Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brian Cook. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brian, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

The one that hit hardest came in 2018. I’m in a hospital bed in Pennsylvania — Army War College — staring at medical reports telling me everything I’d built over 33 years is finished. Not winding down. Finished. My body had done something my adversaries never could: it stopped me cold.
Here’s the backstory. Five combat tours. Desert Storm through Afghanistan. My nervous system had been running on hypervigilance for decades — it kept me alive on the battlefield. But nobody told me it wouldn’t turn off. My parasympathetic nervous system — the part of you that rests, recovers, resets — had been systematically overridden by years of operational stress. My body’s response to perceived threat had stopped being fight or flight. It had become: shut down.
My heart stopped four times.
I got a pacemaker. And then came the gut punch I never saw coming — the one that was actually more disorienting than the cardiac crisis itself. I learned that receiving a pacemaker is one of 172 automatic grounds for military separation. The Army’s system doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t care about your command time or your combat tours. It sees a man with a pacemaker & it processes a separation.
The same institution I’d given everything to for three decades was separating me. Not for failure. For surviving.
Sitting in that JAG officer’s office, hearing “your career is over” — I thought my story was ending. I was wrong. It was beginning. But I couldn’t see that yet. All I could see was identity collapse.
That’s what nobody warns you about in military life: your mission & your identity are fused. When the mission ends, you don’t just lose a job. You lose yourself.
The resolution came from being forced into a stillness I’d never allowed. The pacemaker that regulated my heart also regulated my thinking. It stripped away everything non-essential until only the core mission remained. That’s when this book was born — not in triumph, but in forced stillness.
The hospital room I thought was the end? It was actually the starting line.

Brian, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Brian Cook — a retired Army Colonel, a combat veteran with five tours from Desert Storm through Afghanistan, a former corporate tech leader at IBM, and now an author, speaker & Heroic Coach. But if I’m being straight with you, none of those titles fully captures what I do. What I do is help people stop living at someone else’s table & start building their own.

Let me give you the short version of how I got here.

33 years in uniform. I’ve commanded tank platoons in combat, led troops across three continents, and served at levels from the foxhole to the Pentagon. When I left the Army, I stepped into the corporate world — IBM — and by every external measure, I was winning. But something felt deeply off. I was applying every military framework I knew; setting boundaries, building strategy, driving results. And still, I felt like a guest at someone else’s table.

It took a health crisis — a pacemaker & forced stillness — to strip away the noise and ask the question I’d never had time to ask: *Who am I when I’m not in mission execution mode?*

That question became this book. Set Your Table: A Strategic Framework for Reclaiming Your Life. Launching May 2026.

What’s the book actually about?

Most people are drowning in tactics. They’ve got the apps, the productivity hacks, the morning routines. What they’re missing is strategy — the conditions you set *before* the battle begins that determine whether you can win it.

Set Your Table translates 33 years of military strategic thinking into a framework any person can apply to their life. It’s built around four domains — Personal, Professional, Relationships & Community — and three processes: Clarity, Positioning & Execution. At the center of it all is what I call the Freedom Gap™ — the space between where you are & where you could be. That gap isn’t a failure; it’s your roadmap.

Who is this for?

The burned-out high performer who’s achieved everything on the list & still feels like something’s missing. The veteran who’s transitioned & can’t figure out why success in uniform doesn’t translate. The leader who’s running hard but running in the wrong direction. The person who’s been so busy grinding that they forgot to ask: grinding toward what, exactly?

If you’ve ever felt like you’re living someone else’s version of your life — this book was written for you.

What sets me apart?

Honestly? I’m not a theorist. I’ve made life-&-death decisions under fire. I’ve commanded soldiers in combat & led modernization efforts at Army Futures Command. I’ve had my heart stop four times. I’ve been medically separated from the institution that defined my entire adult identity. And I’ve rebuilt — not just back to baseline, but into something far more aligned with who I actually am.

The frameworks I teach are battle-tested. Not in a metaphorical sense. Literally battle-tested. And then re-tested in boardrooms, coaching conversations & my own personal fire.

I also bring something most leadership & personal development authors don’t: I’ve had to live the framework before I could write it. This book didn’t come from a whiteboard. It came from a hospital bed in Pennsylvania.

What am I most proud of?

My Tribe. 300+ people who believed in this message before the book even existed — enough to presale it, talk about it & share it. That community, more than any credential or accolade, tells me this work matters.

And the audiobook version they unlocked by hitting that 300-presale milestone? That’s them giving this message a voice. Literally.

What do I want people to know?

This is a book about freedom — not the flag-waving kind, though I love that too. The personal kind. The Freedom Gap™ is real, it’s specific to you, & it’s closeable. But only if you stop letting the world set your table for you.

If you’re ready to reclaim your life — one strategic decision at a time — find me. Find the Tribe. Set Your Table. 🪖

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Nourish Great People and the Ideas they have.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Give them a shot. Most people just need one opening then you’ll see their character and brilliance.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://setyourtable.kit.com/profile
• Instagram: 21stcenturycol
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/setyourtable
• Other: bluesky – @21stcenturycol.bsky.social

Image Credits

Oh. the family image is Dr. Sara Gilliam (my wife), JT Cook (son), Yannet, Grace Cook (daughter), Tiffany Cook-Orozco (daughter), Marco Orozco (son in law) and Ada (granddaughter)