In this episode of the Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard outlines his view of genuine personal power as the ability to lift others, act with kindness, and maintain internal agency regardless of external circumstances. He illustrates this concept through his admiration for the Dalai Lama, whose compassion and refusal to exert dominance exemplify unshakable power. Burchard emphasizes that true power lies in consciously choosing one’s aims, attitudes, and actions, even amid chaos, and that this self‑control fuels leadership and positive impact. He shares his personal story of bankruptcy and early career uncertainty, noting that retaining agency allowed him to recover and build a successful high‑performance career. The episode concludes with a promotion of his book, High Performance Habits, positioning it as a distilled guide to the research and practices that enable extraordinary personal power.
Questions this episode answers
Brendon Burchard.
February 19, 2018.
High Performance Habits.
Amazon.
Chapters
Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to another episode of the Brendon Show. You want ultimate power, like, real power? You start lifting others up and not pushing them down. You lift your spouse up. You stop minimizing other people. You start saying, you know what real power, true human power, is giving others love and validation without needing it back. I think one of the greatest acts of human courage is to open up yourself to the world, demonstrate exactly who.
You are, do exactly what you desire.
Of life without the need of power, without the need of validation or love. Doing it for the sake of doing it for the journey, not the outcome. That's extraordinary power. The most extraordinary, powerful person I've met my entire life was the Dalai Lama. I've been blessed to spend time with him twice now in my life. And I'll tell you, I've never met someone more powerful. His grace and his energy is amazing. Whether you believe in Buddhism or not, whether you. He says his religion is kindness, that's his religion. And it's true. I've seen in very, very, very volatile situations in his past and his history where he could, he just didn't. And by holding that space of compassion, kindness, mindfulness, he was unshakably powerful, Unshakably powerful. One of the most respected human figures alive today and never tries to exert power over others. Because where he grew up and in his history, when he was ousted from his country, that the powerful country at the time, China, was pushing at his country and trying to take over that country. And so he grew up with overt uses of power. And people often, when they grow up or see or sense overt uses of power, they either choose to use it and try to get it and take it, or they recognize that those who try to demonstrate power actually are lacking in it because they need it. How many follow? Those who need that power over other people are often the weakest of the lot. Doesn't mean that they don't do bad things or take over other people. But true, genuine personal power. Genuine personal power is the ability to consciously choose one's own aims, one's own attitude. One owns actions. That's true power. When I can choose, and no matter the chaos, I can choose a positive attitude. No matter the chaos, I can choose what I want. No matter the situation, I can choose my next action. That's personal power. The ability to will yourself into thinking, feeling, or doing something. That's real personal power. And when you can do it with a positive bent towards humans, towards others.
Then you're a leader.
When you can mobilize the self to give more goodness back to the world, you got power. I think being yourself and being your best self is the greatest personal power ever. And we evaluate ourselves on that. We ask ourselves, am I taking control of my life or am I not? Am I living the life I imagined for myself or am I not? Because when I'm not, then this frame makes us feel bad, guilty, sad, because we aren't in psychology terms, we aren't in a place of agency. Meaning you're the agent, the controlling agent of your life, right? Somebody else is. If you have a low level of agency in your life, it means you have a low level of personal power or control. A high level means you take command. It means you're owning your reality and you're responsible. You're making yourself accountable and responsible for your own decisions in life. You want to see this, have this, feel it, then demonstrate it based on who you are. Be yourself and keep yourself accountable to positive emotions, thoughts and actions. And you'll feel like you have it. Like, I feel an extraordinary amount of personal control in my life. Even when I went bankrupt, even when I was completely challenged in my first business. I left corporate America, I started writing, started doing seminars, and I had no idea what I was doing completely. I mean, there wasn't an experts academy back then. There was no place you went to learn all this. It was just like you could go to a seminar over there or something over here or something over there. I had no idea what I was doing at all. So I quickly went broke. But during that time, I didn't lose that agency. That part of like, this is on me. I can control my thoughts, my feelings, my behaviors to improve, to get to this next level. And that changed everything.
If you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book, High Performance Habits. Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon right now, and when you order your copy, you're really supporting my channel and the message. And you're also getting a book that will reveal to you 20 years of my research into what is it that helps people go to a new level of success in their life?
What does it really take?
What habits are proven to help you reach long term success in your career, your health, your personal life, your relationships. It's called High Performance Habits. How Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon right now.