Best Of: How to Develop Vision and Awareness

So the next level of breakthrough to you is to challenge you on a continual basis to deeply and closely observe other people's emotional states, the focus that they have, how they're feeling in the moment, what they are focusing on and importantly about how your relationship is going with them. Is there a real connection and what can you do to develop that connection?

Foreign hey, my friends, it's brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the brendon show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes 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, training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're going to 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.

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 enjoy them. Please note 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 I'm suggesting or motioning tool or maybe even drawing out on a, 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 forward/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.

I'm going to take on one of the most popular questions that I receive when people want to talk about success. People often ask me, brendon, is there a difference between successful people and unsuccessful people? Do they share a common set of traits from your perspective? Now, you and I both know if you've been studying psychology for a long time, that trait theory in psychology died off a long time ago, and rightfully so, because we learned that really enduring psychological or personality traits or are sort of, well, not that proven anymore, in a sense that people change their personality and can evolve their personhood over the course of their life. Just like we learned in neuroscience about the idea of brain plasticity, the ability for the brain to continually grow, build new neural networks, new neurons themselves and keep regenerating and building throughout a person's lifetime. Well, people's personalities change and shift. In one situation, you might be an introvert on a personality test, but in another given situation, you might be extroverted. You know, I'm an introvert often by nature. I mean, you can't be a great writer without sitting down and spending a lot of time alone. So spend a lot of time alone. But put me on stage in front of 5,000 people and I promise you I will appear to be an extrovert. It's just an example of how traits kind of change. Some of us have sort of a set emotional style, and that's probably the more accurate terminology for it in the modern era of psychology. Emotional style versus just straight up traits. However, because the question is asked so often, I do think that successful people, and frankly, the human species, has some very distinct qualities about it that separate us not only from other people who may never have their breakthrough, but also from the animal kingdom. Just some basics that make us unique that we should remember. And if we can tap into that, then we'll find greater levels of success in life. Now, you think about what really separates humankind from the animal kingdom, our species, what really makes us different. This is the one. The ability to envision a future and to pursue it, to have a greater clarity, imagination, creativity about tomorrow, the next year, the next decade. It allows us to rise from that animal instinct that is just impulsive or, or intuitive or instinctual. That's gut level response to everything, to actually moving beyond reaction into being proactive, to move towards something that we see as desirable. So let's do some homework here. If I sat down with you right now and we spent a two hour lunch together talking about the vision for your life, how precise could you be with me? And I mean that in very, very specific terms of your vision. How precise could you be your vision for your career? Where's it going? Where do you want it to end up? What do you want to create and contribute? What legacy do you want to leave? What types of people do you want to work with? What type of leader do you want to be? What type of salary do you want to earn? What type of career would you love to be defined by? Or are you in the right industry right now? Are you in the right career right now? What level of excellence are you really demonstrating in your career right now? All of that is tied to one thing, the vision you have for your career. So what level are you playing at? Do you kind of go through the motions and you have no vision for it? Because if you do, that would be where we could say it's going to be difficult for you. But if we could say, you know what, you know what type of career you want, you know what type of leader you want to be, you know what you want to create and really contribute and focus on at work, you know what legacy you want to leave, aren't you more likely to be able to accomplish that? It's biblical, right? Where there is no vision, people perish. And that happens. As we continue to climb up that success ladder in life, it's easy to just start going through the motions because we're good. The easiest time to let off the gas is when you know you're good, you know things are going well, you got enough money, you know the kids are fed, you can afford the car, the house, the picket fence. And then it's easy to get in that comfortable life where you're like, it's good. And I want you to feel satisfied and fulfilled of life, especially from all the accomplishments and all the things you did to work so dang hard to get here. But we also have to challenge ourselves if we want to experience the fully charged life. What's my real vision here? What's my vision for my relationship with my spouse? What do I want the day to feel like with my spouse? What do I want that relationship quality? To be with my partner, my lover, the people I care for in my life? What's the vision I have for my kids? What kind of character do I want them to have? What kind of example do I want to be for them? What type of role model do I want them to see day in and day out? What do I want them to feel like they can pursue and chase after in their own lives? Well, let's talk about your own physical health. What kind of vision do you have for your physical health? Is next year going to be the year that you finally break through having the most extraordinary physical health of your life? Or are you going to keep dogging it and the Doritos are going to keep winning? You have to have a vision. You talk to extremely healthy, vibrant, fit people and say, you're amazing. How did you decide to become so fit and healthy? And you know what they always say? They say, you know what? I just finally got serious about it. I could see myself fat, overweight, obese, lethargic, tired, feeding myself full of crap and toxins that keep weighing me down. Or they say, you know what? I just, I didn't see myself that way anymore. See, vision is. Is intricately tied to our identity. How do we perceive our own selves and think about how important that idea is in your health? If you have the identity of a fit, healthy, vibrant, fully charged person, that vision, that identity, you're going to live into that. If you just don't even think about your body, you don't even think about your health, you don't even think about tomorrow, you don't even think about your longevity, your power, your energy, then you're probably not going to be in the world's best health. And so vision trumps everything. It dictates your health, it dictates your relationships, it dictates your career, every area that you can think about. So I hope this is making you ponder a little bit what level of detail I want to. Oh, could you be precise with me? If we sat down for two hours at lunch and I talked about your life and what you wanted and desired of the future, and if you could not, then welcome. I'm Brendon Burchard and I'm here to kick your butt. This is what this is about. Yes, we all know we should have vision, but it's common sense. It is not common practice. I've sat down, literally sat down with some of the highest performers in the world, and I've asked them for their precise vision of their life, their relationships, their health. And they're kind of, ooh, ah, ooh, ah. And that's where I know their next breakthrough is. And I hope you can find some semblance of that same thing for you too. That next level of vision for you, that next level of detail and excellence. Descriptive hunger for that. That's what's going to take you to the next level. Highly successful people have an extraordinary amount of vision. Even if it's just vision for who they are, what they want to do in the world and what they want their relationships to be about. If they just had that, that's the beginning, that's the foundation. Then breaking through is that next level of detail for tomorrow, for next year, for the years following and your ultimate legacy. That's your breakthrough. Second trait that they tend to have is a high level of awareness. Awareness. It's. It's like it's not, and I use the word awareness specifically here. It's like they're mindful or present to the circumstances and conditions of their own personal well being, their relationships and the context they are on. So let's talk about that. There's three levels I just referenced that. First, awareness, if you will. We could just call self awareness. Self awareness. Being about. They're generally aware of the thoughts that they tend to have. They're recurring thought patterns, both negative and positive. And they're aware of them at a conscious enough level to start creating the thoughts that they want to have to start not just having impulsive thoughts all the time that tend to move an animal towards sort of impulsive safety, concern or worry, sort of self protection. But they have consciousness. They have the ability to say what thoughts should I be having right now? What thoughts would be helpful to my situation right now? And they're able to look at the negative thoughts and deal with them consciously. That's a self awareness. They're aware of the good and the bad and they can regulate their beliefs, their thoughts, their mind, their behaviors, their relationships, their overall life in order to move towards their higher selves. I know that sounds really complicated, but it just means when we are self aware we are more able to regulate our own emotional life. And self regulation is a high, high measure of a person's, not only their health but and happiness in life from psychological testing, but also in their overall success, their overall ability to gain, to achieve goals, their ability to do very basic things like learn and master tasks. It's hard to master anything if you're not self aware of how you did. Right great Olympic athletes that we work with, guess what? They're highly self aware. They're aware to how their body moves in space. They're aware to how they're Feeling at the moment is their motivation, their drive, their focus at the level it needs to be to perform at their best. So a little self analysis for you here. How's your awareness been? Have you been conscious of how your thoughts have been recently? Have you been conscious of how you've been really feeling recently? On a day to day basis, Are you aware of what level of energy you have and whether or not it's sufficient for the task at hand? And if it is or is not, are you able to regulate to that next level to get to where you need to be? Or do you just kind of go along with the flow of where your energy happens to be? After you ate seven hamburgers at lunch, can you find that space that allows you not only to be aware of it, but to do something about it? That's a high level of self awareness and that's what successful people experience. And it's not. They experience it because of luck. They experience high self awareness because of choice and conditioning. They said, you know what, I need to check into these things more often. And by checking into those things more often, they became masters of those things. Because once you measure it and monitor it, you can improve it and ultimately master it. The second thing about awareness is that they're very, they have a high level of social awareness, right? Often called emotional intelligence or social acuity. The ability to pay attention to relationships in their life and to sort of understand, relate with or match, mirror, pace or change other people's emotional qualities. It's like almost the mirror neurons in their brain are firing at higher levels than other people because they've decided to want to be someone who has a high level of relationship with people. Guess where that comes from? From vision. I remember for me as a young man, when I was 20 years old, I decided I wanted to be really good with people. I had a vision to be an extraordinary good communicator and be a person who had great rapport with people. I was not that. I mean, I was barely a knuckle dragging guy from Montana, you know, it was difficult for me personally, but I had a vision for it. I wanted it, so I went out and developed it. So don't ever be one of those people who make the worst claim in the world, which is, well, I'm not a people person. No, you're lazy. And there's two very different things. There is no trait that makes you a people person. We want to believe that because it gives us the greatest excuse in the world. But look, everybody in service to their mission must Grow into the person required to serve that mission. We all kind of suck with people at some point in our lives. Those who decide to stay there because they lack vision for themselves and that relationship quality they want to have in their lives, well, at some point they've got to take accountability for that. Just as I had to. Just as I'm sure you have had to in your own life. I'm guessing if you're watching this, I'm preaching to the choir. You're pretty amazing with people. So the next level of breakthrough to you is to challenge you on a continual basis to deeply and closely observe other people's emotional states, the focus that they have, how they're feeling in the moment, what they are focusing on and importantly about how your relationship is going with them. Is there a real connection and what could you do to develop that connection?

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 and 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 brendon.com monthly. That's brendon.com 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@brendon.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 or listening with you on the next episode of the B r e n d o n show.