Striving in Chaos: Pit Stops

What's up, my friends? Hey, it's Brendan. And I hope that you're doing well, your family is safe, healthy, positive, optimistic, strong through this continuing crisis and lockdown that we have. And today in this series I'm calling Striving on Chaos. I want to help you really think about a new way to manage your energy throughout the day. It's a super simple tactic, a very simple thing that I think will really serve you all. So big shout out to everybody out. First and foremost in our community, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for being role models. Thank you for being servants during this time. Thank you for, despite all the reasons to blame, complain, whine, you are managing the chaos by staying centered, by staying strong, by being optimistic and of service to other people. Because we all know in several months from now we're going to look back and either we're going to be proud of our behavior and our mentality now or, or not so much. And we also know that, hey, you know, people are watching right now. They're seeing how you're reacting to this. Your team, your family, those who you saw, you know, you serve and love, they're watching. And I think, you know what, show them what's possible. Practice what you preach. You know, if you've been in a personal development for so long, please, please, please, please, please practice what you think. I think it's very important. What's written on my cap says live love, matter. That's my mantra for many of you. Know, from my car accident I learned the end of my life. I'm going to ask those questions of did I live, Did I love, did I matter? And that first question of living life, I really want to talk about that right now because in all this chaos and stress and overwhelm, it's really easy to be like burning the candle at both ends. I know some of you are homeschooling right now. You know, so many of us have teams and businesses we're concerned about and it's a real challenge right now to not finish the day and crash out completely exhausted, wiped out, tired, overwhelmed. And so I thought I'd share a simple idea with you today. And that idea is what I called performance. Pit stops now. What does that mean? Well, listen to this stat. The world's largest study that's ever been done on productivity, which was a productivity app, measured millions and millions of people's productivity throughout the day and their self reported ability to stay focused, to achieve their goals, to get things done each day that found that the highest, like achieving Most productive people tended to take a break every 52 minutes. Now, if you study any of my work since 2007, I've always taught to take a break every hour, preferably at 50 minutes. Now, the odd thing is, that wasn't my research that I did. It was just like, oh, I felt that change when I started every 50 minutes, taking a little bit of a break from whatever I was doing and, like, releasing the tension in my body, setting intention and kind of starting over kind of on the hour. And here's what I discovered late years later. The world's largest study in productivity and high performance found the same thing. One study found it was every 52 minutes. The other one found it was like, every 49 minutes. So what does that mean? It means that we could take that idea, really use it not just for our mental ability to produce and get things done, be productive. But, y', all, you can use this for your energy. You know, I always. I call it a performance pit stop. Because, you know, if you ever watch watch cars racing, they don't need the pit stop. They could actually just keep going. But if they keep going, they're going to burn out the motors, they're going to tear down the equipment, they're going to burn that rubber, and all of a sudden, like, they're not going to win the race. But by taking the pit stop and doing a preemptive energy break, preemptive maintenance, what happens? They can go for that long haul at top speed. Now, if you just went top speed the entire race, you'd completely fall apart and wreck. However, by the pit stop, giving your chance to, like, maintain what's important, check in on yourself, re energize yourself, recharge yourself, set new intention, clear the mind, and go. You win the long haul. I call it a performance pit stop. So what does that look like for me? Every 50 minutes? Many of you all know, with me, a long time, every 50 minutes. So when I sit down, when I sit down today, I set a timer. 50 minutes. At the end of 50 minutes, when it goes off, I stand up, I drink water, I close my eyes, and I bounce in place. Not jumping up and down, just kind of lightly bouncing from my knees, just lightly bouncing in place like this. And I take 10 deep breaths with my eyes closed. Couple simple things there. One, I'm closing my eyes because a lot of your fatigue during the day, your mental fatigue is actually visual fatigue, especially with all these screens we're looking at all the time. Second, I am bouncing in place just to move my Lymph, just to oxidize the body and the brain, just to get the blood pulsing a little bit, move the lymph around third. As I'm doing that, I'm often repeating a mantra in my mind. As I'm taking those 10 deep breaths for me, I repeat the mantra of release. So I'm releasing tension from my body. I'm oxygenating my brain. I am closing my eyes and just resting them. Then after that, I might hit the ground and do like 10 vinyasa flows right, downward dog, up or down, back up, downward dog, up or down. I might do like 10 of those. I'll go refill my water, drink it again, refill it again, come back, set it down. And before I go back to the computer or I go back to work or go back to whatever activity I was doing, I then ask, okay, what's my intention for this next hour? So if you read my book High Performance Habits, you know, we call this release tension, set intention. Okay? Release tension, set intention. And so I do that every 50 hours. Release tension or set intention. It's just a performance pit stop. And for those of you who think that sounds silly, it's only because you've never tried it for a full day. Once you try it for a full day, you'll never go back because you'll be like, oh, my gosh, I'm ending the day with as much energy at 9pm as I had at 3pm why? Because you were recharging throughout the day. The reason you're wiped out at the end of the day. You can't blame the kids because lots of high achievers and high performers have kids. You can't blame the business or the employees because lots of businesses out there. You can't blame life itself. Instead, you have to look at how you are managing your day. And so I hope this serves you. Little pit stops throughout the day, y'. All. And all of a sudden you'll find a renewed energy. And isn't that so important right now for taking a mental break throughout the day? And this applies to everybody. Hey, if you're at home right now and you're homeschooling, you're with the kids all day, you know what? When they're doing something, go in the other room, close your eyes for just like 15 seconds. Bounce in place, refresh your brain, Be like, okay, my intention is to go out there and not kill them. Here we go. And go back at it. You know what I'm talking about? I'm teasing a little bit, but I Think you realize the value of that pit stop, that pause, that reintention, it will absolutely change your life. You'll be like, wow, I can't believe how energized I feel right now. And that's the secret. Everyone's like, how do you have so much energy, Brendon? I'm like, well, I practice high performance habits but most importantly, I am recharging throughout the day. So I start my morning, as many of you know, with a rock solid morning routine to get myself in a good place before I deal with family, before I check my messages, before I do social media and news and stuff. I get my body in a good place by opening up my meridians, doing some qigong, opening up, just doing some Yoga for about 20 minutes or I'll read for about 20 minutes. I'll plan and think about the day for about 20 minutes. And everyone says, is it 20 minutes every time in each of those? Sometimes this might be five or ten, but every day those three things happen. Stretch, read, prepare the day, then go at it. Then I tend to work in those 50 minute blocks. So at the end of 50 minutes I do my performance pit stop. I stand up, drink the water, bounce in place, close my eyes, repeat the mantra, release, maybe do a few stretches, get some water, come back, ask what's my intention for this next hour? Go. That's all day. And that has completely transformed my life. The other performance pit stop I do is usually for me, right around that 4, 4:30 timeframe, I'll do a 20 minute release meditation. That's where I'll actually lay on the ground, close my eyes, set my timer for 20 minutes and just repeat the mantra release, release, release over and over and over again. And then at the end of meditation, sometimes during that I might fall asleep or nap. That's why I have to set a timer for 20 minutes. And then I'm up and it's like now it's 4:30 or five and guess what? Day two starts. It's like I have a whole recharge now I'm ready for the rest of the evening. Being present with my wife, being able to do my creativity, my writing, my lives with you all, whatever I have to do. I'm re energized. So I just want to share that quick idea with you all because I know what's happening right now is a lot of people during their breaks or during their downtime, if they have any, all they're doing is consuming. They're looking at the news, they're looking at social media. And so their eye strain continues. They're not moving their body, they're taking on and they're consuming stress and overwhelm and new things and new things and new things. And if you're constantly during your breaks or during your time off, absorbing negative news, absorbing the judgments of other people, absorbing comparison, no wonder your brain is completely wiped out by the end of the day because you're already busy with the kids, you're already busy with the opportunities, you're already busy trying to move your life forward. And then you take in consumption of negative comparison driven and judgment driven things. That's why you're wiped out. So I hope this serves you. Performance pit stops every 50 minutes, my friends. It's just the simplest little thing I do that has kept me high performing for 25 years. I mean, think about that. You know, in 25 years, even when I've been sick, even when I've not felt well, even when I've been through the most tremendous and crazy things in my business or my brand or my life, by making sure I manage my day's energy, I've been able to be high performing for decades. And that's a real blessing considering, you know, many of you know, I've been through brain injuries, I've been through, you know, business challenges, I've been through scaling, I've been, I mean, you name it, and then being responsible for other people's performance. As a high performance coach, I've got to be fresh for them. So I don't get that opportunity to crash at 2 o' clock in the afternoon. That's why performance pit stops are so key for me. Because at two in the afternoon, three in the afternoon, four o' clock in the afternoon with other people crash. I'm still talking to people who are on the covers of magazines. I'm still coaching Fortune 50 CEOs, I'm still having to deal with multimillionaire entrepreneurs and influencers. With millions of people calling me, seeking my advice or paying for my coaching, I don't have the opportunity to crash. So I recharge all day long on the hour. I hope that serves you all, I really do. Because I know more than any time ever your self care matters and your energy matters for you, your family, your dreams. I said it yesterday. And if you haven't listened to my podcast, the Brendon show podcast, please go listen to that. Because yesterday I talked about the ability to create masterpieces. Like you don't have to create a masterpiece every day, right? And I mean that metaphorically to move your life forward. It's not like you can achieve everything, knock off every major project and get everything done at the same clip. Maybe you used to be able to, because now you might be taking care of the kids, or you might be limited in some capacities because you're not at the office or whatever. But here's the thing. You don't have to complete everything and do everything at same levels per se. You don't have to create a masterpiece every day. You just got to get some oil on the canvas every day. You need to get yourself in the game every day. You need to be committed to moving forward every day. You need to be committed to being a role model every day. I know that it's hard, but it's not. Life doesn't care if it's hard. It's required to live an extraordinary quality of life. And I said it yesterday. Listen, because the reality is right now, those who keep moving forward, even if it's hard, even if they're laid off, even if we're there with kids, even if they're challenged, I mean, outside of being bedridden and sick, the ability to move forward each day in some small way will keep your mental health positive. It will keep you contributing, it will keep you at a character level, proud of who you were during this time, and most importantly, it will show that you were grateful and appreciative of the opportunities you had in life. Moving forward right now is important because when you keep going. Listen. Uncommon effort during uncommon times leads to uncommon strength, abundance and grace. So keep going, my friends. Yes, you can choose to be ordinary and go through this like everybody else who might blame or might complain or might quit or might stop all forward progress, but not you, not this community. The reason we call this hpx, it's the High Performance Experience. There's another experience in life where this level of intention about our energy throughout the day matters. There's another level of energy in life where. Where this level of desire and willpower to be a role model, even though it's hard, matters. I know you know that. So I'm sending you and your family love and great energy for this difficult time. And if you'd like, give me a shout out here now on Instagram, let me know where you are from, because I love showing this worldwide audience so you can see we're all in this together. And then ask any questions that you have, especially if you have any questions about my performance. Pit stops every 50 minutes for me. Let's see. Mama, can you go over in detail what you do to recharge. Yes, I can. All you got to do is go to the link in my bio on Instagram, click my podcast, the Brendon show podcast, and go to episode one of this new season called striving in chaos. And y', all, I went through my entire day routine. I mean, from what I do in the morning to what I do to prep for sleep, to when I meditate, to what I eat, to exactly how I work out. And not just Brendan's opinions, but what are some science backed ways that we have seen in high performance for you to maintain real mental focus and extraordinary energy and productivity even through hard times. So make sure you go to the Brandon show podcast, download all the episodes that say striving in chaos, all the episodes that say striving in chaos on the Brendan show podcast. Download them all. Because I think I'm only gonna keep the season up while this, you know, pandemic is going on, while we're dealing with this, you know, but probably take it down in the summer. So please make sure you go to Brendon show podcast, link is in my bio on Instagram, download every episode that says striving in chaos and you'll get to hear that very first episode me talking about my entire day routines. And I think that will really help. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, other questions I've got here. Hi, guys. I see you, Steve. How's the better half? Thanks for asking. Thank you for asking that. By the way, every time I see you pop in, you ask that Denise is doing great. I mean, her positive mindset has kept my mindset positive. When I've been fatigued or I've been in a funk or I got a down day, you know, she's like bright bolt of sunshine that comes in and cheers me on and, and reminds me of our mission and our passion, our purpose. Reminds me of our love for each other. You all want to have great energy right now, outside of what I just shared, try demonstrating extraordinary levels of appreciation and tenderness for your family and your friends and the people who you love and lead and serve. Because, you know, not everybody has done the personal development that you all have done. If you've been in my community for years, not as many people have been exposed to the philosophy and the psychology and the behavioral economics and all the things that we talk about on the Brendon Show Podcast. You have to understand a lot of people have not done personal development work that you have. They're having a tremendous problem coping. If you've done a lot of personal development. And you really set yourself up with a lot of high performance habits months ago coming into this. You're doing a better job than other people. And so you have to understand that that preparation that you've done has equipped you for some strength. And one of the pieces of that strength that's going to be required is for you to be patient and loving and tender with other people right now. And it's not to say that you're perfect. It's not to say we're all strong. It's not to say I don't also need tenderness from people, because that's. Remember where I brought this example up, because Denise is tender and kind and patient with me, as I have struggled, too. So I hope that gets your mindset around it. Listen, you got to be patient and tender with those you love during these difficult months, and I hope that you will do that. Let's see. Another question Pero is asking, where does your drive come from? My drive comes from this, my mantra of live, love, matter. It comes from a very simple thing, reverence for life. I came up with a mantra after my car accident 25 years ago, y', all, that taught me, at the end of my life, I'm going to ask, did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? And I decided, well, at that point in my life, I hadn't lived my own life. I hadn't loved other people. I've been hiding back my feelings and holding back my heart. And I hadn't mattered. I hadn't tried to be a role model. I hadn't tried to get into servant leadership. I hadn't, like, forged my days for others yet. And so every night for 25 years, I asked myself, did I live today? Did I love today? Did I matter today? And to answer your question, Pero, my drive each day is I want to answer those questions positively at the end of each day. I want to live my purpose each day by answering those questions positively each night. And when I can say yes to all those questions, yeah, I live today. Yeah, I love today. Yeah, I matter today. I feel extraordinary, and I feel like I'm on my path. I feel that I am earning my second chance. My drive comes from the fact I faced my own mortality as a young man. And I got very, very, very comfortable with my own death by reading philosophy. I got very, very comfortable with my death by having a high faith and a deep spirituality for my beliefs in what is important in life. My drive is, I think I'm lucky to be alive. And I think if you have real reverence for life, that shows up in your time management. When we have real reverence for life, it shows up in your time management. Because if you really appreciate life, you're going to manage your time well to live it. That's what's important. That's my drive. I know I'm going to die. I want to live love matter in that time. And I know every night I'm going to assess myself on that. So let me do a good job today. That's kind of where a lot of it comes from for me. I think I said, Hariya, can you explain your A game? Yeah. To me, being on your A game, what that means is being your best on a consistent basis. You know, some days you're kind of good to your spouse and other days you are amazing. When you are amazing, you are on your A game. When you're heightening your performance, when you're being extraordinary to other people, when you're mentally focused and sharp, disciplined, will all of that comes into play. That means I'm on my A game, meaning I'm playing, I'm playing like a Super bowl champion. That's what I mean. Like I'm that alert, that aware, that focused, that, that caring about my contributions and performance. That's what I mean by my A game. Let's see. Yeah. You know, it's so funny. Who just said that? Let's see. I think it says Saba. She says she's more focused, disciplined and working on her goals from home than she was before the coronavirus shutdown. And I've heard that from a lot of people. Let's see. Inspire your core. What have you learned about yourself during this current time? Wow. I think what I've learned about myself is that all the hard work really paid off. I know that sounds a little self congratulatory, so forgive me, but let me explain what I mean by that. It means what I learned when, you know, we went in this crisis and everyone suddenly started thinking, gosh, what supplements should I take and what should my habits be and how do I work from home or how do I stay? Like I had figured those things out by doing the research on those things for so many years at the High Performance Institute and then implementing them in my own life. That for me, my life hasn't changed that much. And I know that sounds terrible to say, but it means that I had created the habits and the routines and the freedom in my life so that right now what my focus can be is my purpose. That I feel like all the miles I ran has allowed me to serve you more. Many of you don't. Maybe some of you know, some of you don't know. I've created over 30 hours of new content for you in the last 20 days alone. I scholarship thousands of people into my online courses for free trials. You know, I've done more live casts, broadcasts, posts, writing than I ever have in the last 45 days for everybody. And what I learned about myself was I had set things up that enabled that more than I thought. I thought everything was going to kind of have to come to a screeching halt. But because I had automated things, I had set up systems, I had set up habits, routines, and I'd hired well, my teams have been able to continue on, and I've been able to continue doing my art and my service to you all, which I didn't expect. And so for me, it's like I keep saying to them, I just saw someone posted. I'm like many of you, shut down, shut in, right? I'm locked down, but I'm fired up. Lockdown, fired up. I think that's what I've been surprised by. I thought at some point I'd go, you know, a little crazy being stuck inside all the time, or, nope, my balance is still out. I'm going out for those long walks. Still taking care of myself. I'd say that's been a surprise. The question was what I've learned about myself. And I'd say it's just like that the miles paid off and that when crises strike, if you're a real leader, you feel compelled from your heart to do more, to serve more, to support more, to be there more. And of course, I believe that to be true through so many times in my life. But this has created that impulse where it doesn't feel like, oh, I have to do this thing. It's like I feel a deeper connection with my calling to support you all, to help you improve your lives and achieve your goals faster, even in this difficult time. So I think that's been a pleasant surprise about myself. I didn't expect, I'd say, if something I learned about myself in terms of like, a negative standpoint, it would be, I can be that person that overly supports or overly worries about other people. If I don't dial it back with meditation, you know, I can be locked down and fired up, but I can be so driven to serve everybody that I can be overly, you know, overly amped for that. That's why those performance pit stops I talked about today. Really? Absolutely help. All right, y', all, with that quick shout out to everybody who's been listening to the Brendon show podcast, please go in and download all the episodes of the Brendon show podcast that say striving in chaos today. Go get those. Those will help you with your mind, your body, your energy, your habits during this time. Please make sure you're following my posts on Instagram. Look me up each day, turn on those notifications because I've been posting a lot of philosophical thoughts that will help you with your psychology, that will help you keep moving forward even though it's difficult. Because remember, uncommon efforts in uncommon times lead to uncommon strength, rewards and grace. So, my friends, even though it's hard, go be a role model, optimize your wellness, skill up and prepare for the path ahead and choose every single day to go be extraordinary. Thanks, everybody. Good night.