Best Of: Overcome Procrastination and Maintain Motivation

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Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendan show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes online to 10 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 going to 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 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 enjoy 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 still suggesting or motioning tool 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 strategies 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 dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program.

But without further ado, let's jump in.

Right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings.

Hey everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. Welcome to your monthly training and we are live I've got 1pm Pacific Standard Time here in Portland, Oregon. I'm excited to have you here and today we have a full high performance training for you. I'm going to share some success strategies with you. I'm going to share some simple tools and techniques you can do to improve your life. I've got a full hot sheet of agenda items here. It's green, so you know it's serious. And I'm wearing my picnic table shirt, so if you like that, you know it's going to be a good day. We're going to talk about how do you overcome procrastination with one simple technique. If you will implement it, it will help you overcome procrastination. You'll never go to bed going, ah, I didn't do something I was supposed to do. Today we will talk about how I read books and some of the notes that I take and how I absorb the material so quickly and so in depth. We'll talk about how and when to use negative motivation, which you should sometimes. We'll talk about how do you deal with doubters and complainers. We had a lot of people asking, from my recent Oprah course to that live webcast, people saying, how do you deal with someone who doubts you, complains, has negative energy, is not supportive of you? If you're experiencing that in some way, your family, your friends, your peer set? We'll talk about how to deal with that. And we'll talk about finally, number five, how do you improve your mood? You know, a lot of people think it's a big, complex thing or they go to Starbucks for that, but you don't need that. What you need is a new set of practices that you can instantly put into play that will help you feel better. And what more important could you do this year that then master your own mood? You know, a lot of people think that their moods are just things that strike them down randomly. But usually your mood is actually a collection of things that have been building a momentum towards that mood. So if we can control what's building momentum, we can enhance the mood. And we'll talk about how to do that, too. Here we go. Number one, techniques for overcoming procrastination. How big is this one right now? This time a lot of people are really struggling, yet you had a big New Year's resolution and all of a sudden you're kind of getting back into the swing of things. You're back at work, you're back running your business, that you got to get the kids to school and suddenly you might be struggling and struggling not just like in terms of getting things done. We'll talk about procrastination. You might be struggling with your mood that post holiday post new year high might be gone, or you're back into the obligations of life. And that might be really strenuous on you. So this is gonna be a great webcast. My very first thing I want to teach you about is in overcoming procrastination is what I call pretty event procrastination busting. Here's what it means. It means that if you're ever going to overcome procrastination, you actually have to schedule it. But that's a problem, right? Because you part of procrastination is you're not doing it because maybe you're fearful, you don't really want to do it. You sense it'll bring difficulty, hardship, failure, embarrassment into your life. There's something about. Something about the thing that you're not doing because you don't feel like the payoff will be immediate enough or high enough. And that's why you're not doing what you should be doing. It's lack of a connection with the payoff, right? Because if you believe there was a payoff, you would do it. If you believe there's a payoff, right away you would do it. But you're not doing it because you don't believe that the payoff is there. So let's just intellectually, philosophically talk about this before we get into practice. The philosophy is if there is something that you're procrastinating on, it's time to examine that emotionally. Why is it you keep avoiding doing that? Is it bringing some sense of hardship, struggle, fear, concern in? If so, why? What is that? Also, have you identified the payoff? A lot of people procrastinate because they don't know why they should be doing something. They're not really attached to it. They haven't got excited about, they haven't emotionally integrated the awesomeness of doing that thing. So they're putting it off because they can. There's no consequence to putting it off. So you'll see in procrastination work, there's a lot of things about saying, well, set up an earlier payoff. That's a great idea. Set up a consequence. If you don't do it, we'll talk about negative motivation today. That's a great idea. And yet people keep procrastinating. So those are not enough. Those are great pieces of advice. I recommend that you do, but they're not enough to Go to another level. The way to overcome procrastination is to schedule time to overcome procrastination. But people say but Brendan, that's part of the problem. I said I know, but it's the way that you're thinking about scheduling time. The way I want you to think about procrastination from now on is to know that you have a safety period of time each day. That that is when you are going to deal with procrastination. Here's what I mean by that. I call it the pre event procrastination practice. Here's what I do. I do a 30 minute sort of thunder time, if you will. These are really bad names and labels today. This is what happens when you don't think of. What do you call that thing that you do? I mean, what is it? That thing that I do? Here's what I do before every meal. Before every meal. For me, I like to choose dinner especially. That is my. Before every meal, before every dinner, I take a 30 minute segment of time. And that 30 minutes is where I purposely go in and do the things I procrastinate against. So for example, let's take tonight. Let's say if I'm going to eat dinner at 6 o', clock, at 5:30, either as the dinner is heating up in the oven or before we go out to dinner 30 minutes in advance of a meal or the preparation of a meal, I go, oh, that's my pre event time. So the event is dinner and I just block. There's 30 minutes of my time. So before I cook dinner, I better get this done. See scheduling, it's difficult to do unless you bounce it up against something that already exists. It's called the piggyback time management program. Right. So you figure out something you're already going to do and right before you do it, before you're able to do it, you. That's the time to overcome procrastination. So here's my technique. Pick something that you do every day anyway. This can be before you eat a meal, before you watch television, before you go to bed, before you brush your teeth and take 30 minutes. And that 30 minutes is dedicated towards doing something that you've been procrastinating on. You're gonna write that article, but you didn't get it today. Okay, before you brush your teeth, 30 minutes, go. Here's the thing though. It has be the same event every day. So for me, every day before dinner I have 30 minutes no matter what's going to go on. Oh, we're Going to eat in 30 minutes. Hold on. Boom. And I do my 30 minutes. Procrastination. I just think, what did I procrastinate on? You know what? I was going to read that article. Didn't do it. Read the article. You know what? I was going to outline that new course. Didn't do it. Outline the new course. You gotta schedule that 30 minutes before something. So what's it gonna be for you? Is it 30 minutes before you brush your teeth? Before your dinner, before you go out, before you watch television? Before what? Some people will say, well, Brendan, could I do it after something? Can I do it after I drop off the kids? Can I do it after this? Yes, but we've found in behavioral studies that an after piggyback event is not implemented as much as the before piggyback event. And I think you probably experienced this in your own life. If you know that you have to get something done before an event, you're more likely to do it than if you say, well, after the event. Because what happens? You say, yeah, after I watch tv, then I'll do that thing I'm procrastinating on. No, you're going to watch five more seasons of television. Oh, but you know, after I drop the kids off. That's right. I'm supposed to do these things. No, sometimes you don't tag it on before an event. This is the pre event procrastination routine. What is it you're going to do every day to overcome procrastination? You're going to block a schedule of time. You only need 15 or 30 minutes. The big myth that we all have in our heads is that we need hours and hours to do something. The reality is we need little bits of time that we consistently do things to move our lives forward. And if you can say that from now on, I'm going to take 15 minutes, 30 minutes before X habit that I usually do during the day. Then you will start to find an unbelievable explosion in your progress in your life. See, I knew I would never deal with progress in my life or procrastination in my life unless I had a block time. I was supposed to do it. So I set up random block times throughout the day. I didn't do it, but once I bumped it up to dinner. Before dinner, I have 30 minutes to get stuff done. I became a SWAT team in my life. I hope that you enjoyed that idea. Number two book I'm reading right now and how I take notes. Book I'm reading right now is the Essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, I hope you've read it or that you've read a lot of Emerson in your life. If you haven't, this will be a life changing day. He's one of the great influences of my life, one of the great influences in terms of tone, pacing and style that I learned from in studying a lot of rhetoric before I could write the motivation manifesto, Ralph Waldo Emerson's the Essential Writings. Here is how I read this book and all books. I think a lot of people struggle to tactically implement or benefit from the books that they read. They read a nonfiction book and they get a lot of ideas, but they never go back to the book and do anything with it. Or as they're reading, they're not integrating the lessons. So I've set up my own sort of approach to how I read a book. And since I, many of you guys know, I've been reading a book a week, at least, minimum for 20 years. This year, this is my 20th anniversary this year of reading a book every single week. Here's what I do. I have a little code system when I'm reading and I just have these letters that I write in the margins of the book that cues me on what I should do after the reading session. And so here's what I want you to think about this first. When I go to sit down with the book, I consider a reading session. When I'm doing a reading session, I do not have my phone with me. It's very important. I have just the book and just a journal. There's no other distractions. As much as possible. Not that I can always limit it with where I'm at or what's going on in my life or family. But I tried to make sure that I approach reading as enjoyment time, that I approach reading like you did. If you went to school, you went to high school or college, or you had the big paper that you'd have to go and kind of like you knew you had to get serious, so you went to the library and you boxed off the world. That's how I approach reading still to this day, even leisure reading, I approach as this is a reading session and I set a time for how much I'm going to read. So am I going to read for 15 minutes now? For 20 minutes, for an hour? And I set that timer on my phone and put the phone over in another room or somewhere away off WI Fi. So it's not going to buzz at me or do anything else. But I like to set a timer so I know that I have this time to read, so I can really enjoy and know that I get to live in this time of reading. Then what I do is, as I'm reading the book, I've just got a pen and I've got my journal, and I have all these codes. People have been asking my codes. I'll share them with you. If I write Q next to anything, I underline, that means quote it. That means all these things are actionable. All these codes I have to read a book. They're all actionable. So what I do is, as I'm reading a book, I write these codes. At the end of the session, I flip back to the pages I've read and I implement any of these codes that I'm supposed to. So I never read a bunch of a book, underline it, put the book down and go off and do something else and think, oh, well, when I finish the book, then I'm going to do this. Because how many books have you ever started that you didn't finish? So here's the codes. Q is for quote. That means I'm going to open up that book again. I see I wrote quote. Okay? I typed that quote into an Excel spreadsheet that I'll use later. And that's what you see in my Twitter feed or across the web when I'm posting other people's quotes. I get them for my reading sessions. So Q is for quote. A is for article. If I underline something and I write A next to it, it means I want to write an article based on that or I want to shoot a video on that or do a blog post on it. I just write A for article. That means that's something. That's a big, big concept. It means it's something that could inspire my content in the future. A lot of you ask Brennan, where do you come up with all your content? Most of my content comes from reading. So I'm reading something, I go, oh, that's a great topic. I want to write an article or do a blog post or a video on that. So that's a. B is for buy. And that means maybe they recommend a book on it or they're suggesting a product or it makes me think of something to buy. So B is for buy, S is for share. And share doesn't mean just direct quote. Share means I'm gonna. Whatever I underline, that means I thought of somebody I could share that with. One of the reasons I think my learning is accelerated over some other people's is because when I learn something profound, I Share it. So I literally copy and paste it. Or I'll type it out and I'll send that paragraph to 15 or 20 friends or 15 or 20 people in my industry say, hey, guys, I'm reading this book, the Essential Writings. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I love this section. Check it out and I'll send it to people, and inevitably they'll write back. I love this part about it. And it starts. My own little discussion group around things that I find powerful. It might. Might also be. I'm going to share that online. Okay, so, and then the last one is M. And that means for M stands for make or invent. If I'm reading something and they're discussing a problem, and I'll be like, I could solve that, or I know somebody could, and I'll write M or I. And that means make or invent a solution. Or if I come up with some amazing idea that I want to invent something that will be written there too. So those are my main codes that I use in my margins when I'm writing. Reading a book. Q for coat, A for article, B for buy. Okay, let's see. S for share, and M or I for make or invent. Recap. When you read a book, decide how long you're gonna be reading. Have some kind of code that you can underline things and write yourself just one letter so it doesn't slow you down from the stream of thought of the book itself. And then after you finish your writing session, after your time runs out, immediately go back and implement your codes. If you're going to quote it, quote it. If you want to share it, share it. If you're going to write an article on it, remind yourself and set it up in your calendar to write an article on it. But don't leave a book without the action followed up immediately. Doesn't mean you need to write the whole article on it, but put it in your calendar tomorrow morning, 30 minutes. Write this article based on this section. If you don't implement it, then what's happening is all this learning is kind of going in, all these great ideas are happening, but it keeps getting left behind. Book after book after book after book. Okay, Number three, negative motivation. How and when to use it. First, let's talk about what negative motivation is. Negative motivation is kind of think about. Think about it in this way. Consequence planning. It's. What's the negative consequence that would happen if I didn't do certain activity or follow a certain habit or reach a certain goal? And those are usually what it is. Negative Consequences you set up. If you don't do something you're supposed to do, implement a habit or reach a goal, those are the kind of three ways to think about those consequences. Okay? And there's three main negative consequences that you can set up for yourself. Number one, social embarrassment. Let's say you decide, I'm going to lose £10 this month. Well, how do you know if you should set up a negative motivation consequence? I always tell people, don't set any negative motivation until you've tried something with this positive reinforcement for yourself. So a lot of people advise, set up a positive thing and a negative thing. I don't want a lot of negativity or a lot of pain surrounding me in my life. I. I want to condition myself to do things for the reason of the payoff, for the reason of the contribution, for the reason of the pleasure, for the reason of making the difference. I've conditioned myself to do it for the positive benefits. So first I'm going to say, okay, I have this goal I want to hit. I'm going to set up all these positive things that I could do. If I hit the goal, I get to go to this restaurant. If I hit the goal, I get to have this extra time. If I hit the goal, these positive things will happen for other people. And I get very clear on what's going to happen if I hit the goal. And if you studied my work in High Performance Academy or the Achievement Accelerator, I spend a lot of time in positive visualization, not just imagining hitting the goal, but imagining myself overcoming the struggles on the way to the goal. And then after achieving it, I literally think about and sit and feel and sense that the magic of having done it, the pride, the joy, the anticipation of it all. From there, I try and give myself a timeline. I say, okay, I'm going to give myself three weeks to complete this. And I just set up in the calendar that that's my deadline, three weeks to complete this. And I always try first on positive motivation. So the positive consequences, I just go for that. The only time I set up or in my clients I set up negative motivation is when they fail. So if you try for three weeks and it didn't work with just positive motivation, now set up a negative consequence and do it again. So if I have to, end of three weeks, I've tried something, it didn't work. I go, okay, clearly I am a base, childish individual who needs some kind of reprimand. If I don't have the carrot, if I have the carrot and it didn't work. I'm going to put the stick on. I'm going to put the stick on hard and here we go. Let me set up something I'm not going to like. But I found in the last decade of my life I haven't really struggled with that a lot. Now I know some people do. So if you do and you're going to set up a negative consequence, here's the three kinds of negative consequence. The first one is social embarrassment. This says if I try something and I have positive consequences set up and I fail. Okay, now I fail. Now I need to set up a new timeline with a new consequence. Does that make sense? Negative motivation. You set up with a new timeline and a new consequence. So I say in, you know, four weeks, I'm going to lose 10 pounds. At the end of the four weeks after Rah rah ing myself up, understanding the positive consequences, I fail. Then I say, okay, I'm going to set up a new timeline. I'm going to give myself four more weeks. Now I'm going to set up a negative consequence. And here's what it is. I'll start with the first type. Social embarrassment. If at the end of four weeks I do not lose that ten pounds, then on that 30th day I have to streak my neighborhood. That means run naked around my neighborhood. And what I will do is I will go onto each of my neighbors houses, I will knock on all the doors, I'll say, hey Bob, I'm trying to lose some weight this month. I've been trying, honestly I just tried for 30 days. Nothing happened. So on the 30th of this month at 6:00pm, on the 30th of this Month at 6:00pm If I didn't lose the 10 pounds, going to run around the block naked. It's going to be awful. It's cold outside, you have a phone. This could be recorded. This might be really awful. But that's what I'm going to do. Okay, so I'll tell Bob and I'll go. It'll be so painful. I will go to every house in the neighborhood and I will tell them all on the 30th at 6pm and you know what this starts? It starts a community effect that once to see me fail. I have just set up my enemies. Now I've got the entire neighborhood all talking about in the grocery store, Burchard's gonna run naked if he don't lose some weight. Now I know they're all thinking that. I know that they all want it to happen. And you know what? One of the main drivers that we all have is we want to know that we have the social prowess to hit our goals so we don't look foolish in front of other people. It's a very deep, heavy human drive is not to look foolish in front of other people. In other words, I set myself up completely that I know psychologically I must do this. And notice the specificity here. I tell people, I tell them a date, I tell them a time, and I tell them the stupid thing that I'm going to do. And I don't tell one person, I tell multiple people. Now guess what? I'm going to be focused on that month. Not having to run naked on the 30th at 6pm in front of my neighbors who are all going to stand out there with the American flag and a bunch of, you know, Kool Aid bottles watching to see if this kid actually has to do this. This is what I want you to think about. I know I'm teasing and having fun with you today, but I'm trying to make this fun. That's why I wear this ugly shirt for you. I really want you to think about how could you make negative motivation fun and silly. But you got to do it because you know what? In this situation, all my neighborhood, they're going to be watching me. They're going to come up probably two or three times in the month and go, hey, hey, dude, are you really going to do this? And they're never going to ask. They're not going to look at me and say, did you lose the weight? They're just going to go, are you really going to do it? You get 10 people saying to you all month, are you really going to do that? And guess what? You just built in your social pressure to achieve your goal. So what negative social embarrassing thing can you set up now? Again, I say that only do that if you've tried to previously manage on yourself with positive payoffs. Number two, a negative emotion that consequences you can set up is what we call task obligation. Task obligation. This means you need to do a negative task you don't want to do if you fail to achieve your goal in a given timeline. For example, well, if I don't write that article by the 5th of this month, then I'm going to go out and clean the shed. Cleaning the shed might not sound serious to you, but I'm from Montana where there are farm animals and other animals that would live in the shed that I didn't want to deal with. So I thought about, I don't want to do that. But that's what goes in the calendar. It says in the calendar on the 5th is article complete. If article is not complete, you clean the shed. Now, some people say, but you're not going to stick to that. I tell people, my family, my wife, I tell people, if I on the 5th, I don't get the article done, I got to clean the shed. And I tell enough people that. That you might think that's so silly. Clean the shed, whatever your consequences. It's always silly. The consequences you set up for yourself, they're always silly, aren't they? You don't have to do them, but knowing that you set them up, putting them in a calendar, being specific about it and sharing it with people, it makes it real. And why is that important? Because you finally thought about it. Your life right now is a real indication of the consequences you've thought about in your life. If you've never sat and done the work of thinking about the consequences of your actions before, then you're probably unhappy with your life right now. I say that respectfully because I've been there at a point in my life where I wasn't thinking about the consequences and the momentum I was creating in my life as a person, as a character, as a business person. I wasn't thinking about it. And many people have never been trained on a consistent basis to think of the consequences of their actions, of how they're treating people, of what they're doing day in and day out. So setting them up for your goals starts to condition you. Even if you think, oh, cleaning the shed, that's stupid. He doesn't have to clean the shed. Doesn't even matter. It's thinking about the consequence. It's having it in the calendar. These start to make you a more productive and effective person. Thinking about consequences, having a calendar, being specific, if you just develop those skills, consequence calendar, something specific to do this year would be amazing for you. But most people aren't doing that. Task obligation. If you don't hit your goal, what horrible thing will you make yourself do as a task that you do not want to do? That's number two. The third area of negative motivation is called personal deprivation. Sounds really serious, doesn't it? Drums Deprivation. It means, you know, let's say if you don't hit your goal, no more wine for two months. Try that one on for size. How painful would that be? No wine for two months. Hey, what about this one? No chocolate for two months. No dessert for two months. Oh, no shopping for six weeks. Whatever it is for you, it's something that you love to do that now you're going to deprave yourself from because you didn't hit the goal on a specific timeline. Remember, specific goal, specific timeline, specific consequence. And here's what I have to share with you. If you are one of those people who goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Consequences. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you conceptually understand it, that's good. But common sense isn't always common practice. So here's my real question for you high performers, and I really want you to tune in and listen, please. If I came to your house today and we opened up your laptop and we looked at your schedule, your actual calendar, and we opened up a week from now, we opened up two weeks from now, three weeks from now, and four weeks from now, are there any goals that are specific in that calendar with a timeline and a consequence built into the calendar? If it's not there, you can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Brendan, I get it. If it's not there and it's not there consistently and it hasn't been there consistently in your life, this is your next level. For a lot of people, really getting to another level of success and achievement in their life is getting them to start working a calendar, working specified plans. Because it's so easy, especially if you're like me, an entrepreneur, you don't have to do that. You could just wing it. And maybe you have been winging it. But here's what we know from the world's highest performing athletes or the most disciplined, high performing executives. They've got a calendar, it's managed exceptionally well for themselves. It doesn't have to be on their team calendar. There's a million things on my personal calendar that are not on my team calendar. But having those in my personal calendar, it keeps me focused. And I have to share with you. If it's not written down, if it's not in a real calendar that has reminders set up for it, then it's not real. You don't have a schedule yet, and you're winging it too often. And you can't get to higher levels of effectiveness, efficiency, or even flow if you're constantly winging it. So your job to become more disciplined and effective this year is have a higher level of specificity of your goal, your timeline, your consequences. Set up in a calendar with reminders. If you didn't know when you set up your calendar, you can set up automated reminders that go out to you I have reminders that go out to me from anywhere from 72 hours to 48 hours to 24 hours to 2 hours that ping and remind me to hit that goal and that task. That's why I'm able to release, as an example content every week. It's why I'm able, as an example to create content every week because it just, it says to do it in this little box. And this little box is much more smart than this box. Right? This box keeps me organized. This one keeps me free and creative. But if these two aren't working together, I'm a hot mess. And I know you are too. No matter how much you love spontaneity and freedom and creativity, this and scheduling is your next level. I hope I beat that one enough for you guys. Negative motivation. Institute it after you have failed. Set up a timeline, set up a schedule and specificity of consequences. You'll be rocking. Two more big topics. Number four, how do you deal with doubters, complainers, negative nellies? Is that what they call it? Neg nellies? Oh, I wonder what a Nelly is. Is it a person? Was Nelly a historical figure that was so negative that she still survives this day and people criticize others on that? Number one, decide what's important, what's going important right now at this stage of your life? I mean, what is it? Is it for you? What's challenging? What's frustrating? What's important is listening to other people and letting other people push you around, boss you around, make you feel bad. Are you somebody at this point in your life can decide what's really important to you is your own personal energy and you're going to learn to generate that or keep relying on other people. I often get, I would say I get a little bit of criticism for the way I talk about this because when people say to me often in live or on television, they've asked me this before. Brendon, how do you deal with doubters and complainers and, you know, negative nellies because they can just suck the energy right out of you, right? I go, no, they can't. And that's the end of the conversation. I don't have a lot more to contribute to it than that. And I don't mean that to be flippant, but if you are still allowing the people around you to control your energy, it is time to get deeper into your studies of psychology and personal development. And I say that respectfully because I know some people, you have a negative spouse or you have a negative neighbor or negative person at work. And it's easy to blame them. It's easy to play victim, especially around assholes. I know, right? It's easy to say, oh, well, this asshole makes me feel this way. No one, no one gives you permission to feel anything but yourself. I know that's really hard to accept when you got negative people, but Eleanor Roosevelt said it. No one can make you feel any way but the way you decide that you're going to feel. And it's very important to realize that and to condition yourself not to get thrown up, not to get tossed into other people's pools of pessimism, you know, because, look, I can't ever give the solid answer that, oh, you don't have to worry about. Look, there's always going to be doubters, there's always going to be critics. There's always going to be people around you who are negative. And here's what I say, so what? Your job is not to turn them, to make them magical Pollyanna people skipping through a field of roses, probably that way. They've probably been conditioned that way. They're probably going to be that way for years. So why even attempt to deal with anything related to them except how you are allowing yourself to deal with that? Because here's the thing. You're the one allowing yourself to feel the way you do. You're the one conditioning yourself. You're the one triggering yourself. Have you ever been with two people and you saw one person say something just completely benign and didn't have an emotional hook, or they weren't being mean and the other person blew up at it? And you're like, what happened there? It didn't mean anything to you, but this person made it mean something big and they blew up and they went on a tirade about it. Well, in that experience, you see the power of emotional control. You saw the same thing. They took it and they went level five anger. I learned very young that I didn't like anger. I saw it all the time around me all the time. I grew up in a town where if somebody didn't like something about you or something, you said it wasn't a conflict of words, it was a fight, a duel. It literally went to fists. I grew up fighting all until I was probably 22 years old, constantly in fights, physical fights. That's why I developed so much of a skill in martial arts, because I was like, I don't want to deal with this. I want to be better at this. But it was constant. I grew up around such a culture of people who wanted to fight all the time that I was like, I don't want to. I'm going to learn not to let people get me angry, that I would get into fights. I decided the anger, if I was letting anger win, I was a lesser person. If I let somebody's negativity win, I was a lesser person. I did it in a very stoic way that said, you know what? These people are presented to me as a challenge to my character. Will I rise above it or will I sink to their level? And I think that's first and foremost what's important is for you to get a grasp of your own attitude, your own energy. And how important is that this year? Look, I know you guys, you're going to go for big things this year. There's going to be a lot of people who are going to think you're crazy. And you've probably already encountered a lot of people who saw your New Year's resolutions and they're making fun of you, they're saying negative things. And all I can share with you is this. It is vital that you decide to start generating the emotional energy and experience you want of life. And never, never be a victim to other people's energy. I always recognize, I go, oh, there's the energy. And then I say, oh, and here's a trigger in my mind. He wants to go over there, he wants to please, he wants to placate, he wants to join them. No. Now people immediately say, well, Brendan, what if they get mad at you for not being in their energy? They don't like that you're positive, they make fun of you, they're mad. So what? Because look, someone's not going to like someone in that situation. Either they're not going to like you for you being who you are, or you aren't going to like yourself and you're not going to like them for conforming to their energy. It is a lose, lose situation. The only way out of it is above it. And above it is you maintaining your emotional energy despite it all. It's what Viktor Frankl taught us. In man's search for meaning, the last of human freedoms is the ability to control one's own attitude. How magical is that? It's up to you now. For those who are still going, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you don't understand my spouse. Let me talk to you real quickly. One watch this recording again and start to own the reality that you're in charge of your emotions, you're in charge of how you feel. You got to own that doubters complainers. Don't give them time, don't give them credit. Don't give them the ability or the permission to knock you off your path. Second, make it a game. I love making a game. It's a game to me. People's energy is a game to me. I look at it and I go, huh? I wonder if I can not get pulled into this. If I don't get it to pull this, I get some points. And then I also think, in those circumstances where everybody's negative and it all looks like it's going to fall apart, I make it a game. I go, I wonder if I could turn this around. I don't try to turn people around because I feel superior or it's an obligation in any way whatsoever. I try to make a positive effect because I think that's part of our mission in the world, is to make more positive energy and to generate that energy that brings more joy or peace, satisfaction, fulfillment in other people's lives. We're not responsible for other people's lives, but we can influence them. And as soon as you say, I'm not responsible for their energy, it gives you freedom. You are not responsible for the hot mess of other people's lives. The day that you own that, you're like, ah, life is so good. I'm not responsible for other people's energy, but I do have the opportunity to influence it. And now you are free to approach it as a game, like I do. So it was one of my favorite games is if I'm sitting down with somebody who's constantly complaining and negative, I just take it as a test. I'm like, I wonder if I can get them laughing. I wonder if I can get them talking about something positive without judging them, without criticizing them. Just try and turn that conversation. That's what I try to do. So it's like a game to me. And then I'll finally say this. The third thing you can do with doubters and complainers. If you just can't get yourself away from that victim mentality, you're always being brought in. If you don't want to take on the responsibility or even the opportunity to influence the energy. Third piece, if it's constant and it's constant, it's constant. It's time for you to put your foot down, look a person in the face and say, look, I really want to be around you. I think you're great. But what I've noticed is you have this pattern of constantly complaining. And you know what? I think you actually have the Right to. I think there's a lot of things going on in your life. I get it. It's a struggle. But you know what? If you keep talking about all the things in such a negative way, you're generating a negative energy for yourself and for me. Now, if you want to do that for yourself, that's cool. But I just want you to know I can't be part of negative conversations all the time. And I do everything I can to avoid those things. But in that process, I don't want to avoid you because I like you. So either we need to change our communication pattern here and talk about positive things or things that we can do in a better way, or I need to limit our conversations. I don't want to do that. But I'm going to let you know my energy is important to me enough that I would and I can share with you. I've probably said that to seven or eight people in my life. I would say that three of them reacted very poorly and I limited my exposure to them. The other four were like, I do. What do you mean? I make you feel bad. And sometimes people just don't realize how much they bitch and moan and complain. And you just have to say it subtly and directly at the same time. Subtly in a way that you're not judging them, but directly in telling them. You'll have to limit the exposure to it. I hope that makes sense. Watch this recording again. If it didn't write down what I said, I hope it will serve you in that process. Okay, Last one. Let me give you some very simple ways to improve your mood this year. If you do find yourself getting sucked into these negative moments, these negative feelings, here's some very simple things that I hope will serve you. 1, 2, 3, 4. I'm going to give you five ways to quickly improve your mood that will also help you overcome the stress and the overwhelm that might come with seeking to achieve higher things in your life. Okay, Very simple ones. They all start with M. So there's a simple mnemonic here, I guess you.

Call it or acronym.

I can't remember what they call that. Number one, movement. If you're constantly in a bad mood, you probably need to go blow that out by doing some movement. Join a yoga class. Do your stretches in the morning, your stretches at night, like we teach at High Performance Academy, or you'll learn. Get onto a better exercise routine. Make sure that you are sort of blowing out the gas of stress. And the only way to do that is through movement. So there Is nothing more proven in psychology to improve mood than physical exercise? Nothing. Nothing physical exercise outside of severe disorders has been proven to improve mood as much as substances and some psychedelics and lots of other, I guess you could call it substances and other ways to deal with things, including psychiatric drugs. So for those of you who are not on a consistent plan to exercise, get on one. It'll be the best gift you've ever given yourself. Ever. HPAers. Do your two by twos. If you don't know what that is, you'll learn it at High Performance Academy or you'll learn it in High Performance Academy. Master's course in the physiology section. Do your two by twos. It will help make sure that you are getting outside at least for a walk every other day. Just go outside. 30 minute walk. Just go outside. It will help you so much. Get some fresh air and move. Walk quickly. Number two, mood improver Music. I am stunned how many people's houses I go into and there's no music playing. I'm stunned into how many people work without any music. And it's okay. I do a lot of riding without music. But in general they've proven that an ambiance can improve mood, as you know, because think about it, you're going to wine and dine your lady. You're going to do something romantic. What do you do you think about the music? Music, right. Well, your work should be a love affair. Your art should be a love affair. Set the tone, set the music. Everybody should have an awesome playlist on their phone today. There's no excuse if you don't spend an hour today on itunes. Go find your favorite movies or your favorite music, download it, listen to it as you work out if you want to, or as you read or you work. But set the mood with music. Here's what I do. There's days that for whatever reason, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, as they say. My morning routine gets rid of that. But if during the middle of the day I have a struggle where I'm just like, I get up a call two days ago, I got a horrible phone call. I was just like, ugh. And I was letting the energy come in. I was like, okay, I better move. I went, I got my phone, I put on my favorite playlist, put it on. I walked around the block five times. I cranked up that music and I mean, I was rocking. Pour some sugar on Me. I mean, the worst music you ever heard your whole life. And tell you what, I felt amazing by the Time I hit my door and I got back at it. Music number three, meditation. If you're not doing the release meditation technique yet, try it. Just check it out on YouTube. A million people have learned to meditate from me now. I never thought that would be the case. I'm honored and thrilled by that. That's a million that we know of. Try your meditations. Take 10, 20 minutes every day or twice a day and just do a meditation. No matter what form of meditation, practice it's number 1, 2, 3, 4. Mindful anticipation can change a mood. If you know my morning routine in the shower, one of the questions I ask myself is, what can I be excited about today? And if my mind doesn't come up with any ideas, I invent the ideas. But to change a mood, you need something to look forward to. So think about a way that you could demonstrate appreciation or. Or do something nice for somebody or even prank somebody. But to get your mood changed, sometimes you need to have something to be enthusiastic about. So you need to generate that mindful anticipation. Think about, what can I be excited about today? The next moments, the next few days, and then the last. This is a bonus one. I have no better word for this. But sometimes to improve your mood, you need. I just couldn't come up with an M word, Travis. So this is. Don't take this personal, but you need to hang out with some morons. You know, some people are so serious. If you look at my friends, I would. They're not morons. I was just trying to, I don't know. Fun people. You need your community. You need your people. You need your tribe. You got to have some fun people. If you don't have them, it's time. And people will say, well, Brenda, I don't have any fun people in my life. I go, you know what? Here, let me solve that real quick. Go volunteer. Sign up. Go volunteer somewhere. When you volunteer, you meet the most alive, generous, giving, thoughtful, fun, kind people. If your network sucks right now, go volunteer. Your network will get better. And all I can share with you is what I do is when my mood sucks, I call my friends. When my mood sucks, it's like, let's go do something. And I get around people who are fun, and that fun changes the game for me. So that's my ways to improve mood. I know this has been great. Thank you all. I want to honor you for being here again. I love having you as part of this community. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate you here being with us for the hour and all of your comments. And chats and engagement with the community. Go out there every single day of this year. Know that this year can be whatever you decide to make it up. And as always, go out and live fully, love, openly, make your difference today. Thanks everybody for being here. Goodbye.

All right, 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. 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 posting 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, autograph 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 that's Brendan.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings.

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 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 bit 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.