We're back on the Better Humans Podcast, and today I'm joined by Brandon Dorton — paintless dent repair technician, former hail chaser, and one of the most intentionally quiet guys in every room we share. This is actually Brandon's very first podcast ever (I'm honored), and it ended up being one of the most honest conversations I've had on the show. We get into what it looks like to build something successful, realize you feel trapped inside of it, and have the guts to sit in the discomfort of not knowing what comes next instead of just grabbing the closest shiny thing.
Brandon shares his full story — growing up on Grosse Ile, a little island in the Detroit River right on the Michigan-Canada border, hating school from day one and not being able to articulate why, opting into an auto body vocational program his junior year just to get out of the classroom, and ignoring the dent repair guy who came in to do a demo (which he'd later apprentice under after his little brother put a foot-long crease in the bed of his first big-boy truck). From there it was a one-way ticket into paintless dent removal, chasing hailstorms six to eight months a year since 2018, becoming a weather nerd, and eventually building the kind of business where most guys would just put their head down and keep running.
We go deep on what it actually means to "set people free" — the education system that punishes you for thinking outside the box (I share my ninth grade Federal Reserve essay story where the teacher accused me of cheating), the monetary system nobody teaches you about in twelve years of required schooling, why attention is our greatest resource and why the phone used to be attached to the wall and people were free, and the difference between success and fulfillment. Brandon drops one of the best lines of any episode: "Success without fulfillment, you're the ultimate failure." Met billionaires in that exact spot.
We also get into solitude — Brandon's got a cabin in the middle of the woods on his grandpa's old hunting property, off-grid, generator, Starlink, hand-dug well, the whole thing. We talk about the right and wrong ways to use isolation, how it can tip into self-sabotage if you're not careful, and why the people you surround yourself with matter more than almost anything else. I confess I've never seen a movie in a theater by myself in my life and it genuinely broke my brain when someone first suggested it. We talk about fatherhood too — I walk him through the six months of 7am-to-midnight grind I put myself through in 2025 while my wife was pregnant with our second, building the exit ramp out of my job, and why 2026 is actually the best time in history for dads to be present with their kids if they'll fight for it.
If you're someone who's built a business you feel trapped in, or you grew up knowing something was off about the system but couldn't put your finger on it, or you're chasing success without ever asking whether it's going to bring you fulfillment — this one's for you.
Connect with Brandon on Facebook Messenger — just search Brandon Dorton (D-O-R-T-O-N) and he'll be there.
We're also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5oou7RXcQ177Fgd2UmCtqO?si=19356ebbcad74d9a&nd=1&dlsi=38d5711d17704412
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/better-humans/id1795206136
