Become a Better Leader

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Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendan show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on some stages across the world. Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students.

So I know you're gonna really enjoy.

These because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits when you, well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts in these special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please know that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something that I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategies that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendan.com monthly that's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this.

So if you like this, you would love that training program.

But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings.

If we can better position you as a leader in your space, if we can better equip you to know how to lead others effectively, and if we can ultimately all move together as a community to higher levels of service. Game changer. Many of you are like me. You're trying to make a big difference in the world. And in doing that, you got to figure out leadership messaging. So if you're trying to persuade people to follow you, join your team, invest in you, buy from you, believe in you, what's the messaging that will position you as a leader in your field, but also influence people with all those mental triggers, we know that it takes for you to persuade and motivate and lead what's going on in your leadership life? You know what's going on for you? Do you already have a team, or do you just need to get a team? If you have a team, whether that's one virtual assistant or they're leading literally thousands of employees, when they're doing that, they've got different struggles than maybe you have when you have one person. So what I want you to do is, as much as leadership can be this big pie in the sky concept, I really want you to be thinking about the questions you have when you're trying to start a movement, you're trying to lead a team, you're trying to make more money, you're trying to motivate and influence the people around you. What are the questions you have about that right now? For some of you, that's incredibly personal. Because sometimes leadership that really comes down to leading with your family. You know, sometimes leadership that comes down to a conversation that isn't just about, you know, a conceptual basis. It's really about my family struggling to follow my values. Brendan, how do I better lead my family? Sometimes for you, it's about your team. They're doing good, but you feel like, you know, they're kind of performing at a level that's really below the expectations that you have. Well, how do you address that without sounding like an ass? It's like, you guys suck. Maybe not the best leadership messaging, right? So some of you, we got to change maybe your style or your approach or messaging. And some of you, look, you're a solopreneur. You're a thought leader. You're trying to, you know, maybe you don't have a big team, but you're trying to galvanize a community, and leadership plays to all of that. And I can share with you now, having had the blessings over this last 20 years to focus on this area, there are some things you're going to have to learn today that will be uncomfortable that you won't want to do. And there are some things that you're going to have to do to start those movements, to shift your family, to improve the team. And I promise you, that's not going to be easy work. In the human story, there's only two narratives. There is struggle and there is progress. And everyone can understand your struggles, and everyone can understand your progress even at the top heights.

And.

And if you ever get in a place where you say, well, no one understands me, that's only because your ego has taken over the world. There's 7 billion people on the planet. Someone understands you. Someone's been there, someone has done that. And frankly, someone is above you right now. Someone is out working you right now, out earning you right now, doing better than you. So no matter where you're at with your million followers or your 5 or your 10, and if you're someone who's saying, well, they don't understand me, that's.

Your ego getting in the way.

And today, there'll be a lot of discussions about ego, because right now, in a culture that is driven so much by narcissism and ego, we're having a lot of people failing to address the world with compassion. We're failing to have leaders who are coming from a place of heart, who actually think about service versus self interest. And if any of this resonates with you, it's not just because the current political climate in the US or worldwide, it's. It's been there. I mean, go read leadership texts from 50 years ago and 100 years ago. Ego and superiority and these complexes that we'll talk about today, they've always been the thing derailing so many potentially great people. Some of these things that trip you up, they're always issue. They're part of the human narrative. And our job as leaders is to start questioning how we think, how we serve, how we talk to other people so that we can elevate the conversation in the world to create a world that is more kind and compassionate, to create a world that is more collaborative, and to create a world for those reasons so that we all rise together versus keep going to war, starting conflict, or, you know, basically creating stereotypes. All of this work we're going to do today, right when we start talking about leadership, there's going to be three concentric circles that we'll be talking about all day long. Number one is the self. That's you as the leader. I got to dig into your head a little bit. We got to work on your mindset. We have to change the way that you view your role. We have to give you some phrases to remember as you're leading others so that it's not just about you. But at the same time, if we're going to really succeed as leaders, we've got to develop your levels of clarity about who you are, what's important to you, how you want to lead. We also have to develop your sense of confidence as a leader, because, look, when I tell you to go start a movement, that's kind of intimidating. It's not so much today because everyone wants to start a movement or change the world and make a huge difference, but the reality is that brings up a lot of stuff. We got to talk about your shadows, and we got to talk about the thing that brings light from you to the world. And that's not just esoteric conversation. There's parts of you that suck, and you have to address those as a leader. I can't tell you how many times I've been literally in a Fortune 500 meeting with the senior executive teams, and I have to interrupt and say, I'm sorry, what you just said is. Is really rude. Let's all take a B. And everyone's like, oh, my God. Because you know what? Sometimes who you are today is not sufficient to lead to the next level. And that's not being mean. That's just saying, look, we got to find those parts of you that are going to derail you when it comes time to. To lead larger movements, lead teams, inspire the next level results from your own self and team. There's a lot going on here, and as you're writing your journal, I'd love you to think about today as a theme. What are the things about you that you already know, prevent you from leading at the levels you're capable of? Like, what do you already know about yourself that gets in the way? Right? What are those weaknesses? What are those difficult sort of mindsets or thinking patterns or practices that, you know, hurts you like, already? What do you know about yourself that diminishes your power to lead? I really want you to think about that throughout the day. And I know you're like, geez, Brennan, can we have some motivation here? I know that doesn't sound incredibly great, but look, there's a myth right now, and there's a lot of feel good stuff in the leadership space that just says, you know, focus on your strengths all the time. And I'm like, I don't know if you've heard me address this concept in the last couple years. It's not just a theoretical standpoint where I believe that somebody's strengths isn't the correlative edge that helps them reach high performance or higher levels of leadership. It's that, as I've coached so many people, it's become a truism that sometimes you shouldn't make your mission or your purpose in life bow down to your limited human strengths. This whole idea that you should take some assessment and just focus on your strengths, as if that's going to be enough to help you make your ultimate dent in the universe, is not true. You're going to have to change, and you're going to have to get better. And every great leader in the modern era who has achieved extraordinary results had to get the same thing. I mean, you look at some people who really came from one perspective, one area of strengths, and had to develop into another to get better. And now you're talking about the icons of the world, right? When you think about Mark Zuckerberg and creating Facebook, Mark was a very different person at the very beginning of Facebook than he is today. He had to address his weaknesses and his challenges and his compulsions to be able to rise to a person that could serve at a different level. And whether of your opinion of that particular personality or not, you just have to realize if we all we said is that let's just ample, let's just do our strengths all day. That is not sufficient to serve at your next level. We're going to have to see where you're not good. We're going to have to evaluate where you're insufficient, and you're going to have to have the boldness to claim that. I've had to do the same thing throughout my life. I always have to go, you know what? I suck at this area over here. And I wouldn't beat myself up or get down on myself. I'd just be honest. You know, the first tenet of leadership is honesty of self. To not just know thyself and trust thyself, but to imagine thyself better and work into that. That's the first tenet of leadership. To know thyself, be honest with thyself, and to imagine thyself better and to have the accountability for your people, for your mission, for your service, to move out of your comforts, which are usually your strengths as of today, and go to another level of service by addressing both, by amplifying your strengths, but also addressing those biggest weaknesses. Because you have the strongest ship in the world, but one hole at the bottom of that thing takes the whole thing underwater. So we've got to address what are you not good at that you already know. I promise, today, in this four hours, here's some motivation for you. In our four hours today, I'm going to help you point out your weaknesses. I'm going to help you find the things that you're not good at and that have been diminishing your ability to succeed at other levels. And, and I know that's easy to say, well, geez, what a useful time of my weekend. I know it might not sound motivating, but look, what got you here may not get you there. And the whole argument that you should just leverage your innate strengths. Well, first, I don't believe any innate strengths ever led anybody to long term high performance, particularly as a leader. It's just not true. Because if it's innate means you were born with it. That means the same strengths that you had at 12 years old are going to be the things that take you to the next level at 40 years old. Forgive me, as a person who's now in his 40s, I can share with you that's just not true. What was sufficient and strong in me as a teenager is not the things that are required of me now to lead a global movement. And I'm sure you can resonate with that too. So for your journal, I know you've been writing a lot, right? I mean, just keep writing, Keep writing. If you're walking around the house right now or around the office and you're watching something else or doing something else or trying on social media, I promise you're doing a disservice to yourself right now. And that's one of the things we might have to address. Your ability to focus immediately at the task at hand, to develop yourself. And that's what we're doing here. So quit all the other stuff and literally get out. I don't want you to type along with me. I want you to have a journal and be writing words on a piece of paper in a journal. If you don't have that, you're just going to create another file that goes somewhere that you never see again. I want you to really write and think through this process because a lot of leadership comes down from the focus of self reflection. What else do we know? Well, the bigger picture too is that this entire huge social interaction that is leadership. How do you treat people? How do you challenge people, how do you coach people? How do you deal with team dynamics when you're not even there? Right. Many of you know who are here? You lead companies or you lead teams where you're absent most of the week and they're having to be self sustaining. How do you create this entire social environment where sometimes you're here and there's an overlap and sometimes you're out there? You know, a lot of my big clients, they're not even with their teams. They're on the road, they're traveling. They're going from one business unit in one city to another. So there's a sense of, yeah, you're a big part of leadership, but there's another big part of leadership that extends well beyond you. How do you empower this entire team, group, organization, environment, to survive and thrive without you? That's real leadership. That's probably the original connotation of leadership going back 2000 BC when you had people like Confucius and Lao Tzu saying that the ultimate measure of some way of a leader is that the people say we did it ourselves. Like that's that whole connotation of Greenleaf's methodology of servant leadership. That the great leaders aren't really just the charismatic guys up front, brow beating people to succeed, motivate them to succeed, or using carrot and the stick. The real leaders don't need the carrot, they don't need the stick. They're not even there. It's by their messaging, their influence and the culture that they have shaped that they step out and the team runs itself at high performing levels. That's when you know you're a real leader. Can your team run itself without you micromanaging, without you pushing all the dials, without you doing everything? And I don't pretend any of that's easy in my company and multiple companies that I lead or that I invest in, I can share with you. That's always been a challenge. Like how do I take Brendan and separate him from how this company is growing? That's not easy. And so I don't pretend to have all the answers again today. My job is to get you thinking bigger, to bring you back into the concepts that you can evaluate yourself and where you're at and that you can start doing better. So let's think for a moment. What's deficient or challenging with your team right now? What are they not good at? Where are they struggling? Where do you see room for improvement with them? Let's start thinking about that. And I know you might say, well, Brendan, why aren't you just starting with all the good stuff? Because you know what? You already know some of the good Stuff. And we'll get to that when we talk about motivating and finding moments of appreciation and gratitude and those things like that. But because I'm lucky to have a global community with us right now, I want to just get right to it. What are we struggling with right now with your team? Because if we can't frame it with that, we're just not going to be sure exactly what to work on. So let's get down to that. What's struggling now for some of you might go, I don't have any social interaction with a team. And I go, well, do you have an Instagram account? Do you have Facebook? Because that's social interaction every single day. There's a message under that social interaction. Yep. In social media, that counts. But watch how often you see throughout certain times of the year, the leadership messaging picks up. Because leadership messaging isn't just about what you say. There's timing of it. Like, if you see what happens in, like, for example, in the upcoming months for us in our accounts, you go, I get it now. It's how you go from a million to five. It's like, what got you there is not going to be sufficient to take you to the next level. You can't just be like, I guess I should do more, you know, selfies, you know, right? There's got to be a change in your messaging here. Just like there has to be a change in your mindset here. You follow? You got to change your mindset to be a leader and identify where you're deficient there. But you got to change the messaging that you've had with your own team and others, too. And then ultimately, big, big, big, big, big picture is service leadership is really the interaction of all of these things. Right? It's who you are. It's how you treat and lead other people, but also engage them to lead and treat other people. And ultimately it's about, well, what are you doing together? And that's what I think a lot of people lack with their teams. They're more focused on what their team is doing than what they are doing together. Make sense? So they come in and they manage and they go, what are you doing? Why aren't you more efficient? Why aren't we making more money? Why didn't we hit our numbers? This, that, that and all the why is ultimately diminishment or task management. Either why didn't you do that? That's one leadership style, or why aren't we hitting these numbers? That's another one. But that's forgetting why are you doing what you are doing as a leader? You need to insert that more often, right? If you've been on my, you know, my email list for a long time, you always see that it's pretty regular for me to finish emails saying, the world needs you, the world needs this from you. The world. Here's why. Let's get it. Let's do it right. It's always pulling us together. It's saying, you're important, right? Other people need you, the world needs us. Let's go. It's inherent in almost all of my videos over a period of time. If you watch it, there's always this underlying theme of service. And I would say if anything that has helped me, it's been that. But they don't even ever talk about love. They never talk about volunteering. They never talk about service to others. They never talk about compassion in difficult times. They're focused on like, how to learn some one specific thing faster. They're focused on the tactics, they're focused on the tools, they're focused on all the myopic things which, by the way, are important to performance enhancement. And they're missing the entire reason that we exist, the entire reason that brings meaning and joy and connection to us. And I would say that, if anything, why I've been able to outpace it's only because of that. So I'm just trying to show you because many of you who followed me for a long. That's what's underlying so much of my work. We have an opportunity to make a real difference. And when I say that, I don't say make a difference just to make money. I say, that's why we're here. That's the whole point of it. You know, even myself, the greatest turning point of my life, a car accident. I learned that we all ask, did I matter at the end of our lives? And it's not going to be about how many selfies we took. It's not even going to be about just how great my family is. It's going to be about did I contribute something that was beyond my own self interest, where that self interest was my further my achievements or my self interest was my own family. Did I do something in this world? And we're gonna ask that.

All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor. Go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. Just go out, post it somewhere. Post yourself. Listening to it make sure you hashtag the Brendon show because when you do that I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to Brendan Monthly, that's Brendan.com forward/monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings.

Like you just heard.

But we do that every single month.

And there's some live Q and A.

There and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@Brendan.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you listening with you on the next episode of the B R E N D O N show. Sam.