How To Live A More Courageous Life

And how can you possibly touch the, just touch the rim of your potential of the future? How are you going to get lift to be able to leap up there and grab it when you got £40 of old stories of stupid stuff you did in high school or the way they treated you when you were 10 or the way they talked to you when you were 30? Like, you're in a different place now. And you need to be in this place, light on your feet. Because some of you think, like the truth is right now you need to be able to adapt. I mean, the world's in chaos. You need to be light on your feet, living a life of courage. Now, I know how hard that is and I know that if you're here, you're already a person who's striving to be high performing. You're already a person who's into personal development. You're already a person who wants to improve your life. So congratulations for one more day of commitment to being your best. One more training, one more effort, one new idea, one new strategy can always change your life. So I celebrate your continuing education. I celebrate you saying, hey, I want to be better. I want to keep improving. I want to keep feeding my mind with positivity in this world that can be negative. I want to keep feeding my mind with new ideas. So my mindset keeps expanding, my vision keeps expanding, my abilities keep deepening and, and I keep rocking it. I know that's your intention. So welcome here. If it's your first time, welcome. I'm pumped to have you here. If you've been here for a while, you know the drill. We've got a worldwide community of people every single month who come together. And if this is your first month or it's your hundredth month, I celebrate you for really just deciding in your life to keep working on yourself. You know, a lot of people see the invitation to be here and they don't make it. You chose to. You follow that intuition in your heart that said, it's time to grow and time to be my best. My family needs me on my A game. My business, my career needs me to be exceptional. And that desire to be exceptional is something we're going to tap into today on the conversation about courage. We're getting into courage today. And every time I talk about courage, I know some of the things can be common sense, but they're not common practice. You hear me say that all the time. And that's true with courage. We all want to know we're living a exceptional, a brave A confident, a courageous, a productive, a fully alert and alive life. But, you know, sometimes the kids didn't let you sleep last night. Sometimes you've been on the road for many weeks. Sometimes the easiest thing in the world to do is fall back on your routine and do what's comfortable for you. But sometimes just doing the same thing over and over because you can go through the motions, because you're good or because it's comfortable for you, steals the opportunity away to live a bold life where you literally get towards the end of your life, like, man, I frigging went for it. I left it all on the mat. I left it all on the field. I poured my heart and soul into this life. Not I protected myself. Not, I was just, you know, hiding. Not I was being safe. Not I was being silent. Because sometimes in. In silence, they're suffering, and sometimes in playing it safe, they're suffering. Sometimes in doing what's comfortable for us feels good in the short term, but it robs our family from the abundance they deserve in the long term. You know, it's just that sometimes it's very easy to go to where we feel safe and secure and good. And I always want you to be in that place, but you can be in that place and be courageous at the same time. You don't have to take crazy risks to edge your life forward. You don't have to do irresponsible things to have breakthroughs. You don't have to act outside of who you really are to win more in life. And I think that's what happens when you start talking about courage. People think they have to do something extraordinary, something so crazy or beyond themselves. You know, take that big, bold leap, guys, that you hear that. But sometimes the most courageous thing in the world to do is ask for help, is get new training, is get a coach, is raise your hand and explain. I'm unsure here. Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is finally tell your spouse what you really want. Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is start saying no more often so you can have the white space of time to take bolder actions. So we're going to talk about today the big things you can do and the little things you can do so that we can have that intention to be bold, to live our best life and to get to the end of our lives and go, you know what? I went for some difficult and demanding challenges, goals and projects in my life. And because I went for the difficult things that weren't easy, I actually achieved some things that were remarkable. And everybody here deserves to do that. And of course, it immediately begins with us having to do some difficult work. It's like, okay, I'm going to ask you to struggle outside of your comfort zone a little bit today. And as you honor that struggle, that means you have reverence for this process. That. Listen, when you honor the struggles of life, you don't complain about next week's difficulties. When you honor the struggles of life, you don't bemoan the inevitable hardships and real hard work you have to do every day to get ahead. When you honor the struggle, you give yourself peace and forgiveness and respect even as you're failing forwards. And I mean failing. You know, I hope for you that you fail. And that sounds crazy to say to someone, but I'm like, no, I hope you fail because that means you're going for something. You know, if you've never experienced failure or rejection or judgment, you're aiming too low for your potential, my friend. Like, it's okay that some people think you crazy. It's okay that sometimes you get to the end of the day and you're like, what a frigging hot mess I was today. Like, do you know how many days I have like that? Like, I'm the high performance guy. And I probably end, I don't know, every three days, Three out of seven days, I end the day. I'm like, what a hot mess that was. Because I'm going for it. I'm not trying to be perfect and have everything perfect. What I'm trying to do is move the needle forward. And sometimes moving that needle forward, it's going to make a little bit of a mess. And today's conversation about courage will probably make a little bit of a mess. It's going to make a mess in your relationship sometimes. Sometimes in your career, sometimes in your team, in your business, sometimes in how you operate every day. Sometimes we've got to get a little messy before we get through. Sometimes we've got to have a little mess that allows us to. To clean it up. Sometimes we gotta have a little bit of a mess that allows us to reorganize. Sometimes we need that mess to see what really matters. And so we're gonna mess some stuff up today and allow the hot mess. My friends, let's get this today, let's talk about courage. Today I've got 10 different topics I wanna take on and takeaways for you to write in your journal. You should always be keeping a journal just for these sessions. I mean, not a random Journal, not a random piece of paper every single month or every single time you tune in to the replays and you look at the training, my friend, I want you to keep it in one specific place that all your breakthroughs, all the things that make you a high performer, they're in one journal or one set of journals in one place that you go back to those, and you look at them on a Sunday, you go, oh, I learned a lot this week that you go back to those. In those times when someone's messing with you and judging you and making you feel bad, in those times, you pair yourself a little bit too much and you feel like you're behind. In those days when inevitably you have conflict and your life just on that day feels like it sucks when you have personal development to turn to you, you got a way out. So, my friends, I hope that you're keeping journals and you're doing the work here, you know, not just tuning in for entertainment, because as you know, I'm not very funny. So I don't have a lot to promise in the entertainment field. What I have to promise is 12 years coaching people at the highest levels on this planet on how to become their best selves, on how to reach high performance while maintaining their wellbeing and their positive relationships. My promise to you every single month is, listen, you can have more success in your life and greater joy and confidence and engagement and aliveness. And you don't have to compromise your health and you don't have to compromise your relationships that you can have those things and those things can be. Feel real and intimate and beautiful and that each day you can feel this aliveness and this presence that most people never get to experience because they're not on the same journey of you, of personal development and self mastery and high performance. So I really do honor you being here, but I also want you to capture being here. Keep those notes, my friend. I. I got 10 points today on living a courageous life. And we're gonna jump in to the mess right off the bat on number one. First takeaway for you today is to live a courageous life. You have to let go of the baggage. You're never going to touch the full rim of your potential if you're weighted down by baggage from your elementary school years, your high school years, your college years, these last four years. Listen, the last chapters of the book, you gone through them, you finished them, you flipped the page, you got a new chapter here. And you have to be willing to break from the past to have the future. You so desperately desire. You have to have the courage to allow yourself to honor the past as it was. To forgive those who need to be forgiven, to forgive yourself and to acknowledge that everything led you to this point now. Everything. Those crappy times, those times when you're depressed, those times when you gave up on yourself, those times when someone else gave up on you. Those times that you gave up on others. The times that you quit, the times that you failed, the times that you felt so small you were embarrassed. Those times don't live in this moment. And the more of those times that you cultivate in your mind and you ruminate on and you think and you self talk on and you revisit in your mind, the more disempowering times from the past, hurtful times from the past, failures from the past that you keep running in your head. What that is doing is that is taking up the very free space necessary for for the bold ideas to come in. It's taking up the space for the very needed white space for creativity to come in, for the dreams to come in. For the best you to speak through from like, it's hard for you to live an authentic and true and vulnerable and real life if you're always speaking through your baggage. If you're always thinking through your baggage. And you guys know what I'm talking about, like everyone's got different baggage. Maybe your baggage is your divorce or that last job. They are not relevant today. And the only reason they're relevant today is if either you allow them to be relevant from those situations or those persons revisiting you. Or you're running the same old story. You're running the same old excuses. Yeah, I can't do this because I suck at relationships. No, you sucked at relationships 10 years ago. Well, I can't do this because you know, I failed because yeah, six months ago. Today's a new day, homie. Like, you gotta access this day, dude. This day is fresh. This day is clean. This day woke up, showered, ready, prepped for you by the universe or spirit or God or luck or cosmos, whatever you want to call it. This day says to you. When you wake up in the morning, the day whispers to you, do not fear me, for I have been brought here for you. You don't fear the day. That day has been brought here for you. And when you have real reverence for life, when you have a deep gratitude and appreciation. I like a deep gratitude and appreciation for life. You don't hold on to a lot of yesterdays. You notice the changing fall colors now you notice the free space that you have now you notice the time and the choices and the opportunities available to you. Now, yesterday's not such a big deal. You don't hold the baggage. And here's how you know if you're holding baggage. You know in your heart there's baggage there. When you keep playing small, when you keep minimizing yourself to other people in your current situation, that's because the self showing up is a self lug in the baggage. You feeling bad about themselves, letting it weigh down. When you're free and spirited in this moment, when you're truly present, free from yesterday, like when you're present right here, that authenticity, that spirit shines through. And listen, the same people who completely shut you down yesterday, when they go to shut you down today, you go, hey, that's not okay. Maybe the old you let them shut you down. The new you take today, you the old you let them shut you down because you had hurts and feelings and old stories and you labeled yourself differently and you let yourself be put in your place by somebody. Today, the place you've been put on is a fresh ground of earth. Today, the place that you've been put in is this moment. And this moment doesn't reek of yesterday. When the sun set yesterday, it set. When the sun rose this morning, it was fresh. There were new birds around your house. Not old birds. They moved on, too. You got to kind of get it in your mind at some point that this day, if you have real reverence for life, you don't meet the day as you did in high school. Because if you have reverence for life, you recognize that all those struggles brought you here, that all those struggles were necessary to make a new you, a fresh you that you gotta release. Some of those hurts, man, and those pains, girl. And those stories, my friends, because they're old. And how can you possibly touch the. Just touch the rim of your potential of the future? How are you gonna get lift to be able to leap up there and grab it when you got £40 of old stories of stupid stuff you did in high school or the way they treated you when you were 10 or the way they talked to you when you were 30? Like, you're in a different place now. And you need to be in this place, light on your feet. Because how many of you think, like, the truth is right now, you need to be able to adapt? I mean, the world's in chaos. You need to be light on your feet, right? Like, if you've ever taken dance classes before, when you're heavy on your feet, it's because your body moves in the old ways. The more you learn to be present in the moment, the more you get light on your feet. And all of a sudden now, when your partner turns this way, boom, you can go that way because you're not thinking about the way you went 100 times ago. You're there with that person dancing, and now it's real, it's alive, and you're creating something new and unique between you. You need to do that with the moment. Like now. Like, the chaos of the world and the abundance of the world and the opportunities of the world have never been intersecting the way that they are right now. And you got to be light on your feet. And if you still hate yourself from something that happened a couple years ago, I have to urge you and tell you and reveal to you, I'm your high performance coach. I am training you here. I. I can't be your therapist. And so what I tell people right off the bat, if you really want to live a courageous life. But you notice you keep shutting yourself down because of stuff that happened in previous chapters of your life. Not just like, you're down, hey, look, we all had, some of us all had a bad week in the last couple months. Like, there's a difference between like a bad couple days versus a couple chapters, right? And if you had a couple chapters where you've been down, depressed, sad, a couple chapters where you minimize yourself, a couple chapters where you shot yourself down, sabotage yourself, told yourself so stories, and like, literally limit yourself because the way you perceived yourself from the past, if those old chapters have been there multiple previous chapters, then from today, do yourself a favor and seek professional therapy. Seek somebody to do that work with you. Because the old stuff, like, I mean, I could give you all the acceleration strategies. We talk a lot about that. There's lots of tactics and strategies and productivity, things that I'm sharing all the time. Lots of new triggers and ideas I'm sharing all the time. But it's like if you're trying to hit gas and you keep hitting the brake at the same time, because for reasons of trauma or super old stories or old baggage, you just need somebody to help you process that. It doesn't make you weak. Seeking help, it makes you courageous. Seeking help, it doesn't make you small. Seeking help, it makes you expansive. Seeking help, and it might be your way out. So I just think that I don't know how you guys feel, but I really feel like a lot of people Think that there's like a stigma to therapy still worldwide. And I know I have an international audience. You heard how everybody's from all around the place. So I just want to let you know, like, it's okay for you to seek professional medical or therapeutic guidance because you shouldn't be still trapped in your old stories. Not at this stage. You're too damn old. Like, isn't it true we've all been through too much to be thinking about what we did in high school or elementary school or that trauma that we had four or five years ago. And sometimes you need assistance for that. Like many of you guys know, I had a major trauma a couple years ago when I had a brain injury. I didn't have the brain injury. And then be like, I'm good, I'll get on my with my own damn self. I was like, man, I had significant trauma there. I got hurt. I'm going to go get some help. And if I hadn't got that help, we wouldn't be here together today. So I just think it's okay to ask for help and to know that if you need it, if you don't need the help, what you need is a reminder. And that's why you're here today. And that is simply, you have to have a process every single week where you let go of the screw ups of the week. See, what most people do is they just carry the screw ups. Hate myself, failure, screw up, label, screw up, label, screw up, label, screw up, label. And all the mess ups of their life, they start defining as themselves. And the mistake you made weeks ago, you labeled it as part of your identity versus a behavioral mistake, right? Behaviors change every day. Your behaviors today are different than they were yesterday. Like, behaviors are very adaptive and reactionary type of thing. You'll get some behaviors wrong. Some behaviors right. But what most people do is they get the wrong behavior and they pull that wrong behavior and they pull it into a identity mess up. They grab the mess up and they make it their mindset. No, the mess up was a behavioral problem. It is an identity problem. And so they take the mess up the problem and they make it the personhood. And that's what we call making mountains out of mohills. Like, so what, you got the project in late? Does that mean you, you're a complete failure? No, it means you got the project in late, dude. Next time plan better. Jesus. Right? It's like we take the little things and we blow it up into who we are. Who you are is not all the mess ups. It's part of your learning journey, but it's not you. And so you gotta know, like, there's a difference here. And sometimes baggage is recognizing, oh, that was an awkward, weird, uncomfortable, harmful situation. But that's not me. That was a situation. It was a behavior. It was something that happened, an occasion. And then we can go, okay, if that's true, then who am I really? Who do I want to be? Who am I now at this age of my life without those old stories? The mess up isn't the mindset, right? It's so simple. But here's the thing. I told you, you need a reminder. It needs to be a rhythm for you. It's part of my Sunday rhythm. Some of you guys know I do my Sunday review. And when I do my Sunday review, I literally go, okay, where could I have shown up better this last week? Where could I behave better this last week? What could I have done better this last week? And I just reflect on previous week and identify the things that didn't go the way I wanted to. And I ask, okay, what could I have done? And then I do the most simple and basic thing that you could do on a Sunday. I forgive myself and I let it go. You know, isn't that why some people go to church? To absolve themselves and to admit their sins and to release it? And maybe you're a churchgoer, maybe you're a spiritual person, maybe believe in God, or you don't, but either way, wouldn't it be a practical thing to do on Sunday to go, okay, let me review where my week went good and bad, and let me decouple my emotions from that so I can enter Monday with freedom. Because when I am in a space of freedom, I make much better decisions than when I am in the space of lack, when I am in the space of self hatred, when I am in the space of carrying all this stuff unprocessed. I mean, have we learned anything from personal development other than, hey, you got to process the stuff that went, that happened in your life and understand how you identify with that and what you're going to do next. You got to process it, man. And most people, because they're not processing their immediate snap judgments of self, oh, I screwed up. Imagine if we could just loop back your last couple months and every single week just think about every. Think about how much you screwed up the last couple months. I don't know about you, but mine's like a, like, like my hands would have, like, I can't. I don't have enough hands, like to count the number of screw ups in the last couple months. I can't. It's like, it's so infinite number of screw ups. But imagine if every time I screw up, I'm like, ugh, you're a screw up. Ugh, you're dumb, Brendan. Ugh. And my self talk in that moment was snap judgment, which most people it is snap judging self talk, dummy. Ugh. I know this stupid Brendan. Ugh. Imagine if we take a loop of that for the last six months, uninterrupted, unpaused, unedited, and we took out all the situations of life, we removed all context and it just sounded like screw up. You suck, you suck, you suck. Why'd you do that? Oh, my God. Dummy, dummy, dummy. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. And we didn't de hook that. We didn't decouple that. That's what most people's realities are. And because that's always running unconsciously because they're not deliberate about processing, they're not living a courageous life now because every time they think a courageous thought, that overwhelming chorus of noise filters and swamps and smashes that, that whisper of a dream that is bold is beaten to death by the rap base of the horrid talk that we have with each other. It's like in the back, right? And so that noise needs to be synthesized and edited down on a simple Sunday. You just sit there on your Sunday and you go, all right, man, had a lot of noises last week. A lot of things didn't go the way it did. But you know what? Let me think about them. How could I have met those situations as my highest self or more courageous self? What could I have done? Okay, good, Good, Brendon, you're learning. Good job, Brendan. You're learning. Oh, yeah. You could have been better then. Yeah. Good for you having the intention to be better. Good for you to learn, Brendan. Good for you to set higher intentions, Brendon. Good job. Being on purpose. Good job, Brendon. Trying to improve your life. Okay, Good job. You really. You got a new way to look at that, Brendan. Good job. Now just let it go, man. Just take that emotion and let that emotion float away for a little bit. Don't let that emotion from that mess up, mess up my Monday. It's Sunday. I gotta let that go. I forgive myself in that situation because I've learned. I forgive the other people in the situation because even if they didn't learn, I. I learned and they gave me a lesson. I let go of that Situation. Because that situation is not in this moment as I'm sitting here with my green tea and my journal, reflecting on last week in this moment. I got a journal. I got a green tea. None of those bastards are here. It's just me and the green tea. So, you see, we've got this opportunity to make a space every week in which we debrief the week and decouple ourselves, unhitch the trailer of weight and let it fall back down the hill. You know what I mean? And so you gotta be attentive and aware of, like, do I got any weight on me from the last couple weeks or months or years? And can I just start releasing some of that tension? It's a difficult thing to do, and it will change your life. That's number one. Let go of the baggage. All right, number two, this is a tough one, but this is the stuff of high performance. How do you live a more courageous life? Number two, you seek to be the world's best or one of the world's best. Here's what happens. Most people go, I'd sure like to survive doing this, because they have that old story that was like, God, I need to belong. I need to survive. I need to be okay. And so what they do is they always play their comfort zone because they're only trying to survive. If you're only trying to survive, you won't ever thrive. Why would you even try? So you just survive, Survive, survive, survive, survive. Get through, get through, get through, get through, get through. But with a new ambition to become one of the world's best. It forces you to think differently. It forces you to act differently. It forces you to research differently. Isn't it true? I mean, think about it. If you're a mom. If you're a mom, it is very easy to go, I am just trying to survive, Brendan. That's all I want to do is survive. I want to survive and make sure my kid survives. That's the most simple and basic and elemental human thing in the world. And if all you try to do is get through the day without hurting yourself or your child, okay, that's one level of an approach to the day. And there's another approach that says, I want to be one of the best moms ever. I want to give my daughter a life that she didn't get to have, that I didn't get to have. I want to do something for my children that previous generations didn't get to for their children. I want to be one of the best moms in the world. So how would I do that? I guess I better have to learn more. I guess I'd have to read some books, talk to some other moms, figure out how they're doing it, change how I approach the child when they're screaming, ranting, raving, conflicting, challenging me. I'd have to learn new communication skills. I would have to learn new parenting skills. I would have to challenge myself to be more present with these children when they are freaking out. Like, you would set different goals from the mindset of I'm going to be one of the best at this than if you would set goals of I need to survive this, right? You look at the world and you approach circumstances different. If you're going, I want to do this great, right? When I walk on a seminar sage, many of you guys have been with us at our events and I can't wait to meet you or see you at High Performance Monthly or High Performance Academy one day. You know, what ends up happening is things change when you really want to be great. You know, Some of you guys were with me and I apologize. In the last couple weeks on the road, I was home very like 48 hours in all of October. It was bananas, right? It was totally crazy. But we knew that it was going to be a busy season. So I trained and I trained and trained, but unfortunately I got sick while I was on the road and it ended up being a big deal. I didn't know how sick I was. Well, I knew how sick I was, but I didn't get diagnosed until afterwards. I had pneumonia and tonsillitis, pneumonia and tonsillitis. As I had to deliver a four day event after having just delivered a four day event and having to go into a next four day event. So three four day events back to back to back, right? And in the middle one, I turns out I get pneumonia. Brutal. Brutal. And trust me, I know that survival mechanism. I knew I could walk on the stage and be like, sorry guys, I'm really sick. But I also knew I'm like, okay, if I was one of the greatest speakers and trainers in the world alive today, how would I approach this? Like, how would I not just get through it or survive it, but how would I do this? Exceptionally well. What outcomes can I control? What situations can I control? What can I set up? What triggers and patterns and habits? What would I do backstage? And I just started thinking about every single little thing I can control, from what I ate to when I got up, to how I enlivened my body, to how much I drank Every moving piece, I was like, you know what I would do? I'd become a craftsman of these moments, because I gotta survive, but I gotta let the audience know that they're well served, and I don't want the audience to worry about me. So what would I have to do? And I'm telling you what. Did it suck? Yes. But was the outcome better? Cause I didn't just go, oh, woe is me. Life sucks. How unfortunate. This happened to me for a million reasons. I could sit backstage and just go, oh, me. And said. And I was like, okay, this is the reality. How do I deal with it as one of the world's best? Isn't it true? As soon as you think about that, how would I do this as one of the world's best? Doesn't it change the way you view and look at everything? Could, like, everything. You literally adjust and change everything if you're gonna be an online trainer. And like, me, I was like, I'm one of the world's best online trainers. Okay, well, then how would I light this room? What gear would I use? What people would I need? How would I set it up? What would I make it look like? What would the teaching and training like? You start asking different questions and just like, oh, I guess I got that live cast today. You got it. It changes everything. I would love for you to go. I'm gonna be one of the world's best parents, one of my partners. Many of you guys know I work with Dean Graziosi, and he and I co own with ethanwillis growth.com awesome dudes. And they're both literally the best parents I've seen my entire life. Like, it's like, in awe. And I'm always like, how are you such good parents? Ethan's got seven children. Seven. Okay. And they're all alive still. Seven kids that he somehow made. Like. And they're good kids. You're like, how are these kids? All, like, amazing? And Dean, like, how did you raise these two kids so well? And they're never like, well, I was just a good dad. They would never. They're like, well, I decided I want to become a. A phenomenal father for them. So I read books, I took classes, I asked the questions. I met every father. I'm like, how are you surviving? But how are you doing it? Good. You're doing it good. What do you do good? What's your tick? What do you do? And they just share strategies for raising the kids, and they're always sharing strategies to do it better. Always Sharing strategies to do it better. Because when you come from a mindset of I'm going to be great, you're always looking for the greatness. You're always looking for the clues. You're always like, there's got to be a better way, there's got to be a better way. And you're not saying like, there's got to be a better way. You're excited, you're enthusiastic. When you know there's a better way, you're not getting down on yourself. Because the identity is, I'm gonna become great at this. The behaviors might not have been good. So instead you're going, okay, there's gotta be a better way. And you're enthusiastic and curious for what those better ways could be make sense. Like, you really look at everything completely different when you seek to be one of the world's best. I wanted to be one of the world's best public speakers on stage. And I don't know whether you see me on stage or not. I give my all out there and I can't say my ranking in the world, but I know what my ranking is in pay. I'm in the highest paid speakers on the planet. And I'm really proud of that because I sucked at public speaking at a level of suckness that most people couldn't even dream of for themselves. Like, if you think you suck at public speaking, try throwing up every time you try it. If you suck at public speaking, try freezing in front of an audience. If you suck at public speaking, try imagining literally, like having a panic attack. Like, try being so bad that you know you're bad and you know you're better and batterer than anybody else on the planet. I don't mean bad like Michael Jackson, cool bad. I mean bad. I was so bad. And so now how do you go from so bad to. I think I'm in the top five highest compensated speakers on the planet today. How? How? Gosh. Having the mindset of go, I'm going to become one of the world's greatest. That's going to be my intention. I'm not now, but soon as I say I'm going to. Soon as you say I'm going to become that. You start looking for clues, you start getting your coaches, you start getting your training, you start approaching things with more intentional. I know you get all this, but I am begging you, in your life, in your relationships, in your career, go. I'm going to become one of the best. And it's hard, right, because it's so easy to Take things casually, right? Think about your marriage or your spouse, your significant other. It's easy just to be in a relationship and, and to hope that the two of you are happy. Or you go, we are going to have a storied, legendary love affair. Like, when we look back at our life, we're gonna think of all these incredible things we did together, experienced together, felt together. Like, we're gonna write that storybook ending. Cause no one ends up at a storybook ending. You write that book, you write that storybook ending. You live and you work for it, and you architect it and you struggle for it, and it's not easy. You know, I would love to be one of the world's greatest husbands. And I know I kind of suck, but I'm always on the lookout. How can I do something better? Like, okay, not just like, if someone says, okay, go have a date night, I'm like, okay, no. How would the world's greatest couple have a date night? Like, what would they do? And I don't mean like, okay, let's fly to Paris on helicopters. That we've done that. Super awesome. I would say instead, like, okay, what could we do on a regular night down the block in that time together to make that amazing? It just, I'm telling you, it will change everything. It will change everything for you when you start saying I'm going to be world's greatest, even if, please listen. Even if it's really out of reach. Because in everywhere that I said I was going to become one of the world's greatest. And I'll leave it to you and the world to judge me where I landed in that. All I can say is I was not qualified. I was not good. I was a hot mess. But that intention saved my life, guys. The intention alone makes you a more courageous person because you start looking for new ways. And as you look for new ways, you start changing. And guess what happens as you start changing and you start leveling up your standards, Guess what happens as you start changing and you level up your standards? You get more comfortable with change and your standards go up. As you're more comfortable with change and your standards go up, you make more courageous decisions automatically. It's just now part of you. It's who you are. Change doesn't freak you out. So courage is more common day when you're not fearful of change, courage just shows up more. You got it? That's why you had that intention with that. I know that as soon as we talk about this idea of seek to be the world's best. And as soon as we talk about this idea, people go, but, Brendan, Brendan, but Brendan. Risk, comfort. How do we do that? So to help you do that, we have a video like I'm pulling from the vault from you guys to align with these topics. And there's a great video, it's from the vault called how to Go beyond the Comfort Zone. And if we can un. Like knock out this comfort zone, then we come back. I'm going to give you tactical things to do in your conversations to be more courageous, tactical things to do during your day. And we can really jump into. But I got to unhook this last piece for you about your comfort zone. If we get over that, we can get into the tactics of living courageously. So with that, Jess, if you could roll the video on beyond the Comfort Zone. Let's talk about this ridiculous concept of your comfort zone. I call it a ridiculous concept because it doesn't matter. So we'd better address it because I know for many of people listening, that's counterintuitive. We're so interested in our own comfort and our own ease and what makes us feel good. And we like to also talk about personal development as this big thing of getting beyond our comfort zones. But I just want to say I think it's an irrelevant conversation. Let me share with you why in three easy ideas. Number one, your comfort zone is just not something that's important. Because if you have a mission in life, you have a dream in life, you have a love in life, you have something that's important to you in life, your comfort zone should never be even something that you consider frankly, you should ask what is necessary for me to show up and to serve with excellence in that area, regardless of what my comfort is. If you've heard me talk about this before, I've kind of got this opinion about the strengths based movement. You know, it's like we're all supposed to do our strengths and just follow our strengths and only do things that really amplify or focus on our strengths. And I go, that's just not real. That's not real life. If you have a big mission or purpose or dream and it's beyond your comfort zone, which is really what they call your strengths now, right? Do your strengths. Do your strengths. I'm like, hold on. What should be important is the dream. And your dream or your purpose or your mission should never be made to bow down to your limited human strengths. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if that was the case. This video Right here. I. I was terrified of video. I didn't like video. I sucked at video. I wasn't a good communicator. But I didn't say, well, I guess I can't do video because that's not my natural strengths. I said, what's the mission? Serve people, help people, inspire people. Well, then I'd better develop that into a skill. Not something that comes naturally or easy or automatically or. I was innately born with. Look, I believe that we're all born with lots of goodness in us, but life throws curveballs. Life, the ambition of being alive, helps us dream. And if you've been given a dream, don't discount that because you're not good enough yet. Develop yourself, weaponize yourself. Teach yourself to be so good at something that is necessary to serve in the area of your dream that now you're never even thinking about your comfort zones. I rarely think about what's comfortable. This morning, as we were literally eating lunch with my team, Travis and Jess, I was saying how, you know, I'm starting to shoot some videos where I walk around with a camera on a selfie stick, and how awkward it makes me. But that doesn't matter to me. I didn't say, well, it makes me awkward, so I'm going to stop. I said, you know, I'm getting used to this because I'm going to get better and better and better at it, because the mission is to serve more people in that way where they can see what's going on in my life. And so I don't think it's important at all whether I'm comfortable with it or not. What's necessary to serve the mission is the question. Not what's easy for me, what makes me feel good, or what. I have innate abilities because I was born to do that. Lots of people think that, well, I was born to do this one thing. And then they turn 20, and then they turn 30, and then they turn 40, and then they turn 50, and they realize, you know what, what you thought was important at 10, 15, 20, and 30 isn't as important. Sometimes 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, sometimes the thing you thought was your whole life's purpose and goal in your 30s switches in your 40s, and you need to develop new skill sets. If you haven't found that to be true yet, I bet with a little bit more maturity and higher ambitions and aims, you'll find that to be true. Your comfort zone, it's irrelevant. What matters is, what are you trying to do with your life? How are you trying to contribute. And how do you grow into that, regardless of what you're good at, regardless of what's comfortable or easy? I think I hit that one strong enough. Second, big idea instead of comfort zones, I tell people, is just, you know what? If you can't agree with my first point, then let's just jump into what to do. And that is learn to consistently express to the world what you think, what you desire, what you really need, what you really want to achieve, and what your dreams are beyond what's possible for you now. You know, never limit your vision for your future based on your current capabilities or concerns or stresses. And what I mean by that is, right now we live in a world where a lot of people, they do have a dream beyond their comfort zones. They do have something that they want to achieve, but they never tell anybody about it because they're fearful that they'll look stupid or they sound stupid or people won't support them. And I'm here to tell you, doesn't matter if people support you, and it doesn't matter if people cheer you on along the way. Much of my career, people thought I was crazy. They're like, why are you doing this? You look too young, you sound too young. What are you trying to use this Internet for? I mean, people were making fun of me most of my early career, and I bet they're even doing it in the comments of the video you're watching right now. It's okay. I'm not going to limit the expression of who I am, what I think, or what I desire of life based on whether or not other people will be comfortable with it or myself. So I encourage you ask yourself this question. Have you been honest in fully expressing your thoughts, your feelings, your needs, and your dreams with your boyfriend, with your girlfriend, with your husband, your wife, with your team, with the people that you work with? I mean, do people even really know you? Because sometimes what makes us feel uncomfortable is to avoid difficult conversations. What makes us feel comfortable is making sure everyone accepts us. What makes us feel comfortable is belonging. And I think those are all great things. But I also think we have to ask what's real and to convey that and to communicate that. If you read my book, the Motivation Manifesto, I say that the main drive of humankind is the pursuit of personal freedom. Personal freedom, being. I want to fully express who I really am authentically without trying to force it or without trying to comply with everybody else and the desire to chase the things that are important to me, to follow my dreams, my own path, not everybody else's path. That's personal freedom. And you'll never have personal freedom unless you start expressing more of who you are to everybody, regardless of whether or not you find it comfortable. And then I would say the last piece that always comes to my mind is maybe just a little bit more of imagery for you. The third thing I would say is imagine a conversation with your future self in that. Let's imagine that the you of 20 years from now shows up at your doorstep and that you is stronger, smarter, wiser, wealthier, healthier, happier. And that you shows up at your door and it looks at your life, looks at where you live, what you do for a career, what you're giving, how you're showing up, how you're treating other people, what you're after in life. So the you of the future looks at your whole life in totality today, and it looks you in the eye. And it's. If that future you was going to give you advice on what to stop, what to start on, what a more courageous action would be, what's the first thing they would tell you to be or do to be more courageous? If they looked at your life and they said, okay, I see everything going on here, Brendan. I see how you treat your family, your friends. I see. I see what you're chasing after. I see what you want to give in this life. Hmm. You know what? I think you could do this. What would that courageous advice be for you? What would your future self tell you to do? What would be something courageous for you to start right now that your future self wants you to do? You already know the answer inside. You already know what you could do right now to be more courageous in your life. I say do it. Forget about the comfort zone. Find what would just be courage. What comes up for you? And stop asking, does my courage fit in my comfort? No, just say what's courageous. Go take three actions towards it today or this week. Just start moving forward. And you know what? You'll start living a more courageous life. And the more you live a courageous life, the less you worry about your comfort zones and the more you live what we call the charged life. All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that video and that you are well on your way to kicking some butt and overcoming those fears that have been keeping you to your comfort zones, because we've been talking about so far, how do you live a courageous life? Number one, you gotta let go of the baggage. Number two, you have to seek to be the world's best and to seek the world, to be the best. You gotta overcome some of those comfort zones. 10 things I'll share. Number one was let go of the baggage to be more courageous. Number two is seek to be the world's best. Number three is ask for people's brave stories. One reason we have a culture that's less courageous is, is cause no one talks about the brave things that people do. One reason you're not more inspired each day is cause people stand around the water cooler and they complain instead of talking about the heroic, everyday, courageous, brave ass things that are happening in their lives. And the reason people don't talk about that is because they feel like they're bragging. So they shut down and they stop celebrating their successes. Your job, if you want to be a more successful, courageous, high performing person, is to ask more people about their successes, about their courage and about their high performance habits. Be like, hey, you're awesome. What do you do to be awesome? Hey, you had a lot of success, what did you do? Hey, you seem like you're on a roll. What's working for you right now? You need to create. Like if you followed me around and heard my discussions with people in my everyday life, you'd be like, holy crap. He's talking about the good stuff and the success and the breakthroughs and the bravery and the good jobs all day. I'm like a sponge collecting all that goodness. Everyone's good ideas, everyone's good strategies, what's working for them and their breakthroughs that they're having. And everywhere there's a breakthrough, there's bravery. Everywhere there's success, there's courage. And you just start collecting them. Because listen, if you live, think about it, it's like if you live on a winning team in sports, that team has a different rhythm, the different way of looking at competition. They know they're gonna beat the competition, they know they're gonna win the game. If you're on a losing team, you're always talking about how you lose, what went wrong. Loss, loss, loss, loss, loss. And it's a different vibe, isn't it? It's two different vibes. One's talking about the rhythm and how we got the hot hands right now. And the other one is bemoaning it, complaining, blaming and pointing. And they get different results. You have to know that you are the coach on your team and you have to know that you got a team. And every conversation you're in, likeliness of your growth or stealing from your greatness, and you're the director of Those conversations. And what we want to do is be victim to conversation. No, no, no. People talk around me. They're all negative. Okay, show me the 50 times you steered it towards a great conversation. Well, everyone around me sucks. Yeah, show me the number of interventions you've had to say, hey, what are you doing that's working. Hey, I know it's a tough day. What's the things you, you've done to cope recently? Hey, I know it's negative around here. What's three things we could do to be better? Like, how many times did you fight the tide of negativity versus let it kick your ass? That's the question I have to ask as your high performance coach. Because a lot of people, they just let it take them down over and over and over and over again. And they don't got the guts, the courage that's necessary to steer the conversation towards positive. Like, part of being courageous is changing the culture. Part of being courageous is changing the conversation from hate to love of negativity to positivity, of bemoaning it to honoring it, of being in conflict to being in peace. Like, you've got to architect the life you want through the words you use and the words you pull from other people. Like, I'm around as equally number of negative people as you and as any other person in the world. Trust me, I'm in personal development. Oh, God help me. Instead, what I do though, is I steer the conversation. I need you to steer more conversations. I need you to ask more questions. You need to create the conversations of courage. Because the more you hear those brave stories of great people, whether that's. You need to read more biographies or ask people around you. The more you hear of bravery and courage, the more it sinks into your subconscious just as much as the bad things in the past. Right? We always forget that. We all think that our subconscious is always acting out and it's negative towards us. It's like, no, it's profoundly biased towards good things in our life. It wants to see us survive and thrive. The only reason for the existence of the human species was not just for survival. It's because we wanted to thrive. Otherwise we'd always be still living under like plants. But we decided to build skyscrapers. We didn't need a. No one needed. Like, listen, Darwin could not explain a skyscraper. Like the ambitions that the human beings have is beyond just multiplying. It's to thrive, to build, to create, to do extraordinary things. And our conversations need to be. Are you having skyscraper conversations all the Day we or street sweeper conversations. Hot dang. There we said it. Number four, you need to set some self talk triggers. Self talk triggers? What does that mean? Well, you need things that create your mindset to happen throughout the day. Now, many of you guys know I have a couple of them, right? I hope by now you know, like my alarm triggers. My alarm triggers are three times throughout the day inspiring words telling me to be my best, boldest, courageous, ass kicking self pops up on my phone three times a day. Pops up, right? And that reminds me not to be the go through the motions Brendan. It interrupts my day to be a good Brendan other self talk trigger. You guys know when I walk through a door, every door I walk through, I always say the same thing. Enter a room, I say the same thing, walk through door. Brain says, hey, you're entering this room a happy man ready to serve. I think courage really shows up in moments of service, doesn't it? That's why we admire the person who jumps in the river to save the child being swept away. That is someone doing something for another person in an extreme situation. Well, today the extreme situations that we face are our judgment and cynicism and hatred. And sometimes we have to remind ourselves to be our best and to be of service in the moments that we have the opportunity to be serviced in. So a door frame trigger. I walk in the door, okay, I'm a happy man ready for serve, ready to serve. And that statement over and over and over again, I enter this room as a happy man ready to serve. Reminds me I'm happy, I'm lucky, I'm blessed to be here. And it reminds me, hey, focus on other people. Because every time I focus on myself, I'm much less likely to be courageous for myself. When I started my career, I struggled for a long time because I made it about me. I was worried about myself when I noticed that my wife was suffering from my girlfriend at the time who became my wife. When I noticed she was suffering because of my own inaction, I became more bold because I need to do something for her. And we'll do a lot more for other people sometimes than we'll do for ourselves. So that's why I remind myself the door trigger is I'm entering this room a happy man, ready to serve. And that service mindset is a trigger for me to be there for others. And when you're there for others, over and over and over and over again, you'll start being more courageous. The third one, I have another self talk trigger. I guess I never taught really until the other day. Everyone was asking me for a big long list and I was like, oh, I do all these other triggers spur this positive thinking. What is my water trigger? Like this. And I'll start talking. Every time I take a drink of water, when I'm on stage or when I'm here, when I take a drink of water, I remind myself, calm flow, calm flow. I basically direct myself to flow in the moment, be present in the moment and to be calm. Because I think it's really hard to be courageous when you're frazzled all the time. You know what I mean? It looks good in movies, right? You like watch like, oh my God, watch Die Hard. Bruce Willis is frazzled the entire time and he's still absolutely amazing and amazing, right? It's like we watch movies and the characters, if they're frazzled all the time, it creates a great movie. But the best moments, even in Die Hard, and yes, I'm sorry, I'm quoting Die Hard, but even in that movie is when Bruce Willis has thought through things and he's got the upper hand and he's calm when everyone else is freaking out. Real heroism tends to be calm amid the storm. So you gotta set some self talk triggers to calm. You're crazy stressed out, burnt out, overworked over, expecting, butt down. And I say this to all my friends because you're my high performers. Is it true? Like you gotta calm yourself down. And I think courage happens much more often in calmness than frenetic energy, right? It's like taking a bold action, being judicious and thoughtful, being intentional. It's hard to be intentional when you're frazzled all the time. So my self talk trigger is just one of calm water's easy, puts me right back into place, right? Calm it down, be present, Brandon. And so we all got to have our own thing. I don't know what yours are, but there's things you can do to set a more positive mindset. We call them self talk triggers or high performance triggers. Things that happen that put you in better performance. When that trigger happens, drink water, say this to myself, walk through the door, say this to myself, do this thing, say this to myself. That stimulus response that I've set up conscientiously is much better than the stimulus response of just reacting to everything. I hope that helps. Number five, get in proximity to your fears. One reason it's easy not to be courageous is because fear is over there. I'm not going to go near it. But listen, avoidance is not Going to help you overcome a fear. Proximity helps you overcome fear. What does that mean? It means you gotta get in location, near your fears consistently. Like you're scared of public speaking. That means get on stage consistently, get there, get in the fear, be with the fear, do the thing over and over and over, and you're not scared of it anymore. It's like you're scared of riding a bike until you ride it, ride it, ride it, ride it. Now you're cruising. Same thing in every area of your life. You got a big dream. And get near it, be near it. Set your schedule to be near it. Live it, eat it, breathe it. I started going to seminars, starting it on small stages, small stages, small stages, small groups, small groups, small groups. And just did it over and over and over. Because repetition knocks out those fears. Because guess what? You're not as fearful with those things that are familiar. Right. The first time you go through the haunted house, you're mortified. But if you got five kids, you take one kid through that haunted house, you jump. The first time, maybe the second time, the fifth time, you take that kid through the haunted house, you got it down, you know where they're jumping out, you're not scared anymore. The thing that was getting a rise out of you the first time, the fifth time, you're like, are we done yet? Right. Familiarity often diminishes fear. So you got to put yourself in motion, get near your fears, and this presupposes you're going to do the work. And, like, what are your fears? Like, what are you really scared of? Most people just go, well, I'm fearful, and their identity is fearful, but they don't even know what they're scared of. Like, if you wanted that next big breakthrough in your life, what fears? Like, what do you. Are not. Like, what fears do you have in your life? Like, okay, breakthrough. What are steps required to hear? Which step are you scared of? Whichever step you are scared of, learn more about and do that step, get in it, and you'll start to see, oh, over and over. I'm not so scared, right? Because with competence comes confidence. With confidence, you can face those fears. I don't think the fear, the anxiety, the worry ever goes away for any human being. Doesn't for me. I still worry backstage about doing a good job. I still have fear that something I do is going to break when we do it. I still have a lot of anxiety at very high performance times backstage before I go out to 20,000 people in an arena. Yes. There's not just Fear there, there's real anxiety there. But also, you just choose which one gets to win today. What's going to win today is my anxiety back here? Is the anxiety I'm having backstage. Is this gonna win today? Or is my message and my mission gonna win on that stage today? Which one wins? They're both gonna be there. The odds are equal for both. Which one am I gonna let win with anxiety win, or will a mission win? And whichever one's gonna win, the other opponent doesn't have to go away. It has to be utilized. Like, if you're an NFL coach and you're facing a great opponent, you don't go out and run your own game and hope to win the thing. You go, I gotta react. I'm just gonna use their weaknesses against them. In my situation, I'm gonna use my anxiety against itself. I'm gonna use my anxiety and channel that energy to serve my mission. I'm not gonna let my mission serve the anxiety. The anxiety is gonna serve the mission. Right? That only happens after you get in proximity to these things over and over and over again. With familiarity, fear decreases. Now, the good news is number six will help you, too. Okay, so this last one was get in proximity to your fears. Number six is gang up on your fears. Do you know what beats fear? More people. More people. Here's what I mean by that. Do you ever have. I don't know if you grew up with a lot of bullies. We did where I grew up in. But it's like, if you had to face that bully by yourself, you were mortified, right? You were mortified. But maybe you were like me. Maybe one day you got a couple other people to be with you. And now that bully wasn't so intimidating because people give you security. People get your back. I remember we had this kid, big kid. We were in third grade. He was supposed to be in sixth, but he had been held back. And he was a mean dude. I mean, mean. And he would just beat up on everybody. He was just. I mean, he was a real, real bad dude. And we were just little guys in third grade. And so we'd play like 500, where, like, all the kids gather over here and one kid gets the ball and gets to be quarterback and throws the ball and. And. And calls out a number. Like 150 calls out points, 20. And whoever catches it gets the points. And whoever gets the points up to 500. That's why it's called 500. When you catch enough balls to get to 500, you get to go be the quarterback and throw. Now, right? Well, this big kid, we'll call him Joey, he would walk between the quarterback and us kids and they'd be throwing the ball and he just grabbed the ball out of the air just like, boom. Grab the ball and he'd throw it over the chain link fence into the street. Now, us kids weren't allowed to leave there, so the game would be over. He would do this all the time. And then he'd usually end up punching a bunch of kids in the face, right? And no one told on him because the kid would murder you. Like, it was just. He was that. He was that bad playground bully. And I was mortified of this kid for maybe a year. And I would just. One time, I was just about to catch the ball and. Which never happened for me that often, and he threw it out. And I was so mad, I was like, someone has to stop this guy. And everyone's like, yeah, someone has to stop this guy. I'm like, why don't we stop this guy? And they're like, what? We're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna stop this guy. So one time, Joey was on the. What do you call this? Teeter? Totter. Teeter, Is that a word? Saddle? Seesaw? Seesaw. Teeter, totter. I think it's the same thing. Is it the same thing? I don't know. Seesaw. And he's on it. So I get a bunch of my little buddies, I get like five of the guys, and we go up next to this little cabin and he's on the seesaw going up and down. And when he goes up, we all run out from behind the cabin. So when he comes down, we all jump on the other side and we launch this kid up into space. Bam. We just shoot. And he goes, shoo. And he jumps up, he shoots up and he comes. He lands down on the seesaw, hits the ground into the little wood chips. And the smoke of the wood chips go up as he hits the ground. And we're like, yeah, yeah. Now, I didn't know he was going to get up, but so that became a problem because he got up and his weighed lace just wasted me. But I will tell you this. He didn't bother us no more because the kids stood up against him and he just didn't bother us anymore. And I share that story because it's a silly junkyard version, you know, my Montana version of how to deal with bullying. And I don't recommend you gang up on anybody, but a fear is Kind of the same way. And what that is is like if you got someone who's got your back, you ride a little more courageously when you got somebody who's in it with you. And many of you, I tell you this because you're the solopreneur or you're the high performer who you've done everything yourself. Cause you're a badass, but you've been by yourself for a long time. And so you're limiting yourself because you know the constraints of your real life, you know what's on your plate, you know what you're capable of, and you know what you're scared of. And you won't venture into the unknown sometimes without somebody else standing next to you also holding a flashlight. So you got to get team, a compadre, a friend, a business partner, someone who's been there before, and it's not admitting weakness, seeking out those people. Those people can help you do things you never imagined. My partners and my businesses, I mean, they feel like. I mean, I would have never done some of these businesses without their expertise. I was scared to do it. They had expertise and experience. I said, let's do it together. And we have an awesome time doing it together. I would have never done it solo. There's a lot of things that you could change in this world that you will never do by yourself. So collaborate. Collaboration will make you more courageous. Having community makes you more courageous. So maybe it's like your bold next thing is to put on those tight Lululemon ass pants and get down to the gym. And you're likely to do it once by yourself because you had willpower that day. But if you have a workout partner, you're gonna do it. Cause you don't wanna leave that person there by themselves. That social pressure makes us take more courageous and consistent things. So you gotta gang up on your fears. Okay, next up, set bold action every single day. Number seven, set a bold action every single day. Let me tell you what that means for me. I have a morning journal, but in the section there, I have my morning mindset. And one of the questions is, what's a simple, bold action I could take today? That's it. What's a simple, bold action I could take today? I ask myself that every morning for seven, eight years. Every morning. What's a simple, bold action I can take today? Some days that means I reach out to somebody I don't know someday. That means I create a new product idea. Some days that means I call. Some days that means, okay, I'm finally gonna send that email. Some days that means I'm gonna fire somebody some days. I mean, it can be simple, it can be complex. But every day I make myself think of that. And there's a lot of days I draw a blank. I don't know. In the morning I'm like, I don't know. But that like open ended question for the morning of like, what can I do that? It like hunts me all day and it haunts me all day. It's like, do something bold today, dude. Something like, what would it be today? Today it was this. I'm like, I'm gonna wear my swag on my own show for the first time in my life. I'm just going to like wear it, not apologize for it. I'm going to be excited to wear my swag today. That's a bold action for me. Because you guys know I don't try to sell swag on our high performance monthly. I just try to do of service to you. But I'm like, I like this shirt. My team just gave it to me. I'm going to wear it. Simple. I know it's dumb, but sometimes you got to get over your own assumptions in life. And that's a bold action. So you got to set a bold action every single day. Okay, we're going to go back to the vault to help you take that bold action every day. Because to take a bold action, we're going to have to deal with those risks. So, yep, we're going to talk about risks again. And I got three more points for you in this month's training on how to live more courageously. Okay, Jess, Roll how to take risks. Hey, everybody, it's Brendan. Have you ever heard that advice to take risks, but you felt like, I don't want to take risks. No one likes risk, right? No one wants to say when they wake up in the morning, I'm going to take tons of risks today. Usually risk brings about fear. We're worried that if we take a risk, we'll fail. Other people will judge us, we'll look stupid, we'll feel uncertain or unsure of ourselves. And nobody likes those feelings or those outcomes. So as much as people say take risks, it's easy for us to say, no, I'm not into that. But we also know intellectually that we can't grow unless we take more risks. That your next level of success, that leap from this level to that level, there's going to be risk there. You know, it's from here to there. And there's that gap in between, you don't know as you take that leap, if you're going to do well, that's the risk. You might fall, you might fail, you might not do well. But if you're not making those leaps and taking those steps, you'll always be stuck where you were yesterday. And to grow, we've got to have a lot of courage to jump into those risks. So let me give you maybe a framework for how to think about taking risks. You know, I always think about three ways to think about taking risks so that I'm continually pushing and growing myself. So the first thing I think about when I look at my career or I look at my life, the first risk I want to take is I want to make whatever I'm doing harder. I know that sounds weird, but I'm like, how could I make my job more difficult? Because in taking that risk, to make it more difficult, I'll grow. I'll give you guys an example. Last weekend, I had the blessing to keynote a conference in New Orleans. Some of you all were there. It was at the Superdome in New Orleans, which holds like, 100,000 people, but they kind of spliced it in half with a curtain, and they had 20, 30,000 people in the audience. This was for the Beachbody convention, and it was a blast. Now I could get up and talk to 20,000 people pretty regularly in my life. I'm doing it again next weekend. It's what I do as a motivational speaker. Right. I'm used to doing that. But I could just go on stage, do my thing, and get off, and that wouldn't be serving the audience as much. And so I asked my question myself. How can I make this presentation even harder on me so that I can grow? So I text two of my friends who happen to be in that organization. Tony Horton, many of you guys know, he is kind of the founder and trainer for P90X and Chalene Johnson, who does Piyo. And I text them both, I said, what's your hardest exercise move that people usually can't get? Because both those people are going to be at the conference. And this was a lot of their super fans. So I was like, let's go. So Tony told me, he's like, the donkey kick is the hardest one. The donkey kick is basically you do a handstand, you kick your legs out, you land back plank position, you run your leg through, like threading the needle in yoga, and then you return and you do a burpee. Okay? And Chalene said, well, the hardest One is like what she calls the piyo flip, which is like, imagine doing a bridge, right? But then going to kind of one arm, and like you're doing a bridge this way, and one arm goes that way. I mean, it's not easy. So I decided in front of 20,000 people, to do those two moves back to back in a suit. So imagine doing a handstand in a suit, kicking your legs out, threading the needle, then flipping over, doing a full extended bridge. Not easy, but I did it because it would be hard. Does that make sense? Part of the reason I got better as a speaker is because I was pushing myself. Pushing myself. I mean, I used to be. It's very comforting and easy to give a big speech and, you know, have a transcript or all these notes to read from. But I said, one day I'm going to be able to get up on stage and give a speech with no notes whatsoever. Now, that's hard. That's not comforting. It's not easy. But it's by putting challenges in front of ourselves that we grow. And that's part of taking risks. You know, I always say to people, look, if the only challenges you're dealing with in life right now are the ones that life dealt you, then you're not living a fully conscious life yet. And what I mean by that is you're living a life of reaction. If you're not moving and put. If you're not moving towards harder and more difficult goals, if you're not giving yourself challenges, if you're not taking risks consciously, then you're just reacting to the world. You're not growing. And so challenge yourself the next time you're going to go do something, your art, your career, put yourself out there, try something, make that sales call. How could you challenge yourself to make that process even harder to. So you get better? Obviously, you know, you need to do that in the gym, too, right? I mean, part of growing a muscle is stretching it and making it harder, making it difficult, pushing it beyond its current capabilities. That's how you grow muscle. Same thing. That's how you grow in life. The second big thing I think about is how do I do what I'm doing and take a risk by being different, right? So think about what I've shared so far. The first way to take a risk is to make your process harder so that you grow and stretch. The second way is do something very different. I mean, maybe you're already good at something, but now you're going to completely switch up how you're doing it right now, many of you know I have a podcast about to change that podcast from something that's been very successful. You know, we had top 10 for over 100 weeks in my category. We're completely changing that up, and it's completely different. It's a new format. We don't need to do it. The old way worked fine. But part of taking risks is making yourself evolve, not being the latecomer to evolution, right? So think about how can you do something different? I'll give you an example. When we first started my YouTube channel back in, like, 2014, when we really started doing weekly YouTube videos, Travis had this great idea. He said, you know what? What if we did our videos in black and white? And back then, nobody was doing videos in black and white on a weekly basis as part of a show, certainly not in personal development. So we did it. It was completely different. It was a risk for us. I mean, would it work going from color to black and white in the modern era? It did. And some of those videos took off. I mean, million views, 2 million views now, some of them entering the 3 millionth view. That that happened because we decided to take a risk and be different. So how can you be different in your category, in your career, in your field of interest, whatever you're doing, how can you purposefully choose to evolve and do something different? Because that's a risk. And sure, not all risks are rewarded, but I'll tell you what's never rewarded. Stagnation. And then the last one. Part of taking a risk is being more personal, teaching yourself to share more, to be more vulnerable. It's hard. I get it. You know, I'm in front of a camera, in front of stage, all of my life. I shouldn't say my adult life. I mean, over the last 10 years of my life, it's been a very public journey for me. You see, if you're on with us on Facebook, you know, this is. We have 5 million fans on this Facebook page alone. Doesn't count our other Facebook pages. You know, we've just started, and we're growing our Instagram channel. Hey, guys, on Instagram, I mean, this has been a journey for me of being in front of the public eye. But even me, for my next level, I'm going to have to share more about my personal life, be more thoughtful about that. And that takes a lot of vulnerability. It doesn't scare me. I just know I need to do it. And I'll give you an example. You know, when I first started my career in personal and professional development, you know, because if you ask me, Brendan, what do you do? I always say, well, I'm a writer first and I'm a trainer second. I've been blessed to train more people on the topic motivation to high performance than anybody else in the world. Now, our videos have been viewed over 100 million times, over 10 million fans, across our Facebook pages. I've been blessed to reach a lot of people, but I can share with you. When I began my career, I thought I had to be Mr. Buttoned up, you know, so proper, because I came from the consulting world. You know, if you ever had a real job in organizational America and then you start doing this, it's hard not to be stiff, you know, and not share as much. But I. I remember the first time I ever shared with my audience back then. I shared with them about how when I started my career, I went broke. And I mean bankrupt broke. And I was in bankruptcy, and I was struggling to start my career, do my own seminars. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, people were making fun of me. But, you know, it was new and it was scary. And I'll never forget, though, that after I shared that, so many people would come up to me and, like, I've struggled with that, too. I've been bankrupt or I came from poverty, and I worked hard and I made it, too. And people would share their stories with me, and it was really inspiring and taught me that, you know, people won't believe your successes if they don't believe the struggle. You gotta share where you've struggled more in life, and that feels like a risk. But, you know, you got to be honest. Does your family and your friends and the people you serve, do they know what you really think, what you really feel, what you really desire in life, what you're really going after, what you need? Because if they don't know that about you, that's not taking risks. Look, being quiet and avoiding difficult conversation is not taking risks. And it's not the path to growth. The path to growth for so many of us is another level of personal authenticity, another level of personal sharing. And if you don't do that, then you're not risking. You're just going through the motions. So I would say that today, when you're thinking about the next level of growth for yourself, think about risk. When you think about risk, think about it in these three ways, okay? Number one, think about how can I make my process even more difficult? How can I take on a challenge that's hard for me? That would push me outside of my comfort zone. Number two, how can I do something different? I mean, even though I don't need to do something different, like really switch things up. And then number three, do something more personal. Share something more personal. And watch how those risks start rewarding your life. Look, we can all go from, you know, an average person to an achiever, and we can all go from an achiever to a high performer. But it's going to take some new habits for you to get there. And I hope that this conversation about taking risks inspired you to think about just that. All right, everybody, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that vault video. I've got to learn how to say vault properly. So I'm on step number eight or idea number eight today. And this one's this. Integrate your big moves into your identity. Remember earlier, we talked about the things we messed up becomes our mindset. Our messes up becomes our mindset. We also have to go. Our successes become our state of mind. And so a lot of people have never given themselves this gift. If you've been with me for a while, you know how important and critical this is. I would love for you to write down tonight in your journal your win list. Your successes list the big moves that you've taken in the past. Like the moves, like those big decisions you made, you stuck with and you went for it even if failed. But the big moves, like the big decisions, the big wins of your life. And trust me, it's more than one page long. Cause what most people do is like, well, I don't know. Guess I moved to Canada, I started my job, and that's all they can come up with. I'm like, no, no, no. Don't you remember that time you spoke up for yourself? Don't you remember that time you invested in your first thing you bought? Your first thing you took your first training. The first time you raised your hand for help, the first time you kissed her, the first time you asked him on a date. Like all these little things that we don't give ourselves credit for. Many people don't live more courageously today because they've never given themselves credit. Meaning their bank account emotionally is so depleted because all they ever do is take out their identity every time they mess up. But all their wins, all the little things, they never go, all right, I did that. I tried that. I learned. Good job. They don't integrate the win into their identity. So their identity is still coming from a place of lack versus an overwhelming sense of momentum from all these little Things that added up, most of you are so much more accomplished than you give yourselves credit for, especially if you're on something like this. The fact that you raised your hand for ongoing education. Most people will never do that. Like, you deserve to take that as part of your identity. Like, I'm a person who's always actively learning, right? Lots of people sign up for courses. Lots of people are curious about the life. Lots of people go to seminars, but they never go, you know what? You know what? I need to give myself some credit. I'm a person who's always actively learning and trying to get better and improve my life. They don't have that kind of thing because we're not taught to have that type of integration in our life. We're taught to fix our problems, not celebrate our successes. And so we don't bring in those successes in our identity. Little things, the little things of life, like when you handle something well, go, I handled that well. I'm a person who handles things well. I mean, just think about that, the difference of someone who goes, I'm always screwing up versus the person who walks in and goes, I handle things well. Like, I feel that way about my life. You can put me in any situation and I'll do it well, I know I will. Maybe not immediately, but I can figure it out. Self confidence is the belief in one's ability to figure things out. But if you figured lots of things out in your life and you never pulled those things into your identity to say, I'm capable, I am a capable person, then every new thing is overwhelming, isn't it? Isn't it true? Every new thing becomes overwhelming if you never integrated the successes, the strengths, the skills, the decisions, the efforts of the past. And a lot of people, their self confidence is the same now as it was in their 20s. And I'm like, you've had 20 more years, dude. You should be so much more confident. You are so much more capable in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s than you were 10, 20, and 30. But most people, if you don't actively integrate those things, you don't feel good. What do most people do at New Year's? They look forward and dream things up without first also going, let's celebrate all the things that went great this year and let me recognize myself as one year wiser, one year stronger, one year more capable and honor themselves for the year. Instead. They dream of the things they don't have, they wish for the things they don't have, and they don't recognize the Unbelievable gifts, skill sets, and strengths they've developed. You're never going to be a consistently courageous person unless you start integrating those successes. And you need a habit for that. Mine's on my Sundays. When are yours, Number nine? This is a big, important one. So number nine is stop apologizing and go. I want you to remove your apologetic language from your communication. Apologies is like, you know, you know, I know this isn't a good book, but could you read the first chapter? You know, I know this is a lot to ask, but, you know, I know I've never done this before, but could you just get rid of it instead? Say, could you. Would you read this book? Like, learn to be direct in your requests and your actions in life and take away all that apologizing yourself. Because the more your brain hears you apologize for yourself. The more your brain says, well, keep doing that. Safe, comfortable, used to it. And many of you are way stronger than the way you sound. Your verbiage is apologizing for yourself. Also, the way you carry yourself. Many of you walk around and look like this. You look weak because you don't give yourself credit. And I'm like, hey, young woman, fix your posture. Sit up tall. Be proud of yourself. You're here. You're God's child. You're a blessing. You made it through this far. You're ready. Let's go. Stop holding yourself and speaking yourself small. That's what people do. They apologize for themselves from how they hold themselves. Look. Look at me. I'm not apologizing for myself. And my team gave me a shirt that's too small for me. This shirt's too small for me. I'm not apologizing for it. I don't mind. It's fine. It's weird. I'm fine. Like, I'm still sitting tall and proud. You have to sit tall and proud even when the situation you're in doesn't fit, even when it's not comfortable. You've got to get to that point where you hold yourself like a courageous person. Hold yourself like a courageous person. That's what I mean. Stop apologizing and go. Stop using words and physical gestures that minimize who you are. Stand tall, full, proud, present. You're ready. You're capable. You handled stuff. I mean, many of you brought a child into the universe, and you're still scared to ask for the salt at lunch. You're like, well, excuse me, mister. Could I have some salt and pepper with that? Oh, okay. Thanks. Just be like, hey, could I have some salt and Pepper. Like, what's the big deal? Like, I can't believe how much you minimize yourself. You brought a child into the earth. It's unbelievable. Like, you went through the most arduous, unbelievably difficult thing, and you still haven't recognized you're a warrior woman. Like, what do you need? Like, what else do you need that you can birth life into the universe to give yourself a little bit of credit, but you're apologizing that you'd like to be paid more. You're apologizing that the first website you built, I know it doesn't look so good. No, you did it. You got in the game. You went celebrate that I'm proud of. Of. Like, the first version of this book looked really terrible because I didn't know how to design books. I'm proud of that first one looked like crap. Now I made it prettier. That's okay. I'm proud of it. All right? The first version of this logo was hilarious. It was so bad. It was really bad. I'm proud of that. It's not that I'm, like, going around bragging about it, but I'm not going around apologizing. You follow? There are two different worlds. You need to show up with strength and speak with strength in who you are. Because here's the deal. If you won't do it now, what the hell else do you need to go through in life to finally permit yourself to do it? I mean that genuinely and honestly to you. What the hell else do you have to go through? You've been through tornadoes and hurricanes of life. You've been through chaos, judgments, failures. You've been broke. You made some money. You've tried new jobs, quit jobs, met new people, broke up with new people. People were rude to you. People were like, what else do you need in the human pantheon of experience to finally allow yourself to show up strong? Like, what else? I mean, I want you to answer the question. This is not rhetorical. Like, what else would you have to go through? Like, what else do you have to go through to allow yourself to show up as a strong woman? What else do you have to go through to show up as a strong man? Like, what else? What? Like, what else? Like, make a list of how 50 other ways the universe needs to kick your ass before you give yourself some credit as a warrior. Like, you're ready. Stop apologizing. Show up, strong man. What's up with you? Like, if you're not going to give yourself permission now, don't hope that when you're 50, you're going to be stronger. Don't hope that when you're 80 you're going to be stronger. Because trust me, I've been with people as they're 80, 90 and 100 passing away in hospice. And they say, wish I went for it a little more, wish I was a little stronger. Wish I would have made that choice. You know, that woulda, shoulda, coulda stuff. I don't want that to eat you with regret at the end of your life. So if you're ever gonna show up strong, I'm here to tell you right now, give yourself that permission today, not tomorrow after you got the certification. Not tomorrow after someone pats you on the butt. Not tomorrow after someone sent you a bigger check. Listen, no external things have changed your level of strength and confidence, except your own internal permission to grant it. So grant it, my friend, if all we did today is you decided I'm going to show up in strength tomorrow and I'm not going to apologize for myself anymore. We did something good today. Last big idea. You have to earn the future you dream of. It comes back to honoring the struggle, but it comes back to the quintessential experience of my life. When I felt like I was handing life's golden ticket. When I felt like I got the gift from God to have another chance, another go around at this life. I was only a 19 year old kid, but I wanted to earn my lot in life. And I think what happens, the reason people don't live more courageously, especially today, is they're entitled. They just think that their future storybook ending should happen for them. And they don't go, I'm going to go earn that. I'm going to get my fingernails dirty. I'm going to go do the work, digging the ground, grind it out, really give and give and give and serve and serve and serve. Because I don't get that future unless I earn it. And where people go is I'll wait for should happen for me. I expect it, I deserve it. No, no, no, you earn it. No one deserves a thing. Everyone earns a thing. You got to go earn the thing. You are a deserving person for life and that's about it. You don't deserve a phenomenal marriage. You earn a phenomenal marriage. You don't deserve a high paycheck. You earn a high paycheck. It is the expectation that things will serendipitously happen for us or that we are entitled to them, that is killing people from going and hunting for it, right. I knew I would have to earn it because no one anywhere around me was ever given anything. So I had to go, I need to go earn it. And the expectation of earn it builds drive. Like, if I'm going to earn higher pay, I'm going to go earn that higher pay. It sets me on a course of bold action, of consistent action, of moving and earning and fighting and willing it into existence, not hoping it pops up in the lottery. Earn this opportunity. When you know you gotta earn it, you show up differently. There's a fierceness in those who are willing to earn it. Right. If you ever been on the battlefield or you've ever stepped in the ring, I did martial arts most of my life. And I can tell you, like, when you step out on that mat or you step into that dojo or into that ring, you know nothing's being handed to you but your butt. So you better earn your way through that. And it's like there's a warrior status that happens. It's like in tribal and aboriginal, literally aboriginal tribes. It's like there was a sense of, like, a passing into manhood or adulthood that happened. That they knew they had to earn it in some ways. And I know some of that is, like, old, and some of that is inappropriate, and some of that stuff is just like, myth and lore and weird stuff. But there is some kind of mindset shift that happens when you go, I'm going to earn this. Like, you want an amazing future and you're not being courageous enough. It's because you don't think you have to earn that or you think you can't. And I hope that this session with you all today serves that process. You can earn it, but you're gonna have to do some things. You have to let go of that baggage. You have to set that ambition higher to be one of the world's best at what you do. You're gonna have to start those conversations of hearing other people's brave stories. You're gonna have to set more triggers to speak well of yourself. You're gonna have to get in proximity to the dreams. You're gonna have to gang up and get other people involved on the journey. So you've got collaborators and comrades. You're gonna have to make sure you set a bold action every day. Even just a little simple bold action. But you're thinking in terms of boldness every day. You gotta integrate all of these wins. Cause you're stronger than you think. And you have to stop apologizing and decide, okay, I'm gonna show up strong today and I'm gonna earn it today. And if every day I'm showing up strong and free and, and willing to earn it, everybody else around me like, woo, he's going for it. Woo, she's going for it. They'll see that momentum and they'll start saying, she sure is courageous. Listen to this one more time on the treadmill. On your next run on the rowing machine, as you're doing your CrossFit or whatever else it is you're doing, listen one more time, let this stuff sink in. Remind yourself of these things and stay on your journey to living this high performance experience.