Gain Greater Clarity of Your Future

Some of you haven't rewarded yourself yet. And there's a difference between a reward and a coping mechanism. And you need to learn the difference. Let me give an example. Very simple one. Let's take an example of a tub of ice cream, okay? Some of you all knocked down a tub of ice cream, watching some Netflix. And that was not a reward. That was coping. You just, you went. You went to it. It was automatic. It was a. That was a reach for comfort. That's coping. I need you to know that distinction in your mind and go, no, no, no, no. What's my reward? Because a reward follows effort, follows completion, follows a sense that, oh, I. I earned this thing. This is that time of renewal. This is that time of energy. This message today, like, you're catching me on a day I'm super fired up. So have you ever been motivated and driven and really excited about something and then something technical happens and that motivation and that drive, that excitement turns to like, I'm going to kill everything? I don't know if you've ever had that before, but that was my experience about 15 minutes ago. Today you're going to notice a big shift in my energy for you, in my cheering on for you as the inevitable of life marches on. We got to find our own rhythm in that, right? Uncertainty is always there. So we've got to take advantage of our own personal power and say, okay, how am I going to make this thing my thing? How am I going to find my way through this process? I really want you to write that down. How am I going to find my way through this process today? But this is the time to access the future again. Let me tell you about what happens in coping. And for those who've done any emotional work with me in the past, you know, this conversation about how when there's a lot of turbulence and a lot of chaos, human nature is to go into protection mode. As we go into protection mode. Protection mode is almost always immediacy mode, right? I want to go into safety mode. I want to protect, and I want to, quote, unquote, lock it down. I want to manage my immediate environment to ensure my protection and safety. And what happens is, by the way, that's a very profoundly powerful and beautiful human capability. That desire to protect, to find safety and comfort. That's very important in times of chaos or trauma. However, it comes at a cost. And that cost is a veiling of our perspective and our future orientation. And so what happens is we really went through a dramatic thing that a lot of people don't understand was happening at the time in the year that it happened. What happened? January 2020. We set our big goals, a new decade. How many of you are raising the hands? You set bigger goals than usual because it was a new decade. So here it is, January 2020. We look, we cast a vision that was more vast than usual. A decade. Even on my coaching program, you can go back to January and watch. We are talking about a decade, baby. We are looking out, we are projecting. We are excited about the new decade. So many people are setting bigger ambitions than usual. And you can see so far out, and you have this vision. And then uncertainty, turbulence, pandemic, shutdown, lockdown, scarcity, jobs lost, lives lost. And it was like a great stage curtain that closed our eyes to the future. That emotion came up that said, protect, lock it down. Let's figure out, how do we manage the kids at home? Where do we get the food, the toilet paper people, where's the toilet paper? And so it was immediate. It was, okay, I thought that was. It was immediate, it was focused. And here we were on the short term. But the cost of that, the cost of that is the emotional energy and enthusiasm that comes from our connection to the future in the protection that we have. We. We say things like, I'll wait and see how it turns out. If you're always waiting to see how things turn out, you put your life on pause. And there's an existential dilemma that forms in the human spirit. It says, I don't have anything to look forward to. I really want you to be very thoughtful about this. If you think about your last week, did you connect with things that you could look forward to? I really want you to evaluate yourself, not like once, not like twice. But let's be honest, in the last seven days, did you consciously, deliberately, thoughtfully, consistently engage your mind in something to be excited about, to celebrate in the future? See, most of us are trying to manage today. And I want to shout out to you guys, this community, even if you're new to it, you all. I'm so encouraged and so astounded and so honored and amazed by the energy of this group. I am honored. I am privileged. I am thrilled, and I love you guys, and you keep me going, too. And I also know that in that demand of being the leader, in that demand of being the role model, so much of it is just like that block and tackle of the daily win. We are just trying to win the day. We are just trying to win the day. When it is a struggle. We just want to get through the day, we just want to survive. We to just want. We want to make sure the kids don't tear each other's arms off. We want to make sure that we got some food in the fridge. We want to make sure the business isn't falling apart. We want to do all we can to care for other people. And however, I want you to recognize a couple concepts today I'm going to teach you about and you need to always be highly alert to them to have a conscious and deliberate and high performing life. And this first idea, when you go into protection, when you go into caretaking, when you go into managing the energy of everybody else and just hoping to make it through the day, what happens is enough days of that and disconnection from the future, this dichotomy starts happening. This challenge, this thing here. Dread versus excitement. Even great leaders can start to feel dread about the day. Ugh. Now I'm going to have to go manage more complaints from other people. Ugh. I'm going to have to manage the attitude of my snarky husband. Ugh. I'm going to have to deal with that grumpy person over here. Ugh. I got to answer all those emails. Ugh. So even in the context of abundance, joy, the good positive energy you can have, when every day can start to feel a little Groundhog Day, it can start to feel like dread. Even Bill Murray, one of the most fun people on the planet in Groundhog's Day, starts to have dread. And I want you to be attentive to your energy. Over these last seven days, how many days did you feel a little bit of dread? And I want to share with you, it's okay because you might not have been aware of that dread. It's not about your life. The dread's not about the kids, it's not about the husband. The dread's not about your health. The dread that comes, that existential dilemma that comes in in times of turmoil is actually not anything happening right now. It's a disconnection from the future. Sometimes we get it wrong. We think everything around us is wrong. Actually, we just don't have a connection. We don't have something to be excited about. When we don't have something to be excited about, when we don't have that compelling future, that thing to look forward to, that thing to celebrate, that thing to be excited about the week. The day feels like a slog. Even when it's good. Even when it's good. You got a good husband, you got a good job you got some money coming from the business, you got good opportunities. But in times of crisis, when it feels like a slog, when there's dread there, it's not that the opportunities are the husband or the kids or the house is wrong. Sometimes you lost connection with what to look forward to. And that was the missing thing. That was a piece of psychology. I mean, I know because I've talked with many of you and we've been doing these lives. I know that sometimes you're just dealing with the stuff right now and so how are we going to win the year? Today's a pivot. Today you are going to design back into your weeks, back into your months and back by the end of this year. You are going to design into your days on purpose, visualization of the future every day. Visualization of the future every single day. Just as you might meditate every day. I want to turn that into a purposeful, deliberate visualization of something that you are excited about, you, you are thrilled about. You can't wait to happen. I don't care if it's next week. I don't care if it's a big thing or a small thing. We've got to find those things. And there's all this. There's this. That's life. You know, you're dealing with these things. You're like, ah. And dread. We need to build in excitement. We need to build in anticipation, optimism, thrill, adventure. We need to build those things, things back in. That's how you are going to win this year. You're going to make a pivot right now to institute a new protocol of daily connection with the future. That's your new protocol, Daily connection. Not just listen. This is different than just writing a goal down. No, I want you to see it, feel it, think about, dream it, visualize it, see it, and build in every single day or week or month, the win, the reward, that thing to celebrate. Now, this can happen on small terms and big terms. Let me give you some examples. All week you could talk about how with the kids, hey, on Saturday we're going to go to the park. What toys should we bring? Let's bring a picnic. What would you like us to bring in the picnic basket when we go to the park? How long do you want to stay at the park? What games do you want to play at the park? These conversations of anticipation, it's got to be built in this week. The next seven days was something you can look forward to and no, wait for it to hopefully happen. Build it in. You got to Build in the rewards, the vibrancy, the adventure, the fulfillment, the daily connection of conversation with your spouse, with your partner about something coming up, even in moments of delay. I'll give another simple example. When we came to Puerto Rico and my dream, as many of you guys know, I know some of you knew the community, but since I was a teenager, I wanted to live in the Caribbean. I had that dream of living on a white sandy beach with some palm trees, riding, overlooking the ocean, taking daily walks on the beach, running on the beach, swimming in the ocean. I wanted that my whole life. I thought maybe one day I'll get to a point, then I'll retire down in the Caribbean somewhere. Because I thought you had to leave the country and I thought you had to go down there. It's like, well, Puerto Rico's a US territory so we didn't have to give up a passport. We still under the same federal guidelines and laws. And I thought, okay, you know what, long story short, there was a new development being built and Denise and I decided, okay, let's get on that. It was new construction, it was a new building going to be built. And so we purchased. And as you can imagine, it takes a long time to get things done in the Caribbean. And so we've been waiting and then the pandemic hits. And in the meantime we've been renting places, trying to figure out where we live and waiting for this new construction to finish. Well, of course construction completely comes to a halt on non essential things like new construction down here. And so it's like we're not living where we want and we're just kind of, you know, we're waiting it out. And yet instead of having that as a sense of dread, Denise goes into, oh, planning mode. Now we don't know when we're going to get there, but we can still plan. So she's already designed every single room. She's already shown me the layouts and everything been still moving forward the pieces that you can, ordering this, getting that light, getting that fan, doing things and same thing. Listen, how many of you had a trip or a vacation? Canceled? Anyone? You had something you were looking forward to, you had to cancel it. But guess what we can still do? Well, when we get there. What are we going to do when we get there? So we're still researching what are the cool activities we'll do when we go there? What are the adventures we'll have when we go there? Who might we get to invite when we go there? We don't know the date but the trip is visual. It's real. We know things we're going to do there. And that is a post into the future that we can look forward to. Talk, discuss, dream up. It can be that simple. It can be that simple. It can be a place you're going to go, a family outing. But here's what I want to know. Listen, the difference between what I'm talking about, this is not hope and inspiration. This is coaching you to sit down today with a calendar and every single week, build something in that you can look forward to and talk to with your spouse, your partner, your family, your team. Build it in, talk about it, discuss it, get excited about it. That's what you got to do. It's tactical. It's every day I want you to sit there. You know, for me, it's when I wake up in the morning. When I wake up in the morning, I lay in bed for an extra couple minutes and I just visualize and think about things I'm excited about. Think about the future, think about things. I don't even know how it's going to happen. You know, we're working on a documentary. I have no idea when that's going to get done, no idea when it's going to come out. But I sit there and I imagine scenes that might be in it, conversations might be in it, places we might air it. Just sit and dream about it. I don't get attached to. Does it turn out exactly as how I want it? No, no, no. That's called flexibility, babes. That's adaptability, my friends. That's your ability as a high performer to pivot, to make things happen, to manifest. You can do that. But manifestation comes after visualization. And if you're not manifesting what you're wanting, and if you're not manifesting the energy that you want in your life, I promise there's a disconnection with the future. And it's not because the future doesn't hold promises for you. It's because you haven't made the plans for the future, because you're scared they won't come true. I want you to visualize a bigger future for yourself than you ever have before. Not because it's disconnected of the reality of the pandemic right now, but because you have a choice. If you're going through the motions, dread will be there. If you're not visualizing the future, dread will be there. Even if you have good things in the world and you got to do them every single day, dread will be there. But if you build in excitement, and you got to figure out what that means for you, psychologically, you got to figure out what that means for you, your family, your spouse, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, you got to know the answers. I don't know the answers. My job as your coach is give you that prompt, beg you, cajole you, cheer you on, give you that impetus to say, ooh, how do I build excitement back in? Because, dang it, I've been in too much protection zone. Brendan, you're dang right. I've been a little bit myopic focused right now to handle things, which is good. When I talk about visualization, manifestations and hopes and dreams, I don't do it disconnected from reality. I say, if we don't touch base with that future, if we can't see ourselves moving on when we lose family, if we can't see ourselves rebuilding, if we can't see ourselves with a better future, then what's it going to feel like? And who owns the fact that it feels like that? Because we have that choice. We sometimes we just forget the choice and we forget the ability to build that excitement in, to build that in. Because even in the person who lost family members, they could start thinking about, how are we going to honor this person? How are we going to get together to celebrate this person's life? Let's do that. Let's get together and celebrate this person's life. How can we build things, create things, share things together to celebrate this person's life? Oh, I lost my job. Oh, I lost my business. Okay, what can I be excited about starting anew, because now there's all this white space. What can I learn? I wanted to learn these things for years. I've wanted to do these specific things, and let me try them now. Let me get excited about those things. I'm not saying that the loss isn't there, and I'm not saying detach from a loss, be unaware, try to stuff it down. I'm saying that can be there and excitement and adventure and joy. The human being is capable of holding extraordinary amounts of emotion, extraordinary ability to expand and feel like there's this myth that you can't be, you know, angry and grateful at the same time. I'm like, oh, that person has never studied emotion ever, Ever. That's not true. It's not true. It's a nice thought. And it reminds us of a dichotomy of a choice that we get to make. But we can simultaneous emotions and feelings, because they do linger. Sure, you can absolutely I can be grateful that I had my father and mad in the same instant that he's dead, sad he's gone. I can be grateful for an opportunity and sad that I'm not capable of ready for it yet. It's okay. We are immense inside. So what I'm saying is it's okay if you feel vulnerable or sad or lost or you're struggling with capability and coping. And that is also, though, what, why I encourage you to build in those touch points with the future. There is no way, not a single one of you, that I could not emphasize this enough with. I could do four more hours on this topic, and I would happily do that. But I have more cards to share with you. But the most important thing I can share with you right now is your reorientation must shift now back to the future. You've got to put those daily touch points in. You've got to have that weekly thing. I cannot emphasize, like there's energy in me because I can still see the future. It is your responsibility in your family, as the leader of your family, to imbue the future back into the family's Conversations at dinner with the team where you've been talking about all the pivoting and, and how we're going to handle and what we're going to do and what we're going to launch. Put it back in the conversation about the things to look forward to, the milestones that we are going to reach and celebrate. So how do we do this tangibly? Brendan? Well, I think there's four major areas that you should know about yourself, and then I'll tactically lock in a few ideas for you. Okay, simple, simple things. There's four things I want you to know about yourself. I want you to know, how do you feel these things? How do you feel rewarded? How do you feel rewarded? How do you feel appreciated? How do you feel fulfilled? How do you feel fired up? Four things. Number one, how do you feel rewarded? Number two, how do you feel appreciated? Number three, how do you feel fulfilled? And number four, how do you feel fired up? Because when we understand that these are the feelings we want, we can now visualize a future in which these things will be manifested, fulfilled, felt celebrated, connected with something. Because these, you can build events around these things, if you will, milestones around these things, if you will. Right? You can build towards these things. You can build towards these things. Let me give you some simple examples, like rewarded. You know, like many of you, I've been working so hard this year to be a role Model, to be a leader, to care for my teams, to serve as the industry leader with so many of my peers. Like, man, I worked so hard. I know many of you have, too. And so the other day, I just wasn't feeling it. I was just getting. I was getting frustrated. I had to do, like, my 50th Zoom call. Anyone ever been there? You're like, I was. I was. I was Zoom bombing. Now I was becoming a Zoomie zombie. Zoomie. Get it? I don't know. I think it's hilarious. I mean, I was just like, oh, man, I was in it. I was looking at the business. I was doing all these things, not having a great day. And Denise and I go for a walk twice a day. Tend to go for a walk twice a day, very rarely miss. And I said, you know, I got to figure out something to reward myself. I don't know what. I got to find a way, like, how do I take a moment for me and reward myself? Like, what does that look like now? So I didn't really think about it. How do you feel rewarded? I was like, wow. I don't know. You know, because here's. I want to share with you my simple. I'm a very simple man. And you guys know I'm happy because I'm simple, because wisdom loves simplicity, happiness, love, simplicity. And so my way of being rewarded when we lived in Portland, Oregon, was I'd take a Saturday afternoon, completely off, and go down to Powell's Bookstore. Going to a bookstore, that's my reward. I look forward to that. That's it. That's. That is a simple reward. Pleasure in my life. I'll work hard all week, and I'll get to go to the bookstore and just take time off. A bookstore, to me, is like a grand adventure. It's one of the greatest things for me. I just want to go to the bookstore. How will I have a way to reward myself when we earn more, achieve something, survive. Some of you haven't rewarded yourself yet. And there's a difference between a reward and a coping mechanism. And you need to learn the difference. Let me give an example. Very simple one. Let's take an example of a tub of ice cream, okay? Some of you all knocked down a tub of ice cream, watching some Netflix. And that was not a reward. That was coping. You just. You went. You went to it. It was automatic. That was a reach for comfort. That's coping. I need you to know that distinction in your mind and go, no, no, no, no. What's my reward? Because a Reward follows effort, follows completion, follows a sense that, oh, I earned this thing. So what could you build in to reward yourself more often than you have in the last 60 days, my friends. And now let me make you great leaders and spouses and caretakers. How do you do it for your spouse? How do you do it for the kids? Have you even thought about how do you reward your spouse? When's the last time your spouse got a reward? What if that looks like for them? Right? What if that looks like for them? That's part of being a great partner, is to reward the other, to know what that looks like for them. Not your reward, their reward. You know, their reward like that could be simple as great. You open that good bottle of wine for them, or you make them the dinner that they like. That can be as simple as, you know what, you sacrifice the things you want to do that hour to help them with that specific thing. It can be simple. I'm not here to sell some huge false dream to anybody. I'm here to say you can do simple things to activate your life again. Simple things. How do you reward yourself? I really want you to think about that. How can I reward myself? Yeah, that's the goal. Okay. How do you feel appreciated? If you did something and you felt appreciated for it, what are the things that you need to do in your life to feel appreciated? And have you communicated that with those around you? Because that sense of appreciation can really move us from coping to wanting to do more. Right? When you feel appreciated, you want to do more of the same. To feel appreciated again. I need you to know what makes you feel appreciated, right? That's the power of, you know, the love languages of knowing. How do you felt? Feel loved? Well, a big part of that really comes down to feeling appreciated, recognized, seen, heard by your spouse. You need to know how you're going to feel appreciated. Because once you know how you feel appreciated, you'll do more. What would make you feel fulfilled? That's the next one. Fulfilled. What would make you feel fulfilled this month? Not at the end of your life. This month, may, whatever it is, 30th. What would you have done this month to feel fulfilled by the end? What brings you fulfillment every day? Because when you do what you feel fulfilled by more often, you are more connected to the future because you want to do more of it. For example, for me, fulfilled. I am fulfilled when I write. Guys, I just finished a secret project. You are the first one to hear about this. I always tell this coaching community everything. For me, writing is A big part of my life. And the last 60 days, I didn't get to write as much as I wanted to. I shouldn't say that I didn't get to. I didn't choose to carve it out and make it happen. And so I was feeling a little unfulfilled from that part of my life, and I said, I'll start writing more. So I started writing more. And then right in the rhythm of it, I got asked by Hay House to write the foreword to Wayne Dyer's next book. Now, some of you know Wayne in his past and who's a great mentor and a dear friend, and Wayne's like a superhero of mine. And he passed away now, you know, four years ago or something like that. It's crazy. And so anyway, got asked to write that, which was super hard project, because how do you do that? So it's book gap for your past. How do I write and introduce the next book? And so it was a hard project. And I just said, you know what? I'm going to do it. And when I send that off, despite all my insecurities about it, did I get it right? Did I honor my mentor? Did I do a good job? I'm just going to feel fulfilled. Because you know what? I got asked to do it and I did it. And that's how I'm going to feel. I'm fulfilled. I'm going to take a walk when that happens. When I finish that project, I'm going to take a walk and think about all the blessings that must have happened to allow me to get to do that project. And it made me feel fulfilled. And you know what? I couldn't write. I couldn't wait to write the next day again because I did one little thing. It wasn't much. It was 4,000 words, y'. All. It's not much, but it made me feel like that. I said in advance notice, I said in advance, I'm going to do something to reward myself, to feel appreciated, feel fulfilled about it. And it was a big thing. It was only 4,000 words. But for me, it was. It reconnected with what fulfills me, which is honoring the people who taught me to do what I know how to do and that know how to be. And then it also got me in my craft. When you're in your craft more, you're more connected to your future because you want to do more. Hey, guys, it's Brandon. 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 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 progress mode.com what gets you fired up? What is going to fire you up? By the end of this month, by the end of this summer, by end of this fall, by the end of this winter, I want you to know what can you get fired up about? Like that I told you we're going to do a documentary. I have no idea how we're going to do it. Super fired up about it. Literally. Listen, you can be enthusiastic, optimistic and fired up about something and have no competency around it at all. Isn't that cool? You don't have to know how to do squat and you can still get excited. But some of you, because you don't know how to do squat, you don't let yourself feel excited, which is why you don't do the thing. So you got it backwards. You think you can't have confidence and and enthusiasm and fired up about something until you know how to do it. So every time you dream about it, you think, I don't know how to do it. I'm stupid. You tamp yourself down. No, I want you to wander into the future, dumb as a box of rocks and fired up anyway. That's how I do it. I bumble into a room. I ain't got no idea how I'm going to do what I'm going to do. I know the demands that everyone wants from me. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off. I wander onto that court of life, happy and free and ready to go, because I believe in my ability to figure things out. If you haven't been fired up in the last seven days, recognize that in your psychology, you don't feel like you can or you don't feel like it's possible. So you don't allow yourself to dream and visualize and feel it. But the odd thing is, until you believe, you don't achieve. And so you got to flip the script and you got to go, I got to start getting Fired up again. Let me sit here and dream some stuff up. Not because you know how, because if you don't dream, you don't act. That's how we're going to turn this year back on. We're going to turn your dreams back on. Not because you know how, not because you know when, but because you know it is essential to your energy during the day. That's why I say get down with yourself today and journal what's going to make you feel rewarded, appreciated, fulfilled and fired up this month. This year? I'd love for you to journal about each of these for each month. What are you going to be rewarded, appreciated, fulfilled and fired up for in May, in June, in July, in August, September, October, November, December? Just sit and journal for about cook your favorite, you know, lunch or dinner, maybe have your favorite green tea or coffee. Sit down with the journal and give yourself that gift of 20, 30 minutes. Journaling about each month for the rest of this year. Simple things you can add in. Simple and you feel like. But Brandon, I don't even know what it could be. Sit down with your spouse or partner, go, hey, what can we do? You don't know what it can be. You don't have to have all the answers. Ask the kids. Bet they got ideas. Don't have the kids. Ask the team. Don't have the team. Don't have the kids. Ask your friends. Don't have friends. Meet the Internet. You got to figure it out, y'. All. It will fire you up. This has to be the pivot point for you. Switch the gear. Tactical, real deal stuff every day, visualize and feel something you can be excited about. That will enough times doing that, that will help you deal with the dread. Knock the dread out over. Empower the dread with a connection to the future. Your family, your future. Your ancestors in human history did not evolve and work hard enough to bring you to this point. To let two months of difficulty or two months of delayed gratification or two months of inconvenience stop the forward halt of your life. You've worked too hard, you've come too far to let discouragement kill your dream. My friends, what else? Structured advancement in high performance we don't luckily get ahead of. We structure our own advancement. We structure it. What does that mean for those who are new? I'm going to come back to this. And for those who have been here with me a long time, you know what I'm talking about right now. Structured advancement. What does that mean? You've heard me say things like this in the past. I need you to have those monthly goals. I need you to have that Friday finisher list. I need you to have that planner working every day. I need you to have that quarterly goal achievement celebration. So we walk through those things. We need that monthly goal. If you didn't. If you don't know how, where you're heading by the end of this month, you didn't do your goal session at the first of the month. First of the month has to begin with forecasting, planning, dreaming, visualizing for the month. It can be as simple as, okay, this month I'm going to take my energy up two notches. Here's how I measure myself, or it's going to be, I'm going to achieve this project. I'm going to fulfill that thing. I'm going to need that thing done. I'm going to reorganize the house, reorganize the shelves, whatever it's going to be. You just need to. I don't need to know. You need to know every month. I need you to reestablish your monthly goals. That might be something beautiful to sit down and give yourself that same gift as you're figuring out what's going to reward, fulfill, appreciate, get you fired up, make your monthly goal list for the rest of the year. Just having that look forward to that's structured advancement. What else is structured advancement? Filling out your planner for the week and for the day. Having the discipline to do that even when you're like, nothing's changed. Brendan, it's Groundhog Day. Great. Fill out the dang thing. I don't feel like doing it. Fill out the dang thing. You got to do your planner so that you're connected to thinking about the future. I love planners because it forces you to think about the future. When you are forced to think about the future, you're more connected to it, even if it's not as big as you want yet. That connection, that's survivability. That connection is where the thriving happens. That connection is where your motivation is. Remember the Friday finisher? What's a Friday finisher? Friday finisher is a list of things that you will finish by end of day Friday each week. That if you finish that by the end of day Friday, you feel good, you feel fulfilled, you feel happy for the week. It's not what people do with their planner, is they just go, well, here's the things I guess I have to do. I'm like, no, no. At the end of day Friday, that's how you set A real goal for the week. What has to happen by the end of day Friday for me to feel great about the week? Friday finisher is a list of things that says these things. If they happened this week, I feel great about the week. That's how I always feel, like I'm winning, I'm hitting my Friday finishers. It's not, listen, I'm not perfect, y'. All. There's plenty of times there's something on my Friday finisher list. I didn't complete the whole Friday finisher list, but I made two or three or four of them and I feel good. See, by Friday finisher, it's almost like a mental thing that says, I did that good job. The more you say, I did that good job, the more your internal sense of competency is activated. You see, if you don't hit a goal and sense it and reward it, your competency doesn't hear it. Your confidence doesn't grow. In our psychology conversation, it means your achievements are not integrated into self. That's why you have a lot of people who've succeeded a lot and are still so self conscious and lacking confidence because they never integrated the wins. If you don't integrate the small wins, that's why you don't have big dreams if you didn't integrate the small wins. And it's why you don't have more confidence. If you didn't integrate the small wins. It's why your identity or your personality feels smaller than you really are. And so that's what the Friday finisher list people say. It's such a simple thing. I go, oh, there's some complex psychology there. That Friday finisher list, that's some complex psychology that taps your identity, taps your competence, taps your confidence, taps your sense of appreciation and forward momentum in the world. Did you know what you were marching towards this week? Did you have your Friday finisher list? If you didn't, you wandered through the week and hoped for it. If you did, good job. Don't finish a Friday wondering how life is going. No, have your Friday finisher list, that's structured advancement. Monthly goals, Friday finishers daily plans and those quarterly goals, like a quarterly goal. Listen, what I'm telling a lot of people is like this idea. I'm going to switch to another card here for you guys. This is what I'm telling. It's like, okay, we're starting this next course quarter. And what I'm telling a lot of people is like the fall is a quarter, right? The end of this year, there's going to be some mass. There's going to be things happen each quarter and you want to have an idea about them. And what I'm telling all you entrepreneurs out there, all my friends in business or who have a significant lever in a business to serve, I want you guys to think about this idea. I'd love to challenge you to do this. A summer build and a fall launch. A summer build and a fall launch. Many of you have probably already done this or thought about this. Okay, what do I mean by that? Well, listen, if you're an entrepreneur or business owner, you need, you're a builder, your brain needs to go, what are we going to build? What are we going to create? Creators in the room. Like you have that creativity, that creative edge. And we got to get you excited to build something in this next quarter. So I'm going to kind of allow me to draw some fuzzy borders around an actual quarter and just call it the summer. December. Right now I'm writing my next book, comes out mid November. Really excited about it. I got to build all summer and build the campaign around that launch that in November. Super excited, ready to go, pumped, don't know how. Got to do it like the summers. I love summers. Right? And I know a lot of people detach and vacation. Do those things, do those too. But see, there's a difference between. Well, a lot of people go, well, I have a vacation and they throw away the whole three months of the summer. No, you got three months. You can't wait. And if you keep waiting, guess what? You won't be the standout. But if you build over the summer, my friends, when everyone else is waiting, if you build over the summer, my friends, when everyone waits another two, three months. They waited two months, they waited five months. But you built and you launched in the fall because most people are going to be building and re engaging at the end of the summer and it's going to take them one, two, three months. Everyone's going to wait and they're going to be building in that August, September, October, November mode to release in January because they waited too long. The standouts build in the Summer will launch this fall. I'm calling it. That is my personal forecast, which I usually don't do. But I'm just here to say be the standout. And why? What's that? Because you know what that does? That fires you up. You're going to plant seed and the harvest is going to come in the fall. You're going to get out of right now. That's the most important Thing I can share to win this year. Structured advancement means. Okay, let me get that battleboard going. Let me figure out what happens in June, what happens in July, what happens in August. Great. When do we launch? Is it September, October, November, December? I don't care what month you pick, but I need you psychologically to be committed to. I need that summer build. And if you can look forward to that, you're like, brendan, just turn me back on. Thank God, because all I was thinking about was where the groceries were and can I get the kids on the zoom? No. We need to build again. Creators, those of you who are built for that creative impulse, please be very thoughtful and hear me here. You've been managing a lot. And when a creator has to manage a lot and they don't simultaneously, deliberately, consistently engage with the future, they get the dread, they lose the excitement. So I am pumped to hear what this community is going to do. Your lifelong goals, your dreams, your ambitions, the things you want to build, contribute, live and experience the love you want in your life, the connection with your family members, all that potential that you feel in your heart, in your soul, in your gut. Build, build, build, create again. Allow yourself that connection to the future. You deserve it. And that is going to be my last point here today with each and every one of you. I asked something of this community in March. I asked something of all of my friends, everybody in this industry that I lead. And I'm talking about the people you see on the covers of the magazines. I'm talking about some world leaders that I'm blessed to work with. I had the ability from March until today to have the central message of be the role model, adopt the role model mindset. And I've encouraged you for months on that. I've done content everywhere on that is adopt the role model mindset. Because when you adopt the role model mindset, it's the domino that encourages the knockdown of all the good traits about yourself. When you want to be the role model, you want to be a good example. When you want to be a good example, you get your mind right, you do good things, you're more kind to people, you're more thoughtful about your actions and your impact. When you want to be an example, when you want to be a role model, when you want to demonstrate the highest ideals of your real character. And today, as I promised, is a pivot. I'm going to ask you to change, too. And I want you to go. I want you to stay the role model every chance you get in your life. But I'm also going to ask you to do something now that is going to make you the standout, is going to improve your family, is going to shift gears for you, and this is the only way you're going to win socially this year, is not just to be the example, but also to be the rally leader. Yes, we're going to be that role model, but we are going to shift gears now. Being a role model in my, to me in life, that's the requirement, man. That's first gear in high performance. That's the job. You got to be the role model in high performance. That's just. That's gear one, baby. We need to upshift this sucker. What does that mean? We need to go from being the role, being the example in how we cope, how we deal, how we lead, to be the rally leader, to be the person in the tribe that rallies others to higher energy, to be the cheerleader, to be the encourager, to be the inspiration, to be the motivator. That is the rally leader. That is what I need of this community. That is what I want of this community. That is why I'm cheering you on. To be in this community, to consciously shift gears into, oh, isn't this difficult? Oh, hasn't this been frustrating? There's plenty of that. The news does a good job. The social media's got that down. You're not going to add anything to the library of distress in the world. Your unique contribution, your unique ability in the world will never be marked down as you uniquely added to the complaints of the world. You know how many masters of complaint there are in this world? People got a master's degree in dread. People got a master's degree in negativity. There's master's degrees. I mean, there's. There's people out there. We got a couple billion PhDs and dread, pessimism, negativity, hate. You're not going to add. You. You cannot add. You want to impact the world, you're going to add nothing to that. That thing, I'm telling you what, that's a commodity. That thing's handled. There's no value in a commodity like pessimism. There's no value in a commodity like negativity. That stuff is cheaper than the price of oil. That stuff is not zero. That stuff is 37 cents down. That stuff is negative five. There's no value in negativity, hatred, dread, distressing thoughts, complaint. Woe is me. There ain't nothing there. There's no magic there. And you know what isn't? There. You know what isn't there. Let me tell you what isn't there. Let me tell you what is not in negativity. Let me tell you what is not in distress. Let me tell you what is not in that dark pool of pessimism over there. You know it's not in dread. You know it's not in bemoaning things. You know, it's not in hate. You know, it's not in complaining, grumpy. Do you know it's not in the negative range of emotions? Do you know it's not in the negative behaviors of the human species? You know what's not there? The future ain't there. The future ain't there. And because the future ain't there, none of that's ever going to motivate you. Because the future ain't there, you'll never find enthusiasm and excitement. None of that will ever benefit you. None of that will ever rally you to action. None of that will ever summon your best. None of that will ever drive you to win. There ain't no energy there. There ain't no value there. There ain't no differentiation there. There ain't no future there. That's why we're going to build. That's what we're going to turn back on. That's why we're going to create. You're going to rally your family at the next dinner to talk about what you're going to do this weekend that you can be excited about that next zoom call when it's your time to talk. No, you're not going to talk about management no more. You're not going to talk about the details no more. Sure, get that. Get that done. That's the housekeeping. And then you're going to rally people towards things to be excited about, towards things to get behind towards things, to build, towards things to turn this economy, this dread, this pessimism, this negativity, this fear, this uncertainty, this sadness. You're going to be the rally call, the cheerleader. And you know what? People ain't going to like it. People are going to like your enthusiasm when there's crisis. People are going to like your ambitions when there's shutdowns. People aren't going to like your dreams when they feel dread. And you know what? You can do it anyway. You're going to be the encourager anyway. Because you know what? Every history, every leader in history had to deal with opposition to their optimism. Every great rally leader, opposition to their optimism. Every time you have that dream, someone wants to tamp that down. You're going to be that voice out there. You don't know it, but you're going to be more of it than you ever have your entire life, because you're being called for it right now. You would be on something like this if some impulse in you wasn't there that says, I want to serve, I want to rise, I want to lead. And so you will not be quiet, and you will not just manage, and you will not just do detail. You will rally. You will rally your life, you will rally your family. You will rally the people around you, because that's what you're built for. Your ancestors didn't put you right here so that you can just bemoan the opportunities you have been given. Because who thinks there's still going to be inconvenience and fear and loss in the next eight months, nine months, ten years, hundred years? Those are inevitable. Those don't go away in the span of any of our lives. So how will we meet those things? Will we meet those things by backing off our dreams? By letting the kids get down and depressed? By letting the team mope around when you've been given this great opportunity? No. No. Your birthright was not to mope around. Your calling is not asking you to mope around. We can feel grief. We can feel dreadful, we can feel uncertain, we can feel Sad. Those are 100% allowed. But those don't own us. Those are a range of emotion that the human body and mind and spirit is fully capable of and should embrace and should accept and be aware of and observe, but not own, not live from forever. Everyone can have a sad day, but if you have a sad month, you need new tools. You need to reach out for help. You need some support. This has been an unprecedented time. But what's not okay is to sit with it and not try to scale up or seek support. Because people say, brennan, you can't tell people how to cope. There's no right way to cope. I'm like, oh, yes. And I will keep saying it month over month. There's 50 years of this science called, I don't know psychology, and this other one called, I don't know sociology, and this other one called the medical field. Somehow all those sciences point to a very simple fact, a very simple fact. There are right ways to cope and there are wrong ways to cope. You don't tell me there are right ways. There aren't. Don't, Brendan. You tell me how to cope. Oh, there's right ways, babe. You don't feel comfortable. Downing a bottle of vodka is not a healthy coping mechanism across any science in the history of the world. So let's not pretend it's okay to cope. It's okay to feel. It's okay to deal with negativity. But if you're turning towards unhealthy habits, you need to acknowledge where you're at right now. Check in with your emotions, check in with how you're really showing up, check in with how you're really serving. Be honest about it. And if you're really struggling, don't get down on yourself. Get pumped to ask for help. Because if you can't be the rallyer right now, then find one. If you don't know how to do that right now, ask for help. I'm not asking anybody here to fake it till they make it. If you're struggling, get help. Period. But I'm also here to tell you you must. Even if you feel sad, you must see beyond it. You can feel it. You must see beyond it. You can feel loss and see beyond it. I can feel the grief of loss in my life and I've had a lot of it, and I can see beyond it. Not because I'm lucky, I can see beyond it. Because I'm that guy that lays in bed just a few extra minutes in the morning and I visualize it and I see it and I want it and I think about it and I just allow that ambition to come back in. And then when I'm out with people, I recognize their difficulty and I know I'm a commodity. If I add to their difficulty with more depressive thoughts, with more pessimism, I'm like, I'm lucky, guys. I know. I get it. I got a wife who's incredibly supportive. When I get down or I bemoan something, she's going to rally me up when she's down or bemoan something, I'm going to rally her up. I got team members and friends. When they're down, when we're down, we rally each other up. Not because it's fake optimism, because it's required to overcome. Not because it's fake optimism, but because it is required to overcome. How do we know that? It's a thing called science. The sciences of psychology, sociology, everything that we know about those who cope through the most terrifically terrible times of life. What did they do? They kept that vision. They thought about those things. Even it was simple. Even it was simple. Man's search for meaning. Viktor Frankl what made the difference? How did some People survive. It was luck. And some people allowed themselves to still keep connected to the future. They maintained their own attitude. They still dreamed of things that they would do in the future. They still could see it. Viktor Frankl himself dreamed of that book coming out. Thought of what would happen with his papers and how he could make a difference by sharing his own story through the worst times of humanity with others to show that it's possible to continue on in the depth of the hardest time in the world. He knew his sharing could be a rally call for others to believe and to know they could make it through. That's why sometimes you hear that your mess, that could be your miracle, your mess, that could be your message. That's why sometimes you hear that the difficulties you experience now become the very plans that help people overcome theirs in the future. So I know it's easy to bemoan, get tamped down, feel bad about ourselves, but I am here to tell you right now, it's time to not only bear it well as role models, because that's our role as leaders, to deal with this well, to challenge ourselves in whatever way that means to us. That's what a role model does. I'm going to be an example through this of good behavior, good attitude and it's going to be hard, but it's required of a leader. And now we're going to switch gears and you're going to be the rally call, you're going to be the encourager, you're going to be the cheerleader. Even in times when you don't feel it, you can tell them like I told you, like, hey, there's sometimes guys, I don't feel like being the rally call person. But I don't believe that my creator for me, because I believe in God. I don't believe that my God put all these obstacles in my way and all these opportunities in front of me and all the blessed difficulties, losses, challenges, beautiful people and beautiful experiences for me to quit when it gets hard for 60 days or 90 days or six months or five years. I don't think my dad fought three years in Vietnam, got all shot up and was disabled and had to deal with incredible difficulties the rest of his life for fighting for his country. I don't think that happened so I could sit at home at Netflix and feel bad about myself. No, my dad didn't fight for me to quit when it got hard for 60 days when he spent three years getting shot up over there. I don't think that wherever you live that the ancestors of revolution in your country caused the revolution to forward progress because they quit when people got sick or when they died on the battlefield. Now, I'm not comparing our times to any other time in history, but I am saying that the same things will happen to pull us through those who stand, who become the role model, who become the ralliers. And I know you have seen enough of the vitriol on news, you've seen enough of the complaint on the social media. And at some point we must be the rally callers. Who's going to change the tone? Who if not each of us? Who's going to change the tone and the direction of this planet, of this time, of this species, of this moment, if not each of us? I awake each day in that room over there and I have the same challenges. I got to keep 200 people employed. I do it days. I don't want to get out of bed. I'm out of bed because I don't believe that I was created, nor did everyone go through the turmoils of the history to make me stay in bed. I owe it. I owe it to the greats before me to rise up. I owe. It doesn't mean I don't feel bad. I owe it to my dream. My dream doesn't care if I'm down today. That dream was planted in your heart from your creator or your God, or dumb luck or spirit or cosmos. I don't know why. But if that dream was planted in your heart and it was gifted to you to caretake, to water and to manifest, it was given to you as a gift to protect even against your own moods. Because you know what great people do? They allow their mood. But they don't let a mood stop their momentum. I can have a bad mood day. It doesn't mean I can't answer five emails. I can have a bad mood day. Doesn't mean I can't call somebody, finish that paperwork. I can have a down day. It doesn't mean I lost the week. What has to stop? The bemoaning, what has to stop? The lying around, the quitting. Because the future ain't in quitting. The future ain't in complaint. The future ain't in waiting. It's not there. The future is the thing we must connect with to have that excitement once more. The future is something we must connect with if we are going to be rewarded and appreciated and fulfilled and fired up. The future is only there if we structure that advancement with our monthly goals, our weekly Friday finishers, our daily plans and disciplines to keep Us going, the future is there if we build for it, not hope to land in it. If we build for it. Everyone's like, brendan, I don't know what the fall is going to be like. I go, I know exactly what the fall is going to be like. Fall is going to be what you build in your life to make the fall like that's what it's going to be like. The fall is in your life. Listen, we don't know what the world will be like at any given time, but the ability to predict five months from now has a in our personal life that has a tremendous amount to do with our personal actions and attitude each day. A tremendous amount. Hey, what? You could lose the business, you could lose the job, you could lose things. And guess what? Who shows up on the other side of loss? You. The you of today still shows up on the other side of loss, doesn't it? So even if we don't know what happens in the world, you still show up. You. You will be there on the other side of difficulty, my friend. So who's going to be there? Build that now. You're going to be there on the other side of difficulty. People think, oh, I don't know what's going to happen to me. Oh, I do. You are going to wake up on that next Monday. I don't know what's going to happen if this happens. I do. You wake up on Monday and you are there. Have confidence in that. Have confidence in that. Rally yourself to that. No matter what happens. Guess what? I wake up on the other side of that thing. And if you wake up alive with breath on the other side of that thing, you know what you got? You got choice. You got a day. You got a blank chapter to fill in. To scribe that. You get to scribe that. Last chapters of your days, of your weeks, of your life, of your month, you get to scribe. You get to write that blank. That page is blank. You get to scribe it. And those words that you fill with it, the attitude, the tone, the direction, the pace, you write that even if the last chapter sucked. Crap. Even if the last chapter ended on the worst note, the worst line, the saddest finish to the last chapter of all time, the page gets flipped. There's a new sentence. You write that new sentence. You write that new sentence. That sentence is there. It's yours to write. Maybe you didn't get to finish the last sentence because she left, he left, they got sick, you got laid off, the business got there, the medical report was terrible. But what's on the other side of that period, the next chapter, you take confidence that you will show up, things will fall apart, there will be difficulty in life. Honoring that struggle comes part of realizing you get to wake up on the other side of that. Unless you're dead, you wake up on the other side of that travesty. They don't take away your compassion when they take away your job. They don't take away your resourcefulness when they take away your business. They don't take away your heart when they leave the relationship. You are there on the other side of every single difficulty. And that gives me confidence and that gives me strength. I wake up and I still get a choice. That gives me confidence and that gives me strength. I get to write the next chapter, even if the last one sucked. That gives me confidence and that gives me strength. And so no matter what happens in the next two or three months, we don't sit around, we start writing the chapter anyway. It's even if someone throws in some villain in the middle of that chapter, even if something happens in the middle of the chapter that's a travesty or a tragedy, we are still going to keep scribing and writing and writing and writing our own story. We will keep rallying every time there's a fail, every time there is a difficulty. Because what is on the other side that rally? You waking up in the morning and visualizing what comes next. You waking up in the morning and seeing that future, feeling that future, working towards that future and manifesting the future. Even if it's difficult or different in the short term, in the long term, the future holds good things for you. If you reach for it, you are stronger than you think.