Creating Options in Life
22 Jul 2022 · 15 min
Brendon Burchard explains how to pursue new dreams without abandoning security. He advocates for a plan B, slow transitions, full commitment to what you choose, and letting yourself have multiple interests instead of forcing a single passion.
Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening.
Now let's begin. I'm always asked, Brendan, should I have a plan B if I decide to go and chase my new dream? And the answer is absolutely yes. But I have a little bit of warning and a little bit of just ways to think through you chasing your new dream. You know, we all have our certain levels of risk tolerance in our life. Maybe you've been in your life that person who just goes for everything right up automatically. Easily you believe in yourself. You go out there and you crush it every single time. So you have a very high risk tolerance. You're like, oh, I can just quit what I'm doing right now and just go right now, just burn all the boats and jump in. Most people actually aren't built that way or they've been conditioned not to be that way. So you might have to think through it a little bit more at a complex level. That's what we're going to talk about in this episode. First and foremost, if you have a new dream and you want to go chase it, the answer is, yes, go chase it. Now, it just comes down to timing and tact, right? The timing in which you go decide to go do that, and the tact in which you leave the old thing to be able to go do that thing. So people say, well, should I put all my eggs in this basket right away or should I have a plan B? The answer is always have a plan B. But it doesn't necessarily mean you don't take action towards the dream. Because a lot of people make their plan B an excuse for not doing anything. Oh, you don't understand. You know, I'm still doing this thing over here, so I can't over there. I'll share with you. That was my own personal story for a little while. I had a corporate job. You know, I left grad school and I started, you know, doing consulting work for major Fortune 500 companies. And I was doing great. I had a great job at a great company. Everything was really, really great. But in my heart, I wanted to do this work. I wanted to write a book and do speeches and shoot videos and do online courses for you guys, do seminars. And that was kind of an industry that was just growing at the time. And it was scary. There wasn't a lot of mentors. There wasn't a clear path of how to do that. There was some online marketers out there teaching some stuff, but it was kind of all over the place. And I was scared. And I had to make this decision. Do I just quit my corporate job and jump all in, put all my eggs in that basket? Huge risk. Or do I transition slowly? And my advice to everybody is always transition slowly. It might not be your style, but let me talk you through what I mean by that. First and foremost, if you're going to make a transition, do it slowly. First piece of advice, transition slowly. The way that I did it is in this new dream, this new opportunity. I made about 20% of my income at my old corporate job before I made the full leap, meaning I was taking action towards it. I was actually doing the dream kind of part time on the side as a hobby. And I got just enough income to say, you know what, this thing, if I gave my full time to it, maybe I could make 100% of my corporate work, but maybe if I could make 30% of it or even 50% of it one day at least I'd be happier over here. Even if I'm earning, you know, 50% less, at least I've proven the model a little bit. And that's important. I really believe before you throw all your eggs in one basket, you should prove the model a little bit. Try it, do it on the side, see how it goes. And if you're getting any results at all, then it's time to plan a full transition. What I like to tell people if they're considering quitting a job is either you get some results towards it and that's how you're gonna make your decision, or you set an arbitrary date. You say, okay, six months out from today, put it in the calendar, that's the day, that's the day I quit. Hell or high water, that's the day I quit. And that gives you six months to start scaling up, developing new skills, getting your resume together, if that's what you're going to do, or researching the business segment you're going to go jump into as an entrepreneur, whatever it is, if you got a six month deadline you can work towards diligently and no matter what, boom, that's the day you cut off and you jump into that new thing. So either A, you get a little results or B, you just have a time and you set yourself on a path to get ready for that. That's the way I like to think about it. And that way it's responsible either way that you go because you're at least in it and you're preparing. I would also say it's really important after you assess your risk and you.
Figure out your transition time.
I think it is absolutely critical you don't fall to this false belief that is in our world now that you have to do just one thing. Brendan, should I put all my eggs in one basket? Should I only do this one thing? Look around the world now. You've got these creatives doing multiple things. You know, I write books, I do seminars, I do videos, I invest in companies, I advise CEOs, I do lots of things. And while it looks very narrow and focused, the skill set that I've developed has helped me become better at what I do by doing lots of different things. I really believe that whole idea that you have to do one thing that came out of an old agrarian culture where when you were growing up, you know, back in the day when you only lived to like 20, 27 years old, you had to choose your career. You know, you were either the blacksmith or the baker and you had to choose that. And that's all you did for your short life, because that's all the village required. Well, now the village is global. The world is flat. We can all do tons of things. And I say if you're passionate about lots of things, be a multi passionate. You know, be that person. Just play like life is short. Engage in your interests, do the things that you care about. Don't believe you have to do just one job nine to five. I think that world has gone away a little bit. If for you, putting all eggs in one basket, one new career, one new opportunity feels like it's going to steal away from your drive, your heart, your passions, then I'm like, no, do a bunch of your passions part time. That's cool too. It's like the Portlandia episode, where people go, where young people go to retire, where you can do a lot of different things and still have joy in your life.
Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need to journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you gotta stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up, to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs, and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day.
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When you think about this question of how do I assess my risk? How do I set that timing? Another thing I like to tell people is risk is really something that you would assess based on essentially, has someone done it before and do you have the skill sets, talents or joys in doing it. If you're going to go do something no one's ever done before, take a little bit longer to plan. Have your plan B, working your job plan a little bit longer, move towards it steadily. But if no one's ever done it before, there's no path. Right. You don't know what to do. It's gonna take a little bit longer. So, yeah, hold onto the job. Yeah. Hold on to what you're doing just long enough so you can at least pay your bills, live in some kind of comfort versus being out there completely broke. Because you know what? It's hard to build from bankruptcy. And that's where I was. You know, I remember when I first left my corporate job, started doing this, started going pretty well. I had about 20% income, jumped in full. I mean, just went for it and quickly went bankrupt because I didn't know what I was doing. And I look back, I said, did I transition too quick? I probably did, but am I happy that I did it? Yes. It just would have probably been easier if I took my time a little bit. So it's difficult, right? Because you hear these competing conversations going on even in this video here. It's like, do you jump all in? I'm like, yeah, go for it, but go slow. Because too many people have wrecked careers or life because they jumped into something way too quickly without least doing research, taking steps towards it, getting some results, and getting a mentor. Have somebody that's done it before, read how they did it, interview them, ask them how they did it, ask them to mentor you, to walk you through it, enroll in their course, go to their seminar, whatever you got to do, you can learn from somebody who's already been there and done that. Go to the conferences, get in the game of understanding it first. I think the trouble happens when people say, brendan, should I throw my eggs in basket, burn all the boats and just go? And I say, well, what do you know about it? And they go, well, nothing. I go, well, no, until you've done your research, done your homework, and at least have a sense of the plan or the process to succeeding, don't jump. Get those first. That way you can meet your obligations, take care of yourself, live in some kind of comfort, at least have some income and then do it. But I want to end with this. No matter what, you decide whether you're doing partially, plan B, you have a backup plan, have a backup job or doing something else, or you're really, you know, going for something new, whatever you do in your life, and no matter how many things you're doing in your life, commit to it. That's the answer. Commit to it in whatever way. Commitment doesn't mean Full time commitment doesn't mean hours of the day. Commitment is an emotional engagement with what you're doing with full confidence. That is the right thing and that's what you got to give yourself, that gift. If you're gonna go achieve this, don't go half ass at it when you're working on it, even if you're only working on an hour a day, work it, Focus, get away everything else. Give your full heart, your full intensity. Don't be like, well, I guess I'll play with it for 20 minutes. No, if you're going to do it for an hour a day, do it for an hour a day. Even if you have four different things you're doing, four different passions, four different opportunities you're chasing, I don't care. Okay? Each one, give it two hours, full, intense focus. Boom, boom, boom. If you don't give it full, intense focus, no matter what you're doing on each side, your soul will feel it. Your mind will know you're lying to yourself and you will just continue to falter. You got to fully commit emotionally into everything that you're doing. And as you do that, you start to have so much more vibrancy in your life because you're like, you know what, I'm not half assing. I'm in this thing. And you got to give yourself that. You got to give yourself that I'm in this thing. And once you do that, guess what, you'll find what your real thing is. Because if you're fully committed to something and you're in it and it's just not working and it's a slog and you're just like, this isn't connecting with me. I don't feel this. Then you know, at least you gave it. At least you gave it all your brain go, you know what we poured us into this thing didn't work out. Not my thing and you walk. But if it's a passion or a dream and there's multiple and you're doing full commitment in this with your emotions, full commitment in this and your emotions and you're vibrant in both, then do both. Don't feel like you ever have to be a single narrow human being.
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Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today Please remember, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us and@growthday.com.