0:00 [Music] who are you and where are you going [Music] what do you want for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life [Music] on the way to wow show together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness
0:36 on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel to this week's edition of the way to wow show i don't know about you but when i think of someone who's got life figured out i think of someone who's taken a few laps around the track but today's guest brian feminella is not even out of college yet and while they always say promise a little and over deliver i think he's going to knock your socks off
1:11 but first we're gonna go have a cocktail [Music] ladies and gentlemen our bartender today on the way to wow show is lord charles blaine adams iii now i have to admit i have never had the aristocracy serve me cocktails but i have a feeling that blaine is going to live up to every bit
1:46 of that glorious name so among his many many accomplishments which is having been a bartender for more years than i can or than he could admit to and uh having worked in bars from the divis dives to crustacean in beverly hills which is quite a place i will say he's also the brand rep for whistle pig both here in california and in new mexico and you just look at the way the man is dressed and and you know they say if someone has
2:22 to say that he's classy he's not but i can say it for you this is class the tweeds are are beautiful thank you thank you so what are you gonna mix up for us today on the way to wow show well the one kind of my philosophy as a bartender is i want to make drinks that are not only delicious but they're simple and if it's so easy that you can make it then you have no excuse not to oh okay so i'm doing a riff on a classic cocktail called a black manhattan so we'll call this the other manhattan and it's a very simple three ingredient cocktail we're going to start off by getting some
2:57 ice in our glass because that is just like the beginning of everything and so i'll be using the whistle pig 10-year rye this is kind of the flagship of our company it's a very high rye mash bill almost 100 percent aged 10 years old new american oat casks okay and you're going to do a full two ounces of that bad boy and i like the high proof and the age statement on this whiskey for a cocktail like this because when you have that higher proof you have a higher concentration of flavor so that means as we dilute this with ice you're going to get a lot more
3:32 character and flavor from your drink and it's going to you know resound in your mouth a little bit longer which is what we all want great and then we're doing some amaro abano here and traditionally a black manhattan will always have a verna but i like to mix it up because it's kind of a you know choose your own way um you know kind of play by the numbers paint by the numbers if you will and so um you're gonna do one ounce of that and then you're gonna do two dashes of your classic anguster bitters okay and then after that we get to stir and this is when you know
4:07 i get to stand here and regale you with whatever stories we're feeling or whatever you're doing there you go you can tell us about being a laird right yeah well you know it's uh it's a little bit honorary title i love the world so uh scotland is doing a really cool program where if you buy some land you get to be a lord and then they will not uh develop the more so you actually get to protect the scottish moors oh wow that's a double win for everyone yeah for sure for sure especially for anyone who likes scotch right yeah absolutely and as we mix your drink and a stirred cocktail i kind of harken stirred drinks to like driving a stick shift you know it takes a little to get
4:42 it just right it takes a little more finesse you know well if you do a shaken cocktail it's not bad by any means but a little more automatic it's easier to get those right every time so you as you're watching if you want to taste while you go you can otherwise i let it grow about a third that's when you know the ice is kind of diluted wow that much okay yeah you really want to open up all the flavors there's a point in the aromatic drink like this we call flowering where all the ingredients finally become one and it's a nice little window once you hit that little area um it's great you got to be careful though because you can't over dilute it and that's always my concern is is you
5:18 know i'll i'll dilute it down and won't get the impact of it right so that's also why we use high proof stuff to cover our mistakes in case they're there [Laughter] and then i get a little ice chips in this guy because nothing's ever perfect oh it's all right and the lord title might fool you but i really do feel you know as much as we all love drinks and drinking we can't take it too seriously because at the end of the day we're just having a cocktail you know yeah absolutely and if you're not having fun then you need to kind of seriously consider why you're drinking it's got to be for enjoyment right and the final thing we're going to do is we're just going to add a beautiful
5:54 cherry garnish like you would in a traditional manhattan oh i like to plunk them down on the bottom you can put them on a pick i kind of liked it at the bottom like this though because it's kind of like you know the center of a tootsie pop once you finish your drink you get a little treat oh okay well i'm i love tootsie roll just pops yeah absolutely and after that we get to enjoy oh wow look at this cheers cheers so our bartender lord charles blaine adams iii made it i love saying that
6:29 this is uh this is the other manhattan okay cheers tell me what you think of that wow yeah nice layered flavors it's very good that was just made uh yeah he just made that up i think on the fly so one of the neat things about the show is the bartenders we get are very very creative that's incredible we call them wow tenders right the way to wow exactly exactly so
7:04 brian feminella a new friend of mine i think we met what about a month ago right so we are both uh uh trojans fight on fight on sorry for all of you who go to that little trade school across town in los angeles ouch it's okay one of my longest friend standing friends professor delroy bah is a professor at ucla and he tells me at every lecture he gives he having gotten his phd at usc he reminds people fight on trojans
7:39 [Laughter] um so you know brian is definitely young enough to be my son and so i'm going to brag on him like he is my son a little bit you know as a a college student um and and i've i've dealt with a lot of um young people in the military and also in civilian life recently out of college they oftentimes are struggling with the two questions we're dealing with here on the way to wow show um who are you and what do you want to
8:14 be and brian has already figured those they figured out the answers to those questions it's in some ways it's really astonishing um at your age that that you've done that and so thank you um you know aro your rotc or i guess you started nrotc navy reserve officer training corps but you're actually going to go into the army you'll be a second lieutenant right so i started as a reservist in the actual regular army and actually i went right into boot camp at 17 from high school oh okay yes and then but then you went
8:51 to college under an for army yes yeah and um but at the same time and it's not easy to go through college on an rotc scholarship because you're basically doing a two-track program military science and also your major brian is the startup of sound i'm sorry as the ceo of this of a startup called soundmind they're developing an app based on music to help first responders deal with pts um post-traumatic stress so
9:28 i i you know we've talked you know quite a bit over the last few weeks and really what i'd like to help our viewers learn about you is how did you figure out your way to wow already when there are people my age who still haven't figured it out so i'm going to kind of throw the floor open to you and and let you talk to us about that of course well i want to thank you for inviting me on to the show and i'm glad we've been able to come friends and you know trojans care for trojans as always absolutely um i think for me you know i'm definitely young
10:03 i'm definitely on the younger side people usually tell me oh you know you're very young to be handling pts you're very young to be you know starting a company about helping people with pts whether it be active duty military whether it be first responders now in our coveted 19 pandemic from across the world you know whatever the situation may be where one develops not only pts anxiety or depression you know people you know usually sometimes unfortunately tend to look down upon and go you know you're too young to deal with that and that's definitely been a driving force for me is you know realizing that like people
10:38 will never fully understand and comprehend that if you've experienced pts or anxiety or anything like that you can be 13 or you can be 80. and no matter what your age is once you have experienced something like that you'll understand so for me i grew up in new york and i left at 17 to go to boot camp i went to fort jackson south carolina so a little hot a little little culture shock definitely coming from long island it was a a huge culture shock for me i'm growing you know growing up very cuddled my parents raised me very well and um
11:13 i have so much respect for them and a lot of things i do is for tino to make them proud and you know after going down to south carolina um i got moved into my ait unit which is where i kind of did my training for my specific job and you know moved on with that and you know from there i i learned a lot i met a lot of people from all different ages and i got really close with another 17 year old who was also in my unit and i guess you could say company at the time and you know after that i had the fortunate opportunity to go to usc so as i said before fight on trojans but you know that's really where i began to develop this
11:49 passion that i have to be able to figure out who i was and for me it was getting a phone call at 18 years old that you know one of my friends who i served alongside with um you know had a traumatic incident and that traumatic incident led to him losing a majority of his memory in which i was a part of those missing pieces and i think that was the first time where i kind of said whoa like this affects me in a way that i don't know how to cope with and handle myself and from there i i really it really was you know a very i guess you could say privileged lifestyle besides the military and
12:25 seeing a friend and having a friend you know forget me and our memories and our brotherhood was really impactful on who i was not only emotionally but professionally so from there i went to usc to study cyber intelligence and political science and i've always had a commitment to public service whether it be from the military to my time as a junior firefighter for 10 years back at home to also working as an emt on the ambulance for about a year before i went to the military and i was like a junior emt because of i couldn't be full-time at that young age right but i've always had a commitment to that public service and
13:02 i found a dedicated professor dr scott spencer at usc who has spent his whole life in his doctorate studying um ethnomusicology and ethnomusicology is really where i learned about the natasonics and the nanosonics is the relationship between sound and violence and how one with pts or traumatic experience tends to allow sound to lose all informational context whereas you and i would relate a car horn to a car horn where that individual might just relate a loud noise to you want to make it stop
13:37 and really learning auditory triggers that associate with pts learning a lot about how one's anxiety can contribute to any auditory triggers or can contribute to one's you know ability to go out in public with the loud sounds that is what i did a bulk of research on for two years i did about six to seven research studies and then finally i actually was able to be published in you know a harvard journal and got to speak at harvard in january right before the pandemic hit and and from there i really kept growing and now i two months ago really said to myself and sat down
14:12 what you just asked me wow i really have come a long way and have understood and now we are officially called soundline corporation and we are working every day to create mobile technologies through a mobile application for those that are struggling with pts or anxiety predominantly and yes you are right we are focusing on first responders and and how i came about with all of that was because of not only a personal experience but al also witnessing friends in the college situation in the first responder because i've been able to be involved in all these different communities at such a young
14:47 age and i'm so privileged to have been able to do that and and from that you really get to see people from all walks of life and what they've struggled with especially those who even have gotten not only traumatic experiences that they've had happen to them but you know traumatic brain injuries or whatever it may be that have alluded to the change and adaptation and my passion to help these people my passion to find a solution to that relates back to my public service and i am so honored to be the ceo of soundmine and to see what we're doing every day to help people but that all came from being exposed to
15:24 how much of it i was in the military in the academia you know in my personal life in my professional life and seeing people from all these different walks of life really led to not only sound mind but to who i am as a person and beyond sound mind and as i begin to grow and really take form to my mature and adult self i definitely want to continue down the public service path i want to continue making sound mind into as big as i can helping as many people as i can continuing my military service and eventually one day i would absolutely like to run for public office as i want to continue doing that public
15:59 service so it's it it's interesting um a few episodes ago we had a friend of mine on friend of mine on who works at nasa wow and i asked him you know sum up what you've told us in the interview for us and he said just say yes we live in a society where it's like just saying no no no just say yes to opportunity it from what you've just told us you've when when you were presented with an opportunity to expand yourself experience something outside of your
16:35 realm of comfort you embraced that opportunity even though it probably wasn't a 100 comfortable thing to do and and and it's it's made you this amazing individual thank you at what is you know by your own admission a a very young age it's it's it's it's really astonishing so what what advice would you give to um you know i would hope that even people my age
17:11 would would hear your words and and have them resonate with you but maybe not but for so so at least for your peers absolutely what advice would you give them that would help set them on the path that that you're already walking that's a you know it's a loaded question and and i think that a lot of people you know tend to get a bunch of different advice right so my biggest you know piece of advice that i can give and i'm sure i'm only going to be one piece of advice in in someone's journey but it would definitely be to listen to all the
17:47 advice but just because you're listening to someone's advice doesn't mean that every time somebody gives you advice you shift course because if you continue to shift course you'll never end up anywhere because you know you could tell me to go left i could tell you to go right and my other friend or my other colleague or my other advisor or my mentor could tell me to go straight and then you're like okay i went left i went right i went straight and i'm still back in the middle and they're not the goal is to not be where you are the goal is to move forward and to do that it really requires that you believe in yourself that is the number one thing i have kind of three
18:23 things believe in yourself no matter how crazy your ideas no matter how you know difficult it may be to accomplish find the people that believe in you become the leader that people believe in no matter what your age is and embrace it because one thing that people no matter what age respect is if you embrace what you love and you do it humbly and my second piece of advice would be yes listen to the advice you are given from others your mentors your family whoever it may be but just because you're listening doesn't mean you have to act on every
18:59 piece of advice it's good to think about it's good to take a mental note of all the things you're told but in order to move forward you have to follow your dreams no matter if people are going to doubt you and the third and biggest piece of advice that i could give to anybody is don't quit because you're absolutely going to fail at first you're absolutely going to be told it's not feasible it's not going to work especially in a startup community in a tech community at my age when people say no way no way you have to find yourself if you can find your own passion and you
19:35 know that you're committed you can move mountains because that's the most important thing and anybody no matter what your age is i have to really give the advice that it's okay to try and it's okay to dare to be different because that's what makes the community that we have in our world especially here in america so unique people have give been given the opportunity to challenge themselves and challenge others and that has led to such a diverse ecosystem that we all live in
20:14 i mean it so there's there's a a a saying judaism who is wise he who listens to all people and and i i i hope you know you our precious viewers will listen to what brian has just said you will you will not only just take it on board but but take it to heart somehow and maybe because of his parents or the opportunities he's been able to have he
20:49 has found true true wisdom and hopefully you you'll you've watched the show long enough to know i am not into hyperbole at all and i don't believe that everyone has wisdom but but i will tell you i've met a lot of young people in my life fortunately this young man brian is speaking wisdom that you can base your life on it and i i i hope and pray that you will listen to him again just replay this part of the show a
21:24 couple of times to really absorb it um don't go on fast forward though right not on fast forward listen to it let it let it permeate your heart and and i and and and you will be on your way to wow brian i i i i wish we had you know a hundred days to sit in and talk thank you very much you know 10 or 12 minutes that we have but i i deeply appreciate you coming here today sharing your words with us i have no
22:00 doubt that over the succeeding years we are going to hear and see big big things from you and and and it will be a joy to to watch your life progress thanks so much for coming on the way to wow show thank you kevin you gave me the chills it means a lot and it definitely means a lot to be able to be a part of this and to meet people like yourself that not only inspire myself but inspire others and i think that you know the way to wow show is definitely a way for people to see how much they can do if they just try
22:35 so you brought a little something for our collage i did i actually brought this is the very first sound mind sticker that was ever created and it was created by my co-founder's sister because she works on a sticker store on her free time oh okay anywhere you want it absolutely uh let's put it right here nice home perfect nice and proud up there absolutely here we go thank you thank you again for having me thanks for joining us this week it wasn't brian feminella amazing such wisdom in such a young man remember his his three points
23:12 believe in yourself listen to advice but don't necessarily follow it and finally don't give up and if we follow that we'll find our way to wow [Music] courage at all times my friends marie you're still my bell [Music]
24:07 you