Mashup: A Powerful Leadership Principle You Need to Master

The active participation and enrollment of conversation is the difference maker. And your job as a leader, listen to this, Is to hold that space, to set the standard, the expectation, the structure for that space for other people to participate. My biggest belief, my biggest teaching in all of leadership, and it's five simple words. People support what they create. People support what they create. This is the defining leadership principle of my life. Every time I'm working with a leader and they're frustrated with the co worker, they can't get the team to be motivated and energized. The downline isn't performing, the upline isn't listening. We got this problem where, where you can't mobilize a movement, or you started a political action committee and it didn't stick, or you started your nonprofit and no one contributed. It always comes down to a fundamental misperception about this topic of leadership. Leadership's fundamental principle is that people support what they create. If you want people to follow you, they must create with you. They must feel enabled, trusted, empowered, autonomous, care, capable, rewarded for participating in the journey in what we'll call the vision today, right? If they don't have any hand in shaping it, and if they have no reward, autonomy or trust in participating in it, they got no skin in the game. They got no reason to be enthusiastic, excited, hardworking, excellent. So what happens? Well, as you see around the world, it's like we have these command and control old models from, you know, the past, these dictatorial ways of leading where it was like, do this, do this, do this, you know, bury like, you know, early 1800s stuff that should have been done by the 1950s, but people are still learning. And so you have this situation where.

A lot of people still think of.

Like, oh, I have positional leadership, I'm the boss, or I'm this leader. Everyone needs to only do these things and it becomes a one way street or it becomes something where the leader doesn't have the connection with everybody else because no one has a part in it. They can't play yet, they don't believe in it yet.

Even if they like you, even if.

They think you're an okay person, even.

If you had great successes in the.

Past, if you don't get them collaborating to create where we're going, how we're going there, and how we'll be together, they're not interested. They'll pretend, they'll take the paycheck, but they'll be gone in six months. Or when the tough times hit, or the stock price goes down, they're bailing man, because they're thinking, you know what? I'm not part of this, I'm not part of this.

I'm telling you.

We live in a participative global culture now where people want a voice. And so much of leadership is understanding where to open conversations, to allow diverse voices to come in, have a perspective on something. And even if you or the leaders maintain that decision making authority, which we'll talk about later, the active participation and enrollment of conversation is the difference maker. And your job as a leader, listen to this, Is to hold that space, to set the standard, the expectation, the structure for that space for other people to participate. Now I know some of the leaders out there like, yeah, but that's super hard, the timing of that and when. And some people have a voice, but they don't know what the hell they're talking about. They're not an expert, Brandon. Why would I listen to them? And oh my gosh, does this mean more meetings for me? Don't worry, this isn't about you doing more meetings. Just to listen casually. We'll get to those practices later. The principle I want you to write down. People support what they create. The five most important words in all of leadership. People support what they create. If you get that principle, we can change the world. When you don't get that principle, you don't get the followers. Now with that I want to introduce a concept, you know, that I've literally been teaching for 21 years now. I don't like the word followers. I don't like the word leaders versus or the position leaders versus versus followers. If you study with me before, I really believe you have leaders and instead of followers you have collaborators. It's just a different way of defining things. Unfortunately, in our world, because of popularity and ego, when someone follows you on the Internet, it all became about a one way street. And so now we've ingrained in people's human behavior this idea that I broadcast my world and you should follow it. That's come into organizations.

I tell you what to do and.

You should follow it versus hey, we're co creating this organization together. We're co creating this team. You're going to have some people on your team who are super participative and other people, they were never given autonomy or trust or a voice and they're super smart. But you're not getting enough from them.

They just need to be enrolled to.

Participate in a different way than the person who's always had the benefit of being in communities where they were Heard.

We live in a world right now.

Where so many people have never actually been heard, then we expect them to perform as high performers in their organizational settings. It's like, oh, you have to be aware of these things. Some members of your team and some members of your family haven't been heard, haven't felt heard, haven't been allowed space for it. And I don't just mean listen to, I mean being allowed space to make decisions together about what's important. Take a look at the most critical members of your team. Maybe this is your executive team or the most important people in your life, your family. And look at each of them individually through this lens. It's like, oh, has this person been co creating the experience with me? Have they been active in that or passive in that? And not as a judgment to them like a one, they're bad. It's that, oh, if they are a one, I as a leader need to create a process, a rhythm, a meeting, an opportunity for this person to get some decision making authority, to establish some trust, if anything to be heard more in meetings. Maybe this person is never called on.

They never get the opportunity.

And you're going to like, oh, I'm going to be aware this person has not been participating and I need that participation from them if we're going to have long term success and we need to participate together. So let me have that. So I'm always thinking about that. And when I work with leaders and I coach them and high performance, it's always about, okay, let's work through your team, let's walk through this principle and let's talk about each of these critical team members and do they feel empowered to be part of the process because people support what they create is ultimately people being part of the process. Because guess what, when they're part of the process, they've helped come up with decisions. They're working towards something they had a hand in, they fight for it, they stay focused on it, they have ego and decision making in that process and they want to protect it. When someone has an idea, you know what they want to do, they want to own that, they want to protect that, they want to perpetuate that, they want to ensure that that idea lives. When people are allowed to participate, better ideas come up, people have more buy in, People stay committed over the long term, humans become more resilient themselves. It's important, it's so important. So please don't take an active role in this day. Score yourself, be honest and think about this and how you can amplify this.

If all you did is understand this.

Principle, and you practice this principle at the deepest levels, you would so far surpass almost everybody you're working with.

I promise.

Ambition. Ambition. But too many of us back away from it because it got made bad, right? I was scared to have ambition. Because you know what? If you have ambition too big for your britches, people start insulting you. Who do you think you are? Oh, you think you can do that? You don't even have any skill at that. You think you can do that? You haven't even had their training. You don't have the degree, you don't have the experience, you don't have the background, you don't have the social following, you don't have the environment, you don't have the money, you don't have the bank account, you don't have the credit you don't have. And people start puking on you when you share your big dream with them. You're like, hey, look, no, listen, I'm trying to go up here. This is where I wanna be, right here. I got this dream, it's huge. I got this ambition, this dream, this hunger for more. And immediately people seek to see whether or not you are qualified. And they judge you based on your past of qualification versus your present of.

How you show up.

I don't judge anybody on their past. Actually, let me see how you show up right now. Cause everybody in this room, how many of you all screwed up a bunch in your life? I mean, oh man, I'm such a screw up. It's so great. We're all screw ups in some way or another. But how are you showing up now is the question. How hard are you willing to work now? What's the discipline you're willing to put in now? Yes, gain that knowledge, skill and ability. But your ambition, everything I do, everything.

You see me do at a public.

Level, I had the ambition for a mission, but I didn't have the skills to do any of this. Everyone thought I was crazy. I'm gonna leave a safe job out of grad school. I got a safe corporate job. I would say a safe corporate job, but it was a good job and I liked it and it was a good job and it had a clear path to rising and I just didn't. I had something else I wanted to do. So I quit that job and everyone else said I was crazy. I wanted to go write books. I had never written books before. I didn't know how to do that. And then I decided my first major book was Gonna be a work of fiction. A book called Life's Golden Ticket. And I'd never written a parable before, but I remember reading the Alchemist and being so inspired by Paulo Coelho's Iacchamus.

You all read that book.

I hope you all read that. It's now the seventh most read book in the history of the world. It's unbelievable, right?

So I.

And the longest running book on the New York Times in history is now the Alchemist. And I remember reading that book and I thought I related with the storytelling in it. And I wanted to write Life, School and Ticket, but not tell my story, my accident, but rather tell the story of a character going through change. And. And I got this blessed meeting with a big famous author in San Francisco. And I was so excited. I mean. Cause I'd been wanting to write. So I went and had this big meeting with this big fancy author. I wore a suit and I got all dressed up and I was so nervous. And I sat and I talked with this person. And he's hearing me describe very passionately why I wanna write this book and what my life's message is about second chances. Cause life's golden ticket is really a story about second chances. And so I wanna tell a story about second chances. And I was so excited. And I'm telling him. He goes, so wait, this is your life's message?

I go, yeah.

And he says, you're really passionate.

I go, yeah.

And he goes, but you've never written fiction.

I go, no.

And he goes, brendan, I'll never forget it. He goes, brendan, do not risk your life's message on your freshman effort at fiction. Fiction's hard. I admire that you want to write this book, and that's your dream and that's your ambition and that's your goal, but you don't know how to do that. Ambition's really hard. People go to writers conferences for their lives. They get creative writing degrees. Like he said. Everyone in this building, I mean, we spent decades trying to figure out how to do fiction. And you're just gonna come and write this fiction book? I don't think that's a good idea. I think you need to write a nonfiction book. And what happens is, we have this big aspiration, but because we don't know the how, sometimes someone tells us you don't know the how. So what do you do if you.

Don'T know the how?

Yeah, you minimize it. You drop it back down to here, maybe. You drop it back down to here.

Maybe it's like here.

It started up there, but you didn't know the how and you let other people drop that down. So I listened to the guy. I said, okay, I guess you're right.

It's true.

It sounds logical to me. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, so maybe I shouldn't risk my life's effort. So then I spent two and a half years struggling in San Francisco trying to write Life's golden ticket as a nonfiction book.

And it just.

It was like pulling teeth. I couldn't get it. You know, it wasn't working. And then it was so frustrating. And I was like, I need to figure this out. Because it was the time I was about to leave my job and everything, and I was putting everything at risk. I said, okay. The timing all turned out. Went back to my childhood home where I grew up. Tiny little home, tiny little bedroom, writing on my mom's sewing room table at the time to complete the book. And in 18 days, I said, you know what? I gotta stop trying to write the book they told me to write and write this book that I feel like I should write. And I started all over from scratch. Complete scratch.

18 days.

All I did, I got up, my mom made an amazing big breakfast. I'd eat a big old breakfast, and I'd write and I'd write and I'd write. My dad would come home from work, we'd go play racquetball. I'd come home, I'd write and I'd write and write until it was so dark and my eyes hurt, it was so late. And I'd get up from my desk and I'd walk around my childhood neighborhood where I grew up and my school, my elementary school, and the playgrounds we'd play in. And then I'd go back, go to bed. I'd get up, and I'd do the same thing for 18 days. That's it. 18 days. And at the end of the 18 days, life's golden ticket was done. Submitted it to thank you.

Thank you.

It was 18 magical days. If you've ever read the book, there's a huge surprise at the end. I didn't even know that was coming. I did not see that coming. I mean, sure. So however shocked you felt, imagine me, I was writing the book. I was just typing along, watching. I'm like, oh, damn.

I remember I finished.

I'm watching the movie.

I finished the book.

I'm like, whoa, can that even happen? And I literally got up, and I was walking around the little desk, and I'm like.

That character.

Did I do this? I gotta. And I had to go for a walk just to think about if the book could even end. Cause I didn't know the book was about to end.

It just ended with that scene.

And I was like, oh, my gosh. So it was a huge surprise to me. And I knew it was magic. I knew it was magic. We put it out there. 21 publishers turned it down. 21. My agent still jokes to this day. He only told me about 19 of them. Turning it down because he didn't think I could take the other few more that came in. Turned it down, turn it down, turn it down. Finally, boom. HarperCollins gets it. An editor who happened to edit and publish another book called the Alchemist, fell in love with life's golden ticket and gave it a shot. We put it out there and I got this dream to be this big author. I'm going to go. We launched Life, School and Ticket. I have no idea, none, what I'm doing. Put the book out there. We get a bunch of quick early hits. Because I had all these promotional partners in these non profits we were donating money to who supported the book. Got out there. Boom. Charts on Amazon.

Really great. Next week.

No one's buying it.

Totally. I mean, this ambition just keeps getting stomped down. No one likes your book. Big author says it's stupid. They're all turning it down and it doesn't sell. Think about what that can do to your psychology. Think about me now saying I'm a writer after the book doesn't do well, after everyone turns it down, after they say, don't do it. Think about where that could have directed me. But your ambition is your own. And your ambition has to be free from all of that negativity. If that's a real ambition, you gotta own that ambition psychologically. I was a writer. I said I was a writer. I said I was a writer. On days I didn't write, I said I was a writer. On the days they all turned me down, I said I was a writer. When that guy who was a big name fancy writer who'd been on all the big shows, including Oprah, told me I was kind of crazy and I walked out of his office all dejected. I was still a writer. Sometimes what really gives us the greatest amount of motivation is when we got the guts to actually allow ourselves to tie some of our identity to what we're doing. And we're told not to do that because it can bring discouragement and heartache. But the counterintuitive things is high performers to a t. The top 15% who I interviewed, they said, oh, no, they were comfortable tying up their identity in what they were doing.

They were comfortable.

It didn't mean it always turned out great. It didn't mean they always felt great. But they were comfortable owning it, right? They were comfortable owning what they were doing. They owned that. And because they owned it, the motivation was there. Cause you know when the motivation isn't there is when your ambitions are half ass. When you kind of want it, you kind of don't. And that's why you kind of work for it sometimes. And sometimes you kind of don't. Cause psychologically, you haven't allowed yourself to own the ambition. To feel it inside and say, that's part of me. I'm gonna make that happen come hell or high water. I didn't care. The first book, I said, name me the next book, Nick. The next book made. The next book didn't matter to me. I was gonna keep on that ambition. Cause it was important to me. You've got ambitions important to you and your family and the people you're serving. And it doesn't matter what I say or the person to your left or right says, if you own that ambition, you pursue it. And you pursue it with full heart.

And when you pursue it with more.

Heart, that ambition that keeps sparking over and over and over, you don't have to rev yourself up because it is you.

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 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 anytime I talk about bad habits with people, they already know what theirs are. Maybe your bad habit is you overspend or you overeat or you're impatient with people or you're late for something or you always let this thing down or that thing fall apart or whatever was going on. We all got bad habits. And the good news is you don't have to feel bad about them anymore. Because today we're going to explain why they happen, and we're explaining where they happen, and we're going to explain one simple thing to overcome those bad habits.

So we got a lot to cover here.

My attempt today is I'm going to boil them all down into four categories. So I'd love you just to start by brainstorming any bad habits you have, and let's see if we can pinpoint where they are and why they're happening. A bad habit, by definition, is something that's negative and enduring a habit, right? You keep doing it and it's almost like automatically, like you're not even thinking about it. That's a habit. You've done it so many times. It just. It's automatic. It's a response. It's easy. You just fall right into that thing. So we've got to interrupt that bad habit, put something more positive and something more enduring in its place. Because I'm sure by now you know how habits are formed, right? Something happens, we react to it with a routine, and we feel like we're paid off by it. There's a payoff, there's a benefit. And after a period of time, we just do something over and over and over and over again, and it becomes easy or natural. That is a habit. But here's my discovery about bad habits. There's really four types or four categories of bad habits. And once we learn to recognize them, awareness is always that first step. So the first step is let's recognize where our bad habits are and where they're coming from. I bet if you look at all your list of bad habits that they all fall into these four categories. The first bad habit is bad habits just caused by our desire to protect ourselves, right? A desire to protect ourselves. You know, I don't want to take on that. That new project. And so I have this bad habit of procrastinating because I'm protecting myself. I feel like if I do it, I'm going to lose face, I'm going to fail. Something negative will happen. So I've created this little payoff called procrastination. That procrastination, it is protecting me from falling on my face, from looking dumb, right? There's always a payoff to every bad habit. And one of them is that payoff of protection. I don't have to put myself out there. That's the payoff. I don't have to get hurt. That's the payoff. So we create all these Habits of whether it's a habit of perfectionism where we never actually release anything in the world so we don't have to be judged, because being judged, we don't want that. So we protect ourselves. So we think, how can I protect myself? And these bad habits ensue. I want to protect myself. Bad habit. Don't put anything out there. Bad habit. Not complete the work and release it, because they might judge me. But there's a specific thing that's happening here. We're looking to protect ourselves. So are there any habits in your life that you've developed that's a bad habit to protect yourself? Let me give you an example. One bad habit a lot of people have is. Is they don't speak up for themselves. It's just automatic. They have an idea in a meeting, they don't say anything. Someone says something wrong or abusive or mean or negative, they don't say anything because it's easier. That habit of not speaking up for ourselves feels like it's protecting us. But we call it a bad habit because over time, it steals away the joy and charge of life. So is that a category you have going on? Are there any bad habits that you identify? Like, wow, I keep running that same routine to protect myself. The second big one that we have, big habit is to pacify our negative feelings. To pacify.

Right.

Categories of pacification. To pacify ourselves. You know, when we feel stress, overwhelm, or even uncertainty of what to do. I know I'm supposed to be doing something, but I don't know what. So I'm going to pacify myself. Just like if a child is screaming, you give it that pacifier so that it soothes them. Well, so we soothe ourselves with food. We soothe ourselves with social media. We soothe ourselves with distractions. We soothe ourselves with, you know, meaningless conversations or relationships. We are pacifying ourselves because inside we're screaming to do something, but we lack the courage. Or inside we're screaming to change, but we don't really know what to do. So in the meantime, until we either figure out what to do or develop the strength of what to do, we pacify ourselves with all these bad habits. Well, I don't know what to do, or I feel uncertain, so I'm going to eat. I don't know what to do, or I feel uncertain. So let me, you know, I'll just check in. I'm going to look at the newspapers here.

I'm going to look at my phone.

Or we feel uncertain or insecure, and so we pacify ourselves. By seeking validation from other people. Could you tell me how great I am? And we develop all these bad habits of doing things that compromise ourselves just so we can get some validation from some people because we feel insecure. It's important to recognize those bad habits that are really just pacifying a deeper need that says, do something, try something, go. It's so important. The third big category of bad habits comes under placating. Placating that means we have a bad habit of pleasing other people so that we can cause them less stress, less overwhelm, or get less emotional reaction from them. Like a lot of people, they're like they would call themselves. They say, you know, Brendan, I'm kind of a doormat.

I said, what do you mean you're a doormat?

Well, you know, I just. I don't want to cause a ruckus. And I just let people run over me all the time. You know, people are always stepping all over me. And it's because they have a bad habit of not fighting for what they really want, not communicating clearly their expectations, not setting standards. Instead, they don't want to upset their husband, so they don't say anything. It's not about protection, it's about placating him. Sometimes it's about placating the people around you to make them feel good, even though it's coming at the cost of your life. That's often a big bad habit, isn't it? That's why we get overwhelmed in the first place, is because we're doing everything for everybody else, to make everybody else feel happy and charmed and good at the cost of our own sanity, our own well being, our own health. And the last big category, over and over and over of bad habits is.

Proving ourselves bad habits. If you're always arguing, arguing, you just.

Someone says something and you just scream.

At them, you get anger because you.

Have to prove yourself.

It's your ego saying, hey, hey, validate me. Hey, pay attention. Someone cuts you off on the road.

You flip them off.

You floor it.

You cut in front of them.

You go, ha, ha, ha, look at me, jerk. You ought to prove that you're important. You want to prove that you should be taken seriously. You want to prove that you're somebody who doesn't deserve to be cut off.

And you fight and you fight and you fight.

And so if you can at least begin to identify some of these, maybe just me talking with you here, maybe that helped you identify some habits. And you're like, oh, I'm doing that. So if all we did is help you generate some more understanding or awareness or categorization of your bad habits. We're starting on the right foot. I've found over and over in my life a lot of people don't know what their bad habits are, and yet they're unhappy. So if you're trying to figure out why you're unhappy, start with what routines are you continually doing that are negative? And stick around, because in there is a way to get some more happiness back. It's right there. And all we have to do is make sure first we're aware of them, and then once we're aware of them, we decide we're going to break them. We're going to find a payoff that's above those payoffs. And it's a very simple thing to do. I'm going to ask you to do one thing, and it's so easy. Whatever your bad habit is, all I want you to do is rehearse overcoming that bad habit. Rehearse it, because see, what we think is that one day we're just going to break our bad habits and it's going to be instantaneous and easy. The thing is, we have to practice overcoming a bad habit to be able to do it in real life. So here's what I mean. What I'd love you to do if your bad habit is you just pacify yourself with food when you're uncomfortable or unsure. What I'd love you to do is not do what everyone else says. Get rid of all that food. Because all that food.

And you know, if there's food around.

You, you're just going to be fat, right? It's like, well, it's not the food. It's why you're turning to the food.

So let's.

Not try and solve the problem. Leave the food and let's practice not going to the food. Let's instead rehearse. Okay, how do I deal with this emotion instead of going to the food? What's another way I can have the payoff of dealing with the emotion without that thing? That's the bad habit. The food, as an example. Now, what I want you to do is don't wait until next time you're angry or hurt or upset to go to the food. Instead, stand there looking at the food, say, okay, when was the last time I was really angry, upset, emotional, unsure, insecure, and I went to that bag of potato chips. When was that? Okay, let me remember that. What was that like? Now let me rehearse not going to the food. What else Could I do. What routine or behavior could I do instead of going to the food? Okay, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna open up my journal right next to that dang bag of chips. I'm gonna open up that journal. I'm gonna look at the chips. I'm gonna open the journal, not the chips. Open journal, not chips. Open journal, not chips.

Open journal, not chips.

And I'm gonna write down, why am I upset? If my highest self was in this situation right now, what would he or she do? Let me ask you that question again. If my highest self was in this situation right now, what would he or she do? And I want you to literally write that out. So what happens with habits is there's a cue. Something negative happens. Our response or our routine is also negative, but it feels like it's paying us off, and then we feel horrible for ourselves. So that middle thing, here's what you do. The cue still happens. The cues, my friends, are always going to happen. They're always. If stress or drama from another person drives you in a bad habit, I'm going to tell you there's always going to be stress and drama from other people. If feeling insecure or unsure always drives that bad habit, guess what? There's always going to be times in your life you're going to feel insecure and unsure. The cues, my friend, are not going to change. They're always going to be there. So your job is, instead of running that routine of that bad habit, is identify what you're trying to do. Am I trying to protect myself right now? Am I trying to pacify myself? Am I trying to placate her? Am I trying to prove myself? And instead, just ask a simple question. What would my highest self do in the situation? You're not going to win every time. You're just not. Sometimes you're going to have the intention to do the new positive thing, but you do the old negative thing. And I'm here to tell you that's okay.

That's life.

Our job is not to win every battle. Our job is to win the war. It's to win more battles against those bad behaviors by putting in new things. And you know what's funny? As soon as you part in those new things, guess what? They give you a payoff when you act as your highest self would in that situation versus going to your protectionist.

Self or your pacifying self or your.

Placating self, or that part of you that just feels like you got to prove yourself. You go to a Higher realm. Your brain gets the payoff. Your brain says, good job, Good job. Good job. Good job. And the more good habits you run, the more your brain says, good job, man. Good job, man. And now you have more strength. You have more certainty in yourself. You don't have to lean like a crutch on those bad behaviors to give you some sort of weak payoff. Instead, your brain goes, hey, you know what? Last time we fought this and we won. That felt pretty good. And you start to get momentum establishing new good positive habits simply because you said bad cue. What good would my highest self do? You try that a few times and you start getting momentum to changing your life.

How do you motivate other people? I am asked this all the time. Most you guys know I wrote the book the motivation manifesto, but that was about how do you motivate you? Like, how do you motivate yourself?

But I'm always asked by other people.

Well, I got a team or I got a teenager or I got my done of a husband or wife who aren't excited and positive and optimistic. And Brendan, they're not into personal development. They got no motivation to do their job. They got no motivation to live their best life. How do I change them? So first, let me begin with this. Your job is not to change them.

Your job is not to fix everybody.

Else'S problems in life. Your job is not to handle everyone else's train wrecks in their lives either. And I just say that with all due respect because often we get so frustrated with people because we feel like we should be able to change them. But often what I tell people is.

Be careful with that.

You know, when I started my career as a writer and a personal development trainer and coach, you know what, 16 years ago, I remember I was so, like, motivated and driven and I wanted to help my family and all my friends. I wanted everybody. I wanted to, you know, not fix everybody, but just inspire everybody to be their best. But you can't inspire everybody to be your best. Some people are into personal development. Some people are into motivation. Some people are in achievement, and some people aren't. And what I tell people often, and I'll give you some strategies you can use to actually motivate people.

But I also want to give you.

Permission right now to understand that you don't have to fix everybody. And not everybody has to be as ambitious, as driven, as optimistic, as into personal development and professional growth as you are. In other words, it's okay that other people have different ambitions for their life. I think that's critical to understand. I'm so frustrated. I'm like, why don't you want to be a millionaire? Or why don't you want to be happy all the time? And some people, that's just not their mode, man. I just want to give you permission to understand you don't have to change everybody. You know, I always, I get so frustrated. When I got in personal development, I thought, why don't you want to become great? Why don't you want to become a millionaire? Why don't you want to be happy and joyous? Why don't you want to lead and contribute and serve? And some people are like, man, that's not my thing.

And I was like, how can that.

Not be their thing? But listen, just as much as you so desperately desire for other people to let you be you to for other people to let you do your own thing and take your journey the way that you want to take it and the way that you need to, you also must allow that of others.

You know, you're a leader and you've.

Got team and you need them to perform based on how you're compensated. Or you've got a teenager and you need that teenager to turn on or they're going to fail out of school. And I know it's important to put in the work. So I'm going to give you four ideas for how to motivate people. But right off the bat, I am letting you off the hook too. You are not responsible for other people's energy. You are not responsible for their ambition. You are not responsible for them changing. Let life be their guide. Let life show them what's up. Let them discover their own path just as much as you've discovered your path. But I also know that if you're in my community, and we just call my community hpx, right, the high performance experience, we all want to experience that next level of life that's more vibrant and connected and excellence driven, right? And if you're in this community of hpx, you're like, brendan, no, let me shape these humans. So let me give you some ideas for that. First rule of thumb in motivating other people. Always know this phrase. I often teach this as the five most important words in all of leadership. And that is people support what they create. People support what they create. What this means is if you want to motivate someone to do something, they must be actively involved in shaping and creating the vision or the idea or the strategy or the planning for the thing. You can't just walk into a team.

And say, hey, everybody, do this. Be motivated.

They're like, what? Wait, what is this? What is this new idea? If they're not involved, then they're, like, often critical. And guess what people do when they're critical? Nothing. Guess what people look like when they're critical, unmotivated. And what's happening is sometimes they're just full of doubt or uncertainty or they don't get it because they didn't get to participate. If you want people to be motivated, you must invite them to participate. With no participation, no motivation. Right. It's just like when you come to them with an idea, they're kind of, like, resistant. Sometimes they're like, wait, wait, what's this all about, man? But if you ask them a bunch of questions and they come up with the idea, you ever see them turn on, they're like, oh, I got this idea. And they get so excited about it. Yes. When they have the idea, they get motivated for it. So your job is to ask questions. Not to be the person to tell them to be motivator, not try to be the motivator, but instead ask questions about their passions, their desires, their needs, their hopes, their problems. Connect with them empathetically and with curiosity. So ask them questions. What's real for you? What are you trying to do? What would you like to do? Oh, you like to do that. What would be your next steps? What might be something you can do? Ask more questions. Let them generate more ideas. As they generate more ideas, they feel like they're participating, and those ideas become theirs. And when someone has an idea that's theirs, they want to protect it and they want to nurture it, and they want to make it happen. Because they got skin in the game versus you. Just saying, be motivated to do this thing. Ask them to get involved. Participation. Now, I know you're going to say, but, Brendan, they don't want to participate. It's because you haven't cued them correctly. You haven't asked them enough questions that were genuine questions, authentic questions that were questions for them, not for you. Because there's a difference between asking for participation, asking for engagement, and seeking to manipulate. And that's why most people fail in motivating other people. Their intention is to get this person to this specific outcome. And that's what I consider them, to be motivated. No, that's called you're trying to manipulate them to follow your path, your course, and be you. And we've all had people in our lives. You probably had a parent or caregiver know someone who did had an overly controlling parent. You don't want to overly control anybody. What you want to do is create greater freedom and belief with them by having them being an active dialogue about their own goals, their own dreams. And when they're in an active dialogue with you, creating, generating ideas, brainstorming, that's going to create the energy that can later translate into real motivation. I hope that helps. Remember, people support what they create. Once you get that, everything shifts. Number two, if they've shared something or they have a vision or they have a goal, but they seem really unmotivated, often it's because they lack competency for getting there.

What does that mean?

It means they don't have the map.

They don't know what to do.

They, they have the hope, they have the idea, they have an ambition, but they literally don't know what to do on Monday. And when you lack competency, you often lack motivation. In fact, we know from my studies in high performance and in psychology that when you lack competency, you lack confidence. Well, if I don't feel confident towards something, obviously I'm less likely to be motivated to go for it. Right? So you have to understand this important nature of competency and confidence. We call it the competence confidence loop. Right. The more someone has competency, and in this word I'm using today, competency, it means a collection of knowledge, skills, abilities and talents that allows you to have the know how to do something.

Well, if you don't have the know.

How to do something, you won't try. And if you don't try, you don't get the hit of confidence. But if you have the competency, the knowledge, skill, ability and empowerment to do something, guess what happens. Oh, I take the step. Oh, I got some reward, I got some progress, I got some momentum here. I feel more confident, I'm more motivated to try again. So your job, if you really want to lead people or motivate people, is to ask them whether or not they have what they need to be able to do it. Do you know what you need to do? Should we brainstorm a plan? Do you need to get a skill? Do you need to get a mentor? Do you need to read some books on that? Do you need to take some courses on that? Because if they don't, if they lack the know how, why would you expect them to know to do follow? So it's important to empower people with competency. I'm always thinking about that. If I know what somebody wants, I'm like, what do you need for that new tool, new training, new video, new insight, what your job is not to just motivate them with rah rah words, but real empowerment. Give them the tools, the education and the resources or access to those things. And once they have that, if you are a leader in like an organization, then think about this. You also have to empower them with what is essentially decision making, authority and trust. Meaning if they kind of know how, you need to step back, mom, dad, leader of an organization, step back and.

Let them mess it up and try.

One reason people get demotivated is because as they're starting and they're in that.

Hot mess mode of not knowing how.

It'S going to, the person trying to motivate them is judging them. Because guess what, judgment does. It shuts people down. So you've got to let people experiment, try be a hot mess, not get ahead. And as they're trying, you're celebrating the effort, not just awaiting the outcome. People need to be cheered on even when they're failing. People need to be cheered on even when they're stuck. And if you aren't actively providing them the tools, resources, education, decision making, authority, trust or cheering on, well, no wonder they're not motivated. They feel disempowered. And when someone is disempowered, they're never going to have the goals, the dreams and the drive that you want them to have or that they're even capable of. It's so important. And if you can't give it to them, cue it to them. Ask them what books could you read. Ask them what courses could you take, Send them videos, send them podcasts. If you're in my world, if you're in our HBX community, you guys know I am always giving resources on my podcast, always giving resources on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram lives. It's always like train, train, train. Take what was useful for you, leave what's not. But here's everything I got to help you with this. If people say, Brendan, you're motivating, it's because I'm always giving them resources and tools. I'm hopefully motivating them by empowering them. That's my goal versus just being the rah rah guy who swears or cusses to get a little edge on you. Instead I'm like, no, let's give you the real tools. And by doing that, I think it's made my career and this community in HPX very different. Third, big idea for them. You've got to to make sure that They've got some kind of like clear goals and rewards. And this is the hardest thing for people.

It's like, you know, if someone's lacking.

Motivation, you can't just go up to them and say you should have goals. They're gonna be like, shut up, I'm watching Netflix right now. You know, it's like, it's hard. You've gotta learn to pull that from them and learn to empower that. So it's like if they don't have goals, you'd be like, well, if you had what you wanted in life and you, who you were, who you wanted to be, what would that look like? And then you got to kind of help step them backwards through it. Like, okay, you know, I'd love to live in this town with this kind of house, with this type of person and this type of thing. Okay, let's work backwards. What would you have to do to earn that? What would you have to do to become that? Like, what's some goals you could set? Like if you could start marching towards that, what's something you could do in the next 30 days to begin. And this is important. Don't think you're going to motivate people with super long term goals, you know, who are driven by really long term goals or higher level goals. Like often what we'll call mission or purpose. People who are already achievement driven, but people who are stuck and people who are unmotivated, man, they just need to make that first step or that first two. Start with a monthly goal. Stop thinking like, let's change your life. Let's talk about five. What's your five year vision? They're like five years. Five years. I, I don't know what I'm eating tonight, dude. They're overwhelmed. Overwhelm often leads to demotivated people and often they're demotivated because they're trying to take on too much and they're not getting and celebrating or being compensated for the small steps for the initial steps. And that's what's important for you to realize. You want to motivate people, help them recognize, realize, discover those small steps and set some rewards. Oh, okay, you're going to do that this month? Okay, let's pretend it's the 30th a month and you actually did it. How would you celebrate? I take my girlfriend out for a big dinner. Cool. Oh, you know, I'd take a day off. Okay, cool. Oh, you know, I'd go to that favorite place I like to go.

Cool.

Like cheer that on and Then when you see them, listen, when you see them, you're not trying to just tell them to go do something. Instead you say, so are you going to get to go on that date with your girlfriend or getting to go to that favorite place? When you egg them on, you're actually encouraging them to achieve the thing they told you they wanted, not just asking them, work harder. Instead, have them see that short term celebration, that short term win. And in your dialogue with them, start talking about the win more than you're talking about the work. Because you're often telling them, work, work, work, be motivated. And instead they want to talk about getting the thing. And that will motivate them. And that's not true for everybody. But for a demotivated person, they're more likely to be excited to talk about what they want than talking about the grind. I hope that makes sense. And then, last big idea. Remember, you're the role model they need to see. Mom, dad, you leading and living with real motivation, with drive. And how do you do that? It's not about just seeing you work hard. What they need. If you want them to become more motivated, they need to be in dialogue about motivational things. So your job is to share more often and more consistently with this person. You're trying to motivate your whys and your distinctions along the way. What I mean by that is you've got to share in a continual conversation, hey, you know, I'm working towards this and I just learned that if I did it this way, it would get this outcome. And I thought, why didn't I know that before? So now I'm more excited to do it. You got to share that a lot. Like, very consistently, you must share your journey and your lessons on that journey more with them if you want them to be motivated. But often you're embarrassed to do that.

Because you don't want to feel like.

You'Re bragging or you're worried about sharing those things because you think it will disempower them. They see you having so much and succeeding and moving ahead and you don't want to bring it up to them because you think, oh well, you know, they'll feel awkward or weird or insufficient around me. First let go of your ego about that. That's nonsense. Like, it's a beautiful thing that you get to share your journey with another person. If they ever say, I don't want you to share your journey and your feelings and your lessons learned in life with me ever again, then be like, okay, cool. But until they say that you share it. And I want you to hear this because I know a lot of you, you have this assumption in your mind that you can't share your successes with other people because the way you were raised, you thought, well, that's bragging. No, that is empowering the next generation. Like, why is it we have so many generation of young people struggling to be motivated right now? Because the people who already succeeded don't share. They don't mentor, they don't role model, they don't coach, they don't help. So they're left alone trying to figure it out on their own. We have entire generations that never passed on their great standards, their great learnings, their great drives, their great purposes. So we have a whole new generation reinventing the wheel. Reinventing the wheel is demotivating because we all want to start at speed. And the way to start at speed is having people around us share it. I am only here doing this for you because other people would. I would go to a conference, other people would stand on stage and go, I started just like you. But here's what I learned and here's what I did. And I'd get motivated saying, oh, they did it, too. You need to be that role model for other people. And I really think that's important, that you are always sharing your journey. Stop hiding your journey. Stop hiding your love for personal development. Stop hiding your motivations. Stop hiding all those distinctions that you can pass on to somebody. And I want you to share it until they say stop. And that's my rule in life. And I'll tell you what's funny. I would say 50 people in my life, I've thought, they don't want to hear about my journey and my successes and my struggles and what keeps me going and what I'm learning. And I used to say that to my. To a lot of friends. I thought, they don't want to hear this. And then you know what? Years would go by and they go, brennan, I don't feel like I know you anymore. You never share what's going on. And I thought, oh, maybe if I shared what was going on, they'd have a different spark in their life. Your sharing can be their spark, my friend.