The Art of Time: Turning Passion Into Business with Christian Bruhn

In this conversation, Christian Bruhn shares his journey from a keg truck driver to a special operations soldier and then to an entrepreneur in the luxury watch industry. He discusses the challenges of transitioning from military life to civilian work, the motivation behind starting his own watch company, The Art of Time, and how his military experiences shaped his approach to entrepreneurship. Christian emphasizes the importance of discomfort, self-motivation, and the value of real human connections in a world increasingly influenced by AI. He also shares his future plans for live streaming and expanding his business.

www.growthmaverickspodcast.com
www.theartoftime.com
www.pentane.com

Chapters

00:00 From Military to Civilian Life: A Unique Journey
01:50 Embracing Discomfort: The Entrepreneurial Superpower
02:31 Introduction and Background
05:26 Military Journey and Transition
08:31 The Shift to Civilian Life
11:17 Starting a Watch Company
14:37 Challenges of Entrepreneurship
17:18 The Importance of Mentorship
21:12 Building the Art of Time
24:05 Future Plans and Live Streaming
27:22 The Role of AI in Entrepreneurship
30:05 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
42:16 PodClose.mp4

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Callinan

Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Adam Callinan (00:25)
Our conversation today is with Christian Bruhn. Christian started as a, you'll hear in the story, a keg truck delivery driver, ended up in the army, seven years of special operations in the 75th Ranger Regiment, going from life and death situations, working in and out of embassies, and then transitioning into the civilian sector. We spent a lot of time talking about this because not only I find it to be particularly interesting,

and I have access to it through Big Sky Bravery. So I see it a lot, but there is a lot to be learned from the type of structure and purpose that they have in the military that we have a tendency to lack in civilian and it makes things or at least can make things a lot more difficult than it needs to be, particularly when we get just buried into.

work in computers and keeping our heads down there. There is a cost for that. So, ⁓ spent a lot of time there. We get into how he uses entrepreneurship sort of as his new battlefield in his company. It's called the art of time. It's a really, really good example of taking something that you're truly passionate about and turning it into a business. And then that work doesn't really feel like work anymore, which is a, an amazing, beautiful thing. We spent a fair amount of time as well talking about discomfort.

as a superpower, obviously going through selection and the things that you have to do to operate at that level of special operations is fantastically difficult. And you're basically just trained and live in a space where discomfort is the norm. that translating into civilian as we get into entrepreneurship and dealing with these wild up and down swings that we have as entrepreneurs is an incredibly valuable tool. Obviously something we spend a fair amount of time talking about on the Growth Mavericks podcast.

Christian is a really, really good example of that, having gone through that transition over the course of the last few years. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Christian Bruhn.

Christian Bruhn (02:31)
Perfect.

Adam Callinan (02:32)
If something, you know, if there's anything that you want to change or cut out and we can edit whatever we want to add. mean, it's pretty.

Christian Bruhn (02:37)
Perfect. Sounds good. Sound, audio, everything

on my end is coming through well.

Adam Callinan (02:41)
Yeah, and at the end, I don't know if you've ever done a podcast on Riverside, but at the end, don't hang up. Like when we will do a close, like thanks so much, blah, blah, blah. And I'll hit stop recording. Don't hang up. Cause we have to, the way that Riverside works is that if you have an internet dropout or if I have an internet dropout, it's actually saving your video and audio on your computer and is, and is uploading it. And so at the end, there's oftentimes there's a little bit of a buffer where we have to just kind of sit here for a couple of minutes.

Christian Bruhn (03:05)
Okay, that makes

sense. I've never used Riverside, but I've used similar programs. That makes sense.

Adam Callinan (03:09)
Yeah,

yeah, it is good because I have had internet things and it's good to not know that or good to know that you didn't just like accidentally delete 10 minutes of a discussion.

Sweet. Christian, thanks for coming, Where from?

Christian Bruhn (03:24)
Yes. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me.

I am from the New Orleans area. Originally I grew up in Slidell, Louisiana, about 35 miles north of New Orleans.

Adam Callinan (03:35)
Amazing. Do live there your whole upbringing or do you move around a bit?

Christian Bruhn (03:38)
I did. I moved away.

I moved away from Louisiana at the age of 22. The first time I really moved away was for basic training. So I turned 23 at basic training, but up until then my entire upbringing was in South Louisiana.

Adam Callinan (03:52)
What prompted you, we're gonna talk about a lot of things, but I think if we follow the natural chronological timeline here, you went into the military, what prompted you or motivated you to do that?

Christian Bruhn (04:06)
At the time I joined the military, was 22. I was working as a keg truck driver for Anheuser-Busch out of Madisonville, Louisiana. And I just kind of looked around at the company. was a college dropout at that point in time and really just trying to figure out where I wanted to make my place. And I kind of had the sense looking around, it wasn't in South Louisiana. I took a trip with a friend to visit his mom in Oregon who had just moved out of state and really going over on the West coast, kind of opened my eyes to just...

There's more outside of South Louisiana, which was my primary upbringing. So with that being said, being a college dropout and looking at being a keg truck driver, you kind of start thinking, how do I put those stepping stones in place to get to where I want to be? Even though I don't really know what that answer is yet. So I went and took the ASVAB did relatively well and got a job as an intelligence analyst in the military and signed an option 40 contract to go become a ranger before I even knew what an option 40 was just kind of blindly, blindly signed it.

Adam Callinan (05:02)
Yeah.

Christian Bruhn (05:04)
And I think it all turned out kind of to be fate.

Adam Callinan (05:09)
Yeah, there's a lot in there. I don't know what an option 40 is either. So we're yeah, we're good. Although you obviously do not so you went so you went into the military Do you do you go? Straight into Ranger school or do you have to be in you obviously go through basic? I'm sure you go through some other training How does that work?

Christian Bruhn (05:26)
Yeah, so I was in a training pipeline, I believe for 10 months before I even made it to Ranger Regiment. And the last of that pipeline was RASP, Ranger Assessment Selection Program. And at first it was two months, two and a half months of basic training, four months of AIT at Fort Huachuca, three weeks of airborne school, and then holdover period before Ranger selection. And then actually the eight weeks of Ranger selection. And then I finally got to the unit.

in November 2015 after going to basic training in January 2015.

Adam Callinan (06:01)
got it so there was obviously there's a significant process to get to that point you know getting through Ranger selections not a joke and we're gonna talk about that later we're gonna come back to that you went so you went through and then you operated in Ranger regiment in 75th right you were you in 375 out of four

Christian Bruhn (06:09)
Exactly.

I was not, I make the joke, I was in every battalion except the line battalion. So I was in, I was in special troops battalion. I was in the MIB, the military intelligence battalion while they had it stood up. And I was in regimental headquarters for a bit. So I went everywhere in regiment except for a line battalion, the life of an Intel analyst.

Adam Callinan (06:40)
Amazing. Got it.

Yeah, okay, sweet. So you were there for six years, seven years? Just under seven years. And then you got out. What was it like transitioning from Ranger Regiment to civilian?

Christian Bruhn (06:50)
Just under seven years, correct? Yeah, I'd seven.

It was, it was different. ⁓ I look at the movie dog with Channing Tatum and there's a scene in the very beginning where he's working at subway after doing his whole deployment thing and just getting berated at subway. And a lot of it was like that where having left the military after seven years, the last positions I was filling were being special operations liaison and embassies overseas. So going from those types of roles responsibility to really

trying to make a foothold in the commercial world. And just because you don't have that background, that acumen of taking ownership the same way of something, ⁓ is a big thing is in the civilian world, there isn't that same rank file and structure that would be in the military. You wake up every day and someone is essentially dictating to you what you do or what you have to sign off on. And that was a big, part I struggled with in the civilian world was knowing what I have to do, but

finishing those tasks out relatively quickly and then just kind of having that, okay, what do I do now? I feel like I'm supposed to be doing nothing, but there's nothing going on. But also dealing with a lot of condescension when it's like, okay, I may be new here, but I'm not new in the professional world. So those two aspects of just not knowing what to do and what to focus on, but also, I don't know, just feeling like I was kind of put in the corner after doing some really awesome things.

It was hard. It was hard adjustment at first.

Adam Callinan (08:31)
Did you go, obviously we're gonna get into watches and your company, which I think is super, super interesting. So we'll get there. When you left the military, did you just go get a job? Like did you just go apply for jobs and end up somewhere?

Christian Bruhn (08:46)
I did. So when I was leaving the military, I went through the honor foundation, the special operations transition program and through the honor foundation. And I also, there's the three Rangers foundation, which is specific to the 75th Ranger regiment ⁓ run by former Sergeant Major Mike Hall. But he puts together a list of Ranger mentors and one of the old PLs in the military intelligence battalion I was working with, he was one of the human PLs.

saw my name on one of the lists and reached out. He was looking for a program manager job for Hawkeye 360, ⁓ which is a radio frequency geolocation satellite tech company here in Northern Virginia. So when he saw my name pop up on that list, he reached out to me and went through the interview process. He was the hiring manager, so it was really good to have him just from knowing him through regiment, but also kind of as a foothold into a civilian world.

So yeah, I did. went straight from Ranger Regiment to working for Hawkeye 360 and I was there for three years.

Adam Callinan (09:48)
That's epic. Yeah. Special shout out to the honor foundation with, you know, I have spoken a little bit offline that I do a lot of work with big sky bravery as a nonprofit here in Montana, where we take active duty, special operations guys. I, because I'm a guy take eyes. We also have female task forces. ⁓ there are women in the special operations community, as well as their spouses, the men's spouses. ⁓ we take them off into the back country in Montana for a week of decompression in between their deployments. And generally it's towards the end of their career. They're coming up at 20.

somewhere in that range. And one of the things we do on every task force is meet with the Honor Foundation. We have a sit down once a week with them and they do amazing work to help the men and women transition. So that's cool to hear that that did something positive for you. It's awesome.

Christian Bruhn (10:34)
Yeah, they absolutely do. I was, I attended the Honor Foundation right around the summer of 2021. So almost five years, a little over five or four years ago.

Adam Callinan (10:45)
Epic. So you went into Hawkeye, you were there for a little bit, and then you woke up one day and you're like, I love watches. I'm going to start a watch company. I'm sure it wasn't quite like that, but.

Christian Bruhn (10:54)
It honestly kind of was a little bit like that. And it was going back to that same sentiment where I just felt like I wasn't doing enough. And a lot of these deployments where we would go, especially in some of these compounds, you live, sleep, work, work out, eat everything in the same, the same fence area. So there's a lot of

Adam Callinan (10:56)
Really?

Christian Bruhn (11:17)
you're always on the clock to an extent. Even when you're not on the clock, you're still always around your coworkers in these environments. So you still always have to be on to an extent. So going and working remotely, which was also a new thing for me, having made a career in a skiff, now going into a remote environment ⁓ where, yeah, just, the uncertainty for me just ate me up. I like uncertainty, but I like uncertainty I'm in control of, not uncertainty that I'm kind of waiting and trying to figure things out. ⁓

But what happened is with the amount of time I had, was like, okay, while I was coming up through my last few deployments, I was wearing my G shock and all of these three letter agencies, these embassies very quickly. found out I did not blend in in that environment with the G shock. Um, so I started just browsing online, seeing Omega's Rolexes and just the prices are, everyone knows the price of the luxury watch is just insane, especially for an E six on what was it? Like a 50,000, $60,000 a year salary.

It was just like, okay, I'm going to go buy an Invicta and cringe about it 10 years later, which is what I ended up doing. but I realized the G shock wasn't cutting it. So I started getting into the hobby of luxury watches. Just as I had to put in suit and tie on, I had to elevate myself to a suit and tie wrist piece. And once I got out of the military and had all that free time, I started really just kind of wanting to go past the browsing side of it and to be like, okay,

I'm starting to see all these watch dealers with this inventory that they get to wear, but also sell. How can I make a way where I can have these pieces on me that I can wear if I wanted to, but also make money owning them? And that's really when I found ⁓ it was, it's a program, Watch Trading Academy that teaches people how to trade watches and make a business out of it. And that is where I got the start. And I did that for roughly a year. And right before I left Hawkeye, I actually started making more doing watches than I was with my Hawkeye salary.

So a little bit of divine intervention. ⁓ I was starting to get on the fence where I'm like, I just don't know if this civilian, like program management role is really what I need. Or if I want to go try to pursue my own thing, which is what I felt my calling for. And then there was really a notice from the company where instead of working in the office nine to five, or I'm sorry, working remote nine to five, there had to be a more in-person presence, which having a clearance going into the skiff can't bring any personal devices or really any outside communication.

So what I've been building with this watch company over the year would have just absolutely been wrecked. ⁓ So it kind of was a little bit of, okay, either you're gonna bet on yourself to be a career nine to five program manager, or you're gonna bet on yourself to go get some skin in the game and see if you can make your own company. So that was really the forcing factor, a little bit of divine intervention, but it was kind of a no brainer for me of either betting on myself or doubling down on a nine to five.

Adam Callinan (14:09)
So a skiff for the, I know what a skiff is. I have been in a skiff, which is a very interesting experience. Will you explain what a skiff is? Because you've said that now, you've said it a couple of times and I guarantee you most listeners don't know what that means.

Christian Bruhn (14:16)
Yes.

Skiff,

S-C-I-F, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. It is where classified conversations happen. It is where, when you walk through it, it's a vault. So imagine you walk into an office and then there's really, it looks like a bank vault. Yeah, a secret door with a bank vault. Sometimes you have a whole handprint you put on it. Sometimes it's a fingerprint. Most of the time it's just a badge you flash. But there is a level of security that

Adam Callinan (14:37)
Like a secret door.

Christian Bruhn (14:51)
You can't just walk in there, you have to be approved. But part of that is there's a box outside where you're not allowed to bring in any type of electronic devices because those devices can pick up conversations that aren't supposed to be heard. can, a variety of reasons why you can't bring in your own phones or headphones or thumb drives and stuff into the classified facilities. But that's what a skiff is in a nutshell, is it's a classified facility that all stuff from the outside world stays out.

and all work being developed in, it just kind of thrives in.

Adam Callinan (15:24)
You mentioned something a few minutes ago that was basically, I'm gonna paraphrase, but I wanna dig into a little bit. You had the option, you basically came to a fork in the road. Taking one direction meant lack of control, working a nine to five where you don't get to control your own outcome, or at least have the capacity to control your own outcome.

And that played, it sounds like that played back into your military, heavily into your military career. The alternative to that is you take this big, significantly greater risk and take that step off the cliff, but you get to control your destiny. Was it, know, that being the fork in the road, like was it really that cut and dry for you? It was either like control your destiny or don't start a company.

Christian Bruhn (16:18)
Yeah, but there was also one other aspect of there and that's having your back put against the wall. So there is that lack of security. ⁓ But it was also I didn't feel like I was being challenged. I just at that point in my life, I didn't feel like there was really physically, mentally like there's just so many challenges that come with rising through the ranks of the special operations community. So one thing is I just felt like I hadn't been challenged in a very long time. I didn't feel like I had my back.

put against the wall and I had to fight my way out essentially. I knew taking away that stability and really putting myself in a situation where everything was on my shoulders. It was something I wanted. It was something I hadn't felt in a long time and I was nervous about it but every time I had had that feeling before was while you're sitting and hold over at rasp and you're seeing all these guys fail, all these guys drop out and you start getting that self doubt but it's really just that confidence to be able to step in and start and then figure it out once you start.

and things typically work out when you put all your effort in towards it. So that was kind of my thinking is really just looking back, like, you know, I'm, don't know where I'm supposed to be. I don't know what's supposed to happen. I just know what I'm currently doing is not it. And I know I haven't had that feeling of having my back against the wall and I just need to really become a better version of myself to fight towards something bigger. And yeah, I mean, it's a luxury watch company, the art of time, whether that's something bigger or not.

It's a watch company. So what I look at it is I look at this as my way to get reps in to have that bigger company later on. So this is really my entry company. But yeah, that that that was a lot of factors into taking that leap.

Adam Callinan (18:02)
I think of times of life, this is like a book I'm gonna write someday. I think of times of life in very defined chapters. And I deeply believe, and you're effectively explaining this right now in much more eloquently, I deeply believe that it's the combination of all the things that you do and expose yourself to that give you the ability to.

you know, maybe at some later date, combine those things together into something bigger, better, greater, whatever that is for you. That doesn't need to be a huge company or a small company or more money or less money. It's just however you define that for yourself. But looking at, you look at those things as individual chapters, for me, it makes it easier to like close out a period of time and move on to the next chapter. And that'd be like a defining thing.

Christian Bruhn (18:49)
It does. And especially when you start thinking about it, I hate the phrase art or life imitates art. Like I hate it. I think it's lazy because I don't think you should limit it to just art. I think life imitates life and a lot of those different chapters, you can pull experiences. And even though they don't directly relate, there's a lot of parallels there you can pull from to build off lessons even in an environment you haven't been in before. And I do agree with that a lot where life looks like a lot of chapters and the more you open

open you are to exploring those new chapters, I think the better life you'll have.

Adam Callinan (19:24)
Agreed. So explain, you you went through, obviously the transition to timepieces is super interesting. Your startup journey is like the trim. mean, virtually all startup journeys, right? You solved your own problem. How did you get like, what is the art of time do? How did you convert that love for watches and buying and selling them? How did you transition that into?

I hesitate to say legitimate business, if you can buy something and sell it, that's legitimate. But how did you create that into a company that other people wanted to take advantage of?

Christian Bruhn (20:03)
Great

question.

So at first it started off very small. It was just finding a single watch I can buy, purchase, and then go make a profit on it. Whether it's eBay, you just learn the market. You learn what watches are selling for, and you see listings where they're significantly under, and you just take those listings off and sell it for market value. You hear a lot of negative connotation about flippers in the industry and just luxury industry as a whole, but hey, that's hustling.

And that's how I started off is seeing an opportunity to acquire an asset and then make money off that asset. And then from there, once you start making money, you get one watch, you get two watch, you get three watches. You start getting a little bit more comfortable to where you can also open up a business credit card and you buy a watch off eBay with that business credit card. And before the end of the month comes up, you go, sell that watch and you keep the difference and pay the card off. So you start using a business card as a loan mechanism, essentially.

It started getting to the point where, yeah, I got into the months where I was a hundred thousand sales a month, $10,000 a month profit. And that's really now the very minimum of what I look to do. But from there, you start actually talking to a lot of customers, a lot of clients, and you realize that there aren't a lot of options for people to learn how to buy, learn how to sell, learn how to value.

And there's a lot of people like myself growing it because the luxury watch market is growing, especially the secondary market. is growing. So there are more people like myself popping up. And with that comes a lot more confusion, a lot more people telling you what you should do, what you shouldn't do. Well, what everybody's saying you should or shouldn't do is you should sell me your watch and like, okay, well, I'm going to be the dealer who's going to tell you, I don't want to sell your watch. I want you to sell your watch. ⁓ But what comes with that is I will help people by providing a service of

Okay, you might now have a collection of 10 watches, 20 watches. You can't sell your watch on your own because it just takes way too much time. So I've developed a system where I can go to people with large collections and manage and help them either move in or out of pieces to optimize their collection, both from a value of what they would enjoy wearing, but also a financial aspect of it because watches are an asset. They're a precious metal with a tangible value. ⁓

transcends borders, it transcends everything. It's a car you can ship in the mail. And that's what I tell people. It's a car with no paperwork you can ship in the mail and fly across country ⁓ instantly. So it is a tangible asset. And there is a right and wrong way to buy and really kind of educating people on how to not get gouged by dealers who are only looking to make money by that flipping model, but also not having my clients feel like they're pigeonholed to where they can't move in or out of a piece because they don't want to

get burned in the long run.

Adam Callinan (23:39)
How long have you been operating this company? Like as a formal company?

Christian Bruhn (23:45)
As a formal company going at February will make three years and I'm counting that date hard. So I'm trying to get a DOD skill bridge intern and already I applied at two years hoping it would slip through and I got denied. So I'm waiting for that three years. So three years in February.

Adam Callinan (23:59)
You're

trying to set up an internship with SkillBridge to take on an intern? Epic, epic.

Christian Bruhn (24:05)
Correct, Yep,

I wanna, because there's not a lot of entrepreneurship transition and jobs from, I remember looking, I was looking at individual roles. When I was transitioning, I would have much rather gone under and entrepreneur trying to build a company versus going to an Amazon and sitting at the desk. So I see is what I'm trying to offer to SkillBridge is, hey, if this works, I'll keep you on, but there's also a way you can make money here on your.

because from an E6 salary, I know I did it. ⁓ So I do see a lot of value in the SkillBridge way of people transitioning who want to go that entrepreneurial route. Like I would love to bring them in and have them help me with the company while I'm in these early growing stages.

Adam Callinan (24:54)
Yeah, we see very, we see that very much on the same page, very eye to eye on my first big Sabre every task force. This is two and a half years ago. One of the guys that was a recipient was a 20 year air force. He was a tack P and a J tack, and then did some other stuff. Some other stuff. Um, I'll leave it at that. They, he was on the podcast actually his name is Lauren Bell. Uh, he had that exact experience. He was

went through the honor foundation, was looking at job opportunities and it was, you know, analysts at JP Morgan, like really good jobs for most people, but not for somebody that's been, you know, out in the field doing the things that, that you all do. ⁓ and so we set up a scope bridge and he came on and interned with me at Pentane, ⁓ and is now two and a half years later, head of operations. And that's a really cool, it's a really cool experience.

Christian Bruhn (25:43)
Well,

that's incredible because that's exactly the same type of path I'm hoping to do. ⁓ Yeah, I see a lot of benefit to that. There's so many skills that you learn in the special operations community that translate more to entrepreneurship than at nine to five at a desk.

Adam Callinan (26:01)
I've always thought that I've

always believed that because I see it just purely. mean, I've said I maybe it's not obvious. I did not serve, but I have been an entrepreneur for a long time and I know. You know, this is this is actually a great transition into sort of the second part of this conversation. I know from experience as an entrepreneur that the insane ups and downs that go with entrepreneurship are they're not remotely on the same.

wavelength, but they're not entirely dissimilar from the insane, you know, like the next level insanity that comes with being out in the field and doing again, the things that you all do and military and in special operations in particular, you know, a lot of times the guys are out by themselves doing these insane things. Taking and being able to leverage that experience into entrepreneurship, I think is a really interesting.

I think it's a really interesting topic to spend a lot of time talking about because if we can help, this is part of what the growth Mavericks podcast is entirely about. like, we can help entrepreneurs understand what difficulties and help them to understand things that they can do and implement into their life to sort of rep reset the perspective on what hard is. I think that we can help entrepreneurs get to the point of that first, you know,

unexpected inflection point that takes their company from zero to 60 and then from 60 to 120. Does that make sense? And I that's why I like these conversations. I think that there's so much to be garnered from that. So can you from your experience in the military and now transitioning that to entrepreneurship? How do you how do you think about that?

Christian Bruhn (27:28)
It does. It does.

I would say any anyone in the military who's lived in the barracks, you you wake up on a Saturday morning, you're sleeping in the barracks. It's probably the first day of the week. You don't have to wake up early for PT or have anybody dictating what you're doing until you go to bed. Well, in entrepreneurship, you got to wake up and motivate yourself to do that. ⁓ And that has been the hardest part for me. It's really that internal look of.

never feel like you're doing enough, seeing all of the holes in your day that you could make better and how to make the most of it, but also having that vision of, and that self-motivation of working towards a bigger purpose and trying to have that goal at the forefront because it's hard and it's not hard from a technical standpoint. It's not hard from a day to day. It's, guess a good metaphor would be Ranger school. I was at Ranger school, think,

four months, five months, day to day, like I could go do one day arranger school, easy. Four or five months, it sucks, it's hard. And it's like, entrepreneurship's the same. It's like, you can sit down at the desk, you can work. But when you don't have a team and everything's on you, it's that saying, no one's coming to save you. You really learn how to take ownership of stuff. Because even when you try to outsource, you'll learn that outsourcing.

people aren't going to have the same vision or the same ⁓ competence that you would have. So even when you outsource, you still have to take ownership and a lot of times get on top of it. There isn't that same feeling that special operations, you, if you do, there's a time and place to slack off. Everyone does it, but here it's when you slack off, there's no one else beside you. And that's the hardest part is realizing that you can't slack off. Cause as soon as you pull,

that pedal off, that all momentum just stops. ⁓ So self-motivation and realizing what's hard, and it doesn't take a lot to realize what's hard. It's like, okay, I wanna sit on the couch. Nope, go sit in your office. That internal debate is hard. And so it's like, it's not just hard as far as the problem you're solving, but that internal mechanism of forcing yourself to do things that just aren't comfortable.

Adam Callinan (30:05)
How do you leverage, so let's talk about uncomfortable. Explain selection. Obviously you don't need to go into detail. I'm sure a lot of the stuff you can't talk about, but for the listener that isn't military savvy as you are, what is selection?

Christian Bruhn (30:20)
Yeah, so Ranger Selection, Ranger Assessment Selection Program, it's eight weeks long. ⁓ The first four weeks are primarily physically intense and very, very, very hard. The last eight weeks is more training, competence, learning how to shoot, learning some skills that you can bring to the unit. But those first four weeks is a lot of just weeding the people out before you get to that specialized training.

The first week, it sucks. It just absolutely sucks. it's your, I mean, you're waking up, you're running five, six miles at a pace that you've never ran in your life. There were several times I tried to, I could never quit. That is one thing. I can't quit, but I'm, okay with failing. And I think that sentiment, now that I say that out loud, may have transferred over to entrepreneurship as well. But it's like, I, I could never just raise my hand and say I quit. But on some of these runs,

my God, I was damn sure holding my breath hoping I would pass out just so I can have the excuse to quit. But it's like, I can never raise my hand, but I could have that external factor forcing me to fail and I'd be okay with it. So I guess that's a great way to put week one is you stay in because of peer pressure to a large extent. If you quit, you quit and you've been working eight months to get to this point. So

What are you quitting for? And week one is really just trying to break people off. Week two is, I guess I would call it the equivalent Navy seal hell week. Everyone has heard of hell week on buds, but in ranger assessment selection program and rasp, it's coal range where you go out, um, into the feet, into the field at Fort Benning and you're, I mean, little to no sleep for, I believe probably like three, four days straight. It's a 12 mile March or 12 mile rock march to get there.

land navigation. mean, the dumbest things like the dumbest things like some of the mental toughness games would be like, okay, guys, you have 60 seconds to dump out your bag. Great. Everyone achieved it. Okay, that was too easy. You have 50 seconds to dump out your bag. that was too easy. Get down to where it's one second and no one can do it because it's just physically not possible. But then you get punished for it. So it's just that kind of

challenge where you're purposely being tested to fail. Like they are giving you time hacks to accomplish things that flash himself couldn't do. And it's all because they are just looking at there. They're looking to break you down so they can build you up. But that building up does not happen then. So they're just breaking you down, breaking you down, breaking you down. then after week two is when they kind of start building you up a little bit, just so your body can physically recover from the first two weeks.

But there's still a lot of physical intensity. can't really ever just relax because you could be going to sleep and in five minutes, there's somebody walking through your Bay with a metal spoon and a pot in the middle of the night, waking everybody up to go on a run that no one expected. I mean, there's just, you never know. You never know. So a lot of it's uncertainty. A lot of it's being broken off, but then after that broken off point, it's learning, okay, now it's time to give these guys technical skills that they can actually take to the field.

And that's kind of an eight week long course in a nutshell, I guess.

Adam Callinan (33:52)
So it sounds like a lot of it is built around just wild discomfort. It's just, yeah. So.

Christian Bruhn (33:59)
Yeah, all of it.

Adam Callinan (34:04)
My general position, and I learned this the hard way, and was at a point in my entrepreneurial journey where everything was going great externally and nothing was going great internally, and I had to make some significant changes in my life to get through that. And a big part of how I did that is I implemented some things that allowed me to get really comfortable being uncomfortable. And I did that by doing hard stuff, by doing like ultra,

high altitude trail runs and solo backcountry archery hunts, dragging things out of the woods for miles by myself. Like those things reset that perspective for me. And so I seek those things out now intentionally. So much of your training, sounds like is built, at least that early training stuff is built around entirely around getting you comfortable being uncomfortable, which you yourself said a couple of minutes ago, which is, you know, even just as part of being an entrepreneur.

Christian Bruhn (35:02)
Yeah, and it's

It's, it's a funny world because there's so much discomfort and I would say uncertainty and no stability, just not just through that program, but through your entire career. I don't know if there was ever six months where I spent like lived anywhere longer than six months at a time for almost seven years. So you crave that comfort. You crave that.

stability when you're coming out, but as soon as you get it, you feel like a fish out of water. And it's like, for me personally, like I got comfortable. I gained a bunch of weight. had to work off. I stopped working out going well. Part of that was coinciding with exiting the same time as COVID and just totally wrecked any healthy habits I had. ⁓ but I agree. And I'm, I'm just now to the point where I have a trainer, I go to the gym and the only reason I have him is cause he pushes me harder than I would push myself.

that exact point where it's like, okay, I'm realizing now I do need that external factor to push me harder than I can push myself. Because everything I've ever done that I've been really proud of has been because there's been somebody there really forcing me to go further than I think I can go myself.

Adam Callinan (36:18)
Yeah, there's, we have a lot of discussion around mentorship and obviously that you can apply mentorship in a lot of different ways, including in the gym. know, I certainly have my own list of, of that country mentors and, things like that. People that push me way harder than to your point that I'm ever going to push myself. I think that's probably relatively normal. So what's next for, for you and for the art of time.

Christian Bruhn (36:42)
Yeah, so right now live streaming is next. I did my first live stream on Friday, but I see that as the future. I know you mentioned ⁓ earlier about AI and some of the challenges with AI, but I see live streaming. It's already big in Asia. It's big in a lot of other places, except for the U S you see platforms like eBay or ⁓ trying to implement it. You see YouTube live, you go check it out.

If you go look up luxury watches on YouTube live right now, you know it'll probably show up some motor home channel. There's absolutely not, it's just green. So for me right now is live streaming. I started my YouTube channel three months ago. It's steadily growing, but it's trying to not just be that service provider, as I mentioned earlier, but really that great sourcing mechanism. And what I mean by that great sourcing mechanism is if you're in the market for a watch,

Adam Callinan (37:15)
You

Christian Bruhn (37:37)
You're like, okay, you start looking up best first watch to buy what, okay, I come across Christian Bruhn's content. this guy looks like he knows something and he can go buy me a watch. I wanna be one of these best watch sorcerers, not necessarily in my inventory, but you come to me saying, hey, I want this and I go find it at a price that makes sense and is a good value. So creating this live stream, creating this YouTube channel, doing podcasts like this.

is really what's next for me is trying to put myself out there so that I can have more clients and potential clients realize, hey, I don't have to go to the AD anymore and just get absolutely screwed and walk out of the AD with a depreciating car on my wrist as soon as it drives off the lot. I can go look at pieces that are honestly in incredible shape. Most of them you couldn't even tell they aren't new, but it's already gone through 40 % depreciation. So you can really save your investment because things happen.

things happen, people have to sell a watch for all kinds of reasons. Like a lot of people will say you should only buy a watch to wear it. I agree. But if all of a sudden you find yourself in a hardship and you have to sell it, you don't want to be, be the one eating the depreciation. So for me, what's next for the art of time is continuing this big push on media, really getting reps in to become more prominent with live streaming and live selling, but hopefully doing it effectively to where it brings more clients in because they feel comfortable with me and the value they're getting and the watch I can either.

help them source, acquire, or the collection I can help them sell.

Adam Callinan (39:08)
Yeah, well, what you're referring to that makes a ton of sense what you're referring to earlier. I think maybe before I hit record, we were talking about the purpose of the podcast and part of it being obviously entrepreneurship and talking about the hard things and building resilience and durability that are important to make it through. But also because in the world of AI and I love AI, I use it a lot. I can do insane things with AI that I couldn't do a month ago or six months ago or certainly a year ago. But I do firmly believe that with AI content.

that we as humans will continue to sort of knee-jerk back to human and being able to see human real people interacting and hearing real people interacting is tremendously valuable.

Christian Bruhn (39:46)
Yeah, I think we're, I

think we're starting to get to the beginning of the end of the AI, um, social media world. And I only say that because there's no level to barrier anymore. Anybody can go higher $10 a month and have the same Clipper put brain rot in 200 different places. And if all of a sudden every person on earth has put in 200 pieces of brain rot online every day,

Adam Callinan (39:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a race to the bottom. Yeah.

Christian Bruhn (40:16)
It's a race to

the bottom. So real conversations with real people is the only thing that's sustained history of time and it will sustain AI. So I do agree wholeheartedly that conversations like this formats like this are going to be more important than ever. But I also look at it to where you said AI allows you to do so many more things. I think, and I'm a living, breathing representative of this. think AI is going to allow more people to be entrepreneurs.

⁓ and when more people are trying to be entrepreneurs and trying to get through that online brain rock cloud, they're going to look for these types of platforms to come and market themselves on because people look at it as real. So that that's really where I see AI is a great tool, but real faces, real conversations, real voices, real human connection, being the differentiator and brands for years to come.

Adam Callinan (41:12)
We're on the same page there. Where do you want people to find you to find the art of time? We'll make sure all the stuff gets in the show notes, but tell people where to find you.

Christian Bruhn (41:22)
So my website, www.theartoftime.com on YouTube and Instagram, I am at the Art of Time HQ. Those two places should be all you need, but if you go on Google and look up the Art of Time, I have my Google business page set up. You can submit a form, whether it be for me to sell to source, but you can find me really on all platforms. You couldn't find me when I was in the military, so that was also a big challenge of trying to get comfortable putting myself out there, but you should be able to find me now.

So.

Adam Callinan (41:52)
Yeah, I think that kind of goes with the whole special operations thing. Epic. Yeah, the polar opposite. Awesome. This has been super fun, Christian. I really appreciate you taking the time. And first and foremost, thank you for your service. Deeply appreciate it.

Christian Bruhn (41:55)
Yeah, I went from a skiff to now hoping everybody can find me everywhere. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you, Adam, and thank

you for the time and having me on.

Adam Callinan (42:12)
Absolutely.