Mashup: 5 Daily Practices of All Great Leaders
14 Apr 2023 · 67 min
In this extensive monologue Brendon Burchard outlines the five core daily practices that he says distinguish great leaders and then expands into a suite of concrete habits that support those practices. He begins by stressing the need for leaders to establish both an internal (meeting cadence, OKR planning) and external (launch, marketing) rhythm for teams, families and any group they lead, warning that a lack of rhythm creates chaos and burnout. He then explains that leaders must repeatedly communicate their vision, values and focus until they become embedded in the culture. The third practice is "mindful striving" – knowing when to accelerate and when to take pit‑stops, celebrating wins, and protecting energy to avoid burnout. The fourth practice is to evaluate habits rather than outcomes, using high‑performance habit frameworks to diagnose why results occur. The fifth practice is to teach and model love, oneness and celebration, positioning leadership as a heart‑centered function. Throughout the talk he weaves in practical tools: a 72‑hour energy audit, daily 30‑minute blocks for new ideas, the "first output" concept to break inertia, 90‑day challenges, a monthly "drop list" to eliminate low‑value activities, weekly accountability calls (the "Friday friend"), and motivation triggers tied to physical cues (doorways, mirrors, alarms). He later applies these principles to personal relationships, describing the interdependence‑independence coin, the role of grace, and co‑creating a future together. The overall message is that great leadership is a disciplined, rhythmic, love‑driven practice that can be taught, measured, and refined.
Chapters
You as a leader often don't know what the rhythm needs to be. Yet it has to happen in motion, which is why it's so important to be a good listener. These next five are just tactical things every leader has got to remember to do in order to allow that forum for people to support what they create. For having those vision decisions, for making sure there's alignment and autonomy, for making sure that you're embodying it and showing it to people and ultimately making sure you're managing the energy and the resilience of the groups. So here we go. Practice number one is you must establish the rhythm of the teams. You've got to establish the rhythm. And what that means is let's say you're running an organization. The rhythm of the organization results in two ways. I want you to think about it. There's an internal rhythm, the way that you meet, the way that you set goals. The rhythm of planning your quarter or your okrs, your KPIs. It's all the internal rhythm of the things that you do to function and run the business, right? Then there's the external rhythm. That is your release rhythm. That is your launch rhythm. That's your marketing rhythm. That's the public facing publicity rhythm. It's what the world sees of you. Now those two rhythms are sometimes different. They're different organizationally, they're different in families. They're different in how you might run a new team versus an established team. But it's so important that you as a leader take that on the helm of like, oh, what does that need to look like? And you won't know, unfortunately, until you practice principle number one. People support what they create. I'll give an example. In my company right now, we've added a whole bunch of new people and we're still trying to figure out, okay, what's this new rhythm going to look like? And so the new team has to come in and see the rhythm we doing now. And then we've got to adjust and pivot to the new team to establish the norms. You all know this from STORM and forming and norming in team research experience. Well, our job is to figure out, okay, what should that rhythm be across the company like your all hands meetings and processes to what each team or each organizational unit does or how you're going to improve. Families have to do this too. So you're a parent, okay, what's your family rhythm? What do you do Monday through Sundays? What are your rituals? What are those time slots that you're going to repeat? You might Have a rhythm that you have with your partner or spouse. You go out to date nights on Fridays, right? Or you might have a rhythm that you have with this child versus that child in order to create that connection with them. Everything has to be thought of in terms of a rhythm or a ritual or a patterned calendar slot in order for everyone to feel like, oh, we're moving in unison here. When leaders don't establish or work to establish with their teams or their culture or their families what the rhythm is going to be. Everything feels random all the time. Everything feels like we're fighting fires, fighting, fighting. It always feels like we're fighting fighters. We're in emergency mode, and we're going to burn out. And so I see this all the time. And it's the hardest part because you, as a leader, often don't know what the rhythm needs to be. Yet it has to happen in motion, which is why it's so important to be a good listener. So many leaders come into new companies, and when they come into new companies, you know, I recently, I think it was last, it was two quarters ago, helped a CEO transition into a company where they had 12,000 employees. And I got brought in by the board because he was in trouble. And so I got brought in his 360 valuations from the whole team. He'd only been there like six months. Everyone hated the guy, and I couldn't, like, it took a while to figure out. Very likable, emotionally intelligent, fun, smart business person. And I'm like, what. What is going on? And what I found out was when he came into the company, he said, well, this has to be our rhythm. Here's our quarterly goals. This is our yearly goals. This is how we meet. And just imposed a rhythm on an existing team. They weren't ready for that. And so it was like a revolt. And for them, they got used to doing something. This whole thing changed everything. It was too fast. And if you're an organizational leader, you know that that's super hard. It always happens. Every company goes through it, trust me. Transitions in leadership are always difficult, always challenging, but your job is to be aware of that. And your job, if you're the person who has that vision, decision, you have to work really hard to establish that normal rhythm, normal meeting cadence, normal way about trying to achieve a goal. Normal way of managing a project, normal way of meeting a quarterly stretch. Like, you have to establish that, and you're probably going to need help with it. This is a great distinction between where leadership and management diverge. Leaders work with managers to establish that people support what they create to establish that rhythm. And often the leader doesn't actually manage the rhythm. They help set it up, they agree to it. They go. And then there's project managers, there's mid level managers, there's other people who are going to make sure that that rhythm happens. Right? Same thing might happen in your family. You might say, okay, we're all going to do this, but you might not be the person who always makes that thing happen. You might be like, you might have some support, you might have an assistant. You might assign the rhythm of the kids to the older kid, right? That you, that there's an assignment happening there.
But you need to be aware of.
It and ensure that rhythm is happening with great energy. The second big idea is that in that rhythm, your job as a leader is to consistently repeat. What is the vision? What are our beliefs? What should we focus on and not focus on? It's a repetition. What's the vision? What do we believe here? What are we working on? What are we not working on? What's the vision here? What do we do together here? What do we believe? What do we work on? What do we not. It's, you know, I often teach my own teams, I call this like fighting for focus. It's like the, the leader's job is to say the same thing so many times. It finally sinks in. And you hope when you're leading teams that they get it. It takes years to get it. You can say the same thing. And I've had the blessing of working with US presidents, two of them now. And one of the common things that they always share, and you can read this in their books too, from presidential candidates and presidents. Literally, you know, 200 years back, they all say the same thing. They're so surprised by how often that they have to say the same thing. They can't believe that they have to go from this organization, that organization, this team, that they have to say the same thing over and over. They have to repeat it. Here's our values, here's our vision, here's what we're after, here's what we're focused on. It has to be so repetitive. You have to build that people need to hear things. How many times before they get it? Not seven dozens. Right? They have to hear it seven times to understand it or to repeat it or to memorize it, to operationalize it over the long term. Now you're talking about hundreds of times. That's the difference between understanding and memorization and, and operationalizing that's why too many leaders get in trouble. They think I already said it. It's like you did. You said it, they understood it, but they didn't operationalize it. So high levels of repetition are the most important things. What are we about here? What do we believe? What are we going to do and not do? So hard, so hard, so hard. Very important that you have that on top of mind. Third thing, third major practice for great leadership. I try to teach my own internal teams this, that you have to ensure mindful striving as a leader. What that means is you've got to know when to hit the gas and when to slow it down. You've got to know when to take on the project and when. Not all. Not in terms of how to achieve it, because management can do that, but how to achieve it with harmony and sanity and avoiding burnout. And everyone struggles with this. Because you know what, if you're a leader, you probably have a bunch of high performers. You have great talent, right? And if you're really a high achieving leader, you've got amazing talent all around you. And everyone wants to go and go 99.99 miles an hour all the time. But every race you've ever seen on a track, the cars have pit stops. The car's got to take the pit stop in order to function at a high level over and over. So you got to build in the pit stops, you got to build in the celebrations. You got to say, not now, this one thing. I know you want to do that, but let's do this. And that always takes a lot of discussion and conversation. But you hold the heart of the organization. You have to know when you're pushing too hard and you have to know when you have to just ask for patience. You have to know when it's letting off the gas a little bit. You have to know when, like, okay, going to take a little bit less in this revenue or this quarter than we usually would. But you know what? Our people are stretched right now. And that's the hardest part. That's really ensuring that there's a harmony and an ongoing joy and the ability to have high performance. The reason most people don't like organizational leaders is because the organizational leaders burn them out. They don't listen and they don't practice. Everything we talked about in the principles in the earlier session of this training. And so knowing that you hold the heart and the energy and the resilience of the company reminds you, like, how do we ensure that we mindfully strive, mindfully striving means not burning out. But mindfulness also means being attentive to the awesome things that are happening. Because so many people, you know what, you know when burnout sucks, when there's no appreciation, when there's no celebration. A lot of people will push themselves super hard as long as they're appreciated and there's some celebration and we're making the impact.
If you take away the impact, you.
Take away the appreciation. Now it just feels like the grind. No one wants that. Being mindful in real life, like our personal development, mindfulness means we establish a peace and a harmony and a gratitude and consciousness to, to the moment we're present and enjoying the journey and you ensuring that the journey is being enjoyed by the team. That's mindful striving. We're going for big things together, but we're being mindful, mindful to one another, mindful to our opportunities, mindful to our customers, mindful and grateful for the opportunities at hand. Fourth big idea is as, as you are trying to evaluate how you're doing because evaluating the progress of you, the collaborators, the vision is so central to what you constantly have to do. Remember you're kind of have that leadership vision on you, trying to see where are we out of alignment, where are we not doing well? I always tell especially new leaders or new managers of position, but also parents all the time. It's like it's more important for you to evaluate habits than outcomes. New leaders tend to obsess about the outcome, the KPI, the okr, they, they, they, they bemoan, they brutalize everybody on the final results, what's on the spreadsheet, what's in the metrics, what's in the panels of data. And they it's all about that. And unfortunately they forget those things aren't real. Those things are outcomes you don't need to like. Those outcomes happened.
Why did they happen?
Because there were habits at play. My job isn't to evaluate the quality of this thing. My job is to evaluate the quality of this thing. So one reason as an example, high performance habits kind of took over the world because it taught a lot of people. It's like oh, measuring people's personalities or strengths or a lot of these other assessment tools out there actually don't correlate with long term success, well being or positive relationships. What does the high performance habits because our habits create our outcomes over the long term, our habits create our real relationships, create peace of mind or not create the ultimate results. So you're evaluating the habits of the team more than the outcome. And when you do that now you're speaking their language versus speaking the language of the spreadsheet leader. And no one wants to work for the spreadsheet leader. They wanna work with the person who has the heart and soul, who can talk about behavior and behavior change and patterns and. And what patterns do you need to recognize? The habits of your team, the habits of your consumers, the habits of your kids, the habits of your spouse, the habits of your community, of your church. Like it's all about, what are our collective habits? Because if we improve those, the panels, the outcomes, the KPIs and the OKRs get better. But if you start with those and you get obsessed about those and you're trying to manage and lead people to those, they get frustrated, bored, detached. It's not inspiring. What's inspiring is how do we summon the best of who we are together? That's inspiring, that's motivating, that's leadership. Last big idea here today with you all is it's simple practice. And I tease this out from the conversation about mindful striving, but it's because I think it's so important. And that is you have to teach the teams, teach the people who are leading, teach the people who you're impacting. You have to teach everybody the importance of recognizing our oneness and sharing love along the journey. That is, we are in this together. And I appreciate you and I want to celebrate you. I want to make you the hero. I want to elevate other people. The sharing of love on the journey is so important that people forget about. It's the heart and the soul of leadership. It's like very few people understand that leadership is just a format, a function of loving other people. Because you'll never last as a leader unless you genuinely like people. If you don't love other people, if you don't love elevating them, if you don't, if you don't love listening to them, if you don't love celebrating their wins, if you don't love working hard together to make something happen, you'll never last. Please don't elevate yourself to a leadership position if you dislike people. We don't need more jerk leaders. What we need is people who are operating from their heart and who love to celebrate other people and why they love to celebrate other people because they recognize the oneness. They recognize the humanity. They I'm like you, you're like me. We can, even though we might see things differently, be from different places, have completely different socioeconomic realities. Here we are together. We've decided to pursue this vision together. We have that vision. We've made the decision. We're all in. We're going to do it together. And as we do it together, if I can ensure that you love the process, that you feel cared for, that you feel celebrated when you win, that we are winning together. That's sharing the love, man. That's sharing the love. Your customers. When you make your customers feel loved, cherished, served, you make them the heroes. That's where word of mouth comes from. That's where the community builds. We have to realize it's like it's about sharing the love. It's just about sharing the love. And you got to find your way of doing that in your rhythm, in how you talk about others with their habits, in how you mindfully strive together, in how you practice all the principles that we talked about today. This is leadership. It's loving what we are doing together. It's caring for one another. They're not your followers, they're your collaborators, your co creators. That's why I love leadership. Energy, mental and physical and spiritual. Strength or vibrancy. I just call it energy in high performance training. What is my energy? Do I have the energy to serve? Do I have the energy to focus? Do I have the energy to go to the gym? Do I have the energy to be nice to my spouse and my partners and my friends? Do I have the energy to do the work today? Like for me, when my energy is low or it is dipping, I always, always go, what is causing that? It's almost always two things. If my energy dips low in the day, I always know there are two culprits. One, something happened that bothered my brain. I got annoyed, frustrated or hurt by something. I got annoyed, frustrated or hurt by something. And it happened recently. It happened in the last day or two and it's affecting my energy right now. Your energetic state right now is a hangover. Your mood right now is a hangover effect. Not always negative, can be positive, but it's an effect of something, right? Input, output, cause, effect. That's real. So I'm like, okay, what has hooked me? What has angered me? What has frustrated me? And then I'll do something like Byron, Katie's teaching on the work. And I'll just flip the question or I'll flip the feeling. I'll say, okay, what would my life be like without that thought? Is that thought true? What's the opposite of that thought? And I'll just question those things that Annoy me, frustrated or hurt me. And then I'll do the physical work again of releasing those things. And if I need help with releasing those, many of you guys know I love and invested in the tapping solution. So I'll just tap. I'll just go into my mind for those who know tapping and I'll just do a tapping routine. For those who want to learn tapping, you can learn it in the Growth Day app. There's a course in there on it already. And so I'll just do something physical to release that tension. But again, I said there are two reasons probably for my low energy is one, something mentally or emotionally, it hooked my brain and it is lowering the quality of energy I feel in life. The second one for me, which is big, is the last 72 hours of physical exercise and nutrition. It's like you feel right now what you consumed and how you moved in the last 72 hours. Most people think it's only during the day. No, the food you ate three days ago, that's still in your body, the macros from that, whether you burned it off or not, the energy, the energetic effect culminates one day, two days, three days. And that's why sometimes people, if you've ever done a cleanse or something, you don't feel that much different in the first day or two. But by day three or four, you start like getting like this amazing clarity. Why that 72 hour cycle of biology that we humans have, it's why when I know I'm going to teach a seminar to you all, like, I'm going to go, you know, like I've been blessed to. A lot of the industry knows we teach the single two hardest events in the world when it was High Performance Academy and then certified High Performance Coaching. These are literally nine hours a day on stage, often by myself. And used to be now got a little smarter about it. But it was intensely difficult. And if you see me on stage, I'm not sitting like I am now in this little room in quarantine, I'm like bouncing the whole time we were dancing the whole time I'm running back and forth the flip chart down in the audience, walking around. I do a marathon a day in steps, jumps and movement. It's unbelievable. I got to eat three times the calories to pull off each of those days. And I can tell you when I'm on stage and I'm not feeling it, I don't go, wow, what just happened last hour? I'm like, okay, what was the last three days here when Was I moving? How was I recovering? What was I eating? When was I moving? How was I recovering? What was I eating? And I'll run that through over and over and I'll identify. I'm like, oh, you know what? There was that one hour after that stage. I was all hyped. I didn't eat.
Or, oh, you know what?
There was that time. You know what? I should have spent another 20 minutes meditating or sleeping or I just run back. So I want you to do that. Anytime you don't feel well, I really want to cue you to develop the habit. This is like my advanced habit. If I don't feel well, like, okay, 72 hours. What hooked my brain or my ego, maybe frustrated, angry, upset. Let me release that right now. That's the first thing, a release technique again. Second thing is, okay, have I moved and what did I eat? So it's like, oh, on Friday, I had those three glasses of wine versus that one. Got it. That's a lingering effect. Okay, that's good to know. Or, oh, you know what?
2.
I really just wanted to cheat, and I did. But now I'm really. I'm paying for it. And listen, I'm not here to judge anybody. Whatever you want to eat, consume the stuff that you do, not my business. My business is reminding you of wellness, is experience of life. And you have either defined what wellness looks like and feels like to you or you have not. And because I have, this is so important to me. I hate when I don't have this. Lacking energy to me is so painful that I structure my life to ensure I have it. I don't know about you, but I've laid in hospital beds for days. I don't know about you, but I've served in hospice and saw people who couldn't get out of bed and had their last breaths. I don't know about you, but I've had those times on stage or service or moments with family or friends when I didn't feel energy. And because I didn't feel energy, I didn't do a good job for them. I hated those moments. I want to do a good job for people, and I think to do a good job for people, I got to care for my energy. And so I always tell people, if you haven't gotten healthy for yourself yet, do it for the people around you who are getting the shrapnel of your bad energy. Bad energy, negative energy. There's shrapnel from that. There's emotional trauma from that. There's stuff from that that we got to make sure we release and not hold on to. And I know you guys know all this, but I hope it helps you. The practice I have is a 72 hour assessment of my energy. Whenever I dip, I'm like, let me do my little 72 hours. Where was my ego? Hooked, annoyed or hurt? Let me let that go. What was my fueling routine, my movement routine?
Oh, no wonder.
I feel like crap. I've been sitting for three days. Oh, my back is mad. I forgot to stretch. I didn't open up my body and my breath with a workout, a walk, a bike, a run, a hike. I didn't move. No wonder. Oh gosh, let me go. Come on, honey, let's go for a walk and just get that movement back in. Get that movement back in. For those who've studied me with high performance work before, I Recommend Like a 2x2 or 3x3. All that means is like a 2 by 2 is once a week you do a HIIT training and once a week you do a 60 minute cardio training. That's a 2 by 2. A 3x3 is. You're just adding more to that. So you're doing a one session hit, one session long cardio, one session some other type of movement that you love to do that just opens up your body and gives you flexibility. Maybe like a yoga or something. But whatever your routine is, did you move? Everyone knows the number one challenge to long term health is nutrition and movement. Number one and number two, people say no, no, no, it must be sleep. I am like number one and number two are the greatest weapons you have for greater sleep. It is your nutrition and it is your physical movement that gives you the ability to sleep well. Now guess what? When you have reverence for life and you're releasing that tension throughout the day emotionally letting go of that ego or that hurt, now you sleep like a baby. I've been blessed with sleep for a long time. Not because it came natural, because I sucked at it. And I said, I got to get better at this. So I changed my nutrition, I moved more, I did more emotional releasing of tension and those are part of my days. Remember, wellness is not something you do once in a while. It is the experience of life. You have to do these many times a day. Also for those who have studied for a long time, with energy, every 45 minutes I'm up, I'm bouncing, I'm moving, I'm opening up all the meridians on my body. I'm taking 10 deep breaths and bouncing in place. And closing my eyes to rest that energetic movement every hour, that breath work every hour, that opening meridians every hour. It's how I'm annoying all the time. It's like you're like, you hang out with me, like, wow, that guy goes all day and he's just. He's in it all day. I had to train that. You're training your focus right now. You're training your energy, you're training your ability to serve. It's happening right now. And it happened last 72 hours too.
How do you develop the action mindset? But actually, also here, I should just add this. How do you actually get the action mindset and then make it a discipline? Discipline. Here it is. First thing, your 30 minute daily block. People tell me all the time, brennan, I got this dream or this goal. I'm like, great, what 30 minute period of day are you gonna work on it today? What do you mean? You said you have a big goal, right? Yeah. Big idea, right? Yeah. Okay, show me. When's the 30 minute block that that thing gets? Today. It's a new idea you say, right? Yeah. Okay, where is it? Is it 1:30 to 2? Is it 4 to 4:30? Is he gonna check it at 5 right after work till 5:30, then get on the commute a little later. Like when. New ideas must have new blocks of time. Write it down. New ideas must have new blocks of time. If you got a new idea someday, someday, big dream and it doesn't land in the calendar, at least listen, daily, 30 minute daily block of time. Of course you're not going to get momentum. It's got to be. Look, if you won't give something 30 minutes a day, it don't matter to you. Just be honest. Like any good parent will tell you this. Like if you don't spend 30 minutes with your kids a day, I mean, good luck in having that connection. Good luck in forging that future. Good luck in helping that person feel loved and supported. I mean, if something is important to you, you give it time.
Is it true?
So if this idea is important to you, immediately mindset. This is what I immediately do. 30 minutes. And if it's a completely new idea, it's got to get at least 30 minutes. If I want it to actually come true. And it's important, from the time I set the idea, the next day it gets 30 minutes. Big new idea. Must do it. If it's important to me, the next day it gets 30 minutes. Not four years from now. Like right now, I have a big partnership. I'M working on. Like, it completely came into my life. Totally interrupted my life. I don't have any time. But it's important. I found 30 more minutes a day. Right? 30 more minutes is easy to find for everybody. People don't think they can. It's possible. I just had a friend, and I get in a huge argument over lunch about this. Not Everybody can find 30 minutes. And I'm like, who can't find 30 minutes more a day? Like, show me.
Which.
A little more discipline, a little more planning and preparation. Who can't find 30 more minutes a day?
Well, I'm busy.
And I have all these things you don't understand. I'm like, okay, walk me through your day. Well, I have to get up. I gotta get everything. Get the kids ready for work. I gotta get in the car. I gotta commute. That commute's an hour every single day. I can't take away that. I gotta do this and this and this. And I'm like, well, what if you didn't drive? What do you mean? Well, what if you didn't drive the car so that your focus and attention could be doing something else? Well, I got to do the commute. I don't know. I've noticed that a lot of cars have a passenger seat, and some of them even have a back seat. And if you sit in one of those, you don't have to do this. And I just got you an hour a day. So many people are so. They believe so deeply that they are managing their time so great. I'm like, no. Most people have so much free time, they have no idea. It's that they are distracted and unprepared or addicted to consuming that they're losing little pieces. And especially here in the United States, you guys have heard me rail on this. The average American, four hours of television a day. Don't tell me you don't have 30 minutes a day. I don't know anyone who can't find 30 more minutes a day for a great new idea that can change their life. You got a new idea that can change your Life? Find your 30 minutes every single day. Number two, remember the first output rule. First output rule says this. You've got a big new dream, big new goal, big new idea. Don't think that you have to do what we've all been taught, which is begin with the end in mind. Because sometimes you don't know what the end in mind is, but you know the first step. So what I tell people is like, I got a big new idea. I go, great. What's the first output that you would have to create on that immediately? What's like the first output that would start you on the path? I don't know. Okay, figure that out. First step. First output, right? First step is not the research. What's the first output? Let me give you an example. When I began my career, I said one day I'm gonna do video courses. And in mine, going to do all my online courses. That was the big idea. I, Brendon Burchard, am going to do online courses. Guess what I didn't do? I didn't say, well, I better figure out the whole curriculum for all the courses for the rest of my life. Begin with the end in mind. Didn't do that. I said, what's the first step that would allow me to start doing that? Okay, first step, get in front of camera, teach and post it on the Internet. That's the first output. One teaching video on the Internet. So I went and I got my stupid little at the time, flip video camera. Some of you guys know about those. Got a flip video camera. I duct taped it to a box. I put on my cleanest shirt at the time and I stared at the.
Camera and I taught and I pulled.
Off the flip video camera and I spent four hours uploading it on the Internet. You remember that? Probably not, but you remember that? Yeah. Upload, upload, upload, upload. And then it wouldn't play because it wouldn't stream fast enough. But I spent the time, the first output to me, building an online course empire.
One video.
What's your first output? Do that now. That's how you maintain momentum. The reason people don't stick to their habits is because they're waiting to create the output someday. I'm like, what's the first output? Do it. That's the thing to work on right now. When you got that 30 minute daily block, work towards that first output. Because you get the first output, you got real momentum. You get the first output, your dream, your idea is realized, it's tangible. It's like, ooh, I did that thing.
First output.
If you don't know the first output of what you have to create, you don't even have a dream. You don't even have a fully thought out idea. First output, make it, do it, create it, post it, do the thing. That's it. I want to write a book, Brendan.
But I don't know what the whole book is.
I'm like, great. First output, first page, write it. What do you mean? I don't know what the book is. Write the first page. But I don't know what the book is. Write the first page. First output would be the first page of the book, right? Write the first page. But I don't know what the five chapters are. I don't write the first page. See, you don't have to know the whole picture. First step, do the first output. Because you get that first page done, you probably get that next page done, you probably get the next page done and you'll start getting clarity of the project. A lot of the creativity of life comes in motion, not beginning in speculation. Okay, next up, number C. 90 day challenge. I can't believe how many people have a big dream or big goal and they don't set up their own 90 day challenge. Like, okay, what's your first output? Good job, appreciate you, but you got 30 minutes every single day in 90 days. Where are we? 90 days, 3 months, let's go. Cause see what most people are, they're scared to commit to the bigger idea and dream. And I go, oh, don't commit to the first big idea. Dream not for life. Just like you won't ruin your life forever. Don't commit to your new idea or dream forever. I need 90 days. Give me 90 days, man. Commit to that thing 90 days and get at it for 90 days. Reevaluate after 90 days where you're at. Don't think. See, most people don't take an action because they think, well, I'll have to do this action forever. Just like they worry I'll be ruined forever. Think there's no forever. There just isn't. There's just now. None of us are guaranteed anything. So if what we have is right this moment and we're looking to the future and we're working towards that, good job. I want in 90 days, where are you? That's it. What'd you do in 90 days? Did you lose five pounds?
Great.
You don't have to say, I'm going to be completely life transformed.
I'm going to have six pack abs.
And still drink pina coladas on the beach with 40 people in bikinis around me. No, no, no, no, no, dude, lose five pounds, you got 90 days. Go like, just set the 90 day challenge for yourself and get at that and then worry about the next series of goals after that. So if you've got a big idea or dream and you're really committed to it, commit to a 90 day challenge. And what does that mean for you specifically what's going to happen at the end of 90 days. How you think, how you feel, how you move, what you achieve, what outputs are created. Get really clear on those types of things. You'll be so happy you did. Without these things, there is no idea into action. There is no momentum. It's why you didn't stick to your habit, because you didn't give it 30 minutes a day. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't even know what you were supposed to do. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't at least set a time period that was realistic for yourself, that was doable.
D, you gotta have your drop list.
There is no new idea in your life without a drop list of things to stop doing a drop list. I'm dropping these things. I am not doing these things. I'm saying no to these things. I'm getting this off the agenda. I'm letting that responsibility go. It's the things you aren't going to do that help you do the things that you're going to do. So you got to spring clean a little bit. If you got new dreams in your life, spring clean, what are you going to stop doing? Right? I'm very, very, very disciplined about this. For me personally, I have one of my own personal practices. On the 1st of every month, I make my drop list. Every month. Not once a year, every month I go, okay, this month, what do I need to drop? Because inevitably I'm moving so fast. I pick up new things. I'm doing all the time, some new idea, new dream, new thought. Because I'm trying to innovate, I'm trying to be up front, I'm trying to lead, I'm trying to change things. And then what ends up happening is throughout the month, other people also do what other people give you responsibilities, give you ideas, give you programs. They're adding onto your plate. All month long, you're collecting a bigger and bigger plate, right? Some months I start, I go, okay, well, this month I'm going to do these five new things. And the end of that month I.
Realize, you know what?
I'm not going to be able to maintain five. I'm going to drop two of them. I'll stick with three. But I can't do all five. That's a drop list without a drop list. I have no idea how you can keep adding new things. Make sense? Some of the biggest breakthroughs in our life is when we just stop doing, doing the things that we know aren't right for us. Next up, big important one, the Friday friend status call. Everything that we know from goal setting comes back to sociology. If you don't have someone you're doing something with actively, if you don't have an accountability partner, you don't have a coach, you don't have a friend you go to lunch with, or someone you talk it through, then the odds of that happening for you are so low.
Because.
Because you know what, we're social beings. We need processing time with other people. And the more processing time we have, usually the more progress we get, right? It's why therapy is so powerful in unlocking people or coaching so powerful and unlocking people. It's like, oh, I'm processing. Oh, I'm getting distinction, I'm getting more progress. You need that Friday friend status call. If you got a big new goal or dream. All I want you to do every Friday at the end of the day, literally 5 minute, 10 minute, 15, 30 minute call, whatever it is, pick it up, call your friend and say, I did this this week, struggled with this. This worked. That went well. You now you go, how did you do? And just, you got one person in your life every week. You're talking about momentum with, I don't care if it's your mom. I prefer this as a human. So not the cat, but a human that you, every single week you talk through things with. Like, where are you? I don't care if it's the librarian, I don't care if it's your social worker, I don't care if it's your brother. I don't care who it is. It can be the stranger across the street. Don't talk to strangers if you're PG13, but everybody else have that conversation and just on a Friday go, hey, man, this is where I'm at. Because if you won't do that, I promise, if you don't socialize your learning, you will not achieve your dreams. You must socialize. What am I learning? Where am I at? How's it going? What am I struggling with? You got to ask for help, but you need a consistent basis. Big dreams require weekly check ins. Write it down. Big dreams require weekly check ins. So who's going to be your weekly check in? Accountability coach? Friend, Mentor? Who every week check in. And if you're like, well, I don't know anybody. Everybody hates me.
You know what?
Go on your Facebook page every Friday at 5 and go, this is what I learned this week. This is what I tried. What did you guys try? And all the people who make fun of you, delete them. And Everybody else say, good for you.
So easy.
Life's very simple. Next, create motivation triggers. When I walked in this door today, it's the same when I walk in the doors of my conference rooms, when I'm doing my seminars that usually my doorway. Trigger, meaning that's what a motivation trigger is. I. A trigger is something physical or tangible happens, and you attach either a statement or an action to it. Okay. Trigger is something tangible that you say or do when something else happens. So when I walk through a door, and that's every door of my life, I walk through a door, my mind almost always says, cause I've just conditioned it over and over and over doing this. I walk through a door, my mind says, I am a happy man entering this space ready to serve. I'm a happy man entering the space, ready to serve. It's been since I was, like, 20 years old one, because I always want to remind myself I'm happy. I have so much to be grateful for. So do you. So how are you reminding yourself that you're grateful, that you're happy, that you're good? And then I remind myself, I'm entering this space ready to serve. Not hoping to serve, not. Maybe one day I'll deserve to serve. I'm ready right now. Whatever. I know I believe in my ability to figure things out. I. I'm ready to serve now. I don't need permission. I don't need more money. I don't need more team. I'm ready to. Whatever I got, I'm ready.
Let's go.
I don't need new things, more things, better things, tons of things. I'm ready to serve right now. Let's go. I'm not ever waiting to provide service to the world, ever. You don't have to have the big stuff, the fancy stuff. Just go. I didn't have big, fancy cameras and lights and fancy big flip charts when I started this. It was me in a really dirty shirt with the thing, the buttons too, hung open.
Like, you know, it's like.
It was so nasty and gnarly and bad. It was awesome, and I was ready to surf. You don't have to have everything. I was watching this documentary recently on my main man, Usain Bolt, one of the greatest. Well, he is the greatest sprinter of all time, right? And you see the scene of him and he's doing sprints in a field with, like, this sort of little belt tied around his waist, tied to a chain, tied to. You know, we would call it a weight sled, but you could barely call it That a little metal sled where you put on like, you know, weights, like a 45 pound weight from like lifting. And it's like. So he would sprint with this little things. When you go to the NFL or I work with my, you know, my major teams, they usually got, they got the fancy sleds, these longer sleds that glide when you take off that release. Proportionate amount of tension along with the weight as you speed up. Like very fancy contraptions. Now this dude, the best ever is down in Jamaica in a hot field with this huge belt on with like one coach, not 12 coaches, one coach standing there next to him. He ties this thing and when he takes off, this thing is bouncing along behind him. It's like, just like, you're like. And he's the world's best. Cause he's not waiting to have everything to train. He's training. I'm not waiting to have everything to serve. I'm serving so many of my people. Well, one day when I have a following, I'll post some stuff. I'm gonna start posting stuff. One day when I'm ready, I'll put myself. No, there is no one day to be ready. You're ready now. Go. It is a mindset you must have. You're ready to go. So that's one of my triggers. Walk through a door. I'm entering the space as a happy man ready to serve. Let's go. That's just one trigger. I have all sorts of other triggers. I have different doorway triggers. When I walk in my house, I say something a little different to myself than when I walk into my office. But other triggers I have.
When a door closes in a car.
Every time a door closes in a car, I say something else to myself. When I walk into my office, I take a first action that triggers momentum for me. Like you need to have first actions or space triggers that help you stay your best. They're ultimately all geared towards one thing. How can you remind yourself to be at your best? And how do you use physical objects, time periods, situations to get yourself there? That's the question. That's your job. These are motivation triggers. Because if you're not triggering yourself, the world's doing it for you. And if the world's doing it, you know what the world's going to trigger you towards? Angst, outrage, distraction, consumption. It's not going to trigger you towards you being your best self. So if you didn't maintain your habits this year, go on my YouTube channel and type in the word, you know, type in the power of habits. And you'll see a video that will teach you how to set some more of those examples. Right? If you look in a mirror, you should have a mirror trigger. See a reflection of yourself.
See.
Say something to yourself. I know that sounds like just like positive thinking kind of stuff. And you know what it is because what's the alternative? Stupid thinking, Negative thinking, Scarcity thinking? You need to have a little bit more triggers set up to make you work. And sometimes if it's not just you, get somebody else to do it, get a coach to do it, a mentor to do it, a friend to do it. But you need to be triggered to be your best. How are you currently triggering yourself to be your best? Many of you know you've been with me for years. You know, we kind of now everybody does it, but we were the first one to do it. When the smartphone came out and the first alarm was available to be set a label. I created this training and put it out about saying, hey, use this alarm label on your phone to send yourself reminders to tell you to be awesome. Put your three words in here that pop up and remind you who to be. Use this as a trigger to be your best instead of a box of consumption. Because this can be a weapon for good or a weapon that takes you into distraction. But it's up to you. Just like the rest of life self reliance, it's up to you.
Hey guys, it's Brendan. 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 progressmode.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 progressmode.com improving your relationships so if you are in an intimate relationship, you have a partner, you have a spouse, you have someone you're dating and you're trying to improve that or set that relationship up for great success. This is the topic we're taking on today in Growth Day. One of our most requested topics because clearly we've all learned over the last year and throughout the pandemic how difficult it was to have great relationships if suddenly now you're locked in the house with somebody or you had distance. How do you create a great relationship? Is something I think we all want. I'm always sharing with you all here in Growth day that we all want greater aliveness, we all want more connection, we all want more meaningful pursuits and we want more growth. And if you're going to grow in any area that brings you more vibrancy and fulfillment and life satisfaction over the long term, it is with your relationships. Now I've got a lot of fun to do today with you because in talking about relationships I made sure not only to come back I'm going to share a couple different perspectives today. One, I'll definitely share the research. If you know my work now, it's 25 years studying personal development in depth, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, behavioral economics, the whole nine yards to understand what is it that helps people become higher performing and create greater well being and relationships. That's what I do. Right. So a lot of research I'll share with you here today, but also kind of a little bit magical. Hopefully I'll share my own personal perspectives in dating, in relationship, in marriage. Also share with you Denise's so for those who've been through Transformation Week or have ever taken some teaching and training from Denise and I, I asked her literally this morning for her list of most important practices that have kept us sane and happy for all these years. Going on 18 years and just like anyone else, ups and downs, challenges in relationships, they are not easy. And so part of that is because you have a different perspective than your partner or your spouse. I also know with the worldwide community, some of you all aren't in a relationship right now, you just ended one and you're trying to debrief and learn and think of okay, what's it going to be like next time? Or you're dating somebody right now and you're trying to see if you want to deepen that relationship or maybe they're not the person some of you are like, dude, I don't want a relationship right now, but I'd sure like to know this stuff to help my friends. So I'm always telling what to do over coffee. So wherever you're at, I'm going to make some assumptions sake, I'm going to use the terms partner or spouse a lot today I'll kind of default to partner because maybe that partner someone you're dating and you're deep in that relationship, you're just starting or it might be a spouse that you're with and maybe you like them or you're trying to improve it. Wherever you're at, it's okay. I've had ups and downs in my relationships my whole life. I know it is not an easy thing. I'm not here to preach to you. I'm here to say this is such an important area of your life. Get this better and everything gets better, right? You know that when your partner, your spouse, your significant other, when they are happy and fulfilled and you are happy and fulfilled, there's a greater flow and magic of energy and love between you. And so it's always about, okay, let me own my stuff and let me help this person in my relationship. Let me support them and cheer them on too. And so I'm going to share two different perspectives. I'm going to start with one that is kind of the double sided coin that makes relationships so hard and that is simple rules that you already know, right? And I hope today a lot of what I share is common sense. But we all know it's not always common practice and that's why so many relationships fall apart. So simple, one, first double sided coin. We all know these two rules, right? One is put the relationship first, right? We all heard that before. And this is Denise's. I'm going to combine two of hers together right here. One is put the relationship first. But the flip side of that coin is you must grow and be independent and be striving to be your best in and outside of the relationship. Otherwise, if you aren't growing, the relationship becomes stagnant. And so it's interesting, that's that interdependence, independence thing that makes all these relationships so dang hard, right? Is because, yes, you want to pour yourself into your partner and your spouse and support them and cheer them on and make decisions just for the relationship. And we all have the individual spirit that wants to manifest and reach our own full potential. And how do we do those two things in union and alignment. We talk a lot about that today. Our first teaching today is that simple understanding. There are two sides of a coin in a relationship. There is relationship first and there is grow and reach your potential independently as well. That interdependence, independence, you must recognize the push and the pull of that and be attentive to that at all times to have a great relationship. I would argue that almost 90% of conflicts in relationships are actually not about who cleaned the kitchen. It's not about the finances or this kid didn't do that in the household. No, no. What it usually tends to be is a push and a pull between interdependence and independence and the couples not understanding that duality and not mitigating for that duality. And so one person's like, relationship first. We should do everything together. We should be on the same page. It should be perfect together. And relationship first also, though, means, hey, when you're making decisions about your life, make it please. In the context that we have chosen to live life together. Who's ever had a relationship where the person was completely oblivious to this idea of make the relationship first. Right. It was probably miserable for you. It was like, this person doesn't prioritize us. And I believe that one thing has really helped us, me and Denise in our relationship is honestly, she defaults to that. She is so good. And bringing me back that too, that it's about us. We plan together. We have to have the journey together. Don't just go do these things. Think about how does that impact us, our life, our family? And she's really just good at that. And I believe that's what has taught me to be a better man. I hope in the relationship. We've gotten more and more years into our relationship together. I think that that is really powerful. How do you put your relationship first? You always make decisions within the context of realizing you're in a relationship together. Like, obvious, right? And it doesn't mean you can't have independent decisions. It means those decisions still take place in understanding the effects and the consequences of your actions within the relationship. When we forget there's consequences of our actions within a relationship, the relationship inevitably becomes something separate than us. And when this relationship is separate than us, they feel a separatedness. And the more your partner feels a separateness in the relationship, the more that relationship struggles. This is why you hear people say all the way, make decisions together, plan together, know what you're both working on together. That's the idea of relationship first. It's all right. I have a life partner. That means I do life with my partner. So when I plan things in my life, I think about my partner. And that simple reminder, I know not all of you need, but you've been in relationships where that was not true. And if you have been, you know what I'm talking about. In that separateness, you don't feel like you really know the person or you feel like they don't value your opinion. You feel like they.
Are living their.
Own life and they don't care about you or the effect on your family. And so it's so important for, for us to always remember. All right. When I think about relationships, I always think about the coin. I call it the coin. Interdependence, independence, relationship first.
Okay, got it.
And the opposite side, which so many people naturally gravitate towards and know. Especially if you're in a growth day community like this, which is you must continue improving yourself and fulfilling yourself if that relationship is going to come into a true, deep, meaningful, fulfilling relationship. If you're stagnant, don't get mad that the relationship is stagnant. If your partner is stagnant, meaning they're not growing, they're not stretching themselves, they're not trying to learn about their mindset or their effect of energy on other people or to become more productive towards meaningful pursuits that matter to them. Well, then what happens? It's like you're growing and you're extending, but they are not. Who's ever been there? That's super hard. Now the challenge is you can't. If relationship first is one side of that coin and growing is the other, and you happen to be the person on that coin, you're growing and you don't sense that they are because relationships are first. You also cannot be bitter towards them, hate them, be jaded about it, because there's probably been points in your life where you weren't growing at your potential either. And what is the thing between, like, what is the material? I call it between the coin, interdependence and independence. What's the material? Right. If you have a penny, you know that the material is copper, right? In between.
Right.
What is, what is the in between? Here's my philosophy. The in between. The stuff of the coin is called grace. Grace. If two people are going to come together and it's going to work out, there's got to be grace between them. Grace when you're growing and they're not. Grace when they're growing and you're not. Grace when they're struggling and you're doing great. Grace when you fall a little bit away from each other. And without that, it's really hard to keep that coin unified and valuable, if you will. And so I want to begin today with a simple idea. I know after teaching about relationships, literally for 15 years, and, and I've been blessed to coach some of the highest level couples in the business world and some of the highest level Olympic couples. I mean, I've worked with couples in every possible scenario that you can imagine, from new parents to people who have chosen not to have children to people who are just trying to finally create depth and meaningfulness in a new relationship. I can share with you 15 years of coaching. You have to imagine every conversation or every other conversation brings up a relationship that somebody is in. And what I have seen over and over and over again when either teaching or coaching on relationships is your or the listener or the student's immediate impulse to judge the other person. So as I'm teaching today, it's very easy.
Ugh.
My husband, he's like this. My wife, she's like that. And you're immediate, like, soon as I start teaching about something, you immediately cast the other person as the wrongdoer. And if we're going to explore relationships today, no, the material in between interdependence and independence is not wrongdoer, it's grace. If you want the relationship to improve, if you want the relationship to deepen, if you want that thing to feel better, no bitterness here, no judgment here. I always say judge less, feel better. Okay, let's not judge our partners or spouses here. Let's educate, let's learn, let's explore how we think you can't control them. But if your partner or spouse isn't here with you right now, don't make this a judge session on them. Even if you're in turmoil, even if they feel separate, even if you're fighting, I want you instead to say, let me explore my relationships with openness and grace. Let me be accountable for my stuff, think through my stuff, and not make this a session of they're bad and they're the wrongdoer. Because I promise you, as soon as you make your partner or spouse the wrongdoer, life gets hard, that relationship struggles.
And so I want to start with.
Laying this idea onto you of the coin. Interdependence, independence, relationship first grow so you don't stagnate. And as you have that difficult duality sometimes in between, what makes a relationship work is grace. That means understanding, compassion, forgiveness, openness to the other and their life amid your relationship. I hope that helps. That's the first idea, the coin. The coin, man, the coin. Second big idea. And this is what you know, I'll come into this perspective of the first thing I would say to someone once they get that, which you always keep front of mind you in a relationship, you are co creating the future together. When relationship gets difficult, what happens is we are judging the past or we are feeling upset about the current thing. And what happens is sometimes in relationships, they took the eye off the Ball that, oh, we're building a life together. We are co creating a future in which we are both happy, fulfilled, cared for, loved, excited. It won't be perfect, but it will be better than today. That is what we are doing. We are building our ideal future today, even when it sucked today, because the kids did this all over the house, this finance situation over here. And I am having this trouble, and she doesn't understand or he doesn't understand, and you're in that place where they don't get it. Oh, my God.
Okay.
This is a time to reorient and like, all right, I'm not here to be angry about the past. I'm not here to be, you know, upset about right now. It's like, oh, we're on a project together, building the future. You know, so funny how people sometimes have some complete behavior that is different at work than at home. And obviously these are two different things. But so many people, if they're at work and they're working on a project, they have to deliver something amazing to a client, right?
They collaborate.
If there's a problem, they solve it. They move on. And it's kind of like, solve, move on, solve, move on. Because what are we trying to do? We're trying to deliver this thing. You're trying to deliver a future for you and your family together. You're trying to co create something that is better and more beautiful than you could even imagine now. You know, I've been very lucky to do hospice work in my life and be with people and their families at the end of their lives. And you and I both know that in those moments towards the end, relationships really matter. And I've been with couples in those last days and moments. And the beauty of a couple that has built a good life together in those last moments, it's incomparable. The solace, the peace, the reverence for life that happens when a couple built a good life together and they get to be together or support each other in their last weeks or months or years of life. It's really an incredible sight to behold. It's very humbling. It's very humbling. It was always a reminder to me, they built a good life. So at the end, they're handling this well. They feel fulfilled and grateful to have had each other. It's a beautiful. It's really. If you haven't been with people towards the end, it's super hard to explain because it's so magical. It's also so rare because very few people remember, oh, we're Building this life together. You know, I've officiated some weddings with some friends, and oh my gosh, I've been to so many weddings I can't even count. And I always try to think about the couple in the future. What are they going to be like? What do they desire? What's the win for them on either side of that coin? What does it look like in the future? Maybe today, if you've been struggling in a relationship or you came out of one and things just weren't good, maybe today is that day.
You go into your journal and growth.
Day, and you actually spend 20 minutes, 30 minutes an hour writing about what would be that future relationship that you want or you're willing to create with your partner, your spouse, or somebody new in the future. What does that look like? Because you're co creating the future together. That's so powerful. I think of some of my favorite times in my relationship with Denise, and it would be times when we had separate careers, but we were on the same page because we're gonna go buy this dream house and she's gonna design it and I'm gonna do these parts and we're gonna take on this project together to move somewhere or to start this thing or to open this business or to try this new adventure. And it's like this future, maybe you.
Have that in your own life, in.
Your spouse, your partner. When you go on vacation and you plan the vacation a little bit together, and you both kind of get excited about it together, because having a compelling future about your relationship, that opens the heart when you see nothing but a dead end and an awful day again tomorrow and the next day and the month after that. You and I both know how bad that feels. And so we must, no matter how difficult it is, reorient ourselves to an idyllic future together and do the hard work to get there. It's not just about co creating the future, though. My related point here is we're co creating the future, and we are co creating energy together. One of my favorite questions in mediation. So mediation usually means in my world, that there's two partners or two parties and they're fighting and they can't resolve their stuff. So I'm brought in to help them work through stuff, right? And I spent a lot of my college years and grad school years doing this. And so I would see all these examples of where people were really. They thought they were fighting about content, but the really issue was it was the process and the energy that they were fighting about. It wasn't about the kids or the finances or that thing she did or he did. It was really about the energy they were feeling then. So I would always love to ask them. Literally my first couple questions to a couple is tell me about the energy you two create together.
When you are.
Alone, what is the energy of the house when you are on a trip? What's the energy between you when you're out with friends? What's the energy? And inevitably, if the relationship. Listen to this so closely. If the relationship is in a tough place, one person is blaming the other for that energy not realizing. In relationships, energy is co created.