Mashup: Simple Steps That You Can Take Today to Become More Capable

Capability is as much as a mindset, as a competence. Capability is self trust to take the action. It's not just do I know how to take the action, it's I'm an action taker, I'm going to show up, I'm capable to handle this, I will do this. I trust in myself to handle this. To execute, to execute again and again and again and again and again. That's capability. Capability is you can do it, you can do it every time. It is like a strength, if you will. It is something that is you are highly capable at that thing. You are at another level of skill that it shows up every single time. But here's the truth. Capability. Capability is as much as a mindset, as a competence. Let me give you an example. A lot of extremely smart people who can handle the problem don't handle the problem because they don't feel capable. It's like, yeah, I know it, but I don't do it. It's like a lot of people who achieve a lot of great things, they actually how many of you know someone who's very competent, has great skills but lacks the capability to execute? See, capability is something you know. Capability is self trust to take the action. It's not just do I know how to take the action, it's I'm an action taker, I'm going to show up, I'm capable to handle this, I will do this. I trust in myself to handle this. To execute, to execute again and again and again and again and again. That's capability. And I really want you to develop that in your heart and in your soul by checking off the simplest of things each day. By if you have a list of three to do lists, if you wrote down your three top priorities for the day, do those first. Before you do your social media, before you reply to everyone's DMs inbox, voice message text, it's like, listen, I have so many people, they spend all day just checking their email to reply to everybody else. Now that's fine if that's your job, that's customer service, do that, that's your job. But if you're an entrepreneur as an example, or you have a whole list of other priorities and you're just checking into other people's agendas all day to meet all their obligations. And you keep missing your key priorities day after day after day after day. Your brain doesn't feel like you're capable anymore. Even though you might be smart, you're competent, but your brain doesn't believe you're capable. You know what I mean? It's so important to understand this. I know if you're a parent, you understand this difference. Lots of kids can learn things and have things and have skills and abilities, but if they don't put them and apply them, they don't sense that feeling of capability. And now your smart child, your child full of strength, talent and ability, doesn't run on the field, doesn't take the action, doesn't finish the test, doesn't go for it. They don't feel capable. Why don't they feel capable? They don't have a pattern of action taking. You've got to develop the pattern of taking the action, the pattern of taking the action. Better yet, the pattern of taking the action to complete the key priorities. So all I want you to do as a daily, simple habit, every morning we do it in the High performance Planner. I write down my key priorities for the day. Do those first, get those out of the way, make that happen. Maybe that's your morning. Maybe for me, I didn't feel capable of my career for a long time because I was replying to everybody. And then I did a simple thing. I said, you know what? No phone calls till 1pm in the afternoon, my time. That leaves the morning to do the most important work. Because I do the most important work almost every morning of my life. I feel incredibly capable. Give me a task list. Give me that log is happening in the brain. Good job today. Good job today. Good job today. Good job. That consistency, that congruence, Develop the capability. Now I feel capable and I am capable because I executed, because I executed so many times, I developed a skill. You all follow. This is so important. This is so important, this capability piece. And the best part is when you get some capability, if you'll do what we talked about earlier, self reflection, you'll start to go, look what I did there. If you do what I've always taught, which is you have to integrate the wins. Integrate the wins. When you do something, take a moment and go, I did that yesterday. Here's how simple this is yesterday. After months of thinking, strategizing and planning, I created this presentation and I sent the email and it took me about two hours to pull this off. But I just decided, you know what, this has been on my big dream list for a while. I'm going to make this pitch. It's a pitch. And so I said, okay, I'm going to get it done. And I finally sent it. And I'll tell you what, I walked out in the other room Denise, like, what's up with you? I was just feeling so good. I said, we're going to have. I'm going to have a nice glass of wine with dinner tonight to celebrate. I did this. It was sending an email, but I was selling somebody like, I'll have a glass of wine every time I send an email. Yes, sure. Thank you. But here's the thing. You got to celebrate the days that you are capable when you do something good. Go. Good job. Pat yourself on the back a little bit. You have to integrate the win into your identity. If you took all of your strengths and all of your good days and all the wonderful things you have done in your life, and you really sat with them for a minute, you let them come in, you let them mentally stack where you just thought of that time. You finished that big project, you launched that thing, you got the negotiation, you won the award. You handled that tough situation at the park with the kids well. You didn't get brought into their drama. You just took some time for yourself, and you let that integrate into the identity of who you were. You would feel an internal goodness. And see, when you integrate the good of what you're doing in life, you feel good. And I don't mean that like with hyperbole. I mean you sense goodness. Again, when I sense that I'm good. Because one, in my opinion, I'm lucky to be here. My clarity says, if you are alive, have reverence for life. You're. You're a child of God. What a gift. You are so lucky. You're blessed to be here. So for me, I feel capable as a person. I feel I've been given gifts and strengths. Yeah, I had to develop a lot of them just like you did. But because I trust that I was given those gifts or those strengths or this life, I feel capable. I feel like. You ever heard that thing you can do all things through Christ, which strengthens you. You ever heard about that? It's like, oh, yeah, I'm capable because I got someone watching over me. My dad's up there, My creator's up there. Grandma's up there. I feel good. I feel good. I feel capable. Because, you know, I've done some good things. Okay, you let that come in. You let that goodness come in. Some of you haven't let your goodness shine for a while. Your vibrancy, your joy, that sense of soul or spirit or flow or femininity or masculinity, that part of you that's like this because why hasn't it gone out like that because you haven't brought it in and stored it up. See, all you've done is deplete yourself for other people without those moments of self reflection about the goodness that you're doing for other people, about the goodness you're doing in the world, about the virtues and the values you stand for. You haven't let that stuff come in and sit in like, sit like form into the cement of the foundation of your character. And so you wonder why it doesn't emanate. Why doesn't the goodness come out? Because you haven't sat with the goodness that's already within. Why doesn't the goodness spread out? Because you haven't sat with the goodness that's already there. If you knew half of how good of a human you are, the choices that you've made, to be on something like this, to raise your hand for personal development, to want to learn from other people, I celebrate that. I raise my hand to learn. When I go to a seminar or I buy a course, I pat myself, I'm like, good job, you're learning, kid. You're not done yet. And I feel good about myself as a learner. I think learners tend to be more confident than people who think they know everything, you know, because people who think they know everything are terrified that their worldview might break. Learners like, I'll adapt. I'll figure it out, right? That adaptation mentality, that learning mentality gives me confidence. I believe in my ability to figure things out. We have three big themes that we're always working towards in growth day. It's this framework that I teach that I believe is really the drives that we're all after. This is something that we are going to work on together all year. Everybody wants these three things we all want aliveness, connection, and meaningful pursuits. And these are things that I promise after you make your next $10,000 or $100,000 or you have your next child, or you move that dream place, or you get that perfect job or you start that new business, no matter how busy you get or how successful you get, these three things never go away. Our sense of aliveness is our sense of being. Our sense of aliveness is that thing that we all want. Enthusiasm, zest, pop, joy, emotional vitality, right? Vibrancy, full presence, that sense of aliveness. Each day where we feel the day where we bring the joy. These are themes. So here's what I have to ask you. What could you do this month to feel more alive? What could it be this month? Maybe it's, you get Your family together on Zoom once a week, just to feel, like, a sense of joy. If you like your family. If you don't, maybe you go take an adventure. Maybe you do more of your art. Maybe you do that creative endeavor again. You go out in the garage and you build the thing. Maybe you try something new. You challenge yourself. But also, please know what's the other side of aliveness? Well, deadness. So is there anything that's in your life that you're just like, that's just. That shouldn't be in my life. It drains your life. Drains your life. An obligation, a task that you can outsource or. Or help get some assistance with. Is there something that is just draining your energy, your good energy? If it's a person, a place, a thing, what is it? Let's think about it, okay? The last 30 days, the last 60 days, is there anything that has stolen your sense of aliveness? What is it? And how can you change that thing, alter that thing, outsource that thing, quit that thing? I mean, you want to feel more alive, you got to get rid of things that don't make you feel that way. But you have to do it in a responsible manner. We gotta find what makes us feel alive. Maybe comedy makes you feel alive. Maybe you need to dance more. Maybe it's time you put on some music around the house. Whatever you gotta do to feel more alive. That's gotta be a focus of this month. Our theme is focus. What should be our focus? How alive we feel, how present we feel, how vibrant and healthy we feel. These are things that you should plan for. These are things that you should plan for. The second thing you see, there is connection. We all want connection with ourselves, the world, other people. Specifically, after we've had everything, we want a deeper connection with self and others, right? What is that relationship that you need to improve with yourself or others or your God or your creator? What is that relationship that you could go deeper on? As an example, somebody who you know, you should set your relationship goals on the first of the month, right? So what are your relationship goals for this month? What's your relationship goal for your spouse? Or your relationship goal with your son or your daughter? What's your relationship goal with your key team members? So what are some goals you could set to deepen connections with your customers, your clients, your friends, your family, your loved ones, your spouse, the kids? Like, really think about that last up, but certainly not least is these meaningful pursuits. We all want a sense of meaning, satisfaction and engagement in pursuing something, in progressing towards something, in achieving or contributing or creating something. These are your creation goals or your contribution goals, right? Your meaningful pursuits. It's your artistic endeavor, it's your hobby, it's your passion, it's your purpose, it's your mission. Whatever it is, it's something you draw meaning from just by being in the hunt, just by engaging or doing the thing. So what are you going to do this month that you're going to find meaningful, satisfying, fulfilling? And again, what are the things you got to get rid of? They're just not tasks that you find meaningful, fulfilling, satisfying, engaging. So let's talk about focus now. So if we set our goals each month around aliveness, around connection, around meaningful pursuits, and we think about how we want to grow into those things, let's figure this out. Your focus at any given time is based on what I call three states of mind. And these three states of mind are where your mind is going at any given time, consciously or unconsciously. Very few people are aware of it, but once you become aware of it, you realize how you can regain regain your focus. For the most part of our unconscious life, especially as we're young and striving to build something and we're not familiar with personal development and we're just kind of going through the motions. Our mind, our mental chatter, a lot of our unconscious thoughts are built on protecting ourselves. Our thoughts are protectionist, right? It's you all call this survival mode. Your mind has that part of our evolutionary history that is very focused on protecting ourselves. And we protect ourselves not just physically, but we protect ourselves emotionally and mentally. And so what does this have to do with focus? A lot of people's focus without them even being aware of their consciousness. Yet a lot of their focus is always on worry, on protecting ego, on fear based thinking. All of these thoughts, this mental chatter is to protect oneself or one's things, or one relationships or one's standing and identity in the world. I need to protect my status, my ego, and my standing in this community, right? I'm embarrassed to be seen starting small because I need to protect the sense that I have strength and respect. We're protecting ourselves a lot. Why do I bring this up? You got these dreams out there. If you are not moving towards them swiftly with focus and discipline, it's because in your mind it's saying, be careful, don't go too fast. What if they don't like you? What if it doesn't work out? And in the way that you know you're protecting mindset, it always almost is this internal state of thought that says, what if? Followed by a negative statement. What if it doesn't go well? What if I don't know what I'm doing? What if they judge me? What if there's ruin? What if there's regret? What if there's disaster? What if it was better over there and I wasted my time? What if I choose the wrong thing? That's the protecting mind. And sometimes when we don't have the focus we want during the day, it's because we're scared all the time. You know why a lot of people lack discipline? Not because they don't have things they want. It's because it's easier not to do something when you're scared. It's because it's easier not to do something when all your thoughts are saying, what if this doesn't turn out well, let me just disengage. It's not that you as a human lack the character trait of discipline and hard work or commitment. It's that you're thinking thoughts are betraying you. Your thoughts are on this merry go round of doubt you follow. And that doubt sounds like protective thinking, protecting the ego, the sense of security, protecting who we feel like we should be or are, protecting our current bank account, protecting our current progress. And I'm not here to say protecting thoughts are bad. I'm here to contextualize our conversation today about focus and discipline and drive. So if you feel like you lack focus, you probably have a lot of fear. If you feel like you lack discipline, you have a lot of doubts. If you feel like you lack drive, you have a lot of discouragement. Because every time you try something, the brain goes, well, I look stupid. I better quit. This ain't working. What if it gets worse? What if it never turns out? What if. Followed by a negative statement is how our mind can trick us from being focused, disciplined and driven? Now listen. Thank God our mind has that mental chatter of protecting. It's the thing that keeps you out of going down strange places where your intuition is saying, hey, don't go there. It's what helps you protect yourself in times of crises. It activates the part of you that reacts swiftly and carefully to protect your physical being. Right? It's survival mode. Sometimes survival mode is needed when you're in real threat. But I can also share with you. I thought my plane was going to crash, and I didn't allow my brain to go into threat. I heard it go there, and I said, let me choose a different thought pattern right now. Let me turn My focus to something useful. If I'm and you all. I hope this doesn't sound metaphorical because this is real. If that plane is going to go down when I'm in it, I don't want my last minute or two to be focused on the terror of it. I grab my thoughts back and I start praying and giving appreciation for this incredibly blessed life. I start asking for my family and my friends to know I lived a happy life, for them to continue living a happy and a great life even if I'm not here. I want to be intentional with that last minute or two or three minutes, even though my amygdala is going, holy crap, this plane, the smell that's still there. But what I'm trying to encourage you is with enough time and personal development, you can override the protectionist things that take away from the experiences that you want in life. We can teach our brain we can override those things with enough time. I'm not here to say it's easy. I'm here to say it's required for a good life. That's the difference. I don't care if it's easy. I just go crazy when people say, well Bren, that sounds hard or it's easy for you. I'm like, oh, ease is not the goal. Progress is. Ease is not the goal. Consciousness is. I'm not worried about making it easy on you. I'm here to say these are the requirements of a good life. What else, where else is our brain often? Well, often in our day to day we're actually more in what I call a processing mind. Right, a processing mind. What does that mean? Well, a processing mind means it's your thinking mind. Right, it's your thinking mind. So what is that? Well, it's you just ruminating on things, thinking through things. Why did she do that? Why do I feel this way? What's next? What do I need? What am I learning here? Why did that thing happen? It's the questioning, inquisitive, curious mind that's just chugging along. It's just going. And that inquisitive mind is wondering how things are going to turn out. Or it's wondering what's next. Or it's wondering. But here's something to know. Here's something to know. This is also where analysis paralysis happens. We got any over thinkers out here? You're always just thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, studying and studying and studying. But not always taking action. Just like you're stuck in processing all the time or Some of you, something happened last week and you're still thinking about it. It's gone. It should be let go, it should be forgiven, and it shouldn't be on your mental dashboard today. You got missions to serve, people to serve, things to do today, but you're still thinking about something that happened. I was in an emergency plane ride on Tuesday. I'm not feeling it or thinking about it today other than to share a lesson with you. It's not like I woke up today thinking about it. No. Instead I said, well, that's not going to be useful, me processing that a million times and running it over and over in my mind. What is that going to achieve? Okay, it happened. Cool. What's the lesson? Great. Move on. And this is so important. Some of you are still feeling the same anger and emotion about something that happened a decade ago. And it's stealing from your aliveness. It's stealing from your connection with other people. It's stealing from your sense of meaning and joy. And you got to get a hold of that. If you got divorced 10 years ago and you're still processing it, get a therapist. And I mean that with not judgment, with Joy to recommend professionals to you. If you're still processing something that happened when you were in high school, when she broke up with you or that person and that negative thinking or that negative emotional reality is still here with you decades later, raise your hand and be proud about asking for help and getting a professional person to help you work through that. I'm not here to say that we should all be able to get over things quickly. If you've ever studied my work, you recognize I don't lack empathy or intelligence around how the brain works. I get it right. I spend my life in human behavior change. I understand it takes time. I understand it needs support. I understand sometimes you don't even know what's going on. And that's why you might need a coach or a therapist or to at least even voice it for the very first time to your friends, your family, your community. But if you're still processing over and over, replaying things from the past over and over and over again in a way that's limiting your sense of aliveness, connection, or meaningful pursuits. It's time to deal with that thing. Right? Sometimes the most powerful thing in processing is to close it down. What do I mean by that? Okay, that situation, I didn't like it, period. Didn't like it. Learn from it, period. And not drag all those emotions into today. Not drag all that feeling into today. Right. And I'm not here to offer therapeutic advice to you. I'm a coach. But what I'm here to suggest to you is that be aware of where are you stuck on something, where are you just forever processing, thinking, ruminating, because that can also spin your mind into equal deficit as much as protecting. And all of a sudden it's just like, ugh. And what I want to encourage you to do, even in those experiences, at some point, we got to shift the mind into progressing, progressing. Okay, what's the next right action of integrity for me? What's the next thing I can do to move the ball forward? What's the next thing I can say to myself to release the past and get on with it? Right. Sometimes we have to interrupt the thoughts and say, okay, what's next? Let me get this old clunky brain here into motion again. And that's what's going to give you the liveness and the connection and the progress towards those meaningful pursuits. It's like you got to take hold of mine and go, okay, what's the next right action of integrity? Like, let me switch my gears. It's why I had to fill out my high performance planner every morning, because my mind, I'm a nutty professor. I will be in processing and thinking and analytical all day. I will. I have to go, Brennan. Okay, action, progress, move it forward. Otherwise, you know what? Without progress, the mind goes a little batty. It gets restless, it gets frustrated. Now you get discouraged and sad and upset. But we need a little bit of that progress to sense that momentum. And that momentum gives us more confidence, that confidence gives us more competence. Those senses give us a little more mastery and engagement of the day. But guess what, some of you, you're in progress mode all the time and your family's like, can you take a minute to just eat your food? Can you just chill out for five minutes to be with your child? Can you just relax one night? Can you just not work till X amount? Or could you please stop putting in the 100 hour work week? Like, you know, sometimes when you're in just action, progress, progress, progress mode, we're in trouble. So all of these things, I hope you hear me saying, examples of good and bad, right? Protecting can be good, processing can be good, progress can be good. But they can also equally have their negative flip side, right? If you progress, if you're always progress, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And you don't take care of yourself, we're in trouble. So I'm hoping to draw this out to say your focus is in one of these three buckets. Sometimes it is all simultaneous. Sometimes it is one focus. Some of you live a life in one of these buckets. Does that make sense? Maybe it is like you might go. Some of you can identify a year or two or 10 years where you are just in one of these things and you never made that shift. How do we carry on when bad things happen? How do we find strength and grace and peace and in some of the most difficult situations and moments of our lives? That's a big topic today. I encourage you today to enter and frame this conversation in your own mind, to develop your own mindset and attitude towards these conversations before we even have them. Because that is one secret, in fact, to dealing with difficulties of life. To set our minds in advance, to set our intentions in advance, to think through and contemplate, how will I cope with that? How will I face that? How will I endure that? That ultimately is one of the great strengths of consciousness, of presence, of intention, of anticipation that allows us to deal with some of the worst issues of life. So let's enter this as a community positive to have a beautiful conversation. Let's do it from a perspective of knowing that we're going to deal with some unpleasant emotions that might come up. And let's face that willingly, with trust and faith and gratitude. Because I'll share one thing that's beautiful about loss and grief, and that is you only experience those things and feel those things. If you had something and you were connected to something that you enjoyed, something that you felt was important, something that was beautiful, something that was meaningful to you, and so you had a sense of meaningful connection and something maybe shifted or changed. But that was a beautiful gift. I do want to set the stage a little bit more too, because I probably have a different perspective about this conversation. And many of you have heard about, you know, and I know I got a lot of questions in advance. Are you going to talk about the five stages of grief? And no, I'm not. If you've studied Elizabeth Kubler Ross or the work or the ideals behind the five stages of grief, if you haven't heard of that work before, the idea that there's these five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I'm more of the mind of which of Elizabeth's who came up with that idea and wrote about that so compellingly towards the end of her life. She mentioned that she wished that it had never been framed as stages, because as she wrote about and spoke about towards the end of her life as a theorist and a person who had given hospice care. She thought, you know, I wish everyone didn't think there were these stages you're supposed to go through. You know, some of you, you feel like you're supposed to feel great by now. You feel like, well, I should have moved through these stages. I should be okay by now. And some of the greatest moments of grace that you ever allow yourself in life is the grace of time, right? Everything I'm going to share with you today is just by nature going to be a generic nature. Everyone will cope differently. And if you're still struggling through and you think, geez, I should be in the stage of acceptance by now, you know, I want to let you know, the person who literally came up with the idea of the five stages of grief wished it wasn't called stages because she thought everyone deals with it differently. It's not sequential. These things become circular in time. And not everybody feels all of these emotions either, right? The people who I've lost in my life, I've never yet had the sense of anger toward. I didn't have a sense of anger that that thing happened. I didn't have anger towards my father dying. And I know that might sound completely crazy to people, but that wasn't an emotion that I experienced with death, partially because of the way that I faced mortality throughout my life. Not everyone goes through all these stages, so I want to set that frame off the bat. Everybody copes differently. There's no right or wrong way to experience loss. There is, however, a healthy way to re engage life. We know from 50 years of psychological study, and you all know it inherently and innately, that there's ways that we cope that are healthy and there's ways that don't make us feel good. There's things that we do that can lead to less ability to continue on with life in a happy way. One of the most important and powerful frames I can give you for loss and grief above all else and above everything else is conscious anticipation. Conscious anticipation. Consciousness or awareness in life is so important if we're going to cope well. And what we usually mean when we speak about that, especially with loss and grief, is having the ability to anticipate that it will happen, okay, that it will happen. That if you haven't faced your own mortality and your own death yet, I deeply invite you to do that at some point. Face your mortality, your own personal mortality. Most people have never had a conversation about death in their own mind with themselves, let alone contemplating that maybe they would lose A parent one day or a sibling one day, or a job one day. In other words, in a spiritual practice, we would talk about this as a concept of awareness to impermanence. You've heard that phrase before, awareness to impermanence, that nothing is permanent. That in a lot of spiritual principles you might think of, well, what is permanent maybe is if it's God or if it's universe or it's the dao or the way that there might be something spirit that is permanent. But in the human experience, in our natural world, things are impermanent. Can you face that? Can you face that? Can you anticipate that? Let me switch metaphors for you real quickly. As many of you know, I do this for a living. I talk to groups of people all the time. I'm out on social media all the time. And I talk with so many influencers, so many people who want to be leaders and who are building up their brands and their careers, and they're shocked, shocked when someone judges them on the Internet. They get. They're amazed when someone posts a negative just mean comment. They can't believe it. Can you believe this person posted this mean thing on my video? I spent months on. On my life's work, I posted a message that's beautiful about my family, and this person attacked me. Can you believe it? I'm like, yes. Why are you surprised? It's called the Internet. Anyone ever been surprised you got a mean attack on the Internet? Well, I tell my peers all the time. I'm like, please don't be surprised. That is something that I guarantee that will happen if you are commuting, if you are driving to work or you are driving somewhere and. And you are cut off by somebody in traffic and you go into a rage about it. I'm like, you were surprised. And I know these are simple and simplistic and almost silly metaphors here, but I just want to switch your mind into that anticipatory power that we all have that when we actually anticipate, oh, this is going to happen, we are way more capable of being centered than when we don't anticipate it. I'm not saying there will not be shock. I am not saying there won't be heartache. I am not saying there won't be incredible like fear or denial or regret or sadness. But what I'm suggesting to you now is find peace with the inevitable. If we can find peace with the inevitable in advance, we are more able to cope. Switching metaphors again. I have so many. We have a lot of people in this group here who served in the military before. And as you know, I've been blessed to coach from the highest level groups in the military across all branches. And the way that they deal with what is about to come, when it is just like one of the most difficult missions or projects or tours of their lifetime, is they rehearse it over and over and over and over again in their mind and in practice and in the field. They get comfortable with what is going to be an uncomfortable, unpleasant, potentially terrorizing situation. I don't pretend that's easy. I. And that's one reason I love the military. Their willingness to do what is incredibly difficult to protect the freedoms that we all enjoy. But I will share. There's some kind of power in that. And I had that when I was a 19 year old kid and I had my car accident. It forced me to face death. Any fans here of philosophy? Anyone ever read philosophy? Well, I've never really gotten to the study of philosophy. I hope you will and you'll know chapter one in all of philosophy, almost across all philosophers in the history of the world. Chapter one, if we could generalize, says, you're going to die. Now let's talk about life. That's like the fundamental of philosophy. So I read so much, I got comfortable with the fact that I was going to lose people and there was going to be loss in life anticipation. Now, I know this does not sound really like motivating, but that's not the point here. The point is to say, can we anticipate it? When I received the call from my dad letting me know that he had been just diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, out of nowhere he woke up, was lacking some balance as he walked down the hallway. It was Mother's Day of 2009. So he woke up on Mother's Day, didn't feel good. Mom said, what's wrong with you? So I don't feel good. He's kind of unbalanced. The weeks before, he's playing golf and racquetball and bowling. He's healthy. All of a sudden something's wrong, doesn't get better. They go to the hospital. Within a few hours, he's sitting with two doctors who are looking at his blood work and then do some more tests. And they let him know he has seven days to live. And they say, you have aml, acute myeloid leukemia. There's two types of leukemia. AML is the one that usually takes the person quickly. And they said, you have seven days because what happens is Your stem cells. I don't want to go to the whole thing about leukemia, but essentially, you're creating blood that's not good and ultimately shuts down your organs. I know I could go deeper into that. But those who know what I'm talking about, leukemia, it strikes fast. And so he had seven days. As soon as he told me that, I said, okay. And I was in shock, and I wanted to deny it, and I had fear. And that comes from shock. You know, when you hear news that you didn't anticipate or something happens you didn't anticipate, you're going to have a shock reaction. And for me, I was shocked about it at first, and those emotions come in. And by the end of the conversation, though, as I felt those emotions come up, I also was releasing them because I'd already contemplated my father's passing years earlier in journaling activities of how I would think of the passing of people. And I know that sounds almost fatalistic, but, you know, have you ever heard that saying, you don't want to leave things unsaid? I was reading a book one time, it said, you know what? Contemplate the passing of people who are important in your life so that you don't leave things unsaid. So that you think of, like, wow, what if this person. What if this is my last moment with this person? If this was my last moment with this person, what would I love to say to them and communicate to them and don't leave those things unsaid. Now, I know that's difficult because all of us have had situations where someone has passed or know someone who's passed and things were unsaid. And that is incredibly unsettling. It brings up shock, and it brings up regret and it brings up sadness, which we'll talk about those emotions. But also in this moment, in the here and now, listen, none of us can take back whatever's happened in our lives, right? Whatever has happened, has happened. It is as it was, as it is. We are here. We are here now. And all we can do moving forward together as a group is anticipate moving forward. We can't. Like, this is not a thing where I'm going to try to be on a healing journey of the things of the decades past for any of us, because we all heal on our own time, in our own ways. But I'm here to say it's incredibly powerful if we can contemplate mortality and anticipate it and go, wow, what should I say to my kids? What should I say to my loved ones. Let me make sure I take care of people and treat people in ways that I don't regret and that things are set. One reason I was at peace, because my father had already said everything he'd said needed to say to me. I was lucky on that. I'd already said everything I needed to say. Now we just had to go through the process with honor and integrity and respect and love of end of life and not deny it. Face it, my dad faced it with a positive attitude. He knew it was coming. They told him, you have seven days. He's a Marine, so he made it 59 days. Good job, dad. And he fought with great, great attitude. I just couldn't believe it. I kept waiting for his attitude to sour. Never did. Couldn't believe it. He anticipated the end and he anticipated how he wanted to face it. And it was incredible. And I was lucky to witness that. And I want to let you know I've also witnessed the complete opposite in care before, been with families where it was the opposite and that wasn't right or wrong either. It is. People cope with the end of life is the way that they can. And for those of you who've cared for someone at the end of their lives, I want to let you know that caregiver guilt is something that if you are facing it or you've ever faced it, that's okay, that's entirely normal. And that you need to grant yourself the peace of knowing you did the best you could at the time with what you knew. I've had the blessing of working with a lot of medical professionals, doctors and hospice care workers who talk about this. Gosh, I wish I could. You know, we all wish we could take back time and go change things. We can't. And so today, grant yourself the peace and the gift of knowing you did the best that you could at the time that you knew how to do. They did the best they knew that they could. I wish, you know, that was the first time I've ever cared for somebody personally for months on end with leukemia. I wish I knew more about leukemia. At the time. I didn't know. I didn't know. So some things I would have done differently and dad would have done differently and my family would have done differently. We did the best we could and so did dad. And I want to let you know that no matter what you have dealt with in grief in the past, your family or others loss, losing a job, your divorce, your breakup, your loss of job, listen, you were as conscious as you were at that moment, you did what you could. And you need to give yourself grace because please listen to me, my friends. At that time, you were in shock and you were coping. And if you just need a little science from Brendan right now, let me drop some science on you. A stunning fact that when people are in shock or coping, they don't always perform at their highest level, best. Oh, my gosh. Did the performance guy just tell us that and say it's okay? Yes. I'm letting you know it's okay that you weren't absolutely phenomenal and perfect and other people around you weren't absolutely and phenomenal and perfect. It's okay if you were getting divorced and the two of you fought, it's okay if you're getting fired and you screamed at your boss, it's okay. Whatever happened, you now must go. I accept it as it was. I'm at peace with what it was. I did the best I knew how at the time. And even if you don't believe you did the best as you could at the time, it doesn't matter. Because yesterday's darkness didn't rise with the sun today. You're a new moment. You're in a new moment. Your cells are new right now. This spirit, this energy, if you take a deep breath in, that air you're breathing, that's fresh. But I wanted to let you know we're in the here and now. Take grace and connection with the moment for yourself. We've all had pain. We've all had sadness. We can allow the moment now to refresh us. A moment now to have a new feeling, a new emotion, a new sense about ourselves, a new belief about ourselves, a new faith in ourselves, a new faith in the world right now, this is a new moment. And with new moments, there's second chances. And with new second chances, there's new abilities to begin anew. But even if we don't begin anew, to allow ourselves the peace and the grace of the moment. So important, you know, if you think about anticipation being something that's really powerful, I also want to share. Acceptance is really powerful. To accept ourselves as we are now, no matter what has happened to us. To accept life as it is now, even if it's not perfect. To be in a ready state of acceptance is really powerful. To be accepting when your kids act out and they're freaking out and they're angry. To be accepting when your team doesn't get it right. To be accepting when the project falls apart. To be accepting when the video doesn't get the likes you want just to be allowing and surrendering to the outcomes of life and face them as they are. Identifying what are the controllable variables here, what's not controllable, and asking for the grace of the wisdom to know the difference between the two. There's a lot of things you can't control. Let them go. The things that you can control, you can only control in this moment. So if you didn't control it right in the past, let it go. It's now, uncontrollable now. What are the controllable factors? Living in the now will always be, always be the first sort of gate to enter, to free yourself from pain, to step back into this moment of now, to accept, to realize this is what is. Even if I didn't want it this way, this is what is. And what is is here. Okay, now, how would I like to interpret it? What would I like to do next? These are the power you think of. If you can anticipate things will happen and you can accept as is what the world is, while you also accept your power to shift and shape and control and move things around that you can. That's an uncommon perspective to come into things with, to anticipate them and to accept those two things are so powerful.