Ep. 013: Bryan Todd and the 200 Resumes That Went Nowhere
Mar 20, 2026
Ep. 013: Bryan Todd and the 200 Resumes That Went Nowhere
Bryan Todd sent over 200 resumes after getting laid off. He made it to the final round on three of them. A VP pulled him aside and told him straight: "You're fantastic. The problem is you are aged."
He was 45. His family had just relocated to Arkansas. And the job market had let him know it was done with him.
Bryan Todd is an Army veteran who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, built a career through retail, drones, and corporate cybersecurity, then got shown the door six months after moving his family to a new state. The rejection rate wasn't about his work. It was about the number next to his name on an application.
What followed wasn't a comeback in the inspirational sense. It was a disciplined, methodical pivot. Bryan spotted a gap in the home inspection market that nobody else was chasing. He bought training from one of the top inspectors on the East Coast, and studied 8 to 10 hours a day for four to six weeks while unemployed. He launched Unified Inspection Services. Watched the summer market drop. Pivoted to car sales, moved 14 units in four weeks, and came back to inspection when the realtors who had overlooked him started calling. This is what it looks like when military discipline meets a broken-open moment.
What You'll Learn:
- Why the VP's blunt "you are aged" wasn't demoralizing. Bryan used that feedback to stop chasing the wrong door and redirect toward a market gap nobody else was looking at
- The After Action Review framework Bryan borrowed from his Army days and turned into a business system, including blind realtor surveys asking "what could I have done better?" that consistently moved the needle
- Abundance thinking in a down market: what happens when you start referring work to competitors you trust instead of hoarding it in scarcity mode
- What studying 8 to 10 hours a day while unemployed actually produces. Bryan applied that same intensity to move 14 cars in four weeks when the inspection market dropped
- E-Myth's three sides of business, and why most new owners skip the one that determines whether they scale or stall out entirely
About Bryan Todd:
Bryan Todd is an Army veteran and founder of Unified Inspection Services in Arkansas. He deployed twice overseas before building a career in corporate cybersecurity, and was laid off at 45. He now runs a home inspection business built on military-grade systems, feedback loops, and an abundance mindset that has held through two market shifts and counting.
This episode lives in the Discipline pillar of The Reforged framework. Discipline isn't willpower. It's the system you build so willpower doesn't have to carry the weight when pressure shows up.
Bryan's response to 200 rejections wasn't a spark of motivation. He found the gap, bought the course, and put in 8 to 10 hours a day until he was ready to launch. When the inspection market dropped, he applied the same system to a different problem and moved 14 units in four weeks. The machine worked because he had built it rep by rep, not because things broke his way.
You don't need a better attitude. You need a better process.
The 5-Day Reforge Challenge was built to give you exactly that. Five days of structure, one deliberate move at a time, to get the machine started.
Join the next LIVE Reforge Challenge →
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