Transform Into a Role Model: Life Changing Tips for Making a Difference
2 Oct 2023 · 14 min
Brendon TEST Burchard on personal growth, setting boundaries, and saying no. He argues that community support is essential to living an extraordinary life, and that knowing when to decline things matters as much as knowing what to pursue.
We live in a time that's extraordinarily dark and distracting. Somebody was a lighthouse in the dark for you. People are watching. People need you. And you can be that person in your community that teaches people that life is good. What is it that would make you more of a role model? Have people on your journey because they get to watch you doing it every single day. Can you handle it? Grow. Thanks. A friend of mine was my best friend in high school, and I was kind of a lost kid, kind of a rowdy kid, but I don't know, there was something that when I walked in this house, I just felt accepted, and I'd be happy, and I'd be a little more boisterous in my friend's house than I was even at my house. I'd walk in the house, and because I knew he was gonna be fun, and he would see me, and he always talked to me like I was an adult. That never really happened to me. He talked to me like I was an adult. So I'd walk in there, and I'd kind of be a little more. You know, I'd be a little more outgoing and a little more active and a little more fun with him, and he'd be that way with me. And I remember I'd be walking in the house, and every time I walked in the house, he goes, oh, here comes the president. And he was a lighthouse for me. No one ever told me I could be a president. They usually said, get the fat out of my yard. So. So this was a different experience. Part of the dream, part of a wanting, good life was probably modeled for you. Somebody had it. Somebody showed it to you, or somebody revealed to you you had potential. Somebody was a lighthouse in the dark for you. I want you to write their name down or several of their names down right now. What did they teach you? Do you got that spouse who's struggling? They need your beam of light. You got the person on that team really struggling, they need that beam of light. Who do you need to be a lighthouse for right now? Sometimes we forget that that's who we are. For others, what are you grateful for? Who was your lighthouse? Who do you need to be a lighthouse for? And fourth, how do you need to develop? What do you need to get better at? What do you need to change? What is it that would make you more of a role model? I could tell you, for me, it was communication skills. It was like I couldn't talk. I. I knew that I needed to learn how to talk if I was going to have an impact because I was very uncomfortable. This is hard. But who's having a good time in Growth Day la, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. We live in a time that's extraordinarily dark and distracting and discouraging. And the answer is right there in your heart. Combine this with two things. Being a role model. These, plus this is what's going to beat those. Yeah, like that, this stuff. When this is more than that, you win life. When this is more than that, life feels great. It doesn't mean life feels absent from, from these. But these no longer slow your day. They no longer ruin your mood. What do you need to condition or develop or improve about yourself so that you can be better for others and achieve your dreams? I'm actually going to make it even more simple than that because I thought, you know, what's more motivating that I can talk about after break than this next concept today, which is the ruin. Let's talk about how we ruin our lives. Who's motivated as we start being role models for others, as we start seeking an extraordinary life? We tend to ruin our lives sometimes because we don't set a ceiling right. We're just always, always, always, always on, always going, always burning, always burning, always burning. No time for fun, no time for family, no time for the joys of life or to experience it. Your ruin tends to be something you're actually going to like when you hear it, because I'm going to give you permission to stop doing it. And that is. We need to talk about your inability to say no. Can we talk about that? Ladies and gentlemen, the ruin is the inability to say no. We got successful. We didn't have a ceiling. So we kept saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And we just. We're like. We looked at our day. Every day's agenda is like, you have to set a strong barrier of nos in your life. But that's a discipline. I think people like. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, just me. Are you all here? Am I wrong? Or do you guys like saying no? Okay. You don't like it. How many of you know you need to do it? Okay. That's what I mean by the ruin. You don't like to do it. So you don't, but you know you should. That is what discipline means. How many people pleasers in the house tonight? Okay. Yeah. Look around the room. Oh, yeah. A lot of people pleasers. Me too. I get it. I'm just like that. It's like I. I want all of my friends to be heard. All of My friends want me to read their book. All of my friends want to know how we do this email marketing. All of my friends want to know what systems we have. All of my friends, do you have two minutes? That ends up being in an hour. And if I serve all those friends, nothing in my life would move forward. So we don't feel like it's safe. If I say no to everybody, they're going to be mad at me. Well, the best ones to have mad at you are your family and your friends and your team, because they know you and they'll probably be there in the morning. You have a million projects. Me too. Let me help you with your million. Anyone? Okay. It's just like, it's not logical. It's an emotional compulsion to please people. And what I need you to do is have an emotional compulsion to live an extraordinary life. And it comes with the discipline of not ruining your life by. By saying yes to everything. I have all these auto replies saved in my email provider. Some of you are laughing because you've gotten it from me. It literally says, thank you so much for thinking of me and for the invitation. The challenge is right now. My calendar has been booked for months. I typically go book out six to nine months. And so that means right now I'm working on projects that I'm obligated for other people and other responsibilities that have been here for months. And unfortunately, I can't take on your last minute request right now because I'm fulfilling all those things that were strategically planned earlier. I wish you the best and I'm cheering you on, Brendan. I probably send that out 50 times a week. And this is friends. Like, my book's coming out next month. Can you review it? And I'll send them a picture of all the books on this little table I have over that I have to review them. Like, oh, these ones right here recording in progress. Somebody just realized they. They're like, shoot, he gave us a script and we didn't record it. Dang. He just gave us the script. It's gone. I'll say it one more time. It's something to the effect of, thank you for the invitation. I appreciate you thinking of me. However, my plate is already full of projects that had been planned months ago and I have obligations to people in those projects. My calendar usually fills up six to nine months in advance. So unfortunately, I can't take on your last minute request right now. So I can service these other strategic priorities from before. However, I wish you the best and I'm cheering you On Brendan, something like that. And no is a very important thing because there is no focus without no. And it's not just saying no so that you have free time. It's saying no to unhealthy requests. More the number one thing I work with, with new athletes, like the ones who just signed the big contract, all of a sudden their agenda is so packed full and all those things seem like yeses. But then they can't reset for practice, they can't reset for playoff, they can't reset for super bowl, they can't reset. And as they're trying to reset, guess what? Everybody has to pick up the slack for them. So now they're the drama. The less you say no, the more you become the drama. I want you to be so proud of the hard boundaries you set. That like you're standing guard to this extraordinary life. Like you're out front standing guard to the extraordinary life. If it's not a high quality yes, it is a hell no. Y' all got it. Everyone say with me, hell no. Okay, now just say no. Nice. No. Okay, See either one, they Both work next 30 days. Give yourself a challenge. Be hyper vigilant about saying no. Ultra, we meet mid month, we come back together. This will be one of the challenges when we go to our breakout. I want you to share with your Ultra members when we're online. What were the things that you said no to or the hard boundaries you left LA and you set in your life? Saying no is winning. Oh, I love that list. I'm like, oh, I said no to this thing, this thing, this thing. I'm like, that's great because I barely had time to do this thing. This thing, this thing. If I had said yes to that, I would have teetered over completely into chaos. Thank God I said no. Okay, we talked about the ruin. What about the rise? How do we rise? The rise is the rise of all boats. It means finding other people. It means your team, it means your network. It means we rise together. We live in a society where we've all pulled ourselves apart. The challenge is we're fighting all the battles alone. And when you fight a battle alone, you always lose. That's the problem. There is no great battle in history where there was one individual, right? The only example it would look like we have is David and Goliath. But we forget all of the strength and the support that was behind David, let alone with him. Most of us think that we're on, like, some kind of, like, hopefully this and we achieve that, right? Because we're always just by ourselves. So we have our ups and downs. But it's funny when you get more people on that same journey, it's like that, that over time, the variability actually decreases and the upward trend is there. More people ended up making you more efficient that when you were down, but this guy was up. That balance creates a predictability of progress and growth. Who understands what I'm talking about? This is why you need people. You need people, you need friends, you need family, you need peers, you need Growth Day members. It's like have people on your journey. When you're down, someone's up. And the odds are over time, the growth is more. See how many of you have been down the last couple months. Honest. Happens all the time, right? But when you're down, if it's alone and there's no one pulling you up, you stay down even just a little longer. Well, Brenda, I don't need anybody. Well, how long does it take you to get up usually? I don't know. Up in a day or two. Oh, what if it was just an hour or two? The efficiency of your rise is so much better. And I'm not the guy who ever says, don't be down. I'm usually the person who says, seek therapy. If you need it, get help. Reach out to people. I think the rise happens because of this little graph I showed you. There's plenty. I'm down plenty of times. And then I go on a walk with Denise. Thank God for my wife. I go out, everyone thinks I'm motivating. Hang out with my wife. She's super motivating. She's good for me like that. Who has some good for you people in your life? Yeah. Could you do me a favor right now? Could you just text them all, hey. Literally just grab two people right now, text them and go, hey, you're good for me. That's all I want you to say. Don't say anything else. Just go, hey, you're good for me. Appreciate you. Who's texting somebody right now? You haven't even text in over 10 days. Yeah. Raise your hand. Yeah. Keep in touch with those more often. Way more often.