through in my life.

Carl: 3:31

Did you think, as you were, even as you're developing this relationship with this other individual, did you think, or did you believe, that the journey would take you to?

Brian: 3:39

where you are today. I was just hoping I could accomplish 10% of what that guy's accomplished in his life. He's built multiple companies internationally. I've been speaking for probably over 50 years now, married to the same woman over 50 years very successful life, I mean, done very well in a lot of ways, not just in business but in his family. And I just thought, man, if I can do 10% of that, because this guy started in my shoes. We were hospitalized at the same medical center just decades apart, and so, meeting him, it was weird, because I never meant to do this speaking thing, I never meant to end up where I am, but he believed something was possible for me that I did not believe it, but I didn't know enough about it to know if I could or would want to do it. And it turns out it was exactly what I was made to do.

Carl: 4:27

Obviously, you knew what your story was going to be because you had it there. Obviously, you've been through it. How much work, though, did it take in those early years to fine-tune the messaging, to craft that story so that it would have impact with audiences?

Brian: 4:45

messaging, to craft that story so that it would have impact with audiences. The first few years was rocky in the sense that people were asking me to come speak and offering to pay me, but I didn't actually know how to put together a real speech, the right way and how to brand myself. So I'm not just this guy going around talking about how I got blown up and hurt and then not realizing like, hey, I kind of need to steer this somewhere so that people know why I told them that story. And so the first couple of years I didn't know any better. But he really helped me out that. He mentored me in life. He mentored me in speaking. He cut five years down into about 12 months for me, took me under his wing, personally, mentored me and it put me on a lot of the stages and I'm so grateful for that.

Brian: 5:25

And so I learned a lot in a short amount of time. And it's just like the military with your work ethic Like you have a job to do, you go get it done, and when it's done, what's next? Go get it done, what's next? And so I was a workhorse and everything he was telling me I needed to put together and do. When I learned that nobody cared about my story, but they actually cared more about what my story could do for them. That's when everything changed, Because my messaging changed, my marketing messaging. I had it framed in a way that people saw it and they saw a solution for themselves and what they're dealing with, not just a guy with a story.

Carl: 6:01

So what is one of the biggest mistakes, then, that people make when they're trying to share their story and get paid for it? Is it the fact that they're crafting it ineffectively? What's been your experience?

Brian: 6:12

Yeah, this is going to sound counterintuitive, but one of the biggest mistakes new speakers make is that they talk about themselves. Now again, that doesn't sound right, but when you stop talking about people's problems, they stop listening to you. That's something I learned from Don Miller when I was one of his StoryBrand certified guides, and it's absolutely true. So I had to start looking at this as not hey, I'm Brian and I got blown up. I have an inspirational story. Yeah, there's a million people with an inspirational story. I have friends with no legs and no arms and burn 90% third degree way worse stories, invisibly worse off than me, and so I had to learn. Instead of saying, hey, can I come speak for your people? I have an inspirational message.

Brian: 6:55

Maybe going back to the military, I started saying things like hey, do your service members struggle in their marriages after coming home from war? Well, I came home, you know, as a Purple Heart recipient, injured by a suicide bomber, and I've now been married almost 19 years, happily, to the same woman. I married three months before I deployed to Afghanistan. I would love to share, if it's of any interest, what my wife and I do to have a happy, fulfilling marriage after going to war and coming home. See, now there's over an 85% divorce rate in the military among first-time enlisted. Now they're interested why I mean all of them. Half the people in that room have been blown up or know someone who has. It's like you're preaching to a choir, but I'm talking about a solution they're looking for. I do the same thing with you know I can talk on PTSD resilience. That's why they hire me. The military, at least, has been those topics, so I had to reframe it.

Carl: 7:50

You have a very hard-hitting story. It's earth-changing, earth-shattering in a lot of ways, and not everyone has a story like that. But does somebody need to have an extreme life story to make it as a speaker and share their story on stage?

Brian: 8:04

life story to make it as a speaker and share their story on stage? No, and if you look at most highly, highly, highly successful public speakers, you'll find that most of them do not have some sort of extreme life story. Yeah, everyone has a story. But if you're talking getting injured by a suicide bomber or getting your arm bit off by a shark, like Bethany Hamilton, most highly successful speakers don't have that. But the one thing they all have in common is they're addressing a problem that a group of people has and they're bringing a solution, their version of a solution that can help those people take next steps and become better in some way that they want to. They're looking at that group and saying what is the problem this group has? They know, they have it and they hate it.

Brian: 8:43

It's the thorn in the side and somebody is dumping salt in the wound every day and they look, they want to get that thorn out and close that wound to be done. Well, when you talk to that, when you speak that language and you just use your story more as a, you know like hey, your story only matters in a speech because it's how you. It lets people know that you understand them. It lets them know I'm like you and I know what I'm talking about and here's why I'm credible. Like those are the two things in a speech that your personal story, the part of the speech that is your story, that's what that's there for to accomplish.

Carl: 9:18

You definitely hit on the point there that the pain points are very important. And being able to hit on those pain points not just the pain points but the solution to those pain points and leverage the story and also, I guess, as part of the leveraging of your story is also showing some empathy. It's the I understand I've been in your shoes, even though you might not say that, because we've heard speakers say that many times. It's probably one of the worst things they can say, but letting the audience know that, hey, I get where you're coming from. I totally get where you're coming from.

Brian: 9:50

There's two questions when somebody's speaking that the audience is asking and sometimes they don't even know they're asking it, but it's. Why does this person understand me? Like, why are they like me? And why should I listen to this person? Like, what have you done? What have you accomplished or overcome that? I should take your advice Because you know there's so much misinformation, bad advice out there that you want to know.

Brian: 10:13

Like if I get up and say, look, I have a story, much like you have a story and I know what it's like to struggle to figure out how to share your story through public speaking.

Brian: 10:23

You know going through all those struggles and not getting the callbacks and getting a bunch of no's and wondering if your story even matters. I know what that's like. But over the past 17 years I've spoken to over half a million people in live audiences and I've spoken for dozens of the Fortune 500. I've been booked and paid to speak to do that and you can go online and look at the pictures and video of me doing it. I just accomplished connection they understand I'm like them and credibility. I know what the hell I'm talking about because I've done it and if you want to go Google me, you can see speaking pictures and videos clear back to 2008, 2009. I'm not one of these guys who popped up like a year and a half ago because I got a marketing team around me and some copywriters and just appeared out of nowhere and I can create this identity as if I was something I'm not. I don't trust anyone who doesn't have internet history in what they're teaching.

Carl: 11:12

For sure, for sure, 100%. At some point along this journey too, you've made the transition or added to your stages podcasting as well. I consider a podcast to be a virtual stage. It's an opportunity for people to still get to know you. Maybe they can't connect with you on a physical stage, but hey, a podcast is a virtual platform. At what point did you make that jump to start guesting on podcasts, and what made you take that leap?

Brian: 11:39

Being on podcasts. I've been on podcasts and news networks for years, but more recently, this past year, we ended up finding Podmatch, which I know you probably have a oh, your link probably in your show notes and people should go check that out. But we ran across that and I thought, hey, why not just really go hard on that, especially for the days I'm not booked to speak flying around the country, and we can reach people that way and help? You know podcast hosts like yourself with, you know, a good professional guest appearance that's relevant and that their people might want. And so we found that and, yeah, that's been a great resource and that's how you and I connected.

Carl: 12:15

And you know what I keep saying that Alex needs to start paying me a royalty the number of times that I mentioned his name and the platform, Podmatch for the phenomenal things that it does and the connections that it makes. You're right we would not have connected today or it would have been a longer journey for us to connect if it hadn't been for PodMatch. So a very positive experience. A very positive experience getting on shows and using the PodMatch platform. Precarious experiences any shows without identifying who the show is. That jumped out at you and maybe made you think twice about getting on a podcast episode again. Anything weird happen as a guest that you want to share.

Brian: 12:52

Not really Honestly. Through that service I've had pretty good experiences. I think I've been on probably 60 podcasts in the past two to three months. Nice, about one a day, Monday through Friday, and my assistant she books all of them for me and helps with that, make sure that I'm in the right place at the right time when it comes time, but like right now. But no, I've had pretty stellar experiences, to be honest.

Carl: 13:14

And now you're recently started your own podcast. You're a few episodes in, about six episodes in. I think you said at the recording of this podcast How's that journey going for you and what led you to starting your own show.

Brian: 13:29

Yeah, Led me to host my own show, was talking to people like yourself. And afterwards, after so many of you, at the end we'd hit record off. They'd say, Brian, why don't you have your own? And it's more like I just haven't gotten around to it. I like the idea. It's like how much extra work is it really going to be All that? I decided just one day to just pull the trigger and I thought, all right.

Brian: 13:52

My biggest credibility with my story is overcoming really hard stuff in life resilience. That's what I've been speaking on for 17 years. So I thought why not just interview a bunch of people like me, people who've been through devastating life circumstances. They're willing to talk about it and then the lessons they learned that helped them get through it, and so that people who are listening, they can take those life lessons and apply them to themselves and the battle they're facing and hopefully do better.

Brian: 14:19

And my podcast is called Dear God, WTF, Because if you've ever been through something really hard in life, you've probably looked up at the sky, threw your hands in the air and say God, what the fuck? I mean everything's falling apart. And so it's called Dear God, WTF. And it's people from a wide variety of life experiences who've just been through the worst things you can imagine, and they've made it through when other people didn't, and so I talked to them and I asked them about their mentality and their circumstances and how they got through things. And it's incredible what I still learn from people with as much as I know about resilience and the study of it and living it. I learned something new every time, and it's sometimes you'll hear a hundred pieces of bad advice, but, man, that 101st piece was worth low crawling through all that muck of bad advice because that one thing that one person said, man, that was like the key you were looking for.

Carl: 15:15

So many great stories out there too, and and so many examples of how people have risen out of the ashes, as it were. You know been the rising Phoenix and I'm excited, so I'll make sure that that link gets shared in the show notes so people can definitely check out that. And congratulations on jumping on the podcast bandwagon. Thank you. Obviously you've been guesting and very successful at it. I'm blessed to have you as a fellow podcaster in our expanding community. Shall we say it's getting bigger. Everyone says podcasting is going away. I'm like, no, it isn't, it's not going anywhere. No, no, no, no, it's not going away.

Brian: 15:47

I'm like no, it isn't.

Carl: 15:48

It's not going anywhere, it's growing exponentially, especially with people like you, who have a very powerful story to share and want to bring to the fold the stories of other people, to empower audiences to do great things with their lives and share their own stories. I want to talk about this, though. You say there are three big things or three keys to sharing your story effectively and getting paid to do it. I think that's the main thing. There are a lot of people who want to be speakers, and a lot of people will spend their entire lives speaking for free, but they really want to be paid. What are some of those three keys, though? If they want to be paid to be a speaker?

Brian: 16:28

Yeah, well, I say it's problem, promote and present. Three Ps make it easy to remember Problem, promote, present. And we already touched on the first thing. Really, you need to position your story from a place of value so that when the right people hear it, they say we need that person. And the way you do that is you position your story as a solution to a problem that they know they have and they don't like it and they want it to go away. We had touched on that briefly and again.

Brian: 16:57

People who booked me to speak whether it's a small business, convention or association conference or Bank of America they are hiring me and they are willing to pay money to have me speak because I think I can. They think they think I can solve a problem or help them solve a problem. Okay, people pay money to solve problems. The other day I was at the store. I saw a KitKat right there and I love KitKats in the checkout aisle and I thought you know what? That's two bucks. So I grabbed it, threw it up on the belt, bought it. Kit Kat, that company, nestle, whoever makes it. They solved a problem. I wanted a Kit Kat and I didn't have one. That was the problem. So I exchanged money for the solution. I want that, Kit Kat, very simple, but it's the same exact thing I talked about speaking for the military. Same thing when I say, hey, I can help your soldiers and service members battle and be more successful in getting rid of a lot of the post traumatic stress after coming home. And I'm going to show them how I did it and my buddies have done it, and I wrote a book on it called redeployed.

Brian: 18:03

I'm literally speaking to a problem that is causing suicides and all kinds of issues within the military ranks. So I'm addressing a problem and the next thing you have to do is promote, meaning that's marketing. You have to go all right where are these groups of people? Once you decide the problem that you want to talk about which is usually a problem you've overcome yourself in a lot of cases list out groups of people and where are these groups? Who are these groups? Who's in charge of these groups? Approach them and just ask them if they deal with the problem. Don't ask them to book you. Like that's like going on a first date and proposing marriage. Like you just go in and say, hey, do your people deal with this? You ever deal with that Eventually they start going. Yeah, we deal with all this. Why do you ask, you know, or can you help us and go? As a matter of fact, I have a speech, I give you know, I have some training, and then the third piece is present no-transcript agency talent agency or are you doing this promotion yourself?

Brian: 19:30

The answer is yes, so you're doing both. Okay, so we've always done it in-house, through my office. But I am represented by a number of speakers bureaus at this point which for the first nine or 10 years I wasn't, and they don't even bring me the majority of my business, but they do bring me. Every now and then there's things that they bring me and they take a cut of it, but you know, I'm totally fine with that because they're bringing me business that I never would have had otherwise anyway and it's great.

Brian: 19:58

In addition to that, when other organizations want to book you and they say you're represented by people like Premier Speakers Bureau and All American Entertainment and all these other bureaus that are in the speaking industry very well known, that legitimate factor in the head goes okay, he's, okay, they get on there, they can see it, they can see the fees you get. That's the legitimacy in their mind. Because a meeting planner, their worst fear is booking a bad speaker, you're going to say something stupid, you're going to bore the audience, you're going to make them look bad and get them fired. So they're like I just want a good speaker who won't get me fired. Just don't bomb, please, for the love of God, with every speaker they hire.

Carl: 20:39

So you need to put their minds at ease. I do like, though, how you mentioned that for the first nine years you were doing this, you were not represented by a speaker's bureau, that you were doing this yourself, and even though you are represented by a speaker's bureau now, that's not the bulk of the income that you're getting from speaking, because I think there's this preconceived notion, especially for new speakers, that they need to have a bureau behind them and that the bureau only gives them so much leverage, but it's not the be all end all if you're looking to really get your story out there.

Brian: 21:07

Well, here's the thing about bureaus To get in, you kind of have to be in or kind of know somebody already.

Brian: 21:12

I got recommended by a Navy SEAL buddy of mine who I was I happened to be on a TV show with and I met him and he recommended me. speakers bureaus generally aren't very interested in you until you don't need them anymore, because what they want to do is say, oh, you're consistent, you've got bookings, hey, let us come alongside you, handle all the details so you can just show up and speak and do your thing and we'll do everything, all the work for you. And I love working with them. I have no problem giving 25% of a fee, because they also have existing longstanding clients they have history with, who often have bigger budgets that I would have had to work into. I mean, they're basically handing me free money if I'll just show up and not bomb so, and I developed those relationships and I do my best to maintain those. But they have thousands of people too, though, on the rosters. You know they're a business, they're looking to make money.

Carl: 22:05

Yeah for sure. Well, firstly, I want to take this opportunity to say congratulations on where this journey has taken you from traumatic experience life-altering to speaker and a journey within that to podcast guests, to podcast hosts. You're still out there every single day inspiring audiences. If someone listening to this right now wants to start a profitable side hustle sharing their story as a public speaker, what can you do to get them started right now?

Brian: 22:33

If you want to know how to share your story like I've done. Maybe you're just thinking I have no idea where to begin. Who even cares about my story, or would? Where do I even start? I have no idea. Go to useyourstory. com, because what I have there is a free resource called the free Share your Story Roadmap. This is a one-page PDF and about a 14-minute video accompanying it, and I'm'm gonna show you how to make your first $500 speaking in the next 30 days. If you will just do what it says, you will make $500 or more sharing your story in the next 30 days.

Brian: 23:06

Things are easy when you know how they're done. Things are hard when you don't know a process. I mentioned the $500 thing because, like I said earlier, if you can't be financially productive doing something you care about, you're passionate about, you're not going to be doing it very long. It's the grease on the machine that makes the world work. It's money, and so there's a lot of money in speaking, and I don't do it for the money. It's great to have it, though, but it's because it makes everything else possible. It's the tool, and so, yeah, go check out userstory. com, grab that free share your story roadmap, and I'll show you how to make a difference, and your first $500 speaking.

Carl: 23:41

That's a phenomenal offer. Thank you so much, Brian. We'll make sure that is in the show notes. The link to your new podcast We'll make sure that's there as well. And your social connections so people want to if they want to follow you and connect and learn more from you. All of that will be listed as well. We could probably spend the next hour and a half doing nothing but talking about story and strategy, which is probably a good reason to bring you back at some point, I think, to the show. But before I let you go to either get on another stage or share your story and change the lives of others, today I want to give you the opportunity to share the final thought.

Brian: 24:17

Our stories have the power to transform our world. People relate to stories, we relate to each other through stories, and your story has more power than you could ever possibly imagine, and your story matters.

Carl: 24:32

We'll leave it right there. Brian Fleming, thank you so much for being my guest today. Hey, thanks for having me and thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production Dom Carillo, our music guru, Nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, Stephanie Gafoor. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review, and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email askcarl@c arlspeaks. ca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes, and if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space because, after all, we're Podcast Solutions Made Simple. We'll catch you next time.