Motivation Mashup: 6 Leadership Lessons That Will Make You Unstoppable!

People always ask me, Brendan, what do leaders actually do? Maybe you're leading a team or you're in charge of a large organization, or you're just trying to even lead your own life. I mean, what is it that leaders actually do? Many of you know, this was my graduate school work in 2001, I wrote a book called the Student Leadership Guide. And I never had any clue that thing would blow up the way that it has. And this framework for leadership, it's called Eclipse 6 is from that book and it's been used at I think 40 of the top 100 schools in the world. Major corporations from around the world, major associations have called me in to speak on this topic because it's a great framework for leadership. It answers that question, what are the major practices of leadership that we must enact on a continual basis to be able to have the amount of influence and impact we desire in our work lives or in any role in which.

We'Re leading other people?

So let's get right into it. The first E of these six E's is envision. Great leaders. Envision a compelling and different and vibrant future than what is here. They have an alternative, clear view of what the world could be like tomorrow than it is today, right? They have a shared purpose. They believe that they and others would be compelled by, interested, inspired by, and want to work towards. And that's a big deal. And you always read about it in leadership, right? You have to have vision. I mean, it's biblical. Where there is no vision, people perish, right? We know the power of having that vision. So you have to sit down though, and actually do it. The reason we say in vision versus just have a vision is you have to sit. It's a practice of envisioning what should tomorrow look like for my team, what should tomorrow be like for my team business, for my organization. What should tomorrow be like for my life and not just tomorrow. A long term mindset and view the dream, right? That magnificent obsession that, that bold desire, the moonshot goals and purposes and missions of life, the bigger picture that's envisioning a different reality in the future than we experience today. And that's what everybody gets excited about in leadership. Where there's no vision, there's. There's no leadership. Where there's no vision, people perish. So you have to envision. And I say that these are six practices of leadership and not six steps because it's not like you do envisioning once and then you move on in the process. We always have to continually Sit down and envision where are we? Where can we be going? It's an active process. If you set a vision one time and you forget about it, it's not going to help you accomplish the influence of or the impact you want in your lifetime or in those that you lead. The second e here is enlist. As you're developing this vision, it's not just your vision. You're enlisting other people to share their voices, their perspective, their dreams, their desires for where you could be going. You know, I think that the most important leadership lesson in the world is that people support what they create. If people are involved in the ideation of a vision, they're involved in creating ideas of brainstorming, of figuring out what is it we are about, what do we stand for, where are we going? Great leaders enlist that from other people. They're constantly asking people what they think, how they feel, what things they desire and need. And it's that enlistment that is always going on. A great leader is always enlisting other people to, to believe in the dream, to shape the dream, to stay dedicated to the dream. It's an honest and authentic and a genuine desire to see other people be involved in the process and to enjoy that process. I mean, it's so vital. And that methodology of what you know, how you get people involved in it. You're asking questions, you're paying attention to their needs, you're reflecting back to things that you're hearing. You're always enlisting others to support and to build this vision, this ideal future together. The third thing that great leaders are always doing is embodying their message. They stand for something. There's a congruence between who they are, the behaviors that they're enacting into the world, how they treat people, what they're working towards and what they say is important. Right? That, that's. It's just basic line. It's integrity. You know, it's a congruence between what we say we're after and how we are behaving. There's nothing more important, is there? You know, it's like it's that old message. It's like you don't believe the message unless you believe the messenger. So as leaders, we have to stand for and demonstrate and show and portray what we are really believing in. I mean, are we really. Is our team and people around us seeing us work for it, sweat for it, sacrifice for it, champion it over and over and over again, Even when it's hard, even when there's conflict, even when people Are pissed even when people want to quit. Are you still there? Do you still stand for it? If you do, you become a legend. Third, fourth, what we have to move on to is now empowering people. Empowerment means we give people the decision making authority and the trust to be able to work towards this vision, to allow them the autonomy, the strength, the input, to equip them with the knowledge, the skills, the abilities, the technologies, the tools, the training to allow them to succeed as they march with us to achieving something extraordinary and phenomenal. That's vital. That's what empowerment is about. And a lot of leaders who come in with a big vision, they get everyone excited. They seem like they, they want everybody involved and they do a great job of standing for it, but they don't equip their teams to kick some butt. They never get to that place of real stride, of real momentum, and that happens all the time. Training other people and equipping them with everything they need to succeed has to be a vital practice of every great leader. And again, it doesn't happen just once. That's a huge failure in the working world, especially in corporate America. Great leaders come in, they nail the vision, they get people around it, they stand for something, but they only empower people at the beginning. They give some training and then they just disappear. Training has to be consistent. Coaching has to be consistent. Equipping people to deal with the new challenges, the new tools, new technologies, the new competitive realities, that's vital. We have to have that in place, right? So we've been doing this practice. We envision a better future. We enlist other people to help shape that vision, to believe in that vision, to support that vision. We stand for something by embodying our own message. We empower other people to be able to support and to be able to win. Then we have to evaluate some of the hardest things that we do in all of leadership, to evaluate the key people who are with us, their contributions, evaluate the their skills, evaluate their needs, and to evaluate the ethics that are going on in our organization, in our team. Are we being excellent and are we being ethical? Is the questions that we're evaluating on, right? Are we being excellent and ethical as we are progressing? Which I guess would be the third question, are we progressing? If not, why are we being ethical? If not, why, if our people are not being excellent, if not, why? These are the questions that we have to ask as this practice and evaluation. It's like every day as a leader, you know, you've got to keep your thumb on the pulse to see hey, how are we doing? Are we alive? Are we moving forward? That evaluation also brings up the incredible challenge that we face as leaders, which is to give honest, direct, immediate, constructive feedback to those people who are trying to influence and lead, you know, to our collaborators, to our friends, to our followers, whatever word that you use for them. I mean, it's vital. It's vital that we are paying attention and seeing when things are going off the rails, you know, that we never check out. I mean, it's a consistent process of checking in, seeing how we're doing, and paying attention to really evaluating the progress of our mission. And that final thing, that sixth thing, that thing that makes the magic encourage, you know, to encourage, to be the champion, to be the cheerleader, to be the person who always motivating, inspiring, uplifting people to never just have. You know, a lot of leaders, they get their pet projects and they get excited about it, and they disappear. No, man, you need to encourage on a continual basis. You need to light people up. You need to have it in your heart and in your soul that desire to want to lift people off, you know, to lift them up and lift them off their butts, to get them excited about things. You know, if you can't motivate them with your passion and your example, then what are we doing? You have to encourage people. When this gets hard, you know, when you're working towards a mission, it gets hard longer term. The more people involved, the bigger the organization, the bigger the vision, the bigger the dream, the longer the duration to accomplish it. The more struggle, the more challenge, the more conflict, the more discord, the more disappointment, the more frustration, the more doubt, the more delayed. All those things happen. Leaders have to deal with them. And the way they have to deal with it is always being that encouraging voice. When the chips are down, when it looks most bleak, you're still that beam of light. And when it gets dark, when it gets challenging, when there's conflict and turmoil and turbulent seas, you're solid. You're somebody that they know they can go to. Because you're always going to turn a negative into a positive. You're always going to help them see the alternative view, the next step. You're going to champion people. You're going to champion the mission of the cause. That's leadership. That's the six E's of leadership. Envision, enlist, embody, empower, evaluate, and encourage. And I'll say, what overlays all this is a philosophy about what we're doing, that it's important to us that there's a purpose, there's a mission to it that we feel that deeply within us is so powerful and we honor, we respect, and we love those we work with. Last thought. You know, I never use the word. I try to. Maybe I use it in this video a little bit to give us context, but I try never to use the word follower. People aren't following you. They're actively engaged. They are collaborators. When you get people to collaborate with you in all areas of these six E's, you're building leaders, you're building collaborators within the organization, within the team with the those who you are serving. A magic happens. It's now it's not just you the leader, it's a group of us. We are a pure set of leaders. We are the movers and shakers who are shaping and making this mission happen every single day. We love to work together. We have fun. People are standing up. They now are helping come up with vision. They now are championing and cheering on, bringing in, enlisting other people. They now are doing all they're standing for something. They're living that value and the truth. They now are empowering other people and championing the cause. They're your eyes and your ears, evaluating how the organization, how the mission is going. They now are encouraging it so it doesn't just ride on your shoulders. When we do that right. Then we have this thing called leadership.

I'll give you three principles. Yeah. For greater discipline. And then I'll tell you the actual three things to do to generate more discipline in such a way that your personal growth grows, that you feel like alive and connected and meaningful and joyous on this journey. Because that's what really matters. I mean, discipline sucks. Unless in some ways the outcome is progress, greater engagement and aliveness of life and greater success in whatever way you measure that. So the three principles of all of like discipline comes down to number one, mastering your schedule. I know that sounds so boring, but it is so absolutely fundamental to your focus, to your progress, to your health. It doesn't matter if you say, okay, I only want to. I only want to schedule one thing today. That's fine with me. I'm not trying to own every hour of your life. But that one thing better be awesome and it better be a needle mover. So scheduling show up when it's scheduled. And then the third thing, which is most important as a principle, all of discipline. No discipline happens on a real consistent basis unless you have social connection. All of the research shows the most productive people, the most focused people, the People who are most fulfilled in doing meaningful work have attached a meaning that their focus, intention, their hard work is attached to social connection. Meaning I'm going to show up for this because it's going to make me a better mom or parent. I'm going to get healthy so I have more energy for the kids. I am going to do this project so my team and company grows so we serve more people and we make an impact. It's like the hard work must be attached to impact. But the impact isn't just self like, oh, I'll get this. It has to have a social connection. Like you have to have a reason to show up over and over and over for others. That's why we always teach in high performance. You have to have a little card that says, who needs me on my A game today? I am disciplined because I wouldn't be less disciplined doing a morning show. I'm more disciplined doing a morning show because Jamie's there, she's waiting on the other end. If I don't get there, I feel like a chump. So that's important. There's three principles, right? Schedule it, show up, attach social connection. But now here's the things I would do. If you said, brendan, if you could only be disciplined about three things, what would you do? And it's not what you all think. It's totally not what you all think. And this is very much that makes me happy and progressive in life. So they're not sexy. The number one thing, if I could give anyone a discipline to always do on the first of every single month, you do a whole life review. When that calendar hits one, as in the first of the month, you look at every major area of your life, you score yourself, you ask how you'd like to improve that and what could you do this month? Because most people never improve their life because they never face their life. Yeah, you have to look at it. So every first of the month. That's why for those who are new to us, Growth Day began with Growth Day actually began because I said, let's do it on. Let's do our personal development on the first of the month. So I go live for two hours in Growth Day. So if you're not a member, go to growthday.com because I do a full personal development seminar on the first of every single month. Because I feel like if we start the month off, we nail that. We start it with good attitude, energy. But also you're looking into the month and asking is the way I've scheduled this month Going to help me move towards the lifestyle I want or the accomplishment of the major three projects I'm working on in my life.

And also, if we don't do this, I feel like it is so easy. And how many people can relate to this where if you don't do this, all of a sudden you blink and you're like, oh, it's halfway through the month. Or, oh, three months have gone by. I don't even know what's. How did this even happen? Right? How many times have we done that? Like, wait a minute, it's Thanksgiving. Like, wait a minute, it's spring break. And it's like your life flies by in a blur.

This is for those who have the High Performance Planner. You know this page super well. This is your monthly review section in the High Performance Planner. And what it does is it makes you look at the 10 major areas of your life, from health to mental, emotional partner or love, family, friends, mission, experiences, spirit, finances, learning, growth. It helps you reflect on the things you learned in the last month. Learn about others, learn about yourself, what you're grateful for, the main priorities coming up, the decisions you needed to make or could make. Your monthly review and orienting yourself to your year goals and three year goals. Like, if I don't do that on the first of the month, what happens is the middle of the month, I don't. What am I doing? I might be showing up, but I'm showing up in a hot mess all.

The time because I don't have direction.

So if I could give you anything, start the first of the month. Super clear about that month. If that's all you did, I promise you'd be more engaged with your life. Second thing I do, I believe another review is needed every Sunday. So Sunday, do your weekly review and your weekly planning. I don't care if it takes 10 minutes, an hour. I think it's important to go okay on Sunday.

Is this upcoming week?

Am I clear about what I want of that? Am I clear about how I can serve? Am I clear about these little slots of time? Do they make sense to me?

I mean, just that it can take so fast.

So.

Third thing.

Yeah, all right, listen. If I could give you three things to move the needle in your life. Number one is a month through on the 1st of the month, look out. And Lois, please don't think that this or the Sunday review, which is the second point, is just about your schedule. You are reviewing the major parts of your life. You're connecting with them, you're scoring them. You're asking what more you desire there and what's something simple you can do to improve that area of your life each month? It doesn't have to be huge life transformation because transformation takes time. You might just like this little thing, this little.

This thing.

But being aware of it, that's important. So the monthly, then the Sunday, and then you have. I just, I know everyone already wrote this in their things and they just know it to be true. You've got to win your mornings again and bring intention for, I think two things every day. If we can bring intention for two things every day, we win that day. To me, the first one is I'm going to bring the joy to this day. I'm going to choose my attitude. I'm going to develop a mindset that is unshakable, that is joyful, that is I'm going to be in every room. It doesn't matter if I'm the loudest. I'm going to try to be the most generous and grateful person in that room. I'm just going to bring good energy. Be responsible for the energy you are projecting onto others and into this world. So I think for me, that intention of. I have an intention to have joy. Each day I'm going to have some fun. I'm going to make that happen. Because sometimes life doesn't do it for you.

They just hasn't.

So I'm going to bring the joy. So that's my. That's an intention.

So what I'm saying is the third.

Discipline is every day you have intentions for feeling life.

Yeah.

For me, feeling life means bring the joy. That's number one, I'm going to bring the joy. And number two, I'm going to make a moment with somebody today. Maybe I send them an audio. Maybe it's the way I look at my wife. Maybe it's the thing I call up my mom and. Or I sense a beautiful appreciation email or text to somebody. But every day I'm gonna bring the joy into the day and I'm going to make a moment. Because at the end of your life, I learned this face. My death twice in my life, you remember these moments and scenes with other people. It's so important to realize that. And so you have to ask, are you going to have enough of those moments and scenes? Are they going to be at the end of your life? You kind of. It's true. If it's true, you see a movie, what are the scenes of that movie going to be? You get to direct that. And I promise the scenes in the movie almost always have these beautiful connections with others. It's like most people don't realize the ending movie of their life is love scenes and connection scenes with other people where, like, these, like, meaningful moments, if you will, let's just call them meaningful moments. That's what you see at the end, meaningful moments. So if that is true. If it's true, then you have to purposely structure and build in meaningful moments. So you love the movie at the end. You know that you love the movie, that you want to watch the movie again, that you appreciate that you're going to bust out the good wine and have that good popcorn with that meaningful movie. And so every day, that's. Now that's mine. I'm going to bring joy to this day and I'm going to make moments.

Yeah, that's so good.

You might have different intentions.

Maybe your intentions, like, I'm going to.

Do this thing as a mom or as a leader or as a whatever. Doesn't matter to me. But if you don't have the intention, the days just blaze by. Nothing. You could be working hard. You can show. You can get their schedule down. You can have your calendar prioritized with all the tabs and all the different marker colors and everything else. But if there's no intention for feeling, you just. You were a good robot today.

Yep.

But you didn't.

And we've all had days like that where we feel like a human doing right, not a human being. That's so good, Brendan. That's so good. And a moment, a meaningful moment can be different for every single person. But how many days do we go through and we forget and a meaningful moment's free. You know what I mean? It's like, how many days do we forget to do that? That's so powerful. I love that.

I love that you have so to me, that's funny that the discipline is to have the intention right. Every day when you have the intention or every moment or every experience, when you have the intention, it turns out better. Like this morning we talked about, Jamie and I, before we started, we talked about, like, what do we. What's the show about today?

What's our theme for the week?

Our theme for this week is focus and discipline. Our theme for the week, the month in Growth Day, is confidence. And if you're not a Growth Day member yet, please sign up@growthday.com because last week I taught two hours on confidence. Jonathan Fields from the Good Life Project taught over an hour and a half on confidence, and so did Dave Hollis and and they took questions and did coaching. And upcoming we've got mel robbins, Jenna kutcher, Jamie. Oh, my gosh. David bach is this week. I mean, it's going to be epic, guys. So go to growthday.com because you can get live coaching twice a week with us and you get the replays for less than a dollar a frigging day for the year. I mean, it's unbelievable. So go to growthday.com it's my favorite thing. And my favorite thing.

Yeah, it's amazing what you're doing.

My favorite thing.

Glow atonmo prince ea I'm trying to. There's so many incredible people in there. So super excited.

Coming up. He's just fire.

I can listen to him all day long.

Oh, his voice.

I know.

It's.

It's insane.

Like, oh, okay, we're overtime. I love you guys. Listen, I want to remind you, every day you can choose a new attitude. You can improve. You can take that step. You can show up for your schedule. Just show up. Remember to do the things we talked about today. But remember, you're stronger than you think. Future holds good things for you.

And every day is a good day to grow. Hey, my friends, it's brendon burchard. Thanks for joining me this morning for a very important topic as we discuss some of difficult, difficult topics of life. Those topics of loss, of grief, of dealing with tragedy, difficulty, struggle, loneliness. Of how do we carry on when bad things happen. How do we find strength and grace and peace in some of the most difficult situations and moments of our lives.

That's a big topic today.

I encourage you today to enter and frame this conversation in your own mind, to develop your own mindset and attitude towards these conversations before we even have them. Because that is one secret, in fact, to dealing with difficulties of life. To set our minds in advance, to set our intentions in advance, to think through and contemplate. How will I cope with that? How will I face that? How will I endure that? That ultimately is one of the great strengths of consciousness, of presence, of intention, of anticipation that allows us to deal with some of the worst issues of life. So let's enter this as a community positive to have a beautiful conversation. Let's do it from a perspective of knowing that we're going to deal with some unpleasant emotions that might come up. And let's face that willingly with trust and faith and gratitude. Because I'll share one thing that's beautiful about loss and grief, and that is you only experience those things and feel those Things. If you had something and you were connected to something that you enjoyed, something that you felt was important, something that was beautiful, something that was meaningful to you, and so you had a sense of meaningful connection and something maybe shifted or changed, but that was a beautiful gift. I do want to set the stage a little bit more, too, because I probably have a different perspective about this conversation that many of you have heard about, you know, and I know I got a lot of questions in advance. Are you going to talk about the five stages of grief? And no, I'm not.

If you've studied Elizabeth Kubler Ross or.

The work or the ideals behind the. The five stages of grief, if you haven't heard of that work before, the idea that there's these five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I'm more of the mind of which, that of Elizabeth's, who came up with that idea and wrote about that so compellingly towards the end of her life, she mentioned that she wished that it had never been framed stages, because as she wrote about and spoke about towards the end of her life as a theorist and a person who had given hospice care, she thought, you know, I wish everyone didn't think there were these.

Stages you're supposed to go through.

You know, some of you, you feel like you're supposed to feel great by now. You feel like, well, I should have.

Moved through these stages.

I should be okay by now. And some of the greatest moments of grace that you ever allow yourself in life is the grace of time, the grace of allowing, like, every single person here, if you look at what we're doing here, these zoom tiles, every person here will cope with grief differently. Right?

Everything I'm going to share with you.

Today is just by nature, going to be a generic nature. Everyone will cope differently. And if you're still struggling through and you think, geez, I should be in the stage of acceptance by now, you know, I want to let you know, the person who literally came up with the idea of the five stages of grief wished it wasn't called stages because she thought everyone deals with it differently. It's not sequential. These things become circular in time. And not everybody feels all of these emotions either, right? The people who I've lost in my life, I've never yet had the sense of anger toward. I didn't have a sense of anger that that thing happened. I didn't have anger towards my father dying. And I know that might sound completely crazy to people, but that wasn't an emotion that I experienced with death, partially because the way that I faced mortality throughout my life. Not everyone goes through all these stages, so I want to set that frame off the bat. Everybody copes differently. There's no right or wrong way to experience loss. There is, however, a healthy way to re engage life. We know from 50 years of psychological study, and you all know inherently and innately that there's ways that we cope that are healthy and there's ways that don't make us feel good. There's things that we do that can lead to less ability to continue on with life in a happy way. One of the most important and powerful frames I can give you for loss and grief above all else and above everything else is conscious anticipation. Conscious anticipation. Consciousness or awareness in life is so important if we are going to cope well. And what we usually mean when we speak about that, especially with loss and grief, is having the ability to anticipate that it will happen. Ok, that it will happen. That if you haven't faced your own mortality and your own death yet, I deeply invite you to do that at some point, face your mortality, your own personal mortality. Most people have never had a conversation about death in their own mind with themselves, let alone contemplating that maybe they would lose a parent one day, or a sibling one day, or a job one day. In other words, in a spiritual practice, we would talk about this as a concept of awareness to impermanence. You've heard that phrase before, awareness to impermanence, that nothing is permanent. That in a lot of spiritual principles you might think of, well, what is permanent maybe is if it's God or if it's universe or it's the dao or the way that there might be something spirit that is permanent. But in the human experience, in our natural world, things are impermanent. Can you face that? Can you face that? Can you anticipate that? Let me switch metaphors for you real quickly. As many of you know, I do this for a living. I talk to groups of people all the time. I'm out on social media all the time. And I talk with so many influencers, so many people who want to be leaders and who are building up their brands and their careers. And they're shocked, shocked when someone judges them on the Internet. They're amazed when someone posts a negative just mean comment. They can't believe it. Can you believe this person posted this mean thing on my video, I spent months on, on my life's work, I posted a message that's beautiful about my family and this person attacked me. Can you believe it? I'm like, yes, why are you surprised? It's called the Internet. Anyone ever been surprised you got a mean attack on the Internet? Well, I tell my peers all the time, I'm like, please don't be surprised. That is something that I guarantee that will happen. If you are commuting, if you are driving to work or you are driving somewhere and, and you are cut off by somebody in traffic and you go into a rage about it, I'm like, you were surprised. And I know these are simple and simplistic and almost silly metaphors here, but I just want to switch your mind into that anticipatory power that we all have that when we actually anticipate, oh, this is going to happen, we are way more capable of being centered than when we don't anticipate it. I'm not saying there will not be shock. I am not saying there won't be heartache. I am not saying there won't be incredible like fear or denial or regret or sadness. But what I'm suggesting to you now is find peace with the inevitable. If we can find peace with the inevitable in advance, we are more able to cope. Switching metaphors again, I have so many. We have a lot of people in this group here who served in the military before. And as you know, I've been blessed to coach from the highest level groups in the military across all branches. And the way that they deal with what is about to come, when it is just like one of the most difficult missions or projects or tours of their lifetime, is they rehearse it over and over and over and over again in their mind and in practice and in the field. They get comfortable with what is going to be an uncomfortable, unpleasant, potentially terrorizing situation. I don't pretend that's easy. And that's one reason I love the military. Their willingness to do what is incredibly difficult to protect the freedoms that we all enjoy.

But I will share.

There's some kind of power in that. And I had that when I was a 19 year old kid and I had my car accident. It forced me to face death. Any fans here of philosophy? Anyone ever read philosophy? Well, I've never really gotten to the study of philosophy. I hope you will and you'll know. Chapter one in all of philosophy, almost across all philosophers in the history of the world. Chapter one, if we could generalize, says, you're gonna die now let's talk about life. That's like the fundamental of philosophy. So I read so much I got comfortable with the fact that I was going to lose people and there was Going to be loss in life anticipation. Now, I know this does not sound really, like, motivating, but that's not the point here. The point is to say, can we anticipate it? When I received the call from my dad letting me know that he had been just diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, out of nowhere, he woke up, was lacking some balance as he walked down the hallway. It was Mother's Day of 2009. So he woke up on Mother's Day, didn't feel good. Mom said, what's wrong with you? I don't feel good. He's kind of unbalanced. The weeks before, he's playing golf and racquetball and bowling. He's healthy. All of a sudden, something's wrong, doesn't get better. They go to the hospital. Within a few hours, he's sitting with.

Two doctors.

Who are looking at his blood work, and then do some more tests. And they let him know he has seven days to live. And they say, you have aml, acute myeloid leukemia. There's two types of leukemia. AML is the one that usually takes the person quickly. And they said, you have seven days because what happens is your stem cells. I don't want to go to the whole thing about leukemia, but essentially, you're creating blood that's not good. Ultimately, it shuts down your organs. I know I could go deeper into that, but those who know what I'm talking about, leukemia, it strikes fast. And so he had seven days. As soon as he told me that, I said, okay. And I was in shock, and I wanted to deny it, and I had fear. And that comes from shock. You know, when you hear news that you didn't anticipate or something happens you didn't anticipate, you're gonna have a shock reaction. And for me, I was shocked about it at first, and those emotions come in. And by the end of the conversation, though, as I felt those emotions come up, I also was releasing them because I'd already contemplated my father's passing years earlier in journaling activities of how I would think of the passing of people. And I know that sounds almost fatalistic, but, you know, have you ever heard that saying, you don't want to leave things unsaid? I was reading a book one time. It said, you know what? Contemplate the passing of people who are important in your life so that you don't leave things unsaid, so that you think of, like, wow, what if this person. What if this is my last moment with this person? If this was my last moment with this person. What would I love to say to them and communicate to them and don't leave those things unsaid. Now, I know that's difficult because all of us have had situations where someone has passed or know someone who's passed and things were unsaid. And that is incredibly unsettling. It brings up shock and it brings up regrets and it brings up sadness, which we'll talk about those emotions. But also in this moment, in the here and now, listen, none of us can take back whatever's happened in our lives, right? Whatever's happened has happened. It is as it was, as it is. We are here, we are here now. And all we can do moving forward together as a group is anticipate moving forward.

We can't.

Like, this is not a thing where I'm going to try to be on a healing journey of the things of the decades past for any of us, because we all heal in our own time, in our own ways. But I'm here to say it's incredibly powerful if we can contemplate mortality and anticipate it and go, wow, what should I say to my kids? What should I say to my loved ones? Let me make sure I take care of people and treat people in ways that I don't regret and that things are said. One reason I was at peace, because.

My father had already said everything he.

Needed to say to me. I was lucky on that. I had already said everything I needed to say. Now we just had to go through the process with honor and integrity and respect and love of end of life and not deny it. Face it, my dad faced it with a positive attitude. He knew it was coming. They told him, you have seven days. He's a Marine, so he made it 59 days.

Good job, dad.

And he fought with great, great attitude. I just couldn't believe it. I kept waiting for his attitude to sour. Never did. Couldn't believe it. He anticipated the end and he anticipated how he wanted to face it. And it was incredible. And I was lucky to witness that. And I want to let you know I've also witnessed the complete opposite in care before, been with families where it was the opposite. And that wasn't right or wrong either. It is. People cope with the end of life is the way that they can. And for those of you who've cared for someone at the end of their lives, I want to let you know that caregiver guilt is something that if you are facing it or you've ever faced it, that's okay. That's entirely normal. And that you need to grant yourself the peace of knowing you did the best you could at the time with what you knew. You know, I've had the blessing of working with a lot of medical professionals, doctors and hospice care workers who talk about this. Gosh, I wish I could. You know, we all wish we could take back time and go change things. We can't. And so today, grant yourself the peace and the gift of knowing you did the best that you could at the time that you knew how to do. They did the best they knew that they could. I wish, you know, that was the first time I've ever cared for somebody personally for months on end with leukemia. I wish I knew more about leukemia at the time. I didn't know. I didn't know. So some things I would have done differently and dad would have done differently and my family would have done differently. We did the best we could and so did dad. And I want to let you know that no matter what you have dealt with in grief in the past, your family or others loss, losing a job, your divorce, your breakup, your loss of job, Listen, you were as conscious as you were at that moment.

You did what you could.

And you need to give yourself grace because please listen to me, my friends, at that time, you were in shock and you were coping. And if you just need a little science from, you know, Brendon right now, let me drop some science on you. A stunning fact that when people are in shock or coping, they don't always perform at their highest level, best. Oh, my gosh. Did the performance guy just tell us that and say it's okay? Yes. I'm letting you know it's okay that you weren't absolutely phenomenal and perfect and other people around you weren't absolutely and phenomenal and perfect. It's okay. If you were getting divorced and the two of you fought, it's okay. If you're getting fired and you screamed at your boss, it's okay. Whatever happened, you now must go. I accept it as it was. I'm at peace with what it was. I did the best I knew how at the time. And even if you don't believe you did the best as you could at the time, it doesn't matter. Because yesterday's darkness didn't rise with the sun today. You're in a new moment. You're in a new moment. Your cells are new right now. This spirit, this energy, if you take a deep breath in, that air you're breathing, that's fresh. But I want to let you know we're in the here and now. Take grace and connection with the moment for yourself.

We've all had pain.

We've all had sadness. We can allow the moment now to refresh us. A moment now to have a new feeling, a new emotion, a new sense about ourselves, a new belief about ourselves, a new faith in ourselves, a new faith in the world. Right now, this is a new moment. And with new moments, there's second chances. And with new second chances, there's new abilities to begin anew. But even if we don't begin anew, to allow ourselves the peace and the grace of the moment. So important, you know, if you think about anticipation being something that's really powerful.

I also want to share.

Acceptance is really powerful. To accept ourselves as we are now, no matter what has happened to us. To accept life as it is now, even if it's not perfect. To be in a ready state of.

Acceptance.

Is really powerful. To be accepting when your kids act out and they're freaking out and they're angry. To be accepting when your team doesn't get it right. To be accepting when the project falls apart. To be accepting when the video doesn't get the likes you want. Just to be allowing and surrendering to the outcomes of life and face them as they are. Identifying the what are the controllable variables here? What's not controllable? And asking for the grace of the wisdom to know the difference between the two. There's a lot of things you can't control. Let them go. The things that you can control, you can only control in this moment. So if you didn't control it right in the past, let it go. It's now, uncontrollable now. What are the controllable factors? Living in the now.

Will always be, always be the first sort of gate.

To enter, to free yourself from pain, to step back into this moment of now, to accept, to realize this is what is. Even if I didn't want it this way, this is what is. And what is is here. Okay, now, how would I like to interpret it? What would I like to do next? These are the power you think of. If you can anticipate things will happen and you can accept as is what the world is, while you also accept your power to shift and shape and control and move things around that you can. That's an uncommon perspective to come into things with, to anticipate them and to accept those two things are so powerful.

How do you turn the feeling of defeat into a success mindset? Those days you get disappointed, you get sad, you get upset, someone makes fun of you, and all of a sudden all of your motivation and your focus and your drive drains out with the disappointment. How do you turn it around? You know, if you went for that big project and you failed, it didn't work out. You put the video out, nobody watched it. You know, you did what you've been trying to do, but you just didn't get the accolades or the rewards. And now you feel defeated and like, tomorrow you're kind of like, screw it.

Why even try?

We've got to learn how to change that mindset around so we can have some more resiliency and motivation so that we can keep at it in our dreams. But the question is how? That's what this episode is about. The first thing you have to remember, as soon as defeat strikes, and it will, if you're chasing big missions, big purposes, things that really matter to you, you're going to have down days, you're going to have bad days. Allow that everybody wants to be so Pollyannish or super positive and say, oh, there is no defeat. There is no failure. Oh, no, there's failure. I mean, there really is. And we shouldn't stop. We should stop pretending that people don't fall on their face and feel bad and have bad days.

Allow it.

When you have a bad day, allow that moment. Say, you know what? Yeah, this isn't the way I wanted it to go. And then immediately shift into learning. Disappointment immediately goes away. Soon you shift into learning. So your question is, first, allow it. Say, okay, I am disappointed. I have higher standards. I wanted it to go better. But instead of now, keep focusing on those things where you beat yourself up and beat yourself and beat yourself up. You say to yourself, okay, what's three things I learned? Go and start focusing on what you learned. Specifically, when you get defeated in your life, I want you to start analyzing what defeated you. But instead of saying, I did bad here and bad here and bad here, turn it into a question about. First, what did I learn about myself?

Second, what did I learn about other people? Third, what did I learn about the world? Fourth, what can I do about it?

That's how you deal with the disappointments.

What did I learn about myself?

What did I learn about other people? What did I learn about the world and what can I do? Now, that focus to those four questions from any disappointment or defeat will help charge you up because you'll be focused more on the lessons that what you can do next. The second big idea, when you have A defeat is this immediately that day that you got defeated, I want you to take three action steps. No matter what those are. Sometimes the three action steps are, okay, that didn't work out well. Send an email to my team explaining or apologizing. Sometimes the action step is to call somebody, send a note to somebody, send a text. Sometimes the action step can simply be, so stop at the grocery store, get my favorite meal.

So tonight I feel better about myself.

Whatever it is, just make sure as soon as the disappointment happens, you set three goals that very day and do them. One of those goals can be meditate and think about it. Another goal can be take a long walk. Another goal can be, let's exercise. Another goal can be, call a friend, go out to coffee. I don't care what it is, my friend, but you need to those goals, and you need to do them immediate. Because here's the thing, the more momentum you have, it doesn't matter toward what goal. The more momentum you have, the more motivation you'll feel. And that motivation can often wipe out that feeling of disappointment and move you forward. And then the third big idea, when you get defeated, stop focusing so much on yourself. I know it's easy to stew in.

Your own hurt or your anger, your disappointment.

But instead start thinking about that very next day. How can I rise to another level of service? That's the question I want you ask the next day. When you wake up that next day after disappointment, say, you know what? Today I have the opportunity to serve. Let me do it with full joy and heart.

Let me challenge myself this day.

Yes, yesterday wasn't what I wanted to be, but this day I'm going to challenge myself again to serve with full joy and full heart. If you can do these simple things, I know they're just internal dialogues I'm talking about. You're really just looking at the disappointment or the defeat and saying, okay, what did I learn about myself, other people, and the world?

And what can I do?

You're really just saying, okay, what are three steps I can take today to get some more momentum back? And you're really just waking up the next day and saying, hey, hey, how can I serve even better today? That might sound so simplistic, but most people don't do those things. They keep stewing over and over and over on the hurt and the angst and the stress, and so they never break free. If you ask a different quality of question, you can live a different quality of life and overcome those disappointments. So try that next time you feel down or defeated, and you'll start to experience and live what we call the charge line. This can be your day for personal growth. This can be that day you committed to and you remember. You go, that was the day I.

Got myself a community.

I got better coaches. I committed to making my life the absolute best that I could. This is that day. Make today your growth day.

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