How to Show Up In Difficult Times - For Yourself and Others

Real people do personal development. They realize you have to make self improvement a way of life. And the reason you make self improvement a way of life isn't because you have to heal from something once in a while. It's because life is hard. Honor that as a challenge for how you're going to show up when life is difficult. How do I show up? That question and your answer is your wealth. More than anything you're gonna learn about AI More than anything you're gonna do in your local neighborhood leaders. Who knows what I'm talking about in this room. That simple question. When things are difficult, how am I going to show up? You know how I'm gonna show up? I'm gonna be centered. I'm gonna be calm. I'm gonna be cool. I'm be thoughtful. I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna ask questions, I'm gonna call my mentors. I'm gonna work through it. I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna make sure I'm not fueling my body with stuff that shuts me down. I'm going to make sure that life's inevitable difficulties. I'm showing up ready. Ready. You're training right now. You're not the victim of this market. You're training. You're training. You're training for the dips, you're training for the ups. You're in training mode. That's personal development. Real people do personal development. They realize you have to make self improvement a way of life. And the reason you make self improvement a way of life isn't because you have to heal from something once in a while. It's because life is hard. Honor that as a challenge for how you're gonna show up. When you talk to your teams, it's hard. Let's challenge ourselves. How are we going to show up? How are we going to choose to meet this? What's our mindset? What's our behaviors? Here's an interesting thing which I was stunned by and does apply to Vegas a little bit. When high performers are struggling, the market changes. Something goes wrong. The industry switches. All around the world, they have a tendency to do something so simple that the leaders will probably applaud me when I tell you, you all have to do this. They doubled down on the fundamentals. That's what you gotta do. Everyone say it with me. Double down on the fundamentals. You already know what works, but you're given three months to this fundamentals. And if that sounds offensive, I'm a high performance coach. I gotta give you that edge. We gotta get our edge back. We got a bunch of people moping and complaining, living in the old world, the wrong zone. Yesterday, last year, five years ago, the market was so great. Oh, I like the 80s. Can't we go back to the 80s? Oh, God. Bring me back to the 90s. No, we're here. How will you meet it? Don't bemoan the struggle. Take it as a challenge. Everyone say I'm here. Yeah, here. You're gonna meet it. Well, I'm gonna meet it. Well, in 2009, I saw my father meet the last part of his life. Well, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. They gave him seven days to survive. He was a gunnery sergeant and the Marine. We got some military service people. If you're retired or active service, would you please stand up and get recognized by this audience right here, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go, Hoover up. Let's go. Thank you, old gunny. He made it 59 days. They gave him seven. And you know what he had for 59 days? A great attitude. You know what he had as he's spitting up blood from the cancer treatment? A great attitude. When they wheeled him out of that hospital to bring him home for hospice, the nurses cried because he'd made them laugh so much. He made friends. There, you see? We all go through hardship, but how are we gonna show up through it? Can we show up with a good attitude? How you are gonna show up these next couple years, that's your wealth. And I don't just mean the wealth of your market sales. I mean the wealth of your spirit and your soul. Your character honors you and that thing to fight for your family, your career, your business, your movement, your reputation, your leadership. It changes the game when you have it. It's a different performance edge when you're aware of it. Because I'd come home and I'd write. That was my writing desk before the first book comes out. And that's the whole apartment. And it was tough. I would. I went broke during that time. Girlfriend's apartment. My laptop, I gotta turn in in 30 days. Cause I'm renting it. And the apartment's so small that the bed became my extended desk. And not this picture caption, but usually on the bed was all of my research, other books, my vision boards, my bills, you know, my drawings, my journals, Everything was on the bed. And one night my girlfriend comes in, Denise. And I'm typing along and pretending to write. And she comes in and she doesn't wanna disturb me as I'm pretending to do the work. So she comes over, kisses me goodnight, walks around the bed and goes to get under the covers of the bed. So I'm typing along, I watch her get under the covers of the bed, but she gets under the covers of the bed, on the section of the bed where my bills are and my bankruptcy papers are. So I'm typing along, faking the work, look over, and I see my love sleeping under the weight of my bills, literally. And it was just like. It was like a heartbreak I had never felt. Because none of us want our own inaction to be the cause of financial difficulty or distress in our family. None of us want our own inaction, our own inability to engage and actually do the work to cause distress for our families. But that's what happens when you fake it. When you're not doing the work. You got the license, you got the thing, but you're not even doing the foundation of it. You're cheating yourself and you're cheating your family. And that is the hardest thing to sit with. That's the heartbreak when you realize you. You not being a high performer hurts the people you love. Some people say, don't say that to people, Brendan. You know, we gotta talk about, you know, softer things. I'm like, but that's the difference with high performers. They have the performance edge that goes from. I'm fighting for somebody. I know people need me. It's this thing I have next to my computer. It says this next to my computer, it's a card. Every day, ask who needs me on my A game. Why is it necessary that I show up and serve with excellence today? And for me, it was Denise. I said, my love is not gonna sleep under my bills ever again. I'm gonna mix something to myself. I'm gonna learn how to do this. And I was starting small, you know, I was starting small. But that night when I saw her sleep, let me tell you what, she went to bed, I saw that I felt the heartbreak. And I typed and I typed, man. And I typed all night, all the next night, all the next night, all the next day, all the next day. I didn't need green tea and croissants. I typed and I typed and I typed and I typed. And 18 days later, boom. Book comes out. Boom. Best seller, Nan. Boom. Another best seller, boom. Another bestseller, Boom. Another bestseller, Boom. Another bestseller. Six best selling books around the world. Later on, I get to take one of those books, Motivation Manifesto, and do an interview with Oprah Winfrey. And then later on, she's launching a book. So she invites me out, and I get to bring Denise, the girl who believed in me. And we got to stand there in her backyard, and she's launching her book, and we're helping her. And we're with all the big fancy celebrities, none of them from Montana. And we're having a grand old time. And Oprah comes over and she shares something that changed my life. And I was so happy Denise got to see it. Cause she said something very nice. But then she says. I said, yeah, thank you so much for the interview on Motivation Manifesto. She says, oh, yeah, it's still on my bedside table upstairs. And I was like, wow. From a kid faking it next to the bedside. To the bedside table book selection of Oprah Winfrey. It's just like a. It's like an impossible raise your ambition. Then I started doing events. That's my first event. No one ever believes me because they've seen me do all these things throughout the country. That's the. No one believes. So there's the other angle. No one ever believes. I'm like, no, that's the whole room. Because here's the other angle. That's the whole room. I think 20 people came, half paid. Out of the 20, I counted my mom and the lady I was asking to help and volunteer to help me. And the guy who brought in the water, every time he came in, I counted him, too. Don't you worry. Then it got bigger, and it got bigger, and it got bigger. And then, you know, the arenas and then. And then. The best part about it, though, is she stayed with me. We just celebrated our 15th year. You don't know how things are gonna change when you finally engage and fight for something. You're fighting for your reputation. You're fighting for the brokerage. You're fighting for your sister, you're fighting for your brother. You're fighting for the legacy of your dad or your grandparent or your mother. You're fighting for somebod. And if you don't connect that in the morning, you fell into selfie culture, not service culture. You fell into here, into me, into how am I doing? Am I okay? And by the way, that's important. That's one stage, right? There's a huge mental health element to high performance. But there's two sides of that coin of self care, self mastery, personal development, and the other side, service. Fighting for people. If you don't like the word fight, then love for somebody. Love for somebody. Show up and love that day. Love for somebody. Give care for your kids. Love for somebody. You gotta do that. It's hard today because we're so distracted. And that's why. Number three, you gotta get your mind back. You gotta get your mind back. The highest paid people in the world gather together every day to code some algorithm to steal your attention and your time. And people don't understand how bad it's gotten. Did you know this country? Here in the United States of America, the average adult spends two hours a day on social media. Not posting, not creating, not building business like we do in this room, but just dumb consumption. Just swiping and strolling. And here's the four things that happen when you do that. Number one, every swipe is making you a more judgmental person. Why are our marriage being ripped apart? Why are our families being ripped apart? Cause every swipe is a judgment. The judgment is, is this worth my attention? Is this worth my time? Do I like this? Is it worth the heart? Is it worth the. Like, is it worth the share or bookmark? Every single thing that you do. This is a judgment. And guess what? You're hard coding it every time. And most of you do it 1,100 times a day. You swipe up or down, left or right 1,100 times. You just coded judgment. The second thing is doing all that. You're coding comparison. How am I doing versus her? Oh, look at her house. Look at her market. Look at her outfit. You're coding comparison. This is why division is growing in the country. I'm not like them. Look at those rich people. I don't like this. Because it's all about comparison. The third thing we know is it's destroying your mental health over time. And the fourth thing for business owners, you need to know it just stole, on average, three months of your year. People don't do the math on this. So try this with me. You guys. Your agents are better math than I am. Let's just assume you do one hour of dumb consumption, right? Forgive the language. But, you know, you're just kind of. A lot of. You do it in the morning. You wake up, you're like, all right, that's not the best way to start your day. Judgment, comparison. I want you lay rats, think about your dreams. Not on your phone, in your brain, in your heart. But what most people do that hour. Let's just take an hour. One hour a day. Consumption. One hour a day does what? Well, at the end of the week, how many hours? Oh, my God. Entrepreneurs. You need some Help. How many hours? Okay, you got it. One times seven is. No, you just follow along. Trust me. Seven. You lost seven hours. You know, a high performer, seven hours is a work day anyway. I mean, who can crush it in seven hours? You give me seven hours, I will sell this whole city. You know what I'm saying? Like seven hours. I mean, that's if you're focused, you know, you got to get to. You got to pick up the kids. I mean, seven hours, you can crush it in seven hours. But you lost that seven hours that week. No big deal, Brendan. But the problem is 7 times 4 is. Whoa. In one month, 7 times 4 is 28. 28 hours, man. Now you're nearing. That's almost a work week for a high performer. That's almost a whole week. You give me 28 hours. Woo. Woo. Who can crush it in 28? I know this room. You're here. I know you're here. If you don't think you can Crush it in 28 hours, raise your ambition. Now. What? Well, no big deal, Brendan. It's just 28 hours. Yeah, but the problem is 28 times two is what? 56. So 56 hours in two months, 56 plus 28 is never. Ask a Vegas Morning edition Math. You know what? It's a whole lot. 56 plus 28 is 84 hours. 84 hours. That's a lot. That's a lot. So 84 hours are lost. But I lied to you. I only asked you to do one hour a day. The average American is doing two 160 hours divided by an eight hour work week. Oh, we got a problem. Most people, I don't have time. Oh, you have time, but you're giving it away to somebody else and something else that is not serving you. Now, the problem is, you know, I'm telling the story here. We didn't just lose 160 hours because the average American also watches three hours of television. Three hours of television. So on average, the average American loses three months of eight hour days. When you do the math, three months. Eight hour days. Whoa. Twelve weeks of eight hour days gone now. By the way, everyone always gets mad at me. Don't take away my Netflix. I'm like, you can do it. Just know the cost. And don't say the market's bad. Know the cost of your time. Know that they're making you do that. Know that you're becoming judgmental and comparison driven and it's stealing from you. It's why it's so hard to succeed. Cause when you give three months. Everyone's always like, brenda, how'd you become successful in your genre? I go, I get three more months a year than most people. I get three more months a year. Now I know everyone who hates productivity. Oh, my God, are you a machine? Is all you do work? And I was like, no. But most of what I do is my purpose. Most of what I do is serve people. Most of what I do is try to inspire people. Do I enjoy some wine or some movies or times out with friends and family? Absolutely. Because you know what? I got three more months with family than most people. I got three more months of work and purpose. I got three more months to work out. I got three. How are you so joyous? Where do you get the energy? I'm like. Cause I'm not wasting it there. Energy can build. You can build your energy by not. Not just blindly consuming. Can anyone understand what I'm saying? And give me an amen on a weekday. Yeah. Turn the person right. Shake them. Say, get your mind back. Shake them, get your mind back.