8 Feb 2019 · 16 min
In this episode of The Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard argues that personal development, though often dismissed as cliché, becomes essential when people face transition or frustration. He outlines three core beliefs that high‑performers consistently hold and that he believes are required for long‑term success: (1) Congruence with one’s highest self – actively striving each day to act in alignment with one’s deepest values and best version, rather than merely going through the motions; (2) Capability – a growth‑mindset conviction that, even if current skills are lacking, one can acquire them through effort, resources, and mentorship; (3) Worthiness of extraordinary success – believing one deserves not just basic survival or “good” outcomes but an abundant, vibrant life. Burchard contrasts these beliefs with the limiting mindsets of under‑performers, who often settle for survival, lack confidence, or hold a fixed view of their abilities. He explains how incongruence erodes confidence, how a lack of perceived capability stalls momentum, and how insufficient worthiness keeps people stuck in gratitude without breakthrough. Throughout, he uses anecdotes, rhetorical questions, and a motivational tone to illustrate how adopting these three beliefs can shift a person from merely “good” to “extraordinary.” He closes by promoting his book High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way, positioning it as a compilation of two decades of research on the habits and mindsets that enable sustained high performance across career, health, relationships, and personal growth.
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Foreign. Hey, my friends, it's Brendon burchard. And welcome to another episode of the brendon show. Everyone says personal development is cliche until they're incorrect. Crisis, right? Everyone believes personal development is cliche until it's required that they go to the next level. Then they're like, get me all I can get right? Once you're in transition or you're challenged, you're really frustrated. Those are times personal development really matter. So forgive me if some of these phrases might sound cliche. It's just that's how people talk and it is fundamental to you succeeding. So let's talk about the bubble of you, the three beliefs that you have to have to achieve long term success, at least based on my interviews and experience. Number one, belief, I am being or trying to be congruent with the best of who I know I can be. The last five days. Were you really trying to be congruent with the best of who you are, meaning you know the best of who you are, you know your values, you woke up every day and you're like, I'm being congruent with the best of who I am. Or were you just going through the motions of the day? Were you just reacting throughout the day? Were you actually comparing yourself to other people and letting it get you down? Were you aware of what makes you unique and living into that uniqueness, living into your values and attempting consistently and conscientiously to be the best of who you are or were you going through the motions? This last week, what I found with high performers is they're more consistently testing their congruence against the standard of their best self, against the standard of what we call their highest self. And it's easy not to do that, especially when you're good, especially when you're talented, especially when things are going well, you can just get up and go through the day and do a good job. But what happens over a series of weeks is one day you don't feel like you're really on your path when you're just going through the motions. One day you wake up and you're kind of like, man, I feel like I'm in a funk. And you don't even know why you're in a funk. You don't know why. Like, things don't pop for you. You don't feel like there's momentum in your life. You want to talk about real misery in your life, be out of congruence. Right. If you're a person whose identity says I am a healthy Positive, caring, goal oriented person and you just know that's who you are. But then you're not congruent with that. That's where misery comes in, right? If you identify yourself like the congruence, like the best of who you are, you know that you're a healthy person. But for five nights in a row you got drunk. Five nights in a row you ate crappy food. Five days in a row you ate too much. You know, at the end of the week that does affect your psyche. And why does this matter? Because when you don't have that belief that I am being congruent or I feel like I am trying to be congruent with the best of who I am, then self hate comes in. Then that negative sort of framing of everything, I'm not good, I'm terrible, all that stuff comes in. And it's not because, listen, attempting to be congruent with the best of who you are does not necessarily mean every day you were the absolute best of who you are and everything was perfect and you were totally congruent. Listen to the phrasing. Here I am attempting to live in congruence with the best of who I can be. I'm trying. It is an active, thoughtful, disciplined approach. It's not like I'm, yeah, I had a great week. Brendon, it's not about did you have a great week? Because listen, a lot of high performers who I've met, they did have a great week. Their peers are like, oh my God, she's crushing it. Oh my gosh, I can't believe she can manage all those kids so well. I can't believe that they're running the business so they, people see you and they're impressed by your achievement, they're impressed by the external reality of your success. And you can have a lot of momentum in your life. But if psychologically, even if it's unconscious that you know, you're not truly living in accordance with the best of who you can be, if psychologically, you know, you're incongruent with the best of who you can be, it starts like grating at you. And over a period of time what this does is like, think about it. It's like when you're not congruent, you're just kind of grating at your confidence unconsciously, you might not even know it. It's just like every day I wasn't my best, every day I didn't try to do something and show who I am every day I wasn't authentic every day. And Suddenly, over a period of time, that lack of congruence just bores a hole right in your confidence, and you don't even know why. You just wake up one day not feeling yourself, and then it becomes like this big challenge. Because maybe you haven't had training like this on congruence, and now it feels like this big, you know, existential dilemma. Oh, my God. Something's wrong with the universe. Something's wrong with me. And the reality is you just weren't trying often enough to be congruent with the best of who you could be. Second big one is, I am capable or possibly capable of achieving the future I want. Capability. I am capable is everything. Now, here's the thing. You don't have to believe you have all the competencies that are necessary to succeed. You have to believe that you are capable of getting them. There's so many things that I know right now, today, I am incapable of. I am incapable of many things. I don't have the skill set yet, but I believe that I am capable. You give me enough time, energy, resources, mentorship, hard work, and days at something, I will figure it out. I will develop that skill. I will achieve. This is how high performers think. Think. And it's so clear. Underperformers, they get stuck stewing on what they are not capable at. So they stop. Forward, momentum, they go, I'm not good at that. So they stop. I've never learned to do that. So they stop. I suck at this thing over here. So they stop. And you've seen it before with the research on mindset, where high performers have a growth mindset. Underperformers tend to have a fixed mindset. That fixed mindset means they've fixed on their identity and who they believe they are and what they're capable of. They think their knowledge, skills, talents, and abilities are fixed. They were born that way and that they're stuck that way in some ways, or that there's a top to their potential. Where high performers have that growth mindset, where they really believe, no, I'm capable of becoming more. I'm capable of figuring it out. I am capable of busting through. I'm capable of getting the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary for me to succeed. Succeed. And that is a motivating driver for them. So here's the test. If you have been lacking confidence or motivation to go for those bigger goals, somewhere in your psychology, you do not believe that you are capable, and not believing you are capable is why you stopped. Even if you have all the reasons in the world to be confident people like you. You've achieved things in the past. You know, you're a good person. You believe in your worth, even if you have all that. But if you don't believe you're capable of breaking through or getting that next level of skill, that's why you stopped. Listen, the nice thing about capability is to get it, you only need a few things. The first thing you need if you want to feel more capable is you gotta make sure you are very clear on the map. You gotta know step one, two, and three, and you gotta go like, the goal doesn't need to be in your mind. I'm gonna achieve step 70. What we really need to do is start working step one, two, and three, just working. Like capability. The belief of capability is directly tied to momentum. You gotta take those first couple of step. And the third one in your little bubble of you is, I am worthy or deserving of having extraordinary success. I'm worthy or deserving of having extraordinary success. Listen, most people who really live a little below their potential, here's their belief, I'm worthy or deserving of survival. It literally stops at that. Like, their belief and their envisioning for what their life is worth and who they are is so low ball. Their standard is so low. Most people's standard in their worth is survival. I deserve to have food. I'm worthy of having a job. I am worthy of making rent. But they don't say, you know what? I'm worthy one day of flying in that jet. You know what I am deserving of? Having a deep, connecting, magical, sensual marriage. They're just like, you know, I deserve a good husband. And it stops there. I'm worthy of good is sometimes why you only ever got good. Sometimes people's belief matches up with their worth in such a way that they don't get to experience the brighter colors of life. All they ever get to experience is baseline good. Because I'm worthy of survival, I'm worthy of paying the rent. I deserve to have a good husband. I deserve to have, you know, happy kids. But they don't think about depth, they don't think about richness, they don't think about abundance. So their belief is always just trying to be like, well, I deserve good things. And if your belief is just good things, good things is all you get. You need to adopt the belief that you deserve an extraordinary quality of life and whatever it takes to achieve that. If you gotta repeat that mantra to yourself over and over and over and over again, do that. Look at the subtitle of this book. I don't know if you guys noticed how extraordinary people became that way. Not how good people, not how great people, how extraordinary people. The reason I put that word down is because so many of the 300 badasses I interviewed for this used that word. They didn't want good. They didn't think they just deserved good. They thought they deserved something special. They thought that they deserved and were worthy of that magical part of life where things have vibrancy and zest and pop, where the adverbs and the adjectives had color and richness that were so different than what the regular mundane person wants, who has just gray walls built around them of belief, where it's always just enough. Where it's always just gray. That look. Yeah, high performers want more for themselves and their families. You know, a high performer doesn't feel bad about saying, you know what? I want to make 100,000. I want to make a quarter million. I want to make a million. There's no guilt to that because they believe that they're worthy of it. It doesn't mean they always believe I deserve it, because sometimes they're not doing the work. And it's hard to believe you deserve something if you're not doing the work. But you can feel worthy of it because you're a child of God. Because you have been a good person and a trustworthy person and a giving person. Because you want good things for other people and you want good things for yourself. But you also know that that makes you worthy because you care. Look, the fact that you are a person right here with us, right now, who's interested in personal development, who's working on yourself, who's looking at these concepts not through criticism or skepticism, but rather saying, wow, is there something here that I could embrace that could help me feel better about the day? Help me be a better leader? The fact that you're here alone makes you worthy of the next level. The work will make you deserving. The belief will make you feel worthy. You deserve and you are worthy of climbing that next level. And if you don't tell yourself that, it's easy to sit back, take what you get, feel grateful for it. Look, I know a lot of people who are deeply grateful for life, but because they don't feel worthy, they're broke. How's that for a mind screw, right? They're grateful. They're practicing what all these books say. Be grateful. Live a grateful life. Life is precious. Do your gratitude journal. So you're writing your gratitude Journal everything else. And I know a lot of grateful people who are miserable because they don't believe they're also worthy of more. So they're grateful, but they've settled for a crappy marriage. They're grateful, but they've settled for being in bad shape. They're grateful, but they've settled on a job that's beneath them. And so you have to be in that place where you go, you know what? I am worthy of being around a players. I am worthy of being paid well. I am worthy of achieving that next level. I am worthy of an extraordinary experience in my life. Because if you don't have worth, you could have all the gratitude in the world and you can still be emotionally broke. That's the challenge that most people don't see. That's why a lot of the, you know, the self help that gets criticized, just be happy, be happy, be happy, be happy. You know, be grateful, be grateful, be grateful is criticized by practitioners like myself who go, I know a lot of grateful people who can't break through. Because if you're grateful without worthiness, you won't work, you won't excel, you won't challenge yourself. So you have to feel worthy, ready, deserving of the next level. And you gotta put in the work to it, which I know, you know, I'm just sharing what high performers shared. It is a distinction between high performers and underperformers. This is what high performers believe. I am congruent and attempting to be congruent with the best of who I am. I am capable of figuring things out and going to another level and building the future. I deserve and I am worthy of experiencing an extraordinary quality of life. If you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book High Performance How Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon Radio 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. Sam.