Why You NEED Gratitude to Thrive

Most people who are never satisfied in their life actually aren't satisfied with themselves. They don't like the character, the person who they become, the character, the integrity of who they are. But if you aren't happy with yourself, then all of that just feels like trappings. Be a person of character, a person who knows one's values and follows them. That you are congruent with the best of who you are. Yes, you'll have bad days, but those bad days, listen, they happen. You can still be satisfied because you're extending yourself, you're trying, you're working, you're giving your best. So often we think of personal development and high performance as this war against time, this need to build, build, build, build, build. Pack our day full of all these strings of achievements so that one day we can feel fulfilled. But of course, the more personal development work you do, the more you realize life is really about finding the flow and the peace and the joy and yes, the satisfaction, fulfillment in the moments, in the days, in the experiences, not out there, way out in the future, after all these perfect conditions have been met. But here, my friend, here, the reason you're doing personal development is because you hope that you could feel a little less stressed and a little happier, that you could build a little bit more joy, a little more happiness, a little bit more peace, a little bit more relaxation into life. So why can't that happen today? Why can't it happen for you today? I love asking people that. As a coach, I have to work with people to determine what their focal points are, where they want to focus in their personal and professional lives, where they want to focus on their relationships and their mission. And so often people describe some far distant thing, and often when I ask why they want that, it comes down to a feeling or emotion. So I ask, well, why can't that be today? Why can't you be satisfied today? And this brings up a very important myth in personal development that satisfaction is somehow terrible. Matter of fact, there's this old mantra, never be satisfied. And this was usually perpetually by people who have never studied personal development or psychology. Never be satisfied is things that people say, usually when they're just a few yard lines from burnout. Never be satisfied is what people say when they've never coached individuals one on one over a long period of time. Never be satisfied is things we say in movies because movies are nice mantras and movies last two hours, but life is a much longer movie than two hours. Anyone who studied peak performance, personal development or high performance studies knows that to those who are, quote, unquote, never satisfied, While it sounds like a good internal mantra, they tend to be less happy even with their achievements over a period of time. It's those extraordinary people who've achieved great things and they're still unhappy because they never learned to take the fulfillment and the satisfaction and the wins along the way into their psychology, into their identity. And so they have a lot, but they don't like the way they feel a lot. And so today's message is ultimately about satisfaction. I know you might be one of those people, and often people are when they first come into personal development, they are very attracted to the never be satisfied mantra, which is just saying, hey, seek excellence, seek to do great things. Don't settle for less than you are capable of. Those are great mantras. Those are good things, just like most personal development things. However, never being satisfied means never enjoying life, never accepting into our identity our own worth, or the beauty or the faith or the perfection of these moments that happen in our lives that weren't even of our own will or effort, but were blessings from on high. So satisfaction, can you have satisfaction? Can't you have it today just a little bit? I like the mantra of strive satisfied. To strive satisfied means, yeah, you're still working hard, you're still trying to create great things for you and your family in your future. You're still going for it. You're still working for the dreams. You're not, you know, not taking action, but it means while you are taking action, you're flowing with it, that you're finding peace even in the hard work, that you're finding joy even with the fails, even with the lessons learned. I think you can strive satisfied because there's four areas that you could be satisfied in right now if you chose to. And these four areas are not perfect. See, that's the confusion point. People get confused. They think, well, things have to be perfect for me to be satisfied. No, they have to be usually congruent and progressing. So let's talk about where you can be congruent and you can be progressing and feel that sense of satisfaction. Four areas. Number one, your character. Most people who are never satisfied in their life actually aren't satisfied with themselves. They don't like the character, the person who they become, the character, the integrity of who they are. And that cannot be solved by any external achievements. You can be on the covers of magazines, trust me, I've been on them. You can be on the, you know, on, on the top of the stage, on the billing, you Know of the arena. I've been on it. You can have all the, you know, external wealth and accolades you ever thought or ever even dreamed of, even way beyond had that. But if you aren't happy with yourself, then all of that just feels like trappings. Your character. Be a person of character, a person who knows one's values and follows them. That you are congruent with the best of who you are. Yes, you'll have bad days, but those bad days, listen, they happen. You can still be satisfied because you're extending yourself. You're trying, you're working, you're giving your best, you're. You're being honest, and you're being yourself. If those things are relatively true over a period of time, hey, that's okay. Be satisfied today. Maybe you can just acknowledge God or your creator or luck or all the events of the past that have brought you to the person you are today. Because I promise you, if life and the universe or God somehow crashed us together, where I'm speaking in this mic, and then I. Hours later, here you are listening to it. Let me share with you. I believe that's destined. I believe that people of the character who want to grow find one another. They create communities that grow and change the world. That people who seek personal development do so not because they're perfect, but because they recognize how much they can grow, how much they can give over a period of time. And that's inspiring, the mere possibility that you're listening to something to make yourself better today. Take satisfaction. That part of who you are, that's a good thing. The second area you can draw some satisfaction from is your connections, meaning your relationships, the quality of the connection you have with family or friends or those closest to you. And if you're struggling in that apartment, welcome to humanity. You know, no one gets that right 24, 7, but I bet that if you listen to personal development, you want to be a role model for others. You want to be a good mom or dad, a good team leader. You want to be a role model for others who you love, serve with, live in community with. And that impulse is a beautiful thing. Take some satisfaction there. Acknowledge yourself. Recognize how universally that can benefit people, that personal development itself helps us improve our relationships, and that you want to do that. Be proud of yourself. That means taking satisfaction in self. Third, you can be satisfied or not in the area of creative expression, the things that you do each day to express yourself. For me, as a writer or as a teacher, that's what I'm doing right now. I'M creatively expressing myself, what I've learned in my life, the research I've conducted all those hours and years, coaching one on one in large groups and through millions of people, through online courses, I think about that quality of creative expression. Today's session isn't great, but I just had a holiday and I'm fatigued and yet I'm showing up. Will this be the best session I've ever done? Probably not. Will I enjoy this? Will I finish this and say, good job, Brendan? I will. Because I want to strive satisfied. It doesn't mean that tomorrow I won't say, gosh, I'd like to have a little more energy. Let me make sure I get my workout in before I do my recording. Sure. But my creative expression and the intent behind it, you can be satisfied as you strive with that last idea is contribution. Satisfied with what you're giving to the world, where that means you're giving to your family, giving to your neighborhood, giving to a team, giving to a cause, a mission, a purpose, that often this one, so few people give them the gift of satisfaction. What I mean by that is they are givers. They have put good work out there. They have striven to be excellent. They have thought about the outputs that matter. They have, in their own unique ways, contributed to their teams and their culture or their families. And yet so often people think, I'm failing here or I'm a loser here, or I haven't given enough. And the reality is, that's where a lot of pain comes from for people. You know why few people ever contribute great, great, great things is because when they achieve their first great thing, they didn't give themselves a pat on the back, didn't take any pride on it. They were insufferable. They could not be satisfied. And so what happened? They burned themselves out, or they recognized the reward wasn't there or wasn't what they thought it'd be. And so they quit and moved on to a new thing. And they never became masters. They never achieved that greatness they could have because the little contributions along the way, they never recognized, they never internalized his wins. And so they thought, well, that wasn't rewarding. And please note the emphasis there. They thought that wasn't rewarding. They were looking for the external achievement to. To give them a sense of reward. When we all know the game in personal development is really the internal rewards we give ourselves. The intrinsic rewards of self satisfaction, of recognizing and yes, even encouraging or praising oneself. That comes from saying, hey, I'm on path Here I'm trying, I'm working at it. I'm not perfect, but you know what? I had a good day's work. I can be satisfied with today. Tomorrow I'll work at it again. I'll be on the path of excellence, even on the path of greatness or mastery. And I'll learn a lot along the way and I'll lay my head down the next day knowing I progressed, I tried, and I'll be satisfied each day. You can finish the day with, thank you, God. Thank you for aligning everything that led up to the events of this day. Thank you for allowing me to give today. I hope that tomorrow I continue getting better and I fulfill my ultimate potential and purpose that you have designed for me. And listen, if you're a person who doesn't believe in God and you just want to feel a little better, give yourself the same dang gift. At least talk to yourself at the end of the day, say, hey, good job, man, you showed up today. You know what, the kids got fed. You know what, we paid some bills. We, we're moving things forward. We still have big dreams, we still have time, we're working towards it. Let's be at peace tonight. Let me lie in peace tonight. The day is done. I did what I could. I'm satisfied enough. Tomorrow I'll wake up hungry to learn, hungry to give, hungry to serve, hungry to build towards that excellence. And I'll be on my way. Tonight I rest. Today is a day that I'd like to introduce a personal development topic that I was introduced to As a young 20 year old kid when someone said to me, loosen up. The idea to just loosen up, you know, so often we carry a lot of stress on our shoulders, don't we? You know, you might even have tension in your jaw, your neck, as you're listening to me now, because you've been carrying it all week or all month or for a quarter or a year or 10 years. We sometimes aren't mindful to all that tension that we carry in our thoughts, in our body, in our spirit over a period of time. And one day, just all of a sudden that tension is just so evident that other people don't want to be around us or that we bring the energy down for others, or that someone says to you, hey young man, loosen up. And that was certainly true for me at that stage of my life. I was, you know, really getting into personal development and I was that serious kind. I was reading philosophy, I was real serious about the science and I was real serious about, you know, people living to values and ethics and doing the right thing. And I was very serious that you just had to take life seriously because, you know, I had faced my own mortality. And I think once you face your own mortality, you kind of have two directions to go. One direction is everything is serious because life is so short. And another direction is also a recognition that life is so short. So maybe live a little often there's something in between that we have to find our own flow within those two truths. Life is short, so take it seriously. But life is short, so also enjoy it. Dang it. And so we have to find your own flow. At that stage of my life, I happen to be doing a lot of martial arts. And I was always a big martial arts dorky kid, and I just loved it. And I'd attained a high level of mastery, and yet I didn't really enjoy it that much anymore. And I'd gotten into martial arts because it was a way to defend myself in a place where I grew up that was not very safe and had grown up in a very physically violent community. And so I had to figure out how to take care of myself. And I started to learn that at a young age. So I carry a lot of attention into that art. And I had one of my senseis one time say to me, loosen up, kid. And he told me the concept of how Bruce Lee had taught his students to be like water to flow. I had no idea that later on in psychological research, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would, you know, really take that concept of flow to a whole other level of mastery and science. And it really changed my life, these concepts. And I learned that there is a way to loosen up. And I thought I'd share four ideas with you today in that, and I hope it supports you in your journey. And it's just another little framework. As you know, I'm. I'm a little bit of a king of frameworks over here. I love to just break things down into simple ways and introduce these personal development topics to you. And in ways that hopefully you journal on, you capture some notes. Maybe you hear something I say and you're like, ah, that's a good thing for me to journal on today. And so here's four ideas about loosening up. Number one, perspective. When you keep the long term in mind, those short term things can really infuriate you, really upset you, really make you rigid and inflexible. Often that happens because, you know, we're myopic in our focus. It has to change right now. It has to be right now. We set these false deadlines on ourselves and, and make obligations that aren't really even there. And the truth is we often do that when we're shortsighted. But when we become patient, when our perspective is the long term, we can still be high performing, we can still be excellent today, but we can relax shoulders a little bit knowing that we got time, knowing that we can learn, knowing that we can perfect as we go and get better and better and better. Second, big idea, as you've heard me probably, if you've been with me a long time, start that movement that was judge less, feel better. Something that I felt was so critical during last year, especially just to teach people, you know what, if you want to feel better, more light, more relaxed, less stress, less frustrated, happier, judge less, judge yourself less, you'll be happier. Judge others less, you'll be happier. A lot of that inflexibility comes in our life when we are self righteous and we want to cast stones at others without realizing that we cast them from glass houses. It's biblical, right? And so we have to realize that when we are super tense, it's often coming from a place of judgment against ourselves and others. And it's time to give credit to ourselves and others and a little bit of humanity. When we do that, it's easier to loosen up. Third big idea is to intentionally bring the joy. You knew I had to go there. Come on. You got to learn to bring the joy. You have to demand from yourself the ability to summon the energy that is more positive, more buoyant, more encouraging. Yes. More happy and joyful. That's a choice. Happiness is a choice. And we have to find that within ourselves. We have to make joyful moments with others. If we don't do that intentionally once in a while, what's it all for? You know, there's nothing worse than going out to dinner with your spouse or your partner over and over and over again. And neither of you try to make it a joyful experience. You know, you just go there, you barely talk, you eat, you leave. Oh, that was fine. And it's like, no, you got to bring some aliveness into the relationship. That's a choice to bring joy into life. I mean, that's a way to loosen up, to find that playful edge, to find that, you know, that part of you that's kidding, that part of you that remembered humor, that part of you that likes to mess around with others and just have a good time and reminding yourself that's in you. Yes, you. Even those who are introverted can learn to bring out that shine and that joy, even if it's one on one or small groups. And you have to go back and recover from that. You know that, that expression, that's okay, we gotta learn to bring the joy. I believe that once you bring joy into this world, once you manifest that energy or channel that energy or express that energy over a period of time, that frown goes away, that tension goes away. Because you're a happy spirit and you're spirited with others. Last big idea today to loosen up in the future. What we often have to do in our short term is follow through. Be someone who gains discipline and self mastery to get it done, to do the thing, to follow through. Because you know when you loosen up, when you know that you're going to deliver, you know when you loosen up, when you have mastery. Bruce Lee could flow like water because he'd gained such mastery in the rigid form of the arts in which he grew up in and found his own style, his own rhythm, his own capability and mastery. And the more he mastered it, the more he learned to be loose, the more he learned to be in the moment, fully present, reacting to what really is right here and now. But that was possible because he'd done the work. And I think that's what's important, that you know the best sports figures, who I've been able to work with, the people on the covers of magazines who I've been able to work with, the millions of people I've been able to train in high performance all around the world, what I have learned from all those experiences where there's a top CEO or, or somebody who's just starting out to change their life. I've learned that if you are congruent in your words and your action, you follow through over and over and over. You learn to trust yourself. And when you trust yourself, you can relax into the moment, you can relax in the situation, you can relax at the end of the week because you delivered, you were disciplined, you showed up, you followed through. When you become the person who shares growth, who is generous in your own personal growth journey with others, because you realize no one's perfect. You aren't, I'm not, no one is. But we're on this personal growth journey and those who are intentional and committed about it, I believe we find greater joy in that striving together. I always say it, every day truly is a great day to grow. Every day is a great day to grow together. And that's why I was here today for you. I hope you enjoyed your week, Striver. Thank you for being here. Thank you for making self improvement a way of life. It was an awesome week. Every day truly is a great day to grow.