How to Assess Opportunities

Hey my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendon show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking.

On some stages across the world.

Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're gonna really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts in special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something I'm suggesting or motioning tool or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategies that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendan.com monthly that's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings.

So what I'd like you to do is define two projects that's feel equally important to you right now. So maybe you're saying, okay, two things that feel important to me, like in my industry might be do I start a book or do I start a blog, right? It's like I get that question all the time. Which one first, Brendan? The answer is, doesn't really matter. There's no finite answer to that. It's up to you. But let me give you a point system for figuring that out, okay? I'm just gonna give you four different criteria. So if you would just do me a favor, pull out your piece of paper and write on one side something you're thinking of doing, and on the other side something you're thinking of doing. And these are things you just try. You're like, they're competing. I don't know which one to do or which one to give the most time to or which one will be the most value. Okay, so try to think of something like that, those two competing interests or competing values, competing opportunities. And all I'm going to do is give you four categories and you're going to rank them on a scale of one to five. Okay, one to five, here we go. The first factor I want you to measure and give yourself five points on is what we call being goals. Now, a being goal means this is something that you feel like if you do it, it will develop character in your life. And in other words, it makes you a better person. And it also aligns with your self expression, what's unique to you. And also it gives you a sense of satisfaction, right? So all I can say is by doing like, this is more me. That's kind of how you think about it. This is more me and will feel more satisfying if I do it. Now, both of them might get five points or maybe one gets five, one gets four. I don't know what it is for you, but it's the one that says, this aligns with my goals for being like what I want of me and life and how I want to feel and what I want to express and what's unique to me. Does one rate higher than the other? It's okay if they both rate the same, but it's likely one rate's a little higher than the other. Next is what we call our connection goals. This is our connection in terms of relationship to the world, to others. Like, does one. Is one better for your relationships? Does one bring you closer to people? Okay, is one better for your relationships or does one bring you closer to people? That's our connection goals, right? Our human relating goals. Does one help you Connect or come closer to people. Again, that's a scale of 1 to 5, right? So if you think about it, we're at 10 possible points right now in each category, right? This one could have 10 points because you've got five points for being and five points for connecting. This other one, that could also have 10 points, 5 points for being, 5 points for connecting. We're just adding them up. The next one is creating or giving goals. To me, it's the same thing. Giving or contribution is the same to me as creating. It literally means the same. I don't differentiate them because in order to give something, you have to creatively express yourself. In order to contribute something tangible, you have to create the PowerPoint, create the book, create the message, create the movement, whatever. You're creating something that contributes or gives to the world. Right? So which ones. What score is high on your creating or giving or contributing goals? Okay, one to five and one means not at all, by the way. Five means a lot. I'm assuming you knew that. Okay, last piece. Growing goals. Which one of these things will genuinely stretch you? It's like outside of your current ability, maybe more than the other one. Okay. It's difficult. It will bring struggle. It will force you to develop new competency, meaning knowledge, skill, ability, confidence. Okay, which one's going to really push you? Okay, so you take all those and you add them up, and whichever one scores higher, whichever one scores higher, is the one that's going to give you what psychologists would call that intrinsic sense of meaning, right? It's going to be that thing that just. It feels right for you to do. And you should focus on that because you know, your previous measure, right? Your payoffs. This is really about time, external benefits. This one so much is about more intrinsic meaning than just, you know, because payoffs can be very external, extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, you follow? So that's why I'm having you measure both time. You know, this is timeless. These things are important, right? So I really want you to think through these competing interests and just rate them one to five. And I will bet if you do that one of those things ends up more important the other. Now, the question has, well, what if one of these things is more important than the other, but the payoff seems better on the other one in terms of timing? Well, it just depends. I knock off a lot of. A lot of things that score. Guess what? If something scores low on this thing, Guess what? If it scores low on this thing, I do this. If it scores low on this, it's a non essential. Get rid of it. I shouldn't even be considering where it might fit in terms of payoffs because.

It'S just not necessary.

Get rid of that thing. You know, just get rid of it. You'll be super happy. Okay, last piece. Draw boxes on a page. In other words, calendar it out. You know, a lot of people say, brendan, you understand I can't juggle all these things. I say, you really shouldn't do this one first, do that one second. Well, Brenda, I don't have the.

I don't have the benefit of doing that.

I go, great, do this one from, let's say two to four o' clock in the afternoon. And do this one from four to five in the afternoon. We can manage a lot of things if we'll block out the time for them. We just have to be conscious of where that time is happening. So here's what I want you to do. Very simple. Every Sunday or every Monday morning, you're going to put this into a practice. It's going to be very simple for you. First you're going to look at your calendar for the week and say, what can I pull out? What am I not going to do? Also identify your distractions. Stop doing them. It's time. You know, Travis say, should have stopped that stuff long time ago. Time to stop that stuff. Get rid of it. That will benefit you. Number two, look at your weekly calendar and say, where is there anything here that's not. I'm clear about the payoff. Are there any of these projects that I haven't defined what the payoff is going to be that maybe I shouldn't do or I should move off of time based on short versus long term? Then are there any projects here that I'm just not vibing with that I could move to later because I'm in one score is higher. So I'm going to focus on that now because it's going to be more meaningful to me. And then whatever is left, whatever is left. That's where you're going to draw boxes and say, okay, now an hourly sort of approach or a daily approach. How would I focus on them? I draw, I have. Basically what I do is I have this big sheet of paper here. And what I do is I always draw three sets of boxes. The first set of boxes are monthly boxes, right? When you have monthly boxes, that means there's 12 boxes. And what I do is I take all my projects and I say, out of all these projects I want to do this year, which one goes in which box? Right. Do these have to happen in quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, or quarter four? Then I'm going to break it down to that weekly level and say, okay, at a weekly level, which one of these projects am I going to focus on this week? And sometimes during a given month, which I focus on the first of each month to look at my upcoming month, I say, what are the projects that go in this month? And which of the ones now that I know on payoff or based on where I'm at in my life, can I move to a different box, a different month? So now weekly or monthly? Then I go down to weekly and that's a seven box. You know, Monday through Friday there's seven boxes. And I just go, okay, I see the projects are on here. Are these still right? And I move them around again. And then everything else is just daily planning. That's my one page productivity sheet where I go, what has to happen today? And that's how I'm so clear about what's happening. I'm thinking about a yearly basis on my major projects. I'm thinking about a monthly, I'm thinking about a weekly, I'm thinking about daily. I know that sounds so basic, but what happens is most people just wake up and they do their nine to five. They wake up, they commute, they go to the office and they go, what should I do today? They look on their calendar and I guess I have to do that. And they're not questioning, is this activity essential? They're not challenging themselves, can I move these projects around right now in a better way? They're not thinking, okay, I got three projects I have to do right now. So I need to make sure I got three hours on my schedule today. Project one gets that hour, Project two gets that hour. Project three gets that hour. So we're all moving forward, the competing interests at once. Because here's what you do. If you're by random, which is most people what they are, they're living so randomly, they're like, okay, today I'll do this, and then tomorrow they show up and go, I didn't do these things I was supposed to do. And then they blame everyone else. Well, my family was busy. No, your inability to strategize, prioritize, and schedule is the issue. It's never your family's fault. Don't ever blame your family. Don't ever blame the news. Don't ever blame traffic. Don't blame anything or anyone for what is on your plate. Because you and I could both every One of us, all of us can walk away. Never forget that you can walk away. Every person watching you can walk away from your business, you can walk away from your career, you can walk away from your family. I'm not saying do any of that. I'm just saying let's not ever fool ourselves in thinking we have to do anything we choose. And we have to choose what kind of people we want to be, what kind of relationships we want to create, what legacies we want to leave through our works and our contributions. Don't ever blame anybody for, oh, I'm so overwhelmed because of that person. No, strategize, prioritize, schedule. Consider the things we talked about today. I don't pretend any of it's easy. And I hope that didn't come across today. I'm just trying to give you some maybe new thinking tools, some new frameworks to consider. Because if you'll do that, I think you'll start to find you'll get better at it. I'm not perfect at it. I'll tell you all the time, I'm like, hey, there's plenty of times in my day or my life, I'm a hot mess. I bet you are too. It's not about perfection. It's not about having every day completely lined up. It's just about winning more battles. And you'll do that the more consciously you think about it. Workaholism is not a thing. We want it to be a thing. It's not a thing. Workaholism means that we have lost harmony.

And balance with our life.

That's what it means. I would like to tell people it's not something, it's something that we're not doing. What I mean by that is if you're working all the time at the expense of your health, your relationships, and your own personal sense of satisfaction, well being, joy. And in the process, that's just self infliction of pain because you're not prioritizing well. And what I tell people all the time, who are those? And I get it. Type A achiever, driven all the time. Know you can make a big difference. Know you can make an impact. Or your back's against the wall and you have to.

So you work and you do the.

Grind and you hustle. Sometimes that's just part of life. And people need to know that's your priority. They just need to know. Just like if you're sick, you have to be early and explicit. Sometimes you have to do that. For example, my wife and I said this year we're both building. I've built a separate business this year, and she's building a separate business. And I mean, I'm still doing everything I'm doing, But I started growth.com, if you guys didn't hear about all this. So I've started growth.com and that's a whole new business with dozens of new employees that I built. And I'm scaling to bring personal development to the world. That's not my stuff, other people's stuff. And that work is going on. My wife has opened up more fitness work in what she does. And we knew this year, we said, you know what? This year is going to be real. We're going to crank. So here's what we're going to do. In order to ensure that we don't get stuck in the grind in advance, we're going to schedule these vacations every 90 days. Boom. Block time away for just the two of us. And in the meantime, we allow each other to crank and grind and hustle and go. And our family's cool with it because everyone knows it's just like, hey, right now, this particular year is going to be insane. And we allow ourselves to work during that time because we've prioritized and we've let everybody else know. That's what's happening right now. It won't last forever. It's this year of building these separate things. Now you could say, but, Brendan, I've been building for five years and I haven't taken a breath. That's your fault. You got to build in the recovery time. Every athlete knows that, right? That's the nice thing about working with world class athletes is their focus as much on the recovery as on the training. And you have to as well give yourself if you're going to be a workaholic. If that's your tag and I'm going to work that hard, then a workaholic. If they're a really workaholic, they're good at scheduling. So schedule recovery time, schedule that meditation schedule, that yoga class, that health class. Because here's what thing is workaholics, you ask, why are you working so hard? Because I need to get stuff done. Oh, well, let me help you get more done by taking better care of yourself. And now things come back into harmony. I hope that serves people know where they're blowing off time, that they don't.

Need to blow off time.

And if they just look at their daily behavior and their weekly schedule, it's pretty easy. Like most executives I work with, when I You know, am advising or consulting or just chatting at a networking event. I just tell me, I'm like, you should probably cut out at least 60% of your meetings. And they're like, what? I'm like, even I'm talking a high level Fortune 100 executives. I'm like, you should cut out half your meetings. Because we believe we have to have meetings and we don't usually have to. We believe we have to do all these things and they're just not, not. They're not essential to moving the needle forward. They're not essential to anything that we sense in meaning. We just think we should. And a lot of things we think we should. I've, you know, I just spent time with, at a barbecue with some friends and one of my buddy's wives was telling me how she's involved in all these community organizations and she feels overwhelmed and stressed and exhausted all the time and not time. She said, I have no time to focus on myself. I said, well, I don't have time to focus on myself. And she blamed all these meetings and all these events. And I said, you don't have time to focus on yourself because you just haven't chosen to focus on yourself. You haven't given yourself permission. You don't have to be on any of these things. Oh, no, I have to be on my son's school soccer thing and I have to be on all these things. She was like in seven or eight different groups. And I was like, you don't have to be in any of those. And she had fallen into a place where she was in pretty poor health. I said, if you actually cared about your children, you'd stop all of those. And she looked at me and goes, what? I go, because your children don't want to see you wiped out all the time. You're going to be more compassionate, more fun, more playful with your kids. If you're not wiped out all the time, get rid of those things and focus on the kids. And it was just like a mind blowing thing to her because she really felt like she had to be on those, but she just never realized those weren't essential. What's essential in your child's life is you present, energized, positive, focused, imparting good life lessons. All the other stuff is the architecture of society making you feel obligated. You have to question those things.

All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up?

Did you love it?

If you did, make sure you do me a favor. Go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. You know, just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendon show because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings.

Like you just heard.

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

Sam.