High Performance Habits: Extended Interview w Lewis Howes

What we found is high performers have extraordinarily positive emotions and positive relationships. So it's a complete myth that the top, you know, 5%, 10%, 15%, somehow have, you know, are lonely or more divorced than other people or. It's just not true they cared about relationships. Which is one reason I love your show, is that, I mean, what would high performance or achievement or greatness be if you didn't have somebody to share it with or you didn't give back.

Foreign.

Welcome, everyone. Back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have an exceptional human being, Brendan Burchard in the house. Good to see you, man.

Such an honor to be here.

I'm very excited for this.

Me too.

This is one of the, you said this is one of the first interviews you've done in years.

Yeah.

You've got a, you know, at the time this is coming out, you'll have tons of interviews. But we're doing this well in advance. And I'm excited to talk about your new book, among many things, which is called High Performance Habits, How Extraordinary People Become that Way. So if you haven't already picked this up, I've already been talking about it. Make sure you go get it right now on Amazon. You can go to Brendan.com, you can go to Barnes and Noble, you can go anywhere where books are sold. Get this book. You spent the last two, three years researching consistently, constantly on how people become extraordinary.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm obsessed with greatness.

I know you love this. That's why I knew this interview is gonna be amazing. It's like we could vibe on this all day long. Exactly.

I probably haven't done the. In detailed research like the scientific.

Yeah.

You know, Harvard backed studies the way you have.

Yeah.

So I'm excited to, to tap into this and really understand why and how people can become great at anything that they want to do in their personal life, their relationships, financially, whatever it may be their dream is. And I know you've paved the way with this, so I'm very excited about this. But you've written three number one your.

Time bestsellers or two, three New York Times bestsellers. This is the sixth book and all five previous books were number one on Amazon or Barnes Hope or something like that. So we've been at it and this is, you know, people always say, well, you're the YouTube guy or you're the Facebook guy. I'm like, I'm a writer. I only learned marketing or doing stuff like this so I could support the writing.

Of course. Well, You've done. You've done a great job of marketing yourself. You're, I think, one of the top, what is it? Top 100 most followed public figures on Facebook. How many millions of followers do you have on your personal page now?

5 million on my personal page. 10 million across all of our pages.

Yeah.

So we have pages like motivation for smart people, you know, which is not my face on it, but that's my page motivation. So, yeah, yeah, it's been surprising, but this is the first in depth interview I've done in probably four years.

Amazing.

And so we talked about that a little bit. You know, this morning at breakfast is just like, this is not what I usually do because I'm usually the guy out there teaching and I'm learning to step out a little bit more and share a little more of my personal background and stories because that really hasn't been the thrust of my books and work. So that's been a big part of.

Yeah.

You know, wanting to do this. And I love your show so much.

I appreciate it.

I was so excited for this because you're one of the few guys out there doing podcasts who's talking about holistic greatness.

Right.

You know, it's not a tactic or hack here.

Yeah.

It's relationships. I mean, you talk about relationships, you talk about making a difference. And there's a lot of podcasters that never say the word service, which drives me insane. They never say the word love. And like, that's real life. You know, even with high performance. We'll talk about some of the research behind it, but a lot of people think it's lonely at the top or they think that high performers are, you know, obsessive crazy maniacs. What we found is high performers have extraordinarily positive emotions and positive relationships. So it's a complete myth that the top, you know, 5%, 10%, 15% somehow have, you know, are lonely or more divorced than other people or it's just not true. They cared about relationships, which is one reason I love your show is that, I mean, what would high performance or achievement or greatness be if you didn't have somebody to share it with or you didn't give back? But that's what a lot of the podcasters talk about. It's this tactic or it's. I'm talking about world class performance, but I'm not going to talk about marriage or relationships. I'm like, try to have world class performance without a supportive spouse. Go for it, dude. It's not going to happen.

Yeah.

Powerful. I'm excited about this, man. Before I kind of dive into about all the habits and the stuff you learned and what you're going to share today, I got a confession. Yeah, confession.

Love it. I can't have your money back.

Exactly.

No. Here's my confession. I'm going to be honest for a second because I don't think I've ever done this on the show. I judged you for many years when I first learned about you, and I think it's because I didn't meet you and I didn't hear about you from other people. And I'm glad you're doing more media right now and, and opening up and having the vlog come out here because I think. Because I didn't know enough about you personally. Besides, what you shared was like, the stories. The same stories.

Yeah.

I was like, I don't know enough about him to, like, feel them out, to feel comfortable, yet to have, like, a positive. I was kind of neutral. I was like, I don't know if I like him or I don't like him.

Yeah.

So I want to. I want to say I apologize for judging you because it, you know, you're completely opposite of what I had no clue what I was thinking about in my mind for.

For.

For some time. And, you know, everything that you've done has exceeded the expectation of so many people, and you continue to serve at a high level. And I think that's what's powerful to talk about, is service.

Yeah. Is.

Sure, we have our own stuff we're all working on all the time, but you have stepped up to serve so many people, and you've committed to learning the things you need to learn to reach more people with powerful messages.

Yes.

And. And I usually acknowledge my guests at the end, but I want to acknowledge you now for your level of commitment to putting yourself out there, serving people, giving great information, spending two years in a dungeon to research, like, how to help more people. And yes, you're benefiting me as well. You run a business just like myself, so we're all going to benefit. But I think your level of commitment to your mission is what really stands out to me. And the more I get to hang out with you and know you, it's like, I really enjoy our time together, so I hope we get to spend more time together.

Yeah, me too.

Hope you accept my apology for judging me even though you didn't know was doing it.

But I get that all the time. So, you know, our, Our. Our great example. Our, Our seminars, you know, 2,000 people from 40 countries around the world. Half of them show up and they're like, who are you? Like, I've watched his YouTube or I've seen his Facebook, but I tell people, I would say my most vulnerable place is usually on stage. So people have seen me on stage, they always go, oh, my God, I didn't know you were like that. And part of that reason isn't because I. I'm. I'm, like, scared of sharing my life. It's because of what I do. Like I said, my first move, I'm a writer. My second move is I'm a coach. Both of those things are kind of behind the scenes. And so when it comes time when Instagram came out, everyone's like, why aren't you in Instagram yet? I'm like, dude. Cause I don't really show that part of my life, or I don't have a lot of pictures with a lot of the celebrities that we work with, because I sign NDAs, and I sign confidentiality agreements so I can work with them and get in their personal lives. I've always been the guy that. Who gets into people's personal lives and helps them through it. Never then, like, turn it to the selfie and say, well, this is what I'm going through. And in some ways, though, that was a mistake, because I think I was just. I've always believed in a role like mine. I'm a writer, I'm a coach, and I'm a trainer. My job is to share things that are relevant to the teaching point. So it's, what am I trying to teach now? I'll share case studies about my life or some research, but it's pretty limited towards only what I'm teaching. And people sign up for me to teach a very specific thing, so they're not seeing the whole picture of my life. They're just learning that specific thing. So I think it also left a lot of people going, okay, he's super successful, but I don't know anything about him.

Right, right.

And that created.

It's hard to trust people you don't know anything about.

Yes. Or you read the motivation manifesto, right? There is no Brendan in that book. The publisher turned. Famously turned down the book. We had a $2 million book deal. I turn in the book, and the editor goes, what the hell is this? You wrote it like, it's, you know, 1776. You're not. There's not one story of you in here. Your audience wants to know about you. I'm like, yeah, but that's not what I'm writing for. I'm writing for the art. And so they said, we can't publish, and we can't. This book is unmarketable.

So you wrote a $2 million check back.

Wrote it back, which is painful because I already spent it.

But then you went and sold a million copies.

Yeah. Then we went into 30 weeks. 32 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after they turned it down with no publisher.

Well, I guess you had like a.

Yeah, we went to Hay House, and they supported it and distributed it and did a great job on it. And I love them and their community. Really got behind the book. Book, because they knew I wrote it for the art, not for the. I didn't sell out on the book. It was. This was my artist. My art has never been like talking about Brendan. My art has been, I want to teach, but I want to teach in a way that really hits you in the heart and gives you habits that you can implement in your life. But that also took me out of the picture a little bit, because I didn't want to be the guru. I didn't want to be. You know, I'm from Montana. We're pretty private there. And one of our main sayings there is, you know, the time to have the map is before you enter the woods. So I just wanted to hand people the map. I didn't want to hand people, like, look at me. I also had a big influence from my high school journalism teacher, and she said, there's two kinds of people. One who walks into room and goes, here I am. And the other person walks into room and goes, there you are. And so I've always been more like. Kind of like you. I want to ask people questions and curious. So my focus has always been outwards and not in. I think that did cost me some trust in the marketplace, because people are like, I just don't know him. So I'm hoping with the book, I added some more stories. I also know the number one criticism of this book is going to be when he talks about extraordinary people. Really, the only stories in here are about himself. And I let the data and the research and the strategy speak for themselves. Yeah. Because I don't think I even say it in the book. I think if you want personal profiles of extraordinary people, I'm like, go listen to podcasts. They should listen to yours. Mine is more. This is very strategic. This is what to do. And I think there'll be some criticism because I do share a lot of my habits in here, but I Also hope that gives people a little more insight into my life.

Let's get into some of the habits. What are some of the key habits then that you, that maybe you thought were like the habits of really extraordinary people, but actually they weren't them. And then the new ones that you're like, oh, I didn't realize that that was actually a key habit. Yeah, I always thought it was something else, but it's actually this thing.

Yeah, I was wrong a lot. So, background on the book. This is the world's largest study of high performers ever done. We have data from 195 countries we surveyed and found. The data set we pulled was from first my audience, which is over 10 million fans and followers. But also a lot of people don't know I've graduated. Over 2 million people have registered for my online courses or video series.

Crazy.

And over 100 million video views. Well, we scraped all of the comments, scraped all the user feedback, did a huge data set of just what are people struggling with? What do they say works? What helps them break through? That gave me an initial kind of data set of like, I think this is what really works. I've been teaching this most of stuff for 10 years too, and I've been coaching it. So I had, I had my personal opinions and I had about probably 20 or 30 from that data set and 10 years coaching, I was like, it's probably about these 15 or 20 habits. And I thought it was, by the way, all of them.

Right.

And there's also a lot of other books about habits. Yes, there's Stephen Covey's book, there's the Power of Habit. There's lots of books on habit. So this is a whole nother thing. It's like, why another book on habits?

Yes, but there was always a big hole. Either there wasn't research into which habits empirically proven to move the needle, or it was just kind of, you know, because it was shared from a personal perspective, or it was just about how to set habits. The question is which habits have proven to move the needle towards high performance over and over? Because high performance means succeeding beyond standard norms consistently over the long term. Well, you got to measure that to know.

Yeah.

And so there's six of them. And that's what this book is about. It's split, which I didn't plan on, into personal habits and social habits. And there's things in there and I'll get to those. But to answer your question of like what I thought would be, I thought things like, oh, this one will piss you off. Piss me off. Creativity is not strongly correlated with high performance. And if you told me that seven years ago, I would have fought with you for like two or three hours. But then in one interview with one of the world's largest CTOs, Chief Technology Officer, he said, brendan, you know, they're. They're a top 10 brand in the world. Said we, we don't. He said, my team, he said, I'm not creative, my team's not creative, but we know how to execute and scale and execution. And scale is really important to long term high performance. Creativity might get you in the game, but a lot of people are creative but can't work their way out of a bag. And I was like, I would argue that forever because I'm a crave. I'm a writer and a coach. I would have never thought that. Age, nationality, ethnicity, and here's a big one compensation. Here's a big one personality, here's a big one strengths. They are not correlated strongly with high performance. Some of them have weak correlations and all those things, by the way, because if academics are listening to that, they're like, no, he's wrong. And this is tied towards high performance. It's not that those aren't important. Those things can shape your mood. They can shape, you know, lots of important life outcomes. Well being, health, happiness. But when we're talking about high performance, those are less important than these six. And what I keep telling people is, I'm not saying those aren't important. These just happen to be more important. So the six habits, you want me to do those?

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So the personal habits, and these are the ones that move the needle most. Number one, high performers. You'll like this one. High performers seek clarity more often than their peers. And what that means for them is every situation they go into, they're seeking clarity and setting intention. And it's not like once in a while, they're doing way more often. It's like, you know, I've been blessed to work with Oprah Winfrey. When she has a meeting, at the start of every meeting, she asks, what's our intention here? What's the intention of this meeting? Not what's the agenda. What do I do? What's the intention? That's every meeting. So she's seeking clarity at the beginning of every meeting. That's why she's so amazing. Right? If you think about her whole career, she was always trying to have people seek clarity on who they were so they could be themselves. That's what high performers are doing, they just do it more often. They seek clarity before they shoot that video, before they have the podcast interview. But specifically, we found three practices help you get better at seeking clarity. Number one, they are seeking clarity in what we call the future. Four, so you've probably heard that successful people are more future minded. It's true. And specifically what they're looking at, if you talk to a high performer, they're more clear about who do I want to be in this upcoming situation. And by the way, it's not about who I am, it's about who do I want to be. They're more future oriented. They're more intentional about who they want to be in social situations. So it's like I want to have this type of interaction with Louis to that, that that's intentional. They're more clear about what skills they need to develop to reach their next level of success.

Right.

Here's how you really know an underperformer. Open up their calendar and look for any evidence they have planned their own curriculum for greatness. If they don't have classes or courses, if they, if they're not actively skill building, there's no chance of high performance. I mean, maybe they can dumb luck into it for initial success, but high performance is long term success. You got to be building your growing, constant learning, constantly growing, being aware of that. And the Last of the Future 4 is I know the service I want to provide in the future. Talk to any high performers I'm sure you've interviewed. They kind of know the service and the difference they want to make. Maybe not precisely, but they're asking the question. So that's some of what we know. They seek clarity. And that's kind of the first practice is asking questions in those areas. And the other two real fast is when you're seeking clarity, they're more clear about the feeling they want to have. Like an Olympic sprinter who's won gold is more likely to have said before he went or she went on the track, how do I want to feel out there? Not like just the result. Like when I. When the foot's in the block and I'm arms down, like what do I want to feel like? They're very aware of the feeling they're trying to get.

Yeah, I don't want to feel nervous and stressed. I want to feel calm and clear and smooth and.

Yes. And they're doing that self talk, which is seeking clarity. And then the last one, which is really important, they're clear about what's meaningful to them now and what Might be different in the future, which is something I didn't know until we did a lot of the interviews or the conversations is a lot of people kind of know what I like. Now they know what their passion is, but it's like, what's going to be meaningful to you later? Like in five years they've thought about that. You know, I would say, you know, they've done the work. So that's just the first habit. And so the book kind of opens with that story of like finding what's. We all have to decide who you are and what we want and how to get it at this stage of our life and when we don't know that, you know, reaching high performance can be really hard.

Yeah, it's all about clear vision for me. It's the first chapter in my book is the greatest leaders in the world have a clear vision.

Love that.

Yeah, that's it.

And they got that vision by seeking clarity.

Yes.

That was the habit that gave them the vision they were consistently seeking. Like, how do I. What do I. I mean, they ask themselves more questions. That's one of our findings. They literally are doing more of the self talk, asking more of the questions, which is so important.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

And I love how you talked about this. You say the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contributions. Then why do so many of us focus on our strengths and personality?

Yeah, that was a huge finding. And I would. That's another one. I would have completely freaked out on anybody.

Strength finders, all these other books out there, you know, it's like, yes, we focus on our strengths.

And unfortunately, one that's in the history of personal development, that is the greatest false dichotomy there's ever been. Focus on your strengths or it's like you have to do both. You have to do both. But what we found in our research, which surprised me, high performers do not report working on their strengths any more than regular people. So that's not what gives them the edge. One of the chapters opens up with this guy who wrote this email, really highly successful guy, and he wrote this email to me, says, you know, and I'd put him through all this. I put him through StrengthsFinder. The Berkman, the Colby, the Myers Briggs, put me at everything. This is one of my first coaching clients ever. I knew everything about him. We knew all his background, did all the. We did all the homework, had his peer review, you know, 360 assessments from work. And then I watched him fail for two years. And he wrote me this email and he said, brendan, stop telling me, like, what successful people are like, because we know my strengths. I'm not getting ahead and start telling me what they do. And that's what this book became. It's like, what do you need to do? Because in this email he wrote this, which is where that finding came from. He said, this was so good. Listen, this line. He said, as a leader, I have to be honest with myself that my mission and vision should never be made to bow down to my limited human strengths. I should have to rise up to my mission or vision. The strengths aren't. The relevant thing is the question is what is necessary for me to develop into to reach that mission. It's like, your strengths are great. And it's like, yes, of course, do your strengths. But that's kind of like what I tell people is like, if. Let's imagine you have a bear and that bear wants to go on top of this cliff over here, and it's never been on the cliff, and he wants to get that new honey up there. Right? Telling the bear to focus on the strengths, to go somewhere it's never gone before and do something it's never done before is stupid. It's like saying, hey, you know what, Just try being more of a bear.

Right?

If I just. You say, brendan, I got this big new vision. I just say, just try being more of Lewis. I mean, it's a spiritual level that feels good, but you and I both know you're gonna have to develop far beyond your comfort zones. And strengths are typically comfort zones. Yeah, we got to overcome that and.

Go next level and develop new skills and overcome certain fears and all these other things that are going to help us get to the next level.

Right?

Or yeah, yeah. The whole conversation of beyond the comfort zone really requires us to go beyond our strengths. It really requires.

That is our comfort zone.

That is our comfort zone.

We already know what we're good at.

And the problem with the strengths finder and all of the strengths based movement is the assumption, and they're all written academically this way based on what are called innate strengths. And innate strength is the assumption that you had that from birth and that those innate strengths are what you focus on. And I'm like, well, if you had it at birth, you probably had it when you were 15 years old too. So if it's innate, you had it at 15. Are the strengths you had at 15 sufficient to serve you at 50? Hell no. You need to develop beyond what's innate and go To a whole other level. And so I take on strengths in the book in that way because. But I also say it almost doesn't matter because a lot of people have strengths and they suck at work because they're not doing these habits. I mean, how many people do you. I know who are amazingly strong and their strengths finders are amazing and they don't do anything all day.

That's it. Yeah.

A lot of people in the sports world, there's a lot of great, talented people who have the greatest gifts, but they still weren't able to. To win.

Yeah.

Or they were lazy or they wouldn't, you know, hustle or sacrifice their body because they just relied on their talents, their strengths.

Yeah.

And so they were never able to get to the championship game or get on the best teams because. And they had all the talent in the world. And you're just like, if I was as gifted as this person, I would be incredible.

You know, that's the whole thing about the talent code or a lot of new sort of newer research and performance. It just says, what's more important is what you do with what you got to develop into the vision of the mission you need to serve. And so the book kind of lays out a lot of the science behind that and then goes into, you know, obviously most of us oriented towards the six habits.

So in terms of clarity, what is that habit that you take on on a daily or monthly basis? With habit, with clarity, what do you think about. You're like, every morning, what am I clear about? Or, you know, how do you apply that habit to your life?

I apply it in a couple ways. First, for me, every situation I go into, I'm consistently asking, like, what. What's the feeling I want to have here? If you ever see me teach, it's often I would say, bring the joy. So I have joy triggers that I've set up in my mind that makes me more intentional about things. So, for example, I have a door frame trigger. Whenever I walk through a door, I say, bring the joy. So when I walk through that door right there, it's like, bring the joy into this room. It's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions. And not that I shower every morning, but the ones that do. The first question I say, what can I be excited about today? So it forces me to be clear about what's going to draw joy, enthusiasm from me. Number two, I say, what might trip me up today? Because usually I know what's going on in the day, I'm like, what might mess me up? What might. Where am I not perform well? What might bother me? And number three, I say, what can I do to surprise somebody today? To give a gift of appreciation or acknowledgement today? And so I think through that in the morning. So I think that helps me begin my day pretty clear. Then when I sit down before I do work, I literally look at my calendar of the day this morning, and I look at whatever's going on the day, and I think about it for 20 minutes. It's one of my 20 minute routines in the morning, I literally think about my calendar for 20 minutes a day. People think that's crazy. But what I'm thinking through when I'm looking count, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have that call. What do I want to happen on that call? You know, what's my intention for that call? What's my goal for that call? What's the feeling for that call? How do I want to end that call? You know, I'm going to have that time with Louis. Like, how do I want to be there and how can I make sure I enjoy it? Because it's a big deal, you know, I love your show. I want to do a good job. I want to share something good for the people. Even though I have no idea what you're going to ask, I want to be present for that and make sure I'm really there. Even though maybe I have a head cold today, you know, it's like just thinking through it. I think that helps me. It keeps me asking questions. Every Sunday, I do a life Arenas assessment. That just means I think there's 10 areas of our life, and I score myself in them. And this is about my 11th year of doing this.

Wow.

So each area of my life, you know, from. From emotional quality to happiness to relationships to time to hobby, etc. I just give myself a score of 1 to 10. And 1 means I suck. And I was horrible in the previous week on that. Ten means I did a good job. And then I asked, how can I do better? It's my Sunday routine.

Yeah.

And it just keeps me clear. And it's not like I don't sometimes like everyone else, you know, wonder what's going on or what I'm doing. But those habits, those were my habits. You have to establish your own for seeking clarity. But when you have them, you weaponize your life.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Clarity, Powerful thing. Without clarity, it's hard to achieve a dream.

Yeah.

It's hard to get better. It's hard to grow and be a high performer.

Yeah. No clarity, no change.

That's it.

No goals, no growth.

That's it.

The second one that I see here is energy.

Yeah.

What do you mean by energy?

So in the way we peak energy.

High, high energy all day long.

Yeah. No, it's not caffeinated energy, but it's, it's the, the habit is generate energy.

Okay.

Not necessarily have energy.

Create energy.

Create energy. And what they do. The way we measure that was kind of academic mental energy, which is tied to your focus and your stamina and your ability to manage complex tasks without too much mental stress. Number two is emotional energy, which is just the quality of positive emotions. And number three is physical energy. High performers are 40% more likely to work out five times per week than the rest of their peers. So that means the top 15% most high performing people in the world tend to work out five days per week. And that workout could be defined as, you know, 45 minute brisk walk or hit intensity or whatever it is, but 40% more likely. That's a huge finding. And what we found is high performers just have better well being and happiness and physical conditioning than everybody else. One stunning finding was CEOs, senior executives and business owners. They report expending as much energy as athletes who are competitive now.

I can imagine.

Yeah, yeah, I kind of, I was surprised by that. I would thought, you know, athletes would be 10% more.

I mean, the emotional and mental energy after the decision making, the conversations, the big deals, the stakeness. Yeah, it's a lot of energy.

It's a lot. That's why, I mean, if you really want to achieve your dreams, you have to care for your body.

Yeah.

Your mind. That's why all these things, you know, finally resonating in the marketplace because the science of meditation or taking a break or, you know, managing your own energy, sleep is everything. And I think all of that is really important. And we say generate energy because there's this myth that, you know, some people have happiness or they have. It's like, no, you generate. You don't have happiness. You generate it. Yeah, you create it. And so the quality of your energy, you have to create. Like you and I both, I mean, if most of our audience knew our schedules, your schedule the last five days is like, how is Louis even able to focus right now?

And how are you able to get here and do this as well?

Yeah, but it's because we say, well, this is our mission. Show up, man.

Yeah.

You know, there's plenty of times I gotta imagine you walked on the field and you were like, I'm spent, exhausted. You know, I remember you like flew down to compete in.

Yeah, I still play with the USA Team handball.

Yeah.

Team. And a year ago I, I flew down to. I remember I did an interview in Miami and then flew out from Miami and then went. And just went right into training camp and then played against Brazil, which is like, you know, Olympic, Olympic qualifiers. And yeah, got our asses blew up. But it was fun, you know, but I had to have clarity and energy and show up. Even when I was like, oh, we're gonna lose.

Yeah.

Like, there's zero chance. Yeah, it was like the worst team in the NBA playing like the warriors. And we were just like, we had no chance.

Yeah.

But I had to show up and give my best and, and you have.

To set all these routine. I mean, you know, the amount of routines Tom Brady has in his life so that he can generate energy.

It's unbelievable.

Stuns most people.

It's unbelievable.

And that's just, that's, that's what it.

Takes if you want to be at that level. If you don't want to be at that level, you don't have to do it.

Yeah, you don't have to do it. I mean, everybody can just like, well, I'm going to go, you know, hit the Cinnabon. But it's like, it's pretty good. How do you want to feel at 3 o'? Clock? If you want to feel amazing at 3 o', clock, don't end lunch with a Cinnabon. You know, it's like, you have to.

Gosh, it's crazy. Like I'm 34 now and I could eat like sugar and bad food for all my 20s, right. And now when I go off of sugar for like a month and then I just binge for a day, it's like I literally can't walk. My back is like so.

Sugar. Hang on.

Oh my gosh. Like my whole body is exhausted.

Inflammation.

So much inflammation. Once I cut it out and then I bring it back, I'm like, yeah. Oh, I feel so old.

Yeah, well.

And dude, I'm the same way. My seminars, like I, you know, we do four day event and it's just me. I usually have one or two big names come in, but it's me 12 hours a day, four days, and I never sit down.

High energy.

I never sit down on stage and super high energy. I mean, really going for it. Not just the clapping, the jumping, but really Just expending heart. You know how hard it is, of course. And I had to. About the same time I was 35, I had a famous strength and conditioning coach backstage. He works with me in usher and. And he. He's like, what do you eat back here? And, you know, another guy came in and strapped the heart rate monitor machine. He goes, I'm equivalently burning, equivalently working out at the marathon level every day for four days. They're like, you're not eating. I was losing on average 11 pounds in my course every. And I do eight events a year, so I was losing 88 pounds a year. You know, it was like, it's horrible for your health. So I had to learn how to eat. I had to learn how I do ice baths every night at my events. Which smart. No one loves to do that.

I. Here's the thing. I used to do it every day in football, like during the season.

Yeah.

And we. It sucks for the first month, but then you start to love it.

Yes, I have to do it.

You know what I mean? It's like you just start to. It feels so good.

Feels so good. After stage, you know, it's like 12 hours. So those are. No one says, I want a habit of taking an ice bath at the end of the day, but if I want to be high performing on stage, that's the choice.

Yeah.

Now obviously, people listening, you know, consult.

Your doctor, of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And only do it for 10 minutes. Don't stand for a half hour.

Yeah, right, right. So. But all those things, you have to. What are your habits for energy. And the funny thing is you sit down with high performers, they know them, they can tell you, I do this, this, this, this, and you're like, man, you're on your game.

You got it down. Yeah.

And they're always probably looking to improve it.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, they're always. But they're very aware of it and they. And they. What I found was they get pissy if they're off it.

Yeah, of course. I didn't meditate this morning. And I was like, you know, I was kind of frustrated a little bit. Someone asked me when we were at our meeting today at the SO house, he was like, how was your meditation? Because he knows I like to meditate. And I was like, you know, I missed this morning. I did yesterday, but I missed this morning. It's agitating when I miss my habits.

Yes.

It's like I get up earlier and.

Yeah, that is exactly what you just said. Just. It really agitates High performers, when they're off, they're energetic. Absolutely. The third big personal habit, which, by the way, I've been teaching high performance for a decade. We have the number one seminar on that and the number one online course. And I was wrong. I never knew this was a thing. And you're going to laugh because like, duh, dude, I could have sat you down, but I just didn't know. I knew I taught it as like subtext, but I didn't know it was the thing. And that is high performers raise necessity. And what that means is they raise the necessity of performance in their mind. Before each performance they say, I got to do great. And they give themselves reasons why. So they're connected to their why. But it's different than just giving. Like, know your why is nice. Know your why and give yourself edge for it. What do you mean? Let me give an example. Two guys walking out on the track field, who's going to win? Well, equal quality of experience, similar times, maybe they've raced before. The guy at the blocks, who I'm going to bet on is the guy who came out and said, gotta do this for my mom. They have a reason to perform at heightened levels and they have connected to that over and over. Now, again, some of this can. Duh, Brendan. But the finding, the research is they just do that more often than under performers or even, you know, good performers.

Yeah.

They're more connected to their reasons why. And they're stirring it, man. It's like. And they do it from two angles. One angle is your. Your, your like your internal standards, like my values or my self expectations say, I got to crush this because that's who I freaking am.

Yeah.

Like when you walk out, you're like, you're not going to, you know, screw around on when you're playing handball. You're like, this is who I'm losing. I'm an athlete.

Yeah.

I'm gonna kick some ass here. Yeah, it's that self expectation. Okay. Then though, they pair it with external obligation. Like, my team needs me to do this. The deadline says this time there's some kind of external. They don't call it pressure.

My family, something bigger than themselves.

Something bigger than themselves.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what that was. Another thing I was surprised by, they don't say, they rarely use the word pressure because they want it. Like people who use pressure, they don't want it. But high performers, I found they're connected. I'm doing this for a bigger cause, a bigger reason. A team or. Yeah, they're sometimes just like deadline. Like I'm an unbelievably high performing writer when there's a deadline. I'm more a slow weapon before that. I'm not always on my game. But if you have those reasons, so you gotta have your internal reasons and your external reasons and then your job is remind yourself of that more often. That's what's called raising necessity. And we were the first ones trying to prove that with the data. And I was pretty stunned that, remember, these three aren't like my opinion. You might say, yeah, yeah, these are whatever I'm like, but these ones are more important than everything else. We measure over a hundred different habits. These are the ones that move the needle. So if you want to move the needle in your personal life, number one, seek clarity more often. Number two, generate energy with more consistency and will. And number three, raise necessity. Raise the stakes before you go into any performance situation where that's that next sales call. Because, you know, it's easy. I think what high performers do because of those three things, they're not going through the motions. There's not, there's more intentionality, more exerting of will, certainly more discipline. That's what's, that's what's happening. That's why there's magic starting to happen. And then we compare it or combine it with the, the social habits which we can walk through. And it was like, that's what makes it all come together.

So what's the first social habit?

Increased productivity. It's kind of like, no, duh, high performers are productive dudes. But what, what the uniqueness is, they've, they're not just pushing more paper or checking more boxes because, you know, I both know a lot of people who, you know, their busy work isn't their life's work. So they don't feel fulfilled from their productivity. High performers are fulfilled from what they're accomplishing, which is a big, big, big measure. And here's what they did. They identified their primary field of interest, which is a big deal. Then they identified what we call pqo, prolific quality output, which is what's the outputs that matter and get recognized and rewarded the most in this primary field of interest. And then they went all in at it. They became almost singular focuses. Like, you know, when, when Jobs came back to Apple and got rid of all the product lines, said these are what we're doing, that was prolific quality output. We're going to be prolific quality output on these things, not those. So it's important, like for Me, I thought for there was this period of my life where I thought my primary field of interest was personal development. And that's what most of the world knows me for. I've never posted any marketing on my Facebook page. In terms of, like, marketing advice. I teach that. That's way down my funnel. My front, my YouTube, my podcast, Facebook are all just personal development. So I really identified with that. And then I launched my first book, Life's Golden Ticket, which was my life's message. And it kind of bombed. It hit bestseller and then it died, you know, bam, pow. And it really bummed me out. And I realized why. I said, you know what I've been thinking. My primary field of interest is personal development. And so I focus. I did all the book, I read all the books, I went to all the seminars, I studied with the gurus. I became friends with Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins with the big names. That's what I thought it was. And then I had to make a shift. And I shift my primary field of interest to how to share a message. And it completely shift. When I started learning, I was like, you know, what my primary field of interest needs to be is how to share a message. Because I already got the message, right? And then I said, well, what's prolific in this area? Well, what's prolific is. Is what's recognized in this particular area right at that time. But this is 2000, you know, 6, 7 online video was just coming in. I mean, YouTube and Facebook were young.

YouTube was like 2004, I think. Yeah, 2005 or something.

Young. And. But what's mattering now is video. And I went all in. You know, I've created 13 online courses because in my primary field of interest, sharing that personal development message was everything. So I learned how to share everything. And I went from, you know, kind of a busted first book to, in 18 months, 4.6 million in revenue.

Wow.

Because I learned how to sell. And I learned that sharing and selling a message was just as important, because if you don't make the money, you can't sustain the message. I had the message, but I wasn't making any money. I was the poor, broke writer dude. And I was like. So I shifted my primary field of interest and I went, I got to understand marketing, I got to understand business. And what's going to be prolific in those, in what I'm doing now, and that's creating products to sell. Oh, I gotta create more products, higher quality products. I showed you, like, my brochures and beautiful stuff, just like super Branding, you know, all my books, you know, I created. I did all the covers of all my books. And I obsessed about. I was like, the look and the feel and stuff I didn't care about before. And that changed everything. So what I tell people is if you want to increase, don't just get more stuff done. Get more of the right stuff done and really go in on it. I mean, super obsessed about the quality and really focus. You know, it's that old saying. The main thing is keep. Is to keep the main thing. The main thing.

Yeah.

But you got you very careful what your main thing is. It's tough because, you know, and I especially. More abundance. High performers really struggle because you have, I mean, 50 doors.

Opportunities.

50 doors, and you want to take all of them, but you'd have to cut yourself up into 50 places.

Yeah.

So you got to really identify what that means. The book helps people figure out what is that prolific. What's my primary field of interest really, at this stage of my life? What's the prolific quality output I need to do here? And then it teaches them the habits during the day, you know, like block time, like how to set intention and release tension, how to know when to quit on stuff. All that's in in that book as well.

Powerful.

So productivity. They know how to be productive on the right things.

Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome.

This one. Surprising. The next habit is high performers develop influence more than those around them. It's not because they're cool. It's not. I mean, look at me. I'm not getting ahead of my cool factor here, ladies. I just got the. These new Nikes. I walked in the store. I walk in the store, it's like, what's your newest shoe? They're like, these ones. I'm like, I need that. And they're like, why? I'm like, because Lewis has sneaks, man. I wear suits or like, I'm either on stage in a suit or. Or at my, you know, studio. Kind of like, you know, kind of formal, too.

Sure, sure.

I was like, man, I gotta get some sneaks. I said, give me your newest sneak. So I'm not getting ahead on the cool. I don't develop influence because I'm cool. It's not your personality that gives you influence. It's how you treat other people. And specifically, the way that people, high performers, gain influence. Is. Is this way too much? No, I'm, you know, get it.

How do you develop people?

Here's how you do. Here's how you develop influence. If you really want high level of Influence, obviously, you got to do all the basics. Treat people nice, be kind. And in the book, what I do is with each habit, I say, here's the basics. But then I go, here's what. The needle mover practices are the highest performing influencers, what they're doing, often they don't know they're doing it. By the way. The first thing they're doing is they're teaching people how to think. A lot of your show gained influence, I really believe, because you're really good at teaching people how to think.

Thank you.

You're shaping their mindset. But high performers are really doing explicitly. And you do this too, where you say, here's how to think about that, guys. Or high performing leaders tell their team, here's how we should be thinking about ourselves. Here's how we should be thinking about the competition. Here's how we think about the future of the company. They're saying it. They're explicit more often. Here's how to think. I mean, what is it? The seventh most read book in the history of the world is Think and Grow Rich Crazy. It became that way because he taught people how to think about money. We have to tell our audience how to think about things. The second thing they're doing is they're challenging people, and they're challenging a specific way. If you listen to a great orator, great speaker, the pros, when I know I'm like, oh, this person studied speech before, is they challenge the audience in three ways. They challenge audience's character. Then they challenge the audience's connections, their relationships. Then they challenge the audience's contributions. What they're giving you hit all three of those. The audience is like, I have to listen to her. I have to listen to him. Because not only are they shaping how I should be thinking, because maybe I was thinking wrong, but now they're pushing me because, you know, it's just like a great coach, the greatest coaches, they're not just saying, throw the ball better. They're like, louis, you're a better man than that. Come on, man. They're saying, look, you're treating your team like crap. They're, look, look, you're not contributing the team here. That's a different challenge than just throw the ball faster or catch, you know, So I studied that from them, but those are the primary things. And the third thing, of course, is role modeling. You know, standing. I mean, if I'm the bring the joy guy, or I'm the honor the struggle guy, or I'm the high performance guy, and I'M off my game. People are going to know that.

Yeah.

So that's. I'm always trying to role model what I do, which is hard when you talk about high performance because everyone thinks, well, don't you have a bad day? I'm like, dude, I have bad moments. I would say bad days because I don't want to go to bed and feel like the day was bad. But at the same time, I think that's why they're developing influence. And so much of this, when I talk about habits, I talk about a different way than other people. Most people talk about habits like they just want the tricks to make it easy. This book is full of deliberate habits, meaning you have to consciously think about these and consciously will them consistently. It's not. I mean, this book, I think will be kind of something. People return to life over and over and over because it's not ever going to be. I don't write a. I didn't want to write an easy book. I want to write a book that said, this is the hard stuff, but if you do it, the payoff is there.

Right? Yeah. No.

Influence is one of the most powerful things. And if you can't influence or enroll people in your vision, then it's gonna be hard to make the vision come to life.

Yeah, that's it.

So there's certain elements of how to gain that influence and how to be a role model and be effective and step up and all these different things you need to do.

Yeah.

To continue to be an enrolling machine in your vision.

Yes. Yes.

Whether you're working on a team, it's your business, it's. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. But you've got to be supportive and enrolling to, to influence people.

Yeah.

So I firmly believe that.

And I mean, we have a lot of friends who probably listening, who do social media or they're in marketing positions or they're trying to grow their business or their brand. And I tell people, obviously, you want, you want to make this podcast powerful. Look at the last six months and ask yourself, how strategic have I been in telling my audience what to think? How strategic have I been in challenging my audience? How strategic have I been in role modeling the actions, thoughts and feelings I want my people to feel. And if you've been surviving and growing without that strategy, you're friggin awesome and lucky. Now your next level of high performance is let's get more strategic. That's what's gonna change the game for a lot of people, you know, generating their influence. Because people like, how do you have 5 million on Facebook? I'm like, I'm strategic about those things. It's a lot of, like, how to think, a lot of challenge. Like, I'm constantly beating those because I also want people to do that for me. It's why I listen to your podcast. You do that for me. I listen to somebod. I was complimenting you. Your Sarah Blakely interview was just outstanding. And that inspired me to think many ways differently.

Yeah.

You know, and you know, I both dear friends with Tony Robbins, and Robbins made his entire career on challenging people. I mean, your first hour at his seminar, you've been challenged more than you've probably been challenged last decade of your life. And so, you know, be strategic about that. If your leaders in the room stop placating your people like leaders, especially today, they want to be so popular with their people. And I say popular is good. And that will come from kindness and role modeling the way. But challenge your people more strategically. That's why I get to work with, you know, I work at the Fortune 50 CEO level as a high performance coach. Those guys, they don't mess around. Yeah, when they write that check to me, it's a quarter million dollars. They. If I don't get the result, I mean, in two weeks with them, if I don't start shifting them, I'm screwed. One of the first things I do with them, by the way, is I come in, I open up their calendar, and we just start obliterating things on their calendar stuff. That's not the main thing anymore. And I'm constantly challenging them to return their focus to what matters. I'm constantly challenging them to challenge their teams. I'm constantly challenging them to be more optimistic or powerful or present whatever it takes for that person. I get paid because I challenge people more. That's it. So that's what led me to be a high performance coach. If I didn't. And by the way, that's not comfortable for me. I'm from Montana. Many of you guys listening, who's been to my seminars, you meet my mom there. My mom's at my seminars. We are like the most laid back, like, happy, go, lucky family you ever saw. Like, my mom is, you know, what is she, 70 this year? Yeah, 70. And she's just. She's a spark plug. She's amazing. She's amazing. So. But super, you know, like, my family would never challenge somebody. I didn't come from that. I had to learn that because if I didn't do that, I Wouldn't have the influence. I wouldn't achieve things.

I think we need those challenges for ourselves. We need a challenge. It's kind of like in a big game. You need a challenge to be able to see how. How great you can become.

Yes.

You need a competitor, or you need something that you feel a little bit scared about or a little bit unsure about to see how you can rise up to that challenge. And if there is no challenge, we're never going to perform at the highest level.

Yeah.

I think we got to constantly challenge ourselves if we want to step into something new. Otherwise, we've developed a strength and a comfort zone of what we're comfortable with.

So I looked at my. My quotes. I was like, have I written much about greatness? And I found this quote that said, you know, the journey to greatness often begins the moment that challenge and contribution become more important than comfort and ease.

That's a good one.

Yeah, it's really good. And so we have to challenge ourselves. But the habit here, the social habit, is develop influence, and you develop influence. Teach me how to think role model away. And then make sure that you are challenging people in those three areas. Challenge their character. You got to do that delicately. The book teaches you how. Make sure you challenge relationships, because that's so important, and challenge people's what they're giving. And if you do that strategically enough, you know, part of your message in greatness is challenging people to follow their dreams. You say it all the time. It's one reason I love your show. You're constantly challenging people to follow their dreams and not just like, hey, follow your dreams. Like, hey, do this. I love that. You know, I think it's one of the reasons that the show is so awesome.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. So that's the fifth one, right?

Yeah.

And the sixth and final.

Sixth and final one. Demonstrate courage. And I think all personal development people, of course, you know, but they actually. High performers do demonstrate courage. Like, we can measure it from peer feedback. We can measure it from their self assessments. We can measure it from. We have this thing called the High Performance Indicator Assessment. You take it, you get scored on all six habits. It's free on the Internet, on the interwebs. But this one peaked when we did the research, and I didn't know it. And it is. High performers are more willing to share their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings, what they need, what they want, and they do it more consistently than their peers, even when there's risk or uncertainty. You do a great job. I know the book's coming out for you, talking about men and being vulnerable. That's demonstrating courage. That's, you know, when you're not conditioned that way or you're not used to that, you know, that it might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

Yeah.

You know, when you talked about me doing this interview, that was like, it might not seem like demonstrating courage to go on Lewis Howes, but it is because I admire you. And I also. I'm not used to sharing a lot. You know, you just let the work speak for itself.

Yeah.

So I had to, like, okay, I need to share. You know, be willing to share this in different and unique ways. But I think for most people, it's. When you're in your last meeting, did you share for your ideas and fight for them?

You share for your.

You share your ideas and fight for them. When you wanted to post that video and you were scared to death because people are going to make fun of you, did you do it? And when you wanted to tell your spouse that you're not getting what you need, did you say it? Because all those are demonstrating courage. It's not just, you know, courage. We think you're pulling someone out of the river or something, and that's part of it. And we talk about the different kinds of courage in the book, but the ones that matter the most move the needle. The most is sharing for and fighting for ideas, but also that vulnerability of sharing your wants, needs. I mean, high performers really communicate what they want. And you've probably seen this in networking opportunities. You meet somebody and they're like, I'm trying to meet this person. I'm trying to get that done. And they're not pushy with it. They're just clear. They're like, this is what I'm trying to do, and this is what I want. This is what I need. The highest performing relationships and marriages, we correlated marriage and demonstrating courage, and they stay together longer. When you're willing to tell your spouse, I don't like that, and work it through, that's hard for people. It's. It's, you know, it's scary to put yourself out there or follow your dream or start a podcast or, you know, start the business. That stuff is scary. Telling your boss something's wrong. You know, high performers report being whistleblowers more than anybody else because it takes a lot of courage to go, my boss is doing something wrong.

Right.

So we teach how to. How do you get to that without all the hype? Like, what do we know actually moves the needle in psychological courage, which has been actually measured a lot in academics.

I love it.

I love the habits. And I know you guys should go get the book, because there's a lot of research that backs all these and also steps and practices they can follow. So make sure you guys are getting this book. I'm curious. I want to ask a couple of personal questions.

Yeah.

What's the fear you have the most right now in your life?

The fear I have the most probably just, you know, anything ever happening to my family. You know, I'm a very, very. You know, I'm a great son. I hope you know. I lost my dad in 2009 to leukemia, and he was like my big mentor. And he got diagnosed on Mother's Day. Kind of woke up and walked in the hallway, and, you know, his back felt funny, and he kind of leaned against the hall, a little dizzy, and Mom's like, what's wrong with you? I don't know.

It's big.

It's kind of swollen back here. And they go to the doctor, and his. His spleen was enlarged, which is bad news. It usually means, you know, your body's kicking off stem cells that aren't good. So he got diagnosed with aml, acute myeloid leukemia. And they said, you have a week to live. Now he made it 59 days.

Wow.

The most important interview in my life was I called him and I wrote down all these, like, 30 life questions, and I interviewed him. It was the first time I ever called somebody and recorded anything. It was my first interview. Still my most valued interview. So I called him and I asked him all these questions. Was he at hospital? Because I was at a seminar and I didn't know. And I said, dad, I'm going to cancel the seminar. I'm gonna fly with us. Don't just finish the seminar.

Come over. Wow.

Finish. So, like, day two or three of the seminar, I call and I interview him for, you know, I think 60 minutes that first night. Another 60 minutes, and then I flew over there. But I got that recording, and it just. I had such a great dad and a great mom. People say, you know, you're so lucky, Brendan. I'm like, I, you know what? There's a lot of things I didn't luck out on. Worked hard, but I lucked out on the parent train. You know, we grew up with nothing, parents, you know, raising four kids, broke. But we had abundance. You know, we had love, and they believed in us. And my dad, his seven messages to me in his life, which I try to share all the time. Actually it's my most shared Facebook post ever. This, this particular post, every time I put up, it's been. I've viewed 30 million times.

Wow.

And just my dad's thing, he said, be yourself, be honest, do your best, treat. I'm sorry, take care of your family, treat people with respect, be a good citizen and follow your dreams.

Pretty good for me like there it is.

But losing him really made me connect with the rest of my family. And so fear is just, you know, family. So I just want to, I don't want to lose people that I love. You know. My whole story began when I learned that I. That life is precious in a car accident. 19 year old kid. I know you know the story, but I've had sort of mortality motivation my entire life since. I mean I was lucky. 19 years old kid realizing I'm gonna die. I mean I'm standing on the hood of a car bleeding out after a car accident. I got death another time in my life and it was the book. I talk about the book, the charge. I had a brain injury, wrecked ATV going 38 miles an hour. Got taken to hospital internal. I didn't know if we were internal bleeding, I'd snap my wrist. Broke my ribs throughout my shoulders. Massive concussion and which I didn't know until later caused a lot of troubles in my life with my brain and. But I sat in the hospital for three hours because no one spoke any English there and I didn't speak any Spanish. So they couldn't when they, you know, the first thing when someone treats you is are you allergic to any of the painkillers? I couldn't answer the question, like I don't know. So I lay there for three hours. This is 16 years after my first accident. And I was, you know, laying there and the lady keeps coming in and pressing on my chest cavity that's checking for internal bleeding. And I knew that. And I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, if this is, if this is my time, did I live and did I love and did I matter? Which is my intention after my first car accident. And I was happy with all the answers but the number. So I'd lived my life, I was happy. But the number one thing I thought about that moment was, you know, my wife and just family. I just didn't, you know. So I think my. It's not like I have recurring fears or debilitating fears, but I just don't want to lose anybody I love anymore. Yeah, I've lost A lot of people. Two days ago, Jess and I were actually here over the hotel, and I got a text from dear high school friend who just got diagnosed with pretty severe breast cancer and that stuff, you know, I just want to lose people.

It's tough, but it's gonna happen for everyone, right?

Yeah.

That's the thing that's challenging.

Yeah. My dad's loss was huge. That was just awful, you know, because it was so fast.

Yeah.

And he'd been healthy, but AML just, you know, it just takes you. And so I'm good with it because I've so many people know my story of the second chance and they share all around the world. They're like, man, I was in an accident. I lost somebody, too. And I hear all that, and I'm. It's. It's one thing when you're hearing it and you're coaching or advising. It's another one when it's your dad, you know, or somebody care about.

Yeah.

What about your mission to the world? What is your mission and what would you like to achieve over the next.

You know, it's funny, it's one of the things you said probably made you like, I don't know about this guy. Because I'm always hammering home one message. And some people like, all you has is that story. I'm like, it's not that all I have is that story. It's. I tell the story because that's my message. My message. When I tell my car accident story, the message that comes out of it is, at the end of your life, you're going to wonder if you lived a good life. And so you're going to ask yourself questions to evaluate did I live that good life? My message is, find out what those questions are for you. That's it. Because if you can identify, if you can think, like, what. What would I ask? How would I know if I lived a good life? You'd ask yourself questions. What questions would you ask? Because if you know your questions, then you get to wake up every day and you can live intentionally. So when you have to answer those questions, if you have a moment of cognition before you die and you ask the questions, you can answer them from a place of, you know, connection, pride, heart, be like I did. I am. I, you know, I want to affirmatively answer. At the end of my life, I lived fully and I loved fully, and I made my difference. That's what. That's what I asked that second time after the ATV accident. That's what I learned. I was going to Ask at the first accident. Take my passport away. Well, every time I'm out of the country, one of these accidents happens. But I'm a little too adventurous sometimes. But I've learned that maybe sharing that message too often people go, yeah, but I go, that's it, man. You can't live with intention unless you know the questions you're actually going to ask at the end of your life. People say, well, how do I know what my purpose is? Know how you're going to gauge your purpose at the end? You got to know the questions I tell people. Identify four or five, 10 questions you'd ask at the end of your life to see if you're happy and then wake up. Look at those day in questions. And every day. So I do tonight when I go to bed, it's the same thing. 21 years, I've never missed. I go to bed, my head bed, my head hits the pillow. I go, did I live today? Did I love today? Did I matter today? And it's not like I can be like, hey, Louis, every night I'm frigging awesome. And the answer is yes. I mean, I have bad days, but enough of them are yeses that I feel pretty good about my life. And so that's the message. I want people to know. Find out what your questions are. Live intentionally so you're happy with them at the end.

That's great, man.

What are you most grateful for right now?

Well, one tactical one. I'm so happy being the best.

Feeling right? Oh, my God, it's the best in the world.

Oh, I'm so happy the book is done. I'm super grateful that that is, you know, because I, you know, a lot of my friends and family, like, where did you go? I mean, literally three years. We manage research teams. The largest study ever. I'm not an academic, so to. To put together a book like this with, you know, 30 pages of resources and citations to prove everything out with hardcore data analytics. Honestly, it wasn't my strength, so it was exhausting. But it was what was required to serve at the next level. Because I wanted corporate audiences to be able to take this assessment and go, this is more rigorous than anything we've ever done. I wanted academics to love it. I wanted people who are entrepreneurs to go, I see what I can do. I just. There's so many moving things I wanted this book to hit on, but it also exhausted me because it was just constant. So I'm super proud to have that done and grateful for that, having come to, you know, coming To a book I'm proud of. I'm extremely grateful for the patience and love of my family in this particular project. It took me away more than anything else. I'm actually really grateful that I've gotten to know you better and getting this to be the first, like, in depth conversation with it. Yeah, it's fun because I think that you're very talented at holding a space for people. Your team too, about holding a space for people. Just be like, this is me. This is what I, you know, about. Yeah. And then I would also, you know, I'm always grateful for the God, for the second chance I got from the standing on the hood of the car. Like, I got it, like knowing that each day you get up and you. It's not, you know, self help psychobabble. It's like knowing that life is limited and you get a second chance every morning of like showing the world more of who you are, you know, breathing, taking that walk with your love. Just having that every day. That kind of a new beginning. I feel that in my career. I'm sharing that with you now. By the time this comes out, you know, I'll have a new show out, the Brendan Show. I've never done that as a new opportunity. I'm grateful for the new opportunities. I think right now you and I have the ability to share our messages farther and wider than we've ever had before. I'm super grateful that we're alive, like right now at this time on the planet when I think our messages really need to be heard. When we're, you know, surrounded sometimes by a culture, society, politics is so negative to, to, to. To have a platform to share something good right now. I'm so grateful for that.

What's the habit that you realize you need more work on or that you can improve on yourself?

Definitely raising necessity. I think the challenge you have when you're good is that you're good.

Yeah.

So like, I'm doing pretty good already.

Yeah, it's easy. The better you get, the more expertise, development you get, the easier it is to show up and go through the motions.

Yeah.

You don't have to prepare as much, you don't have to practice as much.

Yeah.

You get results.

Whatever you do is good enough.

Yeah.

But what happens with high performance, it eats at them because they know they got more in the tank and they're like, you know what? That was good, but I could have got another. And it's not that they're dissatisfied. We take on that myth in this book. High performers are not dissatisfied. So people who say never be satisfied, they got to look at why they're saying that. Because it's not true. Because high performers are satisfied. They're striving satisfied. Doesn't mean they're not striving for the next big thing. Want to become better, but they're happy. High performers are happier than all of their peers. I mean, by significant, almost double digits. So it's really significant. But I think for me, I need to constantly be reminding myself, like, okay, what is the reason you need to perform really well right now? And I need to be more consistent about that question. So I set up triggers in my life to do that. You know, from every time I stand in line, I have a line trigger. I'm door triggers, I have phone triggers, you know, so when I stand in line, I always say, what level am I right now in terms of my presence and energy scale? 1, 10. 1. I suck. I'm dead. I'm not even alive. Not even feeling grateful, you know, 10. I'm like, I'm vibrant. I'm joyous. Here I am. And I rate myself consistently on that. And it just retouches me like the knee. I want to feel it's necessary to be grateful. I want to feel it's necessary to be great. I want to feel it's necessary to do my best. But you don't get that without reminders. So you got to set up alarms or triggers or some, you know, note cards around that. Whatever it is it takes for you to have that. But I know for me, raise after the research, I didn't get how. I mean, I mean, you're talking from every athlete to every high CEO, this is what they did. And I didn't find this. You'll see all the questions I asked them in the book, I really had to dial in their psyche. And when we found that, I was like, is that a thing that they'd really. That's. I mean, but they all do. And so it inspired me to that level. I'm like, I'm going to raise my necessity, and I'm going to practice everything in the book to get that up a little higher.

I like that. Yeah.

What's the first thing you're to raise in the necessity, in terms of your business or relationships or health or whatever life?

I would say I'm going to raise necessity on probably at this point in my life, sharing more. And we talked about that this morning, because I never. It never wasn't necessary. Yeah, I made my whole career training. Here's a Problem. You're dealing with disappointment, you're dealing with stress. You had a fight with your lover. You don't feel fully charged. You don't feel connected, you don't feel like you're contributing. Here's the answer. Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4. Because I knew that from the research or from my coaching experience, but I didn't share a lot into that.

Yeah.

And I probably need to read your book Masculinity. Maybe. Maybe there's something there. I don't know. So I just didn't feel like it was necessary to share Brendan. So I'm demonstrating courage, I hope, by making a show called the Brendan Show. Because I feel like for me to be able to pull that off without feeling like I should be punched in the face, I'm going to have to, like, demonstrate the courage of, like, I'm going to raise a necessity to share more.

You're going to own it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, final question. Final couple questions. Well, before I ask them, is there any question you have for me or anything you wish I would have asked you so far?

Anything. Wish. You know, man, this is awesome. Now, question for you. Which. Which of those, you know, habits would you work on them?

I mean, every one of them. But I think courage. I think it's always being courageous to say what I think to do the. The things that are the right things and not hold back in any way because I'm afraid of hurting someone. I'm afraid of upsetting a situation or I'm afraid of looking bad or whatever it may be, whatever the fear may be in that moment. So I think courage stands out for me the most right now, I would say. And then I think necessity would be the next one. It's, like, constantly, like, challenging myself to be more prepared in situations, because a lot of times I just go on stage and I just, like, I really haven't prepared anything. I'm 10 minutes before, I'm like, what do I do? And then I just. I figure it out and I go and. Because we've had so many reps.

Yes, yes.

You know, you're way better than me on stage. But it's like, I've had, you know, eight years of reps now of training that I'm like, I can do good. I can do 80. And it gets a great result.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

But then afterwards, I'm like, I just know I didn't give everything that I should have.

Yeah.

I got a tip for you on that one.

Yeah.

Knowing your work, legacy. Here's your challenge. Your Back your backstage trigger every time you walk on the stage, go, if this footage is the last of me ever.

That's a good one.

I like.

That's a good one. How are you going to show up?

Yeah.

If I do that every time, how.

Are you going to show up?

This is if. Even if. Because sometimes I'm not prepared, just like you. I mean, I hit five cities, but, you know, here's 20,000 people in this arena, here's 2,000 at my event, you know, thousand bucks a ticket, the expectations, insane. So I got to be prepared for sometimes. But sometimes I don't have to be prepared because, you know, it's something I'm doing for somebody else. So it's easy to show up and not give. So it's like because legacy is so important to you. I'm like, even if you're not prepared, if it was the last footage ever, boom.

That's good. Yeah, you give your best, you know, you do your best. So those would be for me? Cool. Well, final one, two questions. The first one is called the Three Truths. And you've written many books already. Number one New York time bestseller. You've sold millions of copies. You've done the Brendan show. Now you've done everything you've ever wanted to do. You've created it. And this is the last day 70 years from now for you.

Right.

Theoretically, you've done everything, any dream, any raising the necessity, you did it, achieved it like nothing else you can do.

Yeah.

You've conquered whatever you wanted to conquer and everything's been erased for whatever reason. Every piece of content you put out there, all your followers have nothing to see of yours.

No books, sci fi novel, no photos.

On Facebook or Instagram. You have a piece of paper and a pen to write down your three final truths. So this would be your last message to the world.

Yes.

And the only thing that's recorded, what you write down is three truths back to the world. I kind of have an idea what you might already say, but what would those three things be?

Well, I'll tell you what, you know, I'm going to say yes, but then I'll answer it in a different way too.

Perfect.

For me, it would be live, love, matter, and it'd be something around those truths. Because at the end of your life, what I found, you know, it's hard to give perspective this, but for 20 years I've been telling people to find those questions and no matter what. And I don't know if you know this, but I volunteered in hospices for A decade. I've been with a lot of people in their last moments, weeks and months. I've been. I've been around a lot of that in my life because I wanted to see if what I experienced on that car was what other people experienced. In some ways, it was. In some ways, at the end, we all wanted to know, did I live and how that was and did I love and I matter? But hopefully that wouldn't be erased. But, you know, if it's related into greatness, I say, number one, like, the truths are knowing that, you know, outside of those, the truth is life will never be joyous unless you bring the joy. I really feel like that so many people are waiting to have happiness, and they're just. They're waiting to, like, well, maybe when my boss loosens up, I'll loosen up. Or, you know, when. When. When she's vulner. Be vulnerable. Or it's like we're waiting for something. I'm like, it's not. Your life will never be what it is going to be unless you bring that thing. You know, for me, I wanted to be. I want to be more bold in my life. That was one of my goals. Because I wasn't that, you know, I wasn't that guy who would just, like, go out and do the things I do now. So I made gold. Like, I was like, bold is an intention. I set it as an alarm on my phone. My alarm would go off three times a day and bold would pop up. And I conditioned myself over seven years to be more bold, which is a big deal for me. And because I wanted. I wanted that, I had to learn how to bring that. So whatever you want in life, you got to bring it. I would say, number two, honor the struggle. Like, so many people bemoan the hardship, and they hate it. And I was, you know, anything you. Anything you apply hate to quickly dies. You got a dream and you're hating the process. You apply hate to the process, the dream is going to die. You know, it's like, don't. Don't, you know, be very. Be very careful of what you put hate or things to. And most people do that with hardship. And I've always seen hardship is like, I'm going to honor this process. Sort of it's a little samurai mentality. You know, it's like, I'm going to honor that. This is difficult because that is precisely what's needed.

Yeah.

And then the last truth would be, you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other People, because you can do the first two, but if you're not serving and connecting with other people, you'll never feel good about life. You might have a good life, have the good life. You could make a lot of money taking advantage of people. People do that. But you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other people. And a lot of. One of the things in courage just came to my mind that we found from the research we kept digging down about courage, courageous courage ultimately comes from curiosity, which is such a weird thing. I didn't know that either. But you don't. You can't courageously connect with other people unless you're like, I'm curious to what they would think about this, or I'm curious about them. You'll never try something new unless you're like, I'm curious to how that turned out. You wouldn't go for the, you know, the, the gold of the stars. And it's like, I'm curious if I can do it. Like, you have to. You have to wonder, like, is that possible? And so part of, I think people's next development is being more curious about what happens if you did serve at a bigger level. Because the truth is, you never feel good about life unless you do.

Wow. There you go.

Make sure you guys get the book High Performance Habits. Go get it on Amazon, Barnes and noble or brendan.com correct. Brendan.com is that the best place? Brendan Everywhere or Brendon Bouchard?

Brendonbouchard everywhere.

Brendon Bouchard everywhere on social media. You are taking over the world, my friend. And it's, it's good to be connected and learn more about everything you're up to. And I'm, I'm here to support.

So thank you.

Final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

I've heard so many of your guests do it. And I was like, man, I'm not sure what I would, what even what. What I would say about that, but I do think that I wrote a little about this motivation manifesto because I was really like, what is that thing? And I think it's achieving your own sense of personal freedom. Whatever is. I define personal freedom as the ability to be oneself fully and the ability to pursue things that are deeply meaningful to you. I think that's when you find freedom. Now, that's my definition. But I think when, if you get the end of your life, like, I lived freely, you know, or I loved freely, or I did my thing. It was like when you feel that you you're. You're living your own personal freedom, whatever that means. I think that's magical. So I don't know if I have the. The answer for everybody else, but, you know, for me, it's. When I feel free in life, it's. I'm being myself fully, and I'm doing things I deeply care about. Like this right now. I feel free right now. This is great. Right? That's how I would say if I'm being myself and I love what I'm doing right now, I feel great.

Sure. Sure. There you go.

Brendan Burchard, thanks so much, man.

Appreciate me. Appreciate it, Sam.