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BANNR Systems
Neuroscience, endurance, and the one rule I keep coming back to, which is that you cannot cheat biology.
Personal brand · Jan 2025 – Present
What it is
BANNR Systems is my personal brand. Everything under it is mine: the neuroscience, the endurance, and the writing. Its one claim is that people fail when the systems holding up their lives cannot carry the weight.
The writing
- Published an essay every week for 33 straight weeks without missing one. A public journal on discipline and biology, still running on a looser rhythm.
- The four below are the pieces I’m proudest of. Click any one for an AI summary, or read the rest on Substack.
- AI summary
Past midnight, Brad scrolls his transcript top to bottom: a C-minus in intro astronomy, a B+ in systems neuroscience, two and a half years in the Cannavan in between. The semesters only resolve into one shape in reverse. You cannot see the map while you are still inside it.
Read it on Substack - AI summary
An investor passes inside the first three minutes, between a Passover Seder and Shabbat. Brad feels relief, not defeat. The work was right the whole time; he had carried it into the wrong room. Walking out was its own kind of faith.
Read it on Substack - AI summary
Under the bed: a finisher shirt from a marathon Brad never ran, an Ironman backpack from a race he never started, both still sealed in plastic. He stopped wishing for different circumstances and started writing different answers to the ones he had.
Read it on Substack - AI summary
People keep asking how Brad feels about leaving Boulder. The answer stays simple, and the complicated version they wait for never arrives. He knows where he is supposed to be and that this part is finished. A place you loved can close like a book you are glad to shelve.
Read it on Substack
The coaching practice
- Ran BANNR as a paid 1:1 coaching practice for about four months: a full website, tiered service options, custom AI planning tools, and clients paying me to build their training.
- Was about to take it full time until Ardvarq became the bigger swing.
Client results
- A first-time marathoner beat a 4-hour goal at 3:40 off an 11-week build.
- A client dropped 50 pounds and then finished a marathon.
- One put on a controlled 25-pound lean bulk.
- One took 20 minutes off a half-marathon PR, which carried straight into a full.
The podcast
- Recorded an episode of Shells & Shadows, “The Physics of Peace: Optimizing Biological Systems,” a long-form conversation on discipline, biology, and identity.
- The clips I cut and shared pulled more than 10,000 views.
Ten operating laws
- Wrote ten operating laws from neuroscience, each tested on myself before I asked anyone to trust it, from “peace has physics” to “identity is repetition.”
What it taught me
BANNR was where I learned to build something in public and put my own claims on the line first.
- Shipped a full coaching product end to end: site, offers, tools, and paying clients.
- Tested every law on myself before selling it, so the proof was always my own.
- Kept a 33-week writing cadence through everything else competing for the time.
- Learned what carries forward and what to set down when a bigger swing shows up.
Where it stands
- Coaching is paused as the lead focus while Ardvarq runs.
- The writing continues. Still building.