Creating a Zeal for Life

I believe that we have to cultivate a zeal for life, a zeal for the topics and areas of expertise that we take on, a zeal for our cause, our mission, our customers, our team. And please notice the word we must cultivate that zeal. You awoke today, I know, with great zeal for a life right today, with great zeal. You felt that energy, that enthusiasm, some kind of fire inside for some great cause or not. And it's okay if you didn't. You know, one of the central questions I think I've been asked in my own personal development in the last 25 years is how do you have so much energy, Brendon? And a big part of it is I have, as you know, great reverence for life. I feel blessed to be here because I feel like I'm on my second or third or fourth chance at life here now. But I believe that we have to cultivate a zeal for life, a zeal for the topics and the areas of expertise that we take on. A zeal for our cause, our mission, our customers, our team. And please notice the word we must cultivate that zeal. So many people hope that one day they wake up and suddenly just have this tremendous enthusiasm, energy, ambition for something that their heart is fully engaged and they're ready to go and crush the day. Other people maybe, like me, have to do a lot of that cultivation, have to do a lot of preparation and mindset work to get there. As a high performance coach, I've worked with a lot of Olympic athletes in my life, with a lot of major CEOs, with a lot of people who had tremendous pressure on them to win. And what's interesting is lots of them, just like everybody else, has days and moments where they just don't feel like it. The energy just isn't there. That day, nothing significantly changed the week before to this week or yesterday this day, right? They're still at the same job, they're still pursuing the same passion. They're still trying their best. They still have the same team or marriage or family or it's just that day they woke up and didn't quite feel like it. And sometimes people think that, oh, I've lost that purpose or that motivation or that drive. And the reality is, no, it's just that that morning they didn't take time to cultivate zeal, motivation, hunger, desire, ambition, excitement, enthusiasm, appreciation, gratitude, any emotion. So what they ended up with was the emotion that just happened to land on them, an unconscious impulse that became a reaction to something somebody said, an Unconscious sense that they didn't realize happened because they just read 30 bad news articles as they scrolled through gulping down five coffees instead of journaling about ambitions and dreams and goals. It's what happens to people. They forget that the mindset and the feelings of life are things that we cultivate. We must cultivate zeal, life force, energy, chi, joy, spirit, whatever you want to call it. To me today I'm just using the word zeal, Enthusiasm, an excitement, a real commitment or connection. Just like you have zeal for this topic. I love that word. The first time I heard that I thought, wow, I'd like to have me some of that. And it took a long time to realize, oh, you want some of that? And you want some of that consistently. You know what you're going to have to do? You're going to have to make that part of your morning routine. You're going to have to write down things that generate that feeling, that emotion. You know, the big fancy movement in personal development in the, I would say more of the psychology world in the last decade was, you know, knowing your big why. And you got to know your why, you got to know your why, you got to know where your why. And the reason that took off is because it's so intuitive to people that, gosh, if I think about why I'm doing this and why it's important to me and the benefits it'll bring to me, that might just energize me, that might make me more motivated, that might increase my engagement. Well, you can take that same philosophy into anything. What do you want to cultivate in your life? What energy? And then ask why something is important to you. I know that's so simplistic, but I always say in personal development it's a lot of common sense, it's just not common practice. And that's why so many people of great potential fail to ever realize that potential. They don't do the basics. You know, in the morning, as you're getting ready, what words are you saying to yourself? What thoughts are you not hearing but actually generating in your mind? The power of good old school fashioned self help affirmations is the idea that you can implant the thoughts that you want to experience. You can implant an energetic force or an energy or a mindset by the words, the thoughts, the feelings, the body movements, all these things to open up an awareness, open up a love and energy, right? And you can do that with the enthusiasm that you feel for each day. Listen, I don't know about you, but I hope you can imagine how difficult it is to every single day for 25 years, work on personal development every single day. Thursday, Just like anything else, I'm like, I don't want to do that. But it's like, no, okay. I got to get excited about it. This is an opportunity to grow. This is an opportunity to gain mastery in this area that I'm passionate about. This is an opportunity to serve even better today. This is an opportunity to at least be thankful for the fact that I even get to do this, that I get to feel this level of health, that I get to help this many people, that I get to know some friends, that I get to do anything that this day has afforded me. I think it's so important to cultivate that. So my morning routine is that 20 minutes in the morning of just movement, stretching, opening up my body, doing some quick activities and some qigong to open up the meridians and the energy of my body. Second thing I do for 20 minutes is read something inspirational. So that's when I read my psychology books, my sociology books, my leadership books, my biographies of great leaders in history. And then the third thing I do is I open up my planner and I just write down my plan. And now I use the Growth Day app for that. I go in and make my plan. I make sure I'm clear about the day, and then I will stand, and I will get myself in a good, energetic place, and I will often do recitations of either a spiritual text or some poetry or some words I've underlined in a new book that I'm reading that excite me and get my mind going. And I'll literally read out those sentences or those paragraphs four or five times out loud, just activating my body, my energy, my lungs to open up my expression for the day and get ready.

So simple.

Do I need to do all those things?

Yes.

Because when I don't, the day always begins as a reactive disaster without those things. Jumping into email or social media or replying to text and voice messages immediately sets what into my mind. Reaction, comparison, obligation, and that energetic force. Think about that. If every day you begin in reaction by scrolling through social media or email, or comparison by doing the same, or obligation by thinking I have to do all these things, of course your mindset's gonna be low, but you can also cultivate zeal. Why do I love doing this? Why do I feel so grateful for it? How can I serve somebody with this today? What can I get excited about today? How could this be amazing? Emotional Mastery is destiny. It's how we feel about things that ultimately shapes us so much more than just how we think about things. Both are very important, and both are definitely. It's important to know that they're not mutually exclusive. We certainly know that from neuroscience. But what's important important is that you realize, wow, that emotion I'm feeling throughout the day on a consistent basis, day over day over day over day, that's actually a choice that I can cultivate those emotions, feelings, thought patterns and behaviors that I can do the very things that will make me feel extraordinary. What a blessing. What a good reminder that every day.

Is a great day to grow. I know you woke up with an incredible attitude today. So excited to give and learn and serve and connect with your family and your friends and your team. I know that your attitude is improving every day that you are here. There is a momentum building behind you that is that magic of personal development that as we develop every day, as we learn something new, more aha's, more distinctions, more. More commitments to our habits and the mindsets and the relationships that we know help us feel more fully alive and on track than. Oh, my gosh, that wind behind your back is spectacular. Today I take on one of the biggest momentum, biggest needle movers, biggest pieces of advice I could ever give. And something that we found in the research was so obvious and so critical that I think people overlook it because it's also so common sense. Energy. People always say, brendan, if I could change my life and do anything, what's the first thing I should improve? And to some people's surprise, I don't say your mindset, I don't say your beliefs, I don't say your values, I don't say your standards. I don't say, you know, your. Your sense of security. I don't know any of that. I know all those things vital, all those things important, all those things will build up, but it all rests upon the energy that we have. When you don't have energy, your motivation goes down. When you don't have energy, we know you're less productive. When you don't have energy, you tend to be a little bit more short with your family or the kids. When you don't have energy, your persistence goes down. When you don't have energy, you don't have that outlook, that optimism, that vibe, that zest, that ability to inspire others. When you don't have energy. And I know you've been there, and so have I. So there's no judgment. It's just not fun and so I believe we've got to do everything we can to protect, to build up and to project our energy in ways that are supportive to our mental health and our physical health, our spiritual health, our emotional health, the health of our relationships and ultimately our contributions to the world. Energy, energy. If you start noticing your energy over a period of time keeps going down, we need a major intervention. And look, I know there's people listening to this inevitably because we have a worldwide audience in 70 plus countries who are having ill health right now. You know, your health isn't good, you got sick, you got a bad medical report. There's inevitably people who are dealing with major traumatic physical events, cancer, sickness, major challenges in their biology that they don't have any control of. And to those I send my grace and my love and my prayer, and I wish you abundant health for the day to day reality that we have to face when we aren't in emergency physical illness is we've got to do everything we can to build up our energy. That's why I'm such a proponent of doing the release meditation technique every day or making sure you exercise or move or walk every day. Why I really believe that we have to really care about our diet and you know, practice a diet and a nutrition plan that's best for us with professional guidance along the way so we're not just guessing. I feel like it's really important that we manage, manage our sleep and do a good job with our sleep. I think it's so important that we figure out what supplementation we need based on our performance required each day and based on our own biology. I think all of these things are so basic. But again, common sense is not always common practice. People don't care, they don't think about it. And so what do they do? They just grind, grind, grind and caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, caffeine and hope one day they achieve, you know, a sense of the promised land. And then they'll chill out, then they'll get healthy, then they'll feel good. I want you to start managing your energy like a high performer. And that energy might surprise you because we're talking about mental energy, physical energy, spiritual energy. It's about getting an alignment and a harmony between those types of things. And I think it's so important today have a gauge of your energy. Where are you at? Is it where you want to be? How could you improve it? You know, we used to do eight live seminars in person and you know, they started pretty small, you know, 22 people in a room and then grew up into hundreds and then grew up in the thousands. And then it was just crazy. You know, when you're doing that many events per year, you really think about your impact. Because I'd be spending four or five days with people and doing really immersive activities in their personal development. And one of my favorite things that have come out of all those seminars all those years is I always challenge the audience. I say, hey, listen, if never in your adult life have you ever decided to make a singular year your healthiest year of your life. Make that this year. If you never took the challenge, you said, you know what? This is going to be my healthiest year. This whole year. I'm going to exercise, eat, drink, meditate, do all the things that will help me become healthier. Make this that year.

Just choose it.

You don't have to wait till January 1st. Just whatever date you happen to be hearing this.

Just choose it and try.

You'll say, but I tried, and I fell off the wagon. You know, two, three months. I got.

It's.

You got the whole year to adjust. You can be resilient over a course of a year. It's okay if you messed up last weekend. You still got the rest of the year to get back on track in every area of your life, including your health. That's so important. Energy. Because what happens if you just increased your energy, you know, just 5% every day or 10% every week or 30% every month? Now, maybe you can't sustain that forever, but I promise you, those little tiny adjustments make a huge difference. And you know this to be true. You've had one of those nights where you had a great night of sleep and you woke up and you were just incredible. The rest of the day you felt awesome. Or you had a great nap or meditation in the middle of the day after the. The kids finally fell asleep, you fell asleep and you woke up totally a new human. You just felt like completely differently. I know you've gone to the gym or gone for a runtime once, and you just suddenly felt so much better in the afternoon. Your mind was sharper, you're more clear. Or one day, one month, one week, you did a cleanse or you decided to eat healthier or cut out the alcohol or the caffeine or whatever you needed to do, and you just felt better. Do more of that. Not here to give you the advice on exactly what to do, because it's different for each person. I'm here to tell you, figure it out. Master it, get better at it, keep working on it. Because this one area of your life is the foundation of so many others.

Energy.

Think about how you feel energy. How you build it up, how you project it to others, how you protect it. I think your energy is so key. And when you can improve your energy, everything gets better. So remember, every day you not only choose your energy or build your energy, but when you do that, then every day is a good day to grow together.