How to Lead with Excellence

Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance and inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi, thanks again for listening.

Now let's begin. I think any great product today is about the details. Anything. It's about how it looks, how it feels, the customer journey, engaging with it. And it's a constant question we have in our own company. For those who have a team, you've got to teach them to be terrified to miss the details. That's it. And I know that's not language people like, right? They're like, oh Brendan, you know, don't scare your team. Or I'm like, no. Every high performing team I've ever worked with, they really sweat the details. They were joyous at work, they loved work. They weren't in a psychologically unsafe environment, but they were scared to miss the details because they really cared about the output that went to the customers because they knew that mattered. Like I'm totally okay with being A little terrified, not to do a good job for the details that matter. So I want you, if you're a leader, to always be focused on the details with your team, right? Always be like the little details, every little thing that you can teach them to hone in, help them do that. Because that will help you ultimately be recognized in the marketplace as someone who sweats the details. Because most of your competitors are just surviving. And once you know that most of your competitors are just surviving and they're not thinking about the needle movers and obsessing about those, you win. Look at Apple's its entire longevity, that obsession about the details, the look and the feeling created the largest organization ever at the time. Look at Amazon. I mean, Jeff Bezos is just insane about the details and built the largest, you know, basically what really reinvented all of commerce, you know, in the world. So it might be something worth focusing on. Over deliver. How do you know how to do that? I get asked that all the time. But here's the reality. Most people can't over deliver because they're not managing projects well. And they don't know really. They're like not sticking to their word. So they're completely over committed.

Right?

The enemy of over delivering is over commitment. Oh, snap. When you are over committed, you can't over deliver. So you need to protect what's on your plate. You need to be a zealot. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about every interaction point your customer or your team or someone has with you that matters. And I want you to say in each of those touch points, how do I over deliver there? Most people think, okay, if I'm going to sell a bottle, they think, how can I over deliver on the bottle? And they think, oh, well, I'll make the bottle nicer. And that's it. They don't think, oh, maybe I'll make the bottle nicer. I'll make the packaging nicer. I'll make their checkout experience nicer. I'll make the email follow up nicer, the receipt nicer. I'll make sure that the way that we ship this is nicer. And they just go that next level of like, how does every touch point happen? What if they want to return the bottle? How do I make that touch point of returns nicer? Like really thinking through every touch point your customer or your team has with you, how do you do that better?

That's over delivering.

The only way to truly over deliver is to have a list of all the Touch points and ask in each touch point, how do you over deliver there? Not just globally, but each of those details that matter. That's how these two really come together. Well, empower others. We often make excellence about us. And you think about those first couple items, right? Play the long game, geek out on the details, over deliver. That's often we're thinking about ourself, how we show up, what we do, what we contribute individually. But here's what those who achieve the top level excellence is. Along the way, they're building leaders that allow them more time to geek out on the things that matter. They're empowering others listen in every area that they touch, even if it's their unique contributions. Like right now, life's a good example about this. Right now that I'm trying to do a better job in this. I'm empowering my team to do many things that I love to do, many things that I've been known to do, many things that I've done for 10 years at the top levels. I'm teaching them, empowering them, handing my phone. You do it even though they're not ready, even though they haven't done it before, even though I take great joy in that. I'm empowering others now so that as I have other projects, as I take on more things, I have more time that I can at any given time say, you take this so I can focus here. In other words, those who strive with real excellence are basically at the same time as they're striving so hard, empowering others so that they have more white space to focus strategically, more white space to focus on things that matter. More white space to deal with the ohs of life when somebody gets sick or they're overburdened or they didn't make the mistake of saying yes when they should have said no, that they're building the tribe or the team or the capabilities of those around them so they can step away. When they don't do that just, I mean, their life is constant stress. And if you are under constant stress, how are you going to deliver with excellence over the long term?

You'll burn out.

You'll start hating the journey versus bringing the joy. And I know you know this. I just had a great conversation with a woman I really admire who she was telling me, we were talking about her and parenting. I said, how are you such like an amazing parent? She laughed. She's like, no, I was a terrible parent for about 12 years. I said, what does that mean? And she said, well, I. She had two kids. She said, I felt like I had to do everything for my kids. And I mean, I did everything for them all the time. And I said to her, oh, you weren't empowering them to think for themselves, right? She goes, no, no, no, Brendan, I did a good job with them. Like, they're healthy adults, they're smart, they're self reliant. I said, well, I don't get it. Where did you fail to empower them then? She goes, no, no, I failed to empower my husband. And I was like, oh, snap. She goes, I took it upon myself. I didn't, like, teach him how to do things, even though he didn't like it. I didn't ask, I didn't command. I didn't empower my husband to be an equally good parent as I was. So when I got overburdened, I was in it alone. And it wasn't his fault. I didn't empower him to be as good a parent as I did. And I have to own that. And I was like, that's some unbelievable level of self awareness. I was like, that's strong. Because how many people would just blame. How many people would say, well, they don't help me. Well, the question is, did you empower them to help you? Well, they don't understand. Did you empower them to understand and to take it? Like, we don't often do that. And it's something that I also have struggled with in my life because I love all the moving parts of everything I do. But I've had to learn, like, okay, empower others way, way before you would ever need them to help you. Empower others in every single area that you can so that if you stepped away, everything still ran. Because if you can do that, what ends up happening is you'll find your true art, you'll find your true areas of emphasis, and most importantly, you'll make the others around you feel like they're contributing to your journey versus being a spectator. Some of you, your family and your friends and even some of your team, they're really spectators on your journey. And you're amazing. You're the high performer, you're more successful, you do more work, maybe you make more, and you've made a lot of fans and spectators, but your life and your journey will be the ripple effect of you only. And empowering others is like, you know, yeah, you can jump into a lake and make so much of a ripple, but if 100 people jump in that lake at the same time with you, you shake that thing. And I think it's really important for us to realize that those who are striving with excellence are empowering others as they strive. Not when they complete, not when they get time. So stop telling yourself that. Well, I'll teach them when I have time. I. I'll teach them when this happens, they're never gonna be ready and you're never gonna be ready. So schedule it. Like right now, the greatest gift everyone could give yourself is to schedule that situation or those sit downs where you empower more people to do stuff even if you're not ready. I mean, I just sat, what was it, last week or the week before? I don't know, last month and sat down with two folks on social media and said, here's my Instagram. They had never ran an account that big. They had never created posts on a page like that. It's like, go. They're totally not ready. I wasn't ready either. But you've got to empower others sooner than you think. And so many of you are waiting so long. And I'm telling you, because you're waiting so long to empower others, you're not able to play the long game because you're always in crisis mode. If you're in crisis mode all the time, you can't possibly play the long game intelligently because you haven't empowered others. You don't get to geek out on the details that really matter. You're doing everything because you didn't empower others. You can't really over deliver. You just crash and burn over the finish line with just enough.

Not great.

And I know every time I bring this up, people say, well, Brennan, you don't understand. I don't have a team yet. I'm like, so go get your very first free intern. Go get your very first virtual assistant. Go get your very first team member. Go get that very first person who will partner with you or go on the journey. Stop waiting. The longer you wait to empower others, the more you will be drowning in mediocrity, in busyness, in stress, in overwhelm. It's so important.

Hey, it's Brendon and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time.

Which is, Brendan, where do you get.

This crazy focus and energy in your life? And the truth is, I've developed a supplement line that really helps me do that. And frankly, I needed to. I don't know about you, but sometimes.

When you're trying to achieve big things.

A lot of stress comes along. And as you're trying to achieve bigger things, you need to be on your A game more often. You need to be mentally sharp, you need to be mentally prepared, you need to be mentally energized and productive. And not once in a while, but like every day, you have to be on. And sometimes guzzling more coffee isn't going to do it. You have to use what we call nootropics, which are, you know, basically supplements that help optimize your brain. And yes, we have a product for exactly that. It's called HPX Optimized and it is our most popular product. And you can get it. It's back in stock at HPX wellness. That's HPX wellness.com you'll find HPX optimized for your mental focus and energy there. You'll also find my favorite powdered energy drink that we created, this 100% organic and vegan. And you'll find my essentials, which is my daily multi that I take that covers my energy, that covers my longevity, that covers my immunity, that covers my brain and body health that I absolutely love.

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Show the process what happens often when we're trying to make something awesome is we kind of do it in the like behind the scenes, in the dark. We try to do our genius and our things and then show someone the perfect thing. But excellence is made when people realize how much work you put into something. And they're never gonna realize how much work you put into something until you start showing them the process. Whether that means on social media, you document your journey. Hey, I have this idea. Here's the different things that we tried, here's what we're working on, here's how it came out. Or if it means you get your team involved and say, hey, here's how I'm thinking about this. How would you think about it? If people can't participate in the process, they can't give you feedback. If you ain't getting any feedb, you aren't delivering with the utmost excellence. You're delivering your best, but not what could be the best. So invite people into your process so you get better. Invite people into your process so they appreciate what you're doing better and they recognize the excellence. Like when I tell people about this stupid font that I know didn't matter, but let me come back to that. When I tell people about this font and how hard we worked on that, people read the book differently. Like, ooh, he cared about every word. He cared about this font and these two lines. He obsessed about the distance between these two lines. I never thought about the distance between those lines, but that is actually excellent and perfect spacing, I have to admit. And suddenly people appreciate the excellence you deliver. My audience appreciates the excellence because I'm telling them, here's what I did here. Here's how hard I worked on this. My team appreciates it because I get, would you guys do A or B? Involve other people so they appreciate your work. That's why sometimes your spouse doesn't appreciate all the work you're doing. They don't get what you do. You're not showing their process involving them. Remember your high performance training, that sometimes the most important thing to realize is people support what they create or involved in. If they weren't involved in or never saw the process, how could they fully appreciate the magic of what you are.

Delivering to the world?

Open yourself up. Show people in your messy process, not just what you think is done, and everything will become more excellent. You take a few days off whenever you've scheduled a few days off. I think if you're just like, burned out and you're like, oh, my God, I need a few days off. You didn't play everything else we shared. You weren't strategic. You weren't project planning.

You weren't thinking far enough out.

If you're stumbling into burnout over and over and over again and you're like, oh, my God, I need a few days off. You're not project planning. Well, your few days off should be scheduled at times where, you know, you completed something and you are going at it, and you were SWAT teaming for a while. A few days off suddenly needed is a failure in strategic planning. No one likes to hear it, but trust me, I work with people at the CEO level in Fortune 50. They're planning thousands of projects at billions of dollars across thousands of employees. If you saw their project plate, you'd cry. But they're not crashing and burning going, geez, I really need five days off right now. Oh, my God. Because they planned, if you crash and.

Burn, that's a failure in planning.

And I know that's hard for people to hear, but I also think the responsible answer here is, hey, if your body's telling you something, man, you better listen to that. If you're like, I'm about to crash and burn, and you realize you can take days off or you need that moment of recharging. Do it often. People don't need a few more days off. They need better use of transitions each day. They need those moments in the day to take that 20 minute nap or that 20 minute meditation. They need time away from doing stuff that doesn't matter. And during that time that something matters. Go to the gym. You know, like that time when you usually spend things already distractions, you go to the gym. Like most people. I found over and over in most of our work, including our research, most people have about three more hours in the day than they think they do. Now, I know lots of you are like, that can't be true. But here's the thing. Most people, the reason they don't believe that's true is, is because they're myopic, Meaning they're only focusing on today. They're like, do you see all these things I have to do? I couldn't possibly squeeze another hour in. But remember, play the long game. If we took out a month, view. If we went back 30 days later and we planned better every single day, is it true we could have got you three more hours today? The answer is almost always, yeah. Cause listen, if all we did is take out 10 minutes of distraction every day and we took that 10 minutes of distraction out every day for the last 20 days. 10 minutes over 20 days, we just got you 200 more minutes. It's two and a half hours. I think I suck at math, but you know the idea. You got it right. So most people, they really do have three more hours a day if they were more strategic a month earlier. And most people every single day have about 90 full minutes that could have been utilized better, that could have helped them. And one of the ways to do that is to begin your day very intentionally.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity.

Right?

So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's Growthday because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff.

Actually really does help.

And I read all of them. So my last thought for today Please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.

Sam.