{"id":23335,"date":"2021-03-24T15:48:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T22:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/sometimes-you-have-to-burn-the-ships-brian-underwoods-journey\/"},"modified":"2021-03-26T11:11:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T18:11:52","slug":"sometimes-you-have-to-burn-the-ships-brian-underwoods-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/sometimes-you-have-to-burn-the-ships-brian-underwoods-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSometimes You Have to Burn the Ships\u201d – Brian Underwood\u2019s Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can find all types of people calling themselves \u201cinfluencers\u201d these days.\u00a0 Some may have a large following. Some may hold up stacks of cash to get your attention. But few have experienced the climb from the starting line to a billion-dollar company. To say that Brian Underwood is not the typical influencer is an understatement. He\u2019s the co-founder and CEO of <\/span>Pr\u00fcvit, a category leader creating exogenous ketone technology for people seeking a healthier lifestyle. He\u2019s also no stranger to setting a massive goal for himself and then achieving it.\u00a0 After his meteoric rise and 5 years into running his company,, Brian shared some details about his journey with us, and it’s a must-read for any would-be entrepreneur aspiring for similar success. And that\u2019s not because of the end result – it\u2019s because of the insights of what was necessary to reach such tremendous heights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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What fuels a dream and gives you the means to manifest it into reality? The answer to that varies from person to person. For Brian, it came down to self-reliance. He began like most of us – a kid with a dream of succeeding at the highest levels. But as he would come to learn, experiencing adversity and challenges, and seeing yourself overcome them, is paramount.\u00a0 \u201cEveryone has obstacles that they experience in their life\u201d Brian says. \u201cSome of the most successful people I\u2019ve met have come from nothing and they needed to find a way to survive. Most of us are twice as strong as we know, but sometimes we\u2019re not put in environments that test us in a way that challenges us to find out what we\u2019re capable of.\u201d As a child growing up in Kentucky, Brian was surrounded by love and support from his parents. And while that\u2019s certainly a positive, when he reflected on that childhood, he realized that he wasn\u2019t always pushed to carry his own weight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cMy parents were always there as a backup plan and a crutch, even though that wasn\u2019t their intent.\u201d Brian says. \u201cThey taught me the foundations of success, but sometimes you need to go out there and get a bloody nose and a black eye. You have to stumble and fall, because that\u2019s where you gain all your strength.\u201d Brian\u2019s proverbial bloody nose and black eyes would certainly come, and they would come multiple times. His first two companies didn\u2019t reach the heights that he wanted. But he remained unfettered and singularly focused on creating massive success for himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Brian realized that his parental safety net was more of a hindrance than an asset that he was able to take himself to the next level. \u201cFor much of my life, my dad was my fallback plan. He would always bail me out.\u201d Brian reflects. \u201cI always had this safety net behind me, and I didn\u2019t become who I wanted to be until that was gone.\u201d He and his father were always close, talking multiple times per week throughout college and his early adulthood. But as Brian began to understand the direction that his life needed to take, his father didn\u2019t agree. This ultimately led to an argument that would end in the pair not speaking to each other for nearly two years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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During that time, Brian\u2019s commitment to his dreams were put to the test. Without his \u201csafety net,\u201d he initially struggled. He lost his car, nearly all of his money and had to piece together short-term living arrangements. And while this was certainly the struggle of his life, in retrospect, that experience is what gave him the strength he needed to manifest his goals. When Brian thinks about this time in his life, he does so with a valued reverence. \u201cThat time is when I truly went from a boy to a man.\u201d he says. \u201cI learned how to figure it out and carry my own weight and that strength gave me momentum to carry on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The coming years would not only see Brian go from an untested dreamer to a seasoned CEO – he would also reestablish his relationship with his father, now stronger than before with the benefit of his journey of discovery. <\/span>While he is immensely proud of the business that he has built and the $1 billion+ it has generated, he seems to gleen ever more satisfaction in his daily pursuit of educating and inspiring other entrepreneurs, whether they are within his company or part of his social following.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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For all our readers, especially those who are deep in the midst of their struggle to achieve their goals, we\u2019d urge you to remember Brian\u2019s story, and especially this sentiment: \u201cOnce you\u2019ve won, once you\u2019ve survived, no matter what happens, nobody can take that from you. No one can take away what you\u2019ve overcome to become. Sometimes you have to burn the ships for your own mental fortitude and to see how strong you are. When your back is against the wall, sometimes that\u2019s when the best of you will come out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To connect with Brian Underwood on Instagram, follow @brianundy and tune into his podcast \u201cBe You With BU.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can find all types of people calling themselves \u201cinfluencers\u201d these days.\u00a0 Some may have a large following. Some may hold up stacks of cash to get your attention. But few have experienced the climb from the starting line to a billion-dollar company. To say that Brian Underwood is not the typical influencer is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":23334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[777],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"alm-thumbnail":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-850x560.jpg",850,560,true],"digiqole-medium":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-600x398.jpg",600,398,true],"digiqole-small":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-455x300.jpg",455,300,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Brianunderwood-a4f3d1fe-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jason Steinberg","author_link":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/author\/jasoneyefuelpr-nyc\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"You can find all types of people calling themselves \u201cinfluencers\u201d these days.\u00a0 Some may have a large following. Some may hold up stacks of cash to get your attention. But few have experienced the climb from the starting line to a billion-dollar company. To say that Brian Underwood is not the typical influencer is an…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soinfluential.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}