NEW SHOW! My summer and ep 1 of The Brendon Show!

And so I'm standing in front of 22,000 people keynoting their convention, and I'm about to drop down and do a handstand in my suit and then do a donkey kick into a back bridge. And I'm thinking, I'm glad I practice, but, oh, God, you know, please let me nail this thing in front of these people. Hey, everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to the very first episode of the Brendon show. This episode, we've got conversations about my summer with Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York City, a wedding, teaching the hardest seminar in the world to teach, talking to 20,000 people in the Superdome in New Orleans, and even about today, where I just did four live webcasts for three separate brands. I'm excited to be doing this new show with you because for so long, you all have asked as my podcast listeners for me to share more of a personal insight into my life, more of my personal opinions about contemporary events, about my own struggles and challenges, and growing my brand in reaching the world with my mission and message to help people improve their lives or achieve their goals. And I just haven't really been doing that over the last two years. If you're a longtime listener, you know, with the charge life, it's always been about me taking on a common problem that we all face, whether it's disappointment or fear or some other challenge to become better or more confident or more joyous or happy or loving in our life, and then sharing 35 tips about how to get better at that. And that's been the podcast. There's a problem. Here's three to five ways to get better. A new mindset, new habit, new strategy, new approach to living our lives. But some of that gone by the wayside was me. You all wondered about my life. Where do you live? Are you married? What kind of music do you listen to? What are your favorite things to do? What's your supplement routine, your moral morning routine? All these things that really, I guess I don't really share outside of my own seminars. You know, it's not like I'm fearing the vulnerability. You know, if you've ever been to my seminars or events, you know, I'm a pretty open guy about everything in life. It's just that in the public realm, if you look at my Facebook page or my YouTube channel, it's always just been about me sharing and teaching. And that's because I'm a trainer first. You know, I actually like to tell people all the time, you know, they ask, what do you do, Brendan? I say well, I'm a writer and a trainer. And they say oh, what topics? And I say, well, motivation and high performance. And that's been my work and my life's sort of mission and goals for the last 20 years of my life and then the last 10 years professionally full time. That's all I've been doing, writing and training. And whether I'm writing books, I'm now just completed my sixth book or I am training. Whether it's online or through my online courses or through my seminars or through my keynote presentations, I'm out there teaching. And I've always seen myself as a teacher. So I've been less interested in myself and sharing my own personal reflections about things and more about sharing best practices and strategies that we know from empirical research, literature reviews, my own experiences coaching some of the highest level people in the world. And it's just been about that. It's been me about sharing what I've learned and what I've seen and what I've researched and less about my own personal opinions or thoughts or routines or even habits. It's been more about best practices and research and I know that's left some folks wanting. So here you go. Part 1 Puerto Rico I just finished my book High Performance Habits at the very beginning of this summer. And if you haven't heard about the book, I've spent the last three years of my life immersed in major research project, in fact it was the world's largest study ever conducted of high performers to understand what is it that really differentiates them and what specific habits help them move ahead faster or longer over a sustained period of time than other people. And honestly, the research project nearly put me in the ground. It was such a long process. I'm sure if you're familiar with the academic research sort of approach to things, it's very exhaustive and it's very exhausting. And yet I just wanted to be the guy in my industry who really didn't just give advice from his own perspective of ideas I have in the shower, but rather I've always sought to confirm my beliefs or my strategies or what I'm learning in the marketplace through research and through validation. And so we finished that with High Performance Habits. I'll tell you more about it later. The subtitle of High Performance Habits is How Extraordinary People Become that Way. And it turned out that just six habits really shape the difference for people in helping them sustain and ultimately achieve long term success. And those six habits are the topic of High Performance habits. It comes out in September. I'll be telling you all a lot about it. But I'll tell you what the summer began with. Vacation. You know, if you finish a project anytime, you really put your heart and your soul into it, please, please, please, please celebrate. You have to schedule the time. As much as you block out time to do your work, you have to block out time to celebrate, to recharge, to recover. And so once I completed that project, which like I said, was three years of academic research, but it was Also the last 10 years of my insights and best practices as a high performance coach and really my ambitions over the last 20 years to lead to the point of that book. I said vacation and it happened to coincide with, with my wife having just sold our exercise studios. My wife's passion is health and fitness and she had built up two bar based businesses and she had worked over a period of two years to transition those businesses to other managers so that she could step away from the business and have more freedom for, you know, the two of us to kind of travel around to just kind of explore the next stage of her own life. And that also coincided with what was my 21st anniversary of my car accident that happened. You know, many of you know my story. When I was a 19 year old kid, I had a car accident and it gave me mortality motivation. It made me realize life is precious. It gave me what I felt like was a second chance in life. And it taught me that, you know, at the end of our lives we all ask questions to evaluate whether or not we're happy with our lives and the way that we lived it. And so when you have those moments of cognition at the end of your life and you're thinking, you know, am I happy with my life? You start asking questions, you know, and I found out my questions. Where did I live that I love and did I matter? So at the beginning of summer, all those things kind of came at the same time. Finish High performance habits. Wife sells the business. It's coming on my 21st anniversary. So we say, you know what, let's go to the Caribbean, which is our favorite place in the world. So we decided to go explore Puerto Rico. And we went to Puerto Rico because I had just been there just a few, I guess, months earlier, giving a speech. And I just fell in love with the people and the food and the culture and the beaches and the fun and the adventure there. So I got, my wife said, and we said, let's go down there. So we went down there and it was just unbelievable. We stayed this beautiful resort on the beach. We really wound down. Many of. You know, I read a book a week since I was 19 years old, and I never missed, except the two weeks that I was in Puerto Rico. I didn't do anything. I mean, we worked out a lot. We played on the beach a lot. We had a few bina coladas. It was an awesome time. We ultimately also went and did the world's longest zip line, which is in Puerto Rico. And it was awesome. And if you haven't yet seen it, go to my YouTube channel. And I just released with this podcast today, my first vlog ever. We just took a camera, turned it on ourselves, and we went. And when we were doing the zipline, we kind of filmed it all and just put it up, because I think it shows a different side of my life that most of you don't know about. And that's just both my marriage and the fun and the goofiness that I have in my life, if, you know, my work. You know, I'm always saying, you know, one of the biggest things and biggest breakthroughs I ever had was to learn that the power plant doesn't have energy. It transforms energy and it transmits it. And so we don't have any emotional state either, necessarily, that has to endure. We get to choose it and generate it. So I always tell people, you, you don't hope to have joy one day. You learn to bring the joy. And I tell you that lesson just because you get to see in that new YouTube video how much fun my wife and I have and how goofy and silly and playful and childish we are together a little bit. And I think people wanted to know about that all. You know, I get asked all the time what my relationship is, life, and what I'm like off stage. I'm like, well, I'm kind of a dork and I have fun. And just as you see me on stage sometimes teaching, you know, in a powerful manner, I also have that very playful side of me and that very relaxed side of me. And that happens on stage, too. But most people only see my YouTube videos or our Facebook videos now. I think we've passed now a hundred million video views across the web. So thank you all for all those likes and shares and comments because, you know, I never imagined I'd get to do this type of work with this type of reach. I mean, I just wanted to be a writer. And then as I was trying to get the message out of my books, I learned I had to train and teach and do marketing to spread the message. But I certainly could have never imagined that you all would support me to this level. And so I start this Brendan show. First one in just deep appreciation. I mean, it really hit me when we were in Puerto Rico and having so much fun, but also having time to sit on the beach and just reflect about where I was, you know, 21 years after my car accident. Just I remember sitting there and just thinking, oh, my gosh, what a blessing to have come so far, you know, from the sad and miserable upset kid to really enjoying life so much and just in a completely different place. And I just want to thank you all. The support means more than you'll ever know. And I work every single day for you. Every single day. I'm writing those quotes. Many people don't know all the quotes you've ever seen on Facebook. From me, I wrote not not only did I write that quote, but I also usually photographed the background of it or I designed the background of it. And I think that's one reason my Facebook page grew so fast. We're at some 5 million fans just on my regular Facebook page. Then I own a couple other ones that push us over 10 million followers on Facebook. And I think the growth was because people knew that was my art and my words and that I do this every day for you. I write four quotes for you every single day. That my social media is very organic and real. And all my marketing has been that way. I never had a marketing team until my 10th year in this business, so because I just wanted to come from me. And I see this as a creative act that this is me creating, and I really enjoy it. Though today, if you caught. If you saw where I'm filming this podcast, you laugh at me because it's kind of a makeshift little fort that I've set up with a bunch of wood with this fabric over it in this room in my new office in Portland, Oregon. Because we haven't set up this room yet and done all the design of the new studio. So I just came in today. Cause I really wanted to start this new conversation with you in a new, different form. So I hope you'll enjoy it. For those who are like, oh, my gosh, Brendan, please don't take away the charge life approach, don't worry if you're a longtime listener. I am still going to release every single week a new training. And that's just gonna be like, here's the challenge. Here's three things to get better at. But then I'm also gonna Release an episode like this where I kind of walk you through my life and what I'm learning and my perspectives. So there'll be two episodes every single week on the Brendon show, and I hope you'll really enjoy it. So if you want to see that zipline footage, just go to my YouTube channel and check it out. It's pretty hilarious. But there's also a moment I really love at the end of that video where you can see the appreciation I have for life because I was walking the beach on it's the 21st anniversary of my car accident, and there was a double rainbow over the ocean. It was spectacular. And on the other side was a beautiful sunset. And it just all kind of coalesced and it. It kind of firmed that I was on the right path. And I felt like I kind of took it as a sign for me to now go to a new level in my own Care. Part 2. Los Angeles, New York, the wedding, and the most difficult seminar in the world to teach. Now, full disclaimer. As you go to listen to this section, I have to tell you something. It's probably gonna sound like I'm complaining a lot and I'm not. But what I thought I would do in telling this section and about this particular week or two of my travel and my life is just show that, you know what, it's not always easy. I think people see one side of my life but don't realize that sometimes all of that travel catches up. Sometimes you get sick, sometimes you get tired. Sometimes you have to make the best of difficult situations in your life. Even when you don't feel at your best, you're still called to lead or to inspire or to serve in whatever capacity you can. And that's what this is really about. So if it sounds as I go into this section, a little bit beat down a little, struggle a little bit, oh, woe is me. Believe me, it's not the intent to say, oh, gosh, I have it so, you know, poor Brendan, he was sick on the helicopter. It's rather just say, hey, look, I want you to know my real life, and it is demanding and it is going and it is moving even when I am sick. So please listen with that frame of reference. I'm just trying to share, hey, there's struggle as much as you see the success. Shortly after our Puerto Rico trip, I hopped a plane, went down to Los Angeles where I was starting to do some interviews for the launch of High Performance Habits. And while you're listening to this, the book hasn't yet come out yet. But what happens when you write a book is you'll often be doing interviews six months to eight or nine months in advance of the book because you'll do some interviews with some podcasters and some journalists and they'll do the interview, but they'll hold it and they'll wait to release it until the book launch. And we went down to Los Angeles. But here's the deal. Maybe I had too many pina coladas in Puerto Rico, I don't know. But I got so sick after Puerto Rico and then I hopped this plane to Los Angeles. I mean, I can barely hold myself up, I'm so sick. But I've got interviews with Larry King and Lewis Howes. I'm working with the team over at Oprah Winfrey Network on our new project, a new course that we're doing. I mean, it was absolutely a crazy trip to Los Angeles and I was sick the entire time I was to be in Los Angeles, in the Beverly Hills area for just three days. And every day I was going to do some major interviews and. But I was so sick I would wake up and just. I would feel like death. But I have this morning routine where I get up and I awaken my body by doing some vinyasa flow and some qigong and some calisthenic movements. I do this mindset thing in the shower. If you've ever learned from me before. I ask myself these three questions in the shower. What can I be excited about today? What might trip me up or set me back today if I don't meet it with my highest self? So I'm anticipating what might, what struggles I might face so I can meet them from a higher vantage point when they do come up. And then what can? Or who can I surprise today with? Just appreciation, a gift, a prank, something. And so it kind of energizes me physically and mentally each morning. And yet the truth is, it wasn't enough. I was so sick in Los Angeles that I would go down to breakfast with my team. And yes, I'll admit it, for the first time ever I had coffee, you know, I'm not saying it's the first time I ever had coffee. It's the first time ever I probably told anyone I had coffee. But yeah, I had probably, you know, two or three cups a day just to get through, which I know doesn't sound like a lot to you, but imagine me on caffeine. I'm pretty friggin annoying, you know. So I had some caffeine I went and I did the Larry King show, which was just fantastic. Larry King was a huge mentor to me. I read his book how to Talk to Anybody, Anywhere, anytime, about Anything when I was in college. And it really opened me up a little bit because I was kind of. I was nervous around people a little bit before the car accident. And afterwards, I really wanted to connect with people. And so I set it as a goal to become good with other people. So I read, you know, Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People. I read every book I could on sociology. I did as much as I could in personal development to develop myself. I challenged myself to walk up to people and just talk to random people. On college, on my college campus, I went to the University of Montana, and I just really worked hard throughout college to get better with people. And I was a happy, go lucky person after my car accident because I was alive. So having reverence for life makes you kind of stand out. People were like, hey, man, you seem happy. What's up? And I tell my story. And they'd say, well, Brendan, I. A car accident, that's an amazing story. You should tell people about the three questions. Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? And that began my career. So then, you know, sitting down with Larry king all those 20 plus years later, and now he and I have done multiple, you know, projects together just meant so much to me. And to have him hold high performance habits and look to the camera and, you know, he said some very, very nice things about the book and myself. I was just beside. I was so energized from that, I didn't feel sick anymore. And then the next day, I got to interview with Lewis Howes, who does the School of Greatness podcast. A great podcast. And Louis was awesome. He and I actually had never met before. And he surprised me at the beginning of his podcast by saying, hey, Brennan, I have something to tell you. I've never really told a guest before. And I said, what's that? And he said, I'm sorry. And I was taken aback. And we said is he kind of had made an assumption about me or maybe judged me or maybe not really considered me because he just didn't know me. And it's kind of like what I talked about the opening of this podcast. It's just that I never really was much sharing a whole lot about myself. I was never trying to be the entertainer. I was trying to be the educator. I guess that's the best way I can explain it. I just want to share the best practices and the strategies with people. It wasn't about me. I know that might sound strange if you haven't engaged my work before, but if you look at my last book, like the Motivation Manifesto, there isn't a single story about me in that book at all. If you read my book, Life's Golden Ticket, it's a parable. There's no stories about me. If you watch my YouTube videos, it's really just usually me talking about challenges that others face and some best practices for overcoming them. If you go to my Facebook page, yeah, I know it seems a little facetious saying this isn't about me because there's my Facebook page with lots of quotes from me. But originally that was just built as a community page to store all my quotes. I didn't know it built into this big thing, but overall, most of my clients and customers and millions of fans around the world, they relate with the message, but they might not really know me outside of a couple core stories. And I think that's what Lewis was really kind of connecting with was, you know, hey, I see all your stuff, but I don't really know how I feel about you, dude. I literally had to change the name of the podcast to force myself into that mindset. Sometimes if you're in your own pattern, to break it, you set a structure that forces you to adopt and to change and adapt. And that's what I did by just calling this Brendan Show. But it wasn't because I'm like, hey, look at me. It was because, you know what? That will force me to share more of my real life and what's going on. So I hope that helps. And thank you, Louis, because he made a good distinction. He's like, this is gonna be really great for your people. Then the next day, I went and sat down with the Oprah Winfrey Network, and they've been long term friends. And I go out there and I give lots of advice on online marketing and especially specific for launching courses. If you didn't know, a lot of people don't. Oprah.com has online courses that are from some of the best trainers in the world in personal development, spiritual development specifically, too. And I was blessed to be asked to do one of those courses. And it's called you'd Next. Bold move. It was my first one. There's a new one coming out. And so we had just a little strategy session about that. We talked about life and videos and everything. It was just a phenomenal experience. I'll be posting a vlog about that as well, which is some really great footage. Matter of fact, the whole Los Angeles trip I filmed at vlog style as well. And we're editing that together. I'm excited to see it. Then get done with Los Angeles and hop a plane, fly out to New York City and decided to land in Connecticut to see my two little nephews. If you haven't seen that video on my YouTube channel, there's a lot on my YouTube channel you might not know. Is there? And my two little nephews, who are so awesome, they're five and eight and they're just the most adorable kids you've ever seen your entire life. Obviously I'm biased, but they're the apple of my eye and I got to spend 45 minutes with them. Just landed to say hello, see my sister's house out there in Connecticut, and then see my friends Nick Ortner and Gabby Bernstein and Jess Ortner and Alex Ortner, the whole Ortner clan and some friends for a barbecue and probably had one too many margaritas, which for me means one. Okay. And I always have this thing when I don't feel well. I always try to plan or insert something in the day to bring me back to life. You know, if you've read my book the Charge, you know that I'm always focused on activating my 10 human drives so that I can feel alive and joyous and really enjoy life. And it turns out that morning we were supposed to go from Connecticut up to New York City together. And it's a two or three hour ride, I guess. And I found out that Jess Ortner had never actually been in a helicopter before. And I'd been thinking about touring New York City in a helicopter for a while and I get this crazy idea and I thought, you know, what if we book a helicopter from here to go to New York City? Now I sound that. I know that sounds crazy extravagant sometimes, but I'd heard of a lot of YouTubers flying around New York City in these helicopters and these tour helicopters, and I thought that'd be cool to get some footage. But also this person's never been there before. And I'm always when I'm with a group of people and I'm traveling and I find out somebody has not done something before, whether it's eaten spaghetti or gone swimming or, you know, done rock climbing or done. If I just know that somebody with me traveling has not done something and I have, and I really enjoy it, I'm going to find a way to make it happen for them because I'm all about creating unique experiences in life. And also when I don't feel well, I really want more unique experiences to activate the dopamine in the brain, to feel much better. And I've been so sick. I thought this would be a cool thing to read. You know, nude for Jess, make it fun for me, get some cool vlog footage for the YouTube show. Let's go. So I arranged this helicopter to pick us up, takes us up into New York City from Connecticut. Absolutely spectacular. Beautiful, by the way. And the pilot kind of notices how much I'm geeking out and excited about this whole thing. And dips down over Yankee City. Dips down over Yankee Stadium, I should say. And right over home plate. It was super cool. And then into town. If you didn't know it, you can actually land in sort of midtown Manhattan on the riverside anyway, and bam, we're there in New York City. Jess goes off to do an interview she had at Cosmopolitan magazine, I think it was, or Cosmo. And Nick and I head into town to brainstorm some things about business, and it was just great. I love New York City. And every time I'm walking around, I started feeling that energy and started feeling better. And then I got this follow up text from Lewis House from my interview with him. And he was interviewing the next day, Bethany Mota. And he texted me, said, you know, he said, you know, was telling me about Beth. She's one of the biggest YouTubers, he said, in the world, with over 10 million subscribers and 25 million on all her accounts. I asked her what her favorite book was, and she said, motivation Manifesto. And she said she's read it like five times. You're making a massive impact. That was a text I got from Lewis. And then he shot a video with her, and she's like, hey, Brandon, I'm a big fan. Which I thought, that's crazy because I love Beth and I love what she does too. And I'm blessed to know so many YouTubers who have read my work. And, man, if you haven't seen Bethany Mota's work online, just check it out. There's a reason she's got those 10 million subscribers. She's super smart. She calls her followers the motivators because her last name's Mota and she's just a fantastic talent. And thanks, Lewis, for the follow up on that. And then I'm in New York City. I saw a bunch of friends, did a bunch of interviews, including one with my friend Marie Forleo, who. Who I just adore. I hope you follow her on YouTube as well, and saw some friends, saw some shows. We just had a wonderful time. And then from New York City, I was still sick, unfortunately. And yes, I know the margarita didn't help, but no, I was really still sick from the return from Puerto Rico. And I missed my car at the hotel. And I'll tell you, by the way, in New York City, my favorite hotel, this is not a sponsorship or ad deal. I don't do any of those. You guys know, is the Baccarat, and it's right across from the MoMA, the Modern Museum of Art in New York City. My favorite place to stay, that's where Oprah interviewed me for my book, the Motivation Manifesto, which they ran in the. Oh, the Oprah Magazine In, I think, January 2015 or something like that. I never knew that hotel was there, but that's where she interviewed me. And I remember walking in, I said, this place is awesome. And so I stayed there. But as I was leaving to go to JFK, I missed my driver and ended up being like 20, 30 minutes. And then the bellman looked at his watch. What time's your flight? And he realized I wasn't going to make it. So he hailed down the first cab, threw my stuff in. I jumped in, and he said, you're definitely going to miss your flight, but you might be able to make it. So hurry, go. Cab driver takes off. And I start texting some people in case I'm going to mix the fight. And probably about 20, 30 minutes later, I look up from my phone. I realize I'm drenched in sweat. It's, you know, whatever it was 80, 90 degrees, super humid, and I was sick. And all of a sudden I feel like I'm going to pass out. So I roll down the windows. I realize I'm dehydrated. I don't have any water in the cab because it was just. Literally just jumped in. And I asked the guy to turn on the air conditioning, and the air conditioning didn't work in the cab. And so we've got the windows down, we're driving. And it took about two and a half hours to get from where we were at in Manhattan to jfk. You've probably been in that traffic before. If you haven't, it's terrible. And I was so sick that halfway through, I was literally starting to see things. So I called the airport and I said, do you guys have, like, a hospital or an infirmary or something? I'm. I think I'm going to show up in bad shape. And so when I Got to jfk. I had to get treated and, you know, have an IV bag put in me and just get some electrolytes back in me, I guess. And I was. I was hurting. Hop a plane, fly from New York all the way to Sacramento, California, where a member of my wife's family is having a wedding. And so I literally land, take a walk with my wife around where she grew up. I'm sorry, around where her parents were, go to bed, wake up, and we go to this wedding in the afternoon right outside of Davis, California, in this agricultural area. And I'm in a suit, and it is hot. It's 90 plus something degrees, super dry. And I mean, just had heat stroke 24 hours later. And now I'm, you know, standing kind of in the dirt in this field with a suit and it's baking hot. And. And sure enough, about halfway through the wedding, the wedding happened. And then, you know, we're all eating afterwards and I get up to go get a plate of food and I just get dizzy, and my wife kind of almost catches me and says, you know, are you all right? And we had to leave the wedding early because it was, you know, my second bout of heat stroke in 48 hours. Go to bed, wake up, fly down to San Diego to teach Certified High Performance Grade Coaching. We call it CHPC for short, Certified High Performance Coaching. It's one of the most difficult seminars in the world to teach because it's just me as a single trainer up on stage, training for five days straight. A very complex curriculum and a very difficult dynamic to facilitate over five days to make sure that the people who walk in can walk out and perform at the top levels as high performance coaches. And it's just a difficult one to pull off. Well, I land and go to my hotel room, meet up with the team, go to look at the presentation over the evening, and my computer doesn't work. Somewhere between New York City and San Diego, the computer crashed, doesn't work, there's nothing on it, can't get it. End up going to the Apple store, try to have them fix it, nothing. And I know this is. That might be that part where you're like, oh, my gosh, Brennan, you're on a bad role here. And I'm not complaining, believe me. I'm so blessed that I get to do this work. I'm just sharing. Stuff happens when you're serving your mission. Sometimes you get sick, sometimes the computer crashes. And there I am at night, right before one of the biggest events I have of the year, where people pay over $10,000 to be in the room to get certified from me. And it's a difficult situation. So what do you do? Be patient. I always say, if you have a large or a big mission, anticipate chaos. And when it strikes, be centered, be cool, be calm, be patient. Doesn't mean I'm always that way. But even my team on this one was like, wow, you were really calm throughout that. Because I had to remake the presentation that night for that first day. And I just thought, you know what, it's just one more challenge I'm being faced with right now. I don't know why, but I always believe that in our struggles and our difficulties, the universe is conditioning us for something. We might not know what it is. And I certainly didn't know because then the next morning I go down to the seminar and I hop up onto stage and we do the mic check and everything I say to the team, I said, it feels a little warm in here. Haven't they been running the air conditioning? Because we keep the rooms really cool because we're doing so many dynamic processes. We're standing up, we're interacting with, we're in groups. Room gets really hot, so we keep it really cold. So when we start jumping or getting exciting or doing role plays, it doesn't overheat people. Well, anyway, I'm like, it's really warm up here. Come to find out that just almost as we were starting that morning, the hotel's air conditioning goes down. You can't make this up somehow. I am getting challenged with heat stroke and not kidding, for the next two days, it's 78 degrees on stage, which might sound pleasant outside, but if you're in a suit and you're working a 33 foot stage, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You're projecting with all the energy that you have. The output of energy on stage for me is extraordinary because I want to maintain a certain level of passion. But I've also had a trainer come in and strap one of those heart rate monitor machines around me and kind of monitor me at my events just to see, you know, what I should be eating, how I should be stretching, how to maintain optimal energy. And when we put that heart rate monitor machine, we found out that I'm basically each day of my seminar burning the equivalent of running a marathon. So it's as if I'm running, you know, 26 miles a day while I am on stage. It's that amount of output of energy. I have to eat that much. I Have to condition myself in just the right way. Well, imagine doing it at 78 degrees on stage, just cranking, trying to hit your marks. And guess what, you've already had heat stroke a couple times. You know, so I just thought, why am I being challenged with all of this heat? Luckily, my audience was patient. The hotel figured it out. And, you know, I've just, I've always figured out you have to adapt. So we adapted. I'd go off stage during breaks and take my shoes off. And we had a, you know, big, two big five gallon drums of ice that I put my legs in backstage just to cool me off so I could get back up and serve at the highest levels, you know, at nights at all my events. If you didn't know, I go and do ice baths every night before my event starts and every night of my event and then two nights after my event to knock out all the inflammation in my body. Because when you're standing up there in a suit and you're moving back and forth, you're in dress shoes, it's really hard on your body. Especially when you do this three, four, five days, you, you're jumping, you're getting the audience clapping. I mean, it's very, it's a hard workout. And so every night I'm ice bathing, full body ice bath to knock out all the inflammation. It also has a sided wonderful benefit of helping me sleep well. Like if you have an ice bath towards the end of the day and when it's time for bed, man, you're out. You sleep all the way through. At least I do. Please consult your physician or your doctor if you decide to do an ice bath. And never do an ice bath without being monitored by somebody who knows you're doing ice baths. So if you, you know, conk out in there, you know, somebody can help you, make sure you don't just do ice baths out of the, like out of nowhere. I train to do ice baths and I've been doing them, I don't know, seven, eight, nine years now, I think. I can't remember when I really started them very judiciously, but I finished my event, I go up to my room, I stretch out for 15, 20 minutes, very rigorous stretching out. And then I put a bunch of epsom salt, about 8, 8, 9 cups of Epsom salt into the bath, run it about halfway, dump in five gallons of ice, run it up the rest of the way, get in, freeze up a little bit, and then put in another five gallons of ice, freeze a little bit, meaning I kind of Shake quite a bit. And then when I calm down from the shaking, I put in another five gallon of ice. I might put anywhere between, you know, 15 to 25 gallon buckets of ice full into the ice bath. So much so that when I'm laying in there, there's. Even after 12 minutes in the ice bath, there's still a layer of ice kind of still there that has not melted when I get out. It's that type of preparation for my events that have made them all possible. It might sound crazy to you, but I do eight of these a year and I want to be doing this until I'm 100 years old. This is my mission. I know, this is my work. And so I prepare the best I can for all these weird situations like I'm describing to you, you know, so that when it does happen, I'm sick or there's heat stroke or there's something going on. I've got routines to get me back in my game. And luckily I got back on my game. It was a five day phenomenal experience. If you're ever interested in doing what I do or what many of our clients do as certified high performance coaches, just write us@supportrenden.com we'll send you a link about our next upcoming certification. They're awesome programs. It's kind of the world's most elite coaching training by far. We've been blessed to now, through us and our network of coaches, deliver over what I think it's 30, 40,000 sessions and the average satisfaction rating of a 9.3 out of 10. It's an unbelievable. It's probably the most empirically validated, tested, brilliantly built curriculum. And I don't say that just because it's me. I've had a lot of support in building that curriculum over the years to make the, the. It's the world's number one high performance coaching certification, bar none. And I'm really, really proud of it. But after going through that experience, I honestly, I was kind of like, why am I being challenged so much with all of this heat exposure? And then I found out the reason. New Orleans Part 3. New Orleans, the Superdome. This is why I was being trained, because it's hot in New Orleans in the summer, you know, now we're talking about July time frame and the keynote at the Beachbody convention. You probably know Beachbody through their brands like P90X with Tony Horton or Insanity or Shalene Johnson's Turbo Fire Turbo Fit Pio. Just an awesome, awesome organization. Well, they got, you know, 20,000 plus of their coaches in New Orleans at the Superdome where the Saints play. I mean, so cool. And the Superdome seats over. You know, I think it seats like 90, 100,000 people. They kind of spliced it in half with a huge curtain, set up this ginormous stage. And I'm going to be speaking to 20,000 people. A lot of people don't know I keynote conferences that large because they come to my seminars and they see our seminars, you know, anywhere between 500 people, 2,000 some people. But, you know, this is big. And I've done a couple of these arenas and stadiums and convention centers, and I absolutely love keynoting those types of things. But I tell you the story, because on the way over, it's super hot and super humid, and I'm sweating. Yeah, it's hot and I'm super sweaty, and it's super humid, and it doesn't really bother me. And I thought, wow, as soon as I get in the hotel, I start talking with people, say, whoosh. Sure is hot and humid here. And I'm like, huh. I don't seem to be bothered. The next morning when I get ready to go and kind of sort of check out the Superdome just to get there in advance and see what it's going to be like. I walk all the way there. I'm fine. Everyone else, it's hot here, huh? And I'm like, huh. And it turned out that all that heat exposure, I think, was just training me so that when I got there to the big show, I was good. My body was adjusted. I know that sounds so crazy, but maybe all of that turmoil and all that sickness and all that challenge was just readying me so that when I got to the biggest stage to deliver that year, I was fine. I was comfortable, I was cool with it, and I was so never look at your struggles and think that they're just so awful. Maybe there is a reason you are being tested or prepared for a bigger opportunity. I'd also love to tell you a little about what I did at that speech, which is a good metaphor for challenging ourselves. And that metaphor is that, you know, we have to learn to push ourselves and challenge ourselves more than even life is challenging us. And what I mean is, you know, if the greatest challenges you're facing in your life right now are the challenges that life threw to you, then I just have to say you're not yet living fully consciously. Because what happens is if the biggest challenges we face in our life are the ones the world tossed at Us, then we're just kind of living reactionary. You know, we're in reactive mode, just kind of pivoting and driving our life based on what life is putting in front of us, instead of saying, you know, we should be the ones who challenge ourselves the most. And people always say, weren't you nervous in front of 20,000 people? And I'm like, oh, yeah, absolutely. But backstage, I've taught myself that those nerves and that energy is to be used to serve. It's just readying energy. That's all it is. Some people, you know, label it as anxiety. I label it as readying energy. It's preparing my whole body, my spirit, my soul, to be attentive, to be focused, to be energized so that I can serve at the highest levels energy, especially in these big audiences. But the metaphor I want to give you is how I. What I did at that speech. Now, the truth is, I've been doing this long enough. You know, this is my 10th full year full time as a writer and trainer and speaker and coach, where that's all I've done. I mean, literally every day, that's all I do for you guys. Well, it would be very easy to just go out and do my regular keynote for everybody. I mean, I got no problem. I can walk out right now and, you know, speak for as many hours as you need me to, because I've just been doing this so long. But I challenge myself. I always say, with an audience first, I get to know every. You know, get to know what that audience is all about by asking the event coordinator a bunch of questions, interviewing a bunch of people who are going to be in the audience, talking with the senior leadership team, just consuming so much information about the organization I'm going to speak to, so I can really tailor the talk and the messages. But I also always challenge myself to do something to gain so much connection with the audience, because they know I'm with them. And in this case, this is, you know, 20,000, basically fitness coaches. So what I decide was I text Tony Horton from P90X and Shalene Johnson, and I text them both, and I said, hey, you know, I'm keen to enter the convention. Tell me, what's the most difficult move you guys do in your workouts that people struggle with? Because I think I want to try to do them on stage and pull it off, because I think the audience would go crazy. So Tony Horton says, well, you know, if you could pull off a donkey kick, they'd be blown out of their mind. And Chalene says, well, if you could do a pile flip, they'd be blown out of their mind. I said, great, I'll do them. And so they sent me some links on YouTube to watch how to do them. And if you don't know what those are, if you haven't done P90X or if you have a quick reminder, a donkey kick is basically. You basically do a handstand, kick out your back leg, kick your legs up, kind of like in a Y shape. Then you kind of land plank position, and then you thread your leg through and stick it up. Okay. And then piyo is you'd be in a plank position and you would kind of, I don't know, go into a bridge. You'd swing one leg over, go into a bridge on one hand. And I'm sorry I can't describe it better than that because I'm such a visual guy, but I said, okay, that's what I'm gonna do. So then I got on stage. You have to imagine in 20,000 people. And I was terrified this thing wasn't going to go right. So I prepared. When they sent me the videos, I started doing it in my kitchen, and my wife would come over and I said, I, honey, check me out. See if I knew this right? And she kind of corrected me a little bit after she watched the video. I tried a bunch more times. I felt like I got it pretty good. Then I flew. When I was down in New Orleans, the night before the speech, I went to the gym, and I just tried this move over and over and over in the gym, and I tried it in every variation so that if I did the handstand and I went too far and fell over, here's how I would recover. If I fell to the left, here's how I recover. If I fell to the right, here's how I recover. If I did the bridge and I didn't get my leg right, here's how I recover. And I just practice, practice, practice. I went up to my room, then I rehearsed the whole thing again in my suit, like two or three, four times in the suit just to see do the pants split. You know, you don't want your pants splitting in front of 20,000 people. And so I practiced, practice, practice. Then when I got to the event venue, Tony Horton and I were in the. In the green room together. And I said, hey, man, I'm going to do that thing. He says, you're really going to do it? I said, yeah. I said, can you watch this? So I did it. A couple times in front of him, he gave me some course corrections. Then I went and did my rehearsals and I did it on stage to practice it a couple times. I could see people looking around like, why are you gonna. You're crazy to try this. And then by the time I went out on stage, I remember that the way that I kind of teed it up was I was telling the audience how much I love hanging out with Tony and Chalene. And, you know, I love hanging out with. Because you just never know, you might be walking along with them. And all of a sudden, bam. And I went down to my hands and did the handstand, did the donkey kick, the pass through the thread, the needle flipped over to the bridge position to pile flip. And the audience went absolutely bananas. And I mean, I can't tell you how many people afterwards came up to me, said, that was crazy that you tried that in front of us, because that's the moves and that's hard moves. And I'm not the most coordinated guy in the world. But I tell you that story because no matter what your art or your craft is, you have to challenge yourself to extend it and to take risks at it. You can't wait for these times to grow. You have to take a look at what you usually do on a regular basis. And you have to challenge yourself to take a risk, otherwise you'll never grow. I mean, truly, any speaker, coach or speaker would have said, brendan, you are crazy. Why would you try that? If you fall over, you might hurt yourself. A million ways to say, and a million reasons to say, brendan, don't do that. But I've always prioritized taking risks in my career, whether it was when we started our YouTube channel. Travis's idea is he said, let's do a black and white video. And we did it, and we both liked it. And I said, let's launch our YouTube channel with Black and white, just sitting down, talking direct to the camera. No other editing, no fancy cuts, just problem. I'll give the solution and I'll do it extemporaneous, and we'll do it in black and white. There weren't a lot of people doing extemporaneous speaking direct to camera. Certainly not in the personal development world. And definitely not black and white, and definitely non edited, just beginning to end. One cut, one take. It was difficult, trust me. And we launched with that because it was hard and it challenged me so much, I can't even tell you. So what are you doing right now? What's real important for you to get better at. And here's the thing, there's a lot of things it's not important for you to get better at. It's actually not critical for many people to get better in their marriage because their marriage is going fine. It's not critical for them to make more money because maybe they're doing okay in the business. It's not critical for them to be a better leader because they could hire maybe another manager. It's not always critical for us to grow. And that's what we have to realize. We have to give ourselves necessity, performance necessity to challenge and grow ourselves. And when we do that, not only do we get better at what we do, people recognize it, just like they did in New Orleans and people freaked out in the Superdome because I did something they knew was taking a risk. Part 4 Burning the Midnight Oil Everything I've shared with you in this first episode of the Brendon show has happened in the last couple of weeks. And I hope that by sharing some of this you get a little insight into my life. I mean, it was, it was a wild one. Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York, a wedding, five day seminar, my computer crashing. I'll tell you more about that later on. You know, speaking to 20,000 people. And then today, I woke up this morning at 6am I did my regular movements in the morning. What I do is I get up, I drink 20 ounces of water, I go downstairs, I do about 15, 20 minutes of vinyasa flow, qigong and calisthenics to open up my body. I ask myself the questions, I sit down, I plan and prepare for the day. Then I came down to our new office in Portland, Oregon. Just my kind of dream office that I've leased out and I just absolutely adore it. And I'm hiring 30 people, 30 creatives in the marketing kind of world and in the social media world to help me even grow my brand bigger and set up this kind of makeshift little podcast area and then spent the rest of the day doing four live broadcasts for three different companies. And so these companies I have partnerships or contracts with where I do live training for their people and get compensated for it. And I remember thinking today as we're doing them, four of them, and they're all an hour long each, they're all extemporaneous and there's a lot of expectation on them because obviously I'm being compensated for these things. And I'll tell you that, gosh, I remember in 2009 or 10 when we started doing live broadcasts, I Think maybe it was 2010. It was such. It was an early time and only the early online marketers were doing live broadcasts. I remember we did one that at the time in 2011, it was the highest earning live broadcast of all time. And, you know, so we, we've been doing those for a long time, but I've always charged for them and I only did them for our highest level elite clients. And then it was like, okay, now it's, it's a medium you can do on your phone with Facebook or YouTube Live or Instagram Live even. And actually, even yesterday we did a Facebook Live and an Instagram Live simultaneously, which was an absolute blast to get that feedback from the audience. But today was getting paid for it, so it had to be on. So I did an hour each. So I do it an hour, have a break for an hour, do an hour, have a break for an hour, do an hour, have a break for an hour, do an hour, have a break. But so much expectations and last minute changes that are always happening. So a big shout out to my team for really supporting that process to allow me to be on my game, to focus on the teaching and the curriculum. And then we wrapped everything up. We communicated with all teams. My team has left. And here I am now back in this goofy little booth that I've created. And it's just after 12:30 in the morning. It's 12:30am and I'm still going to, you know, still going. And I'll finish up this this evening and it'll be a very productive day. And I just shared that because, you know, I just couldn't wait to do this episode. I could have done it tomorrow, but I thought, I want to get this done now. I've been speaking all day. I'm fired up. But most importantly, man, our people have been asking this for a long time, and I'll share the truth of it. My own concern here late at night thinking about this is I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know if you guys care about episodes like this at all. I hope to share in the Brennan show my experiences and my takeaways and my lessons learned of my own life, maybe some of these journeys. You hear about how crazy it is to be a speaker and trainer these days. And I'll share some insights about my business and my brand. We'll talk a lot about my upcoming book launch, high performance habits. I'll really just give you an insider view of what we're doing, how I prepare, what goes on But I just wanted to this first episode be like, here's my summer. I have no idea if you care, But I do know this, that I'll continue releasing another episode each week where I do just take on a topic that you guys asked me to talk about and train on it. And then these ones, I'll share more of my own personal opinions, as I said. And I hope you enjoy it because I can't tell you how much it means to me to do a good job for my audience. You know, I've spent the last 20 years conditioning myself to be able to do all this. You know, the reason I can do these interviews and do these big presentations and these big seminars is because I've trained for it. I wasn't a natural speaker. I wasn't a good communicator. I was none of those things. I just. I lucked out. I don't know how to describe it. You know, you'll see the gratitude I feel when you watch that video of me on that beach in Puerto rico Having my 21st anniversary at the accident. I feel so grateful to get to do what I do because I have an incredible reverence for life. I really believe I was given a second chance to do this work that I was supposed to tell the world to. Be thoughtful about how you're living your life and be intentional because at the end, you will evaluate yourself. And I hope that that still comes across from what I'm doing. As much as I'm rattling through all these cities and experiences and lessons that I have in life, it means a lot that you guys enjoy this and that you spread the message. So I just asked. Let me know what you think of this. You know, go onto my Instagram Brendon burchard or my Twitter Brendon burchard or any of our Facebook pages. But most importantly, maybe go onto itunes and just leave a comment and tell me what you think of this new Brendon show format. Do you like it? Not like it so much. What do you think? Because I'm going to learn how to do it with you. The truth is, this isn't the perfect conditions. I would have rather have waited to have this perfect office set up and get everything ready. But I thought, you know what? I've never been the perfectionist, and I don't even believe in perfectionism because I think people who get caught up into that, they miss out the bigger picture because, look, if they were at least accurate, they know that the base of being a perfectionist means to perfect something. And you can't perfect something until you release it, see how it does, and then start making it better, perfecting it. And so that's why I'm looking at this. I would rather had, you know, a fancier way of doing this today. But I thought, let's just go and it's 12:30 at night. I'm thinking, you know what, I'm going to put it out there, see how it does, and then I'll get better and better and better. I've gotten better on stages. I got better at my seminars. I gotten better as a writer, hopefully. And I'm getting better at doing this, too. So give me any comments, any feedback, I would take it and be so appreciative. But a couple things, I know our longtime listeners of the Charge Life, you're worried that's going away. It's not. But also, I want to tell you there's another commitment to that too with the Brendon show, and that's this. You'll notice all of my podcasts, all of my YouTube and all of my blogs. I've never sought or ran ads or sponsorships from anybody else. I've never accepted paid endorsements and I've never run ads during these podcasts, YouTube or blog posts. And it's not because I have anything against advertising or getting advertisers or doing sponsorships. It's just that I always, I just made an early decision in my career. I said I'm going to self fund everything that I do for my audience because I'm the guy that when I listen to podcasts and someone's got an ad going on about, you know, whatever they're running ads on, you know, mattresses or underwear or the newest software thingy, I just skip them. And I wanted to be a place for you a little in this little corner of the world where you're not getting advertising in your ear through these other companies that you can have a place for personal development. So you're in your own reflection. It doesn't mean that I don't need your support. It doesn't mean I won't talk about my own seminars or my own books. Because, you know, it's only through your support of my books and my online courses and my seminars that I could possibly even afford to self fund all of this. But it's been your support over the years that has left me committed to doing ad free podcasts. So that's why I have to ask for you to support this. Because if you share what I'm doing here and you Say, hey, listen to Brendan's life. I mean, that will help if you say, Brendon's got a new show, that will help. Because the more people who subscribe, the more the odds are that not only will I get my message out there that maybe someone will read one of my books, and then it becomes, you know, easy for me to sustain the commitment to keeping the Brendon show advertiser free again. It doesn't mean that won't change someday, but certainly not anytime this year or anytime in the near future, because I'm very dedicated toward just serving you all and being here for you. You've been here for me, you know, over the last 10 years doing this career. You know, I've had major accidents and injuries, broken bones. I have many of. You know, I had my brain injury in 2011. That was a very significant, difficult thing in my life to overcome. And it was only through the love of my family and my wife and you all cheering me on, who knew about it, that I got better. I wrote about that in my book, the Charge. And I just. I'm deeply appreciative for you. You know, I'm this kid from Montana who had an accident and wanted to live a better life. And in seeking to learn how to live that better life, I learned some things. And I feel blessed every night to go to bed knowing that I got to learn some things and improve my life and that I'm amazed still that people are curious about my life and amazed still that people would listen for me to share my journey. And I've tried to back it up with a lot of the research and the best practices, but nonetheless, you all keep listening. You all keep listening and you all keep supporting me, and I never forget it. So as I end this first episode of the Brendan Show, I have you in my heart. Take comfort. Somewhere in the world there's this kid in the booth a little after midnight thinking of you. So I end the Brendan show, episode one, with thank you.