The Secret To Solving Discouragement (That Actually Works)

Discouragement is something you as a leader, need to root out. And if you don't root out, you don't change culture. If you don't root it out, if you don't know what that is or where that's coming from, I promise it's really hard to have the turnaround story. You got to find, where is this company? Where is this organization? Where are we discouraged? And then we got to put a big old light on it, and we got to talk about it, and then we got to have the guts to work through it in new ways where it's more joyous, more creative, more alive, more together. If you had to discern what's the emotional reality of the United States of America right now, and you could use one word, and you had to, like, describe it, what do you think it is? Just shout it out for me. For me. Anxious. Frustrated. Chaos. Fear. Disconnected. Irwin, I'd love to hear yours. Ken, I'd love to hear yours. And Randy, I'd love to hear yours. If you had to describe the state, the emotional state of feeling in the US what's the word you would describe? Confused. Angry. Confused. Angry. Erwin. Hopeless. So you all might have something else. Write down your word. Would you do that? Before I tell you my word, I might have a little more data on it because I actually do the research on this stuff as living. It's part of my job. But what's your word? Okay, if I could give you the answer, what I think it is right now, what the United States is actually dealing with from a psychological. Like, as a coach, where I would share what the world is dealing with is all the things we mentioned. I think those are also symptoms, just like distractions. Symptom. I think the base of it is people are discouraged. Discouragement is dominating. When you feel discouraged now, everything seems confusing. The more discouraged you are, anger pops up more. The more discouraged you are to Erwin's word, the more hopeless you feel. It starts with discouragement. See, the world went through this radical change. Some of us didn't like it. Some of us had names for it. Some of us took divisive patterns on it. At the end of the day, the world significantly shifted. And the reality is, especially entrepreneurs, you guys know this. A lot of people during this crazy last couple years, they left jobs or they were laid off, and they tried this entrepreneurial thing. Who knows? A lot of people tried, right? They were in what we would call an entrepreneurial transition. They were trying to transition into becoming an entrepreneur. And guess what? Well, if it was in 20, 20. Hey, hey, some momentum here. This is good. Look at the. Look at all the unicorns. We used to have four unicorns a year in the US and we were printing like 30amonth, right? It was just like. It was high times, right? The market was still good. Things were happening. The world was like, we're banding together. We're gonna deal with this. And then it shifted. Downshifted. You guys saw this in markets, and as it downshifted, people got discouraged. Well, I went all in over here, or I tried this over here, and it didn't turn out the way that I thought it would. And when people experience reality, it didn't turn out the way that I thought it would. And they had stakes in it. They put on their credit card, they got that mortgage, they got licensed, they got certified, they joined the thing. And it doesn't lead to the momentum they want. It's discouragement. And when you feel discouraged day after day after day after day, that discouragement now starts becoming a psychological doubt. That psychological doubt over a period of time becomes draining. Now, I'm not just hopeless, I'm tired. You know, that's what the country. I'm tired. Fatigue is a real thing in the US Emotional and spiritual, let alone the epidemic we have with health. And so we've got this huge problem where people are fatigued because they're so doubted, they're so discouraged, they're so frustrated, they're so angry. They're tired of being angry. They're tired of trying new things. Oh, we're going from this crisis to this crisis to this crisis to this crisis to this crisis. I'm tired of it, Brendan. And what really is discouragement, and discouragement leads to that doubt, leads to that draining feeling, leads to defeat. And now in that defeated mindset, we feel hopeless. Now we really feel, we are really angry because we see other people breaking through. But where's mine? She got hers. When I get mine. And now it's personal, because when you get defeated, now you're really mad. Now you're really ticked off. It's one of the problems we have in a political system right now. And so you have to understand, this is happening for a lot of people's psyche. And here's how you know, if you're turning to distraction for two hours a day, you're discouraged. The distraction is the symptom, the feeling, the psychological mindset's happening. You're discouraged. You know what? You had that sales call in the morning. It didn't close. And now you're wondering, why is it 2:30? I feel like going to watch Netflix. Netflix isn't pulling you. You're turning two. What happened is you got discouraged. What happened? Why do most couples in the world cheat on each other? Why do almost half get divorced? Somewhere along the way, there's a huge discouragement between the two. You're not giving me what I need. You're not giving me what I need. We fight it out because we don't know what we really need. Now we're drained. Now we both feel defeated, and no one wants to live in a defeated state. And when we feel defeated, we get angry. So we divorce. Discouragement is the top of the funnel for a lot of negative things that come afterwards. Raise your hand. You follow what I just said? Yeah. I hope you're writing this down. And I don't believe me. This is not my motivational thing. I'm famous for. If you saw two weeks ago me at the MGM, 20,000 people on stage. I usually come out with a video and I get everybody clapping and it's fun and everything else. But also, you're the real leaders. You gotta go home and crush it. You gotta get your performance edge back. You need to know your team is struggling. You need to show up in a different way. So you gotta go. What am I discouraged about right now? Is there something going on? Am I discouraged cause I'm not getting the intimacy I need? Am I discouraged because I lost this deal? Am I discouraged because I'm not earning what I used to earn? Am I discouraged because I lost a mentor, a friend, someone moved out of town, somebody died? Discouragement is something you as a leader need to root out. And if you don't root out, you don't change culture. If you don't root it out, if you don't know what that is or where that's coming from, I promise, it's really hard to have the turnaround story. You gotta find, where is this company, where is this organization? Where are we discouraged? And then we gotta put a big old light on it and we gotta talk about it. And then we gotta have the guts to work through it in new ways where it's more joyous, more creative, more alive, more together. Because I told you, there's three things that I think is happening. The first thing is that distraction, which I think is a symptom. The base cause of that is discouragement. The other base cause of that is division. And I don't speak about division the way it might be on Twitter. Right? It's like I Think it's true we are politically divided, but I would probably more align with. What I like about what Irwin teaches is that I think that we are divided from our creator and, and I think we are divided from ourselves. I think a lot of people are hustling and they have no idea who they are and they don't have a clue what brings them joy. Your job as a leader is to work with your people to help them find out who they are, to help them find out what brings them joy. For you to tap into your next level of authenticity where people are like, that's just him, that's just her, that's who she is. And they see that living on you and it's beautiful when it lives on you. They see you being flowing and fun and authentic and just kind of dancing with the chaos and the frustration, with the smile, with the willingness. Doesn't mean you have it together. It just means you have a willingness to address it and to take it on. Almost like a challenge. Like, this could be fun. Let's see how this turns out. Not that it's always going to be fun. It just means your attitude is so different than everybody else because you have trust in yourself. When you trust in yourself and you trust in your God, discouragement doesn't show up on you as much. It really doesn't hit you like other people. I mean, it really doesn't. It's like you might be tired from fighting the battles, but the discouragement isn't there. Like, I can be fatigued like anybody else. I can be out on the road or like Erwin was talking about traveling or Randy's dealing with stuff and Ken's dealing. We're all dealing with stuff. But if someone is really fatigued, half of that fatigue is they are fighting the person they're showing up as. They're in a nine round ring with a fake them. So when I say division, I'm like, the division I'm talking about is you are divided from spirit, from self, from you. You're divided from your beliefs or your values. You're going through the motions, you're earning, but you aren't in joy. The struggle is just like ugh versus the struggle that challenges you. And you wonder, huh, can I lift up to that? I don't know, can I do it? That childlike curiosity. You guys really did get a masterclass from Erwin. I hope you took a ton of notes. That childlike curiosity that feels alive and vibrant and it's just different. There's a different dance happening and you can See it in his brain happening, you know, it's a beautiful thing. It's why he's got such a beautiful church. I think you have to realize that you've got to tap back in that and remember the phrase that might help you is achievement isn't your problem. That person you're fighting in the ring every day, that's not the real you. That part of you, that thing's a winner. That thing's getting its trophies, man. But until you integrate them and you align to who you really are, and you align to what you really find joyful and pleasant, I can't get you into high performance. Right? Every great sports coach has always talked about this. Just about. There's a moment where the team aligns. They gel. They're not in one ego zone. They're in the zone together. And now the ball is just moving up the court and no one even knows how it happened. And they all talk about it. It's like I didn't even. It just. It was like all of a sudden the ball was in my hand, it was in the. I don't even know what happened. There's a beautiful flow there that they didn't even anticipate and different personalities going at it. But all of a sudden there's a flow. And that's when each person is playing their full part uniquely as who they are. Now the real dance begins. Before that, they're fighting each other for time. But once we get you aligned into who you are, settled in a little bit in all this chaos, the more edge you feel. I want you to feel it. The stress and edge you feel from the chaos is because you're given the power to the chaos versus realigning your power. And when you realign your power to your real joy, to your real aliveness, to your real love, to your real purpose, whatever it is for you. Everyone's got different language, just like these three gentlemen have different language to describe the emotional world. When you realign to that, I promise all of a sudden discouragement. It might hit you for an hour, but it doesn't derail the day. I'm not here to say you should be focused 24 7. I'm here to say pay attention to those two hours that you lose a day here and there. I'm not here to say that you should never feel discouraged. Cause that's nonsense. I'm here to say if you feel discouraged and it derails a full day or a full week or a full month, have a look at. Are you divided in how you're showing up. Are you divided from above? Are you divided from your spouse? Are you divided from the kids? And realign first with yourself. Get that inner core, that inner alignment, those values, those beliefs. For me, joy. Joy is the ultimate aligner. When you learn to bring joy, not wait for joy, but you bring joy. You summon the joy. You summon your spirit. Now you are conscious. When you do that, you open up a new gate. And now discouragement doesn't crush you anymore. It can be there. It just doesn't win the day. You win the day, and now the distraction doesn't win. The discouragement doesn't win. You're aligned and watch what happens. And the energy changes around you. The zone changes around you. The results change around you. And now it's not some external economy or country or thing or market or war. You just got, like, this momentum and this flow, and it's going. And everyone's like, how are you doing that? And I hope you'll tell them your secret.