How To Regain Control Of Your Future (60 min class!)
In this 60‑minute class Brendon Burchard teaches a framework for navigating uncertainty and reclaiming personal agency. He begins by rejecting forecasting based on fear and instead proposes that future outcomes are determined by how one shows up each day. He introduces the "role‑model mindset" – deliberately choosing to be calm, centered, and disciplined so that family, team, and community look to you for stability. He outlines ten inter‑related practices: (1) stay centered amid chaos through breath, perspective, and a steady morning routine; (2) avoid complaining and monitor a personal complaint scorecard; (3) recognize the three core fears – loss, process (hardship), and outcome – and flip each into opportunity; (4) mitigate fear by acknowledging its source, using perspective, and turning loss into gain; (5) forecast using a daily rhythm and quarterly historical trends rather than knee‑jerk reactions; (6) apply an 80/20 rule to double‑down on the few activities that drive 80 % of results; (7) minimize downside by taking decisive actions now (e.g., reallocating resources, making tough personnel decisions); (8) cultivate faith or a focus of attention to shift bandwidth from fear to confidence; (9) differentiate values from needs and serve what others value; (10) practice daily courage by taking one bold, growth‑oriented action. Throughout he stresses proactive, responsible leadership, community collaboration, and the power of consistent, purpose‑aligned habits to shape a better future.
Chapters
Don't forecast on fear. Don't forecast on this. No, I am going to predict my future based on how I show up today. Let me say it again. I'm going to predict my future based on how I'm going to show up today. If I show up today and I show up strong and confident and disciplined and focused, I know there will be more positive outcomes than if I did otherwise. Let me say it again. I know if I show up today strong and capable and focused and discipline today, I know I can forecast the outcome being bigger, better, and a future that I want more. So if I don't do those things. So all forecasting must begin with daily effort and behavior. I appreciate you being here today to work on your own personal development, to really strengthen yourself for these moments and these times of chaos. I know as well that there's a lot of uncertainty out there and with uncertainty often comes fear. And as fear sets in, we often start trying to project and forecast the future. How are things going to turn out? How's my family going to be? What are we going to do with the business, with the career, with the family, with the community? There's a lot of energy in the world right now. And so the fact that you would take a little bit of time to strengthen yourself, to find your center, to work on your own personal and professional development, it's just going to be me talking with you through 10 principles and practices that help me deal with fear mitigation, that help me deal with how do I forecast and deal with my life in a time when everything seems so chaotic. And I really believe that's important for you as principle number one. Practice number one. I've been sharing with you for years that the ultimate mindset switch that happens for us in our life is when we go from self oriented, selfish, when we go from concerned, stressed, freaked out, and all these emotions that take over us into adopting what I call the role model mindset. When we adopt the role model mindset, we immediately through that frame make different decisions because we recognize people are watching. You know, your kids are seeing how you're dealing with the stress. The co workers are hearing your messaging, they're seeing it. Your friends are noticing the tone and the temperament in which you are enacting right now. And we either add to hysteria and we either add to panic or, or we choose to be stable. We choose to be the role model. We choose to be the persons who are centered amid the chaos. I don't pretend that is easy. I just pretend and let you know that that's necessary. It's not about what's easy in life. It's about what is necessary to be healthy, both in mind, body and spirit and to project and to demonstrate strength and centeredness and calm and patience when everybody else is freaking out. What this is going to be is a very proactive way for you to learn how to deal with fear in your life and a responsible way for you to forecast how do you continue with your life and your goals at the same clip or even faster when there is chaos. Because that old yin and yang, where there's chaos, there's also opportunity. It is absolutely true. And right now there's an opportunity for you to be a role model for those in your community and your family. There's an opportunity for, yes, you to grow your career at a time when everyone else is hunkering down and freaking out. And there's an opportunity for all of us to learn as global citizens how to be more proactive, responsible, caring and compassionate. So I don't have notes today other than my 10 practices in front of me and I've got my phone in front of me so that I can give a shout out to all of our friends. Don't joining us from around the world, you're working on yourself at a very important time. And I really believe that by adopting the role model mindset right off the bat with me today and say, oh, let me change my orientation right now. I've been a participant in the drama. Let me now step into how do I want to set my own emotional tone and my own emotional reality as I deal with that which is in front of me and must be dealt with. Right? Because what most people do is I don't like that and they don't even deal with it. So they avoid it. They hide, they lie, they pretend. It's not there. A role model goes, it's there. Let me honor this reality by facing it. Because what happens is when we avoid what is necessary in our life. Let me say this again. When we avoid what is necessary in our life, we betray our own truth. We. We betray our own mind. We betray life itself when we avoid that which must be dealt with. So there are things we all have to deal with in protecting our health and our families. We'll talk about that, ladies and gentlemen, global community. As a global community, how are we going to set our emotional tone in this chaos? How are we going to find our strength, our center, our. And project goodness and compassion at a time when it is desperately needed? How are we going to hold the line in our businesses so that we don't overreact and going one direction when we ought to be in another. How do we manage all this today? Please take some notes. Today I'm going to share 10 principles and practices with you that I really believe will serve number one most important one. Number one, I said already, adopt the role model mindset, but that's an overall principle. Let's jump into some specific mindsets that really helped me. Number one is the decision that I will always be the one to remain centered amid the chaos. It is a decision. It is a commitment. It is something you can guarantee about Brendon Burchard. I will be centered amid chaos. And I have worked on myself and I have taught myself that for pretty much, you know, 25 years. I've worked on that at a very steady pace. When everyone's freaking out, I take a bunch of deep breaths. I connect with my breath. I make sure that I'm keeping perspective. I do simple things to protect my mind, which I'll talk with you here in a moment about. But ultimately, that decision to I will be centered amid this means for me that I will choose the emotional tone and my attitude as I am dealing with uncertainty or chaos. And this propagates well beyond what's going on right now in my life. But if you've been to my events before, you see how large they are. Every event, something happens. You know, when we get people from all around the world traveling for four or five days, we're all together and, oh, my gosh, there's always something's going to happen. You know, I remember years ago, I was doing an event and a person in the back of the room had a seizure, and literally they fell out of their chair and on the ground, they started having a full physical reaction to the seizure as well, where they were shaking. And it was terrifying for the people around them. And I was kind of at the beginning of my career, and I saw it happen. It was almost in slow motion. And could you imagine you're on your stage. I mean, put yourself there. You're in front of, you know, hundreds or thousands of people, and all of a sudden somebody is, you know, falling over and having a full seizure in front of the whole audience. The whole audience literally starts looking back. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. People are standing up. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Total panic sets in the room. And I remember standing up there and I have this on video where at first my first reaction is like this kind of like Shocked, just like everybody else, like, whoa. And then I kind of look over and instantaneously in my mind, I go, brendan, you have to be in charge here. I didn't want to be in charge. I had to be in charge. And my mind immediately said two choices here. Join the panic or stay stable and strong and present and connected with what's really happening. And so that decision, I'm going to say, centered amid this, made me immediately also decide I need to center the audience. So I asked the entire audience, I just announced, I said, everyone sit down. And everyone just kind of looks, I said, sit down. And everybody, they sit down. And I said, please sit down, because your panic and your chaos right now is not serving the energy of this person who needs healing. Sit down, be quiet, everyone. Please close your eyes so my team can address this situation. Please close your eyes and let's put some positive energy and prayer in the room for this person who, who needs our attention right now. They don't need negativity and fear in the room. Let's put some love and prayer. Let's do a little, let's send some energy. So please close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and remember, you can choose to contribute good energy to the situation. And so I had everyone close their eyes, take a few deep breaths and meditate or send prayer back to this person. As my team was clearing that row and getting to this person so that when the paramedics would arrive, that person could remove. Be removed. Now, here's the deal. I knew I had like 20 minutes at least before we could get a paramedic, probably at that spot in the seminar. And I thought, how am I going to buy 20 minutes? I mean, people are going to start freaking out. And I realized, no, if I set the emotional tenor in this room on purpose, and if I ask of others to find the best within themselves, if I ask of others to take a breath, if I ask of others to be responsible for the energy they are projecting into this space, if I ask of that, and if I demonstrate that we'll make it through this moment. And that might not seem like a big deal, but I really believe the energy in that room either was serving this man as he was having a seizure or was making it worse. You know, imagine here he is having this unbelievable, stressful, life threatening situation. And if all around him everybody is screaming in chaos, the body feels that. You know, the body and the mind feels the energy of what is around it. And so if that is true, let us all be responsible for the energy we are projecting right now. I've seen friends hop online and something's happening. And what are they doing? They're contributing to the chaos. They're posting snarky comments. There's sarcasm, blame, vitriol, anger. And I'm not here to say that we can't use our social mediums to contribute to an argument or to make a case. But every word has a tone to it. And the tone that we are setting in reply to chaos either furthers the chaos or it levels it. And the more of us who choose to be even, tempered, thoughtful, caring, compassionate, you know, the values that we would all hope to have as a global citizenry, the more that we will judiciously take action in a thoughtful way. That's the hope. And whether you believe that or not, I hope that you'll hear this first. Practice. Your family needs to see you centered, calm, strong and assured in chaos. Otherwise, we are passing down panic to another generation. It's sad, in my view, that we have a world that is so connected, so potentially capable, so well informed, and yet we still have people who overreact. But there's a difference between overreaction, as in taking action to overprotect, like doing something useful to shore up things, versus an emotional overreaction of fear. You can deal with really difficult situations without the negative range of blame, vitriol, hate, and anger. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I'm just here today to touch base with you. You can set that emotional tenor. Let's all do a better job at that. Principle number one, stay centered amid the chaos. Let me just give you some. Just simple things. The way that I do that, I know there'll be. Today's gonna be very. Sometimes it'll be big, big, big idea. And then we'll just drill it down on how I personally do it. Let me give you a couple examples of how I'm doing it right now. To stay centered amid chaos, you also have to stay a little distanced from chaos even as it is happening. I'll give you an example of how I'm doing it. And many of you guys know I have four major companies that I'm either, you know, the principal in or one of the principal investors in. And for me, like lots of different teams around the world, and obviously you've seen here we have a global community. Well, for me, because I'm constantly being hit up on this phone by people from literally around the world. And people count on me to advise their companies and advise their careers. People Are scared. So what do I do? I don't engage the chaos all day. Instead, I work my plan. And many of you already know how I do that with my morning routines. My morning routine doesn't change, still stays steady. Wake up, center my mind, plan my day, open up my body. But I also do simple things right now, right now, listen, I'm not checking in my phone every 10 minutes because, right, guess what you want to do in chaos? Refresh. Refresh, refresh, refresh. But every time you hit refresh and every time you scroll, don't forget, it takes emotional and mental energy. Energy. And if refresh, refresh, refresh. Chaos. Bad news, Bad news. Bad news, bad news. Oh, my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Just think about that for a minute. You're hitting the oh my God button all day when you're refreshing in chaotic news times. And that is creating the panic and the stress inside that is freaking you out. So as an example of simple things that I do, I only check in on the news twice a day. I always say news at noon, right? I'm going to get through my morning. I'm going to make the magic happen. I'm going to move my projects forward in the mornings. If it's news that I need to know about that affects me dramatically and locally, trust me, I'll hear about it. My friends or my wife or somebody will let me know via text. But I don't check in on the news because nothing's going to change for me in dealing with the news until around noon. And I know people say, well, what if this is canceled? Or that's canceled. You'll hear it from your family, you'll get the news. But I don't check into the major media. I don't check into social media multiple times a day. I don't check into. And I'm talking about what people are doing right now. They're hitting refresh by the minute, by the five minutes, by the time. How many of you are guilty about this? How many of you have been addicted to refreshing in the last 72 hours, right? It's easy to do that when there's chaos. But that's also the most important time not to do that for your own psyche, right? That's the most important time to separate yourself from chaos versus what do you do? Reconnect to it every 30 seconds. Think about what that does. You cannot doesn't matter how conscious or intelligent or brilliant or meditative you are. If you check into oh my God, bad news 24 7, there is no human that. That does not start to shape your emotional reality. No human alive. The Dalai Lama couldn't do it without feeling that emotion, if that's what he did 24 7. And right now, that's what we have people doing. And so I think what is necessary is to stay absolutely informed. But realize not a whole lot is going to shift in periods of time throughout the day. Now, I know it depends on what you do and how you respond in your career and where your family is and all these things. No question. No question. So here's what I suggest to you. To stay centered in the mid of the chaos. You choose how much you check in. You choose. And then at a conscious level, I'd say back it up a little bit. So however, you're like, I gotta check 20 times this hour. But I'm like, okay, I appreciate that feeling and that concern. So let's just back. Could we check in just five times in the hour so you can actually get something done? So please don't think I'm saying don't be involved or don't be informed. I'm saying don't let the chaos eat you alive. Because listen to this statement. Chaos inside grows as checking in on the outside grows, right? The more everyone's freaking out and the more you listen to all of it, the more it infects you. Because there is also another contagion going on right now. And if you've studied neuroscience with me for a while or you've been with me in this community for a while, you know how much we talk about emotional contagion. Energy spreads. And the real pandemic right now is emotional contagion, where people are losing their center. It's like, listen, we can act without losing our center. We can act without spreading fear. We can act without the anxiety. Like the stuff that I have to take on on a daily basis. If you saw it, you'd be like, oh, my gosh. But I choose not to address it with anxiety. I choose to be in center of my emotional reality, the chooser, the captain of the ship. And I just want you to be that observer of how you've been dealing with this and choose to stay centered amid the chaos. I do things like keep your morning routine, and it is so important right now, that is stability in an unstable world. Don't overly engage what is happening. Don't contribute to the negative energy in any way. Even if you want to trust me, when I do check in, I want to say, you idiots. Oh, my gosh, what's Happening over here. Don't be that person. It's not going to help your spirit or your soul. I promise you. Be the person who's centered amid the chaos. If you like this one, give me two of those down below because we've got to engage this. If you can communicate something to your kids, teach them this principle. If you can talk with your team, teach them this principle. Let's be the ones who are steady, strong, centered, even as we take responsible action. Number two, big idea. And this will be so simple. And I promise we'll go even more advanced. We'll get into very. You know, I know some of you are here and you're really excited about the forecasting. We'll get to that stuff, too. But number two, I would love to just be brief on this one. I have a personal rule. Don't complain. Do not complain. I can describe my reality of the many things I'm doing without complaining. I can vent and I can share and I can describe without the emotional tenor and tone of complaining about it. Because your mind is listening to your mouth, and when you start saying, oh, I got to deal with this, and, oh, damn, your body goes, oh, my gosh. And your body reacts to that and your body drops more cortisol. There's no question. Did you know the tone that you use in your speaking activates and can activate whether or not you're dropping dopamine, serotonin, oxypressin, or. I almost said oxytocin. That'd be something. But it's like, we can have that or vasopressin. That's what I was going after. We can be in that place where it's like, our tone can actually release good energy, good hormones inside. But what happens for people is your tone can also release more cortisol, the stress hormone. So listen, how you describe things. Came in today, and I just totally described what I'm going through. I was like, yeah, boy. Was. You know, we were just chatting and I was sharing about my last 72 hours. Yep. Had to do this and. And this. And boy, this is going on. I had to talk with lawyers this morning, and I had to. But it wasn't like, oh, my job. There wasn't that energy. Because if you're in that energy, If I was in that energy this morning, I couldn't serve you. Right. Well, the more that you complain, the more you put yourself in an emotional energy that doesn't allow you to serve your kids, doesn't allow you to serve as a role model with your team or Your community. I know you know this, but please, right now, I want you, from now on, the rest of this year, the rest of this year, every night, as you evaluate yourself, and I hope you do, use your high performance planner at the end of the day, evaluate yourself, give yourself a scorecard on the high performance habits. Or if you don't use high performance planner, make sure every night you have a scorecard somewhere of how you did, of values that are important to you, right? Maybe some of the values that are important to you are. Did you demonstrate love today? Were you patient with kids? Did you, you know, did you stay focused on your work? Whatever it is? Everyone should have a nighttime scorecard to look back at the day. And the more we do that self evaluation, the more we gain self awareness. I want you to add, from now on, every night, the rest of this year, I would love for you to add a simple thing. Add a scorecard of complaint. Did I complain today? Score of one to ten. Ten. You were a little brat, baby. And one good job. You know, you kept the complaints to a minimum even when you had reason. Because isn't it true we can all say I have reason to complain. Oh, my spouse didn't do this and then they closed the school and then he said this on the television and then they did that and we still don't have the test. And oh my God, then, and, and just complain, complain. It's like, okay, there's a difference between complaining and making an argument that moves the needle forward. Okay? I'm not saying we should engage, but if you engage, make an argument that moves the needle forward versus just talking out your mouth. And I think you know the difference, I can't judge it for you. This is why I'm asking you to keep your own scorecard. You know, I'm hyper aware of it this year. I'm hyper aware there's so much nonsense and vitriol online and social media that I'm like, okay, am I complaining? Because it feels like you have to gauge. Have you complained more in the last three months than you complained in previous years of your life? That's a reality check for many people right now. And once we check into that, it's like, okay, so that's a simple one. I just want to get that one out there because I think it's really important. So again, for those who are just joining us, this is a broadcast where I'm going to talk about fear mitigation and forecasting. And so point number three is about fear and my practice about fear is just simple. Understand where fear comes from. Always know when you feel fear or you sense fear. There's only three reasons that that thing is showing up. And once you can tap into those three reasons, and I promise you, there's only three reasons that fear happens for us. And soon as we realize that, it's like, oh, now there's only three reasons. In a certain context, the first fear that we all have is the primal physical fear, right? If something is chasing us, that's a certain type of fear. That is impulsive, right? Something chases us, and boom, that immediately drops. It's reactive. The amygdala fires, and there is no conscious ability. But almost 99.9% of the time, there is the conscious ability to react to fear. And that's where these three things come into play. Remember, there's only three things we fear. Number one thing that we fear is loss. The pain from loss. We fear we're going to lose our health, we're going to lose our business income, we're going to lose our relationship with somebody that we love. We're going to lose steady work, we are going to lose the comforts or the certainties that we enjoy. Today. Loss pain is the primary fear driver for most people. And so if you're having a lot of, like, anxiety right now and you can place it to, I'm kind of fearful. And we dig deep. One of those reasons is you're scared to lose something. And anytime we get scared to lose something, we must do a perspective check. We have to say, really, did I lose it? Have I already lost it? Has the process of loss happened? Have I lost it in the past? We must just get perspective. But also we have to flip everything, because the nice thing about fear on the other side of it is also confidence. It's like two sides of a coin. So if loss pain is the fear on the other side, we could say, oh, could there be a gain? Right? So mitigate the loss by saying, oh, I'm scared I'm gonna lose this. Have I lost it yet? Have I lost it before? Is there any reason to believe I'm losing it or going to lose it? Just do a reality check on the loss. But at the same time, give more mental, more mental and emotional energy to the other side, which is, okay, are there things to gain here? Because if you can take a fear into an opportunity, you've achieved a certain type of Zen in your life. Really. I mean, if you think about a lot of the Eastern philosophy of that yin and yang, or that chaos and that opportunity, it really comes from where are you going to put your mental and emotional energy? I actually really believe, if you thought about it, this could be an opportunity for you to improve your health and your immunity. This is a great time to check on your diet. This is a great time to deal with stress better. This is a great time to ensure that you are capably managing your meditation, your exercise, your diet, your sleep, your stress routines. This could actually be a time in which you strengthen yourself versus just feel fearful and go about your normal life. I think that's really important. I think that's really important. So where is your energy there? My energy right now is completely on optimizing. My energy is. I mean, if you walked out on my counter right now, it's all the HPX supplements, you know, that got going on, all the things I'm doing to exercise, to walk. Like, I am absolutely making sure every day right now I am meditating twice a day right now, twice a day. Like I'm just not missing. I'm doing it in the morning and then for me, around that 4:30 time, I'm making sure at 4:30 every day I either meditate or I nap for 30 minutes straight, just depending on how my body is feeling just to recover, to enter the evening strong. Twice a day I'm doing that major reset for my mental health. Second thing, people right now are. I'm so scared, Brandon. I'm going to lose business. The economy is crashing. I've lost, you know, I've lost a lot of like my 401k or my index funds. I'm dropping business, I'm have to cancel events. I'm in real time losing business and funds, Brendan, and it is scaring me to death. And I'm here to say I get it. And it's happened to you before and you're still here. You think this is the first time you've lost money? I bet it's not. This is the first time a major client cancel on you. Bet it's not. This is the first time you didn't know what the next quarter of income looked like. Hell no. You remember when you couldn't pay rent? Who are you talking to? Come on. Sometimes when we are so fearful about business and career we forget where we came from. You have survived lack. You have survived scarcity at epic levels in the past. So don't think that you can't handle it before. Part of something we'll talk about here in a few practices is the ability to go into time zones when people are In a panic. When people are in a panic in the present, you use perspective to say, how'd this go in the past? Where were my strengths there in the past? And what are the opportunities in the future? And let me apply some strengths to the future. And so when you're feeling loss, concern for business, for income, for funds, just keep perspective. Yeah, that might be happening right now. Address it. Use it as an opportunity to learn about the market, to learn about investing, to learn about getting new clients. Like, right now, I'm like, oh, what do I need to do to grow my virtual services of my business right now? Great, great. Time to study. Instead of going, oh, my God, it's happening. Turn on Netflix and let's just drink wine and hide. I just go, oh, let me study. Let me retool. Oh, my gosh, let me take command of this fate right now, baby. Let me deal with this by learning. Either I'm going to disengage and complain, or I'm going to engage and learn. And that's what I'm doing right now. I'm like, all right, how do those online models work in this way and this way and this way? Oh, and what was the best way? I did this before in the past. And this. It's like, it's not that I'm not noticing that things are happening around us or that we've been impacted by the stock market. I get that guys just like you. So are you engaging and learning? Here's the test. Here's the test. And I want you to be honest with this, because, again, I'm trying to be your friend tonight, but I'm also your coach. So my best moments as a coach is when I challenge people with ones that kind of smack you up in the face a little bit. And let's just do the test. How much learning did you do over the last 72 hours versus consuming? That tells you how you're handling this right now. How much learning did you do versus consuming? And what I mean by that is consuming social media, consuming news, seeing what everybody's saying, seeing what everybody's doing versus going, holy crap, you know what, honey? Our index funds might be affected. You know what? Our business might be affected. You know what? Things might be canceled here or that thing might go on here. Let me pull away from the checking in and let me learn how to do better right now. This is why I honor you guys as a community. You're here to learn how to do better today. This is why I love you and why I honor you. Because you know how many people are not engaging personal development right now? Do you know how many people are falling to their base impulses? But you're here, you're doing the work. So you know what? Count this hour and this next hour together as you know what, your learning time instead of your consuming of drama. So what have I been doing the last 72 hours? I've been tooling up. I was up literally last night, 12:30am learning and going back and studying some notes to see, oh, how do I do this online thing over here? Because let me amplify that. Because if you're concerned of loss over here, you'd better amplify something over here. Make sense? So what's your plan? What are you amplifying over here? If you're going to deal with loss over here, that is facing it, that is dealing with it. That's going for it. So three things that we fear. Number one, loss, pain. So I've told you some ways to mitigate that. Number two, we fear is what I call process pain. Process pain is another way of saying hardship. We fear the difficulties because we fear like the difficulties of the emotion we're going to feel, but also the difficulties of our capabilities. I don't like the feelings of it, and I don't know if I'm capable for it. Right. That's called hardship or process pain. That's why I'm always telling my audience, you must learn to honor the struggle and not fear it. Take the struggle that is in front of you. Don't hate it. Don't complain about it. Instead, honor it as something that is true, as real right now that we must deal with. And it is something that we can engage in an honoring fashion in which we can grow and become stronger or that will make us weaker. You've dealt with hardship before. You've dealt with things before. You get to choose. Are you going to hate the hardship and the struggle or are you going to bring a little bit of humor to it and just deal? I encourage you to just deal. Okay. When you have fear of process pain, it's because I don't think I can emotionally handle that and I don't feel like I'm capable. You must remind yourself and keep perspective. You've actually already dealt with something similar and you have been capable and in managing it before right now, the process, oh, it's gonna be hard. Run my business. Yep. And guess what? It was super hard your first couple years in your business too. What's the surprise? See, part of honoring the struggle is Anticipating the reality of it. Like, I'm surprised that everyone right now is so surprised. I'm like, oh, why is everyone so surprised? You never read a book about a stock market crash. I'm just saying you can anticipate your reactions. Your reactions. That's what I'm talking about. So the third thing that we fear, first one is lost pain. Second one is process pain. Third one is outcome pain. I'm scared of what's on the other side of this, the end result. And here's what we do, and this is really important. People do this all the time. People jump to worst case scenario and they go to catastrophizing. But worse, they go to ruin and death. Why is everyone so scared right now? Their fear is about an outcome. Pain, death or ruin. I'm going to die or my business and my career are ruined. Right? That's what they're worried about. Like, they go to the ultimate end. Total catastrophe. Don't be a catastrophizer. Do not be. My father in 2009, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He was healthy the week before, went to the doctors, did some tests. They're trying to figure out what's going on within that day. They gave him seven days to live. Seven days to live. Now imagine two really qualified doctors tell you, you're going to die in seven days. That's heavy. And the ability for the mind to embrace that as fear and go, oh my God. And to immediately assume death or ruin. My dad, God bless his Soul, being a 20 year veteran of the United States Marine Corps was like, I'm gonna engage this, I'm gonna beat it. That was it. That was it. I'm gonna engage it. I'm gonna beat it. I'm gonna fight it. I'm gonna do everything possible to win here. And if I don't, at least I know I did everything possible. So instead of catastrophizing on what might happen in the ultimate of ruin, you go, what must I engage here to do? The absolute everything I can. And that will allow me to sleep at night going, you know what? I'm giving my best right now. Instead of hiding. I'm giving my best right now. Instead of waiting for ruin, I'm engaging this. I'm building, I'm taking care of myself. Whatever it is you need to do. That perspective. And I want you to hear this today because I'm never ever addressing you guys as someone who thinks I have everything figured out or as somebody who doesn't realize that many of you Know this stuff already because common sense, just not always common practice, but more important, I know you're a role model. So what if you could teach your kids or teach your team? You know what? There's three things we fear, loss, pain, process pain, and outcome pain. You know, I'm scared to make this decision because these reasons. You're feeling this because of these reasons. So I'm addressing this to you today as someone recognizing that you are a role model in your community. And maybe you can have an active conversation about fear and teach them. You're scared of loss, you're scared of hardship, and you're scared that things won't turn out well, they'll be ruinous. So here's a way to mitigate that and to think through that in a different way. And I think if we could do that with our families right now, just start at home, have the conversation about how people are feeling and about their fear. Have a conversation with your family and your team. Are you staying centered and are dealing with fear in an active, proactive, positive way? If we could all just do that as a community, I think things could really, really improve. Okay. Really improve now. I'm going to talk about here in a moment. I know I'm going pretty fast. I'm only on point number three here of stay centered amid the chaos, don't complain, and recognize what fear is. And I'd like to continue now with my next conversation here of fear mitigation, but also forecasting. And that is my steady 80 rule, right? You've heard of the 8020 rule? Well, I believe in times of chaos, that we need to identify those 80% of things that matter the most in our business or in our life that give us, you know, real certainty or solid sense of our business or life. Stay steady on those. What are the primary drivers of your business and your income right now? Stay focused of delivering those with excellence. What are the projects you already planned? To the extent possible, Stay steady with those things. Right? Whatever moves the needle the most in your business or brings you the most happiness in life, there's probably the 80% rule, right? It's like that these few items bring 80% of the result, right? And also usually it's 20% of everything is only the 80%, if that makes sense. I know that's always weird when people talk about the 8020 rule, but really, there's so few things that actually move the needle in your business or your life or your happiness. Focus on those. Dive deep into those. Leverage those, Amplify those. When There is unknowns and uncertainty. Beware of adding more uncertainty. If you're already in a moment of chaos or uncertainty, adding more at that precise moment is usually not the right answer. Usually the right answer to minimize the downside is to really focus on that 80, 20 rule. Really? I say stay steady with 80% if you're going to change anything, maybe we'll allow these 20% of things to change. You know, in our business, there's 20% of things that's probably just going to be forced upon us to change that we had planned this year. That's okay, because the other 80% is rock solid. And we will dive there and we will focus there and we will deliver there with excellence. So here's my question. What are the five things that you should absolutely continue doing in your business? The five things you should absolutely continue. Don't break that streak. Don't turn your focus away from that, no matter what. Like, dive deep on the things that are really working right now. Yes. Some things are being taken away from you. You might lose some clients. You might have this challenge over here. You know, people are freaking out, but I want you to be steady. Part of the reason I'm so centered amid the chaos is I'm still executing the plan. Let me say it again. Part of the reason I'm still so centered amid the chaos is I know when I wake up, I'm still executing the plan. As the world freaks out, I'm still executing the plan. And I know some people are going to say, well, Brennan, that's so easy for you. This reason or that reason or whatever. Sometimes the plan gets put off a day or two or sometimes two weeks. Guess what? I'm still going to execute the plan. And we will be in a place where we go, oh, this is how it is now. I mean, look at how we adjusted to the global realities of all the global change last couple years. Like, it's crazy what we're used to now. The new normal becomes the new normal. I am staying steady right now with the things that move the major needles in my business. I want you to know the five things that move it in your career, whatever works best in your career. That has really helped you. Double down on those five things, right? If you can only identify three great. Double down on the things that are working right now. It will give you confidence and it will give you momentum. And if you have confidence and momentum right now, trust me, you're emotionally going to be dealing with this better. Okay, next big idea. So I believe I'm on what number? 1, 2, 3, 4. I'm on number five. Minimize your downside by taking action now. Let me give an example. Minimize your downside. So by taking action now, if you know you're about to lose clients, launch something to gain clients right now. If you see the stock market and you're anticipating that there's going to be a downside, reallocate your portfolio, which I hope all of you did in the last 72 hours. We're at a great time, right? Everything that we've ever learned from every great investor, they all say the same thing. Warren Buffett himself. It's like, hey, when everyone is freaking out and running and the thing is tanking and it hits a certain level, that's the greatest time of opportunity. So minimize the downside. So if you're scared right now, we'll still reallocate into more safety. If you're scared right now and you've been taking risks over here, downplay that risk a little bit, amplify what's working. And so just be conscious of how do I minimize the downside if this is going to cancel, if this is going to happen, if that's going to happen. Okay, what can I set up, structure or reallocate right now? What can I set up, structure or reallocate right now? I had a very difficult conversation with a friend last night who has 7,000 employees. And he sees the writing on the wall. And by the end of the day, I was coaching him, doing high performance coaching with him last night. And he was like, I'm gonna have to let some people go. He's never let people go in. And so he's never had to be. He's never had to be that. He's never had to do that. But in his industry, this quarter will lead to a dramatic loss, and he had to be real about it. And minimizing the downside right now is making the tough decision to minimize the losses of the business by changing what they are promoting and investing in. And this person's gonna have to let go, you know, quite a significant number of people to protect the business for the long term. It sucks, but what. I was so proud of him. He was like, he made the call. You and I can't guess what the right call will ever be. But in times in which you need to minimize downside. Minimize downside. If you've got some risky bets running right now, maybe you go, you know what? That's not leading to anything right now. Let me focus on the things that are so I Hope. That really makes sense. You have to minimize the downside by taking action right now. It's really important. Really important. I think faith is a daily thing. I don't. Here's my perspective. I don't think faith has to be any bigger right now than it was last Tuesday. My faith is rock solid all the time because I chose that to be it. And I tap into it faith every single day. You have to find your way of doing that because here's that. Either you're tapping into fear more or you're tapping into faith more. It is a conscious decision of where your mental bandwidth is going to. It is a conscious choice of where your attention goes. Where is your attention? That is the most important thing right now. Because when you can tap into that and take conscious control, everything shifts. And I think faith is incredibly important in times of difficulty. So tap into it more. For those who have faith, in whatever way you define that, tap into it more. Period. Tap into it more. We always assume that when we take risk, it's going to ruin other people's lives or it's going to make other people feel terrible. When in reality, almost all the time, even people you deeply care about, they're focused on themselves. They're truly focused on themselves. And by the way, they should be accountable for their own feelings and their own realities outside of your actions. Now, that's super hard to say because, you know, when you talk about parents or you talk about team leaders, he said, no, no, no, Brandon, you know, I am responsible for every. I'm like, you are not responsible. You are absolutely not responsible for everybody's complete reality. Right? At some point, the kid's got to grow up and the team has to own their stuff, too. You can't control everything. What you must do is make the best decisions right now. That are decisions of integrity for you and on purpose for you. And when I talk about responsibility to others, service to others, that's huge, important, meaning don't compromise in adding value to others, but also don't placate others. Add value to others. Don't placate. Meaning I don't bend my future opportunities to the judgments or the concerns of other people ever. Right. If I have a crazy, wacky idea and Denise is like, that's a stupid, crazy idea, you know what we're going to say? Let's test it. Let's prove it to be either a great idea or a crazy, wacky idea. At the end of the day, I'm not going to compromise how I show up for her. Just because I go do something else, I can still add value to our relationship and our marriage, even as I try crazy things, right? And that's the whole thing. This is where fear really gets a hold of people when they catastrophize. They make fears and results permanent things. What you need to do is test. See, everyone thinks of risk as in either win or lose, gain or ruin. I'm like, no, no, no. Real risk is. Is test. Just try the idea in a minimal way and see the impact and see how you feel about that and how you're capable of handling that or scaling that or growing that. Communicate with other people that you are in a test. When I communicate with other people that are in a test, they're like, oh, okay, if I tell you I'm changing our lives and you have to go with me, damn it. Oh, my gosh. Drama, fear, intrigue. No, no, no. I communicate everything as a test. And when you communicate as a test, everyone's like, oh, got it. Okay, I can handle that. I don't think about the needs of others in a sense of. Please don't make that a meme. I don't think about the needs of others. Instead, I think about what others value. And what I mean by that is, each of us is responsible for our own needs. I think about, what do people value and how can I serve that and contribute that and add value to that? Them dealing with what they need, they're in charge of asking for that, directing that, making that happen in their lives, or asking it of me. I'm not worried about meeting the exact need of theirs, because I can't. That's their need, not mine. Instead, I go, what do they value? And can I give something to that? And when you recognize the difference between those two things, everything really does shift. As an example, you know what other people's actual needs are? There are very few needs. There's physical needs. There's sustenance needs. And basically, the sustenance and the safety needs are the primary two needs. There's a desire for belonging that. But it is not necessarily a need for everybody. The idea that we all need a certain type of belonging isn't true. We need to know what they value. They value connection with you like this. Oh, let me serve that value. They value this amount of their freedom. Oh, let me serve that. They value this, you know, this opportunity that they need to do because it's their passions. Oh, let me serve that. So there's a difference between values and needs, and that's an important Thing to know, how do you find courage? Courage is always found and demonstrated in initiative despite risk, action despite risk. And so what I want you to do every single day is ask what would be a strong or a bold or an important action I could take today. A strong bold or, or important action I could take today. Just one and take it. I don't need to do 50 things. Courage isn't usually recognized as 50 things. Courage. Scientifically, the way that we had studied it and we codified it in my book High Performance Habits was. Courage was most often described worldwide as speaking up for oneself, doing something that is difficult, speaking up for another. Really that's where it usually comes down to being so each day, can you express your needs to your partner, even when you're worried about it, can you take that difficult action even though it's hard and you don't know how to do it? Do one thing that's hard every day and courage starts to develop. And everybody, I want you to do this. Listen, too many of you right now are or going to play defense. When you should really engage offense, you should really right now engage offense. That means be proactive and take the hard measures right now. Not to protect, but instead to grow. Because courage is always something that strengthens and expands us, right? It makes us better by addressing something that is scary and taking action anyway, that is of service to others or service to the growth of our purpose. And so I want you to think about every day, wake up and go, okay, what would be hard that would move the needle forward? What would be hard to admit, to share, to do, to make happen and do it? I want to talk about forecasting and then I want to talk about opportunity. People right now are asking, you know, Brendan, amid all the crazy, how are you thinking about the future? How are you thinking about next week? How are you thinking about next month, next quarter, next year? Let me begin by saying this. The first way that I forecast is by establishing and sticking to my daily rhythm of things that moves the needle. For me, I think the future can absolutely over the long term, be shaped and created. And if you believe that too, welcome to a self reliant world in which you are determining and creating and coactively building your destiny. Right now we must remember our future is something we are building the daily rhythm. So what I mean by that? Well, when I'm forecasting, you know, the next, call it year, I'm asking, am I doing the things that I know move the needle and am I doing those things consistently on a daily rhythm And I know how I am going to show up. And I know the results that I can and do create again, steadiness, but forecast with your daily rhythm of effort. Don't forecast on fear, don't forecast on this. No, I am going to predict my future based on how I show up today. Let me say it again. I'm going to predict my future based on how I'm going to show up today. If I show up today and I show up strong and confident and disciplined and focused, I know there will be more positive outcomes than if I did otherwise. Let me say it again. I know if I show up today strong and capable and focused discipline today, I know I can forecast the outcome being bigger, better and a future that I want more. So if I don't do those things. So all forecasting must begin with daily effort and behavior. Matter of fact, I tell you all the time, forecasting 90% of it is how you showed up today. 90%, your today is predicting the future. Your outcomes in three weeks are completely determinant upon what are we doing leading up to those three weeks. I really believe it's really important. So daily rhythm forecasting, second big idea. You got to look back right now in a time and space like this. Don't get trapped in this monthly thinking, don't get trapped in the next month. I don't think you should forecast a 30 or 60 day period of time. Remember my friend with the 7,000 employees, what I did with him is. Let's pick up perspective. Can you look at your last three quarters with me? And instead, because a quarter is a much better average period of time, your quarter, this quarter might be really jacked up. But if you look at their historical average on a quarterly basis, say one year, two years, that's much better predictor of where they're going to be at in quarter three of this year and quarter four of this year. Why? Because the establishment of the new normal is an ongoing always trend. The establishment of a new normal. So let me say this. Three quarters ago, guess what was happening three quarters ago? New things, crazy things, volatile things, new innovations, new dramas. Three quarters ago, this one is a particular heavy and scary 1. But 3/4 ago were just as reliable as a predictor 3/4 out from now than this specific one. And that is, you know, that's economics, that's historical study, that's the law of using data. And so I think it's really important to realize if you're trying to forecast the end of this year, please don't be catastrophizing in your mind. Please don't do that. It's going to keep you up at night, cause anxiety in your marriage or your spouse or your relationships or your team that you do not need. Yet. You cannot possibly predict December right now based on this month. What's a better predictor of this upcoming December than this month or next month? What's a better predictor last December? When you have a peak of drama or a peak incident, as they call it in economics, you can't assume that to be the average of future quarters. That is not a good use of forecasting. So I would rather you say, okay, if you're genuinely interested in December, I want you to do a historical analysis of your last three quarter fours of the last three years. So go back to Q4 of the last three years and ask what did we do? What worked well, and now start thinking and planning that way for this upcoming one. I'm not saying we're not all going to have to adjust to some realities, but if you look at the Q4 of the last three years, new normals were developing then too, and a new normal will be set in and developed. I can't emphasize that enough. So quarterly projections based on quarterly historicals, especially for Q3 and 4 of this year. And I'm here to tell you, if you think, if you're a responsible business person, if you're going to take some losses right now, then do everything you can right now to minimize downsides and maximize gains. However, also ask, okay, great, then how do we take what we thought we were going to do in quarter four this year and how do we substantially increase that? What would I need to do to start right now? So my friend, as I was speaking with him last night, with the 7,000 employees, what I shared with him, I said, okay, so we talked about the realities the last couple quarters, we talked about this quarter. And, and then my question was, okay, tell me this, what could you do now to ensure your Q4 is so much higher than you already had hoped it could be to mitigate the losses that you experienced now? And listen, what he decided, even as he has to lay off some people now, he decided to spin up and hire more in this specific department that's really going to impact his Q4 efforts. That make sense? So even as he's minimizing downside here, he's maximizing his forecast for his Q4. That's what you got to do, right? You got to be thinking, okay, if this month sucks or next month sucks, okay, how do we minimize that. But then also how do we shore up for a bigger end of the year? How? I think that's really important for people and that will give you a sense of confidence. You know, go to your battle boards, as I call it, right? Go up on your wall, draw 12 boxes and if this month sucks, write sucks in it. And then write winning in November and December and plan for that. You got time, baby. It's not just now you got time. You really do hope that helps. Think about for forecasting. Another thing that is really, really important to me is that we reach outside of ourselves for all of forecasting and future growth. What does that mean? It means whatever you already had planned this year. When you're trying to anticipate your results, what we usually do is go, oh my God, my results are going to be less because of this chaos, right? In a moment of chaos when we are trying to forecast our future, the most important thing we can do is wrangle in industry peers into joint efforts. Right? We got to come together. In other words, you need, if you're trying to forecast, of course that forecast looks scary when it's just your own efforts. What you need to start doing immediately right now is setting up promotional partners and promotional plans for quarter three and quarter four. A lot of people don't want to do anything right now because they're scared and they're looking at this next quarter going, I don't know what it's going to be about. Great. So set up promotional plans for quarter three and quarter four. Set it in stone as a calendar, meaning do some type, some type of joint effort with peers in your industry. Now if you're someone saying, Brendan, this is a lot of business talk, man, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, I was just, I'm home with the kids. Okay, how if you're looking at your happiness and your joy and you're like, I don't know how this is going to play out, then here's like engage your neighbors more. Make plans now for later. First only project out based on what is real and then build out with others. Build out with others. But I'm not going to premature make any decision of the business. Does that make sense? Because what most people are doing is they're taking the forecast. You never forecast the future based on the current reality. You base the future based on trends and historical average. Trends and historical average. We are not in a trend right now. We are in a knee jerk reaction. I think what is always important is not to be in a knee jerk reaction mode, especially when other people's careers or businesses or families count on that thing. I think forecasting should be done on a trend line. And I think it's really important to recognize that you have the opportunity right now to identify, pay closer attention to your numbers than ever. But I know one of the big questions is, well, Brendan, how do you think about opportunity right now? I always think about opportunity the same way I'm always thinking about where is my time, my energy, my resources, my sanity really going. And I won't put that into anything that won't lead to some real personal development or lifestyle growth. It's why right now, and I bring this up specifically because people are like, what should we opportunize on? Don't. If you didn't see the opportunity prior as something that you are passionate about that brings purpose and growth and future value to you, then listen, why never do something in the short term if it doesn't lead to real future value or joy or growth for you? Because that just means you're a hyena and there's no reason for that. Like Liv, is the lion proud of what you are doing? You know, I just think that's really important. So far today I've talked about staying centered amid the chaos. I've talked about not complaining. I've talked about understanding fear and mitigating the fear. I talked about saying steady on the 80s, right? Steady 80. Steady 80 means find the five things that are working the most, your 80% of what really moves the needle and stick there, double down there, focus there. I talked about how do you maximize opportunity with the formula I just gave you. But I also talk about forecasting, developing your daily rhythm and let your daily rhythm and your hard work forecast. Making sure you're forecasting based on quarterly historicals and trend lines versus the immediacy knee jerk of the moment. I guess my real themes of today are really take control of your emotional center, keep a long term view and do things on a daily basis that bring you joy, purpose, confidence, courage, growth. Those things you can control. We get to choose the topics in which we explore with our loved ones. That's how you choose calm. You talk about things you're passionate about, things that are coming up in the future that are good. And when you are sensing anxiety or stress, you help them take a break from it and you remind them to take a break from it. Limiting screen time for people right now. Usually we got to do that for kids. Maybe you got to do that for Your husband who's just checking the thing too much and have the conversation, everybody. I would really encourage you if you have a spouse, a partner, a teammate, somebody who's really struggling right now and they're really caught up in this, please have them watch this. Because when they realize they can be their own emotional center and they could be a role model and they could be somebody who chooses to command their own sense of security right now based on their own actions and they can keep a long term view, I think we'll all do well for our community. Top five priorities right now are the same as they always are. I wish I could. I don't let chaos or sudden things change my priorities. It doesn't mean I might not have a daily reaction to them. But my priorities have been the same for almost 20 years of my life. I mean really, my daily priority is to for me live my purpose, which is honoring and sensing that feeling of live love matter. My daily priorities are my wife and my family. My daily priorities are my health. My daily priorities are serving my purpose. And my daily priorities are fighting off doubt and distraction to be steady and disciplined. I felt like this conversation about staying centered amid the chaos, not contributing to the complaining, not over consuming, recognizing when you're fearing loss and process and outcome and flipping those. Because instead of loss, what can you do for gain? Instead of hardship, what can you do to develop skill? Instead of outcome concern, what can you do to, to mitigate and grow as when we talked about, you know, forecasting, establishing that daily rhythm, looking at your trend lines and making sure that you are actively setting up quarter three and quarter four to be extraordinary. If you're taking hits right now, I think all of that is important. But the number one takeaway for every one of you is you can actually be the role model through this crisis. You can set the emotional tone in your life, but also in the life of your family and your teams, those who you love and who you serve. By reflecting back to people, their energy, by letting them know, hey, you know what, I see you checking in a lot. Hey, I hear you and you're really upset about this. Let's talk about it. Let's take a break. Let's have this conversation about things we do love, things that are here, the opportunities we do have, the things we do appreciate about the future, you get to set the emotional tone during crisis. What a gift of this life. And finally, I want to honor each and every one of you. In chaos, you chose to develop yourself today. In chaos, you chose to self coach in chaos. You chose to be with us in this community of worldwide people who are dedicated to improving our lives. And for that, I honor you more than any else. Even in times of crisis, my wife's dictum still lasts. We can go out there and choose to be ordinary and reactive, or we can choose to be extraordinary still. So, my friends, go be extraordinary. Thanks for tuning in.
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