203: The Four Gates of Personal Growth - with Brendon Burchard

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Welcome to Rise Together. My name's Dave Hollis. I'm the host of this show where we're going to hopefully have you feeling a little more normal in this, the human experience, maybe see yourself even in some of the stories that are told, or have your appreciation of what it means to be human expanded by someone who's come on as a guest, who's had a different life experience experience in all of it. We are trying our best in community to learn from each other, to grow and maybe even have a little bit more compassion for what it's like to walk in each other's shoes. When we do, we all rise together. I mean, at the beginning of my hardest season on this entire planet, you were one of the very first people that I called because I knew that when I didn't know who I was any longer, you could help me find myself.

Wow.

There was something in the identity crisis of now that I was no longer who I'd been, not being able to figure out who I would be. Yeah, man, you. You gave me a couple of different frameworks to go on. An exploration to try and do the work, to understand how I could find myself. And I was starting from a place that was just ashes of what I'd previously known. And I'm just. I wanted to start by saying, man, I'm so grateful. Because that work, though it was hard, ended up being the catalyst for the kind of hope that allowed some imagination to come back into my Life for what might be possible, for a future that I didn't think I could connect to, but ultimately did.

Yeah.

When we first had the conversation, one of the very first things you introduced that I put in the book was the idea of these gates. And I was wondering if you might, in your own words, explain what I tried to explain in the book. The way that you start thinking about the way that you, with these gates, might identify who you are when you may in fact, be lost and need a little bit of help.

Yeah. I think all personal change is not about giving people the answer. It's not like, hey, Dave, you should do this, or no, Dave, you're strong, or it wasn't me about giving you an identity back. It's not about ever helping someone find and tell them what their purpose is. As a coach, my job is to open a gate. It's like your job is open up the gate, let people walk through it, find their own answers in it. And I've spent 25 years trying to study human behavior change and high performance. And in all that study of psychology and neuroscience and sociology and high performance studies, super clear personal change happens through four gates. Sometimes it's right through all four at the same time. Sometimes it's a little roundabout one through the other. But inevitably, all change and all progress and personal development happens through these four gates. And so the first one we talked about was awareness is that we have to become more aware of who we are, how we want to treat other people, what's important to us at this stage of our life, at this stage of our life, but also awareness to our feelings, our thought patterns. I mean, the number one killer of all motivation and joy in life isn't, you know, that people are dumb or out of sync with themselves. They're oblivious to how they're feeling or oblivious to how they want to feel.

One of the things that was so interesting in my exploration of my own awareness was that I realized that there was subjectivity, not objectivity, controlling the way that I thought about what I was going through. That though I was grieving, right? I was grieving the end of something that I. In thinking that my marriage would last forever. Now that it was done, I was grieving a version of how I wish it would have turned out that wasn't connected to where I actually was in my life. And so creating some objective awareness around the conditions that I was actually living in. Not like in a fantasy world, not in a wouldn't it be nice? Kind of world, but an actual world was permission to make peace with what could have been and instead connect to what is right.

Well, and you also, kudos to you, man. Because going through grief, trauma, unexpected outcomes, most people rush in for the answer. And what the gate of awareness says is, gotta be open, man. You don't know what the answer is gonna be. Change is a process. Enter willingly, enter open, you know, in an open way. Because there's a lot of turmoil that comes up from it.

Yeah, it didn't happen overnight. To be clear.

That's what it was.

Great.

You weren't asking for an answer.

Yeah, no, no.

You were just like, how should I think about this? What's the process? I'm like, oh, I can tell you the process. I can't tell you the answer. But awareness, it starts every single time with some kind of greater awareness to who we are, what we want to be. But also sometimes for some people, it's awareness to where is the pain coming from? Yeah, what's the awareness to what was the thing you thought you wanted you didn't get? What is the awareness to the feelings that keep coming up because I keep saying in my head, what if? And then I followed by a negative statement, what if I can't get back up? What if they don't respect me anymore? What if all my success went away because this old world versus the new world? And so it's an awareness often to that what if? Followed by blank. A lot of pain comes from that. And sometimes you gotta think through a lot, you gotta journal a lot. And all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh, I'm in pain because I keep thinking this way and I perceived myself this way. But the context changed, the world changed, the marriage changed, the kids left the house, whatever it is. And so I think if you can encourage people to meet change with an openness and a willingness to walk through the journey of finding awareness, that gate of awareness is everything. And that's where most people stop. Because why do most people fail to change? Because at the gate of awareness, they stop at denial. Yeah, you want to shut the gate, that's called denial. Yeah, you want to shut the gate, that's called narcissism and ego. You don't want to face it, you want to shut the gate. I'm not willing to have the tough conversation. You shut the gate. On awareness, there is no growth. Struggling to find something for everyone on your list, Bob's discount furniture can help shop Bob's super selection of great gifts from deluxe dining sets with storage and.

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Yeah. No. Part of the courage is acknowledging the truth of your actual experience and not some fantasy or some ego tw twisted version of how you wish things could be. The conceit of the book in many ways is having awareness of where you are, casting a vision of where you want to go so that you can create the steps to get from where you are to where you want to go. But if you don't start with where you are, you will not be able to create a map. And so I thought the awareness step as a first gate was such a critically important one.

And you know what? It's not scary. The process of personal change. What most people do. In our conversation, if I wasn't a good coach, I'd be like, here's the five things you should do.

Right.

It's like, because they jump to the gate of action, and when someone is in turmoil and the context has changed and the rug's pulled out of them, you don't be like, tell them, let's start your morning routine right now and give them five new steps of wellness journey. It's like, that's too soon.

Yeah.

And so the gate awareness is welcoming. The second gate we talked about was the gate of acceptance. And that is we have to actually accept where we're at. We have to accept what happened has happened. We have to accept that this is gonna be a journey that we didn't want sometimes, but we're gonna have to take.

Yeah.

Because we have to accept. Sometimes there's no choice. Sometimes there's no choice to deal with the fact that your partner said, I'm leaving. Sometimes there's no choice to deal with the fact that someone just died or diagnosis, you lost the job, the health report came in. You have to accept, like, okay, I can accept that this is real. And I'm accepting that I'm going to have to go on this journey. And the longer we fight it, the more the suffering deepens.

Yeah.

If you fight the journey that has been put in front of you, you got laid off and you're just going to stay at home on the couch mad at your boss for five weeks, the suffering compounds. Now you can't pay the bills again. Now it compounds. Compounds, compounds. Because you're living back there versus going, whew. That really happened. I had my brain injury and in 2011, I erected a four wheeler and I snapped my wrist, threw out my hip, broke three ribs, just looked like my shoulder and ended up rattling the eggs upstairs. There was months, I was like, no, no, I'm fine. That's how you know when you're in trouble. If you keep saying month over. No, no, I'm fine. No, no, I'm fine. It's fine. It's fine. Is the crying, pleading help for the unexpressed.

Yeah.

And that is the gate of acceptance says, you know what? I'm aware enough that I'm not fine. And I'm accepting the fact that it's okay. It's okay that I'm struggling, I'm suffering. This is hard. It's okay. Doesn't mean you have to not do anything. Doesn't mean you have to, you know, pretend. It just means we're here.

Yeah.

All right.

I've even found too, my experience that there are people who have become more comfortable with their suffering than the fear of expressing their life in something new, real. And so their identity maybe has come, become part of their story of suffering or because it's more predictable how they'll continue to suffer, they'll just stay inside of it. And I think acceptance in some ways is being honest enough with yourself to leave the suffering that you know, for the opportunity to grow that you need. And it's hard.

Yeah. I'll even modify that sentence you just said. It's about not just honoring of yourself as well. It's about loving yourself. So self acceptance says, you know, not being cheesy. It's real. It's I, I'm worthy. I care enough about myself that I'm going to handle this journey well.

Yeah.

I care enough about myself to now define what's important to me. I care enough about myself now to set some boundaries. I care enough about myself to protect my wellness. It's like that you have to love yourself before you can really change is very significant because a lot of people change and they didn't change their relationship with themselves, so they changed context. So they went to the new city, and it sucks there too, because they brought them with themselves. They went to the new partnership. That partnership sucks too, because they brought themselves. It's like until we change our relationship with ourself, the journey and the context never gets any better. And so acceptance is one. You're accepting the situation as it is, calling it what it is, being realistic. And then the self love part is going. You know what I deserve? I accept myself. I love myself in such a way that I'm just going to care for myself and be intentional. I'll say self love doesn't, you know, flower petals in the bathtub every night kind of. That's fine, by the way, but it's more about I care enough about myself that I'm going to be thoughtful on this journey. I'm going to set some intentions and boundaries so that I can handle it well. Because it's going to be rough seas to use your mentor. It's going to be rough seas. So guess what? I'm going to be graceful with myself here because it's not going to be one night of storm if I forgot to put up the sale the first night of the storm, I can't spend five nights of more storm not putting up the sale. I have to go. Okay, well, I didn't do it right. But now I have to understand if I want to live, I have to care for myself and take these actions.

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Indeed. Third Gate it's so funny we're having this conversation, but in my head. One, I'm back in the conversation with.

You.

Yeah. Two, I'm in the conversation here. And three, I'm in the conversation with what just happened to us in that.

Room. I know, I.

Know. Third gate is the gate of accountability, which is my personal favorite because I sucked at it. Yeah, accountability says I'm responsible for the ship. The storm is here. Maybe it's not the ship I wanted. I am here. I'm in charge. I'm the captain of this ship. I have to take charge. I have to own the fact that, okay, I got divorced. I wasn't always perfect either. I have to own the fact that, okay, now I have to handle this financial commitment or the new relationship with the kids. Okay, I didn't want it to turn out that way. But you know what? I had something to do with it. And more importantly, now it is on me to pivot, it is on me to rebuild. It literally is on me to take accountability of each day's habits, to set myself up for success. Because a lot of people can do this self awareness stuff and a lot of people love themselves, but they will never own. They won't take what go for ash and personal development. They won't take personal responsibility. And so they won't take personal responsibility for the bills, the marriage, or the faults or the challenges. And so they just never address it. And at some point when you say, I own my life, I own my dream, I'm in charge, I am responsible, I might not know what the hell I'm doing, but I'm in charge of the next right action of integrity. I'm the only person who can take the next right action of integrity. And so, oh, and some people get really overwhelmed here because they think they have to take it on themselves. Listen, when you own the problem and you own yourself and you own the situation, it doesn't mean you're at fault. It also doesn't mean you have to do it alone. But it does say you're the only one who can at least make sure you're on the right path each day and moving forward. And I think accountability is the hardest part when you're mad at someone or something that's going.

Wrong. In the book, I describe it as an if then statement, right? I think we're really good as people suggesting the kind of life we'd like. But if you don't, then take the next step and understand if you want an exceptional relationship with your kids or if you want to feel good about yourself when you're by yourself, or if whatever the if is, then you have to take the responsibility, the accountability to actually do the things that will create the environment that you're suggesting that you want in your life. And that's where that responsibility, that accountability comes to play in the daily actions, in the daily routines, in the way that you put your phone down and make eye contact with your kids or whatever it might End up being the way you.

Think. Yeah, right. If you don't show up Tuesday afternoon to see your trainer at the gym, you don't get to blame the traffic, you don't get to blame the gym, you don't get to blame the personal trainer. It's like, okay, I'm in charge. I didn't get to the gym today. Well, in our mind, we have to go. You know what? I didn't get to my mindset practice today. I didn't get to my stress relieving practices today. So guess what I blew up at my wife today. Guess what I screamed at the kids today. Guess what I blew off the project for a binge watch of Netflix and three bottles of wine. Because you forgot to take accountability in the moments to set yourself up and get there mentally, which I think is the hardest part, we have to be in charge of getting ourselves there mentally. We have to be in charge of getting ourselves there with our attitude. The most important thing I say in the entire journey of personal development that I learned personally in the hard ways is the gate of accountability. Says, you own your attitude too, buddy. Because guess what? You're striving, you're working hard, and you're an asshole. That's not.

Okay. It's not.

Sustainable. It's not sustainable. You're accountable for that emotional reality you're creating. We always say in my work, the power plant doesn't have energy, it generates it. You aren't having a feeling or emotional, ongoing states and moods that are random. It's that on an ongoing basis, you have to be accountable for the energy that you are creating. Expending, thinking, cultivating. And so it's like accountability for your energy and how you talk to the kids and your spouse. You can't be like, well, you made me talk to you that way because we've all dated someone like that. They blamed us for their anger. I grew up in households like that. You know, I grew up on a block like that. When I grew up, if someone punched you in the face, it was your fault. Like, but you punch me. You know, that's where I.

Go. But that takes intentionality. Like, it takes actually creating an intended outcome and understanding the kind of action that.

Will. You own your actions, they own their.

Actions.

And. But here's the thing. I love the gate of accountability because it's also super freeing because guess what? You aren't. And I think I shared this on the call. The beauty of the gate of accountability is each person owns that gate. Yeah, you are not. And were not accountable for her actions. That's some freeing.

Stuff.

Liberation. When you realize, oh, I don't have to own their actions, I own mine. Their actions, their rudeness, their hurt, their neglect, their narcissism. I didn't own that. They own.

That. Which is interesting that it comes after acceptance. Because if you can accept where you are, the accountability piece also, also freed from their actions, whoever they are, is something that then again places it squarely on what you will do in your actions. That is a reflection of having accepted where you actually.

Are. Yeah. And this is the beauty of the framework that I love so much because we talked about people enter the gates in different ways because most people actually enter accountability first. And so when they enter accountability and it's guilt, I effed up, I ruined my marriage, I, I, I, I. And then it's self loathing, self loathing. So if you have a lot, if you have high accountability and low acceptance, there's misery there, there's shame there. Yeah, you got to be able to have that, okay, I own this. And then you crank up the self love, like, let me give myself some grace. I definitely messed up on that one. But okay, I will do better in the future. I understood what place. But that's what's important about you don't get to choose one of the gates. If you don't go through all four, you're kind of stuck and you might not know it or you're progressing.

Slower. So.

Good. Yeah. Last gate. Gate of.

Action.

Yeah. I mentioned earlier, the gate of action is you are in charge of the next. Right action of integrity for yourself today. Tomorrow, the gate of action says, be congruent with your awareness, your intentions. Be congruent with the best of who you are, your acceptance. Be congruent with what you've owned. And you need to handle your accountability and take that next step and do it again the next day and the next day. And a lot of healing. The healing stuff really does happen in the next day. We can do so much today. And a lot of people have a perfect mindfulness moment, or they meditate or they release it all, but then you wake up and you're freaked out again tomorrow. And that's why they call it a practice of personal development. Got to do it again next day. And that gate of action is like, I always tell people, it's like, it's a gate that keeps opening every new morning. You got to go through it again and again. Some things can be resolved with acceptance or accountability. It's like a resolution. Actions like every day in invitation like you better move it forward. Which I love your book because a lot of times you don't have the choice and courage is the willingness to face that risk and say, I'm gonna take the.

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Yourself. Heidi and I have been playing this game of questions back and forth as we continue to date from long distance. One of the questions recently was describe yourself in three words. My answer was work in.

Progress.

Nice. Which against the backdrop of action, interestingly, previously was something that provoked shame, like I had not yet already done enough work, or that by needing to do more work, there was some inadequacy in not yet getting to the next level that I aspire to be in and the work that I've done over the last couple of years. I see work in progress as a badge of honor because it's not that I'm on a journey that even has a destination. I will be working on getting just a little bit better than I am today, tomorrow, on the last day I'm here. But integrity ends up still being this thing inside of action that has provoked the greatest amounts of pride and has been in dissonance, the greatest source of shame. And so action that is aligned in how I Know I can show up or need to show up ends up being one of the most important things. And doing it consistently over time ends up being the way to feel great about.

Yourself. When you're by yourself and everyone's gonna know it, it's hard. Actually, I think the number one objection you're gonna get on your book. Right. When I think of courage, because I wrote a book called High performance Habits and we found out which was reason I love this book title, that courage, like demonstrating courage, was the sixth habit of the highest performing people in the world. They demonstrated courage, which usually meant simple things. They spoke up for themselves or they spoke up for others. They took uncomfortable action when it was required and even when it wasn't. And so it wasn't big crazy leaps of action. It was just more of that daily showing up and speaking up for yourself and speaking up for other people. But in writing that chapter, I got so much people. Well, yeah, but you're courageous or I'm not or something. Here's what I learned. The reason most people don't take action, we all know, is self doubt or social comparison. Self doubt. Everyone thinks the self doubt has to go away and then I'll be courageous to act. And so what they did is they never got 101 personal development. Self doubt is not a signal to stop. Self doubt is a signal to learn. Because when you think about it, it's like, oh, I'm not sure how to do that. Well, that's your brain going, I guess I'm going to have to learn how to do that and get in motion here. But a lot of people self doubt stop, so they're never going to experience courage. As soon as self doubt is. Oh, that's a cue, a signal to learn, to act, to grow. Now courage, it's an invitation to courage. Yes, exactly. Courage starts to become something that's real in your life. As long as you don't stop the self doubt and realize when you are doing courageous things, by definition, self doubt is.

There.

Yeah. So don't expect it to go.

Away.

Yeah. I had self doubt before we started this interview and I've done a million interviews. You know, just like time, quality, where you're at in your life and all things like doubt is.

Real.

Yeah. Don't hate it, don't bemoan it, don't push it down. Honor it, acknowledge it and move through it. That's the gate of.

Action. I love though, the idea that it's an invitation to walk toward.

Learning.

Yes. Not some suggestion that stopping is an Option.

Right? And shame stops people because they get discouraged. And I go, oh, well, if that's true, good news is that you can get rid of discouragement very quickly in your life. The second you adopt a learning mindset, discouragement's gone. Yeah, like I just go, oh, I screwed up. Learn, take next action. I think that's really important for people. And last thing on the action part and the hardest part for the gate of action is social comparison. I don't want to do that because people knew me as this guy and if I do that, what are they gonna think of me? And so people's fear of being seen starting small, their embarrassment of being seen starting small, their embarrassment of changing a role, their embarrassment of maybe not working out as much as the last thing worked out. I know, we were talking about those things, right? When that happens, you just freeze. And so you've got to realize that social comparison is something that you have to limit in your life at that season, when you're in that mo, in that big shift of change. Be very careful of going, who do I need to be like? Because then you start living. You do the worst thing at the moment of personal development. You do the worst thing, you mimic others. And then what does that do? The self acceptance thing goes down because your body goes, that's not me. I'm faking it to be like them. And so that's where the vulnerability and the authenticity of courage comes into play at the action stage. And instead of replicating and modeling others at that very moment, it's about asking what's true to me and let me try that out and be okay with how that turns out and not measure my small first steps towards everybody else's ladder stops. I know you talk about this too. It's so critical at action, self doubt, put it aside, realize it's going to be there. Social comparison put aside. Enter learning willingly every day and get that consistent positive momentum with small steps every day. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, look how far I came. But it's not that week, it's two months later. You're like, oh, I'm moving through.

It. What's interesting is I can remember on the day that we had the conversation, you talked about self doubt and social comparison in defining freedom. In that you said, freedom is when you can show up as your authentic true self free from self doubt and social.

Comparison. Good memory, that's.

Real. But that is something that I have had to remind myself of because it's only inside of that freedom that I've been able to tap into and cultivate the courage to keep going when I'm doing something that's new or scary or.

Both. Yeah, and how do you do it? You're like, well. But I can't stop comparing myself. I'm like, okay, well one, stop scrolling everywhere. Two, unfollow her. And three, when you feel like you don't know, instead of turning to compare it, go back to awareness. Open up your journal and start write. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? Where's the pain? What do you really want? What do you intend? What's that good future that you know and you sense is true for you? Write about that even if you don't know what the outcome is. Like, what do you want the day to feel like if it was better? Like start journaling that reality. And you do that more and more and suddenly it becomes authentic for.

You. Yeah. I love you.

Brother. Yeah, I love you too.

Man. Thank you.

Man. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of this book. It's such a critical book for people because they make so many mistakes on their journey of personal change where they feel like they have to be, you know, that old school personal development model like certainty ARR and it's like, you know that type a macho stuff which by the way we both fallen for stages of our lives. So does everyone else. At some point though, you have to realize, wow, there's probably a better way to move through change and your book really answered that for.

People. Thank you. I appreciate.

It. Proud of.

You. Thank you. Hey y'. All, While I am taking a hiatus from social media, I'd still love to stay connected to you on the regular. If you head over to mrdavehollis.com I have an opportunity for us to become one way pen pals. Yep. I'm going to be sending out regular updates, stories, observations, hopefully things that will also make you laugh or think and I'd love to be able to do that on the reg. So if you are so inclined, hit mrdapalis.com drop in your email and buckle on up. I love you all. Thank you for all the continued support. Let's.