Approach Your Work the RIGHT Way | The Part Everyone Gets Wrong

If you're not succeeding at the level you want, you're not learning at the level you need to be. If you're not succeeding at the level you want, you're not learning at the level you need to be. And no one is in charge of the learning but you, because you're the person who owns the dream. I want to talk today about the time zone problem, and I know some of you will think that's tied to remote work and the challenge. Anyone have teams in other time zones that you're working with? Yeah. That's hard too, right? You know how hard that is? It's one of the great challenges of modern work. But that's actually not what I'm talking about. But if you know how hard it is to work with teams on other continents, in other time zones, then you're really going to like this one. This, because many of you are also remotely working psychologically. Many of us, when we're struggling, we're in the wrong time zone and we can't figure it out. I've never seen something like this so predominant as the last maybe three, four years. And what I mean by this is many people, when they approach their day, they're really approaching their day. Not from this day, but. But from their past. Their old desires, their old way of working. They're trying to build on yesterday, and they're bringing just yesterday's tasks into today. And yesterday's tasks tend to dominate most of their day. And if yesterday's tasks didn't do it, then in the present moment, they're serving the immediate needs directly in front of them. They're fighting fires, they're opening up emails, they're going through texts, and they're in reaction mode all day. They're consuming, they're taking it in, they're doing whatever is in front of them. And so it's just like. It's just this anxiousness to get through it all. An anxiousness from yesterday, an anxiousness from today, anxious. And the day, even if you've got your warming, hot, green tea, you got your earmuffs on listening to neural beats, you've turned the screen down, you got your blue light blockers, and you're just staring there and you're trying to find a rhythm, but you're working in the wrong time zone, even though you feel calm. And here's what I mean by that. There isn't another level of success unless you learn to reorient yourself to a simple idea. You're not working the past and you're not Responding to the immediate needs, the right time zone in success at work. Remember, this is today's topic, Success at work. And your work might be your mission, your life's purpose, your, your job, starting a movement or just getting through the day. The actual orientation is, I am building the future. That's what I'm doing today. I'm not answering emails, I'm building the future of this company. I'm not just trying to finish that one thing. I told myself, though, we'll talk about that later today. There needs to be an orientation towards, we're building something. Everyone say with me, we're building something. You're building your future. If you're starting the day and you're so disconnected from that, we know psychologically you're gonna be less motivated throughout the day because you don't have a destination, a purpose, something pulling you forward, a calling that's actually motivating you forward. Now, I know this is where it gets a little bit complicated because influencers will often want to say things like, well, Brandon, that's not true. People just have stuff to do. And not every job can plan for the future. I'm like, every job can plan for the future. And in fact, the reason we struggle as a country is we don't teach people. Every job has to plan for the future. The ghost towns we have in America did not get taught to plan for the future. We weren't living in the right time zone. We were trying to optimize old things, old ways, but we weren't simultaneously building the new ways. Now, of course, any given week, you might look at your week and go, hey, Brendan, 80% is just operations. It's just managing things, man. I'm like, okay, where's the 20% of innovation? The great companies, the great leaders, they're living like 20% into the future. 20%, they're dedicating R and D. They're thinking about the next thing. The people who are struggling and declining are always fighting fires and trying to rebuild some old story. But we have to do this in our own lives, right? Sometimes what ends up happening is you're running the same routine with your wife that you did five years ago. You're dealing with your 12 year old like you did when they were eight, you know, oh, these kids are changing today. Yeah, and your parents thought you were nuts too. We have to understand, it's like we have to adapt into the new time zone preemptively. I'll give you an example. When I came into what my industry has become known as the influencer or the creator type economy. We used to call it the thought leader industry. Because back then you had to be a thought leader to get press or to get a stage or to get a booking. You kind of had to be an expert in a given topic today. Great bikini and a good lighting. I don't know. But back then it was a different industry. And so back then it was, you know, when I came in the industry and my goal in my entire career, success to me at work meant one thing. I can write books and get paid to write books. That was my dream. I just wanted to be a writer. At the very beginning, that was the sole focus. I just wanted to be a writer. But I quickly found out, well, if you want to become a writer and you want to get a publishing contract, well, you better get known a little bit. You better be an expert in what you're doing, you better have some consulting clients, you better be out there in the press, you better get some stages. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll start playing that game, you know. So I started learning to do all of those things with the only intent was I just wanted to sit home and write books. That was the goal. And so as I started doing those things, I started noticing something. That way of thinking and that way of working sucked. I would go to these speaking conferences and I would watch all the politics happening at a speaking conference. I was like, oh, you're a double gold designated hoop dee hoop on the stage. And there was like all these rules about who could be there and were you an official speaker? And then I'd go to these writing conferences. And if you didn't work with this publisher, you were this and that. And. And I'm watching. The first thing I notice, I'm like, wow. The conversations that everyone is having here are status conversations, not future conversations. And soon as you pick up on that, you start understanding high performance in real life, because high performers build the future. So I started, wow, they're all talking about status. And am I right? Am I that? It's like status is not the right conversation when we're talking about contribution, innovation, changing the world. You know, even some of the disciples for Jesus weren't the most likely picks. Their families didn't necessarily come from status. And some of them really didn't operate well in life yet. So it's not always about status. There's a higher service and a future that we're all going to try to build. And so I saw this happening, and at the same time, what I saw happening. The 20% of my focus outside of writing was, you know what? This online thing is becoming a big thing because, you know, some, all these authors, they don't have any control of their career like any. They sell a million books, but they never got one customer contact. And I thought, that's crazy. You can sell a million books at Barnes and Noble, but Barnes and Noble doesn't give you their name or email. I was like, that's crazy. That's not a business. I was like, oh, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. I want to be able to talk to my people. I don't want to hope that I can get on today's show to talk to my people. I want to talk to my people. And so I started thinking, okay, what's the better way? And blogging was becoming a big thing. You know, YouTube was about kicking off. At the time, social media really wasn't here yet. But there was a group of people online and they were doing online marketing and they were starting to create courses. And I thought, okay, that's interesting. So I studied that while I was writing. I was living in one time zone today. What works today? What can I do today? But 20% of my time I was really studying the future. Where is this going? What does this look like? How are they getting these videos on the Internet to play without the, you know, no one really remembers. Some of you remember. Do you remember you tried to play a two hour course video and it would take you 20 hours to watch? You know, a two minute video would actually take you like 30 minutes to watch. You remember all the rendering and the time you just sit there going, oh my God, when is this going to go? And then the modem would crash and then you'd get, you know, all this. So this was all happening. It was way early, but I was like, that's the future. I'm going to figure out how to do that. So as I was figuring out the book, I ended up launching one online through these tools using video and websites and online marketing. Then I did a big course and that really took off. That was crazy how much that took off. And then it was like, oh, okay, here's this thing. So I went back to those same speakers conferences and those same events. And this time I came and I said, I want to tell this room about the future and how hard we've all been working to get on those stages, to get on the media, to hopefully get enough business. I'd like to tell you about that And I honor all of you and you all been doing a lot longer than I have. But I also think there's a new way that will maybe keep you home with your families more. Because back then you had this situation where a lot of these speakers, they were traveling, I mean constant. They were doing 100, 150, 200 gigs a year to pay the bills. And I was like, you can take a week to film a course and three weeks to prepare its launch and in a month make seven times more. Let me show you what we just did. And they hated me for it. Who's this kid? Think he's telling us how to do it a better way? He's not. He doesn't even have, you know, we have the name tags. He doesn't even have the four flags underneath it. How'd he get on stage? He's not in part of the club. He's not. He doesn't have any status here. Why'd they let him up? I've been in this room for seven years. I'm a professional speaker. They let him up, but not me. I was living in a different time zone. It's a different time zone. Someone in your industry or your job or at work, someone who's going to come up and take your job, someone's going to replace you, someone's going to push right past you, get paid more, get promoted. It's hard to tell people this today sounds awful, but they might be living in different time zone. And we live in a time right now with this big conversation. Everyone's terrified of AI and oh my gosh, AI is going to take all these jobs and all. I'm like, yeah, it is. And it was like, no, don't say that. That's terrible. It's going to take a lot of jobs and it's going to create a ton of jobs and it's going to make a ton of jobs easier so that we can do better things. And the fear mongering about it, I have never seen anything like it. But we are living in a culture that is dominated by trying to go back to a past that never existed, by the way, because we have this nostalgic bent. We all believe that nostalgia, every generation has this nostalgia fight, right? Your grandparents had a nostalgia fight. You can read books and texts from like the late 1800s where they're bemoaning the lazy kids who do nothing but play games. You can read books and texts and articles about every generation, complaining about every generation and complaining about the new thing. Oh, all these Kids, they just sit around all day listening to the radio. All these kids, all they do is sit around watching television. All these kids, all they do is sit around playing games. All they do is. And you know what? That all did happen. And innovation happened and happened and happened. And everyone who bemoans every rollout of every new technology, every new innovation, they always get left behind. All success in work is based on value. Everything we know, we do, we give, we serve in work. No matter what work is, is a function of value. But very few people think strategically about value. So I'm gonna go a little geeky business with you. You wanna play? Yep. Okay, we're just gonna think about, like, a simple value matrix, and I'm gonna teach you a simple idea. And you might just draw these out with me. This says E V N V. Don't worry, I'll teach you what it means every given context that you're in. Let's start with. Assume you have a team, right? And your team might be your family, it might be your friends in your living room. It might be more organizational or corporate. But let's just imagine you got some people working with you. And EV ENV is how we're going to get to a value matrix. And here's what I mean by that. In every given job, there's roles below you, above you, and to your left and your right. And so there's often a hierarchy that's happening around you. There's a context happening around you. Most people, when they get a job, the reason they're stuck in the job is because they're stuck in the value frame of that job. What they do is they go to work and they do the job. But if you don't go beyond the job, you don't get promoted beyond the job. Now, we all know that the problem is in an entrepreneurial world where half of this audience is who's dictating that for us? You know, you're just kind of. You're just trying to get the posts done during the day. You're like, I can't do anything else. I'm already busy. Brendan, here's a strategic way to think about it. Evnv, let's go through. EV means expected value. I want you to think of, okay, in this role, what would be the expected value? So if you're somebody on salary, you're going, okay, what's the expected value in my job? Then you start working a simple matrix. You go, okay, the folks below my role in the organization, what's the expected value that they expect from me to them, what do they expect? Like, what's that interaction look like? What am I supposed to give them? What's the deliverables? What's the working relationships? What's the meetings, what's the rhythm, all of that? What about my peers, my coworkers? What do they expect from me? I'll tell you a secret. For entrepreneurs, most of your peers in your industry expect nothing from you. And that's why you're gonna win today. Who's read? I'll teach you about the breakthrough in my career and how I got to have all these amazing people in my masterminds was a simple value matrix. I'll walk you through. So your peers, what do they expect from you at work, in your company? Like, literally, this is not a conceptual thing. Write it down. What do they expect? And if you don't know which, by the way, I did a survey on this. Sorry, it was pre pandemic, but it was fascinating. About 65% of the US workforce does not know the expected value that their peers want from them at work. Well, you know, I go to work sometimes and my coworker's there and we have a meeting. Yeah, but in your career, what's the expected value between you and your coworkers? I don't know. Well, then how can you deliver the value? If business success is based on value and you don't know the expected value of everybody around you, how can you deliver it? Is this resonating with anybody? Same thing. If you got a boss, you got a higher up. What's the expected value that they think you should be driving? We all know in our personal lives, when there's not clear expectations, the relationship struggle, right? It's so weird. Everybody around the world knows that. Which is what started my survey years ago. Because I asked, I said, okay, if we all know the shared expectations are critical to relationships, how is it people in jobs don't know the expected value of everybody around them? So why is this relevant? Leaders, go home and teach your team this. Everybody. What are we supposed to do here? What's the expected value of this role, of this job, of this person? When we don't have clarity around that, it's just like, how does the organization flow together? And it's not always your job to dictate that. It's your job to put that in the minds of your people so they start asking the questions. And if you have a bunch of people who, who never ask these questions, you have an underperforming organization. If you have A bunch of people who don't ask this question, you hired wrong too much for the morning. If you have someone in your life who doesn't ask this question about how they can bring value into your day or your week, you might have chose wrong. It might be time for a conversation I shared last month. How even just in my household, on Sunday, we get together and we say, what's the week like? And we'll. What do you need this week? How can I help this week? It's this constant question of, like, okay, you have all this going on. Can I help with food? Can I help with transportation? Can I arrange this thing? And we're doing that together all the time. Absent from that, you feel at home, like you're both fighting different battles. Anyone ever been there? It's like, how come we're not adding value to each other? And that's where marriages end. Someone in that relationship is in the wrong time zone. They're still fighting, you know, high school demons about relationships. So they're not even present. Could you imagine dating someone who's not present and who doesn't want to value to you? Who's ever done that? I dated her, too, okay? She ain't around no more. So now think about it at work. You have people at work, they're not present and they're not asking how they can add value. It's the fundamentals of business. So this is the first part of the matrix. Now, the second piece is nv and NV stands for guess what? New value. Because your job is to go, okay, I know this is what's expected, but I'm going to do more. And you start plussing purposefully and consciously in each direction, okay? How can I add new value to those who are coming up? How can I add new value to my co workers or my peers? How can I add new value to the people even above me? That's the game changer. That is the everyone's like, what strategy at work? That strategy at work. Because if you don't know that everything else is fighting fires, everything else is a sense of urgency. Everything else is uncoordinated. It's just not thoughtful. The way to be thoughtful is always thinking through value. Now think about your customers and your community. And now this starts really building, right? Because this I gave as a metaphor, just internally, right? This was for you, your own psychology, your own team, how you're thinking. But now you're just gonna go out to your customers, you're gonna go out to the community. You might even go out to civilization, a bigger picture and start asking these bigger questions because leaders are asking the bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger questions. So how do we, what's the expected value of our customers? How do we go beyond it? What's the expected value of our community? How do we go beyond it? What's the expected value of everybody right now? Let's go beyond it. And when you go beyond it, people are like, what is happening? It will change everything. I'll give you another example from my career. In my world, as we all kind of get bigger in our industry, we start running masterminds and high end groups and we do ultra, you know, we start doing yeah, and it ended up being, it ends up being, you know, many of us charge, you know, 50,000, then 100,000, then a million dollars. Like we start charging way, way more. But what's interesting in my industry was like, oh, we're all siloed, even the big dogs. We don't really talk that much except, you know, when we speak at each other's events or something like that, or when we're at conferences. We're kind of all separate, building different groups and programs. We're not really learning from each other. And what I realized, there was no expectation. The only expectation was when I have a book out, can you promote it? That was the whole expectation of the influencer category. When I came in, there was no shared best practices in large across multiple things. Maybe if you're a book writer, you go to a book conference or a speaker, you go to the speaker conference or a seminar leader, you go to seminar on how to do seminars. But it was like there wasn't much shared. And if there was, the peer group levels were extraordinarily expensive. I mean like really pricey. And I was like, there's not that much of an expectation. No one's adding new value. So I reached out to what were probably the 10 or 15 of us at the time who had more than a million fans. There weren't many people and all of them had to be earning 5 million or more above. So it was a million fans plus people and you know, about a $5 million type business. And I said, let's just meet up. And they're like, ah, you know how much you can charge Brandon? I go, no, let's just meet up, let me take you camping or something. And they're like, what? And we're just, we're going to sit around and we're going to share everything we know and maybe we'll go kayaking or something. Well, how much are you going to charge? No, just show up. I'll handle all of it. They're like, what do you mean you handle it? Just show up and be willing to share. Best practices. People couldn't even believe it. People didn't believe it so much. I invited I think 20 people to the first one, and I think we had like six. Like, six. But then we did it, and they're like, wait, oh, we're gonna start sharing this stuff? That's crazy. The next one, we had like 20. And by then we were like, you know, I was flying them in jet helicopters above the Grand Tetons, racing. I mean, we were doing crazy stuff. Crazy. No one had ever done that before. I bet you have peers, and I bet you have even people who might be slightly above. They might not even know that you're doing what they're doing. They might never come together and share. Because a big belief to me is that so many people. We think we can only add value at work based on an old time zone in which our competencies were developed, our particular skill set. Right, so success at work for you means I'm highly skilled or not. This is from the 1920s all the way until the current day. Today, we're still teaching kids. Your value is based on the skill and the certification. Right. You got this diploma and you have a skill. Get a job on that. We're still en masse indoctrinating the world on this. But there's ways to add value that are way beyond that in a social community. My value in that particular group and in a couple other dozens of groups now that I run or work with, is just bringing people together. I don't even have to be the smart guy, thank God. Doesn't it feel good when you can have a lot of success and you don't have to be the smartest person in the room? Yeah, maybe you brought the room together. Maybe you're not even there. You just recognize these two people don't even know each other, and they're out there fighting silos by themselves. Do you know, when I started working with Fortune 50 CEOs, it stunned me. They didn't know each other, like, at all. Not even a casual thing. Where. Then I'd go to some fancy conference in Aspen and there'd be world leaders who were all hanging out and talking, and I was like, how come they know each other? But over here, these people don't know each other. And so I'm just sending invites, sending links, connecting people. I want you to think beyond what you're capable of and what your skill set is. And ask a different question. Not what the American education system. Which is, what am I good at? The question is, how can I drive new value? This is the way you break through. How can I drive new value to those around me, to my customer, to my community? And even, yes, I know it sounds weird to say civilization at itself, but the civil rights movement was adding new value. As we go to other planets, that's civilization. As you start thinking bigger, you're thinking, the world, humanity. How can we do better? Some of you are solving health problems for the world. That's adding new value in areas that haven't been added before. If I talk with you and there's not a conversation about adding new value, I know you're in the wrong time zone, and I know you're probably gonna grind it out five, 10 years longer than you need to. This is strategy. You all like it so far? Okay, this is. There's two ways to learn. Today, you can take that and write it down philosophically, or tonight. Tomorrow, you sit down with your team and you workshop it. Who's gonna workshop it? Yeah, I'm fine if it's just you and your green tea, but if you sit down and you obsess about it, just to give you an idea, I do this every week of my life for 17 years. I'm always asking, what's the new value? It doesn't mean I have to go create everything, because, remember, it's not always just about me. My competency, my skill, my product, even. A lot of the new value in the world isn't even about new products. It's about new partnerships. You don't have to go create 17 more things. You got to plug your 17 things into new streams of value that already exist. Now you're talking strategy, right? You already have products. You're just not plugging them into streams of value that already exist. So you're always creating new things for the same stream of value. If you're always creating new things for the same stream of value, the weird thing is that's called overwork. We have to ask, okay, how can we take what we do have already and plug it into new streams of value? Hey, guys, it's Brendan. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter, because I have a resource for you related to this episode, and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've Ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way? Just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com there's two impulses that I really believe drive great success at work, so we're going to jump right back in. And those impulses that we all have. When you began whatever your career was, you were curious, you were ready to learn. You went to that new job and your eyes were wide open and you thought, what's this going to be like? And you were excited about it, and you were excited to meet all the coworkers and learn about their families and what they do. And you were trying to look things up online constantly. And you were just in learning mode. The impulse when you start something new, that learning is magic. Who still has curiosity in their hearts? Oh, that is such a beautiful feeling. Such a beautiful feeling. Except for most people, it's fleeting. And so you can watch someone's trajectory at work is when their curiosity about the people around them and the job and the industry and the strategy, it starts to wane. And this is actually a very natural thing, right? It's a very natural thing. You know, when you were in high school history class, you know, the first three weeks you're kind of like, what's this about? And then by week five and six and seven, you were falling asleep on the history teacher. Just me. Okay, just checking. You know, sometimes when you're in something over a period of time, the curiosity goes away. Some of you had this happen in marriages. You're so curious, excited to learn about them, know everything about them. And now you're five years in, you can't remember their families names. You know, when you're dating, you're learning everything. And then later you stop asking the questions. The impulse at the beginning is curiosity and learning. But what we know from psychology is over a period of time, it actually becomes more of a fixed mindset. You kind of drop into a pattern. And that impulse to be curious and to add new value actually tends to go away. You fall into a specific narrow view of who you are, what you do, what you're capable of. And the impulse for adventurous value, adventurous learning, curiosity kind of goes away. And yet the impulse I'm going to talk about today isn't about that. That's the foundation to know that we all have that curiosity every person has that some people say, I'm just not that way, Brennan. I'm not a good learner. I'm not good curious. I'm like, no, no, no, you were. But that got cut off somewhere along the way. That got shut down. Somewhere along the way, someone told you not to explore or you explored and someone was mean to you. You tried new things, they diminished you at work, you tried new things, that person judged you. And this is why every single time I'm at this event, I just say, hey, listen, if you're still struggling now, you're still struggling with somebody who shut you down and years ago, and you still feel shut down emotionally from something that happened a long time ago, that's the mental health conversation of getting a therapist that's working with a professional who can help you work through the blocks that make you feel shut down at this stage of your life. And it's not just about years ago. Something could have happened three, four months ago, and you still might need a therapist to talk through things with. If it's not a therapist, a professional, a coach or somebody, therapists obviously more on the mental health side and dealing with traumas and real difficulties and coaches, more of that moving forward piece. But whether you know that distinction or not, the important thing is that if you feel shut down, you might not call it that. A lot of people wouldn't say they're shut down. But if I ask, do you feel like you're not as curious or interested in learning anymore? And if they say yes, then we know that they're shut down somewhere. Someone judged, spoke to them with contempt, was critical, you know, was just mean. And so they just said, why even try? Why even try? I put myself out there, Brendan. You be assertive. Yeah, I tried to be assertive. You know what happened? They cut my neck off. And all of a sudden you, like, you got shut down, and the curiosity goes away. And another way to tell is if you're not as curious or interested anymore, Honestly, if you're in the wrong time zone, if you're not in the future a little bit, there's somewhere you've been shut down, and it's time to explore that a little bit. Was there anybody or any situation that you just felt like you're so discouraged by or you were so judged by that you're just like, forget it. Why even try? Because if that happened, you have to realize that's a time zone problem that's coming into the now in which you are required to learn, to advance to the next level. There is no next level, which without next level learning, there is no access to the next level of joy. Without access to the next level of learning about yourself. That learning impulse is so important, and you have to know when you have it or when you don't. I've never met somebody who really had true success in all areas of life who wasn't in that open state of mind. Curious, interested. They were always researching, looking things up, mimicking, learning, trying, interviewing people. They were just like, so fascinated by it. They were fascinated. Some people would say they were even obsessed with their topic. They were constantly in R and D personally, they were constantly learning. And that constant learning led to constant application because they wanted to test. They were always in the scientific process. They were always trying, always putting something out. They're always testing. And so when you check that particular impulse is, have I been learning? Have I been researching? Have I been looking into things? And if not, why, what happened? What happened recently or in the past that just you kind of said, why? Why even try? The other impulse I want to talk about is as that curiosity goes down, Listen to this. As curiosity and learning goes down, quiet quitting goes up. Very unpopular topic. Because some people think quiet quitting is great. They're like, no, hey, if you're not getting paid enough, you know, just show up. Why do any extra for the person's not paying enough. Which is a very popular phrase. And I don't have a particular judgment to that worldview. Everyone has different worldviews. I just know that when you quietly quit something, you just start going along with emotions, not trying to add more value, not trying to really engage. It has very little to do with the F you to the man. You know, you think you're saying, screw this person. They're not paying me anyway. Actually, the person you're screwing yourself is you, because you're teaching yourself to hold back based on external reward. And that's very, very dangerous in psychology. If I don't do anything unless it's external reward, then I have no intrinsic drive, no cause for action that is of my own. In other words, I'm handing my personal power over when quietly quit. Go through motions, just do enough. Now, the reason I think it became a popular conversation because a lot of people are like, no, no, Brendan. They're quietly quitting because they're burned out. They're leaning back. Before they were taking on too much. People got laid off. They had all this Responsibility. So they were doing too much and now they're just going, I'm not going to do as much because I'm burned out and undercompensated. I'm like, if that's the reality. Assertiveness. You gotta raise the flag when you're burned out. You gotta ask for help. You gotta ask for the comp that you desire. All of those things are true. But beware of the impulse that says quit. Beware of that. Because the funny thing about quitting is the brain tells you just to quit everything. It becomes a mischievous brain that says, f this, all of it. And you throw it. You want to throw out all of everything. Anyone ever been there before? You're like, you want to burn it down. That's where the quitting brain comes in. Burn it down. End the marriage, quit the job. Screw this neighborhood in town. Forget this progress I got. Forget this team, forget this network, forget I'm out, bitches. And that mentality, that mentality ends up being corrosive. Be careful what you teach your brain to do. Your consistent actions. If you're always holding back because you're quiet, quitting, not going to exert yourself, not going to try anymore, that impulse can quickly lead to apathy. And I don't know about you, but I've never seen a reality that is different than the truth. That where there is apathy, there is no excellence. And we have to know, have I quit because I'm discouraged? Have I quit because something happened? Am I quit because something external, that impulse to quit often comes right after you lose the passion of learning. The passion of learning has stopped. Now. What most people say is they'll blame the thing, blame the job, blame the boss, blame the partner without realizing, oh, the quitting isn't on those things. I stopped learning as much. So I'm blaming those things for my condition or my mentality or my joy. When you are in a state of learning and curiosity, you'll stay longer. You'll just stay so much longer at something. But remember, you're the one in charge of that. Who's in charge of your learning? Yeah, not me. You. You're in charge of your learning. The breakthroughs in this room happens from what you're writing down more than what I'm saying. You're learning about your life by me opening up a gate on a topic. But it's really important for understand. It's like, oh, if you're not learning about your spouse, watch what happens. Stop learning about your spouse, which means stop asking questions, stop being Curious about her, stop being interested in her, stop trying to understand her thoughts and feelings, needs, desires. You stop actively trying to learn about her. And so you start quitting on the relationship. And then you blame her and you leave the relationship. You leave her because your lack of active engagement and continuing to learn about a woman who's still evolving, who understands what I'm talking about. Yeah, that applies to your job. See, we stopped learning on the job, and now we blame the job, the industry, the boss. But when you first got there, it was like first dating. You were learning so much. And so I tell people, if you're not succeeding at the level you want, you're not learning at the level you need to be. If you're not succeeding at the level you want, you're not learning at the level you need to be. And no one is in charge of the learning but you, because you're the person who owns the dream. You're the person in charge of manifesting the dream. Everyone raise your hand, say, I own my dream. Turn the pest of the shake of the world and say, you own your dream. Yeah, yeah, you own your dream, but your dream just gets more distant the less you learn that curiosity and that passion for learning feel that happens naturally in novel environments. We know from neuroscience, all your brain activation, if we can just generalize it like that, is way higher in novel environment. The longer you're in a consistent environment, the less that activation will happen because you kind of have this default mode network in your brain. Says, I'm familiar with this. I don't have to pay his attention as as much. The issue that happens is we take our eye off the learning when it becomes normal or comfortable. And some of you been in your careers fairly long time, and it's time to reset yourself and go, oh, I gotta learn here again what's happening right now. Because your job is gonna get disrupted by AI. Your job is gonna get disrupted by the economy. Your job is getting disrupted. So you need to you to need. You're not on stable ground, and that freaks people out. I'm not on stable ground. I'm like, nope. But you gotta get comfortable with that reality in the modern era. Because who thinks chaos is gonna retreat anytime soon? Anyone? I'm like, no, you're in the battle with chaos. It is there. It's okay. People say, but, Brendan, you're making people feel unsafe. I'm like, well, the only danger we have is usually right up here. And so we have to be attentive to the impulse to learning and the Impulse to quitting. But notice what I said. Usually as your passion and command of your own learning goes down about your spouse or your business, your odds of quiet quitting go up. As quiet quitting goes up, you start to blame external measures versus your own engagement. And if you stand at the side and watch everybody else move forward, stand at the side while those people stand aside, will they get paid more? Stand aside and you don't engage, you're poisoning your potential, not showing anything to the man. You gotta either change how you show up or change where you show up. And that's key. You are not meant to be a person not engaged in the fullness and the full powers of who you are. We were not given the gifts that we were given to not manifest them and to express them and to grow into them. You've been given an extreme amount of personal power, a stunning amount of personal control about your thoughts, feelings, desires, actions, daily habits, even how you show up in the world. And that should give you a sense of just indomitable will to engage. To engage. Like, listen, if we're back at war with chaos, just like back at war in real life, like when you are the superior power, when you're the superior power in battle, what do you do? You charge, right? The superior power doesn't sit around complaining. The superior power moves. Let's go. You charge, you take the field. You battle, you move forward. You forgot you have superior power because you're measuring it against something external. Pay how much she got ahead, what he said about it. You forgot you were built in the image of something pretty extraordinary.

Diversity is front of mind. And like we're finding it here.

Amen. Amen.

Like Brazil.

What?

Listen, I haven't been to Brazil. Okay, but like, this is, like, this is what happens here at Ultra is you meet people and you encounter different cultures, different perspectives, different beliefs, different ways of living that you would never encounter in your normal daily life. And like, man, the reason I'm here is because I want to level up. I don't want to stay where I'm at. I want to be advancing, I want to be growing. And if I'm not continuing to learn all the time, I'm simply starting to die. And I want to have that. That's why I'm here at Ultra.

Number nine, the legacy. Some of you are with us and my main man Mel Abraham at coaching summit this month. It's, it's. I know many of you. We've been on the road together this month and he was talking about the, the Legacy is not the things you leave behind, but the things you leave in other people's hearts. And I love that line. That's Mel Abraham. And we love you, Mel. And I think that you have to realize how to succeed at work. You need to take a minute. As much as what we talked about today, you need to realize success at work is the people that you lift up. The legacy is the lift. The legacy is the lift up. Your legacy is, who did you lift up? Not what did you particularly achieve, but did the thing that you achieve lift somebody else up? When people, you know, when I'm on the road and I'm in an airport and people come up at the urinal next to me and have to tell me how I changed their life, that's always. I still don't know how to handle that after 17 years of this stuff. And I always, you know, I always try to be polite and not make eye contact and then. But I'll always wash my hands and I'll go out of the restroom and I'll wait for that person to come out. And when that person comes out, I'll thank them for saying that, and I'll say, what made the difference? Oh, I read your book. I watched your video. I'm on your podcast. I'm in growth day. Oh, my God. You did this for me. And I met my spouse at your thing. Or I did this thing and that happened, and I made the money. I did this. And they tell me all the things, and I always just say to them what Wayne Dyer taught me, which is like, that sounds wonderful, but you did that. You did that by listening or doing whatever. Maybe I opened the gate, but you stepped through. You took the action. My legacy isn't, I didn't change your life. My legacy was I was there. I was there. I put myself out there. And there was a moment that serendipity connected all of us and opened up the gate. And by me doing my thing, my legacy is I did my thing. And at some point, God, universe, crazy physics connected my thing and that person's need and opened it up. And now that person attributes to me, but really, I just opened something and they went through. And the lift up happened because I was there in my calling, in my career, in what I do, in pushing myself, in everything we talked about. But the legacy is the effect that they felt. Now often they attribute to you. Right? In our world, we all want. I want my legacy. And I'm always like, actually, the legacy is you were there doing your thing, and the other People who interacted with it, they felt like it lifted them up in some way or another. Now, you might not have thought that that's exactly what happened, but for them, because you did your thing, you served as a role model. You were the example. You tried, you took care of them, you listened to them. They felt acknowledged and heard and more capable of going to do their thing, not mimicking you. That's not legacy. They went and did their thing more confidently, more joyously. See, your legacy with your kids isn't your kids being you. Does that make sense? That's not the legacy with the children. The children being you is not the legacy. The legacy is you help them discover themselves and assert themselves and build themselves in this world. And then they go, it was mom, it was dad. They celebrate you, you know, like I celebrate my mom at all of our events. And you celebrate the people around you. And so this means you have to intentionally do two things. One, you have to do your calling your thing at the best level you can, because you have to remember someone's going to interact with that. You might not know when, how, or where. I don't know how, when, or where, why I met so many of you, but we're here, we're in Los Angeles. We're doing the work together. We're opening doors, we're building together. And I don't know what is going to go on in your life, but I want you to know you're lifting people. You're an example for people. So the first piece is showing up. And the second place is when you do meet somebody to hold that space for them and to acknowledge and honor their own efforts. Because when you think about, well, what is legacy? Like those moments outside the bathroom, I'll always get a note later on or a DM or something. Thank you for saying that. Because then they recognize their own strength in their interaction with you. They recognize their own strength in their interaction with you. That's what I think legacy comes down to. Being a child recognizing their own strength from the love of the parent or the acknowledging the parent, a team member recognizing their own capabilities from the acknowledgement of the leader. But leaders, you need to take more time with the people around you to appreciate them, to hear them, to recognize their strength. And so they build in who they are around you. That's how you build a team or an organization. It just takes a lot more recognizing of that person, you doing your thing. So they're like, oh, this person's unique in there. But you showing up in full, doing what you're doing and the people around you, they will see it and when they see it and you have the conversations, you're elevating them, the legacies and the lift up. That's our job, to lift ourselves and to lift those around us. Last idea before we break today is what's the real win? I think this is important in business, in success, what's the real win? Because I know I could have started today with a conversation like we did last time I shared with you, you, if you were here with us Ultra members, about the path and the path being okay, pursue and strive after those things that are your passions and your ambitions, those things you're tenacious for and you'll fight for, those things that bring you that honor or that respect, that humility, that thing for you internally, right? Brings you happiness maybe, but I know we can say that. And all people who talk about success talk about these things. So the bigger question for you is, what's the win? Success at work is what? What's the real win for you? We talked about all these things and I hope they open up ideas and strategies. But what's the real win for you? How do you know when you are successful at work? How do you know this is a lifelong search for most people, they don't know. They just don't know. I'll give you an example. Yesterday, dear friend, text me and said, brennan, I'm writing a book and I'm wondering, should I get a publisher or should I self publish? Very common question for authors, right? And maybe not my answer. I said, well, tell me, how hard are you genuinely going to work to promote the hell out of this book? Are you going to go into warrior mode for this thing and know you gave your best, or are you going to be casual Charlie about it? Because if you're going to be casual about it, hey, just self publish. Don't put any obligations on yourself to a publisher if you're not gonna give your all. Because you know what I know about people at the end, if they do something and they look back and they think they half assed it and they got the success, they actually feel even worse. Sometimes they even feel guilty. But I said, if you're going to go into warrior mode and you're going to use this as a tool to really change people's lives, then you got to work for it. You got to work for it. Now, I know this person's been spinning for some years trying to figure out their next thing and many of us are right, trying to figure out your next thing. And the problem is with trying to figure out the next thing. So often people go, oh, you know, I could do that. That sounds like a lot of work. And I don't need to do it anymore. Especially successful people, I don't need to do it. I already got the money. Or I'm comfortable. I don't need to do anything. So they watch all these things. The stream of life go by, and the stream of life is going by and they're disconnected and they're just thinking, well, maybe one day I'll get into it. But, you know, it sounds like a lot of hassle to get back into it. You know, if I get back into it, it's gonna be. It's gonna be hassle, there's gonna be pain there. And, you know, I don't know. So they sit back and so I text back, I said, well, if you do this thing full mode, there's pain. If you don't do it, there's pain. Whether you do it or you don't do it, there is pain. The difference is if you don't do it, it's just the pain of regret. It's just the pain of not doing. It's the pain of watching other people go by. It's just the pain of sitting with the fact you didn't do the thing you desired or you dreamed or you wanted or you felt called to do. If you do it, there is also guaranteed pain. But in this pain and in this effort, there is most likely also joy, competency, agency, learning, contribution, hope, magic, other people, pain alone or pain and some joy and some contribution and some success. There's pain either way. So you're gonna go in warrior mode. You really want it or you don't, but either way, just know there's going to be some pain. That was the whole message. The real win to me after coaching all these people for this many years is that some people, they tend to go all in. Some people, they give their all. Some people, they give their best. And you know what? Sometimes when you give your best, there's pain. You give your best and they judge you. You give your best, they don't pay you as much as they used to. You give your best, they make fun of you. You give your best, you risk, ruin. You give your best, there's fear. You give your best, you don't know if you can maintain it. You give your best, you're tired, you give your best, you might fail. You give your best, you might burn out. There might be pain, but you know what it if you don't give your best, there is also pain. There's also pain. You don't give your best, you will never feel like you're winning if you don't fully engage. I mean fully engage life again, assert yourself again, there's no success at work. If you don't fully engage and assert yourself, there's just no success. Cause the worst thing is you always have the pain of knowing you're not even even trying. When you have the pain of not knowing you're trying, you can be playing on the best field, getting paid the best. You can have great children, you can have a great legacy in so many ways, but you won't feel it. The real win is you feel like you engaged and gave your best. In this life, there isn't a regret. And if there is a regret, at least you know you gave your best through it. The worst regret is you half assed through it and it makes it even a worse regret. The regret feels even worse because you didn't even try. So now you have something to regret and you didn't even try. But if you have something to regret and you know you tried, you have honor, you have self respect. I want you to have that. The real win in success, in life, in business. How do you succeed at work? You give your all again in a whole sea of people who are quiet, quitting, bowing out, complaining, waiting to see how it goes. You show up as strivers and you say I'm here, I'm ready, I go in strength. I'm here, I'm ready, I go in strength. That's the difference maker. The real win is you know you gave your best. There might be pain, but there's pain either way. Give your best. There might be pain, but there's pain either way. Give your best. It's different, it feels different. There's self respect and honor and legacy in a different way. Give your best. Growth day. Give your best. That's the win. Define your wins and give your best. Define your wins and give your best. Define your wins and give your best. Sa.