2020 Year in Review

Hey, my friend, it's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to a special episode of the Brendon show where I break down for you my 2020 year in I'd like to share with you the 10 lessons I learned about life and other people in the world today. Share with you these 10 lessons in hopes that they bring some inspiration to you, some release of a very difficult and chaotic and strange year that was 2020, but also some renewal, some hope, some energy, some depth and readiness to serve and lead and live your best and extraordinary life in 2021. And this is a new format you'll see a lot more of from me here and hear a lot more of me with the Brennan Show. Moving forward, we're doing more episodes and more conversations about life with you where I know you all are used to my videos and podcasts being capturing some of the best of my audio and video from so many of my live events throughout the year, so many of my online courses, through so much of my coaching community. And this will begin a new year of 2021, where I'm just talking with you more directly, more consistently across all my channels, and I hope that you will enjoy it. I would like to begin my 2020 year interview with the first lesson and with a story. In 1977, the year of my birth, two spacecraft were launched into space by NASA with the intention of traveling ultimately to the edge of our solar system to along the way capture data and send it back to Earth to capture photos and to capture a better understanding of what, what is Archos most like. And as those two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, hurtled across space and time, traveling somewhere, you know, 35,000 miles per hour away from Earth. It had traveled from 1977 to 1990, which is the year it started to reach that edge of the outer solar system. And I think Voyager 1 was passing Neptune or somewhere around there at the time. And the great Carl Sagan, who had not only been part of that project in major ways, who had equipped the Voyagers with a golden disk that held data about humanity, that held binary code that explained our great music and our cultures from all around the world. Data, insights, history, music, art from literally around the world, every culture around the world captured on a golden disc in the odd and impossible hope that maybe one day the spacecraft would be discovered by someone or something else that could then translate it and understand a little bit about these odd little creatures on Earth, we humans. 1990s was just about to pass into the edge of the solar system. Ours Anyway, Carl Sagan also had the genius idea of as it was about to turn off its camera at that point because it needed every ounce of power to be able to continue on its interstellar journey. He had the idea, right, before we turn off the camera, why don't we turn it back towards Earth and take one last photo? Now, this Voyager one at the point is 4 million miles, 4 million miles away from Earth. NASA engineers turn back the camera, they point it towards Earth and they take that one famous beautiful photo, what became known as the pale blue dot photo. You could see other planets in our solar system. You could see the Milky Way, you could see everything, but you really couldn't quite see. Just there was this pale little blue dot in the streak of existence that shocked the world with its beauty and its distance and its reminder. And Carl Sagan wrote something I'd like to read to you today, and it will lead to my first point about 2020, and I hope you will bear with me here for a moment. This is Carl Sagan's words as he thought about what that pale blue dot photo represented. He said, from this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest, but for us it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us on it. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being whoever was lived out their lives, the aggregate of our joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. I read you these words in hopes of inspiring a simple lesson at this moment after a difficult year, and that is the number one lesson of 2020, I believe, and in so many difficult times of our life, is to keep perspective. I know this was a hard year. People lost family members, people lost jobs, people lost hope, people lost a sense of themselves and who they were. People lost a connection of humanity as they got pulled into the vitriol of politics where all of a sudden, you know, this tribe and that tribe and we don't like you and we hate you because you think this. This was a year it was easy to lose the perspective that we were all on this planet together in a shared humanity that will be the record of this Earth. That we might fight and squabble for inches of land or for electoral college points. We might have unfair advantages of one country over another, privilege of one people over another. And yet here we all are in a shared human experience on a little blue dot spinning at remarkable speeds through the solar system. And I always remind myself of this key perspective to center on one simple point in perspective, and that is gratitude and awe, a recognition of how extraordinary it is. You get to be alive on this pale little blue blue dot in the cosmos. For all the anger of 2020, I'm stunned how many people lost perspective of the blessing of their own life. I think of 2020 and I say, wow, this has for me now been so many years since my own lessons in life brought me crashing into that simple lesson of life isn't guaranteed. Have reverence for your life. Be in awe of the magnificence, the beauty and the blessing that we all have to have breath. And if you have never felt more alive with awe and gratitude and appreciation, then in this year you failed to keep perspective because some of your neighbors died and you are still listening to this. Family members died, people had it so much worse than we have had it. And I mean, if you can hear this, I'm talking to you, because you might have had the worst possible year in your life. And you are still blessed with the breath in your heart and in your body to hear this message at this moment in this serendipitous magic that is you and me communicating across the cosmos of the Internet that you can hear me. You are alive, my friend. 2020, it didn't take your life if you hear this. And that is the greatest blessing of all. To awake with a grand reverence for life, to be able to know how lucky you are, to be able to shape this day with your own will, your own thoughts, to be able to start this day and to be able to start this new upcoming year, to choose your own attitude, to choose your own way, to choose what you want of life and work hard towards it. That is a blessing beyond imagination. You aren't blessed beyond words. You are blessed beyond worlds. The fact that there is life on earth, the fact that you get this breath, please keep that in your heart every day. Please know the blessing that you have. Despite the hardships, you're here. You're here. You made it through this year. You might not have liked this year, you might not have hoped for this year, you might not have anticipated this year, and you might not be proud of how you dealt with this year or others dealt with this year. But I'm here to tell you, if you are alive and you are listening to this simple message throughout the cosmos, I'm here to tell you, you made it. You lucked out on the greatest impossibility. You won the lottery ticket of surviving 2020. You won the lottery ticket of having the cosmos in the most impossible, serendipitous moment bring you into existence anyway. And it still carries your favor. What a blessing that you get this moment and you get a new year. And so I would ask maybe you tap into your blessing, tap into this gift, tap into the energy that is life, that is so blessed. Tap into this very moment where you can say, okay, I made it. I'm here. Let me give myself some credit for the strength to have made it through, even if I didn't like it, because you are here and you are blessed. Number one, lesson, keep perspective. Number two. I would say the harsh truth of the difficult times of life is this. Lesson number two, change illuminates character. At some point, the greatest growth you're going to have in 2021 is perhaps asking, how did you deal with 2020? How'd you do? How did you do through all the hard times? Whether you were sick or healthy, whether you lost someone you didn't, whether you had the job, had the dream or did not, the question ultimately comes back to such a simple and elegant thing. Who showed up? Do you like that person who showed up? Would you like that person to be better? How would you like that person to be better? What could they have done better? And what should you and could you do better in 2021 to live more into that magnificent potential that is harbored in your soul? How will you bring that to life? Who could you really be? Because you know what I saw this year? A lot of people who had tremendous privilege act beneath themselves in 2020 treat people poorly, be rude to their family, their friends. Other people take the easy way out of getting angry and screaming at others versus composing themselves and asking what they want to role model in this world. If you've been with me for a long time, you know the importance of what I'm always teaching about the role model mindset. We began 2020 with a new Year's live cast and another one is coming up for 2021, my 10th anniversary. For 10 years straight, I've gone live on January 1st to offer free training to the world of how to plan a great year. I hope you'll join me for 2021. You can go to growthday.com just growthday.com I think the greatest year to grow is January 1st. And to plan out your growth for the year, it's called Growth Day. Please go there. I'll tell you more about that in coming episodes. Our new brand and you know what's exciting about this? I look back at 2020 and you know what I said in 2020's New Year's broadcast? To adopt the role model mindset. And I really believe those who got that had a better 2020. If you went through 2020 as the victim mindset, as the oh, everything is against me mindset, that's very different than a role model mindset. Role model mindset is, I understand that the way I conduct my life is setting a standard. It is setting a standard in who I am, in my character. It is also setting a standard for other people because the kids are watching, the neighbors are watching, your fans, you're following your business, your team, they're watching, they are seeing, they are taking it all in. They observe your character. And that sets a mark and an anchor in their own. When we witness greatness, when we witness leadership, when we see those moments of Beauty in life where someone just does something awe inspiring, caring, kind. It fills our heart and our soul and it levels up our expectations of ourselves. So your behavior, all this change in 2020, were you proud of how you showed up? Were you proud of how you showed up? I'll share something very personal this year was I asked myself that every Sunday, every Sunday throughout 2020, once the pandemic started, I said, am I proud of how I'm showing up? Am I sticking to my values and my dreams? Am I committed enough to serve my audience? Am I showing up for them? We didn't relent this year. In 2020, it would have been easy to turn off the cameras, turn off the podcast, shut down the teams, close down the offices, bow out. We didn't relent. We showed up every week with multiple episodes across multiple podcasts, multiple shows, new things, new promotions, new campaigns, new free courses for you guys. We did not stop because that desire of our team and that just commandment of adopting the role model mindset, what would a role model do in this situation? Because don't we all want to be role model for our teams and our families and our kids and the people who watch and count on us? Well, if we do, then we must demand it. We must have some kind of way to ask that question. Now this of course begs the point of, well, Brenda, I'm not perfect. Listen, guys, I'm not perfect. If you were with me in my coaching community, which I hope you will join for 2021. We've always called my coaching community. Just, you know, Brendan's coaching or HPX coaching or high performance coaching. 2021. We're rebranding it to Growth Day because I want everybody to have a committed day of personal growth every single month. That's on the first of each month, we go live and we do a two hour personal development seminar. You should invite all your friends, all your family and everybody should be part of it. It's called Growth Day. You can go there and sign up. But what's important about that is I admitted all year long to all my groups. I was like, guys, this is hard and I'm a hot mess. But I'm still demanding something of myself. It's okay to be a hot mess. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to have anxiety, it's okay to get depressed. It's okay to be uncertain and fearful. It is okay. That's normal human range of emotion, right? And my friend, I'm looking you in the eye and I am telling you you must still demand of yourself. Sometimes the way to get life's energy back is to demand more of ourselves again. To not allow ourselves to take on the extra three days of the pity parties or allow ourselves to drown our sorrows in addictions, to turn away from the difficulty of the day to social media, to quit the day and just have a Netflix day. I'm here to tell you those are okay. Those are normal. But if that's going on and it is impeding your progress in life, it is impeding your sense of joy and happiness and your capability to serve and lead and care for your family and the people around you, then it is time to set that role model mindset up high again. And one say I. I am going to demand a higher standard of myself. Now, for all the inconveniences and the whining of this year, I'm here to tell you you must demand that of yourself. And you can only do it. You can only do it of yourself. You can only ask that of yourself. You know, I said in a recent social media post, I said for all the complaining about 2020, for all the political vitriol, the careless attention to one our blessings, for the inconveniences you let throw you off, for the losses, for the losses that were real and imagined. Just a reminder. Just a reminder. We are blessed to be here. And while we are here, let us do something with great strength. Let us do something we are proud of. Let us make our lives matter, live love. Matter never goes away. That's what we want of life. We want to live fully. We want to love openly and completely. And we want to make a difference. And we do not get to make a difference if all we do is whine. If all we do is complain. I was spectacularly surprised by how many leaders just whine the whole year away. I'm okay to whine and complain for a day or two, but if it's your weekend, it's your month. That's your mindset. And that becomes scary because you know what your thoughts continued over and over and over and over again becomes your mindset. Your mindset replicated over and over and over again from your worldview becomes the guiding force of your behaviors. The consistency of your behaviors shapes your character. The consistency of your character then shapes your contributions to the world and all of your relationships and everything that you will ever know. This year I tell you wisdom, my lesson, what I learned and what I saw and what I demand of myself. Change illuminates character. So if you didn't like the character that showed up in 2020. Rewrite the script, my friend, for the new year. Number three. Judge less, feel better. There's no way I can emphasize how important this is. No way. The more that we are judging others and the more that we allow others judgment to penetrate ourselves, the more we feel terrible. And this was a year I saw a huge and tragic lack of humanity, compassion, and caring for other people. If people didn't, especially here in the United States as we had election year going on, if they were over there or they wore that hat or they acted like this, or they believed in this person versus that person, the hatred and the anger pushed towards other people, the assumptions made about them, that was the tragedy of 2020 on equal level as the pandemic. Because as we lost people, we also lost the connection among the living. Because judgment. And I'm here to tell you, you don't realize how much you judge things, right? What happens is you're scrolling through social media, you're judging all day long, and the more you do that, the more you judge others, the more it takes away from you. And the more you compare yourself to others, the more it takes away from you, Right? Comparison is ultimately a judgment of others towards oneself, right? How do I measure up? Is the question. And then what happens is the more we ask that question with outward comparison, the more we suffer. And I'm here to tell you, try to live a life where you don't judge others harshly and you don't allow others assumptions about you and judgments against you to infiltrate your heart, to infiltrate your beliefs about yourself, or to steal away your optimism about others. I can share with you the hardest point of judgment this year for me personally was when we saw in the early spring so much confusion about the pandemic, so much, you know, awful judgment against others. And then as we moved into what became the Black Lives Matter movement, not organization, the movement to just simply say that black people's lives matter. The angst and the turmoil and the racism that was risen that was so hard to watch was because it immediately brought to judgment the reality that we have problems. And sometimes then what I'm saying is judgment can be good. Sometimes it's good to call something bad. That character is about recognizing when things are not good and saying, we gotta do better. We have to do better. We have to address this problem. We have to. And when George Floyd was murdered and I commented on it and started a major effort in our industry to address it, and this will be the untold story of this year of how many hundreds of influencers I reached out to during that moment said, you have to discuss this. And so many people go, well, I don't discuss politics. I said, this isn't politics, this is humanity. And you do discuss humanity. And I got a lot of backlash of did I handle it right? Did I say the right thing? Some influencers hated that I was asking of them to at least say something. And you know what? I actually don't have a judgment of whether or not they were right or wrong. But I do know I have to judge myself. And do I speak up for other people is a fundamental question that high performers ask themselves. If you happen to read the high performance habits, you saw the research on courage. Courage is actually academically defined by whether or not you are willing to speak up for others, whether or not you are willing to speak up for your thoughts, your beliefs, your values, and whether or not you're speaking up for others. That is more indicative of courage using a voice than jumping to swim across a raging river. And so courage is operationalized in our life by how we stand up for things when it's important. And to all those who were respectful during that time of my efforts to share and to amplify the importance of understanding how racism impacts our society, thank you. And for those who didn't get it, or for those who hated me for doing it also, I'm cool with that. At the end of the day, all I can do is do what I believe. And that's all you can do too, because we will judge ourselves on that. But here's what I'm here to share with you. Even though a lot of people, I don't agree on the political spectrum or a lot of people, I don't agree in how they approach society or who they might vote for, or how they treat their kids, or what they believe about the educational system, or whether or not they have the courage to do this or that. There is never in my entire career. And you can track it because there's plenty of it. There's never ill intent for people ever. There's always a hopeful and deep belief in their humanity and understanding that every person, even if they look different than you or vote different than you, they still want to live their lives. They still want to live a vibrant, a joyous, a cheerful, a feel good life. And they still want to love others. They want to be cared for. They want to care for other people. Love is in everyone's heart and it's there. It's there. It might not show itself in their Twitter feed. But, oh, it's there. That's humanity. That's humanity. It's there for all their willingness and their desire to mean something, to be significant, to matter. That's there for everybody, too. It's just that a lot of people never had any role models, so they don't know how to execute those things they really don't like. A lot of people don't know how to love and they don't know how to be significant in other people's lives. They don't. They never saw the example. They haven't done the work yet to get there. And so how do you meet people? I just share with you with compassion, with understanding. I can deeply disagree with a person and still deeply honor the person. I can see major problems in every single person, just like you can. And yet if I can skew my mindset to also see their potential. Because judging anyone is a dangerous game. Because you are really judging a moment in time. And you have to be careful of judging moments in time versus character potential. You have to be careful about judging a thing that you see with a tiny little viewpoint, a tiny little pinhole viewpoint versus knowing or seeking to understand a total or broader picture. This year was a year in which judgments came so fast, so swift and so narrow, we saw a lot of heated and unnecessary hatred. Because the first assumption wasn't ever, I shouldn't judge a person for one tweet or social media or this or that. It's, let me try to understand other people, whether they're black, white, or other race, other places, other experiences, other economic levels, other political spectrums, other countries, other worldly views. At the end of the day, the more you tried to control others to come into your worldview, that is a desire inside to judge others. And the more you try to control other people, I mean, control them, get them, they must see your way or they are terrible human beings. The more you suffer life in the misery of that. I hope that resonates. Because the alternative is to let people have their own opinions, let people have their own perspective, do what you can to influence them. If you have that relationship or they want of that, or they want that role model, or they're looking for honest inquiry and discussion, cool, Participate. But if they're not, instead of just judging them, the simplest thing is, you know what? Go ahead and make an assumption that if they want an honest dialogue, they'll start one. If they don't, no problem, no judgment. They got other things to go. Do they have their own Belief, let them have it. My ability to let other people have their own beliefs is how I've been blessed to serve and educate literally hundreds of millions of people around the world. I mean, think about that. All the touch points I have, if you've ever come to my events before, you see 40% of the people in that room are from other countries around the world. As I've done my world tours in the past, went from culture to culture to culture, telling my story and sharing my lessons in my life without judgments to those culture and sharing them in a way which was honest and respectful of my own journey, but also honest and respectful enough to acknowledge they have their own journey. I'm not the commander of their journey. I hope to be an inspiration point, maybe, maybe an educational point, but I don't have the ego that says I have to take command of their beliefs. And so I'm a happy person. Judge less, feel better. Number four. Family and health are ultimately number one. Family and health are ultimately number 1. I think the pandemic reminded us of how special family is. And for many of us like myself, who were distanced from our family this year because the inability to travel or quarantine or where their age or health was, it was a very difficult and sad and lonely year. And I understand that for everybody, I think it was a good reminder of how we must love and care for family. I also think it was a great reminder in the pandemic that, wow, we better care about our health, protect it, do everything we can to strengthen our own well being and our own wellness so that not just with the pandemic, but just this year taught us the value of health. Everyone was scared to get sick, everyone was scared to die. And those are good reminders. So you either lived in fear or you lived in commitment to improve these things. Either you lived in sadness all year about family or you reached out, talk to them more. I think that's important. And for those of you I know you're listening, who lost family and friends and dear ones this year to the pandemic or other causes, I'm here to share with you. I'm sorry to hear that and I send you my prayer and condolences. Nothing is more important than family and health and the health of our family and loved ones. And so for those of you who've been part of my journey for a long time, you know, you know, I've always spoken about energy in a mental, physical and spiritual sense. And I think it's a really important thing this year to note the energy you brought into your families and to note how you protected, cultivated and grew your own health. And if you didn't do that good this year, please do it for 2021. Don't just hope that, you know, oh, I'll have a vaccine, I can take it and I can go on living about my own life. Please improve your health for since 1999, I've issued something to my friends, family or my audiences since, you know, 2000, and that is this. Please, if you've never, in the single year of your life, chosen to make that year the best year of your health as an adult. I mean, as an adult. Not when you're in high school playing football, right? No, I mean, if you've never made a 12 month period of time in your adult life, that's going to be the best year of my life. I'm going to eat well, I'm going to sleep well, I'm going to move well, I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to figure out my nutrition and supplementation. I'm going to get in the best health of my life. Please make that this year. Please give yourself that gift. You'll be wowed and amazed. Of course, at New Year everyone always says they're going to do that and they last 30 days because they didn't have a real commitment for the yearly challenge of getting the best adult health of their life. I mean, I really want you to give that a shot because health and your family are number one and your family needs you healthy. Number five. Confidence matters. Confidence matters. How confident were you in 2020? I was on a call and someone said, brendan, how are you so confident amid all of this stuff going on? I'm like, oh, confidence doesn't have to do with what's happening in the world. I don't draw my confidence from the news headlines. Confidence is the belief in one's ability to figure things out. Listen, just like you, for those of you who are entrepreneurs, this year the rug was pulled out right on us. I mean, I, as many of you know and have been to, you know, the hundreds of thousands of you who've been to our events before, listen, we did eight live events per year for the last, you know, what? Well, decade plus of my life. Eight events a year that went down to zilch. Well, I pulled off our January and February events, but then from March till the end of the year, we had no in person events anymore. We had to completely pivot, we had to change. And while everyone was so terrified of that in business, I just was like, we'll figure it out. Give me enough time, energy, effort, leverage in the world. I will move the world. I just believe in my ability to figure things out. I'm not the best learner, but I'm a committed learner. I'm not the smartest person, but I'm committed to getting around smart people and asking smart people things. And that's a blessing, right? So I had confidence all of 2020, all of it. It didn't mean, listen, confidence doesn't mean you lack insecurity or uncertainty. Insecurity you can be like, I was a hot mess a lot of the year. I had bad days of motions just like anybody else. But I was always 100%, always the whole year, confident in my ability to believe, in my belief, in my ability to figure things out. I will figure it out. It doesn't mean I can't have a crappy day. It doesn't mean sometimes I question myself. Because high performers question themselves a lot because they want to get better. They're always looking, am I doing well? Can I do better? And so I'm here to share with you confidence. Have it. It's you knowing, knowing you will figure things out. Don't matter if it takes next week, next year, the next decade, you're going to figure it out. And with that belief, I always say, your beliefs are your magic carpet. Have confidence for 2021 to improve your life, to change things, to make things better. Number six, build while others wait. You know, this maybe is an entrepreneurial lesson I learned this year, but, you know, I found myself in that first March or April point of the pandemic, asking, you know, what am I going to do? And let me see how this turns out and everything else. And I had probably a good three, four weeks of just kind of waiting and seeing. And then I realized if I keep doing that, it will be a disaster by the end of the year. I need to adapt. I need to adapt fast. And listen, this is also a great opportunity. When everybody else is sitting on the sidelines, that's when you get to be the quarterback. When everyone else is sitting on the sidelines, that's when you get to rush ahead. When everyone else is pausing and waiting and worrying. Your daily consistent actions of integrity will take you miles beyond the competition. And I know that because I look back at my career and I was blessed. And in what, 2006, I saw how video was changing the educational market, and I got into that in 2009, I started doing live broadcasts. And this is a decade earlier than almost anyone in my industry. I wouldn't say my industry even pivoted to live broadcasts and live interactions until this year. We've been doing it for 10 years. So getting early is what made a huge difference for me in my career. I can say that without any question. But I also would say that this year, while other people were waiting, I saw opportunities to invest. While everyone else was waiting and things were down, I saw opportunities to get in the game, to become advisors to major companies, to do deals, to start making things happen, knowing that they'd turn around because things turn around. Listen, no one knows. I don't predict the future, but who knows what's going to happen? But I can tell you things are going to turn around in every sense of the word. And so when they do, did you take advantage of when they were down? I mean, this is not new information. This is Warren Buffett from decades and decades ago. It's just about getting in the game. And I'm not just talking about this idea for entrepreneurs, but what about your family? While everyone's sitting and wait till things turn out, did you strengthen your family with new practices and new habits and new routines to bring them closer together while everyone else is waiting and hoping? Just turns out a lot of people waited the whole year by watching Netflix. A lot of people waited the whole year by just consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming. They didn't create in the down. And when things are down, that's the time to create, not sit around. Didn't mean that to rhyme, but it did. Okay, that's number six. Number seven. Leaders show up in times of hardship. Real character is displayed. And leaders show up. And they show up consistently because why? Because in times of hardship, leaders recognize the clarion call to serve. They show up more consistently when it's difficult. They do more calls. They reach out to more people. And this does not make it easy. I admire, I mean, the, the, the, the, the two groups, I think, that win the year of 2020 outside of each individual or, or others, I would say it was healthcare frontline workers who showed up for people. They demonstrated the power of their commitment and oath. They cared about other people in times of real, real difficulty. And that brought challenge, that brought burnout, fatigue, sorrow, sadness, difficulty. And then they'd show up again on Monday. To our healthcare workers, to those who were in the wellness industry, to those who helped others, especially on the front line, God bless you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your commitment. I say the other underappreciated group this year was educators. To all the teachers out there, to all those who still showed up and figured out how to teach on Zoom or figured out how to serve their students in the absence of a school when things were closed down and figured out how to care for kids, thank you. To all the parents who had to learn how to homeschool and deal with all of the kids at home and maybe working from home and maybe, you know, having a spouse or somebody who was sick. Like all of the challenges that literally healthcare teachers and parents, those, those two, three groups, man, they showed up a lot of parents listening. You showed up this year, your kids are going to remember that how you showed up, you demonstrated something to them, you role model it. Believe me, they'll get it. They'll get it years later because there will be an analysis of 2020, and that analysis will be either favorable to how we showed up and led and served, or it will not. And it will be a binary decision because that's how history judges things. My hope is that you give yourself the grace within that truth and recognize that if you tried, if you gave it your best, if you really put yourself out there, if you showed up again and again for other people, that will be appreciated. Some of your kids are too young to appreciate it, some of your audience too uninformed, some of your team too self concerned, some of your family members too blind. And yet over time, if you showed up this year, the appreciation will come. And to all the leaders who feel unappreciated, don't let other people's judgment slow down that pull in your heart to serve. Don't let whether or not the praise do it. You're not, you're not needing for praise. You're not. That's the ego of youth. You don't lead for the accolade. You lead because in your heart you sense that servant leadership, that desire to show up for others. So honor that and keep that pulling through for 2020. Number eight, I think we need to learn to tap into our knowing, tap into our heart, tap into, you know, something deeper. You know, a lot of people focus a lot of their time on getting signals from other people and instruction from other people and, you know, input from other people. And they're constantly listening to the signals of the world, trying to figure out, you know, what's noise and what's important to them, but they don't realize. They're still outwardly looking for some signal. And what's inside is a knowing, a depth within their heart and their soul of what to do and who to be. And they're not listening to that truth inside. And so they're miserable and they're angry at other people and they don't understand that seeking outwardly things or outward input is important. But the real game and the real magic and the depth of life is summoning what is already within that knowing is renewal. I would say that's the lesson. Knowing is renewal. When you know the depth of who you are and you summon that each day in authentic ways and vibrant ways and just, you allow the freedom of being to show up. That's where spontaneity shows up. That's where joy shows up. That's where the right decision for you and your family shows up. That's where the right decision for your destiny shows up. It's inside. Stop worrying about are you getting the right signals or what the noise of the outer world is. No, no, no. Go into the knowing, the ultimate sense of self, the tapping into one's soul and asking the hard questions and then finding the freedom within and summoning that over and over again to do your thing to be you authentically. Number nine, you have to learn to release stress. If you've never done the Release Meditation technique, we just call RMT Release Meditation Technique. Please just go Google my name and Release Meditation Technique technique and you can learn a simple 20 minute meditation that teaches you to release your thoughts and release the tension in your body. That's the goal to me of meditation. I know some people say meditation shouldn't have goals and I'm like, that's cool for me. I have a clear intention going into all meditation. I want to release my thoughts and I want to release the tension in my body and I want to emerge more clear, less tense. And I hope that you found your practice of well being of what you do this year for that and really practice it. For me, the Release meditation technique made 2020 equally as stressful as any other year of my life, believe it or not. Because even as I'm trying to lead teams in literally locations across the U.S. now, all virtually as our business grew and grew and continues to grow, as we're launching Growth Day, this new brand I'll tell you about as we're getting geared up for the New Year's, you know, celebration that is Growth Day, all of this work that is coming up as we launch so many new products, programs, as I was on the phone constantly with so many leaders, so many CEOs, so many influencers trying to help them throughout this year, I can share with you. The best practice I got was after each of those phone calls, each of those tense moments, days, bad emails, I would push away from my desk, close my eyes and just repeat the word release to myself. Release, release, release. I would both use release as a mantra and as a command. And it let go of a lot of stress this year. And I had to do that two, three times a day, you know, otherwise it got to me. And I can tell you the days that I did not do it, that I didn't release the stress by either working out or by meditating or by doing something artful or creative or taking a long walk with the niece. Those were bad days. Those were difficult days. See, a lot of your worst days are because you're not releasing the stress and anxiety. You're holding onto them and you're justifying them. And that causes a lot of pain and suffering. And so learning to let them go and actively not hoping that happens when things change, but rather, let me release these fears today, let me release this anxiety today, let me release the stress today. And I'm not here to speak to you as a mental health professional on this topic because obviously there are true biological challenges that people have with each of those, including myself. I have an easy and a built in biology for ADD and for high levels of stress. And I've had to mitigate that my whole life and it has never, ever been easy. But I've had to teach myself how to, for me, it's by taking as I, you know, I've always taught you guys, taking my meds, which stands for meditation, exercise, diet, sleep and supplements that helps me stay on my track, my morning routines. You all know about all the practices we teach in high performance habits, those things. That's the answer. I was like, what's your answer? I'm like, it's in high performance habits. I just do that, doing those routines and habits, focusing on those things, having that mindset that really supports and serves me and then, you know, knowing how to release the day through journaling. Thank you all of you who supported the High Performance Journal this year. Stunning gratitude for that. Everyone who's bought a high performance Planner, thank you for that. Those two, by writing things down, captures my ideas. And I'm not so stressed and scattered because a lot of stress comes from being scattered. So that's why I do my high performance planner, it's why I write my high performance journal, it's why I have my morning routines, it's why I have all these goofy things I do to reset myself throughout the day. If you haven't read the chapter on high performance habits on energy of release, tension, set intention, that singular thing could have changed your 2020. Got to learn how to release that stress and I hope you'll do that better in 2021. And I put the challenge out there for myself to do it as well. Last idea, number 10, big lesson. Ask for help. If you were sad this year, let people know and ask for help. If you didn't know what to do with your business, ask for help. If you were unsure of how to educate your children at home, ask for help. We saw what happens a lot and that is our culture is terrible at learning. We all believe we must learn on our own versus ask for help. I never try to do anything from scratch. I always ask, what's the best practice here? Someone's already figured out what are they doing. Let me model that. Let me call them, Let me learn from them. Sometimes that's casual reaching out on social media. Sometimes that's me joining masterminds. I know many of you have joined my mastermind this year. Thank you for that. If you haven't, go to hpx life.com forward/mastermind. That's my, that's for my marketing, an entrepreneur type mastermind. But I join others. I'm part of so many groups and so many zoom calls and so much learning throughout the year. And I'm always asking for help and I do it in advance. What do I mean by that? Like, it tends to be at the beginning of the week, I let my wife know what's coming up this week and I try to understand what she needs and I try to share what I need and what's going to be challenging. And I'm always sharing like, this is challenging. This is what's going on, this is what's happening. So I'm always communicating to the people around me what's happening. You know, I'm honest and upfront with my team about where I need help and I ask them all the time, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need? What do you need that leaders have to encourage other people to open up and ask for help. And we must also have the bravery and the vulnerability to do that too. And I know some of you, you got through this year on your own willpower and I applaud you for that, for that insistence, for that strength. But you are not alone on this pale blue dot. Reach out and learn from others. Share with others. Communicate with others. Be vulnerable with others. Ask for help. If this year was miserable to you, I promise it correlates with how much you reached out. That's what happens. When I was suicidal as a young man, that began my personal development journey. I think back to all those years now. Yeah, it's 25 years since my car accident this year. Time flies, right? 25 years ago. Wow. Then it's 20 years ago since my first book came out. And it's 10 years ago since I went live for you guys every January 1st. You know, time really goes by fast. And if you're doing your own math in your own head about milestones in your life, you recognize how time really does go by fast. And I would share with you what makes it a beautiful time and how amazing things can happen. Because you think for me, I think of the great gratitude I have for all of you. And all of these years, wow. In all these years, I think about the reality that through and through, when people say, how'd you do so much? It's because I asked for help. I really did. I've always been good at that because I recognized a young man. When I was suicidal, I couldn't figure things out myself. I knew I'd figure them out, but I knew I couldn't do it by myself. I had to ask other people. I had to ask, how do you deal with depression? How do you deal with the sadness? How do you. How do you make it through the day? How do you stay motivated? How did you get successful? How did you earn money? How did you build a team? How did you learn to communicate? How did you learn to love? How did you learn to serve? It was seeking those questions for me. I sought a lot of it in history. I sought a lot of those answers in books. I sought a lot of those answers in community leaders. I sought a lot of those answers in my faith. I sought a lot of those answers in the people in my industry and those who are around us and many of you listening. I know you gave me a lot of answers, too, because I sought it from my audiences all the time. And so for this blessing that I have of whatever success has come in these last 25, 20 and 10 years, I thank you for your guidance, for your support, and I ask for your help, too. Ask for your help. 2021 is going to be my, you know, biggest year. We're rolling out growth day as a brand, and what that's going to really represent is the world's best coaching community where we're, me and several of my friends and biggest names in the industry are going to go live and coach you throughout the entire year. Growth Day to me is a platform for personal development and it's my opportunity to bring together the best voices in personal development. We'll be rolling out in the spring a brand new software that if you ever loved any of my research or work or tools, it will all be that software. But it will also be a broader representation of the personal development and professional development market of other people's courses and other people coaching you and tools to measure your habits, to score your life, to really interact with the community dedicated to personal professional development in a new app. All big things under this new brand of Growth Day and I'd love for you to support it. So please go to growthday.com that's my one request. If this episode or any of my work has served you over the years on the Brendon show or the Marketing Influence podcast, or my YouTube channel, or my blog, or any of my books or any of my 28 online courses, or the thousands and thousands of appearances on other people's stages and podcasts and whatever else, I would ask that you go to growthday.com register for information from us when the app comes out in the spring. Join that when we're at New Year's together. Join us on New Year's for what is usually a four or five hour epic live broadcast beginning at 10am Pacific Standard Time will go four or five hours. I'm bringing in this year under the new Growth Day brand. We're bringing in new voices. So if you saw what we did Influencer Summit, you'll really enjoy what we're going to do to bring in some of the best voices in personal development in the world. To motivate you, to inspire you, to empower you to have an extraordinary 2021. It's been my honor to share these 10 ideas with you here today. Keep perspective. Remember that change can illuminate your character, so adopt the role model mindset. Remember to judge less so you can feel better. Keep family and health up there in your top priorities. Remember that confidence is believing, your ability to figure things out and you will build. While other people are sitting around waiting. Remember to show up as a leader. Tap into that knowing of who you are. Summon the best of who you are. Listen to the internal voices because that is where your renewal will come from from 2021. It won't come from the economy. It won't come from the vaccine. It won't come from outwardly things. Renewal is summoned from tapping into what is true within. Release that anxiety on a consistent and daily basis. Release that stress to the utmost of what you can. Release that tension every single day. And as always, when you need help, dang it, ask for it. I want to send you blessings and love from me and Denise and my whole family. We appreciate you. Thank you for your Support all these 25 long years where all I've want to do is help people live, love and matter. For being part of that journey and for completing this year and having the breath that you have now. I'm happy that you're alive. I'm happy you're on this pale blue dot with me. I love you guys. I'll see you January 1st at 10am for our growth day new year's live broadcast. SA.