Mashup: How to Become More Present in the Moment

What our partners, our spouses, our relationships, our families want from us isn't more presents, like material presents, like Christmas gifts. It's presents. They want more sense that we are grounded right here with them, attentive to them, accepting of them in the moment with them, on the walk with them, living in the present with them, Try to be present, try to be present. I really believe, as Denise does, it's like when couples have learned mindfulness, when both of them have learned how to be self aware in the moment, to be non judgment in the moment, to be able to come openly into the moment and be there with the other person in full presence, not stuck five years ago present. Everything changes. I would say what our partners, our spouses, our relationships, our families want from us isn't more presents like material presents, like Christmas gifts, it's presence. They want more sense that we are grounded right here with them, attentive to them, accepting of them in the moment with them, not trapped in old stories, not angry about the stress or freaking out about the worries of next week or next month's bills, but rather at dinner with them, in the moment with them, on the walk with them, living in the present with them. And this one, I would guess Denise probably brought up because it's so important in times of conflict to be present with them and to be. I would say, like, if I had to think about, like my presence with Denise when we're struggling or when we're in an argument, I would say if I could give my, like, I. Knowing, knowing what she needs in that moment more than what I'm kind of built or I was conditioned to as I grew up, is that presence with tenderness, that presence with tenderness. I think that's what lacks in a conflict or a fight. It's like one person's so worked up and the tenderness isn't there and I raise my hand. I gotta work on that. That is one of those things. I grew up in a. I don't know about some of you. I grew up in a super fast twitch, like very speed up to argue, very vocal, not, you know, No, I didn't grow up around any passive aggressiveness or quiet silence and conflict and judgment. It was all verbal and very physical. I grew up in a place where there was a lot of physicality, a lot from the neighbors, the friends, the teachers. I mean, I grew up in a place where the principal could swat you with a wooden paddle. Like, literally, you got in trouble, you got beat by wooden paddle by the principal. Like, I grew up so, like, like crazy like that. And so my mind, until I was probably about 25, was conditioned for that. And I recognized in a relationship when I was 25 how quickly I got angered and wanted to storm out or scream or holler or. I just, I. My ego, it trapped up. But I was also just angry. I was an angry young man. I worked a decade really hard in personal development to let go of my anger. That came from just how I grew up. I had to let go of that and let go of that. Not be perfect, just get a little better every day at it. But that means I was also conditioned that way. And I have to go, whoo. Okay, that's a weakness of mine. And where does that come out? Usually for me, that will come out in an argument, right? If we're just not seeing something, I just feel it. I feel it literally come up. I feel the emotion of it. It just can be triggered. And. And what do I have to do? I've got to try to be present. That's why I love her language. This morning I was like, oh, that's so good. I underlined try like seven times. Just try. Put the effort back into being present with your partner or spouse, even in conflict, but also in the beautiful times, put your dang phone down, Be at dinner with them, right when you're intimate together, don't be staring off at the wall thinking about something else. Try to be passionate, intimate again. Bring your awareness to your physical body, your mindset to the moment with the other person. I tell people all the time, I go, imagine you just found out your beloved partner or spouse is going to be gone in three days. They got a terrible diagnosis. I promise, you would be so tender with them and so present. Well, none of us know when those days are going to come. None of us know we're going to lose the person. And as I've been with people towards the end couples, all they want is to hold each other and to be tender with each other. And so being present is about living in this time zone with them right now, in the here and out. Not the past, not the future here. But it's being attentive, tender, thoughtful, and energetically co creating together. Because some people say presence is bo. You know, it sounds like presence is just tenderness and boring. I'm like, no presence. Presences pop and vibe and like the thrill of it all, too, right? That when you went on those first couple dates with that person, you were locked in. You were interested in trying to learn about them. You cared about what your clothes look like. You know, you tried to smile, you tried to show some physical reaction to what they were doing. There was interest there. There was intrigue there. And you're both there, right? You're attentive. And if that relationship lasted, let's bring some of that back, that energy and the magic from that time, you fell really in love. When you went crazy for each other, what was there? What was there? Intention? What was there? Mindfulness to one another? What was there? Acceptance. And also not just accepting them, but pulling them in with your presence. Like you were drawn in, right? You were drawn together. They say, what was that? That's that energy. That's that presence that's bringing us together. We must rekindle that over and over and over in a relationship. It begins with both of us finding presence. Hey, everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. Welcome to a special edition of Growth Day. I'm really excited to talk about this month's topic, which is how do you create remarkable and long lasting friendships? And I'm talking about the kind of friendships that you love. The friendships that bring you alive, that bring you that connection, that help life feel more, even meaningful, that help you progress and feel supported, help you be seen, help you feel a true connection with not just others, but with humanity. Because the people around you are awesome. And when the people around you are awesome, you know, you feel better about life. But we also went through this crazy last 18 months where so many people were isolated, where we had so much turmoil, so much conflict, so much just uncertainty and fear in the world, where I really believe friendships really elevated. And you could see whether or not you had great friends throughout this pandemic or you didn't. You were able to see whether or not you got the support that you needed, whether or not you were able to maintain your sense of vibrancy in some of those times of aloneness, whether or not you had people who cheered you on when you decided to make a transition, start something new or the kids left the house or you got sick or something was going on that was difficult in your life. We look to our friends, and I think that this is a very undervalued conversation in mental health. So much about the mental health conversation is appropriately about self awareness, is it's about, you know, mindfulness. It's about taking care of our stressors. And a lot of it is that solo work that we all have to do for self mastery. But I can tell you that, you know, the great universities of the world, the psychology department is right near the sociology department because they go together like we are social beings. And when you lose that social connection with the world, which usually starts through lack of disciplined habits with your friends, then suddenly life loses its color. And I think this is so important. You're going to hear me talk about friendship today in a way you probably haven't heard before, very much from what we would call a high performance psychology perspective. And I think you're going to love this. So if you've been struggling with friendships in your lifetime, this is not either having enough friends or not having the quality of friends that you've always wanted. This is a serious conversation today. I can't imagine a time, at least in my life so far, where friendships were so incredibly important. I get to share some of the things that really have worked, not just in my life and my friendships, but in studying this work deeply over the years in recognizing how many people are entrepreneurs, high achievers, people who are trying to make great impact in the world. You're here today and sometimes that journey can feel very lonely, or when you get to the top, it can feel lonely, they say. And I'm like, I kind of believe what my friend Brian Tracy and mentor said to me one time. He said, if it's lonely at the top, you did it wrong. I thought, woo, that's good, that's good. Because maybe sometimes we value today progress, we value today getting things done. We value that top mountain of achievement. And then we look around and go, oh, nobody really knows me. I don't feel a connection to others. Yeah, I got the thing, the house, the car, the bank account, the accolades, the Instagram page. And all of a sudden, though, something's missing. And friendship is one of the greatest vehicles to the real psychology of well being that we talk about here at Growth Day. I'm going to share with you a secret today, just a simple phrase. You're going to go, oh my gosh, that's why my friendships aren't going right. So you're going to love this session. I say that triangle, right, of well being that we talk about Growth Day aliveness is one of the things we all want after we had everything else, right? Another thing we want is connection. We're not after casual friendships here today. We're at like, how do I create authentic, deep, trusting, vulnerable, fun, real relationships? Because how many of you have ever had friendships that turned out to be fake? You thought you had a good friendship and that thing turned out to be not so good or poisonous or, you know, somebody, like, they weren't loyal to you. As a friend, or they lied to you, or, you know, something went wrong, you thought, how could that happen in that relationship? And I always tell, like, friendships are a science of relationship, right? It's about how you create relationship with others. And I'm gonna give you again a phrase that will really help you with this today. And then if it's true that we want aliveness and connection in this triangle, nothing that we want is meaning. Well, meaning isn't achieved just by living your purpose each day in your own head. Meaning is achieved through a social relationship network. My sense of meaning is, do I feel connected to the world? And the world isn't an abstract thing. It's not like I feel connected to the oak tree. It's like, no, I mean, did I feel. Did you make your difference in the world that's going to be served and answered through your social impact, your relationships with others. And I have to tell you, I've been coaching people for 20 years of my life now, and a lot of people have one friend. You know, in the United States, unfortunately, the number of people with three good friends has declined over the decades. You're like, three good friends. Oh, we got to talk about that. Because some people stumble into friendships or hope for friendships, just like some people hope to have a loving relationship, just like some people hope to have a good job, just like some people hope that, you know, they get healthier. And then there's strivers who take life a little bit by the reins and say, no, no, no, let me architect that. Let me build that. And I'll give you my own examples today of where I sucked at friendships and I had to learn how do you do them and how do you create them? And once you know how to create and craft them, life really opens up for you, and it becomes not just more alive and connected, but more meaningful. Like, a sense of meaning happens when we have a tapestry of social relationships that are real and impactful. And then, of course, in the middle that triangle, you always see me draw out growth. Your friends should be lifting you up, not pushing you down. Your friends should be inspiring you to get better. Your friends should have your back, but also be willing to challenge your face. You know what I'm saying? Like, your friends are, are, and should be one of your primary growth drivers in life. Most people choose ambitious goals to be their growth driver. Oh, I'm going to do something that's hard, or I'm going to try to achieve this amazing thing. I'm going to try to become a millionaire or make this difference or build this company, or, you know, have this type of family, and it's this external climb, this thing they're trying to achieve, and too many people forget. It's like, actually, one of the best drivers of growth isn't your job, isn't your goals, it's your friendship circle. And when your friendship circles make you a more alive, deeper, caring, thoughtful, authentic person in the world, I'm telling you what, guess what? At work, you're better. At home, you're better. Your art gets better, your sense of life lifts. Let me share with you what I really believe to be the two central problems of friendship. Okay, the two central problems of friendship. The first one is a failure of each of our own. I'm just taking this on myself as well. It's like we fail in life to realize most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. Most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. What I mean by that is many of our friendships happen because group assignment, right? Think about it. Some of your best friends, where'd you meet them? School, Your neighborhood, some other affiliation, Maybe at work, maybe in a group that you joined. So it was like, oh, we showed up somewhere, or we were assigned somewhere and there was that girl who sat next to me in class, we became friends. Or, oh, I worked with this person at work. We were coworkers, we became friends. And these are kind of like assigned friends. And I know that sounds really weird to say, so bear with me a little bit. I don't mean that the manager, like, you're going to be friends here. What I mean is, because of your group, your affiliation, or where you were, you kind of met people there. And by default, by you being a good person or communicating or doing stuff with them, you kind of became friends versus. That's like an assigned friend. It's like, oh, because we were here, we became friends versus an aligned friend, which is, oh, I'm an adult now. What are the types of friends that I want to create that align with my passion, my dreams, my lifestyle, my values, my beliefs, the things that I want of life and let me go get them, not let them fall into my lap, which brings up the second designation. And this is hard to say to people. And if you're in a place where you feel lonely in your life or you feel like you don't have great friendships, I promise this will be so helpful for you today to even know how your own brain thinks. And many of us. And I was this way probably all the way throughout high school. Even I never. And this is the second problem of friendships. I never made the deliberate choice to have remarkable friendships. I kind of ended up with friends. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Who's like ended up with friends if you kind of just ended up with like this person? It was kind of my friend. One of my buddies goes, he goes, I don't want no rando friends. And it was like random. Now I love random. I love the universe, I love God, I love coincidence. Listen, I read the Celestine prophecy. People are glowing out there for me. I believe in that coincidence stuff. But I can also share with you, like if you just allow randomness in your life all the time, you'll always feel a sense of mediocrity too. We have to stretch. We have to choose our life. And to choose our life we have to be deliberate and go, what kind of life do I want? I would like you to learn to architect your ideal friendships. And can you get all of them? And will all your friendships be perfect? I'm not that guy. I'm not here to promise everything's going to be sweet and perfect and peaches in life. I am here to suggest though that if you haven't deliberately chosen the types of friendships that you want, that's a problem, especially if you're an adult. Right? And that's the thing is we're just, we're not encouraged to do that. Think about how much time people were feeding your ears with the idea you had to be really thoughtful about the career you choose. How many of you ever had more people tell you more times about be so thoughtful about the school you choose, the career you choose, but no one ever said as much. Be very thoughtful about the friends and the friendships that you build. And that's why we have a lot of high achieving people who are lonely their whole life. Think about your career. What are you going to be one day? Very rarely. What's the type of social network you're going to build around you? What's the type of friendships you're going to architect? What are you going to be proud of in terms of your friends in the future? What do you want your friends to achieve? What do you want your friends to experience in life? Not just what they give you, but what are you going to give out too? What kind of friendship do you want to create and experience? How do you want your friends to actually interact with one another? Have you ever thought about that? We spend so much time. If you're a parent and you have two kids, you're so worried about how they Interact, right? I know people who've never even thought, how do I want my friends to interact? I mean, they might think, you know what, we shouldn't put them in a room at a party because they have this history of that background. But very few people are like, I'm going to actually teach my friends how to be friends with one another. Now, I know some of you might be like, this guy sounds like a control freak. I'm like, I am, but I'm a happy one. You know what I'm saying? I think this is such an important area to architecture. Most friends have never talked about how to be friends. They just go, you want to go to lunch? They go to lunch. They talk about the weather, the waiter, the food, what's going on. They leave. And there's no architecting. There's no. I think of, like, social systems are things that can be shaped. We all think, like at work, right? How much we talk about at work. Building a culture. More books and more people have spent time on this conversation of building culture at work and never the culture of a friendship. Isn't that weird? I don't know where along the line we lost the conversation and the desire to choose to build awesome friendships and a culture of friendship, meaning not just friends. Most people think of, I want a friend, right? When you're in high school, you just want a friend, right? You're just like, at least I was. Can I get one? You know, it's like you worry about having friendships when you grow up. And usually that means you think. And we're all trained this way. Especially in Western cultures, we're taught to have a friend, and we think in a very individualistic mode. I and this person are in relationship, and then you have another friend. I and this person are in relationship, and maybe you go out and you try to get them together and we have a party. But even at the party, it's individual nodes. Me, that friend, and this friend. And I don't get trained, as I'm getting older, to think as a systems social architect. Oh, wow, look at all these nodes, if you will. These friends. If I like each of these people and I have a relationship with each of you people, why don't in some way I weave them together and create a tapestry of friendship where I'm actually connecting the dots and creating a culture of friendship. See, we don't think like that, do we? I was a very kind of solitary child. I was kind of in my own little world. I don't know about you all, but I was definitely you know, much. I would be like an introverted kind of child. I kind of kept to myself. I like to play with my toys kind of by myself. In elementary school, from what I can remember, I was kind of solo. Brendan. I didn't see social systems right. I was in a class with kids and a teacher, and I had a relationship with the teacher and. And I had a relationship with this person or that person or not. But I couldn't see the class. I couldn't say, oh, you know, like, this group is kind of like this. Instead, it was just like, she likes me or she doesn't. Teachers like that. I didn't see the system. Today, I'd like you to try to see the system a little bit. See the system of the friendships you've built in your life. See the system at play, at work. See the system of your culture or your nonprofit or your company. When you can start seeing a bigger picture and get out of your head a little bit now, something happens. There's connection, there's community. See, everyone says, I want community. I'm like, well, you can't be an individualistic person in the community forever. You have to elevate to seeing the system. If you never be a community member or an effective one or a helpful one, if you can't get out of your head, well, I'm saying that not as judgment to you. That was me. So there's. There's no judgment here. If you don't have friends, I'm like, I'm telling you my story, too. I was a solo person. I was in my own head. I couldn't see the class. I couldn't see the system. And so I felt apart. And because I felt apart and I couldn't see what was happening, and I didn't know how to engage. I was lonely. And then when I finally made a connection with a friend, that friend became my life. Later on, that perpetuated into, you know, some of you guys know my story of my first breakup with the. My. My high school sweetheart. I was destroyed because that was my one person, right? That was my one node in the world. And then when that relationship fell apart, I fell apart and became depressed and suicidal. And so how we relate with one or multiple people can completely shape our mental health. I know you already know that. And so I had to learn, like, wow. 1. I don't want to ever be dependent on one friend. I want to build a support system. You ever heard that language before? No one says, go build a supporter. I want you to listen to the Language of successful people. When successful people are speaking, they never tell you, go build a supporter. They say, go build what? A support system. A support network. Oh, I got to get out of single node thinking. A node is one individual unit. And I got to get into the system. I got to stop thinking, does Sally at the class next, does she like me? And if she likes me, my whole life is good or bad or ruined. And I got to go. There's a class here. There's an energy, a vibe, a spirit. There's rules and norms. There's a culture here that is happening. How do I want to participate in this? And how do I want this culture to happen, too? In ways that I can affect? What do they want? And we all have to start thinking about that more in a society in which we're supposedly connected, but we've actually become individual nodes in the network.

Hey, guys, it's Brandon.

I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've.

Gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter.

Because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra.

If you've ever liked to be in.

A private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See, you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well.

Just go to Progress mode. How do you gain some more emotional mastery in your life so you can handle those difficult times when you get frustrated, when you get down, we get like beat up and like chewed out and spit out by the world. What are you going to do to be your best self? That is the topic of today's conversation. That emotional masteries part, that emotional intelligence we hear so much about, that ability to handle the difficulties and challenges of life with grace or a plume, or being centered in the middle of all this chaos and turmoil. How do you be your best? That's the topic of today. We're talking about motivation at a deeper level. Maybe you haven't had with me before. The utmost, most important area of emotional mastery is mastering motivation. Now when I say emotional mastery, you're like, wait, isn't motivation just a topic, an area? I'm like, no, motivation. Motivation is an emotion, right? A motivation is a emotion that you feel, that you feel a drive, a sense of Hunger, a sense of want, and sense of desire to make something happen. I believe motivation is one of the most important things we have to master in our total emotional sort of toolkit, right? Because if you can emotionally feel motivated every day, almost everything else can fall in line, right? If you're emotionally motivated to be a better mom, be a better caregiver, be a better parent, be a better lover, be a better entrepreneur, be a better business person, be a better contributor to the greater world. When there's a motivation pulling you forward out of bed each day, into the office, into real life to be your best, then everything changes when you lose motivation. You and I both know the loss of motivation is the first gate to suffering. You lose motivation now, you don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't work out. You don't feel like working out. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't want to do your goals. Don't feel like doing your goals. Feel unfulfilled. Feel unfulfilled. Feel unsatisfied. Feel unsatisfied. Feel like life is meaningless. It is a slippery slope when you lose motivation. But the issue is no one has motivation 247 all the time. Motivation is an emotion you learn to cultivate by using your mind, your body, your greater consciousness to ensure that you feel that pull of purpose, that you feel that energy inside that says, I want to create, I want to contribute, I want, I want to be my best self. I want to connect with people. And so motivation is something we're going to have to generate on a consistent basis. You have to learn to bring the joy. Because the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates energy. Motivation is something. Me, the motivation guy, I have the best selling book of the entire century with motivation in the title. It's called the Motivation Manifesto. If you haven't read it. And the motivation manifesto is like, if anything is imbued in that book, it is like this ferocity and this fierceness and this tension to living our best lives. But it has to be like generated because even though I'm the motivation guy, there's plenty of days I wake up and I'm like, I don't feel like it. There's plenty of days, there's plenty of moments where just like you, I'm just like, I'd rather be lazy and do nothing right now. And that's okay. That's part of homeostasis. That's part of our human body. To want to power down, to relax, to chill out. But too much of that can lead to an unfulfilling life. So we must learn to generate the emotions of drive, desire, go get in this. Whatever you want to call motivation. And so it's something that we have to learn to stoke. Motivation is an emotion we feel by either luck or by purposeful conscious design. I just choose to design it into my day every single day. Motivation is driven by certain things. You have a spark, you have something that sustains it, and you Something grows it. Okay? The spark of motivation, which is how I anchor into being motivated each day, is ambition. All motivation begins with the desire or hunger and ambition for more, Whether that's more depth or more connection, or more contribution or more abundance or more wealth or more love. Like, we just want more of something. And that says, I want to go get that. Like, we see a fancier car, it's.

Better than our car.

I want to go get that. We see, like, a deeper love of.

Relationship between two people.

I say I want that in my own life. Sometimes it's a visual cue. Something we see makes us want something, right? Not too far from here, there's a beach that I strolled on vacation, I don't know, a couple years ago, and I said, I'm going to live here. And it was a motivation. It was a cue. I saw something desired, it wanted, it went after it. So sometimes it's a visual. It's a cue out in the world that says, I want more of that thing. And ambition can be visually cued for some people. If you just wake up. I mean, think about it. You wake up, you grab your phone, you're like, you know, and all of a sudden, you don't have any motivation.

Instead, you look through all this stuff.

And all it did is make you feel like you're not enough, or it distracted you, or it upsets you or created, you know, anger, anxiousness. You got to be careful how you're using cues to start your day. I use cues to start my day motivated. And those cues to start my day motivated are things like, I literally wake up, and I'll wake up and I'll think of things that I'm grateful for and that I want to give in life. I'll wake up and I'll think about someone I want to do something nice for or surprise. Today, I'll think of something I can.

Be excited about today.

All as soon as possible in the morning, revisit my ambitions, list my goals list. I'll look at them. I'LL not wander through the day looking at social media, and then, oh, I guess it's time to work and look at my goals. It's like my goals. I mean, in the first few minutes of the day, I'm revisiting them. And what I'm doing is when I'm looking at my goals or my agenda or my schedule, I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, okay, why do I want this? What would life be like?

Like this?

How could I go get it? What should I do today to make that happen? And that motivates me. That's my list of goals, my list of ambitions, the things that can excite me. In other words, it's very intrinsic goals. It's intrinsic rewards that I'm after. I'm like, if I go do that, I will feel better. If I could have this, I'd be happier, right? It's not that I can't be happy with now, but. But I want to pull. Like, if I can have that future pull, that's gonna motivate me to go do stuff, right? I have to literally generate that in my mind. And so when I have that connection in the morning, then my takeaway for you is connect with your ambitions every morning, very first thing in the morning, somehow part of your morning routine. Connect with your ambitions. Look at them. Why do you want them? What would you get from that? How would you feel from that?

What would that generate?

Why would that be more meaningful? Really connect with that ambition every single morning, and you'll start to notice, you feel better. You also know this reality that motivation wanes with attention. Meaning if we don't give our ambitions, our goals, a lot of attention, the motivation just goes away. Because motivation is either fueled by our attention or by momentum, right? It either takes reflection or action to generate serious, sustained motivation. Either reflection or action, because ultimately from the reflection, that gives us clarity, and clarity can give us confidence, or action can give us momentum. And when we have momentum, motivation is way easier to cultivate, generate, and sustain, obviously. So these are really important concepts. Every morning, get very close to your goals ambitiously. What are those things that you want, desire, need, and would enjoy, and what do you need to go to get? That's the intrinsic type of things, the things we'll feel good about, the drive, satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning excitement in us. But I also have my extrinsic meaning, my external cues or goals or rewards that also I revisit. So for me, example, when I always tell you, wake up each day and at some point, say, who Needs me on my A game for me. Every morning I re anchor down into my relationships. I think about, okay, if I don't show up today and do a good job, then my wife and I have a lower quality of life. Then I can't support my mom, then I can't support my team, then all these people who count on me every day for motivation or count on me for leadership or count on me for support, they don't get that from me. And I tap into that reality that if I don't show up for somebody today, then you know what, by the end of the night I'll feel worse about myself. But also it will impact other people because you cannot have real high powered mental motivation without a connection to other people. We are social animals so we have to think about, okay, what should I do? How can I contribute in a way that serves other people? So where that internal one is about self and satisfaction and fulfillment and meaning personally, that's tapping into our own passions, desires, wants and hungers. That external one is ultimately about service, about giving or taking care of or being the caretaker of other people. And you cannot just keep starting your day. I guess I'll get some coffee and read the news and see what's on social media, or hop into the car and listen to trash talk radio or turn on the TV and hope to find motivation later in the day.

Like, you want to kick off the.

Day, kick off the day with motivation. Like get all ready in the morning immediately in a good state of mind. When I'm in a great state of mind, it's like, bam, the day goes. And you know what? If you start the morning in the right frame of mind, motivated, driven, because you're connected to what drives you and what will serve other people. Then when you start like running out of gas at noon, 1, 2 or 3, it's easier to like re spark that flame than to fuel that flame, than to start a new fire, right? Because some people just keep waiting. They don't even think about, I guess I should be motivated until they've lost it. I want you to start the morning with it and sustain it throughout the day by revisiting. Remember, the secret to all of motivation is revisiting those whys. It's revisiting that ambition that you have for your life, for more, for others, for contribution. That's everything, right? That's everything. And if you get away from that too many days, too many weeks, too many months, I'm just here to tell you you're really going to struggle so I hope that helps. Every morning, everybody, every single morning, I really want you to connect with that. Okay, what am I motivated? What am I driven by? And that's going to really, I can't explain how much that's going to help you. You will feel it and you will know it if you will do it every morning. Okay? Motivation starts in the morning, but it's also sustained by that morning frame of mind. So that's really key. That's the first idea behind motivation. Connect with your ambitions first thing every single day. Give attention to that every single day. Here's something I don't often talk about, but it's important for me because it's very easy for me to, to be really effective in the mornings. And then that afternoon, two, three o', clock, and I could just be like, man, I want to go outside, take a walk, come back, turn on some Netflix, eat some carbs. You know, that can be my afternoon if I'm not careful. So here's what I do. I have a checkpoint in the mid afternoon to recognize, reward, appreciate anything that I have done today. Anything that I have done today. And that midpoint checkpoint for me on my phone, I just have an alarm. Mine tends to go off around 2:30 or 3:00 clock in the afternoon. It just flashes to me and it says, what's been great today? What's been great today? And so that will cue me, all right, it's time to visit what's been great today. So, so I'll just think about something I've done. It could be like I answered 10 emails today that I have been avoiding.

Good job.

It can be as simple as I made that one call, I said I was gonna call, did it, I shot that content, created that thing, whatever, some type like, listen, motivation is often driven by recognition. So recognize what you have done so far in the day, early afternoon. Then what I do is in order to keep myself motivated even more. Because I've set in my mind that I want to be a person who's excellence driven. What I will do is I say, okay, here's what's great so far. And then I ask just a simple question. How do I complete this day with excellence? Just a simple touch point in the afternoon. How do I complete this day with excellence?

So I will look at the rest of the day, whether that's two hours.

More, four hours more, five hours more, six, six hours more, whatever it's going to be for me. And I go, okay, how do I think through the rest of this day with real excellence? And when I can connect with that, I'm telling you, it's just so part of me and it really makes me want to serve. So please think about having a mid afternoon connection point to keep yourself motivated. You'll feel a whole different quality of life. Come in. I promise. It's a different experience for people because most people, they're just running and gunning through the day. They don't realize or understand or accept how challenging it is to lose motivation. And so they've gone. Many people, they've gone weeks without being motivated. They're going through the motions, but there's no energy, there's no emotional pull towards something better. And because they're lacking that emotional pull, what ends up happening, they dog it. They don't contribute as much, they react and sort of create. And all of a sudden, a couple.

Weeks later they're like, I don't know.

Why I'm so unfulfilled. Well, no, Doug, you're so unfulfilled because you haven't been tapping into that emotion of motivation. When we lack motivation, it is a slippery slope to suffering. So please recognize that you must cultivate more motivation. What else can you do? Well, I'll tell you, it's like ambition, attention to those ambitions, effort towards those things. I think all of that is really, really, really clear. But I also really believe that a lot of motivation is simply lost because of fatigue. So let's say you're doing all those things, but you're wiped out, you're tired. Like a lot of motivation really rests on how you feel physically. If you feel lethargic, you feel tired, you have the flu, it's like it's harder to be more motivated. You can still do it by doing what I've talked about. Re cue yourself, reconnect with those things. But health wise, it's really critical for you to say, okay, if I want to be motivated long term, I need to feel greater levels of mobility and energy in my body. So if you ever hung out around me, I'm constantly bouncing and moving and breathing. And if you've been with me at hpa, you see some of these practices, this breath work that I do, that I'm activating and opening up my body so that my body says, let's go versus right. So my body's not like, oh, I ate this terrible thing. Instead my body says, I feel refueled, I feel ready to go, let's go. So I manage my sleep, my diet, my health in ways that support my mental clarity and energy. And I Know that, like, sounds. Sometimes people think motivation is just a mental game. I'm like, yes, but your mind and your body are connected. If your body is lethargic, so is your mind. Right? That brain body connection is real, y'.

All.

And I know you know that you've been sick, you've been tired, there's times when you've been out of shape, you feel terrible. So I'm here to encourage you, as I always do, if every single month in high performance, I have to cheer you on, to get in better health, to prioritize your health, to sleep good, to eat well, to move. If I have to do that every single month, I will do that. I will be your champion. I will cheer you on. I want you in excellent health this year. So please hear me cheer that on every single month. Because I just know I get you in better health. I get you in better mental health. We get you in better mental health. It's easier to sustain that fire and that drive, that purpose, that motivation, that thing will bring you satisfaction, joy, and meaning. I know you guys get this, but I want to fire you up today. Like, this is something you must fire up on your own. And this will be fleeting. Of course it's fleeting if you never look at it. I tell you all the time, no wonder you're not motivated. You haven't thought about what motivates you in three days.

Just think about that.

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

I look at it.

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

How are we going to set our emotional tone in this chaos? How are we going to find our strength, our center, and project goodness and compassion at a time when it is desperately needed? How are we going to hold the line in our businesses so that we don't overreact and going one direction when we ought to be in another? How do we manage all of this? Today is my joy to talk with you about. Number one is the decision that I will always be the one to remain centered amid the chaos. And I have worked on myself, and I have taught myself that for pretty much, you know, 25 years. I've worked on that at a very steady pace. When everyone's freaking out, I take a bunch of deep breaths. I connect with my breath. I make sure that I'm keeping perspective. But ultimately, that decision to I will be centered amid. This means for me that I will choose the emotional tone and my attitude as I am dealing with uncertainty or chaos. You know, I remember years ago, I was doing an event, and a person in the back of the room had a seizure, and literally, they fell out of their chair and on the ground, they started having a full physical reaction to the seizure as well, where they were shaking. And it was terrifying for the people around them. And I was kind of at the beginning of my career, and I saw it happen. It was almost in slow motion. And could you imagine you're on your stage. I mean, put yourself there, you're in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and all of a sudden, somebody is falling over and having a full seizure in front of the whole audience. The whole audience literally starts looking back. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

People are standing up.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Total panic sets in the room. And I remember standing up there, and I have this on video, where at first my first reaction is like, this, kind of, like, shocked, just like everybody else, like, whoa. And then I kind of look over, and instantaneously, in my mind, I go, brendan, you have to be in charge here. I didn't want to be in charge. I had to be in charge. And my mind immediately said two choices here. Join the panic or stay stable and strong and present and connected with what's really happening. And so that decision, I'm going to say, centered amid this, made me immediately also decide I need to center the audience. So I asked the entire audience. I just announced. I said, everyone sit down. And everyone just kind of looks. I said, sit down. And everybody, they sit down. And I said, please sit down, because your panic and your chaos right now is not serving the energy of this person who needs healing. Sit down.

Be quiet, everyone.

Please close your eyes so my team can address this situation. Please close your eyes, and let's put some positive energy and prayer in the room for this person who needs our attention right now. They don't need negativity and fear in the room. Let's put some love and prayer. Let's do a little. Let's send some energy. So please close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and remember, you can choose to contribute good energy to the situation. And so I had everyone close and their eyes, take a few deep breaths and meditate or send prayer back to this person as my team was clearing that row and getting to this person so that when the paramedics would arrive, that person could be removed. Now, here's the deal. I knew I had like 20 minutes at least before we could get a paramedic, probably at that spot in the seminar. And I thought, how am I going to buy 20 minutes? People are going to start freaking out. And I realized, no. If I set the emotional tenor in this room on purpose, and if I ask of others to find the best within themselves, if I ask of others to take a breath, if I ask of others to be responsible for the energy they are projecting into this space, if I ask of that, and if I demonstrate that we'll make it through this moment. And that might not seem like a big deal, but I really believe the energy in that room either was serving this man as he was having a seizure or was making it worse. You know, imagine here he is having this unbelievable, stressful, life threatening situation and if all around him everybody is screaming in chaos, the body feels that, you know, the body and the mind feels the energy of what is around it. And so if that is true, let us all be responsible for the energy we are projecting right now. I've seen friends who hop online and something's happening and what are they doing? They're contributing to the chaos. They're posting snarky comments. There's sarcasm, blame, vitriol, anger. And I'm not here to say that we can't use our social mediums to contribute to an argument or to make a case. But every word has a tone to it. And the tone that we are setting in reply to chaos either furthers the chaos or it levels it. And the more of us who choose to be even, tempered, thoughtful, caring, compassionate, you know, the values that we would all hope to have as a global citizenry, the more that we will judiciously take action in a thoughtful way. That's the hope. And whether you believe that or not, I hope that you'll hear this first. Practice your family needs to see you centered, calm, strong and assured in chaos. Otherwise we are passing down panic to another generation. It's sad in my view, that we have a world that is so connected, so potentially capable, so well informed, and yet we still have people who overreact. Now, I'm not saying that overreaction isn't something you would anticipate, but there's a difference between overaction, as in taking action to overprotect, like doing something useful to shore up things, versus an emotional overreaction of fear. You can deal with really difficult situations without the negative range of blame, vitriol, hate and anger. Now I know I'm Preaching to the choir. But I'm just here today to touch base with you. You can set that emotional tenor. Let's all do a better job at that. Let me give you a couple examples of how I'm doing it right now. To stay centered amid chaos, you also have to stay a little distanced from chaos even as it is happening. I'll give you an example of how I'm doing it. And many of you guys know I have four major companies that I'm either, you know, the principal in or one of the principal investors in. And for me, like lots of different teams around the world, and obviously you've seen here, we have a global community. Well, for me, because I'm constantly being hit up on this phone by people from literally around the world and. And people count on me to advise their companies. So what do I do? I don't engage the chaos all day. Instead, I work my plan. And many of you already know how I do that with my morning routines. My morning routine doesn't change, still stays steady. Wake up, center my mind, plan my day, open up my body. But I also do simple things. Right now, right now, listen, I'm not checking in my phone every 10 minutes because right, guess what you want to do in chaos? Refresh. Refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh. But every time you hit refresh, and every time you scroll, don't forget, it takes emotional and mental energy. And if.

Refresh, refresh, refresh. Chaos.

Bad news, Bad news. Bad news, Bad news, bad news. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Just think about that for a minute. You're hitting the oh, my God button all day when you're refreshing in chaotic news times, and that is creating the panic and the stress inside that is freaking you out. So as an example of simple things that I do, I only check in on the news twice a day. I always say news at noon, right? I'm going to get through my morning. I'm going to make the magic happen. I'm going to move my projects forward in the mornings. If it's news that I need to know about, that affects me dramatically and locally, trust me, I'll hear about it. My friends or my wife or somebody will let me know via text. But I don't check in on the news because nothing's going to change for me in dealing with the news until around noon. And I know people say, well, what if this is canceled or that's canceled? You'll hear it from your family. You'll get the news. But I don't check into the major media. I don't check into social media multiple times a day. I don't check into. And I'm talking about what people are doing right now. They're hitting refresh by the minute, by the five minutes, by the time. How many of you are guilty about this? How many of you have been addicted to refreshing in the last 72 hours? Right? It's easy to do that when there's chaos, but that's also the most important time not to do that for your own psyche, right? That's the most important time to separate yourself from chaos versus what do you do. Reconnect to it every 30 seconds. Think about what that does. You cannot doesn't matter how conscious or intelligent or brilliant or meditative you are. If you check into, oh my God, bad news 24 7, there is no human that. That does not start to shape your emotional reality. No human alive. The Dalai Lama couldn't do it without feeling that emotion if that's what he did 24 7. And right now, that's what we have people doing. And so I think what is necessary is to stay absolutely informed. But realize not a whole lot is going to shift in periods of time throughout the day. Now, I know it depends on what you do and how you respond in your career and where your family is and all these things. No question. No question. So here's what I suggest to you. To stay centered in the mid of the chaos. You choose how much you check in.

You choose.

And then at a conscious level, I'd say back it up a little bit. So however, you're like, I gotta check 20 times this hour. But I'm like, okay, I appreciate that feeling and that concern. So let's just back. Could we check in just five times in the hour so you can actually get something done? So please don't think I'm saying don't be involved or don't be informed. I'm saying don't let the chaos eat you alive. Because listen to this statement. Chaos inside grows as checking in on the outside grows, right? The more everyone's freaking out and the more you listen to all of it, the more it infects you. Because there is also another contagion going on right now. And if you've studied neuroscience with me for a while or you've been with me in this community for a while, you know how much we talk about emotional contagion. Energy spreads. It's like, listen, we can act without losing our center. We can act without spreading fear. We can act without the anxiety, like the stuff that I have to take on on a daily basis. If you saw it you'd be like oh my gosh. But I choose not to address it with anxiety. I choose to be in center of my emotional reality, the chooser, the captain of the ship. And I just want you to be that observer of how you've been dealing with this and choose to stay centered amid the chaos. I do things like keep your morning routine. It is so important right now, that is stability in an unstable world. Don't overly engage what is happening. Don't contribute to the negative energy in any way. Even if you want to trust me, when I do check in I want to say, you idiots, oh my gosh, what's happening over here? Don't be that person. It's not going to help your spirit or your soul. I promise you. Be the person who's centered amid the chaos.