Mashup: Practical Steps You Can Take to Get Closer to Your Dreams

There is no new idea in your life without a drop list of things to stop doing. A drop list. I'm dropping these things. I am not doing these things. I'm saying no to these things. I'm getting this off the agenda. I'm letting that responsibility go. It's the things you aren't going to do that help you do the things that you're going to do. So you got to spring clean a little bit. If you got new dreams in your life, spring clean, what are you going to stop doing? High performance training. Action mindset. This is important. How do you develop the action mindset? But actually also here, I should just add this. How do you actually get the action mindset and then make it a discipline. Discipline. Here it is. First thing you've got to adopt. Well, there it goes. Is your, let's try this, your 30 minute daily block. People tell me all the time, brennan, I got this dream or this goal. I'm like, great, what 30 minute period of day are you gonna work on it today? What do you mean? You said you have a big goal, right? Yeah. Big idea, right? Yeah. Okay, show me. When's the 30 minute block that that thing gets?

Today.

It's a new idea you say, right? Yeah. Okay, where is it? Is it 1:30 to 2? Is it 4 to 4:30? Is he going to check it at 5 right after work till 5:30, then get on the commute a little later. Like when new ideas must have new blocks of time. Write it down. New ideas must have new blocks of time. If you got a new idea someday, someday, big dream and it doesn't land in the calendar, at least listen, daily, 30 minute daily block of time. Of course you're not going to get momentum. It's got to be. Look, if you won't give something 30 minutes a day, it don't matter to you. Just be honest. Like any good parent will tell you this. Like if you don't spend 30 minutes with your kids a day, I mean, good luck in having that connection, good luck in forging that future. Good luck in helping that person feel loved and supported. I mean, if something is important to you, you give it time.

Is it true?

So if this idea is important to you, immediately mindset. This is what I immediately do. 30 minutes. And if it's a completely new idea, it's got to get at least 30 minutes if I want it to actually come true. And it's important from the time I set the idea the next day it gets 30 minutes. Big new idea. Must do it. If it's important to me. The next day it gets 30 minutes. Not four years from now. Like, right now, I have a big partnership I'm working on. Like, it completely came into my life, totally interrupted my life. I don't have any time. But it's important. I found 30 more minutes a day. Right? 30 more minutes is easy to find for everybody. People don't think they can. It's possible. I just had a friend and I get in a huge argument over lunch about this. Not Everybody can find 30 minutes. And I'm like, who can't find 30 minutes more a day? Like, show me.

Which.

A little more discipline, a little more planning and preparation. Who can't find 30 more minutes a day?

Well, you know, I'm busy, and I.

Have all these things you don't understand. I'm like, okay, walk me through your day. Well, I have to get up. I gotta get everything, you know, get the kids ready for work. I gotta get in the car. I gotta commute. That commute's an hour every single day. I can't take away that. I gotta do this and this and this. And I'm like, well, what if you didn't drive? What do you mean? Well, what if you didn't drive the car so that your focus and attention could be doing something else? Well, I gotta do the commute. I don't know. I've noticed that a lot of cars have a passenger seat and some of them even have a backseat. And if you sit in one of those, you don't have to do this. And I just got you an hour a day. So many people are so. They believe so deeply that they are managing their time so great. I'm like, no. Most people have so much free time, they have no idea. It's that they are distracted and unprepared or addicted to consuming, that they're losing little pieces. And especially here in the United States, you guys have heard me rail on this. The average American, four hours of television a day. Don't tell me you don't have 30 minutes a day. I don't know anyone who can't find 30 more minutes a day for a great new idea that can change their life. You got a new idea that can change your Life. Find your 30 minutes every single day. Number two, remember the first output rule. First output rule says this. You've got a big new dream, big new goal, big new idea. Don't think that you have to do what we've all been taught, which is begin with the end in mind. Because sometimes you don't know what the end in mind is, but you know the first step. So what I tell people is like, I got a big new idea. I go, great. What's the first output that you would have to create on that end immediately? What's like the first output that would start you on the path? I don't know. Okay, figure that out. First step. First output, right? First step is not the research. What's the first output? Let me give you an example. When I began my career, I said, one day I'm going to do video courses. And in mind, you can do online courses. That was the big idea. I, Brendan Burchard, am going to do online courses. Guess what I didn't do? I didn't say, well, I better figure.

Out the whole curriculum for all the.

Courses for the rest of my life. Begin with the end in mind. Didn't do that. I said, what's the first step that would allow me to start doing that? Okay, first step, get in front of camera, teach and post it on the Internet. That's the first output. One teaching video on the Internet. So I went and I got my stupid little, at the time, flip video camera. Some of you guys know about those. Got a flip video camera. I duct taped it to a box. I put on my cleanest shirt at the time, and I stared at the.

Camera and I taught.

And I pulled off the flip video camera and I spent four hours uploading it on the Internet. You remember that? Probably not, but you remember that? Yeah. Upload, upload, upload, upload. And then it wouldn't play because it wouldn't stream fast enough. But I spent the time, the first output to me, building an online course empire one video. What's your first output? Do that now. That's how you maintain momentum. The reason people don't stick to their habits is because they're waiting to create the output someday. I'm like, what's the first output?

Do it.

That's the thing to work on right now. When you got that 30 minute daily block, work towards that first output. Because you get the first output, you got real momentum. You get the first output, your dream, your idea is realized, it's tangible. It's like, ooh, I did that thing.

First output.

If you don't know the first output of what you have to create, you.

Don'T even have a dream.

You don't even have a fully thought out idea. First output, make it, do it, create it, post it, do the thing. That's it. I want to write a book, Brendan.

But I Don't know what the whole book is.

I'm like, great. First output, first page, write it. What do you mean I don't know what the book is? Write the first page. But I don't know what the book is. Write the first page. First output would be the first page of the book, right? Write the first page. But I don't know what the five chapters are. I don't write the first page. See, you don't have to know the whole picture. First step, do the first output. Because you get that first page done, you'll probably get that next page done. You probably get the next page done and you'll start getting clarity of the project. A lot of the creativity of life comes in motion, not beginning in speculation. Okay, next up, number C. 90 day challenge. I can't believe how many people have.

A big dream or big goal and.

They don't set up their own 90 day challenge. Like, okay, what's your first output? Good job, appreciate you, but you got 30 minutes every single day in 90 days. Where are we? 90 days, 3 months, let's go. Because see what most people are, they're scared to commit to the bigger idea and dream. And I go, oh, don't commit to the first big idea. Dream not for life. Just like you won't ruin your life forever. Don't commit to your new idea or dream forever. I need 90 days. Give me 90 days, man. Commit to that thing. 90 days and get at it for 90 days. Reevaluate after 90 days where you're at. Don't think. See, most people don't take an action because they think, well, I'll have to do this action forever. Just like they worry I'll be ruined forever. There's no forever. There just isn't. There's just now. None of us are guaranteed anything. So if what we have is right this moment and we're looking into the future and we're working towards that, Good job. In 90 days, where are you?

That's it.

What'd you do in 90 days? Did you lose five pounds? Great. You don't have to say, I'm going to be completely life transformed. I'm going to have six pack abs and still drink pina coladas on the beach with 40 people in bikinis around me. No, no, no, no, no, dude, lose five pounds, you got 90 days. Go like, just set the 90 day challenge for yourself and get at that and then worry about the next series of goals after that. So if you've got a big idea or dream and you're really committed to it, commit to a 90 day challenge. And what does that mean for you specifically? What's going to happen at the end of 90 days? How you think, how you feel, how you move, what you achieve, what outputs are created. Get really clear on those types of things. You'll be so happy you did. Without these things, there is no idea into action. There is no momentum. It's why you didn't stick to your habit, because you didn't give it 30 minutes a day. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't even know what you were supposed to do. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't at least set a time period that was realistic for yourself, but that was doable.

D you got to have your drop list.

There is no new idea in your life without a drop list of things to stop doing a drop list. I'm dropping these things. I am not doing these things. I'm saying no to these things. I'm getting this off the agenda. I'm letting that responsibility go. It's the things you aren't going to do that help you do the things that you're going to do. So you got to spring clean a little bit. You, if you got new dreams in your life, spring clean, what are you going to stop doing? Right? I'm very, very, very disciplined about this. For me personally, I have one of my own personal practices. On the 1st of every month, I make my drop list.

Every month.

Not once a year, every month I go, okay, this month, what do I need to drop? Because inevitably, you know, I'm moving so fast. I pick up new things. I'm doing all the time some new idea, new dream, new thought. Because I'm trying to innovate, I'm trying to be up front, I'm trying to lead, I'm trying to change things. And then what ends up happening is throughout the month, other people also do what other people give you responsibilities, give you ideas, give you programs. They're adding onto your plate. All month long, you're collecting a bigger and bigger plate, right? Some months I start, I go, okay, well this month I'm going to do these five new things. And the end of that month I realize, you know what, I'm not going to be able to maintain five. I'm gonna drop two of them. I'll stick with three, but I can't do all five. That's a drop list Without a drop list, I have no idea how you can keep adding new things. Make sense some of the Biggest breakthroughs in our life is when we just stop doing the things that we know.

Aren'T right for us.

Next up, big important one, the Friday friend status call. Everything that we know from goal setting comes back to sociology. If you don't have someone you're doing something with actively, if you don't have an accountability partner, you don't have a coach, you don't have a friend you go to lunch with, or someone you talk it through, then the odds of that happening for you are so low. Because you know what? We're social beings. We need processing time with other people. And the more processing time we have, usually the more progress we get, right? It's why therapy is so powerful in unlocking people or coaching so powerful in unlocking people. It's like, oh, I'm processing. Oh, I'm getting distinction, I'm getting more progress. You need that Friday friend status call. If you got a big new goal or dream. All I want you to do every Friday at the end of the day, literally 5 minute, 10 minute, 15, 30 minute call, whatever it is, pick it up, call your friend and say, I did this this week, struggled with this.

This worked.

That went well. You now you go, how did you do? And just. You got one person in your life that every week you're talking about momentum with. I don't care if it's your mom. I prefer this as a human. So not the cat, but a human that you, every single week you talk through things with.

Like, where are you?

I don't care if it's the librarian. I don't care if it's your social worker. I don't care if it's your brother. I don't care who it is. It can be the stranger across the street. Don't talk to strangers if you're PG13. But everybody else have that conversation and just on a Friday go, hey, man, this is where I'm at. Because if you won't do that, I promise, if you don't socialize your learning, you will not achieve your dreams. You must socialize. What am I learning? Where am I at? How's it going? What am I struggling with? You got to ask for help. But you need a consistent basis. Big dreams require weekly check ins. Write it down. Big dreams require weekly check ins. So who's going to be your weekly check in? Accountability coach, friend, mentor? Who every week check in and if you're like, well, I don't know anybody. Everybody hates me. You know what? Go on your Facebook page every Friday at 5 and go, this Is what I learned this week.

This is what I tried.

What did you guys try? And all the people who make fun of you, delete them. And everybody else say, good for you. So easy. Life's very simple. Next, create motivation triggers. When I walked in this door today, it's the same when I walk in the doors of my conference rooms, when I'm doing my seminars. That when I usually my doorway trigger, meaning that's what a motivation trigger is. A trigger is something physical or tangible happens, and you attach either a statement or an action to it. Okay. Trigger is something tangible that you say or do when something else happens. So when I walk through a door, and that's every door of my life. I walk through a door, my mind almost always says.

Cause I've just conditioned it over and.

Over and over doing this. I walk through the door, my mind says, I am a happy man entering this space, ready to serve. I'm a happy man entering this space, ready to serve. It's been since I was like 20 years old one. Cause I always want to remind myself I'm happy. I have so much to be grateful for. So do you. So how are you reminding yourself that you're grateful, that you're happy, that you're good? And then I remind myself, I'm entering this space, ready to serve, not hoping to serve, not. Maybe one day I'll deserve to serve. I'm ready right now. Whatever. I know I believe in my ability to figure things out. I'm ready to serve now. I don't need permission. I don't need more money. I don't need more team. I'm ready to. Whatever I got. I'm ready. Let's go. I don't need new things, more things, better things, tons of things. I'm ready to serve right now. Let's go. I'm not ever waiting to provide service.

To the world, ever.

You don't have to have the big stuff, the fancy stuff. You just go. I didn't have big, fancy cameras and lights and fancy big flip charts when I started this. It was me in a really dirty shirt with the thing, the buttons too, hung open, like, you know, it was so nasty and gnarly and bad. It was awesome, and I was ready to serve. You don't have to have everything. I was watching this documentary recently on Usain Bolt, one of the greatest. Well, he is the greatest sprinter of all time, right? And you see the scene of him and he's doing sprints in a field with, like, this sort of little belt tied around his Waist tied to a chain tied to, you know, we would.

Call it a weight sled, but you.

Could barely call it that. A little metal sled where you put on like, you know, weights, like a 45 pound weight from like lifting. And it's like, so he would sprint with this little things. When you go to the NFL, where I work with my major teams, they usually got the fancy sleds, these longer sleds that glide when you take off, that release proportionate amount of tension along with the weight as you speed up. Like very fancy contraptions. Now this dude, the best ever is down in Jamaica in a hot field.

With this huge belt on with like.

One coach, not 12 coaches, one coach standing there next to him. He ties this thing and when he takes off, this thing is bouncing along behind him. It's like, just like you're like. And he's the world's best. Because he's not waiting to have everything to train. He's training. I'm not waiting to have everything to serve. I'm serving so many of my people. Well, one day when I have a following, I'll post some stuff. I'm like, start posting stuff now. One day when I'm ready, I'll put myself. No, there is no one day to be ready. You're ready now. Go. It is a mindset you must have. You're ready to go. So that's one of my triggers. Walk through a door. I'm entering the space as a happy man, ready to serve. Let's go. That's just one trigger. I have all sorts of other triggers. I have different doorway triggers. When I walk in my house, I say something a little different to myself than when I walk in my office. But other triggers I have.

When a door closes in a car.

Every time a door closes in a car, I say something else to myself. When I walk into my office, I take a first action that triggers momentum for me. Like, you need to have first actions or space triggers that help you stay your best. They're ultimately all geared towards one thing. How can you remind yourself to be at your best? And how do you use physical objects, time periods, situations to get yourself there? That's the question. That's your job. These are motivation triggers. Because if you're not triggering yourself, the world's doing it for you. And if the world's doing it, you know what the world's going to trigger you towards?

Angst, outrage, distraction, consumption.

It's not going to trigger you towards you being your best self. So if you didn't maintain your habits. This year, go on my YouTube channel and type in the word, type in the power of habits and you'll see a video that will teach you how to set some more of those examples. Right? If you look in a mirror, you should have a mirror trigger. See a reflection of yourself, say something to yourself. I know that sounds like just like positive thinking kind of stuff. And you know what it is because what's the alternative? Stupid thinking, negative thinking, scarcity thinking. You need to have a little bit more triggers set up to make you work. And sometimes if it's not just you, get somebody else to do it, get a coach to do it, a mentor to do it, a friend to do it. But you need to be triggered to be your best. How are you currently triggering yourself to be your best? Many of you know you've been with me for years. You know, we kind of now everybody does it, but we were the first one to do it. When the smartphone came out and the first alarm was available to be set a label, I created this training and put it out about saying, hey, use this alarm label on your phone to, to send yourself reminders to tell you to be awesome. Put your three words in here that pop up and remind you who to be. Use this as a trigger to be your best instead of a box of consumption. Because this can be a weapon for good or a weapon that takes you into distraction, but it's up to you. Just like the rest of life, self reliance, it's up to you.

Part of the problem is they believe that there's gonna be one singular wow purpose for them and not realize our purpose has changed throughout our lives. As we all teach that your purpose and your mission, your sense of fulfillment, meaning shifts at different times of your life. It's different when you're a teenager than when you're a mom or a parent, than when you're a leader or a business owner. It just changes. But purpose is not a destination. Purpose is a flowering. Purpose is a flowering. What do you mean by that? Well, you know, as we're going through our lives, we're going to have a lot of metamorphosis. I don't know, is that plural? Can you even say that? But you know, there's that moment, those moments where we grow into something else, where we bloom from a situation even if it's darkened soil, where we open up to a different style of approach, awareness, consciousness, where we open up our personality, where we open up our beliefs. And these are transformative moments in our lifetime.

Right?

And what I mean, by purposes of flowering is you might be stuck right now and not realize that you being stuck is the gateway to the next level of your life. People who lack resilience bemoan the moment and they get stuck here and frustrated that they're stuck here and they don't understand their life is expanding. Even if right now my finances are stuck, even if right now the kids don't like me. Well, they're two. Give them time. You know, it's like. Or they're 18, give them a few years. It's like, listen, we get so narrowly focused now that we lose the connection that life is expanding. You know, this last year I've been telling all my audiences and my high end clients, I said, listen, last year was. And very really like the last two years was a sensation of constriction. We felt shut down, we felt we had to go in protection mode. And, and some people are still living there. And we forget that the whole universe is expanding, that our life is growing and flowering in front of us. And let's be curious about that blooming. Let's be excited to see where it goes even when it's in difficulty. I had a major brain injury in 2011 and I didn't know what my life was going to be like. And I had two or three days after my diagnosis. I knew the next two or three years was going to be really difficult with a traumatic brain injury. And I was scared. I was writing a book, my career was going big. I had all these responsibilities and I was freaked out. I just remember laying in bed and I thought, well, either this is a challenging moment that opens up your next level of being Brandon, or this is a moment you quit. How are you going to look at it? You're going to quit because it's hard. We're going to say maybe this very challenge was placed before me to make me better one day. Maybe I can't see that now.

But.

Maybe I'm supposed to grow into something more. I don't know what it is, but I have faith in that process. It's the same old tired metaphor that I know you know, but it is a beautiful metaphor from nature. When that caterpillar goes in that cocoon, there's that time of isolation, of darkness, of uncertainty, of how things are going to turn out, of the difficulty of breaking free to that next level. But when that breaking free happens, it's like another being emerges, right? Another spirit.

Right.

That metamorphosis is transformational and that caterpillar is this light dancing Ethereal, gorgeous butterfly. When before it was kind of this slimy little thing inching along, which had its own beauty and challenges. But at some point, nature had the impulse to say, go within, take a minute, take a minute, meditate, sit in stillness and imagine what's next. Because we don't know when that cocoon will open out of our challenges, our difficulties. But if we are faithfully aware during those times, if we are faithful, this idea that our purpose, our future, it's flowering, that we will emerge lighter, better if we have that trust in nature, in time, in God, in universe, in cosmos, in expansion, whatever your vibe is, when you can reconnect to that, you can get through the difficult moments. Because recognizing that life has challenge, struggle, suffering, difficulty, that's how I began this talk. We have to be aware of that. We have to acknowledge that we have to be okay with that. And once we can say, yeah, sometimes life super sucks, it does. Guess what? That hurt, that pain, that struggle, that's an indicator light of now. That's not the roads ahead. I'm not going to drive my life because of that.

It's that idea of like, well, let.

Me look at it, let me talk about it, let me express about it, let me journal about it. Let's shed some light on this difficulty here. Because monsters fade with more light. Light, right. The darkness opens to light as we open up the door again, versus closing our heart. Oh, right. You know what? I got to take care of my body and release some of this tension so that when that challenging moment comes up, I feel ready and loosened. I'm not carrying all this hurt, pain and stress. And we have to notice that we are blooming now. Even when it's difficult, even when it's the hardest time, even when we don't feel good, People always ask, how did you pull through that brain injury? I'm like, well, I just decided that I must. And I decided that that challenge was given to me to make me better. I didn't know if I would get better ever. At that moment. I didn't know, would my brain heal? Would my body heal? For those who know the story, I had wrecked a four wheeler, an atv, and I snapped my wrist off, broke a couple ribs, threw out my hip, dislocated my shoulder, rattled my brain with a traumatic brain injury and a post concussive syndrome. Tough time, tough two years. Brutal in many ways. And it was a moment where I could have quit or I could say, all right, I guess this is asking me to get better. This is a big Challenge. How will I meet it from my best self? How will I maintain my own energy? How will I reach out to people? How will I trust that even if I feel limited in this moment, that limitation, there's still a gate that is opening to the future. Even if I feel alone right now and it's dark, I'm telling you what, that cocoon is just building around me if I stay open and trusting in nature and faith or God, and suddenly that cocoon opens up and I emerge.

As a different being.

Monsters fade with light. And sometimes, you know, we forget that, and we hold so much from our past in our mind that we're not even free in the moment because we're scared. I always tell the story. If you ever been to my seminars, I often tell the story of when I was 12 or 13 years old, I had gone and shut out the lights in the house, went to bed and was just getting comfortable in bed and happened to look around my room and in the closet, there was a figure in the closet, and it scared me. Like, I was like, someone in my closet was like, terror. I pull up the sheet as if, you know, the sheet is going to protect me from the axe murderer. You know, not so good. But I pull up the sheet, and I was mortified. Mortified. And I just sat there, and I was just like, I felt all these fears, all these thoughts went through my head, and it was just terrible. And finally I was, like, just laying there, and I was like. I realized how ridiculous it was because if. If it is an axe murderer here, I am just not going to do anything. And I willed myself to throw off the covers, go turn on the light, and then attack this thing, right? And of course, what I see. Turn on the light, go to the closet. It's my baseball cap, my winter jacket hanging just at the right angle with the right shadows. There's no monster there. I had made up something bigger in my mind than what was actually there. Mental resilience is often about the truth of light being shed on things. Sometimes facing it, sometimes finally talking about it, finally sharing about it, finally sitting down with it and looking at what it is. Sometimes it's getting perspective on something. But that mental resilience comes from perspective going, oh, I thought this thing was big and scary and awful and traumatic and going to be forever. And then mental resilience goes, oh, when I turn the light on it, I recognize, yeah, wasn't good, but there it is. It's not as big and scary as I thought it was. Or, hey, let me Shed some light on it and have a conversation with people, bring out this hurt, and share this thing with people. Because you know who becomes really resilient, communicative people? People who open up their heart, open up their mouth, share with others their experience and their struggles. Because often it's talking through those challenges. Demons, villains, monsters, whatever metaphor you want to use, it's in discussion that other people talk about, like, oh, that thing's. Oh, that thing's not so scary. Oh, and in processing, I'm understanding my feelings more again, this is just why I think it's so important. Most people have never had these tools, and they've never summoned the courage to talk about things. But the people I follow online as an example, the influencers who really inspire me, they're often like, here's what I'm going through. They're sharing their struggles. And not as an act to get more likes or followers, but because we know in expression we discover emotion. We discover that in expression, we can find empathy for our own voice and receive it from others. In expression, we can realize that this thing doesn't have control of us. We get to communicate its meaning. We get to communicate what it is and what it is not in expression. And so I say, monsters often fade with light. I tell people, don't forget that the light in a dark room only exists because the dark, but that that light grows as you open that door a little bit more and you're not so closed anymore. And people fail to realize and go this deep on resilience. Most people like just mental toughness. And I'm like, yeah, how about we start with instead of mental toughness, we start with emotional openness. Because if we start with emotional openness, when we open that door a little bit to our truth, to our real thoughts, our real feelings, our real desires, our real needs. When we open the door just a little bit more, that light comes in a little bit more. And the more open we learn to be emotionally, mentally, spiritually, the more we tend to notice the light of the world. When we close down and shut within and we obsess about and stay static, frozen about the monsters. That's a long, dark night of the soul. So I want to remind you, you can open up again. That might be the first next right step for you to open, to express, to share. Even if that just means you sit down with your own journal and acknowledge it and write it down. This doesn't mean you need to go do Instagram posts. What it means is sometimes literally just writing about it can Help you activate a different part of your mind, can help you gain control over it by giving it voice. These are skills, right? These are skills. And the skill of expression. Whether it's self expression in your journal or you talk to your phone and record it, or you share something with your lover or, or your partner at dinner, or you go to a group, you meet new people. This is powerful stuff. This is really powerful stuff. And I really want to encourage you to think about like, wow, have I been as resilient as I wanted to? Have I been, you know, you know, stuck in a room thinking there's bigger monsters out there? Because another part of resilience is that perspective. To realize that tomorrow that you're so scared about. It's a baseball cap and a jacket. It's a mental projection. We are the ones who build the vision of fear in the future. Because the future doesn't yet exist. Tomorrow is very much a blank page. And even if there are known challenges in the future, we still can't see the chapter after that. All we can do is show up each day, faithful, ready, doing our best. And when we can do that over and over and over again, suddenly things aren't so scary. This is something that I've practiced for about the last four years and it's been very, very helpful for me. Here it is. Daily goals done by one.

Right?

Just write it down below Done by one. Done by one. What I want you to do is every morning fill out your high performance planner, know what you need to focus on and get done that day and then ask yourself, if I could only if I had to get this done by 1 01pm how would I do it if I only got to work until 1pm and I know some of you only do work to 1pm because we had a lot of extraordinary successful people in this community who, you know, you work your mornings, you take your afternoons off. I get it.

I appreciate you too.

But for those of you who have not achieved that yet, okay, let's think about it. Let's ask this question. If you only had. Let's imagine the day only went to 1pm obviously you couldn't get everything in. So what do you have to focus on if you're going to have done by one? What do you have to focus on? The major priorities and the needle moving activities. Write it down. The major priorities of the day and the major needle moving activities Done by one. That's what I do. And people are like, how does he get so much done? I'm probably not doing any More than anybody else, it's that every day though, the major priorities and the major needle moving activities done by one. Write it down. Major priorities, major needle moving activities done by one. Then guess what? It leaves a whole afternoon to all the randomness of life, right? Oh, I got to take a call.

Great.

Guess what? I don't take any calls till the afternoon. Why? I set that up so that I can make sure that I focused on the morning. Being dedicated towards moving my life and my business forward. That was my progress check. That's what I focus on. It's like did I do what is necessary this morning? Before I took random calls from other people and asking me things, pitching me things, interviewing me on things. Now some of you say well that's just not possible, Brendan. I got to get the kids up, get them school, come back, check my.

Email, respond to everybody else.

And I'm like no, you need to do your job and get it done by one. The major needle moving activities that are your job, get it done by one. You got to reorient the day. Now people say well Brendan, what is one? I say well one is kind of arbitrary, isn't it? Because if you got it done by two, would that be equally good? Yes. But the done by one because it rhymes, it sticks in your brain a little bit, right? You guys like this, it's like done by one mentality allows me to move ahead faster because I imagine go. I only have till 1 o' clock to get my major needle moving activities. So every day by one that the major things that had to get done that I had to do, I've either got them done or significantly along the way and that's what's important. But many people aren't doing that. You know what you're doing. You're spending so much time reacting to everybody else in the morning that you're.

Not doing the major things that were.

On your plate that you were supposed to do. And that is why I know without a question in my mind that to double the progress of this group Team hpx, we, we can do it guys. We really can do this. We can double your progress if we can help you adopt this mindset of done by one, figure out what are the major priorities of this day and what are the major needle moving activities.

Now I always get asked what's the.

Difference between the two? Brendon, what's the difference between a priority and like a needle moving activity of my life or my business or okay, let's talk about priorities. Your priority today.

Let's Say, let's see, one of your.

Priorities might be something as simple as, you know what, call my uncle, he's sick. He's sick in the hospital. He's a priority day.

I gotta call him. Okay, I'm gonna call him by one.

That's a priority, right? A needle moving activity is an activity usually related more towards an output. Like an activity like, okay, something moves the needle forward in your brand or your business. For me, as an example, a podcast episode, as simple as that sounds, might be a needle moving activity. Great. That moves the needle in growing our brand. Cool episode. Done by one. Oh, needle moving activity. That may mean a major email broadcast to my email list.

Great.

Done by one. Major needle moving activity. Call somebody who you know I'm going to do a business deal with or who's going to be affiliate promotional partner. Call is done by one. Because that was a needle moving activity, right? Something that moves the business or your life forward. Sometimes your priorities, hey, your priorities can be relationships. Your priorities can be handling things for your wife, your husband, your spouse, your partner, partner, the kids. You know, those are priorities for the day they might have. Those are just like, that's a priority. It has to get done today and this specific day it has to get done, you know, it can't get done tomorrow because it wouldn't be a priority if it was tomorrow. Today it's a priority, right? Priorities are today. So what must. It's not just a to do list. Because lots of things on to do lists, like I bet you've written to do lists before. And is it true? A to do list sometimes for you carries over to tomorrow. Well, that's the difference between a priority and a to do list follow, because sometimes you write things on a to do list. It's okay if you get them to it three days from now, 10 days from now, 50 days from now, a priority today. Urgent, immediate, necessary. Let's deal with it today. And not just emergency reaction, but you put it there. It was on your battle board, it was in your game plan, it's in your high performance planner. It's gonna happen today. Got it. So this idea of done by one has really served me throughout my life. And I really want you to hear this guys. Cause I can't be more honest about something than this one. I'm not a morning person. I'm absolutely not a morning person. And I still implement done by one mentality even as I'm not a morning person. You know, some of you know me for a long time. Or if you're new to the membership I can welcome here. I'll tell you some things about myself once in a while as we do these. I'm kind of a nutty professor in the morning. You know, I wake up, you know, Denise is so happy and she's excited to do things. And I walk out into the kitchen and she's like, hi. She hits a meal with a list of 74 things she's thought of and done. She's already downloaded from the universe all the obligations in the history of humanity as a woman, as a leader, as a wife, as a daughter, caregiver, family leader. She's already got it all down. And I'm kind of like, huh? Like, my brain does not kick on. I think it used to kick on a little bit faster, but since 2011, when I had my brain injury, it's a little slower. I'm a slow roll in the morning, and I don't turn to a cup of coffee. Usually I just let my brain kind of wake up and I start moving my body. So some of you know, my morning routine, I do 20 minutes of movement. So I do yoga, calisthenics, stretching, or a walk or a jog or just something for 20 minutes. And it's not my workout of the day. It's just to open up my body, get mobility, activate, right? Then I spend 20 minutes with a book, something good, something I can read that is inspiring, makes me think, gets my brain turned on by reading. Then if I don't feel like reading for any reason, if I don't feel like reading for the 20 minutes, I'll close my eyes, I'll visualize and think through the day. Then I'll spend 20 minutes with my High Performance Planner. And people are like, you spend 20 minutes with your High Performance Planner. And I think I've misspoken on that a few times, and you guys busted me on it. And it's okay in that I spend 20 minutes with the High Performance Planner, and usually like a battleboard type thing. So I'll fill out the High Performance Planner. I'll consider the overall context of what I'm doing. So I'll flip more to those monthly pages in the High Performance Planner.

And then I'll kind of sit there.

I'll visualize, I'll think about it, okay?

I'll walk through the day.

How could I do that activity with excellence today? How could I be really present today? What might trip me up today? The questions. The High Performance Planner. I'll take those on. And then as I do all that I'll go. Okay, I'm ready for the day now. You know, I'm ready for the day. And I get excited because that morning warm up, my body's open, my mind is open, my day is planned. Let's go before that though. I'm gonna, you know, and then bam. So I gotta go through that hour in the morning, but then I'm ready to go. And then my mentality that doesn't matter if that happened. If I had a late night and it's 10am and I do that by 11am still my question to be, okay, gosh, I'm only starting work here at 11 o'.

Clock.

Shoot, Brendan, it's 11 o'. Clock. I'm only starting at 11 o'.

Clock.

Brendan, done by one. What would you absolutely have to SWAT team by 1:00pm to be done by one? And I cannot tell you how powerful this mentality is because guess what it is. It's your insurance policy. Because if you finished your major priorities and your major needle moving activities by one, then all the firefighting and emergency reactive things you have to do the rest of the day, you got time for it. You know, you want to explore something. You want to get distracted to look at something. Hey, more power to you. You are done by one. You want to deep dive into something you dork about. Spend another hour on your passion. Spend that extra 30 minutes in the gym today, no problem. Done by one. You follow how powerful this is? It's your insurance policy. Getting it done by one. I hope that you give it a try. Guys, do you like this idea? If you do and you achieve something awesome, use DoneByOne. HPXLife. Let us know. Team HPX. We'd love to see what you're doing out there.

People in productivity always ask the first question. They say, well, Brendan, how do I evaluate things? Because I'm a productive person. But you know what happens to me is I keep getting distracted or I keep. I don't know which one to do. I've got two good options. I'm not sure which one to do. I'll share with you my shorthand. I got two frameworks that help me every single time. They're like back and napkins. Things I can do that really helped me decide between two different things because I get offers all the time, as you can imagine. I'm like, it can be overwhelming. And so here's how I do it.

Future value plus L. Oh yeah. Plus bd. Okay.

This is my magical shorthand that helps me so much. The terms of any deal the terms of any deal has to be less than ROI plus FV plus L plus pd. Okay, next up.

Just checking if you're.

Here, it's a super simple one. Okay, I got option A or option B. I'm gonna run them both through this equation and whichever one wins is the one I'm most likely to choose. If they're really close, I'll run them through the second framework I'm going to show you. So the first one is easy. Time, energy, resources, money. This means the terms of any deal have to be lessened.

So in other words, what I put.

Into something, whatever I put into something has to be less than what I think I'm going to get out.

How many follow? Very utilitarian, right?

Very utilitarian value here. If I'm going to put a bunch of stuff in, I better get more out. Okay? And what I found is if I have a deal and I'm going to put a bunch of time into it, or energy or resources or money, I better get more out of it. But what my magical thing was, was the S, this is the one no one ever thinks about. And everyone screws up and they make.

A lot of decisions.

A lot of utilitarian minded people, very logical, very logical, strategic people make decisions based on time, energy, resources, money, and they forgot the S in the equation. And you have two. Think about every bad decision you ever chose versus something else. He said, I wish I wouldn't have done that. You just did not consider this thing called sanity. How much time, energy, resources, money and sanity am I going to have to.

Put into this thing?

And I really got to think about that because how many of you ever did a deal with something where it literally you had to work with someone.

Who drove you insane?

Great money, great output, but the input of my own sales, sanity, it would have driven me crazy. Entrepreneurs make this mistake, especially all the time. You don't think about how much craziness is going to go into something. You just get attracted to the time, energy, resources, money. You're not thinking about the lifestyle or the community or other things that could really shape how sane it is.

Right.

That's one thing I'm proud about with what we do with CHPC is like we make this a very sane, calming, comforting community. We step by step. It, it's not scary because I think a lot of other people, it's just easy to get attracted to things that drive you insane. And I think it's important for you all to care about your saying so. You can bring the yes okay. So whatever time, energy, resource, money and sanity I put into something has to be, this is less than sign.

I learned that in math once.

Has to be less than what I get out of it. In terms on, in terms of roi, you know what that means? Return on investment. So this is a straight one to one. Whatever I put into it, I better get that out. Investment, I better get that out. It better save me some time, build my energy, build my resources or my money or I don't want to do it. That's straight up return on investment. And then FV is where most people fail to have strategy. FV stands for future value. Never do anything just for roi. This is where they wreck kids in business school. They wreck them because we're still teaching straight up balance sheet mentality in the world. That's why our relationships are wrecked. Because we're trying to have a balance sheet scorecard with our spouse. We're trying to equate things out with our spouses.

How's that working for you?

And so we start ruining our relationships because we are trying to get that balance sheet just even. And in real life, we want future value built into deals.

I want you, if you're going to.

Do something, I want you to be.

Able to look out and say, wow.

That'S going to benefit me in 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, 4 year, 5 year. Like I can see how that moving that piece right now, that's going to be a building block that's going to serve me later on. And if you can't see that, whatever deal you're doing as a stepping stone, don't do the deal. And especially don't get trapped in the idea of thinking whatever deal you're going to do is a final stepping stone.

Because a lot of people, especially when.

You'Re starting, you're like, that deal will change my life. That's it, that's all I need.

I'll be good for life.

That means your short term survival thinking, not strategic growth thinking. When you start thinking about future value, you make very different decisions. Very, very different decisions. It makes you write different books, it makes you build different programs, it changes the way you sell, it changes the products that you build in your company. You got to go back to future value thinking, including every little thing that you do. If you hire people, don't hire people to fill in a short term need. Hire future value players. Can I get an amen on a Sunday? Right? Don't go out with somebody just because they're just there. Date future value people. Don't have short term friends just because you need to lean on somebody who's a complainer. Create friendships with future value people. Your job is to always be honoring and protecting and standing at the gates as guard and champion of your future. Everyone raise your right hand, say, my future matters. My future matters. So I have to be strategic. So I have to be strategic. The way to be productive is to be more strategic. The way to be productive is to do the things that add few future value. You got to look past the short term, go for the long term plays and the long term value will change your life then. If entrepreneurs typically suck at sanity in their evaluations, then on the other side, they always fail on the big L lifestyle. They'll take the deal because it's good time, it's energy, it's making a lot of money. It's not too crazy. It's not too crazy. I can handle it. But they're not thinking on the other side. Boy, if I say yes to that, that means I'm gonna be working 28 more hours a week. Who's ever said yes to something that made you work 20 or 30 or 40 more hours a week and you didn't anticipate it? Yeah, I've been there too. And listen, is that related to your productivity? Yes or no? Yes or no?

Yeah.

When you make decisions and you're not looking at the future value or thinking lifestyle, no wonder your short term productivity is wrecked because you said yes or jumped into something that wasn't your thing. It wasn't of your character, it wasn't who you are, it wasn't the lifestyle style you wanted to be, it wasn't.

Who you wanted to become.

And that's because you didn't take into account personal development either. You can't keep saying yes or keep evaluating things and like, well, that sounds good just because it's good. Does it serve who you want to become?

Hey everybody, it's Brendan Burchard. I'm back in the big studio and fired up about an awesome session today. We have a huge curriculum today to help you learn how to think through what things hurt you in the short term or help you and what things are really the things that are setting you up for longer term success.

I don't know about you, but there.

Was a big part of my life where I was too sort of impulse driven. You know that part of you when you're in high school or in your 20s or early 30s, that a lot of it's just like, oh, what do I think will Feel good or I want to try everything.

And you kind of, you're driven so.

Much by just in the moment decisions based on your comfort and like what your interests are that sometimes it actually costs you from building something that will give you fulfillment, from creating the lifestyle that you really want to have, from building wealth to building the right relationships, to just having sanity in your life. I don't know about you, but my 20s, there was no sanity in my 20s. My 20s were just like, go, go.

Go, go, go, go, go, go.

At the cost of health. Health, health, health, health, Relationships, Relationships, relationships like just constant stress, anxiety, fear. And at some point you have to realize that's a chance. It's a choice based on what you're saying yes to and what you're failing to say no to. And often with my highest level coaching clients, and some of you guys know I'm blessed to have multiple seven figure coaching clients who I just spend the year with. Almost always the highest level people that I get to work with, they're really struggling with these types of decisions. These are really big topics for today. Let's jump in short term versus long term. The first thing that we tend to do in the short term, and many of you guys ask me this question every single month, is we tend to value and prioritize stability. And funny enough, it seems like something we would all want, right? We know from human behavior and human motivation studies that people want safety, they want belonging, they want sustenance, they want shelter. And all these things are things of like, oh, this is stability. I know what my day is going to be like, or even if there's uncertainty there, because I don't really believe in people who perpetuate certainty because there's no such thing as having total certainty in ourselves or others if we can remain humble and open to the world. And the more that we want certainty and want to grab it all the time, the more we tend to lose the pop and the vibrancy of life and the more we're disappointed all the time because nothing is ever perfect. But what we do want is stability. Big difference, right? Certainty. I need to know exactly what's going on. Stability. There's a lot going on here, but I feel safe and secure and stable. And so this is a good thing. And often people make choices in the short term for stability. They're like, oh, well, I guess I better get a job, you know, I better, you know, be nice to this person so they don't go crazy on me. You know, these are things that we do in our life, taking a certain job, staying a certain job, treating people in a certain way so they don't leave us, so that we have a sense of stability. So it's not a negative thing. And I don't want any of these necessarily to feel like I'm saying they're all negative, but what happens is they tend to turn negative if they're a consistent thinking pattern or consistent value ethic. We have to have, and let me give you an example here, instability. And this is specifically related to you guys because you ask me about this every month. You say, well, Brendan, I'm thinking about quitting my job, but I haven't done it yet. Can you give me confidence? Or when would you do it? Or how would you recommend I, like, go into that transition? I hear that all the time for you guys in this community. Like, how do I switch careers? When do I switch careers? And the reason that we don't want to do it often is because when seeking stability. And it's scary, right? Quitting a job, leaving an environment, breaking up with a relationship. I mean, how many of you guys down below, by like a show of hands down below, if you just like type in the emoji of like, hands like this, how many of you have ever stayed in a relationship too dang long? You were in a relationship too long because you just wanted this or you wanted to please somebody who, who wanted this, and so they wanted this or you wanted this. So in the short term, you kept compromising, you kept settling for something that was less than you. You kept allowing behavior that was not right.

Right.

And that was just. You need to know that short term stability seeking things tends to really hurt us. When that short term value ethic I need stability plays out month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year. One day you wake up and you look back at the last five years and you're like, oh my God, I've been stuck in something I didn't want to be in, but I didn't have the guts to leave. And what I tell people is, you know, it's not always a lack of courage that prevented you from going though. We can talk about that. It's often that you just overvalued stability. Does that make sense? I mean, we're in a world right now where everyone says, you know, if you don't do something, well, you're a chicken, you're crap, you're, you know, what's wrong with you? You have no courage. And I'm like, it's stop just going to People's character like that, right? It's like, well, this must be wrong. They're just weak willed humans. They lack courage. And it's like, calm down guy, get off the caffeine and let's just have a conversation. Because what happens is most bad decisions you've made isn't because you lack good qualities. It's because you overvalued something for too long and often you overvalued something good for too long. Meaning often people don't leave a relationship or a bad career because all it's not. They're lacking good qualities, they're overvaluing stability. It's a short term thing they're trying to get, but it became a long term strategy. Does this make sense? So they valued stability so long it overcame other values that would have helped them have more freedom. And see, it's almost like the opposite. And that's what I want to point out today. If we keep seeking stability over and over and over and over and over again, eventually we end up in stuff that we don't ask to grow or get better. We won't rock the boat, we won't leave things because we need to feel so stable. And then that comes often at the cost of our long term value that we need to be seeking, which is fulfillment.

Right.

It's almost like there is a polarity here. I don't want to say it's like one and another. It's more like a pendulum. And what's happening sometimes for people is they're so far instability, they're not asking what would really fulfill me and what would really bring me alive, what would make me feel connected and happy. So think about it.

If you're in a place where you're.

Always seeking stability and you're making compromises for that because you don't want to rock the boat, don't want to upset people, don't want to take risk. Omg, Then you never ask the bigger question, the longer term stuff. Well, what would make me feel fulfilled? See, sometimes we need to move away from stability for moments and move towards fulfillment. And this is how I would get to this question. You always ask me about jobs and relationships in this community. And when I think about like, okay, how do you leave a job? I'll tell you exactly what I did when many of you guys know my story is becoming a writer. When I was at Accenture, which is a consulting company I worked for for seven, six, seven years, it was very stable, which is funny, what it meant was it was stable because I got A paycheck all the time, but it was not stable for my mind. It was almost like I valued the wrong thing. I valued that stable paycheck. But for my mind, it was not a healthy job. I was in 16 cities every single quarter. I was all over the place. It was working every single day for six years straight till midnight two in the morning, always being on call 24, seven, seven days a week for six years straight, while traveling Monday through Thursday through different cities into different organizations where there was no like clear mission or clear boss or clear real goals, except for like little projects. But there was no values to what I felt like I was doing. But sure, why would I make it there six years when the whole time I want to be a writer? What would bring me heart and joy would be the fulfillment of writing and coaching. Why did I take that long to leave? Because I overvalued this and I undervalued that. So I kept protecting this and not acting towards that, protecting this and failing to act towards that. And so one day I had to get real with it. And I said, okay, I gotta make the switch a little bit here. And what I decided to do is I said, I wonder if I can put myself out there as a speaker, as coach, as a writer, and I wonder if I could figure out a way that I would know that that would probably make that career. Now we just call it the influencer career. Used to be just thought leader or expert career. But I was like, I wonder if I could earn 20, 25% as a writer or speaker on the side over here. And if I could get that, just kind of do it on the side, well, then that would be just enough to meet my need for stability, but really serve my senses of fulfillment. And I could step away from this thing that I think adds stability and cause if I'm spending full time over here in this career, but I know I can see I can earn like even 20%, 30% over here. I'd be willing to leave that jump over here because if I gave my full time efforts, full time efforts over here, it would build up. And that was my assumption and my way of thinking. And I'm not making, you know, making that my recommendation to anybody here. Cause 20%, it was arbitrary. You might want 40% or 50%, you might have family, you might higher obligations, debts, challenges, more responsibilities than I did when I made that decision in my mid-20s or late 20s. But I think that's really important to hear. Often we get stuck in valuing a good thing, stability at the cost of the long term. This is the most important thing today, almost always your sense of need to feel safe, secure. Things are going good, things are predictable. I mean, it's why people won't leave. Even horrible situations, abusive relationships, terrible, unfulfilling jobs. They don't walk away because they're like, well, at least I know this, right? That old thing, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. So they stay with the devil they know. And the sad thing is, they assume everything's a devil, and they don't realize that sometimes after that transition, we can find new areas of opportunity. After that transition, when we go into new things, more positive relationships can open up. More opportunities to lead, more opportunities to serve, more opportunities to love and feel. Is there anything you have been putting up with too long? Is there anything you've been putting up with too long? Bad job, bad relationship, even for yourself. Bad habits, just because you know what they are. I'm just trying to say, in our human psychology, stability is a big driver that often keeps us putting.