How To Handle Disappointment

Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance and inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. Now let's begin. What's it like when you have those dark days, those disappointments, those huge sacrifices, setbacks that happen inevitably to all of us? And how can you use your mind instead of a few habits to overcome those a little faster, to cope with them in a responsible manner, but also, you know, to feel alive again after those really dark days. That's a big topic here we're going to talk about. It's not always the most inspiring thing when we talk about the difficult days. But I do know that we all have to learn to be more resilient. And if we're gonna be high performers, we have to learn how to transform all that negative, chaotic energy into something that we have a sense of control about and that we can create some positive outcomes toward the things that we want in our life. And that's hard when maybe your business is struggling or your spouse isn't supportive or somebody in your family is sick or having really bad health or got a bad medical report. I know all that's hard. So I'm here to cheer you on this week, but also give you some capabilities and maybe new ways to look at a few things, try a few new things that will get you out of those dark days a little faster. So how do you deal with those dark times? The major setbacks, or just the deep disappointments of life? We're talking about dark days and disappointments. And the first piece I want to really talk about is, is maybe something most people don't think about. And that is often the dark days we have, the crushing defeats, the difficulties of life, often they're not preventable. I mean, you can't prevent maybe all the medical reports when they're bad, you can't prevent maybe every difficulty at the business. But here's what I have found over and over. The people who keep getting knocked off their feet over and over, who can't get back to resilience or back to high performance, often fail to do something very simple that it turns out some of the world's greatest leaders do. And that's a very simple thing that is to learn to anticipate drama. Learn to anticipate drama or turmoil or difficulty or challenge. Now, again, I know we've got people from all walks of life here. We have some people who are dealing with some major issues. So let me give some examples here, from minor issues to bigger issues. Okay. Sometimes, let's say, you know, you end up at the end of the day and you had that big meeting earlier in the day and it didn't go the way you thought it did, and you're really disappointed about how it turned out. And what happens often is disappointment is often a lack of having not anticipated enough things in advance. And so what ends up happening is you kind of roll in with all these high expectations, but you didn't anticipate the difficulties or the challenges that will come up. It turns out a lot of work done by, like, Jim Collins and other organizational leaders have found out that leaders tend to anticipate drama in the sense that they're a little bit paranoid. They're not paranoid in a negative way or an obsessive way, but they're so thoughtful about what might go wrong that they're less disappointed later on. So, for example, if you're going to go in that big, important meeting of the day and you're really excited about this meeting, you're finally going to be vulnerable and share your ideas and be excited about your new dream, your new idea. And you plan out everything you're going to say, and you plan out how to do the close, and you think through everything and you practice everything. But then in the middle of that meeting, someone goes, well, I think that's a stupid idea. And you didn't anticipate that drama. You didn't anticipate that someone is going to doubt you, someone is going to object, someone's going to interrupt you. If you don't anticipate those things, they really throw you off and they rattle you so much so that later on you're a hot mess about it. Like, later on you're like, oh, my God, I didn't think that person was going to say this. And they didn't. That everything in life, if you're going to be a high performer, you might take a step back and say, what's going to trip me up about this? Many of you know, I do that every single morning in the shower. So the second question I ask in the shower is always, what might trip me up today or throw me off? And how would my highest self meet that? I ask that every single day. I look at my calendar. When I look at my calendar, I see big events come up. I go, okay, what might be, what might go sideways there, what might not work out well. And by anticipating that, when it comes up, I'm calm. I already saw it in my mind. I already knew it might happen. I already anticipated what to do. And if you anticipate that things are going to go wrong, then when they do, you don't get so upset and worked up about it. Does that make sense? But I mean, this also at a more difficult level of life, that sometimes there's going to be some major, major turmoil in life. And let's say you're heading into a breakup of a relationship. So many people go into the breakup of a relationship and they don't think it through. And so they don't anticipate that. Of course the other person's going to fight for what they want. Of course the other person is going to become selfish at some point. Of course the other person's going to become scared at some point. Of course the other person is going to, you know, argue and blame. But when those things happen, people are so surprised. I can't believe you're blaming me. I go, you're breaking up with someone, and you can't believe the person is blaming you. Have you not lived one rotation around the earth yet? You know, it's like they forget human behavior. They didn't anticipate it. And I hope you get this. This also applies to health, right? I'm always surprised how people who are like 50 years old, who often say, geez, you know, I'm really surprised, my body's stiffening up. You haven't moved in seven years. You didn't anticipate that. If you don't move in seven years, you're going to feel like crap. And that's what happens is that all of a sudden health goes down. People didn't anticipate. Of course, as you get older, you have to do more to take care of your health. Duh. So you can't wake up one day and go, I feel so sad. I'm sore and old and gross. How did you not know that was going to happen? How did you not know that they were going to interrupt you in the meeting? How did you not know that the first time you made your pitch to that prospect they were going to say no? You have to anticipate the nos. You have to anticipate the difficulties, the bad health days, the difficulties. I'll give you like tangible examples from my career. When I go do a seminar, like a four day seminar, I have a full anticipation of, okay, what happens if I get sick? What happens if I eat something I shouldn't eat? What happens if I get hurt? What happens if somebody, you know, attacks the building? What happens if, you know, there's an earthquake? I know that all sounds crazy, but I literally thought through almost all of that and made contingency plans with myself or with the team because inevitably think about the disaster and the major setbacks that happen in life when you don't anticipate those things. So I really want you to think about it. It's like, okay, I need to think through these next couple weeks of my life and where might things go sideways and how could I meet those as my highest self? How could I be prepared for those difficulties? And when you're prepared and you know that those things might happen, you meet them better. You know, I also, my many of you guys know my father passed away from cancer and when we got the diagnosis, had to kind of emotionally like get some resolve about that and go, okay, gosh, let's do everything we can to care for this person's health. But okay, what would happen if the health declines? And this isn't being, you know, this sounds like sometimes I know when I share this, it can tilt somebody into pessimism, it can tilt somebody into sadness. It can tilt somebody into really focusing on the negative or actually becoming paranoid. But what I have found over and over and over again with high performers is they allow that and they do it in a healthy way. Like they contingency plan. You should be contingency planning. What happens if next month's revenue is not what it was this month? What happens if in five years from now you're not in good health and you can't run your business anymore? What happens if your industry completely changes and your systems and tools aren't good anymore? What happens if that bad health report does get worse? Anticipating and thinking through that is part of being both a mature adult but also a high performer. Because I've learned from them over and over, they think through things, seven steps where they're very strategic thinkers high performers are. And their strategic thinking in their personal life, their professional life, in every area that matters, their career, their health, their finances, they're absolutely of that anticipatory mind, and that helps them deal with the crap when it arrives. Like, nothing surprises me that much anymore at all. How can we all not anticipate major, terrible, cataclysmic health things? How can you live in the Caribbean and not anticipate hurricanes? How can you send your kids to school without asking, okay, what happens if something bad happens? How do they communicate with me and how do I get them? I mean, that's just part of living in the real world as it is now. I mean, global warming is a thing. Violence at schools and at work is a thing. Thing that random happenings like that, It's a thing. And it's not to freak anybody out. And I know again, as I said at the very open. I hope you heard me, I said, I know this is a sensitive topic because it brings on all sorts of scary things for people and it can bring up lots of trauma and it can bring lots of fear. But I'm here to tell you, actually, you can meet that with an even hand and a cool head when you anticipate it, when you just know that that's going to like. It didn't surprise me at all. It doesn't surprise me at all that there could be gunfire any moment, anywhere, in any town, anywhere around America. How can that surprise us anymore? That shouldn't surprise doesn't mean it's not scary in the moment. But knowing that these things can happen makes us better. Have you ever thought of what happens if you get in a car accident? Have you Ever thought, what happens if your house, you know something, you leave the iron on, your house starts on fire? Like, have you ever thought through those things? And again, I know this is like way freaky for people. And I was sensitive. I was like, should I really bring this up to this high performance community? I mean, is this going to be like freaking people out? But I just thought, you know what? I don't think it will. I just think that you will say, you know what? Maybe it is good contingency planning is, is a piece of the strategic mindset. Contingency planning is what high performers do. They just think through this stuff. It's not that I'm a prepper for the ends of doomsday. I don't think humanity is going to end. And I'm not too worried about nuclear weapons falling on my head any day soon. But I am a person who goes, well, if the odds are pretty high, how would I think through that? How would I deal with that if an earthquake did happen, how would I get a hold of my wife? Where would we go? How do we get out of town? And it's not like I obsess about it and make major plans. I'm just aware that negative things can happen. I'm the same way with my own life, right? The way I've set up my entire business is that my entire business can run if I'm not doing anything. You know, I've got online courses that could sell all day long, books that could sell all day long, funnels that we've built or could build or all day long if for a month I want to take off, or for a month I'm sick. And it just. I think that's just being part of a responsible adult. And I really believe that the more you anticipate, the less you end up in situations where there's catastrophe, where there's less, where you're like totally surprised and ruined by something. Now, again, those things do happen. Like, we can all get surprised and terrible things can happen. You know, we didn't know. Like my dad, we didn't know he was so limited on time. We didn't know. One day he got a leukemia diagnosis and, you know, he was gone 59 days later. And there just wasn't much you could anticipate or do about that. But once we got the diagnosis, we had to think it through. And those are difficult times. But I'm telling you, allowing your mind to go there is important. See, most people, they can't. They're so scared of death that they won't ever even think about it. But I think we should all think about the end of our lives and say, okay, well then if my life is going to end someday, which it will for all of us, then how do I want to live my life? And thinking about those negative things or those end of times, those can inspire us to live well and to serve well. The only reason I'm doing this work with you is at all is because I was put in a place where I had to think through the end of my life. And by anticipating the very end, it's made me live today even better. You follow? So I want you to think of every major thing you're going to do. Like, hey, look, if you're going to go run a marathon, don't just think, oh, I can't wait to cross the finish line. Think about mile 16 when it feels like your feet are falling off. What are you going to tell yourself when your body starts breaking down? How are you going to refill yourself at mile 12 and mile 17 so you can push through? Like all those little, like, you got to think through what happens when it gets hard, what happens when it's not going to go right. And when you think through what happens when it's going to be hard and not go right, you end up less disappointed, less surprised, and less in places what you would call a major setback because you already visited it, you were already there, you already anticipated, you already lived well, you already gave well, you already thought about their objection and now you can deal with it confidently. That's the stuff that we're really talking about today. It's not to say, as you'll see, lots of crap can happen, but man, the more you anticipate, the better, trust me. Hey, it's Brendan and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time, which is, Brendan, where do you get this crazy focus and energy in your life? And the truth is I've developed a supplement line that really helps me do that. And frankly, I needed to. I don't know about you, but sometimes when you're trying to achieve big things, a lot of stress comes along. And as you're trying to achieve bigger things, you need to be on your A game more often. You need to be mentally sharp. You need to, you need to be mentally prepared. You need to be mentally energized and productive and not once in A while. But like every day you have to be on and sometimes guzzling more coffee isn't going to do it. You have to use what we call nootropics, which are, you know, basically supplements that help optimize your brain. And yes, we have a product for exactly that. It's called HPEX Optimize and it is our most popular product. And you can get it. It's back in stock@HPX wellness.com that's HPX wellness.com you'll find HPX optimized for your mental focus and energy there. You'll also find my favorite powdered energy drink that we created that's 100% organic and vegan. And you'll find my essentials, which is my daily multi that I take, that covers my energy, that covers my longevity, that covers my immunity, that covers my brain and body health that I absolutely love. And you will feel the difference. Go to HPX Wellness.com right now. HPX Wellness.com Second, big idea I want to share with you here is to learn to delay your response. Specifically, what I want you to do is delay your emotional response. Now, this is where, you know, some people say, well, Brennan, that's a pretty stoic thing to say. And I'm like, well, yeah, maybe. I mean, stoicism has a lot to teach people. And I think it's important that when something goes on not to freak out about it. So many people, here's what they do. Something negative happens and immediately they believe or think that it's the end of times. And so they anticipate total destruction in the moment something simple happens. Like they anticipate total failure, total horrible. And they get all worked up and they get super emotional about stuff when it's just like you don't even know it's going to happen yet or even if it did just happen, just delay your response. You get that terrible email and it fires you up. Someone writes you a bad email, right? A customer, coworker, and you get pissed and all the fire is coming up and you just feel like you're going to spit acid at the world. You're so angry. What do you do? Well, first I would say, why don't you delay that? Learn to delay the time between stimulus and response. Right before you jump to anger, can you see the email and not get to anger? Delay that. Delay that emotional response a little bit more, right? It's so easy to just go with the emotions, but often the way to cope and be resilient more is to think about the thoughts that you are having and ask, are these thoughts that I'm having, Are these emotions that I'm having actually supporting me in coping with this, moving through it, or serving as a role model, Are these thoughts and emotions I'm having actually helping me cope with it, move through it well, or be a role model? And so I think that all the time, you know, when there's thousands of people who we care about, who's part of this community that we deeply care about, and all of a sudden our live cast goes dead, we don't freak out. We just don't. We just say, okay, take a breath, let's go through this checklist. Let's check this. Plug that thing in, do this thing, let's go. That's all you can do. But if you let yourself freak out, if you'd like, go to immediate freakout, then what ends up happening is you're also training your mind and your body to go to immediate freak out. The way that you deal with every little bit of surprise and every little bit of drama and every little bit of disappointment is only setting you up for how you're going to deal with the next one. So if you're freaking out about all the little things when that big thing happens, you're going to be a disaster. So what I tell people all the time is go through the day and start training yourself to delay response time. Like, just start training yourself. Like, if you feel a negative emotion coming on or you want to immediately fight back or you want to immediately say something negative, just breathe it out a little bit. Take two or three deep breaths and kind of wait and see a little bit. You know, the great spiritual teachers read any great spiritual text and you will see that every single great spiritual guru, every single great spiritual leader of, of any times in any faith, they had a calmness when the drama was around. They didn't jump to anger. Often they asked questions, often they delayed their response. Some would ask a big question and they'd say, ah, good question. They'd close their eyes and they'd meditate for 20 minutes and come back with something like, we're in such a culture of like, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed. Answer, answer, answer, answer, respond, respond, respond. Retaliate, retaliate, retaliate. I'm kind of like, take a breather. Don't let anybody fool you into thinking you need to reply immediately to anything. Like, life is on your clock, it's on your timeline, and you need to start with that as a presupposition. So when a negative event Happens as an example, and everyone's like, brendan, what do we do? Often I just take a breather, and I think about it for a minute, and then I'm decisive and we move, but I don't get caught into the drama. And I tell you, that's helped me in a lot of spaces in my high performance life. You know, I've been at a seminar before. Some of you guys know this story. I was at one of my own seminars, and somebody had a seizure in my audience. And I mean, talk about drama. And a major setback for a seminar leader. You're doing your seminar, and all of a sudden someone has a seizure, and everybody in the room freaks out. I mean, people, like, people completely freak out. They're jumping up, they're trying to run back there, like, oh, my God, help. Help. I mean, it was just like. It was like a bunch of. It was really, really a crazy moment, but I saw it happening. And soon as you see lots of drama, choose to be the calm amid the storm, right? Let's say you're a mom and two your kids come in and they're screaming at each other, right? You immediately, you want to fix it, and you want to scream at them to stop screaming at each other. And now you're all screaming at each other, right? That immediate impulse is usually not the one to go with. Delay that response a little bit. Notice the drama and choose to be the calm amid the storm. Recognize it and deal with it from your highest self. I saw the drama in the audience with literally hundreds of people completely freaking out. It was just unbelievable. And person, because the person was having a very physical seizure, was, like, literally on the ground, like, bounced around on the ground type of seizure. It was very dramatic, and people were really scared. And people are scared, or when they're angry, they tend to act very impulsively. And sometimes acting impulsively in those situations aren't actually serving you. And so you see it, and I see it from the stage. And so everyone's freaking out and everything. So I just grabbed my mic, and now I don't know what's going on. I've never been in this situation before. I've thought about it, though, and so I just grabbed my mic and I said, please, everybody, if you are not a doctor, sit down. Because everyone's standing up and they're all gawking around like this. What's going on? I'm like, sit down. If you're not a doctor, sit down. And everyone's like, holy crap. Everyone sat down. I said, now listen, a member of our audience is having a health issue and a lot of you are throwing off negative, chaotic energy when this person actually needs calm right now. If you want to help this person, take a few deep breaths, get calm. And it just completely changed the energy of the room because think about the person having a seizure. Do they need all this frantic, chaotic, crazy energy all around? But it was a positive intent. People did want to help and stuff, but they were freaking out. They're screaming. It's like this person needed calm. This person needed to be supported with calming, healthful energy in the room, not that type of energy. And so I got the audience to calm down. I eventually got the audience to close their eyes and start sending this person back positive energy just as my team was arriving to the person and assisting the person and getting more professional support to come into the room to help the person. But it took almost 40 some minutes to get this person onto a stretcher and out of the room, during which time I had the whole audience, their eyes closed, taking them through guided meditations, sending positive energy, getting sort of checks from my team to let me know what was happening. And I shared that story because my immediate impulsive desire when that happened was I was just like, other one out. I wanted to freak out. Oh, my God. And I wanted to jump in the audience. I wanted to run over and help this person. But that wasn't going to serve the situation. Sometimes you learn to delay the response, to ask what would serve the situation, not make me feel immediately involved. You know, it's almost taking a little bit of step back from your highest self and observing what is happening in times of drama, difficulty or challenge, even when, you know, I share with you. I worked with an ER surgeon one time, really amazing, amazing medical professional who I deeply admired. And he had dealt with just the most terrifying situations imaginable. And he was really literally in charge, not just of himself, but his team in saving all these people's lives who came in every single day. And just a really inspiring guy. And I said, how do you get used to all that trauma and that chaos that comes through that door every day? He goes, oh, of course it's going to happen. We're in an er, Brendon. I just love that answer. Of course it's going to happen. We're in an er, Brendon, and I'm in charge, so I can't freak out. So I got to kind of take it in, delay the immediate response that I feel and go, okay, what would actually serve here? And I love that so much. Because it's easy when things go bad to flip into either the reactionary or the victim. Isn't true. I mean, weren't there some things last year that you overreacted to that maybe you could have dealt with better? Aren't there some things in your life right now where you're kind of like, it's easy to, you know, blame the team, or it's easy to blame the neighbor, or it's easy to blame the politician, or it's easy to blame something else, because you know what blame gives you the opportunity to sit on the couch and point versus saying, okay, what would be a helpful response here? What would actually serve the situation? Not just serve my immediate need to respond with outrage or anger or quip? You know, one reason I don't like sarcasm very much is because sarcasm is the easiest answer, right? So someone does something wrong, be sarcastic, cut them down. You know, use your words to be really smart and make a joke at their expense. And we all have that, right? You and I see things. That's why it's like, you know, you watch America's Home Videos, Bunny's Home Videos, and somebody gets hurt, and you kind of laugh like you're going, oh. You know, it's like. It's an immediate impulse, but that's. Our immediate impulses are not always our best humanity. And so the best humanity tends to come from a delayed response. It's the Dalai Lama calming himself. It's Nelson Mandela thinking through his release of prison and knowing when he got out of prison and apartheid was, you know, hanging on, he knew that people were going to want to revolt and literally kill, murder, or remove the current leadership. And he decided in advance, I'm going to not follow that impulse. Because of course I want retribution. Of course I would love to be, you know, vindicated. But instead, I'm going to make this a peaceful process, a peaceful transition. And I promise you that most of the drama of life, if you can just take one step back for a minute, observe it, and delay your immediate impulses of drama and more tune into a higher, thoughtful plane to ask, how would my higher self deal with this? You'll do a better job. Now, of course, I know as I'm doing this, you can make all the jokes at me that you want. You know, you can say, oh, yeah, Brendan, try that. When, you know, five children come in the room screaming and beating each other up. And, you know, like, I know it. I know there's plenty of circumstances you could say, well, Brendan, that Doesn't apply to me. And I would still challenge you to step out of the drama a little bit. Delay that impulse that you have and ask how you can serve the situation. Because, listen, remember I shared earlier, you're training yourself how to deal in those little circumstances when you get cut off in traffic. How you deal with that is probably gonna come out when you get cut off in the meeting. You know what I'm saying? People who, like, if every time you get cut off, you get angry, Ah. And you freak out, you step in, that immediate reactionary response, you're gonna do it at an inopportune time when you should have done it. So every little thing you're training, when you're at the line at Starbucks, be patient. Don't be an impatient person. Because if you're impatient at the line at Starbucks, how are you going to treat your kids when you're tired and they really need mommy's attention? That impatience, every little thing that we're doing, often that little microcosm becomes the macrocosm. And so always remember, train yourself to step back, delay that response, deal with it well, and I promise you'll have so fewer disappointments, so few, so fewer major setbacks. Because when those things come up, they're not major anymore. You've run that route so many times, you know how to deal with it. Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope, hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community. So be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.