The 6 Habits Of HIGHLY EFFECTIVE People You Can Copy! (CHANGE EVERYTHING) | Brendon Burchard | Transcription

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Introduction

Intro (00:00)

I'm responsible for my emotion and my feelings. You know, feelings come up to people. So of course I'm having anxiety in that moment. I'm kind of freaked out. I have to in that moment determine the feeling that I'm after. - You remember how we first met, like the very time we actually met in person. - It was like intercontinental, Dallas, Texas, Success Magazine, they're doing an event. They had like 2,000 people, you know, we're both speaking there. And I think I was going to work out or something. Or I was coming back. - One of the two. - Yeah, and then I run into you, which is like, if you're going to work out, it's like you don't want to run into like, you know, the rock. Like, I'm going to work out. I don't want to run into this guy. I mean, you've got the pipes, you know. - Right now the rock is like, he is violently upset somewhere in this very moment. - No, so, no, yeah. So I ran into you and I was like, man, it's cool, 'cause I hadn't met you in person, but I'd watch the show. And so I'd seen you just slay it in your interview style. - Wow, very kind. - And just getting better and better and better. I mean, 'cause you and I both watch for the same thing. We want to see excellence in our space. And when we see it, we watch. And we watch. And we watch. And what you've built here is incredible. But it was so cool to finally actually meet you in person, 'cause you never know what people's energy is like off camera. - And that's why I was so surprised. And our first meeting left an indelible mark in me. So obviously I knew who you were. I'd watched a ton of your content. And we're probably no BS, like 30 yards away from each other. Minimum, you come around the corner and... - Hey! - Tom Billion. I was like, I didn't even know you knew who I was. And it was so warm and so enthusiastic. It is so infectious. And so as I'm reading the book, High Performance Habits, which by the way you guys go out and get, this book is awesome. I'm gonna stamp this one hard. One, because some of the surprises we're gonna talk about, because you say a lot like, I know if you read just the back at what the six habits are, you're gonna be like, well I get these. You really don't, as you get into it, some of the surprises and things you can put into your life are really, really interesting. But seeing like how gracious and warm and kind you were was really, really fascinating. And then reading the book, hearing your notion of, you generate the energy. If you want joy, you create the joy. Talk to us about that. That was something that really, really struck me. - Yeah. That piece comes from probably the most powerful metaphor of my entire life. And that is, the power plant doesn't have energy.

Comprehensive Self-Development Strategies

Brendon's Power Plant Metaphor (02:34)

It generates energy. And I've been teaching that for like 15 years on stage. And one guy stands up one time and he goes, actually you're wrong. At my event, you know, there's 2,000 people in my event. He goes, well you're actually wrong. I'm like, oh, how am I wrong? He says, well, a power plant doesn't generate energy. What it does is it takes energy from one source, upgrades it, so transforms the energy, then stores it and transmits it. So it's really transforming energy from one sort of location or one type of energy to another. And I love that metaphor because I felt like that's my job. So much of my life is helping people reach another level of energy because if you don't reach another level of energy, you can't serve at another level. If you don't reach another level of energy, you can't feel better, be happier, be a better spouse. You know, it's like everyone says I want that next level, but they don't understand energy is the requirement to get there. And when we measured energy in our studies, it's we were talking about really mental energy, emotional energy and physical energy. And it was a huge turning point in my life when I started realizing these things because, you know, that whole thing that we as entrepreneurs, we want to wait for maybe one day I'll feel energized or maybe one day I'll feel joy or maybe one day I can have fun after, you know, all the money's in the bank and you know, you got the house or the cars or the money or the, you know, the stuff and then people go on, then I'm going to be really a fun person. It's like, no, if you're not a fun person when you're broke, you're not going to be that much more fun when you're rich. And I think that people have to learn to bring the joy. It's one of our like old taglines on our shirt, sorry, bring the joy. And that says, you know, you don't have joy, just like I don't think people have happiness. I don't think people have sadness either. I think that we are generating the emotions and the feelings that we experience in life. And soon as we own that responsibility, life gets really fun. 'Cause now we can choose it. And I'll give you an example. Last night I spoke to 12,000 people on stage here in LA at the convention center. And it was terrifying because Pitbull was opening. I'm backstage and I feel the cortisol drop in. I feel myself getting tense, you know, Pitbull talks for me like 10 minutes and then he does a four song set. - Whoa. - Okay. When he finishes four song set, I gotta come and hit the stage and do 90 minutes. And I'm backstage and the emotion of my life at that moment is terror, is stress because do they have my video? They don't have the video, the keynote's not working, all this other stuff is going on. I mean, it was just like really intense. But when I hit that stage, I'm responsible for my emotion and my feelings. You know, feelings come up to people. So of course I'm having anxiety in that moment. I'm kind of freaked out. I have to in that moment determine the feeling that I'm after. And we talk about that in the book is that we have to determine the feeling that we are after and live into that feeling, not hope it lands on us. And that's when someone starts getting real mastery in life because I knew I had hit that stage and there couldn't be the stress on me. There couldn't be the anxiety on me. I had to bring joy at all at a stage, at level 10x. - Walk us through the mechanisms of that. So, and it's something that you cover very well in the book is there's a process, in fact, the book is high performing habits, right? And you really go into the habits, the mechanisms, the things that you can do, say orchestrate into your life, which I think is really the core of what makes the book so powerful. So in that moment, your backstage, what are you actually doing? - Yeah.

Tool: Breath work and movement to find your center (06:07)

First, I'm closing my eyes and say, where is this emotion coming from? And I realize in my mind, it's like, oh, it's 'cause I'm thinking, I have to go follow pit bull. And that's where people fail in life. Oh, well, my Instagram's not like hers or, I'm not as famous as him. We have all these comparisons that cause us cortisol or anxiety that shut us down and then we stop performing our best because we're trying to follow somebody versus just go do our thing. So I identified that's, oh, that's where I'm at. Okay, what's that causing? That's causing that cortisol adrenaline drip that I don't want right now. So what do I need to do? And the fastest ways to get yourself back is usually breath and movement. So we teach a program, high performance academy. It's like one of the crowd favorites. On day three, we have 2,000 people there and about 40% of the audience is international. So day three, their jet lag is just whooping them, right? And I always just predictable, I know exactly about one in the afternoon, day three, they start bonking. So I do this breath scaling thing where I teach them to breathe in through their nose, like to breathe in the ocean, like and then breathe out. Okay, and that's kind of the top level. So we just start breathing normal and they get more and more and more and more and more and more intense until you're at the top and it's literally like and I sustain that for like 60 seconds. And what it is, it's like I hit a like oxygen, you know, like cocaine to the brain for oxygen. And what if also light headed or anything? No, 'cause I've done it so much, right? I don't push myself to get light headed. I push myself to fully oxygenate the body. But what you do, as soon as you do that, and the most important thing is, for those who are gonna try this at home, you scale up to it, then you scale down to find your regular breath again and you need to not be standing there with your knees locked. And if you ever feel dizzy, sit down. So, but I do that and all of a sudden, you feel an incredible amount of energy in your body. Your mind just goes super sharp and the added benefit of that much oxygen intake lowers cortisol. That's interesting, right? We know from meditative practices when deep breathe, we tend to lower cortisol or lower that sense of anxiety even if we don't get the full mechanism of the hormone release, then all of a sudden it's like, "Ah, I'm in my zone, I'm ready to go." And then I do full body chigong, which is like a chigong. A cupping activity in chigong is basically like, you are, you're patting up one inch at a time on different parts of your body like this, all over. So you do your arms, your legs, your back, what that's doing is opening the meridians in your body. And now my body, my mind's open, my body's fully ready to serve, and now it's like, let's get it. I'm excited, 'cause now it's just like, I identified the source of the anxiety, got rid of it, took care of the mechanism of the body that also makes me feel like crap. And then it's exciting. I mean, people see me on this big stage and they think, "Oh, or they see you," and they think, "Oh, well, he must always be in the perfect state or the perfect energy and he's always gonna be great." And that's not true.

Set Intention and Release Tension (09:18)

Great athletes, great performers, an executive walk in an important meeting. You gotta go deal with your kid who's struggling with math. When we walk into those situations, we have to set intention for what we want to do in that situation, and we have to release tension. And so the practices in high performance habits, that was the second big finding that we had was high performers are generating the energy, and that means the mental, emotional, physical energy that they feel is necessary to reserve with excellence in a certain situation. Like they're so conscious of it. And I know that's common sense for people, but it's not always common practice. It's like a lot of people just wander into that situation and I'm the guy that says, "You know what, get more intentional." Release the tension you have. Walk in as your highest self, because that's something you'll never regret. - For sure. Now, one thing I found in the book that really struck me, and I think this is where I really fell in love with the book, is the concept of necessity. 'Cause this is something I talk to people about, and specifically in the context of obsession versus passion. And you really went into it, not, 'cause you're probably gonna get some flack and push back on that one. But what you said, I was like, that is the absolute truth. - Yeah.

Difference Between Passion and Obsession (10:39)

- So explain people, what's the difference between the two? What is the role of obsession? - Well, we found it. So in high-performance habits, like you mentioned, we did the world's largest study of high-performance data from over 190 countries. From what it essentially turns out to be, people who are in that top 15% of whatever they do. And we found that there was basically personal habits and social habits. And the personal habits was like seek clarity, generate energy, and that third one was raise necessity. Which was something I didn't even know really was a thing psychologically as important as it turned out to be. And necessity is kind of short for performance necessity. Or what we call psychological necessity. Which means there is a moment in which you are serving people or you're trying to achieve your goal or your dream in which now it is not a preference, it's a must. Right? But to use better languaging, it becomes necessary for us to excel in this. Like it's not a hope anymore, it's not, it should do it. It becomes so necessary that it connects with our identity that we feel it is necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because that is who I am. It's necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because somebody needs me to do well. It's necessary for me to do well here because this topic, this thing I'm doing, I'm passionate about this, I care about this, I wanna master this. I'm obsessed with this. And it's necessary for me to do well because of the time. It's a deadline or it's go time. And when all those come together, that personal side of this is my identity and I'm obsessed about it. And that other side where it's like somebody needs me and there is a real deadline, right in the middle, that's performance necessity. And when we hit that, game changer. Game changer, but it is uncomfortable because people don't want to exude that much passion which it becomes obsession 'cause they're fearful of their obsessions. Well, if I'm obsessed about this topic, it's gonna take away from my family, from my time. It's gonna introduce a lot of fear or unknowns to me. So they back off, but I tell people all the time, there is a difference between passion and obsession. And high performers have obsession about the topic, right? They are obsessed about the topic in which they're trying to learn, master, grow into. And so that obsession is real. And I tell people the difference, here's how you know the difference between the two. When you're passionate, everybody cheers you on. They're stoked for you. Oh, you found your passion? Awesome, follow your passion. Live with passion, be passionate. Chase your passions, everything. Like passion, passion, passion, passion. Passion's good. The world's gonna be like, yay, passion. Right? When you're obsessed, they're like, why are you gonna be so crazy? Why can't you be satisfied? Why do you always gotta get things so perfect? Why do you spend so much time here? When you're obsessed, people think you're nuts. So it's different. And it's like, I always tell people, if no one thinks you're crazy, you're not yet operating to the outer limits of your potential. You're not there yet. Because somebody in your life should say, man, you really care about this in like a crazy way. And when you get there, you know you found your thing. And not every, not every finds that. I think that's also why it's scary. Some people go, well, I'm passionate or I'm happy, but I don't really obsess about anything. Most people obsess about their shows on Netflix more than their life. I know people who obsess more about their, their thread count in their sheets at their house, than they do about the impact they're making in the world. Why do you think people can slip into an obsession over Netflix or whatever or thread count? But they don't do that for something that can really change their life. Feedback. That's interesting. It's not what I expect you to say, what do you mean by that? Because, you know, buying something or getting pulled into Netflix, being obsessed about something that gives you no feedback is not scary. A real obsession, like trying to make an impact in the world, you're getting feedback. You try to make a difference in somebody's life. They're gonna tell you, that doesn't resonate with me, Brendan. You try to make a difference in a nonprofit. You try to change the world. You try to start something like this. And the views come, or they don't come, there's feedback. And people are terrified. Just one of the four central fears we all have is rejection. We're terrified, like to be rejected. And think about, if you really wanna make an impact, you're going to get a lot of judgment. You're gonna get a lot of hate. And ultimately you're gonna get rejection. People are gonna like just dishonia. People are gonna say, that's not good enough. People are gonna say, who do you think you are? And people are so worried about that, that they stop. And so it's easier. Things that don't give you feedback. Watch Netflix, don't give you no feedback. It's easy. There's no disappointment there. Even if you don't like the show, what do you do? You just go into the next show. There's no disappointment there. I think trying to make an impact, there's a lot of disappointment and fear and potential for rejection. So people don't get obsessed about making a difference and making an impact, because it can hurt. - So deep on identity, so you've talked about how one of the scariest things about an obsession is the way that you tie it to your identity.

Tie Your Effort to Your Identity (15:51)

High performers do that. They put themselves at risk. They say like your own story, I am a writer. And the day that you decided you were gonna own that, you said that that comes with a risk. One, explain to people what that risk is. And then how did you overcome it? And how can other people do that? - Yeah, well imagine like last night, I'm going on the stage, right? If my identity says, I am a public speaker and it's important for me to be excellent at this. And then I go on stage and I bomb, what does that say about me as a person? So we've got about 50 years of work in psychology, the field of psychology, saying do not tie your efforts to your identity. Because that risk of disappointment or rejection, you know, if the task fails, you shouldn't take that as a defining moment in which you say I am a failure, right? So that's the risk. And that's what, you know, psychologists tell us to be wary of. Except it turns out that high performers flip that on its face and go, well actually, no, I do get bothered if it fails. I really get upset about it. I am attached to the process here. I do care if it turns out well. I mean, that's why they obsess about the details. That's why they care about excellence is like, no one obsess about the details or cares about excellence unless it meets something to them. And there is a risk. The risk is you overattach to the process of the outcome with your identity so that if the process of outcome goes bad, now you feel bad about yourself as a human and now you stop your progress. But I also tell people there's a balance there. I actually wish more people would attach some identity to what they're doing. They wouldn't go through their motions as much.

Half Interested Parents (17:48)

I mean, I think what the world needs less of is half-interested parents who don't have an identity that says, you know what, I'm gonna be an excellent parent. I think we have a lot of CEOs or business people or entrepreneurs who they've never stepped in and said, you know what, I'm a CEO. I own this business. I am responsible for paying the bills. I am responsible for making the money. I'm responsible for all these people's mortgages who work for me. I want them to own the identity of a CEO 'cause most of them, if you ask them about their identity and their business, they're kind of like, you come to find, they're kind of approaching it like not even hobbyists. It's like, if you wanna win, your identity has to be tied into that thing in which you are trying to succeed at and give to. And that takes a lot of guts to put yourself all in for something but who's ever contributed something with tremendous impact without being all into it. I've never seen it. So I think the message of the book, you're right, I'll get some flack of people, a lot of psychologists say, don't tell people to tie more of their identity or my friends who are Buddhist to say, but attachment is the form of all suffering, but I didn't have you not, read your spiritual texts. I'm like, look out, come down, I've hung out with the Dalai Lama. I'm totally cool. But what I'm trying to tell you is even the Dalai Lama has a connection with himself as a spiritual leader. His identity is still there that people assume that we have to release ourselves from having any attachment to something, but I'm like, I think we all wanna be present and engaged fully in the things that we are doing in our lives. And that's gonna require us to say psychologically, you know what, I, I am all in this. That's what I'm about. What I loved in the book is you were open on the journey of writing, it took you about three years if I'm not mistaken. So doing all the research, you've collected the however many millions of people that are in your ecosystem, and then you start systematically actually researching the data and you can feel that in the book that you were open to being surprised, you were open to changing your thinking, you talk about going through and trying to find disconfirming evidence and not just wanting to be in a vacuum and some of the surprises in the book were really, really great. And in that whole concept of obsession, I'd love to 'cause it felt so real, you tell your followers, one, you have to take ownership, so you give a great example about, you're in a relationship with somebody. Whatever energy you guys are creating, you're creating that. Like don't think that it's just objectively them, like you guys are doing it together. And I love that, love that in the talk about how obsession can be useful because, so I'm like, that's really important to me and I want people to understand if you wanna achieve at the highest level, you're gonna have to tap into obsession, period. And you put a quote in the book that I think sums it up perfectly, which goes like this. And by the way, the quotes people choose for books reveal so much and I just kept taking one after another, after another out of your book. This is from Einstein. Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person. - Yeah. - I love that. - All in. You have to be all in and it's the hardest thing to do because if it fails, then you can feel like a failure. I think of this idea of performance necessity. Two stories kinda come to mind. One is I was working with an Olympic gold medalist, sprinter and we're in the tunnel and we're going out and he's talking about the competition and we get out to the blocks and I said, he was really worried about the competition. I said, well, how do you even gauge like, who's gonna win? In his particular race, people are winning but by one 100th of a second, 10th of a second, I mean, these are really close spritz and I said, well, how do you know? I said, who would you even bet on? And he says, I would bet on the guy who gets down at the blocks, gets himself settled, looks at the finish line and says, I gotta do this for my mom. And I was like, ooh, that's good. His performance necessity in that is, it's necessary for him to win that race for his mom. What is up my friend, Tom Bill, you here and I have a big question to ask you, how would you rate your level of personal discipline on a scale of one to 10 if your answer?

DISCIPLINE DAY AD (22:20)

Is anything less than a 10? I've got something cool for you. And let me tell you right now, discipline, by its very nature means compelling yourself to do difficult things that are stressful, boring, which is what kills most people, are possibly scary or even painful. Now, here is the thing, achieving huge goals and stretching to reach your potential requires you to do those challenging, stressful things and to stick with them even when it gets boring and it will get boring, building your levels of personal discipline is not easy, but let me tell you, it pays off. In fact, I will tell you, you're never going to achieve anything meaningful unless you develop discipline. Right, I've just released a class from Impact Theory University called How to Build Ironclad Discipline that teaches you the process of building yourself up in this area so that you can push yourself to do the hard things that greatness is going to require of you, right, click the link on the screen, register for this class right now and let's get to work. I will see you inside this workshop from Impact Theory University. Until then my friends, be legendary. Peace out.

Creating Drive (23:24)

I think of, you know, when I started my career and I really decided to go all in with writing and online training, this is like 2000, probably six, I'd gone broke, completely bankrupt and failed. I left my corporate job, I had this cushy kind of corporate job as a consultant, good job, left it to write and I didn't know how to make it as a writer, I wanted to do seminars workshops, didn't know how to do that, so I was pretty much a hot mess, ran out of money. I got nothing to my name, nothing kind of no positive prospects, no one's calling me except the guys who want the money and one night I'm writing and the apartment was so small on the bed, I had all, you know what, my bills, my vision boards, all my research, all my journals, like the bed was basically the desk, the extended desk and my lady comes in, Denise and she walks past me but she sees I'm like trying to write, so doesn't want to disturb me, she goes, crawls under the covers of the bed and I'm just kind of casually typing away and I look over and I see my woman sleeping under my bills. And it was just like, you know, because none of us want to see our, you know, our family suffer because we are not performing. And I was just like, I gotta figure this out and I'm telling you, I wrote more that night than any night in my entire life. Next day I wrote more than ever that bird's life scolded ticket which came up best seller and you know, 18 months later because I was like, I'm gonna figure out this online thing, I'm gonna figure out marketing, I'm gonna figure out how to teach, I'm gonna go out of train and get paid for it 'cause I've never really been paid for those things. I said, I'm gonna figure out this industry and I'm gonna make it 18 months later after her crawling under the bills, I made $4.6 million online. Total transformation, people are like, how did you do it? I'm like, she gave me, she was my necessity.

Building an Identity (25:41)

I was not going to let my woman be in that situation and she believed in me, she supported me, she married me. And you know, but that was, she was my drive. And the second part was I went all in with my identity. I said, I am going to be a great writer and I am going to be one of the greatest online trainers there ever was. You know, as you said in the intro now, we've graduated over two million people have taken our online courses video series now. I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't had the guts and maybe the no other choice to say this is who I'm going to be and I'm gonna build into that. And it is necessary for me to become that person. So let's go. - That's amazing.

Follow Your Strenghts? (26:32)

Talk to me about that building into process. This is, so you did a video about how to come back from being dead broke and it was so fundamental and real and true. I loved it. I was like, you're not trying to hype anybody up. In fact, you were telling them, you're gonna hate this video. I'm gonna tell you what to do. It's actually gonna work, you're gonna hate it. And that's when I was like, all right, this guy's not fucking around. Like your advice is really real. So the concept of building in, the concept of, and I love this, you can't imagine how much I agree with you on this, that it's not just about doing what comes naturally. - Yeah, so what is it about? - Yeah, oh my gosh, I'm glad you relate with me 'cause I'm getting a lot of flack on that. So the big, huge finding that really scratches the surface of a lot of like cultural assumptions, especially in high performance, is this big cultural conversation you have about strengths. And find your strengths, follow your strengths, the strengths are everything, and take the strengths, finder, figure out your top five strengths, follow those, don't do anything else, or at least know what they are and really aim your career to that, or aim your behavior towards that, or use that as a guide for recognizing pattern. And by the way, I'm all for it. That's all great. I'm that guy who says, you know what, any self-reflection you do, I'm cheering you on. Like any assessment, any tool that makes you look at within side, I'm like, all for it. It's just that strengths are not highly correlated with long-term success, right? There's not a lot of data and there is not a lot of research that has shown it leads to long-term success with the positive outcomes associated with what we care about in psychology, which is we care about happiness, we care about health, and we care about your positive relationships. And this myth that we'll just follow our strengths to the promised land is just not true when you actually talk with high performers. 'Cause my favorite question, if it was down this, just go up to anyone who's good and say, were you always good at that? And then be like, no. They're gonna be like, not at all. Well, did you always have an inclination to do every element of where you're doing really well? No. Like me? Man, I sucked on stage. This year I've talked to 60,000 people live. This is really important because this idea that our strengths are gonna give us everything, it's just not true. I sucked speaking on stage. Matter of fact, I was terrified of it. Terrified. But one reason I love your show is because I had that intention of, I wanna make an impact. And when someone actually asks, and kinda owns that, like when they say, do I wanna make an impact? And the answer is yes, and they own it, they realize they're gonna have to develop. They can no longer leave their growth to randomness, 'cause if they do, they'll always be mediocre. And they realize, I gotta become something entirely above both of those. That's what most people don't see. They're like, we made this binary false conversation. It's not a true sort of choice here. It's a false dichotomy, we call it, right? It's not strengths or weaknesses. Many of you, if you have a big dream, a huge goal, you gotta become something entirely above and beyond. Any strengths you even know about feel or own, and go way beyond any weaknesses you've ever even addressed, or even you know about, 'cause you're gonna discover so many new strengths and so many new weaknesses on the path that it's almost irrelevant what they are now. It's what's the goal and build into that. I didn't know how to write. I get a lot of critics who are literary guys about my books because every book is different, right? Six books, all of them different. And the reason they all read differently is I'm challenging myself as a writer to develop, to get better. Every book I write, I'm gonna write this like nothing I've ever written before. And I go to work at building a new skillset to be able to write. Like, manifesto, I researched for two and a half years just how to write it. Not what to write, how? How do I get that pentameter? How do I, what was the rhythm in which revolutionist rhetoric was spoken in or written in? Just to understand that took me two and a half years. So I have no conceptual understanding of it.

How to Get Better at Skill Acquisition (30:53)

It wasn't a strength. I didn't even, it wasn't on my radar. - And what does that process of skill acquisition look like? - Yeah. First and foremost, starts with identifying, I would even start with the skill, I would start with the self, you know, in the chapter on seeking clarity, we say it's like what we found for high performers, that they've identified these four things. They're more intentional these four areas. Number one is high performers are consistently seeking clarity and who do I wanna be? And I know a lot of people do that when they turn 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70. And people do that at New Year's. But high performers are doing that like, in every situation. Like before I, when I walked down the stairs, she was like, who do I wanna be in this interview? Right now with my friend Tom, like I wanna do a good job for him, you know? I made that performance necessity on myself. Like I wanna do a good job. So I was like, well I wanna be present, I wanna be enthusiastic, I wanna be bold, like I wanna be those things. High performers are constantly seeking clarity about how they wanna interact with other people. And I think a big development growth point for people is determining how do I really wanna treat people when they don't agree with me? Or when they're hating on me? Or when they're discounting me? Or they're being mean to me? Or we're in a fight? Because I think some of those are the greatest growth areas of our life. And then high performers are very clear about the critical skills they must develop in order to succeed in their space. You know, they identify, usually we found, they usually know three to five current skills they're working on. So another example for me was video. I was very awkward and uncomfortable in front of video. I know the feeling. Right, yeah. Right? But you said, okay, if I'm gonna make an impact, I'd better figure that out. Yup. I'd better figure that out. And so you go to work, you put in the miles, you try. Because learning is the ultimate lever to leveling up. Right? You actually have a math equation, if I may, which I think is where you're headed. But I loved this equation so much. Passion plus growth plus contribution equals personal satisfaction. Yeah. Yeah. It's like those all coming together, a lot of people have never experienced. And it's hard for you and I to say that as personal development. Guys, but it's true, there's a lot of people who've never had those three completely line up so they're not satisfied even with their job or their career or their life. 'Cause the passion isn't there. Even if the passions are there, they don't feel like they're growing. But everybody I talk to, do you remember that first personal development book you read? Do you remember that first time you wrote tons of notes about what you wanted your life to be about? Do you remember that first time you watched the movie inspired you to go change? There was fire there because that learning, it opened up your mind to a new level of existence for you. And soon as you saw it, you were like, "Ooh, ambition hits your heart." And now if you can match it with contribution and you can see how that passion or that fire or that learning or that growth all aligns to some type of impact, now you're getting me fired up. Because now I can see the outcome of all the work.

How to Spark Motivation (34:05)

A lot of people don't do the work because they don't believe the outcome. - That's interesting. - You know, if psychologists talk about the power of expectancy, when we talk about motivation, there's only two things that spark motivation. One is ambition and that is I want more of or I want a greater depth of, right? I want a greater depth of connection with my lady. That's ambition. Where I want a better meditative practice, that's ambition. I want to be better at my job, that's ambition. So it starts with ambition. But ambition, if it's not coupled with what they call expectancy and psychology, you're screwed. Expectancies says, "I believe that I can figure that out. "I believe that I can achieve that. "I believe that that is possible for me." Because if we don't believe it's possible for me, you can show them all the results from a thousand people. How many people say, "I want to get in great shape?" You know, I'm in, I'm in, "Tom, I'm a new ketosis. "I'm doing the ketosis thing, man." And they hop on your Instagram and they see the cuts, they see the changes, they see the transformations, but they don't believe it's possible for them. So they don't try. Expectancies, they're a problem. You got to bust through the beliefs to get them to understand that it is possible for them, not for other people, for them. And if you can open that gate for somebody and often that's only achieved through learning, then you get somebody who starts really moving ahead for it. I mean, really moving ahead. Like the second they go, "Wait, that's possible for me." They'll try 50 stupid things, right? They'll try anything. But if they don't believe it's possible for them, they'll just quit.

In-Depth Advice And Impact

Advice to someone who's struggling with depression (35:44)

- Do you have, within this context, so obviously seek help is first and foremost. But beyond that, what does that rebuilding process look like for somebody who's trapped in depression and suicidal thoughts? - Yeah. I've been there a lot in my life, especially before my car accident, my teenage years. Then the first woman I ever loved, we had a big breakup and that breakup set me down in depression and suicidal planning. And it's tough to dispense advice to people other than get help. And I'll share why, because that time in my life, I had so many people coming up to me, my friends would come into my dorm room, "Brennan, let's go do something." And you just, the hope is lost. And what people, I think, make the mistake of trying to do is height people up. Everything's gonna be okay, you're gonna be great. And what people need who are suicidal is serious psychological intervention. They need to seek support and help. And outside of that, when they do get that support, the first thing a great therapist is going to do, outside of the emotional reflection work of, "Why are you here and what has caused this sort of pattern for you?" They're going to get you starting to get some momentum. The most important thing is when you are super down, outside of finding that emotional reasoning for where you are, is to start getting momentum. 'Cause with momentum comes hope, with momentum comes motivation, with momentum comes that feeling that there's a reason for tomorrow. And so it's as simple as just saying, "Okay, what are three things I'm gonna do today?" And I don't mean that like a lot of personal development guys would say like, "We're three big goals for the day." I'm like, "Dude, sometimes that first goal is, I'm gonna shower today. I'm really in shower today. I'm gonna walk to the library and come home." And that's all they got. Like literally that's all they got. And you gotta honor that struggle when you're in that place. Like know that where you're at, it is okay that you're there. And now you're gonna need help. And now you're gonna have to set up some daily practices just every day, win a little bit. Not like win your dreams, not like, crush through goals, not like be bad ass, not like, no. Just momentum, man. Most of the guys I've dealt with in that position who were suicidal outside of their therapeutic work, I said, "The most important thing you can do is win the morning." Just win the morning, man. I think that's true for all of us, even high performers. Like I don't have my morning routine game. I feel out of sorts. So I think it's true for everybody. You gotta own your morning, you gotta win it. Because that starts and sets up everything else. I know you believe that as well. Like people need that discipline, those routines that will help the rest of their day go better. And I don't wanna ever be flippant with the advice to people who are dealing with that situation outside of, get some help, get some momentum, and be okay if that momentum is really small. Because it will build, trust that that momentum builds and trust that those gloomy and bad, dark days, trust that those are going to be there. They'll get less and less and less as you learn how to cope, but they're gonna be there. And so when they're there, it's one of the outside of teaching people to bring the joy in my life, I teach people to honor the struggle, honor the difficulty. When we honor the struggle and say, "I hate the struggle," we can really achieve extraordinary things because our mindset's in the right place. It except, like, as soon as you honor the struggle, you accept that, "Oh, of course, there should be struggle here. "I should honor this process." When you go to the gym to work out, like, honor, this is gonna be hard and it honored that process of getting better. And the more that you bring honor to it, the more your psyche builds with strength, and you get a little bit of that esteem back. Because you see yourself engaging something versus avoiding it and running away. You see yourself connecting with something and giving it reverence. You're like, "I have reverence "for the difficulties of life. "They may be better." So I don't want a friction-free life. I'm not interested in it. You know, I like to say sometimes that, you know, the journey to greatness begins the moment that our, you know, deep desires for comfort and ease are overpowered by our desires to connect and contribute. - I love that, man.

Where to Connect with Brendon (40:30)

Where can these guys find you online before I ask my final question? Just, you know what, Brendan.com, B-R-E-N-D-O-N.com. I saw, I remember seeing this way back, Oprah had Oprah.com. And I thought, how cool would we have to have your name? Dot com. Now, I sought this kid out. So I went to Brendan.com and this guy, he had his resume up there. And that's all he had, was a resume. So I emailed the guy and I'm like, "Hey man, I really love to own this website." Could I buy it from me? He goes, "No, it's my name." Dang it. And he says, "No, you know, I got my mom, "she's got, you know, an email, "we got an email associated with the domain." - Right. - All this stuff, I said, "Oh man." All right. So I said it in my calendar. Every six months for six years. - Whoa. - My calendar would go off and I'd email him again. Email him again, email him again. Email him, it took six years. And with six years, he said, "You know what, yeah, "I'd be interested in that conversation." Sold it, so I got Brendan.com. I'm really happy about that. Really thrilled that stupid story. But I was like, "Yes, determination." So Brendan.com, follow me on Instagram at Brendan Burshard. Check out my YouTube channel because I think anything you're going through in your life, you can hit my YouTube channel and there's, you know, 100 plus videos of something. Nice.

Impact (42:01)

- All right, last question. What is the impact that you want to have on the world? - Oh, that is a hard one. - You know, it's so simple. Like when you get, the life is really short and you felt that before, but either by you were threatened or you've had some near and dear, near and dear die. But when you have that real essence in you that says life is short, have reverence for it, live it, that's a really big thing. I got that at 19 and I learned specifically that if we have a moment of cognition before the end of our life, we tend to ask questions to evaluate if we're happy. So if I have any impact in the world, it's gonna come from that experience where I learned that the ultimate lesson is determine what the questions you're going to ask at the end of your life are going to be. Find out those questions. What will you ask at the end of your life to evaluate your life so that you would know if you were happy with your life? Like figure out those questions and then live each day intentionally so you're happy with the answers at the end. For me, the questions I had were, did I live, which I hadn't? I hadn't been living my life. I've been thinking about taking my life. Did I love? No, my heart was broken. And I put up all these walls to keep out other people. And I always say, you know, sometimes the walls we put up to keep out the bad guys, prevent the good guys from getting in.

The Walls We Put Up Prevent the Good Guys from Getting In (43:29)

And suddenly in our own self protection, we block out the very thing we want, which is connection. And I learned that I would ask, did I matter? You know, 22 years ago, on a dark Caribbean night, I'm standing on the crumpled hood of a car, bleeding out. My friend, I just wrecked a car. He's screaming at the top of his lungs. He's bleeding, we don't know if we're gonna live. And I'm standing on the hood of this car, looking down to all this blood, and I'm in terror. And I just remember looking down at the hood and just thinking, did I even matter? You know? And I hated the answer at that time live, 'cause a 19-year-old kid, I didn't know about impact theory. For real, I didn't know to think about that. You know, young kids sometimes, they don't know to think about that. I didn't know to think about legacy, meaning that I matter, I didn't think I did. But the good news is, I'm a good learner. And I felt like I got a second chance from God that night, and I learned that it was really important for me to figure out how do I live, and how do I love, and how do I matter in such a way that if I face my death again, I'll know I've earned the second chance. And so what I wanna tell people, and the impact I just want people to know, know your questions man, live intentionally, and earn the life that you've been given, 'cause this moment's a blessing, so earn this moment and live intentionally. - Thank you so much for coming to you.

Conclusion

Summary (45:04)

- Beating yourself up will not make you do the work to get healthy, and tearing yourself down over the shit that you've done or the terrible relationships that you're in. It's not gonna empower you to change the patterns that are keeping you stuck.