Mashup: 4 Simple Steps to Improve Your Discipline

You want to be more disciplined, you're going to have to delegate more. You want to be more disciplined to what really matters for you. You're going to ask for assistance, for help. You're going to have to build the team. You have to socially engage people to support your focus. Discipline. I'm gonna share four ideas with you today. How do I stay so disciplined? And I'm not saying that for me, because I'm like, I'm so disciplined and perfect. I get asked this by all of my clients. They're like, gosh, I need more discipline in my life. I'm like, okay, well, let's talk through what that means and how you achieve it. If you want to show up for something, be consistent. Be committed to something. How do you develop that discipline for something? I think there's four simple things. Number one, you must know your outcome. How can you possibly be focused or disciplined if you don't know the outcome you're after? Most people don't lack focus or discipline. They lack clarity. That would give them the focus and the discipline. That's why the first high performance habits is seek clarity. We learned it from our research. Right.

Well, an outcome.

What am I after here? What's the goal? What's the tangible or intangible thing that I know when I get there, when I see that, feel that, experience that, achieve that? That's what I'm after here. That some kind of outcome. You won't stay disciplined unless you can see, feel, sense, acknowledge intellectually what the outcome is we're after. If you're not disciplined on a consistent basis, it's because you don't know what you want. So don't beat yourself up that you're lazy. You just need to make a decision. You need to make a decision about what it is that you want. And it doesn't have to be what you want for your whole life. Your ultimate grand purpose in the cosmos of the destiny of universe.

No, no.

What do you want by Friday? What do you want by the end of the month? What do you want this quarter? It's like, start there. If you're really confused about the next five years of your life, please start with the next five weeks of your life. Come on. People don't understand. Clarity is built upon. You don't have the epiphany where everything's perfect. Very few people ever have a complete perfect picture, epiphany moment of everything coming together in life. Very few people. Very few people. Instead, usually what happens is, as we move throughout our lives, we get A little more clarity. What we like and what we don't like. What draws passion and strength and contribution and what doesn't. Know your outcome. You want discipline, know your outcomes. Number two, schedule. There is no discipline without a schedule. It's so easy. If your calendar doesn't have anything in it the next six weeks, don't be mad at yourself for lacking discipline. No one shows up on day go. It's discipline day and has nothing to do. Discipline requires the schedule. So fill out your schedule. Work the schedule. Fill out the schedule. Work the schedule. Fill out the schedule. Works. As you fill out your schedule and you work the schedule, you get more self trust. With that self trust comes confidence. From that confidence comes more competence. We gain more mastery, and we're in the game more. We feel good about ourselves. The progress mind loves and eats it up. It's like, hey, we're doing it. We said we were going to do it. We did it. We moved towards our outcome today with a schedule. What an idea, right? But you and I both know it's easy to get off track with this. So number three, you want to be more disciplined, you're going to have to delegate more. You want to be more disciplined to what really matters for you. You're going to ask for assistance, for help. You're going to have to build the team. You have to socially engage people to support your focus. It's just real. Like, every writer I know who's become a major writer has assistance, meaning they get somebody, their spouse, their partner, their agent, a personal assistant. Somebody is helping with a part of their life so they can focus on that thing. It's hard to be a disciplined writer if you're doing everything under the sun. You need time to be able to write, which means there's some things you can't handle by yourself. And you're going to delegate that. And if you're like, well, Brendan, I don't have anyone to delegate to, then I'm like, then stop saying yes to everything under the sun. Stop putting more and more on your plate when you can't handle what you already got.

Babe, we got to go.

No, no, no. If I want to be disciplined, I got to choose a few things, say no to the rest, delegate the rest and do what is here. You don't lack discipline, you're taking on too much. You don't lack discipline, you're taking on too much. Or you don't have a schedule, or.

You don't know your outcome.

Outcome, schedule, delegation. And last thing is, I think this is Really a critical thing for us in aliveness and fulfillment and connection in our lives. Often we don't have discipline because we've set up no reward and reflection in our life. And what I'm always trying to tell my highest performers, reflection is a reward. Reflection, It's a reward like sitting down and allowing your processing mind to think of all that you've been through and how beautiful it was and how grateful you are for it. We don't lack discipline because discipline feels like always the grind. Unless we stop the grind once in a while and look back and go, wow, look how far I came. Let me celebrate this small win. Let me take myself out to dinner tonight. Let me write down a few of the things I've learned and share them. Let me give thanks or prayer or meditation towards the great things that have been happening for me. I think as soon as you realize that, it's just a whole different experience of life. I'm disciplined because to me, discipline, being disciplined doesn't sound like I'm disciplining myself. What it means is I am reflecting and rewarding myself for my progress. It's so important for you to hear me say this. If you're lacking discipline, probably is because you've never rewarded yourself. You've never reflected on how far you've come. You still think you're the same as you were in your 20s and your 30s. It's like you've come so far and you're still thinking like that kid, because you let your protecting mind, your processing mind, your progressing mind run rampant without the peace practices, without those moments of purpose. If you want to be disciplined this month, know your outcome, put it on the schedule, delegate it, or say no. And fourth, reflect, reward yourself. I do my again with my high performance planner. I do my weekly reflection in every major area of my life. I just look at it and I think of, oh, what a blessing this is going good. Or, oh, I can do better here. And the reward is the reflection. The reward to me is learning. The reward is developing competency. Reward doesn't have to mean I have this much more in my bank account or, you know, these many more people following me. The reward is I'm growing growth days. To me, discipline requires growth days, having the growth days and rewarding and celebrating, reflecting upon the growth days. I'm disciplined because I've gotten so many hits of joy and. And learning by pushing myself as a growth day, but reflecting on those growth days to do, oh, yeah, that was a good day. What did I learn about myself and I'm growing every day. So discipline gets easier. Discipline gets way easier. As you engage growth more discipline gets hard. When you went a season without even.

Thinking about yourself, taking care of yourself.

Not sleeping, poisoning your body, not engaging in personal development instead of just engaging everybody's dramas, and now you're exhausted. You know when it's hard to be disciplined? When you're exhausted. So you take care of yourself. You recognize it, you reward it, you delegate it, or say no.

How do you gain some more emotional mastery in your life so you can handle those difficult times when you get frustrated, when you get down, we get like beat up and like chewed out and spit out by the world. What are you going to do to be your best self? That is the topic of today's conversation. That emotional masteries part. That emotional intelligence we hear so much about, that ability to handle the difficulties and challenges of life with grace or a plume or being centered in the middle of all this chaos and turmoil. How do you be your best? That's the topic of today. We're talking about motivation at a deeper level. Maybe you haven't had with me before. The utmost, most important area of emotional mastery is mastering motivation. Now when I say emotional mastery, you're like, wait, isn't motivation is a topic, an area? I'm like, no. Motivation. Motivation is an emotion, right? A motivation is a motion emotion that you feel, that you feel a drive, a sense of hunger, a sense of want, and sense of desire to make something happen. I believe motivation is one of the most important things we have to master in our total emotional sort of toolkit, right? Because if you can emotionally feel motivated every day, almost everything else can fall in line, right? If you're emotionally motivated to be a better mom, be a better caregiver, be a better parent, be a better lover, be a better entrepreneur, be a better business person, be a better contributor to the greater world. When there's a motivation pulling you forward out of bed each day into the office, into real life to be your best, then everything changes when you lose motivation. You and I both know the loss of motivation is the first gate to suffering. You lose motivation now, you don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't work out, you don't feel like working out, you don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't want to do your goals. Don't feel like doing your goals. Feel unfulfilled. Feel unfulfilled. Feel unsatisfied. Feel unsatisfied.

Feel like life is meaningless.

It is a slippery slope when you lose motivation. But the issue is no one has motivation 247 all the time. Motivation is an emotion you learn to cultivate by using your mind, your body, your greater consciousness to ensure that you feel that pull of purpose that you feel that energy inside that says, I want to create, I want to contribute. I want to be my best self. I want to connect with people. And so motivation is something we're going to have to generate on a consistent basis. You have to learn to bring the joy. Because the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates energy. Motivation is something. Me, the motivation guy, I have the bestselling book of the entire century with motivation. The title, it's called the Motivation Manifesto. If you haven't read it. And the Motivation manifesto is like. If anything is imbued in that book, it is like the sprocity and this fierceness and this tension to living our best lives. But it has to be, like, generated, because even though I'm the motivation guy, there's plenty of days I wake up and I'm like, I don't feel like it. There's plenty of days. There's plenty of moments where, just like.

You, I'm just like, I'd rather be.

Lazy and do nothing right now. And that's okay. That's.

That's part of homeostasis. That's part of our.

Our human body to want to power down, to relax, to chill out. But too much of that can lead to an unfulfilling life. So we must learn to generate the emotions of drive, desire, go get in this. Whatever you want to call motivation. And so it's something that we have to learn to stoke. Motivation is an emotion we feel by either luck or by purposeful conscious design. I just choose to design it into my day every single day. Motivation is driven by certain things. You have a spark, you have something that sustains it, and something grows it. Okay? The spark of motivation, which is how I anchor into being motivated each day, is ambition. All motivation begins with the desire or hunger and ambition for more. Whether that's more depth or more connection or more contribution or. Or more abundance or more wealth or more love. Like, we just want more of something. And that says, I want to go get that. Like, we see a fancier car. It's better than our car. I want to go get that. We see, like, a deeper love of relationship between two people. I say, I want that in my own life. Sometimes it's a visual cue, something we see Makes us want something, right? Not too far from here, there's a beach that I strolled on vacation, I don't know, a couple years ago. And I said, I'm going to live here. And it was a motivation.

It was a cue.

I saw something desired, it wanted, it went after it. Like, so sometimes it's a visual. It's a cue out in the world that says, I want more of that thing. And ambition can be visually cued for some people if you just wake up. I mean, think about it. You wake up, you grab your phone, you're like, you know, and all of a sudden you don't have any motivation. Instead, you look through all this stuff, and all it did is make you feel like you're not enough, or it distracted you, or it upsets you, or created, you know, anger, anxiousness. You got to be careful how you're using cues to start your day. I use cues to start my day motivated. And those cues to start my day motivated are things like, I literally wake up, and I'll wake up and I'll think of things that I'm grateful for and that I want to give in life. I'll wake up and I'll think about someone I want to do something nice for or surprise. Today, I'll think of something I can be excited about today. I'll as soon as possible in the morning, revisit my ambitions, list my goals, list. I'll look at them. I'll not wander through the day looking at social media. And then, oh, I guess it's time to work and look at my goals. And it's like, my goals. I mean, in the first few minutes of the day, I'm revisiting them. And what I'm doing is when I'm looking at my goals or my agenda or my schedule, I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, okay, why do I want this? What would life be like? Like this. How could I go get it? What should I do today to make that happen? And that motivates me. That's my list of goals, my list of ambitions, the things that can excite me. In other words, it's very intrinsic goals. It's intrinsic rewards that I'm after. I'm like, if I go do that, I will feel better. If I could have this, I'd be happier, right? It's not that I can't be happy with now, but I want to pull. Like, if I can have that future pull, that's going to motivate me to go do stuff, right? I have to Literally generate that in my mind. And so when I have that connection in the morning, that my takeaway for you is connect with your ambitions every morning, very first thing in the morning. Somehow part of your morning routine, connect with your ambitions. Look at them, why do you want them? What would you get from that? How would you feel from that? What would that generate? Why would that be more meaningful? Really connect with that ambition every single morning and you'll start to notice, you feel better. You also know this reality that motivation wanes with attention. Meaning if we don't give our ambitions, our goals, a lot of attention, the.

Motivation just goes away.

Because motivation is either fueled by our attention or by momentum, right? It either takes reflection or action to generate serious, sustained motivation. Either reflection or action. Because ultimately from the reflection that gives us clarity, and clarity can give us confidence, or action can give us momentum. And when we have momentum, motivation is way easier to cultivate, generate and sustain, obviously. So these are really important concepts. Every morning, get very close to your goals ambitiously. What are those things that you want, desire, need and would enjoy and what do you need to go to get? That's the intrinsic type of things. The things we'll feel good about, the drive, satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning excitement in us. But I also have my extrinsic meaning my external cues or goals or rewards that also I revisit. So for me, example, when I always tell you, wake up each day and at some point say, who needs me on my A game for me, every morning I re anchor down into my relationships. I think about, okay, if I don't show up today and do a good job, then my wife and I have a lower quality of life. Then I can't support my mom, then I can't support my team, then all these people who count on me every day for motivation, or count on me for leadership, or count on me for support, they don't get that from me. And I tap into that reality that if I don't show up for somebody today, then you know what, by the end of the night I'll feel worse about myself. But also it will impact other people. Because you cannot have real high powered mental motivation without a connection to other people.

We are social animals, so we have.

To think about, okay, what should I do? How can I contribute in a way that serves other people? So where that internal one is about self and satisfaction and fulfillment and meaning personally, that's tapping into our own passions, desires, wants and hungers. That external one is ultimately about service, about giving or taking care of or being the Caretaker of other people. And you cannot just keep starting your day. I guess I'll get some coffee and.

Read the news and see what's on.

Social media, or hop into the car and listen to trash talk radio, or turn on the TV and, and hope to find motivation later in the day.

Like, you want to kick off the.

Day, kick off the day with motivation. Like get already in the morning immediately in a good state of mind. When I'm in a great state of mind, it's like, bam, the day goes. And you know, if you start the morning in the right frame of mind, motivated, driven, because you're connected to what drives you and what will serve other people.

Then when you start like running out.

Of gas at noon, 1, 2 or.

3, it's easier to fuel that flame.

Than to start a new fire, right? Because some people just keep waiting to. They don't even think about. I guess I should be motivated until they've lost it. I want you to start the morning with it and sustain it throughout the day by revisiting. Remember, the secret to all of motivation is revisiting those lies. It's revisiting that ambition that you have for your life, for more, for others, for contribution. That's everything, right?

That's everything.

And if you get away from that too many days, too many weeks, too many months, I'm just here to tell you, you're really going to struggle.

So I hope that helps.

Every morning, everybody, every single morning, I really want you to connect with that. Okay, what am I motivated? What am I driven by? And that's going to really, that's. I, I can't explain how much that's going to help you. You will feel it and you will know it if you will do it every morning. Okay? Motivation starts in the morning, but it's also sustained by that morning frame of mind. So that's really key. That's the first idea behind motivation. Connect with your ambitions first thing every single day. Give attention to that every single day.

Here's something I don't often talk about.

But it's important for me because it's, it's very easy for me to be really effective in the mornings and then that afternoon, two, three o', clock, and I can just be like, man.

I.

Want to go outside, take a walk, come back, turn on some Netflix, eat some carbs. You know, that can be my afternoon if I'm not careful.

So here's what I do.

I have a checkpoint in the mid afternoon to recognize, reward, appreciate anything that I have done today, anything that I have done today and that midpoint checkpoint for me on my phone I just have an alarm. Mine tends to go off around 2:30 or 3:00 clock in the afternoon. It just flashes to me and it says what's been great today? What's great, been great today. And so that will to me, all right, it's time to visit what's been great today? So I'll just think about something I've done.

It could be like I answered 10.

Emails today that I have been avoiding. Good job. It could be as simple as I made that one call, I said I was going to call, did it, I shot that content, created that thing, whatever, some type like listen, motivation is often driven by recognition. So recognize what you have done so far in the day, early afternoon. Then what I do in order to keep myself motivated even more, because I've set in my mind I want to be a person who's excellence driven. What I will do is I say.

Okay, here's what's great so far.

And then I ask just a simple question. How do I complete this day with excellence? Just a simple touch point in the afternoon, how do I complete this day with excellence?

So I will look at the rest.

Of the day, whether that's two hours more, four hours more, five hours more, six hours more, whatever it's going to be for me. And I go, okay, how do I think through the rest of this day with real excellence and when I can connect with that, I'm telling you, it's just so part of me and it really makes me want to serve. So please think about having a mid afternoon connection point to keep yourself motivated. You'll feel a whole different quality of life come in. I promise it's a different experience for people because most people, they're just running and gunning through the day. They don't realize or understand or accept how challenging it is to lose motivation. And so they've gone. Many people, they've gone weeks without being motivated. They're going through the motions but there's no energy, there's no emotional pull towards something better. And because they're lacking that emotional pull, what ends up happening, they dog it. They don't contribute as much, they react and sort of create. And now all of a sudden a couple weeks later they're like, I don't know why I'm so unfulfilled. Well, no doubt you're so unfulfilled because you haven't been tapping into that emotion of motivation. When we lack motivation, it is a slippery slope to suffering. So please recognize that you must cultivate more motivation. What else can you do? Well, I'll tell you, it's like ambition, attention to those ambitions, effort towards those things. I think all of that is really, really, really clear. But I also really believe that a lot of motivation is simply lost because of fatigue. So let's say you're doing all those things, but you're wiped out, you're tired. Like, a lot of motivation really rests on how you feel physically. If you feel lethargic, you feel tired, you have the flu, it's like it's harder to be more motivated. You can still do it by doing what I've talked about. Re cue yourself, reconnect with those things. But health wise, it's really critical for you to say, okay, if I want to be motivated long term, I need to feel greater levels of mobility and energy in my body. So if you ever hung around me, I'm constantly bouncing and moving and breathing. And if you've been with me at hpa, you see some of these practices, this breath work that I do, that I'm activating and opening up my body so that my body says, let's go versus right? So my body's not like, oh, I ate this terrible thing. Instead, my body says, I feel refueled, I feel ready to go, let's go. So I manage my sleep, my diet, my health in ways that support my mental clarity and energy. And I know that, like, sounds. Sometimes people think motivation is just a mental game. I'm like, yes, but your mind and your body are connected. If your body is lethargic, so is your mind.

Right?

That brain body connection is real, y'.

All.

And I know you know that you've been sick, you've been tired, there's times when you've been out of shape, you feel terrible. So I'm here to encourage you, as I always do, if every single month in high performance, I have to cheer you on to get in better health, to prioritize your health, to sleep good, to eat well, to move. If I have to do that every single month, I will do that. I will be your champion. I will cheer you on. I want you in excellent health this year. So please hear me cheer that on every single month. Because I just know I get you in better health. I get you in better mental health. We get you in better mental health. It's easier to sustain that fire and that drive, that purpose, that motivation, that thing will bring you satisfaction, joy, and meaning. I know you guys get this, but I want to fire you up today, like this is something you must fire up on your own. This will be fleeting.

Of course it's fleeting if you never look at it.

I tell you all the time, no wonder you're not motivated. You haven't thought about what motivates you in three days.

Just think about that.

No wonder you're not motivated. You haven't thought about what motivates you in three days. Every morning I'm a deep dive in what's going to motivate me. I get excited about it.

I look at.

Okay, let's go. If I didn't do that, I need coffee.

Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to see you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to Progress mode. How do you create remarkable and long lasting friendships? And I'm talking about the kind of friendships that you love. The friendships that bring you alive, that bring you that connection, that help life feel more even meaningful, that help you progress and feel supported, help you be seen, help you feel a true connection with not just others, but with humanity. Because the people around you are awesome. And when the people around you are awesome, you know, you feel better about life. But we also went through this crazy last 18 months where so many people were isolated, where we had so much turmoil, so much conflict, so much just uncertainty and fear in the world, where I really believe friendships really elevated. And you could see whether or not you had great friends throughout this pandemic or you didn't. You were able to see whether or not you got the support that you needed, whether or not you were able to maintain your sense of vibrancy in some of those times of aloneness, whether or not you had people who cheered you on when you decided to make a transition, start something new, or the kids left the house or you got sick or something was going on that was difficult in your life. We look to our friends and I think that this is a very undervalued conversation in mental health, so much about the mental health conversation is appropriately about self awareness, is it's about, you know, mindfulness, it's about taking care of our stressors. And a lot of it is that solo work that we all have to do for self mastery. But I can tell you that, you know, the great universities of the world, the psychology department is right near the sociology department because they go together like we are social beings. And when you lose that social connection with the world, which usually starts through lack of disciplined habits with your friends, then suddenly life loses its color. And I think this is so important. You're going to hear me talk about friendship today in a way you probably haven't heard before, very much from what we would call a high performance psychology perspective. And I think you're going to love this. So if you've been struggling with friendships in your lifetime, not, not either having enough friends or not having the quality of friends that you've always wanted, this is a serious conversation today. I can't imagine a time, at least in my life so far where friendships were so incredibly important. I get to share some of the things that really have worked, not just in my life and my friendships, but in studying this work deeply over the years and recognizing how many people are on entrepreneurs, high achievers, people who are trying to make great impact in the world. You're here today. And sometimes that journey can feel very lonely, or when you get to the top, it can feel lonely, they say. And I'm like, I kind of believe what my friend Brian Tracy and mentor said to me one time. He said, if it's lonely at the top, you did it wrong. I thought, woo, that's good, that's good. Because maybe sometimes we value today progress, we value today getting things done. We value that top mountain of achievement. And then we look around and go, oh, nobody really knows me. I don't feel a connection to others. Yeah, I got the thing, the house, the car, the bank account, the accolades, the Instagram page. And all of a sudden though, something's missing. And friendship is one of the greatest vehicles to the real psychology of well being that we talk about here at Growth Day. I'm going to share with you a secret today, just a simple phrase. You're going to go, oh my gosh, that's why my friendships aren't going right. So you're going to love this session. I say that triangle, right, of well being that we talk about growth Day aliveness is one of the things we all want after we've had everything else right Another thing we want is connection. We're not after casual friendships here today. We're at, like, how do I create authentic, deep, trusting, vulnerable, fun, real relationships? Because how many of you have ever had friendships that turned out to be fake? You thought you had a good friendship, and that thing turned out to be not so good or poisonous or, you know, somebody, like, they weren't loyal to you as a friend, or they lied to you or, you know, something went wrong. You thought, how could that happen in that relationship? And I always tell, like, friendships are a science of relationship, right? It's about how you create relationship with others. And I'm gonna give you again, a phrase that will really help you with this today. And then if it's true that we want aliveness and connection in this triangle, nothing that we want is meaning. Well, meaning isn't achieved just by living your purpose each day in your own head. Meaning is achieved through a social relationship network. My sense of meaning is, do I feel connected to the world? And the world isn't an abstract thing. It's not like I feel connected to the oak tree. It's like, no, I mean, did I feel. Did you make your difference in the world that's going to be served and answered through your social impact, your relationships with others? And I have to tell you, I've been coaching people for 20 years of my life now, and a lot of people have one friend. You know, in the United States, unfortunately, the number of people with three, three good friends has declined over the decades. You're like, three good friends. Oh, we got to talk about that. Because some people stumble into friendships or hope for friendships, just like some people hope to have a loving relationship, just like some people hope to have a good job, just like some people hope that, you know, they get healthier. And then there's strivers who take life a little bit by the reins and say, no, no, no, let me architect that. Let me build that. And I'll give you my own examples today of where I sucked at friendships and I had to learn, how do you do them and how do you create them? And once you know how to create and craft them, life really opens up for you, and it becomes not just more alive and connected, but more meaningful. Like, a sense of meaning happens when we have a tapestry of social relationships that are real and impactful. And then, of course, in the middle of that triangle, you always see me draw out growth. Your friends should be lifting you up, not pushing you down. Your friend should be inspiring you to get better. Your friends should have your back, but also be willing to challenge your face. You know what I'm saying? Like, your friends are, are, and should be one of your primary growth drivers in life. Most people choose ambitious goals to be their growth driver. Oh, I'm going to do something that's hard, or I'm going to try to achieve this amazing thing. I'm going to try to become a millionaire or make this difference or build this company or, you know, have this type of family. And it's this external climb, this thing they're trying to achieve. And too many people forget. It's like, actually, one of the best drivers of growth isn't your job, isn't your goals, it's your friendship circle. And when your friendship circles make you a more alive, deeper, caring, thoughtful, authentic person in the world, I'm telling you what, guess what? At work, you're better. At home you're better. Your art gets better, your sense of life lifts. Let me share with you what I really believe to be the two central problems of friendship. Okay, the two central problems of friendship. The first one is a failure of each of our own. I'm just taking this on myself as well. It's like we fail in life to realize most of our friendships were assigned, not aligned. Most of our friendships were assigned, not aligned. What I mean by that is many of our friendships happen because group assignment.

Think about it.

Some of your best friends, where did you meet them? School, your neighborhood, some other affiliation, maybe at work, maybe in a group that you joined. So it was like, oh, we showed up somewhere, or we were assigned somewhere, and there was that girl who sat next to me in class, we became friends, or, oh, I worked with this person at work. We were co workers, we became friends. And these are kind of like assigned friends. And I know that sounds really weird to say, so bear with me a little bit. I don't mean that the manager, like, you're going to be friends here. What I mean is, because of your group, your affiliation, or where you were, you kind of met people there. And by default, by you being a good person or communicating or doing stuff with them, you kind of became friends versus, that's like an assigned friend. It's like, oh, because we were here, we became friends versus an aligned friend, which is, oh, I'm an adult now. What are the types of friends that I want to create that align with my passion, my dreams, my lifestyle, my values, my beliefs, the things that I want of life, and let me go get them, not let them fall into my lap, which brings up the Second designation. And this is hard to say to people. And if you're in a place where you feel lonely in your life or you feel like you don't have great friendships, I promise this will be so helpful for you today to even know how your own brain thinks. And many of us, and I was this way probably all the way throughout high school, even I never, and this is the second problem of friendships. I never made the deliberate choice to have remarkable friendships. I kind of ended up with friends. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Who's like ended up with friends if you kind of just ended up with like this person? It was kind of my friend. One of my buddies goes, he goes, I don't want no rando friends. And it was like random. Now I love random. I love the universe, I love God, I love culture. Coincidence. Listen, I read the Celestine Prophecy. People are glowing out there for me. I believe in that coincidence stuff. But I can also share with you, like if you just allow randomness in your life all the time, you'll always feel a sense of mediocrity too. We have to stretch. We have to choose our life. And to choose our life we have to be deliberate and go, what kind of life do I want? I would like you to learn to architect your ideal friendships. And can you get all of them? And will all your friendships be perfect? I'm not that guy. I'm not here to promise everything's going to be sweet and perfect and peaches in life. I am here to suggest though that if you haven't deliberately chosen the types of friendships that you want, that's a problem. Especially if you're an adult.

Right?

And that's the thing is we're just, we're not encouraged to do that. Think about how much time people were feeding your ears with the idea you had to be really thoughtful about the career you choose. How many of you ever had more people tell you more times about be so thoughtful about the school you choose, the career you choose, but no one ever said as much because be very thoughtful about the friends and the friendships that you build. And that's why we have a lot of high achieving people who are lonely their whole life. Think about your career. What are you going to be one day? Very rarely. What's the type of social network you're going to build around you? What's the type of friendships you're going to architect? What are you going to be proud of in terms of your friends in the future? What do you want your friends to achieve? What do you want your friends to experience in life? Not just what they give you, but what are you going to give out, too? What kind of friendship do you want to create and experience? How do you want your friends to actually interact with one another? Have you ever thought about that? We spend so much time. If you're a parent and you have two kids, you're so worried about how they interact, right? I know people who've never even thought, how do I want my friends to interact? I mean, they might think, you know what, we shouldn't put them in a room at a party because they have this history of that background. But very few people are like, I'm going to actually teach my friends how to be friends with one another. Now, I know some of you might go, this guy sounds like a control freak. I'm like, I am, but I'm a happy one. You know what I'm saying? I think this is such an important area to architect. Most friends have never talked about how to be friends. They just go, you want to go to lunch? They go to lunch. They talk about the weather, the waiter, the food, what's going on? They leave. And there's no architecting. There's no. I think of, like, social systems are things that can be shaped. You all think, like, at work, right? How much we talk about at work, building a culture. More books and more people have spent time on this conversation of building culture at work and never the culture of a friendship.

Isn't that weird?

I don't know where along the line we lost the conversation and the desire to choose to build awesome friendships. And a culture of friendship, meaning not just friends. Most people think of, I want a friend, right? When you're in high school, you just want a friend, right? You're just like, at least I was. Can I get one? You know, it's like you worry about having friendships when you grow up. And usually that means you think. And we're all trained this way. Especially in Western cultures. We're taught to have a friend, and we think in a very individualistic mode. I and this person are in relationship, and then you have another friend. I and this person are in relationship. And maybe you go out and you try to get them together and we have a party. But even at the party, it's individual nodes. Me, that friend and this friend. And I don't get trained, as I'm getting older, to think as a systems social architect.

Oh, wow.

Look at all these nodes, if you will, these friends. If I like each of these people and have relationship with each people, why don't in some way, I weave them together and create a tapestry of friendship where I'm actually connecting the dots and creating a culture of friendship. See, we don't think like that, do we? I was a very, kind of solitary child. I was kind of in my own little world. I don't know about you all, but I was definitely, you know, much. I would be like an introverted kind of child. I kind of kept to myself. I like to play with my toys kind of by myself. In elementary school, from what I can remember, I was kind of solo. Brendan. I didn't see social systems right. I was in a class with kids and a teacher, and I had a relationship with the teacher, and I had a relationship with this person or that person or not. But I couldn't see the class. Class, I couldn't say, oh, you know, like, this group is kind of like this. Instead, it was just like, she likes me or she doesn't.

Teachers like that.

I didn't see the system. Today, I'd like you to try to see the system a little bit. See the system of the friendships you've built in your life. See the system at play, at work. See the system of your culture or your nonprofit or your company. When you can start seeing a bigger picture and get out of your head a little bit now, something happens. There's connection, there's community. See, everyone says, I want community. I'm like, well, you can't be an individualistic person in the community forever. You have to elevate to seeing the system. If you never be a community member or an effective one or a helpful one, if you can't get out of your head, well, I'm saying that not as judgment to you. That was me. So there's no judgment here. If you don't have friends, I'm like, I'm telling you my story, too. I was a solo person. I was in my own head. I couldn't see the class. I couldn't see the system. And so I felt apart. And because I felt apart and I couldn't see what was happening, and I didn't know how to engage.

I was lonely.

And then when I finally made a connection with a friend, that friend became my life. Later on, that perpetuated into, you know, some of you guys know my story of my first breakup with my high school sweetheart. I was destroyed because that was my one person, right? That was my one node in the world. And then when that relationship fell apart, I fell apart and became depressed and suicidal. And so how we relate with one or multiple people can completely shape our mental health. I know you already know that. And so I had to learn, like, wow. One, I don't want to ever be dependent on one friend. I want to build a support system. You ever heard that language before? No one says, go build a supporter. I want you to listen to the language of successful people. When successful people are speaking, they never tell you, go build a supporter. They say, go build what? A support system. A support network. Oh, I got to get out of single node thinking. A node is a one individual unit. And I got to get into the system. I got to stop thinking, does Sally at the class next, does she like me? And if she likes me, my whole life is good or bad or ruined. And I got to go. There's a class here. There's an energyist vibe, a spirit. There's rules and norms. There's a culture here that is happening. How do I want to participate in this? And how do I want this culture to happen, too, in ways that I can affect? What do they want? And we all have to start thinking about that more in a society in which we're supposedly connected, but we've actually become individual nodes in the network.