Motivation Manifesto: Slow Time (Declaration 9of9)

Hey friends, it's Brandon. And this episode is part of a special 10 part series that I'm doing right here on the podcast exclusively where I'm going to release the major parts of my audiobook of my book, the Motivation Manifesto. Yes, I'm releasing 10 full chapters of the audiobook right here on the podcast. So make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast and you download these episodes. You'll see these episodes designated as Motivation Manifesto and then the chapter name. And here's the deal, these are only going to be posted until June 3rd. So I'm giving you 10 days to go through the entire Motivation Manifesto audiobook of the major declarations of the book. Anyway, I don't, I won't include like the introduction or forward or stuff like that. So just jumping right into the declarations that made the Motivation Manifesto so famous. The book spent 36 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list when it came out a decade ago. Why am I releasing such a huge part of the audiobook right now? Well, literally was a decade ago. So this is the 10 year anniversary and I just wanted to say thank you and celebrate it with. Celebrate all your support. Frankly, you guys have been amazing to me in this last decade and that book kicked off such a magnificent part of my life. And I'll never forget the support you gave me, not only making it a major New York Times bestselling book, but just the love of that book around the world. It led to, you know, an interview with Oprah and doing courses with Oprah Winfrey Network. It led to some coaching some of the best teams in the world. It was an extraordinary experience of my own. And many know the story that initially the publisher turned down the book. I had to go find another publisher. And that journey alone was a reason to always fight for your art. With no further ado, we'll play this audiobook section of the Motivation Manifesto. If you'd like to get the book, you can still find it on Amazon and I encourage you to go there and get it as well. Because nothing like reading that book. But you'll hear me and my voice from 10 years ago reading this book. Please enjoy.

Declaration 9 We shall slow time. The aim of life is to live. And to live means to be aware. Joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. Henry Miller Life is meant to be a vibrant, deeply felt, growing mosaic of meaningful moments. It is to be a grand, fully engaged and unconditionally committed love affair with our daily experience. We are supposed to feel this and sense this to engage with whatever appears in front of us with awareness and enthusiasm, joyfully unwrapping the gifts that fate has chosen to bring. We are not supposed to miss this moment. We were not destined to go barreling through life half numb, unaware of our senses and surroundings, deaf and blind to the magical qualities of the moment. This day is to be enjoyed like a pause at a cool stream during summer's heat. Even in darker times, we should look around us with awe, taking in the beautiful scenes and small wonders that surely abound, fascinated even with any hint of hope in the darkness, like staring into a moonlit field alive with a million silent fireflies. We are not supposed to miss this moment. Our brain was not built for this frenzy, forced to focus on everything, yet nothing sped up and buzzed out by syrups and stimulants, crammed with so much random negative information and so many pointless tasks that there is never a singular focal point to immerse in or achieve or celebrate. We are not supposed to miss this moment. Our bodies were not designed for the atrophy of a sedentary life choked full of laziness and sloth and hours sitting behind desks rather than robbed of the pleasures of touch and movement and the blessed physical exhaustion from a good day's work actually doing something or building something. We are not supposed to miss this moment. Our soul was not meant to be trapped in the past, weighted by futile attachments to long standing stories, caged by old angers and regrets, unable to sense and soar in the white and clean emotional expanse of of now. We are not supposed to miss this moment. Our families do not desire a life of frenzied urgency. They do not want our absence in mind or body to be their only memory of us. We are not supposed to miss this. This life. But we do. All frazzled, stressed and stripped away from the moment. But the cost is immense. So many moments blurred by speed and worry and panic, creating the catastrophe of a joyless life. We can experience so much more of life. It takes very little focus and effort to increase our awareness of the gift of each day, to insert more depth and feeling and meaning in life again. Let us make that our aim. We must shift our focus away from the chaos and back to the true order of the universe, which gives us unrestricted freedom and peace. In this moment we must breathe once more. We must drink in our surroundings and let our bodies feel again. We must connect our heart to our life, putting hope and passion and love back into the efforts of the hour. This requires only a new Deployment of our attention, time and energy. A. A different intention and pace to life. We must slow it all down so that we can feel it once more, enjoy it once more, live it perhaps for the first time. This is the moment to finally begin to enjoy life's blessings. Let us declare we shall slow time. Time is finite. This is the predictable cry of the bewildered and regretful. I thought there would be more time. We say it when our children leave home, as if we had planned one day, someday in the future, when we were less stressed, to appreciate and admire them before they took wing. I thought there would be more time to enjoy them and watch them grow. We say it when our job is yanked from us, as if acknowledging that we had more to give. As if it were unfair that we didn't get to give it. As if we were waiting one day to show up and perform and contribute for real. I thought there would be more time to demonstrate excellence and make my mark. We say it when our lover leaves, catching us off guard. As if we were blindsided, given no indication, as if it were not our fault that the magic had left long before. As if someday we were going to be a better partner. I thought there would be more time to express how much I love you. We say it as we die, as our last failing grip on reality is being released by a bigger hand, the air slipping from our lungs, the pain fading from intense to an odd dullness, and finally to peace and light. Should we have lived an unfelt and regretful life, we would say this to ourselves, as if we were always planning to live someday soon. As if caught by surprise that there is at last no more time to live and love and matter. As if we hadn't realized the clock was ticking all along. As if we hadn't known we would be called. I thought that there would be more time. Did we not know all this? How do we so foolhardily miss the irony of it all? That here, in an infinite universe, time is finite for us. That even if we cannot discern the order and reason for it all, the outcome is predictable. Life will randomly and too soon be taken away, perhaps brutishly or easily, but likely with little fanfare or crescendo other than, hopefully, the love that has gathered around us. Why, when that moment arrives, do so many gasp and beg and plead for one more hand of cards? As though the dealer would keep patience for a drifter who never even fully played the cards he had already so generously dealt? We could bemoan the coming decline. We could seek to avert the day. Death arrives and whispers in our ear that now is our destined moment to ascend back to love. We could deny that it will happen. We could keep missing all the hints we receive to enjoy life while we can as people we love die. Accidents happen, randomness strikes like lightning from a clear sky. But instead we don't think about our mortality either way. We continue checking our fancy watches and full agendas in a panic, wondering where we are to be somehow blind and deaf to destiny, waving its arms, crying out in this very moment of reality, saying my friend, my friend, you are where you are supposed to be already. Do you not see? Stop looking for something else and look and feel all around. Everything is is here now. Miss it and you will have missed life. Hey, it's Brendan.

Sorry to interrupt the audiobook here for you, but a quick reminder. Make sure you subscribe to the show and you download this episode or all the episodes in this 10 part series. Or frankly, just set it so that all of my episodes always download to your phone because this series goes away on June 3rd. Okay? Other than that, in this little mid roll spot, I'd love to tell you about our Ultra group. I'd love to see if maybe this is the time for you to become more ultra successful in your own life, in every area of your life. And I always believe that to do that you've got to have a new level of performance edge. You've got to optimize your health, you've got to adopt some wealthy habits and you've got to get around a higher caliber of network people who are striving and working really hard to achieve great things. If that sounds like something you're interested in, I'd love to invite you into Ultra. Just go to Ultra vip. That's literally the website, just Ultra vip. There's no other part of that website. Just go to Ultra VIP for the invitation to see if you're right. For my private network networking group, Ultra vip.

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 nothing but newness Too many have fled this moment for yesterday or tomorrow, dreaming of a time and place they would rather be. To what result? Those who are alive, but who are, in a sense, living in a different time from now are ghosts. They are never fully seen or sensed by their loved ones. The bounty of the universe cannot find them to gift them. They are dissipated. Absent from the roll call of now. Let us not continue making this mistake of being so absent from our day. From this moment we do not need to feel ashamed that we we have been absent and we must not be bitter to those who have been absent from us. We have missed moments, but that cannot be undone. Our lack of presence yesterday with those we love and lead is done. Those moments shall not return, no matter how we hope to rope them in with heartache. What we missed, we missed. Do not now add the weight of sadness. We can add nothing to yesterday, and we should attach nothing to what we did or did not do. For all those moments are in the ether now, stranded only in the stories in our minds. Nor should we harbor any bitterness toward others, because over time, our sense of disconnection likely equaled theirs. And in condemning them, we condemn ourselves. Some people didn't see us needing them. Some didn't care. It does not matter now. All that matters is what is here now before us to be lived and defined and experienced as we choose. We can breathe deeply today and notice that there is no scent of yesterday. In this moment there is nothing but newness, a white space, nothing but an open field of possibility ready to be felt and and explored. Let us meet it with an intention and a skill in exploring it lovingly, slowly. The Sensory animal To slow down the moment, we must heighten our senses. To feel something more, we must either take more in or more deeply sense that which is already here. We all have vivid memories of times when a crisis or beautiful moment seemed to slow down time. We rounded a corner and saw an accident. We sat by the side of someone we loved as they died. We watched proudly in the audience as our children graduated. In these moments, our heightened alertness made the scene unfold in slow motion. With knowledge of this power, we can choose to direct it at will, to slow down our experience of time and of life itself. It is in our nature to sense our environment. We are highly attuned sensory animals. Our gifts of vision, smell Touch, taste and hearing can be aimed and used like a great receiver to pull in and magnify this moment's streaming current. Slowing time begins on always with the breath. The deeper and longer we draw air in, the more oxygenated our bodies become and the more heightened our energy and presence. Yet most of us are not aware of how we breathe. We are shallow breathers, dumbly sipping from this deep, refreshing pool of oxygen around us. On the rare instances when we use our breath, it comes in huffs and grunts of displeasure or exertion. But life can never be fully felt if we are not breathing in the moment and oxygenating our brains to full power and alertness through deep and present breathing. When we attune to our breath and deepen and lengthen the volume of air that we draw in, it has an immediate and extraordinary impact on how we experience the moment. Before we give a speech or performance, we can breathe. Before a tough conversation with a lover or friend, we can breathe. When we are waiting in line at the store, working out or sitting at our desks, we can remember to take in life and feel it through every breath. Let us try to bring awareness to our breath now. We should draw air into our bellies as if filling a great balloon, feeling the air all the way up into our chest, then let it out smoothly with controlled ease. It is difficult, if not impossible, to do this type of breathing every moment. Our subconscious will quickly take the helm back and resume shallow breathing. But it can be conditioned to last longer if we focus on it. The practice becomes stronger and over time we more automatic to be more present. Let us check into our breath several times in the hour and especially in moments that we want to feel and remember. We can further slow time by absorbing more details from our surroundings. We should take note of the color, texture and placement of objects around us. We can notice the way the tree branch sways rhythmically with the wind as we gaze out the window. We can observe the smooth and perfect skin of a baby, touching her soft cheek and mimicking her expressions. We can watch the cloud formations as they make lazy shapes in the sky. We can see how artfully food is arranged on a plate with the vibrant greens and oranges of each ingredient. This effort is not a race. Scanning our surroundings like beasts on the run is not what we are after. Our aim is to drink in the moment, and so we should pause and truly see what is in front of us. It is the curious and unhurried eye that brings color back to life. Slowing time continues by heightening our Awareness of touch. Our physical sensation of the moment. We should touch more things around us, pick up things and turn them in our hands and take in their dimensions, texture and details. Kissing our lover, we should feel their lips as if this were the most important kiss. When we walk, we should walk in presence, feeling how our heels and toes touch the earth. Our skin holds the keys to a life truly felt, to real pleasures of experience. And what do we hear now? Too often we tone down the sounds of life. We should love the sounds in our ears. The car driving by the house finch trilling in the birch tree. The beautiful, unique voice speaking to us. For us to slow and enjoy life, we must enjoy the music of the world around us. This does not mean we cannot tune out the irritable. But there is a difference between tuning some things out and turning off all things. Finally, no sense in our hasty world is so brutishly ignored as that of taste. Ours is a culture that gulps its food like starving hyenas. We don't even let food linger. We don't delight in its texture and its finish. Many have no memory of their last meal because they barely experienced eating it. We must return to more dignified times, when food was not something we wolfed down on the run, but something with meaning that brought nourishment, joy and connection into our lives. Let us take real pleasure in what we are eating. And if what we are eating doesn't bring true enjoyment and health to our bodies, then let us push it aside. It is such a simple formula. The more senses we bring to the moment, the more time slows, the more a catalog of joyful, vivid memories grows in our minds. The more life is filled with gratitude and the more nourished our soul. Awareness can stop time. To those who cannot sense in slow time, we need only remind them of the times that happen almost automatically. Remember when you are immersed in your art and everything narrowed around you. Remember when you slowed time and breathed in the smell of your lover. Remember when you gave that gift and watched his face as he unwrapped it. And how his smile seemed to happen so quickly at the time, yet the moment lingered so long. And now, as it plays back in your mind, how that smile slowly spreads across his face, as if the more days that pass, the longer that smile lingers, even as its brilliance never fades. Remember when the world stopped, as you listened closely to your friend sharing her pain and you just felt for her. Remember when you walked into the meadow or the woods or the sand and looked out on the vista of nature. And it felt as if you were a part of it and it a part of you. That magical immensity and power of nature taking your breath away. Remember that plate of food that you relished every single bite of wishing the meal would never end and the tastes would never fade. Remember the sounds of the concert you waited so long for, that pulsing in your ears that seemed to beat with your own heart. It was as if we put time itself on hold so that we could sense something that was timeless, beautiful, meaningful. These needn't be rare moments. There can be an everyday magic to our experience. And that magic need not be mystical, but rather a conscious trick of elongating time, of heightening and deepening our senses to the moment. Awareness is humanity's best weapon against time. So let us always remember our capacities to be gifted time benders. We have an extraordinary ability to slow the moment down, to wade into it, to feel it swirl and surround us. Along with the powers of will and motivation, the ability to fully sense and heighten our experiences helps us combat staleness and live a truly free and vibrant life. Two beats longer. What would happen to the quality of our life and relationships if we simply amplified our senses just a little longer. Let us forget for now where we are supposed to be and what we should be doing. Instead, let us hold this moment for just two beats longer. Do not breathe so quickly. Take in air for two beats longer. Do not scan the room, Sense the room by gazing into each shadow and corner for two beats longer. Do not merely glance at her, look into her eyes and hold them for two beats longer. Longer. Do not gulp down the next meal but savor each bite for two beats longer. Let the tastes melt and linger. Do not send the heartless note. Read it once more and spend two beats longer sensing the pain it may cause another. Do not give a perfunctory kiss goodbye while juggling everything on the way out the door. Make the kiss count. Make it firm and solid and true, holding the moment passionately for two beats longer. Life is lived in the extra beats we hold as time unfolds. Soon the two beats become four, the four become eight, and eventually we will have mastered the art of experiencing life, of feeling who we are and and where we are on our path to greatness, of creating real moments, of living as joyous masters in the infinite and divine freedom of now.

Okay, it's Brendan, the modern day Brendon here, jumping back in. I hope you enjoyed this chapter of the motivation manifesto. If you did, yes, you can still find the book for sale on Amazon and I would encourage you to if.

You'Re not yet a member of Growth.

Day, maybe this is the day that you join. There's actually a 12 week advanced motivation course based on the Motivation Manifesto in Growth Day. It's unlocked for any of our Mastery members. How do you know if you're a Mastery member? Well, just go to growthday.com and get yourself signed up. If you're already in Growth Day, just go to the search bar and type in motivation manifesto and BAM. That 12 week course will pop up for you free. Just for being a Mastery member in Growth Day. Again, you can go to growthday.com and you'll find an entire course 12 week online motivational course unlocked for all Growth Day Mastery members. We'd love to have you in Growth Day if you're not already. Again you can just go to growthday.com I want to thank everyone for listening to this episode of the Motivation Manifesto audiobook. Again. Make sure you download this episode and all the episodes. Otherwise you will lose these on June 3rd. This is a 10 day preview of 10 chapters of the Motivation Manifesto. My thanks for the 10th anniversary of the release of the Motivation Manifesto.