Feel Better, Encourage Others
28 Dec 2022 · 5 min
Brendon Burchard argues that encouragement is a daily practice that counters modern culture's push toward judgment and criticism. Send texts, notes, or voice messages to people sharing wins or struggles. He links this to human connection and purpose, and says it restores your own well-being.
Chapters
Be a force of encouragement in the world, not antagonism. You'll start to recognize the goodness of the world. You'll start to feel good again. Because that is your deeply human and spiritual nature, is to be a person of connection with others that draws from love, not from hate, that seeks to do something good with others versus tear down everybody in your community. Make sure you encourage others daily, every day. Encourage somebody. I don't care if it's like Brennan. All I got in my life is my mom.
Great.
Send her a text every day. Well, Brendan, I only have this one person, these three people. Great. Send them a text every day. Call them every day. Drop a cute note every day. Drop a voice message every day. I don't care. Send them a meme. I don't. What? Just connect. But I believe that we feel like we are mattering when we are encouraging others, when we can recognize from our own struggle, our own journey, the difficulties of life, that we are more capable of serving other people and encouraging them. And in our world right now, so many people don't feel like they matter because they got pulled into the divisive culture. They got pulled into this darkness where their dominant mental frame of others is judgment, criticism, labeling and blaming. So whatever they see now, look what she's wearing. Whatever they read, look what he said. Outrage. Everything they see is antagonistic. And they have learned to be in an antagonism mode, divisiveness mode, labeling and judging mode. And they're wondering why they feel so terrible about life, why they feel so terrible in and of themselves. You want to change that. Make your dominant frame. Encouragement of others. Somebody's struggling to communicate, encourage them to find their voice. Encourage them to think it through. Someone struggling in a relationship, encourage them to ask for what they need. Somebody's just even going through and they're already successful and they're posting a win instead of going, well, sure, that's easy for you. Now, that was funny. Instead, when they're struggling or they're succeeding, you cheer them on. Even the person they're posting their win. They're so proud that they bought this gift for their family or they got that new house, or even they got that private jet. You can judge it, label it, criticize it, hate on them. Or you could also encourage it. Hey, well done. Good for you. See, you're trying hard. Know you're going through this. Be a force of encouragement in the world, not antagonism. You'll start to recognize the goodness of the world. You'll start to feel good again. Because that is your deeply human and spiritual nature, is to be a person of connection with others that draws from love, not from hate, that seeks to do something good with others versus tear down everybody in your community which this antagonism, as it separates us and divides us, the antagonism starts to drive us because now we're self righteous and everybody's it's their fault that I don't have good human connections. It's their fault that I feel terrible without realizing. No, no, no. You cut off the wellspring. You cut off the wellspring of love, of goodness, of human nature that is caring and compassionate and empathetic and thoughtful and loving and kind. And when you cut off the wellspring of that very human nature, I would call it that divine nature within. When you cut off that source, you can't blame others for how they make you feel. But that's what we do when we have an antagonistic lens. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick.
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Everybody else, it's their fault. Everybody else is dumber. Everybody else is irresponsible. Everyone's an idiot. Everybody's, you know, mean. Everybody's this, that or the other thing. And as we blame, complain, label and judge, we keep pushing down the very force that's trying to come up and saying I love people. I love people, but the truth is I got hurt one time. I love people, but the truth is I don't love myself. I love people, but the truth is I'm scared what they think. I love people but I don't want to try anymore because, you know, people have been mean to me. I love people, but I can't. I love people. And you go through this whole thing and what you realize is at the end of the day, you give so much time to antagonistic thoughts towards others that you forgot to encourage the people around you. But as you encourage them, a flourishing in those relationship happens. That a level you can't understand. When's the last time you really encouraged your son? When's the last time you really encouraged your daughter? When's the last time you encouraged your spouse? When's the last time you really encourage the people you work with? How often do you do that? Because now here's what happens. Some of you go, I don't, I'm terrible. That's the trick with personal development. Some people hear an idea, they judge themselves, they decide for themselves, they don't matter, that they're awful, they're unworthy, that they should shame themselves. Other people hear an idea and go, that's a great new habit. I can do better of that. So today, is there anything I share that you could do better of? Not beat yourself down about, but do better of. That's the magic of personal development thinking, the growth mindset, right? Personal growth. More days of growth where I say, oh, that's something I can get better at. Not, I'm so shameful that I don't matter enough. I'm so shameful that I don't do a good job here. No, it's a practice. You can get better at these things. As you get better at everything I talked about today, I promise you don't even have to worry about the outcome. The outcome of you feeling that life is more beautiful, more meaningful, that you matter. That will take care of itself. And that was my goal today. Give you some insight, some questions, some perspective, maybe some practices or ideas, some mindsets that if you'll follow these and just get better in every one of these little areas, just a tiny little bit, let the outcome take care of itself. One day you'll wake up, it's a much brighter, shinier morning, It's a more beautiful life. You sense your worth again. You sense how much things really do matter right now with people around you. That life is a gift, that this moment is a gift, that what you've already been through, that all mattered, what you're going to go through, that all matters. Because you get to decide that. You get to feel that connection. You get to determine that meeting, you get to determine that, meaning you get to perpetuate that very feeling. Feeling that you matter. I appreciate you being in growth day. I appreciate you doing the work with me. I appreciate the opportunity to serve you here every single day with the daily fire in growth day. With my opportunity to be here with our weekly wisdoms, with the opportunity to do these, you know, first of the month type trainings. I want to thank every one of you. I want you to realize you matter to us. You matter to more people than you know. And your future really matters. So keep building yourself up. Keep getting better. Every day is a great day to grow.