Motivation Mashup: The 3 KEYS to Building a HEALTHY Relationship!

I call it the three E's. Okay? The three E's of a relationship. This is when I know a relationship is great and can can improve in a conflict situation. So if I'm mediating or counseling or coaching, here's what I do I watch for in those initial interactions, when they're coming in, they're describing the problem. As an example to me, I watch for the three E's. First one, empathy. Empathy. Does it look like the person, the other is listening and is caring what the other person is saying and can understand it even if they don't agree with it? Can they understand it even if they don't agree with it? That's a big one for me. Can they understand it even if they don't agree with it? Ah, that to me is empathy. They care that the other person is hurt or confused or upset about something. Like, there's just empathy. Often it's non verbal. I can see that the non verbal stuff is the easiest. But often what people don't understand is a lot of times empathy looks like listening. Even if you don't agree, it could listen. Like, this can be empathy. Literally, this can be empathy. Like, you're like, you think they're crazy, but you're giving them the allowance to speak. It's empathizing enough. Like, we all believe that empathy is warm hugs and sunshine. But a lot of the time, empathy is allowing, turn, taking, asking a question, waiting, nodding, not arguing. Or it's saying, I heard you say this. I see it this way. Those simple notes of validation, time, openness make all the difference. Second thing I look for, of the three E's, the first E is empathy. Second E is enthusiasm. I think enthusiasm is the master of all emotion, right? Even more than love. People like, you're crazy.

I'm like, no, no.

I know lots of people who have love, but there's no enthusiasm in the relationship anymore. There's no intimacy, no pop, no vibrancy, no variety. It's like they care for each other, but there's no energy behind it. I think the energy behind things is enthusiasm. When we're excited about building our life together, or listen, when we're excited about solving this problem together. I remember the first, like I was doing a divorce referred mediation. I was in like grad school and I knew this couple was gonna survive. It was like five minutes into this thing because they were just like, we were so excited to solve this thing together. And I was like, you're gonna be great. I immediately knew, and it was so easy. It was so I'm sorry, it was not easy. It was so well resolved because there was enthusiasm, even if we don't agree, enthusiasm for the solution, enthusiasm to move out of this crappy time. I love when people do coaching or counseling and. And I've talked to therapists who go, oh my gosh, they were so happy to finally share their hatred for each other. They were so enthusiastic to get it out and to talk about it and to start working on it. The enthusiasm to work on it, the enthusiasm to improve it, the enthusiasm to build that future together, the enthusiasm to resolve it. That is such an indicator of things. So how do you feel? Are you enthusiastic, improve that relationship to grow it, or are you enthusiastic to go deeper? Enthusiastic to do the things for your other who just loves it, you know, are you enthusiastic about them and their life so important? Empathy, enthusiasm. And the third one, encouragement. The strongest relationships are built on encouragement, right? We know this from the social sciences. I know many of you guys heard me recommend for the last decade the work by John Gottman and his wife in research and relationships. I love that work. And one of the critical things that came out of that was such a simple distinction that happy couples tend to praise each other five times more than they complain or negate. And whether that ratio is true in all relationships across all cultures is not probably not super validated. But what I do believe is the simple way to break that down is encourage your partner. A lot. A lot. Encourage them, cheer them, you know, they.

Got a big day.

Do something. Look, I got this on this laptop over here from Denise.

I don't.

Can I see that? You guys probably can't see us too. Not going to show up. It's just. It's a post it note that she gave me like six months ago. I still have it on my computer. It says, I love you, I appreciate you. I know you are doing big things. I love you, I appreciate you. I know you are doing things. It was just a post it note she put on my computer in a really particularly difficult week that I was having. And we're both pretty good about leaving little notes around for each other, especially when we're traveling or we'll be apart or something like that. But also throughout the day, like, she puts something over there that she likes or she does.

I'm like, I love that.

Good job. That's amazing. And we don't say that flippantly. Like we were like, that's great.

That's amazing.

Like we cheer each other on a lot. And I think that's Huge. The ability to encourage one another is so vital. So vital. Okay, so the three things, empathy, encouragement, empathy, enthusiasm and encouragement. I look for those, I watch for them. But listen, don't just look for them, cultivate them. Cultivate them.

And if you don't know how to.

Do it, ask your partner, be like, hey, how can I demonstrate empathy for you more? Hey, how can I bring some enthusiasm in this relationship? Hey, do you feel like I encourage you enough? What could I do better? Because ultimately all these things we're talking about, remember, you have to do together. It's about the relationship first. It's you're going to build this life together. The most important phrase to me, if I was, I was advising him, was like you, you're co creating your future together. Co creation. People support what they create. You create it together and you support it together. And that's everything. So it's never like I'm mad at you for this reason. It's like, ugh, we were in that situation, didn't seem to go good. What can we do better? It's the we story, not just the me story. It's the understanding that we must communicate together, plan together and work together to build the ideal future together, to build the energy, co create the energy together. These things matter. But they're open dialogues and you don't.

Have to be right.

And they don't have to be right. You get a turn, they get a turn, you understand? If they're not going to agree with you, you understand, it's fluid, it's dynamic and that's what makes a relationship great versus it has to be this way or it has to be that way, where we butt heads.

This is going to be a conversation about overall life happiness, not just like in the moment, you know, happiness. Because in the moment of happiness, I mean, we can all kind of get that bottle of wine, bag of chips, maybe it's me, but I think, you know, finding pleasure or joy or in the moment happiness, we can get there.

We'll talk about that a little bit. But I want to talk about the big picture.

How do we know what will give you enduring happiness? Happiness that you'll self report throughout your lifespan that, yeah, I have a happy life. It's different than sometimes just in the moment happiness, it has to last longer. And so what psychologists have done is basically broken it up and said, you know, people who are happy over the long term, they tend to look at their lives in very specific ways and here's how they tend to do it. They tend to Break up their life. They look at their past, they're happy with their past, they're happy with their present, and they're happy with where they're going. So they kind of break it up into time zones, right? Past, present, and future. And here's what we found in each of those areas. If you look at your past in this specific way, you'll be more happy. If you look at your present in the specific way, you'll be happier. And if you look at your future in this specific way, you'll be happier over the long term. So let's start with your past. Okay, Most people who are unhappy over the quality of their life over the long term, it's because something in the past, they're really hung up on it. They consistently battle it, blame it, are angry about it, are bitter against it. And those who are happy, they don't have that negative emotional range about their entire past. It's not to say that there might not be some things in the past that you can't be unhappy about or some things that happened that you were upset about because you know what happened to all of us. But those who make it out and have a joyful life, here's what they tend to do. When they look to the past, the first thing they tend to do is accept it. They're like, the past is the past. It did pass, and here we are today. They don't make everything okay. They don't try to validate it. They don't try to say, well, that was supposed to happen.

They just go, I got it.

The past happened.

I have to accept what happened because I can't change it now. I can change how I perceive it, but things happened. I'm going to accept that the past happened for some type of reason, or if anything, maybe I don't ascribe a higher reason to it, but I'm going to say, in general, I'm good with the past. It happened. Today's a new day. And they accept the reality that that time period, that situation, that person, that thing that they didn't like, it's not here anymore. So they can't keep living there. They have to accept that today is today. All of that is gone. Today they can choose a different life, as we'll talk about. So they accept the past. But here's the thing. They go beyond just acceptance. And this is really important because I think people forget this all the time. It's not just about, like, accepting the past.

Okay, that's fine.

No happy people, they generate memories of of fondness on a continual basis. They relive the past, not the negative things, but the positive memories. They think about it, honey, you remember that one vacation we took and they talk about it today, hey, do you.

Remember when you were a kid and.

That funny thing happened? And they relive the positive. They have. Happy people have a sense of nostalgia about the positive things of the past.

And they remember that and their connection.

To that is more than, than towards the negative things. And so here's a question to see if you're happy with your family, with your friends, those around you, Are you often reliving positive memories? They tell positive, nostalgic stories about the past without apology. They're not living there. They're not trying to go back and relive the glory days. They're just honoring and appreciating that those days even happened for them. They have a deep sense of fondness and yes, gratitude to the beautiful moments and memories and people and experiences they got to have. And so I know that might sound almost too easy to say because, you know, maybe in the past you went through some traumatic stuff, some very difficult moments happened, but by and large, if you can finally get to a point where today you go, oh, okay, I don't have to be cool with everything that happened, but I accept the past. I'm cool.

It's over.

I am cool today. And I like these little moments. And I'm going to choose to focus and remember those and bring them up to people, talk about those things.

Then I'll feel better about the past.

And if you feel better about the past, you have a more solid foundation, a much easier time finding happiness.

Today.

Today. If you want to feel happy today, there's two things we know without question will get you to higher levels of happiness. Number one, connection.

Connection.

That is you deciding to connect to the moment. That means being present and connecting to other people. You know, they've done a lot of those and of life studies to see what makes people happy. And you see over and over and.

Over again, it's the quality of their relationships.

And so if you want to be happy today, put more emotional connection into your relationships. And I say that not philosophically. I mean, like, have that intention. Like, I'm going to put good energy into this relationship today. I'm going to put good energy into my kid today. Even if they were a jerk yesterday, I accept it. Kind of cute today. I, I'm going to just put good energy, good vibes into this relationship today. Because if I do that, I'll feel better if you're doing work and you don't even like the work, but at.

Least you'll engage with it.

You'll connect to the work.

Like, you'll force yourself to be there.

Be present, be in it. You'll feel happier. The second thing today that you can do so easy is increase your appreciation. Almost in every psychological study ever done, those who had more gratitude reported greater happiness. The way that you get gratitude is you appreciate things. So let's just jump right to that. Start appreciating things better. Appreciate your house today, you know, appreciate that maybe you got a car. Appreciate that you had somebody in the house with you today who loved you. Or appreciate the fact that you have opportunities that all around the world, people would just beg for that. Billions of people don't have the opportunities that you do. I know we're all in a big rush. I'm guilty sometimes, too, of going through things as fast as I can, because I got one thing, I got to.

Go on another thing, another thing.

But you know what I found? I'm most unhappy in life when that's what I'm doing.

I'm just going on one thing to.

The next thing, to next thing, to next thing, and the next thing, and not feeling what I'm doing, not really connecting it and not appreciating it like I'm right now. I shared with you earlier as I'm filming this course, I'm writing a book. And there's days when I'm miserable about the book. And those days I'm miserable about the book are those days that I forget to connect with the material. And worse, I forget to appreciate the fact that I have the blessing to get to work on a book. I forget to appreciate how far I've come as a writer. I forget to appreciate the time that my team has set up to protect my ability to write. I forget to appreciate that God has given me a voice and I get to share that. And so I share with you that the most important thing you can do today, like, stop thinking that stuff will give you happiness. Stop thinking that you'll achieve something today that will give you happiness. The only thing that's gonna give you happiness today, connection and appreciation. So connect to the moment. Connect to other people by putting positive energy.

Remember, bring the joy.

And then appreciate the little things, all the little goofy things throughout the day. Appreciate the opportunities that you have. You'll start to feel much happier. I promise you. Those are easy, quick wins in the moment. And then what we know, for people who have the highest ranking of happiness. They look to the future in a unique way. And there's two elements there that they're usually looking towards. One, they're enthusiastic about something in the future. They're not optimistic. Optimistic would mean, you know, I believe stuff in general from today will turn out well. I believe that tomorrow is going to be good. Happy people are enthusiastic about something specific. Tomorrow or in the future. Very specific. They like. They're enthusiastic about getting to do that project or complete that project. They're enthusiastic about that wedding coming up. They're enthusiastic about. About that thing gonna come out. There's something they look for. It's very specific. It's not a general optimism, though, that also has been shown very, very high in correlation to happiness, one of the highest rankings. Being optimistic, thinking things will turn out well. But really happy people, when they talk about the future, there's something specific they're excited about. So I ask you, what could you be excited about for tomorrow? What's hanging out there that you haven't allowed yourself to believe in and get stirred up about? Cause that, you know, we're so scared of being disappointed that we destroy our happiness.

We say, I don't want to get.

Enthusiastic because it might not go well. And so we cage ourselves into an unsatisfying life. If you want to be happy again, you have to open yourself again to.

The idea that things can be great.

You got to open yourself again to that hope, that optimism. You got to open up yourself again to the possibility, yeah, you might be disappointed. But here's the thing I always tell people. What would you rather experience a life in which you don't do anything and you never look forward to anything because.

You'Re scared of disappointment, which, by the.

Way, means you are continually living in disappointment. Or you say, you know what? I look forward that. I think that could happen.

I'm going to go for it.

You do take action. But at least if you do get disappointed, the whole time you are taking action, you are developing competency, knowledge, skill, ability, talent, mastery. So even if you got disappointed, you know what the disappointment came as? It came at the very end as a sudden surprise.

I'd rather have disappointment come at the.

Very end as a sudden surprise than every single day of fear and disappointment and living in that terror that I'm.

Going to be disappointed and.

And doing nothing with myself. Don't know about you, but that's how I feel. So first, enthusiasm for a situation, something specific.

It's so important.

And then that next part about looking to the future is they have a sense of positive legacy they have made.

Up in their mind, and that's all they've done.

They've made it up because you and.

I, we can't read the future.

We have no idea.

But they've made up in their mind this story about their life having meaning and specifically a legacy. They see, looking into the future, they can see the legacy of their children. They can see the legacy of their business. They can see the legacy of the love that they created. They can see something. They can see that they are going to leave some type of mark or some type of relationship or. Or some type of situation where the world is better because they tried, because they showed up.

And maybe you don't know what your.

Legacy is, but you know what? You're never going to suddenly realize it's not just going to happen. You have to make it up. So if you're not happy today, start making up stories about what you can be excited about tomorrow and about what mark you might leave. The difference you might leave. Even if you don't know exactly what it is.

You don't have to have precision about these things.

But in general, when you cast your eyes into the future, you go, mm, that's gonna be good.

These next five are just tactical things every leader has got to remember to do in order to allow that, you know, that forum for people to support what they create. For having those vision decisions, for making sure there's alignment and autonomy, for making sure that you're embodying it and showing it to people, and ultimately making sure you're managing the energy and the resilience of the groups. So here we go. Practice number one is you must establish the rhythm of the teams. You've got to establish the rhythm. And what that means is, let's say you're running an organization. The rhythm of the organization results in two ways. I want you to think about it. There's an internal rhythm, the way that you meet, the way that you set goals. The rhythm of planning your quarter or your OKRs, your KPIs. It's all the internal rhythm of the things that you do to function and run the business, right? Then there's the external rhythm. That is your release rhythm. That is your launch rhythm. That's your marketing rhythm. That's the public facing publicity rhythm. It's what the world sees of you. Now, those two rhythms are sometimes different. They're different organizationally. They're different in families. They're different in how you might run a new team versus an Established team. But it's so important that you as a leader, take that on the helm of like, oh, what does that need to look like? And you won't know, unfortunately, until you practice principle number one, People support what they create. I'll give an example. In my company right now, we've added a whole bunch of new people and we're still trying to figure out, okay, what's this new rhythm going to look like? And so the new team has to come in and see the rhythm we're doing now. And then we've got to adjust and pivot to the new team to establish the norms. You all know this from storm and forming and norming and team research experience. Well, our job is to figure out, okay, what should that rhythm be on across the company, like your all hands meetings and processes to what each team or each organizational unit does or how you're going to improve. Families have to do this too. So you're a parent, okay, what's your family rhythm? What do you do Monday through Sundays? What are your rituals? What are those time slots that you're going to repeat? You might have a rhythm that you have with your partner or spouse. You go out to date nights on Fridays, right? Or you might have a rhythm that you have with this child versus that child in order to create that connection with them. Everything has to be thought of in terms of a rhythm or a ritual or a patterned calendar slot in order for everyone to feel like, oh, we're moving in unison here. When leaders don't establish or work to establish with their teams or their culture or their families, what the rhythm is going to be. Everything feels random all the time. Everything feels like we're fighting fires, fighting, fighting. It always feels like we're fighting fighters. We're in emergency mode and we're going to burn out. And so I see this all the time and it's the hardest part because you as a leader often don't know what the rhythm needs to be yet. It has to happen in motion, which is why it's so important to be a good listener. So many leaders come into new companies and when they come into new companies, you know, I recently, I think it was last, it was two quarters ago, helped a CEO transition into a company where they had 12,000 employees. And I got brought in by the board because he was in trouble. And so I got brought in his 360 valuations from the whole team. He'd only been there like six months. Everyone hated the guy and I couldn't like, it took a While to figure out, very likable, emotionally intelligent, fun, smart business person. And I'm like, what, what is going on? And what I found out was when he came into the company, he just, he said, well, this is, this has to be our rhythm. Here's our quarterly goals, this our yearly goals. This is how we meet. And just imposed a rhythm on an existing team. They weren't ready for that. And so it was like a revolt. And for them, they got used to doing something. This whole thing changed everything. It was too fast. And if you're an organizational leader, you know that that's super hard. It always happens. Every company goes through it. Transitions in leadership are always difficult, always challenging. But your job is to be aware of that. And your job, if you're the person who has that vision decision, you have to work really hard to establish that normal rhythm, normal meeting cadence, normal way about trying to achieve a goal, normal way of managing a project, normal way of meeting a quarterly stretch. You have to establish that and you're probably going to need help with it. This is a great distinction between where leadership and management diverge. Leaders work with managers to establish that people support what they create to establish that rhythm. And often the leader doesn't actually manage the rhythm. They help set it up, they agree to it. They go. And then there's project managers, there's mid level managers, there's other people who are going to make sure that that rhythm happens, right? Same thing might happen in your family. You might say, okay, we're all going to do this, but you might not be the person who always makes that thing happen. You might be like, you might have some support, you might have an assistant. You might assign the rhythm of the kids to the older kid, right? That you, that there's an assignment happening there. But you need to be aware of it and ensure that rhythm is happening with great energy. The second big idea is that in that rhythm, your job as a leader is to consistently repeat what is the vision? What are our beliefs? What should we focus on and not focus on? It's a repetition. What's the vision? What do we believe here? What are we working on? What are we not working on? What's the vision here? What do we do together here? What do we believe? What do we work on? What do we not? It's, you know, I often teach my own teams. I call this like fighting for focus. It's like the, the leader's job is to say the same thing. So many times it finally sinks in. And you hope when you're Leading teams that they get it. It takes years to get it. You can say the same thing. And I've had the blessing of working with US Presidents, two of them now. And one of the common things that they always share, and you can read this in their books too, from presidential candidates and presidents, literally, you know, 200 years back, they all say the same thing. They're so surprised by how often that they have to say the same thing. They can't believe that they have to go from this organization, that organization, this team, that they have to say the same thing over and over. They have to repeat it. Here's our values, here's our vision, here's what we're after, here's what we're focused on. It has to be so repetitive. You have to build that. People need to hear things. How many times before they get it? Not seven dozens. Right? They have to hear it seven times to understand it or to repeat it or to memorize it, to operationalize it over the long term. Now you're talking about hundreds of times. That's the difference between understanding and memorization and. And operationalizing. That's why too many leaders get in trouble. They think I already said it. It's like you did. You said it, they understood it, but they didn't operationalize it. So high levels of repetition are the most important things. What are we about here? What do we believe? What are we gonna do and not do? So hard. So hard. So hard. Very important that you have that on top of mind. Third thing, third major practice for great leadership. I try to teach my own internal teams. This is that you have to ensure mindful striving as a leader. What that means is you've got to know when to hit the gas and when to slow it down.

You've got to know when to take.

On the project and when. Not all. Not in terms of how to achieve it, because management can do that, but how to achieve it with harmony and sanity and avoiding burnout. And everyone struggles with this. Because you know what, if you're a leader, you probably have a bunch of high performers. You have great talent, right? And if you're really a high achieving leader, you've got amazing talent all around you. And everyone wants to go and go 99.99 miles an hour all the time. But every race you've ever seen on a track, the cars have pit stops. The car's got to take the pit stop in order to function at a high level over and over. So you got to build in the pit stops. You got to build in the celebrations. You got to say, not now this one thing. I know you want to do that, but let's do this. And that always takes a lot of discussion and conversation. But you hold the heart of the organization. You have to know when you're pushing too hard and you have to know when. You have to just ask for patience. You have to know when it's letting off the gas a little bit. You have to know when, like, okay, going to take a little bit less, you know, in this revenue or this quarter than we usually would. But you know what? Our people are stretched right now. And that's the hardest part. That's really ensuring that there's a harmony and an ongoing joy and the ability to have high performance. The reason most people don't like organizational leaders is because the organizational leaders burn them out. They don't listen and they don't practice everything we talked about in the principles in the earlier session of this training. And so knowing that you hold the heart and the energy and the resilience of the company reminds you, like, how do we ensure that we mindfully strive? Mindfully striving means not burning out, but mindfulness also means being attentive to the awesome things that are happening. Because so many people, you know what, you know when burnout sucks, when there's no appreciation, when there's no celebration. A lot of people will push themselves super hard as long as they're appreciated and there's some celebration and we're making the impact. If you take away the impact, you take away the appreciation. Now it just feels like the grind. No one wants that being mindful in real life, like our personal development, mindfulness means we establish a peace and a harmony and a gratitude and consciousness to to the moment we're present and enjoying the journey and you ensuring that the journey is being enjoyed by the team. That's mindful striving. We're going for big things together, but we're being mindful, mindful to one another, mindful to our opportunities, mindful to our customers, mindful and grateful for the opportunities at hand. Fourth big idea is as you are trying to evaluate how you're doing because evaluating the progress of you, the collaborators, the vision is so central to what you constantly have to do. Remember, you're kind of have that leadership vision on you, trying to see where are we out of alignment, where are we not doing well? I always tell especially new leaders or new managers of position, but also parents all the time. It's like it's more important for you to evaluate habits than outcomes, new leaders tend to obsess about the outcome, the KPI, the okr, they, they, they, they bemoan, they brutalize everybody on the final results, what's on the spreadsheet, what's in the metrics, what's in the panels of data. And they, it's all about that. And unfortunately they forget those things aren't real. Those things are outcomes. You don't need to like. Those outcomes happened. Why did they happen? Because there were habits at play. My job isn't to evaluate the quality of this thing, my job is to evaluate the quality of this thing. So one reason as an example, high performance habits kind of took over the world because it taught a lot of people. It's like, oh, measuring people's personalities or strengths or a lot of these other assessment tools out there actually don't correlate with long term success, well being or positive relationships. What does the high performance habits. Because our habits create our outcomes over the long term, our habits create our real relationships, create peace of mind or not create the ultimate results. So you're evaluating the habits of the team more than the outcome. And when you do that now you're speaking their language versus speaking the language of the spreadsheet leader. And no one wants to work for the spreadsheet leader. They wanna work with the person who has the heart and soul, who can talk about behavior and behavior change and patterns and, and what patterns do you need to recognize? The habits of your team, the habits of your consumers, the habits of your kids, the habits of your spouse, the habits of your community, of your church. Like it's all about what are our collective habits? Because if we improve those, the panels, the outcomes, the KPIs and the OKRs get better. But if you start with those and you get obsessed about those and you're trying to manage and lead people to those, they get frustrated, bored, detached. It's not inspiring. What's inspiring is how do we summon the best of who we are together? That's inspiring, that's motivating, that's leadership. Last big idea here today with you all is it's simple practice. And I tease this out from the conversation about mindful striving, but it's because I think it's so important. And that is you have to teach the teams, teach the people who are leading, teach the people who you're impacting. You have to teach everybody the importance of recognizing our oneness and sharing love along the journey. That is we are in this together. And I appreciate you And I want to celebrate you.

I want to make you the hero.

I want to elevate other people. The sharing of love on the journey is so important that people forget about. It's the heart and the soul of leadership. It's like very few people understand that leadership is just a format, a function of loving other people. Because you'll never last as a leader unless you genuinely like people. If you don't love other people, if you don't love elevating them, if you don't love listening to them, if you don't love celebrating their wins, if you don't love working hard together to make something happen, you'll never last. Please don't elevate yourself to a leadership position if you dislike people. We don't need more jerk leaders. What we need is people who are operating from their heart and who love to celebrate other people. And why they love to celebrate other people because they recognize the oneness. They recognize the humanity. I'm like you, you're like me. We can, even though we might see things differently, be from different places, have completely different socioeconomic realities. Here we are together. We've decided to pursue this vision together. We have that vision. We've made the decision. We're all in. We're going to do it together. And as we do it together, if I can ensure that you love the process, that you feel cared for, that you feel celebrated when you win, that we are winning together. That's sharing the love, man. That's sharing the love. Your customers. When you make your customers feel loved, cherished, served, you make them the heroes. That's where word of mouth comes from. That's where the community builds. We have to realize it's about sharing the love. It's just about sharing the love. And you got to find your way of doing that in your rhythm, in how you talk about others with their habits, in how you mindfully strive together, in how you practice all the principles that we talked about today. This is leadership. It's loving what we are doing together. It's caring for one another. They're not your followers, they're your collaborators, your co creators. That's why I love leadership.

High performance training, action mindset. This is important. How do you develop the action mindset?

But actually also here, I should just.

Add this in here. How do you actually get the action mindset and then make it a discipline? Here it is. First thing you've got to adopt. Well, there it goes. Is your, let's try this, your 30 minute daily block. People tell me all the time, Brent, I got this dream or this goal. I'm like, great. What 30 minute period of day are you going to work on it today? What do you mean? You said you have a big goal, right? Yeah. Big idea, right?

Yeah.

Okay, show me wins the 30 minute block that that thing gets today. It's a new idea you say, right? Yeah. Okay, where is it? Is it 1:30 to 2? Is it 4 to 4:30? Is he going to check it at 5 right after work till 5:30, then get on the commute a little later? Like when new ideas must have new blocks of time. Write it down. New ideas must have new blocks of time. If you got a new idea someday, someday, big dream and it doesn't land in the calendar and at least listen. Daily, 30 minute, daily block of time. Of course you're not going to get momentum. It's got to be. Look, if you won't give it something 30 minutes a day, it don't matter to you. Just be honest. Like any good parent will tell you this. Like if you don't spend 30 minutes with your kids a day, I mean, good luck in having that connection. Good luck in forging that future. Good luck in helping that person feel loved and supported. I mean, if something is important to you, you give it time. Is it true? So if this idea is important to you, immediately mindset, this is what I immediately do. 30 minutes. And if it's a completely new idea, it's got to get at least 30 minutes. If I want it to actually come true. And it's important from the time I set the idea, the next day, it gets 30 minutes. Big new idea. Must do it. If it's important to me, the next day, it gets 30 minutes. Not four years from now. Like right now, I have a big partnership I'm working on. Like, it completely came into my life, totally interrupted my life. I don't have any time, but it's important. I found 30 more minutes a day. Right. 30 more minutes is easy to find for everybody. People don't think they can. It's possible. I just had a friend and I get in a huge argument over lunch about this. Not Everybody can find 30 minutes. And I'm like, who can't find 30 minutes more a day? Like, show me.

Which.

A little more discipline, a little more planning and preparation. Who can't find 30 more minutes a day? Well, you know, I'm busy and I have all these things you don't understand. I'm like, okay, walk me through your day. Well, I have to get up. I Got to get everything, you know, get the kids ready for work. I got to get in the car. I got to commute. That commute's an hour every single day. I can't take away that. I got to do this and this and this. And I'm like, well, what if you didn't drive? What do you mean? Well, what if you didn't drive the car so that your focus and attention could be doing something else? Well, I got to do the commute. I don't know. I've noticed that a lot of cars have a passenger seat and some of them even have a back seat. And if you sit in one of those, you don't have to do this. And I just got you an hour a day. So many people are so. They believe so deeply that they are managing their time so great. I'm like, no. Most people have so much free time, they have no idea. It's that they are distracted and unprepared or addicted to consuming that they're losing little pieces. And especially here in the United States, you guys have heard me rail on this. The average American, four hours of television a day. Don't tell me you don't have 30 minutes a day. I don't know anyone who can't find 30 more minutes a day for a great new idea that can change their life. You got a new idea that can change your Life. Find your 30 minutes every single day. Number two, remember the first output rule. First output rule says this. Got a big new dream, big new goal, big new idea. Don't think that you have to do what we've all been taught, which is begin with the end in mind. Because sometimes you don't know what the end in mind is, but you know the first step. So what I tell people is like, I got a big new idea. I go, great. What's the first output that you would have to create on that immediately? What's, like, the first output that would start you on the path? I don't know. Okay. Figure that out. First step. First output, right? First step is not the research. What's the first output? Let me give you an example. When I began my career, I said, one day I'm going to do video courses. And in mine, you can do online courses. That was the big idea. I, Brendon Burchard, am going to do online courses. Guess what I didn't do? I didn't say, well, I better figure out the whole curriculum for all the courses for the rest of my life. Begin with the end in mind. Didn't do that. I said, what's the first step that would allow me to start doing that? Okay, first step, get in front of camera, teach and post it on the Internet. That's the first output. One teaching video on the Internet. So I went and I got my stupid little at the time, flip video camera. Some of you guys know about those. Got a flip video camera. I duct taped it to a box. I put on my cleanest shirt at the time and I stared at the camera and I taught and I pulled off the flip video camera and I spent four hours uploading it on the Internet. You remember that? Probably not, but you remember that? Yeah. Upload, upload, upload, upload. And then it wouldn't play because it.

Was wouldn't stream fast enough.

But I spent the time, the first output to me, building an online course empire. One video. What's your first output? Do that now. That's how you maintain momentum. The reason people don't stick to their habits is because they're waiting to create the output someday. I'm like, what's the first output? Do it. That's the thing to work on right now. When you got that 30 minute daily block, work towards that first output. Because you get the first output, you got real momentum. You get the first output, your dream, your idea is realized, it's tangible. It's like, oh, I did that thing. First output. If you don't know the first output of what you have to create, you don't even have a dream. You don't even have a fully thought out idea. First output, make it, do it, create it, post it, do the thing. That's it. I want to write a book, Brendan.

But I don't know what the whole book is.

I'm like, great. First output, first page, write it. What do you mean? I don't know what the book is? Write the first page, but I don't know what the book is. Write the first page. First output would be the first page of the book, right? Write the first page. But I don't know what the five chapters are. I don't write the first page. See, you don't have to know the whole picture. First step, do the first output. Because you get that first page done, you'll probably get that next page done, probably the next page done. And you'll start getting clarity of the project. A lot of the creativity of life comes in motion. Not beginning in speculation. Okay, next up, number C. 90 day challenge. I can't believe how many people have a big dream or big goal and they don't set up their own 90 day challenge. Like, okay, what's your first output? Good job, appreciate you. But you got 30 minutes every single day in 90 days, where are we? 90 days, 3 months, let's go. Because see what most people are, they're scared to commit to the bigger idea and dream. And I go, oh, don't commit to the first big idea. Dream not for life. Just like you won't ruin your life forever. Don't commit to your new idea or dream forever. I need 90 days. Give me 90 days, man. Commit to that thing. 90 days and get at it for 90 days. Reevaluate after 90 days where you're at. Don't think. See, most people don't take an action because they think, well, I'll have to do this action forever. Just like they worry I'll be ruined forever.

Because there's no forever.

There just isn't. There's just now. None of us are guaranteed anything. So if what we have is right this moment and we're looking to the future and we're working towards that, Good job. In 90 days, where are you? That's it. What'd you do in 90 days? Did you lose five pounds? Great. You don't have to say, I'm going to be completely life transformed.

I'm going to have six pack abs.

And still drink pina coladas on the beach with 40 people in bikinis around me. No, no, no, no, no, dude, lose five pounds, you got 90 days. Go like, just set the 90 day challenge for yourself and get at that and then worry about the next series of goals after that. So if you've got a big idea or dream and you're really committed to it, commit to a 90 day challenge. And what does that mean for you specifically, what's going to happen at the end of 90 days? How you think, how you feel, how you move, what you achieve, what outputs are created. Get really clear on those types of things. You'll be so happy you did. Without these things, there is no idea into action. There is no momentum. It's why you didn't stick to your habit, because you didn't give it 30 minutes a day. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't even know what you were supposed to do. You didn't stick to your habit because you didn't at least set a time period that was realistic for yourself, that was doable. D you got to have your drop list. There is no new idea in your life without a drop list of things to stop doing a drop List. I'm dropping these things. I am not doing these things. I. I'm saying no to these things. I'm getting this off the agenda. I'm letting that responsibility go. It's the things you aren't going to do that help you do the things that you're going to do. So you got to spring clean a little bit. If you got new dreams in your life, spring clean, what are you going to stop doing, right? I'm very, very, very disciplined about this. For me personally, I have one of my own personal practices on the first of every month, make my drop list. Every month, not once a year, every month I go, okay, this month, what do I need to drop? Because inevitably, you know, I'm moving so fast. I pick up new things. I'm doing all the time, right? Some new idea, new dream, new thought. Because I'm trying to innovate, I'm trying to be upfront, I'm trying to lead, I'm trying to change things. And then what ends up happening is throughout the month, other people also do what other people give you responsibilities, give you ideas, give you programs. They're adding on to your plate. All month long, you're collecting a bigger and bigger plate, right?

Some.

Some months I start, I go, okay, well, this month I'm gonna do these five new things. And the end of that month, I realize, you know, I'm not gonna be able to maintain five. I'm gonna drop two of them. I'll stick with three, but I can't do all five. That's a drop list. Without a drop list, I have no idea how you can keep adding new things. Make sense? Some of the biggest breakthroughs in our life is when we just stop doing the things that we know aren't right for us. Next up, big important one, the Friday friend status call. Everything that we know from goal setting comes back to sociology. If you don't have someone you're doing something with actively, if you don't have an accountability partner, you don't have a coach, you don't have a friend you go to lunch with, or someone you talk it through, then the odds of that happening for you are so low. Because you know what? We're social beings. We need processing time with other people. And the more processing time we have, usually the more progress we get, right? It's why therapy so powerful and unlocking people, or coaching so powerful and unlocking people, it's like, oh, I'm processing. Oh, I'm getting distinction, I'm getting more progress. You need that Friday Friend says, call if you got a big new goal or dream. All I want you to do every Friday at the end of the day, literally 5 minute, 10 minute, 15, 30 minute call, whatever it is, pick it up, call your friend and say, I did this this week, struggled with this. This worked, that went well. You now you go, how did you do? And just you got one person in your life every week. You're talking about momentum with. I don't care if it's your mom. I prefer this as a human. So not the cat, but a human that you every single week you talk through things with, like, where are you? I don't care if it's the librarian, I don't care if it's your social worker, I don't care if it's your brother, I don't care who it is. Can be the stranger across the street. Don't talk to strangers if you're PG13. But everybody else have that conversation and just on a Friday go, hey man, this is where I'm at. Because if you won't do that, I promise if you don't socialize your learning, you will not achieve your dreams. You must socialize. What am I learning? Where am I at? How's it going? What am I struggling with? You got to ask for help. But you need a consistent basis. Big dreams require weekly check ins. Write it down. Big dreams require weekly check ins. So who's going to be your weekly check in? Accountability coach? Friend, Mentor? Who every week check in and if you're like, well, I don't know anybody, everybody hates me. You know what? Go on your Facebook page every Friday at 5 and go, this, this is what I learned this week. This is what I tried. What did you guys try? And all the people who make fun of you, delete them. And everybody else say, good for you.

So easy.

Life's very simple. Next, create motivation triggers. When I walked in this door today.

It'S the same when I walk in.

The doors of my conference rooms, when I'm doing my seminars that usually my doorway trigger, meaning that's what a motivation trigger is. A trigger is something physical or tangible happens and you attach either a statement or an action to it. Okay, Trigger is something tangible that you say or do when something else happens. So when I walk through a door, and that's every door of my life, I walk through a door, my mind almost always says, because I've just conditioned it over and over and over doing this, I walk through the door, my mind says, I am a happy man entering this space, ready to serve. I'm a happy man entering this space, ready to serve. It's been since I was like 20 years old one. Because I always want to remind myself I'm happy. I have so much to be grateful for. So do you. So how are you reminding yourself that you're grateful, that you're happy, that you're good? And then I remind myself I'm entering the space, ready to serve, not hoping to serve, not. Maybe one day I'll deserve to serve. I'm ready right now.

Whatever.

I know I believe in my ability to figure things out. I'm ready to serve now. I don't need permission, I don't need more money. I don't need more team. I'm ready to whatever I got. I'm ready. Let's go. I don't need new things, more things, better things, tons of things. I'm ready to serve right now. Let's go. I'm not ever waiting to provide service to the world, ever. You don't have to have the big stuff, the fancy stuff. Just go. I didn't have big fancy cameras and lights and fancy big flip charts when I started this. It was me in a really dirty shirt with the thing, the buttons too hung open.

Like, you know, it's like, it was.

So nasty and gnarly and bad.

It was awesome.

And I was ready to serve. You don't have to have everything. I was watching this documentary recently on Usain Bolt, one of the greatest. Well, he is the greatest sprinter of all time, right? And you see the scene of him and he's doing sprints in a field with like this sort of little belt tied around his waist, tied to a chain, tied to. We would call it a weight sled.

But you could barely call it that.

A little metal sled where you put on weights, like a 45 pound weight from lifting. And it's like. So he would sprint with this little things. When you go to the NFL or I work with my major teams, they usually got the fake fancy sleds, these longer sleds that glide when you take off, that release proportionate amount of tension along with the weight as you speed up, like very fancy contraptions. Now this dude, the best ever, is down in Jamaica in a hot field with this huge belt on with like one coach, not 12 coaches, one coach standing there next to him. He ties his thing and when he takes off, this thing is bouncing along behind him. It's like the. Just like you're like. And he's the world's best because he's not waiting to have everything to train. He's training. I'm not waiting to have everything to serve. I'm serving so many of my people. Well, one day when I have a following, I'll post some stuff. I'm going to start posting stuff now. One day when I'm ready, I'll put myself. No, there is no one day to be ready. You're ready now. Go. It is a mindset you must have. You're ready to go. So that's one of my triggers. Walk through a door. I'm entering the space as a happy man, ready to serve.

Let's go.

That's just one, one trigger. I have all sorts of other triggers. I have different doorway triggers. When I walk in my house, I say something a little different to myself than when I walk in my office. But other triggers I have when a door closes in a car. Every time a door closes in a car, I say something else to myself. When I walk into my office, I, I take a first action that triggers momentum for me. Like, you need to have first actions or space triggers that help you stay your best. They're ultimately all geared towards one thing. How can you remind yourself to be at your best? And how do you use physical objects, time periods, situations to get yourself there? That's the question. That's your job. These are motivation triggers. Because if you're not triggering yourself, the world's doing it for you. And if the world's doing it, you know what the world's going to trigger you towards? Angst, outrage, distraction, consumption. It's not going to trigger you towards you being your best self. So if you didn't maintain your habits this year, go on my YouTube channel and type in the word, you know, type in the power of habits and you. And you'll see a video that will teach you how to set some more of those examples. Right? If you look in a mirror, you should have a mirror trigger. See a reflection of yourself, say something to yourself. I know that sounds like just like positive thinking kind of stuff. And you know what it is, because what's the alternative? Stupid thinking, negative thinking, scarcity thinking. You need to have a little bit more triggers set up to make you work. And sometimes if it's not just you, get somebody else to do it, get a coach to do it, a mentor to do it, a friend to do it. But you need to be triggered to be your best. How are you currently triggering yourself to be your best? Many of you know you've been with me for years. You know, we kind of now everybody does it but we were the first one to do it. When the smartphone came out and the first alarm was available to be set a label. I created this training and put it out about saying hey, use this alarm label on your phone to send yourself reminders to tell you to be awesome. Put your three words in here that pop up and remind you who to be. Use this as a trigger to be your best instead of a box of consumption. Because this can be a weapon for good or a weapon that takes you into distraction. But it's up to you. Just like the rest of life self reliance, it's up to you. This can be your day for personal growth.

This can be that day you committed to.

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.

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