Become A Professional

Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and.

Welcome to a best of edition of the brendon show.

These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on some stages across the world. Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're gonna really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and and start practicing some of those high performance habits. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts in these special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategy that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do q and a and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can access it at brendon.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper, deeper dive training similar to this.

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Hey everybody. I'm so excited to be chatting with you today. I'm on the road down in Puerto Rico today and have a big topic. I know so many of you are. Are in that sort of stage of maybe the kids went back to school. Maybe you're kind of revivifying your, like, your passions, your goals, and you're getting serious. You're looking at these next couple months and saying, oh, I'd better be on my A game, you know, for your family, so that you can earn more for the cause of what we're trying to do here, to reach more people with the products, for you to be able to show up and be proud of what you do at work every day, for you to feel like, you know what I'm doing something, you know, because it's so easy to be stuck in, like, summertime exhaustion and summertime mode and not breakthrough. And I know sometimes when you're coming out of that summer mindset, it's hard to shift gears, even though you're probably excited because maybe you got a bunch more time because, you know, the kids are off to school now and somebody else is watching them and in charge of them, and you have this moment to say, oh, what do I want to focus on? What do I want to get done? What do I want to make happen? And what I'm going to encourage you today is to adjust your mindset, take on a new identity a little bit, and change some of your habits so you can do what we call becoming a pro. You know, so many people are forever stuck in amateur hour. And I know that's really hard to say, and it sounds flippant and it sounds a little rude, but they are. They're always in amateur hour. And what I mean by that is almost literal. Like, maybe they give one hour a day to being excellent. One hour. That's amateur hour. And during that hour, they kind of work a little bit, and then they check their phone and their social media and they kind of move some paperwork around. And they don't really go into that hour intentionally, because sometimes, you know what? You only have an hour before the kids get home or before you got to do this next thing or before this thing happens. So how do you approach that hour and your day as a professional? Because the challenge is so many of us think we have forever to do things. You know, we don't take our time seriously. We forget that life is short. We forget that, you know, the week goes by, the next week goes by, the next week goes by, and all of a sudden, we just haven't really moved the needle forward for our product for Our business, for our families. And so we're kind of forever in this mode of kind of being and feeling like an amateur, feeling like, gosh, I'm not really all in this yet, or, gosh, I'm not getting ahead yet. Because what professionals feel like is they feel this great sense of engagement and progress. It's like every day and every week, they were like, wow. They lay their head on the bed at the end of the night, and they just think, wow, I moved some things today. I got some things done. I'm moving my family and my life forward. And there's a different sensation about that type of life. Obviously, we talk about that in terms of high performance, and it's big, fancy phrase, but I love to talk about that. It feels like when you're high performing, you feel engaged, you feel confident, you feel very motivated because you've got momentum behind you. And part of this conversation today about becoming a pro is going to address the realities that we all face as those times in our life when we feel amateurish or behind or we have that summer mindset and we lose the opportunities to really earn more for our family, to get ahead faster, to. To finish the day feeling proud. And I know these are sensitive topics because sometimes, hey, look, life gets in our way and we don't achieve as much as we want. But there has to be a higher degree of intention if you're ever going to really change your life. There has to be a higher level of enthusiasm and discipline to get your business going. Isn't it true, like, we're always talking about, hey, be a leader. Lead your teams, lead the business. You know, lead yourself. But the issue is sometimes that summer fog is still going on, like, I'll get to it next week or I'll get to it next fall. No, listen. But when you factor in holidays and all the mess of the time that people lose before, during, and after holidays, you don't have a lot of days to move your life, your business forward right now. So I tell you, right now is the time to become a pro. It's time to say, okay, what does becoming a professional look like to me over the next couple months? Even if you're already like, Brendan, but I got a job. Hey, I'm already good at this. I'm already a leader. I've already achieved this level. It's like, okay, what if you doubled down this year? What if by the end of this year you hit, you know, the holiday season or the new year with so much momentum behind you that you already knew 2020 was set. That's my ambition for you, becoming a pro. People think sometimes becoming a pro is about just being more disciplined or more professional. I'm like, no, sometimes becoming a pro, the real great blessing of it is the peace that you feel inside knowing your future is handled. You know what I mean? The peace that you feel inside knowing your future is handled because you handled today. Well, that knowing your future is handled because you showed up with excellence, with focus, with discipline today. Now, that's not how summertime mindset is, right? Summertime mindset. You're just like. You're just trying to get the kids off to the next five things, get them washed, cleaned, clothed, fed. You're trying to figure out what you should do in the short amount of time that you have it. But now you have a little more time. Now you're heading into the fall. Now it's time to become a professional again. To go really hard at this, to really focus, to really batten down. I know you're motivated. You're here the way that you work these next 90 days. And I'll tell you, that's what I'm focused on in my own career. I'm always sharing with you all. What I'm working on, too, is I'm like, okay, coming out of that summer mindset, how do I make these next 90 days incredibly, incredibly, like, just focused and momentum gaining. This is again around the topic of becoming pro. The first idea is so basic, but everything in life revolves around the simple thing of intention. And to become a pro, your intention must shift in this regard. You have to have the intention to excel, not the intention to survive, not the intention to do. Okay, the intention to excel. And what I mean by that is, listen, if you and three of your friends, you know, started working with this company and you feel pretty good about it and you feel pretty happy, I want you to have that intention to excel beyond them. Not because you're competitive, because sometimes you need benchmarks. Sometimes you need to compare yourself a little bit, to challenge yourself a little bit, because what amateurs don't do. Amateurs compare themselves to other people. And what they do is they become disheartened by that. That's how you know an amateur, when they see someone else doing good, they go, oh, I'm not as good. I guess I'll go watch some Netflix and eat some food. And, you know, you've been guilty of that, as I have been, too. When we're amateurs, we compare ourselves to other people and we feel disempowered. We Think I'm not there yet. I'm not good enough. Look how far she is. Oh, my gosh, who am I to start this from scratch? How silly am I? But professionals don't do that. When you turn pro, your intention is to excel. And when you have the intention to excel, you don't mind comparing yourself to other people and seeing where they're at and going, oh, okay, I'm only on mile one here and we're running together. They're much faster than me. But tell you what, by the time we get to mile 20, I will be strides ahead. That's not something about being competitive. It's the idea that it demands of you to become better. You know, you can't have the intention to excel without having the willingness to compare yourself to others in empowering ways. Oh, where am I at really? How much did I really get done today? Because, you know, the most convenient and simple ways to gauge that is by looking to see what other people on your team or in this organization are doing. Where are they at? Did I show up like them? Am I giving my all like them? Am I doing my tasks like them? And not because you need to copy other people, but because you need that benchmark. Somebody's doing a better job than you. And if you can accept that, you're a pro. I know other people in my industry, other people in my careers and our research organization, sometimes on stage, sometimes on video, sometimes on social media, out there doing deals. I know people are outperforming me. That doesn't bother me. My truth is, I just know that my intention is to excel, to have that excellence mindset that says, oh, I'm going to get so much better at this, right? Not just a growth mindset to say, I can learn. A growth mindset that says, I can become excellent. I can master this. I can do it better than other people are doing. I can do it better than my spouse believes I can. I can do it better than other people starting out can be doing. Because with that intention of excellence, we start to excel. But think about how easy it is when you're an amateur to just go, well, I hope this goes okay. So I'll just bumble into the situation and see how it goes. When you have the intention to excel, you prepare. When you have the intention to excel, you think about what are the different things that I can do to move the needle that I will deliver with more excellence better than other people. When you have the intention to excel, it gets you out of bed in the morning. It makes you work harder in the afternoon when everybody else gets down and tired and gives up. You're still going because you go, no, no, no, I got more to give here. That intention to excel is that thing that drives you. And some people say, yeah, yeah, Brendan, you're just talking about comparing and competing and no, no, no. I'm talking about you doing better for your family. Because if you don't have the intention to excel for your family, they'll never have it better. You won't be able to afford college, you won't be able to get ahead. You won't be able to fill that bank account or take care of your retirement. The intention to excel has a reason why behind it. And that why is your family, your lifestyle, your purpose, your mission. And it's something you should not back away from. It's so okay that you want to excel. Stop beating yourself up for wanting more. It's okay that you want more for your family. It's okay that you want more for you. It's okay that you want more in the bank account. Like, stop dishonoring that by saying, well, I guess my real intention is just be comfortable and just have tomorrow be just like today. Because I know what today is like. You got to be comfortable with pushing yourself. And that only comes from the intention that says, I want to excel here. I want to be great. I want to be great. It is like the great Zig Ziglar taught us. You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to become great. You really got to have that intention to excel. You know, the next meeting you have, don't just go, I hope it goes good. Think through it. Prepare. How do you excel in that meeting? How do you persuade better? How do you enroll better? How do you follow up better? I think it's so important that you allow yourself that intention to excel. Like, listen, get better, get better in your health right now. Get better in talking about your products right now. Get better in connecting and networking right now. Like, have the intention to excel and excel now, not five years from now. So how much are you going to excel and get done? What I always tell my audience, but also my team is like, I want you to be SWAT team. I want you to walk in when it's time to work. Whether that's sitting down at the kitchen table, whether that's sitting down in your office, whether that's, you know, getting a few calls off in the car, I want you to go, ok, time to SWAT team. Let's make some magic Happen. Let's get five times more done in the next hour than most amateurs ever would. And that's what I tell myself all the time. Like, okay, Brendan, SWAT team time. Let's see what we can do. Let's just see. You know, I'm just getting back from vacation, so I'm already thinking, like, what can I get done in this next week that would just be like a SWAT team look, like, wow, Brendan showed up with 40 people behind him and he got stuff done. Even though it's just me, I got to ask that question. How can you get so much done? You know, it's going to require you to change, to have that intention to excel. And when you want to excel at things, good things start happening. One major thing really starts happening. When you really want to excel in life, a mindset shift happens that you get more strategic, you get way more thoughtful about your activities, about what you're doing each day, about your progress, points. Everything shifts towards that. And that's a magical time. And that's why I'm going to bring up point number two. If you're going to really get it done this year, if you're ready to become a professional and not just an amateur, here's the simple tactical thing. Fill that calendar, my friends. Fill the calendar. Now, many of you were great at this throughout the summer, weren't you? You know, you got your kids off to that summer camp, or you ran them here and you ran them there, and you were busy each day. You knew what was happening Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. You thought about what's happening on Saturday and Sunday on the vacation. Some of you planned vacations, and you planned your vacation down to exactly where you're going to go to get that picture, what restaurant you're going to eat, what hotel you're going to stay at. And you are so thoughtful about that. Be that thoughtful or more about your business, about your earning. What I tell people all the time is, you know, most people will spend more time shopping and thinking about, like, you know, the thread count of their sheets while they're standing there at target looking, which sheets do I buy? And they'll go, and they'll compare, and they'll think and they'll think, and they'll plan. They'll plan. They'll plan about their house and the things they're going to do, but they'll spend this much time strategically building their calendar so they can succeed. I want you to fill your calendar. I want you to approach the next 90 days as if you only had 90 days to ensure that 2020 was going to be a success. Only the next 90 days, like, you had to work so hard and get so much done each of the next 90 days to enter 2020 in such an incredibly peaceful place. Now, I know some of you are like, no, 2020 is way out there. Brennan, what I'm trying to encourage you to do is there's not that many days, so you really got to fill the calendar with needle moving activities. Your calendar should be filled with meetings about meeting with prospects to get them in your team. Like, should be filled. You shouldn't bumble into Monday and be like, what am I? What? You know, what am I going to do this week? If you're still doing that, I got to tell you, you're still in amateur hour. You know, that's the difference. Pros are filling their calendar with activities, with training, with events, with meetings, with follow up times, with times to make presentations or do their media or get themselves prepared to build the business. Like, their calendar is run in such a way that they can manage their life more efficiently and strategically. You know, if I parachuted in your life and I looked at your calendar, is it obvious what you are trying to achieve this year? Or if I looked at it, it's like, there's no meetings in here. You know, there's no learning in here. I don't see any major activities planned or scheduled for them to build their business, you know, because what amateurs do is they just show up each day and they're like, I guess I should check some social media, I should check some email and, you know, maybe good things will come from that. In other words, amateurs are flying by the seat of their pants. Professionals are strategically planning their advancement. That's what I want you to do. Are you strategically planning your advancement or are you bumbling through the days? If you're bumbling through the days, that's amateur. And I know it hurts to say that, and I know it can sound disrespectful, but I literally say that only because I do respect your case. I respect your potential. And if you really activated your potential, you would activate that calendar. You and I both know it. You cannot go through so many days bumbling. I mean, what people don't realize is the incredible cost of bumbling through the days. You know, the average American now spends 36 minutes on social media. I'm sorry, 36 minutes just on Facebook each day. And that's just consuming Facebook. That's not posting or advancing their business. That's just like scrolling and swiping it's not doing business. It's just like browsing. And you always hear me talk about these in episodes. That real cost of browsing. I mean, think about it. If you're on Facebook 30 minutes a day, or any social media browsing each day, how much is that? That's 30 minutes on a Monday, 30 minutes on Tuesday, 30 minutes on Wednesday, 30 minutes on Thursday, 30 minutes on Friday, 30 minutes on Saturday, 30 minutes on Sunday. Think about that for a minute. That's seven 30 minute blocks gone. Gone. I mean, that's an unbelievable advantage. You had three and a half more hours that you could have SWAT teamed and achieved something that week. And I know you don't need this productivity conversation from me all the time. Except you do, and so do I, and so does everybody else who's a high performer. Because professionals can always recognize what we call dead time. Part of becoming pro is recognizing dead time time that you just wasted and going, you know what? No more. I can't do that again. To recognize when you wasted an hour of your day and to be okay with getting hard on yourself about that, feeling a little guilty and going, you know what? My family deserves more. People always say, well, Brendan, that's. Don't tell people to feel guilty about, you know, things. That's an awful thing. I mean, you're the personal development guy. How could you tell people to feel guilty? I'm like, you know what? Because we've gotten to a place where we set so low of standards for ourselves and our society, we have a lot of people who are doing irresponsible things. Irresponsible. You know, they're being irresponsible for their family. They're being irresponsible for themselves and their health. They're being irresponsible with their time to their companies because we think we can get away with it because no one holds us to account anymore. And if no one holds us to account and if we don't hold ourselves to account, think about all the time we could waste. We could waste so much time. And then who suffers? Your family, your health, the people you're trying to lead and support this organization. So I hope that makes sense to you that when I say I want you to feel guilty about time wasted, it doesn't sound great. I'm not saying I want you to feel disempowered. I'm not saying get down on yourself. I'm just like, recognize like, oh, I do. I feel guilty when I waste time and people go, brandon, that's terrible. No, no. I feel very guilty when I waste time because I also feel very blessed that God gave me this breath, this opportunity, this moment to get things done. My guilt comes from the recognition of blessing, of reverence. And so I don't think it's a bad thing. I think sometimes guilt can knock you up to the head and go, hey, man, pay attention, be better. So people, I think we always like to shine a bright, happy light on lots of things, but sometimes those negative range of emotions are real. It's real that I wasted some time and I shouldn't do that. And I don't want you to do it. I want you to be proud of how you spent your day today. You know, here you are spending some time watching some training to improve yourself. Be happy about that. Give yourself some credit for that. When you get good things done each day, feel proud about that. Feel good about that. You know, that's what I want you to feel. I want you to feel that great level of engagement and joy that comes from leveraging time. Well, you know, I always tell people, you want to know if somebody's really grateful for life, check out their time management. They manage their time well. They recognize, you know, what, life is precious. You know, what we don't have a lot of times. I mean, some of you have had kids go off to school, some of you probably just, you know, help launch your kid into college. Think about that. Think about how fast that time went. You know, at some point you thought, geez, am I ever going to get through this childhood with, you know, and then you thought, am I ever going to get through this season with my kid? And then all of a sudden, oh, wait, you're sending them off to college. Time goes like that. And at some point we are all going to be held to account about how we use that time. And what I would love for you to do is fill that calendar with needle moving activities that are going to build your business. Sit down with your calendar and go, okay, what are the major things I'm going to do to move this business forward? What day am I going to do this activity? Like literally block the time out.

Many of you guys know I use.

The high performance planner that we developed at the High Performance Institute that we. I literally can barely. If I don't use that each day to block out my time, I'm a hot mess. You know, I don't know about you, but if I don't have a calendar, I'm a hot mess. So I have to do it like I do it old School. I like to write it down and look at the blocks of time and say, okay, this is when I'm going to do my email today. I don't check my email throughout the day. This is the time that I'm going to do. Email this block of time in the morning, this block of time at the end of the day. That's the only time I look at email. I don't sit there and hope something comes in to give me something to do. Because the other blocks of time I have planned what to do. Call this person, reach out to this person, build a proposal here, follow up on this there. Like, by scheduling that calendar each day, I've gotten more proficient at managing time. Now, some of you have never done it before, so it's gonna be like, first step. Like, okay, just plan tomorrow better. Literally, just plan tomorrow better. Some of you are like, but, Brennan, I planned my day tomorrow. I only had, like, one thing to do. I don't know what to do with my time. I'm like, fill it with conversations and interactions that will build your business. Reach out to more prospects. Go to more networking meetings. Go hang out with your community members, or take the girls to lunch and talk about the products. Get yourself in motion, but start scheduling that time. Stop hoping that the meetings will happen and one day you'll make more money. Instead, make the meetings happen. Schedule it. I mean, here's the easy thing. Do you have anything scheduled for next Wednesday that will build your business? Simple question, right? We're only talking about, what, 10 business days from now, next Wednesday. Is there anything scheduled to build your business? If not, that's how you know you're still an amateur hour. If you've got stuff planned for next Wednesday to build the business, that's how you know you're starting to become pro. Does that make sense? It is not about scheduling every minute of your day. Because for me, creativity is important. Family is important. My health is important. But because those things are important, I also schedule them. It is like, that is when I am going to work out right there. That is when I am going to take a long lunch with my wife. Right there. That is when I am going to go for a walk right there. By scheduling a little bit more of it, I make sure it happens. Because if you don't schedule it, it doesn't happen. And then when it doesn't happen, all of a sudden your health got compromised, your time with your family got compromised, and what did it get compromised by? What did you compromise your health for? What did you compromise Your health. For what did you compromise your family time for? You know what you compromised it for? Browsing and lack of planning and scheduling. Isn't it true that's what's killing us all? So that's what I'm saying. Fill that calendar with needle moving activities that show you're a professional. I hope I didn't beat that to death but I think it is really important as a topic because so many people bumble into so many of their days. If you need help with this, bust out a piece of paper. Every morning when you first wake up, write down your three goals. Write down the things you need to say to yourself and the things you need to get done. Measure your habits in some way or another to see if you are staying on track. That is the important thing that daily discipline.

Alright my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up?

Did you love it?

If you did, make sure you do me a favor, go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. You know, just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendon show because when you do that I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autographs, craft books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly, that's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like like you just heard. But we do that every single month and there's some live Q and A there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing, practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show. I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B R e n d o n show.

Sam.