Special Edition: Who the Heck Am I?

Hey, my friend, it's Brendan. And welcome to this special edition of the Charge Life. You know, one of the most frequently asked questions I get as far as a request for the show is, Brendon, could you share a little bit more about your personal life? I know if you've been with us in the Charge Life for a long time, you know, the format of the show, it's very straightforward. Every single week, I bring up a topic or challenge of life and. And then I knock it down by giving you three to five things to think about, to know or to do to improve that part of your life. Whether it's dealing with negative people or rekindling passion or having a little bit more sanity in your life or dealing with fear. I try to be here for you every single week and just share some advice. I don't usually share lots about my personal story or struggles with those topics. I just try to share some quick takeaways that you can do right away to improve that aspect of your life because I want the show to be about you and about your journey, about giving you some insights that we know from our original research and motivation or high performance to help you get ahead. But I'm asked this a lot and I also thought that the timing was pretty relevant. You know, this week my dad would have been 77 years old. He passed away in 2009 from acute myeloid leukemia. And you know, if you've ever lost somebody, a dad or mom, parent, caregiver, somebody close to you, you know, it's always tough when their birthday rolls around. And for me, every year I just have a habit that I do when dad's birthday rolls around, I wake up and I read some things that, that some cards I have from him. I listened to an interview I did with him right before he passed away just asking about life things. And I interviewed it or recorded it and, you know, I post some things on social media about it. And it's been a blessing in that remembrance to carry on his voice and his message. You know, I put dad's quotes online on a quote card to just some little things he said to me before on quotes and I quote him. And it's been amazing. Those have been seen over 20 million times now. So I'm honored to carry on some of my dad's messages about life here, too. So I thought what I would do in this edition is something I haven't done before. And that's I'm going to play for you two of probably the most popular episodes I ever did where I did share my personal lessons. And the first one I'd like to share is that episode where I did talk about my dad and what I learned from him and that experience and how it impacted me of losing my dad, but also just some of the lessons he taught me. And then I'll share with you another episode where I share my four greatest life transformations. These were moments in my life that truly caused a breakthrough. And aha. And gave me sort of my mode of operating. They gave me my entire mindset. They inspired the path that I'm on today. And I hope they inspire or instruct you as well. So I've never combined these two together. I've actually never replayed anything on the Charged Life, but I thought I'd do it for you because this question, and we're having so much growth with the Charged Life that so many new people are listening. You might not know these stories, and I know that they're inspiring, but they also will kind of get you under the hood of who's this Brendan Burchard guy that you're listening to Every week? We've got so many new listeners, and I feel blessed to all of you for sharing the show. You know, when we debuted this podcast, it debuted on itunes at number one across all categories in the US and five or seven other countries. And since then, we spent 100 weeks in the top 10 in our category, which is self help. And recently they kind of on mobile phones, anyway, they rolled the self help category up into health category. I thought it was going to be horrible for us, and it ended up being a big boon. We're top 10 in health right now and several weeks now, and that blows my mind. And I'm deeply appreciative of your support for that. And I have one request for you. As you know, if you've been a longtime listener, I've done something very unique in the podcasting world, and that is I've never run an ad or given a sponsor message on the podcast, and that's just my choice. You know, when I listen to other people's podcasts and they have an ad about some household goods or go to, you know, some website for whatever it is, underwear, mattresses, coffee makers, sunglasses, you know, website design, places, tools, systems, all those. Those are all cool. And that's what a lot of podcasters need to do. That. That's their business model. I just personally, when I listen to those podcasts, I skip the ads. And so I thought, I don't want to be putting ads in the ears of my people. I just want to put good information that helps them so I don't ever ask anything from the audience. But if I could ask something today, it'd be so simple. Just go over to itunes and leave a review for this podcast, the Charge Life. Just head to itunes, search my name, Brendon Burchard or the Charge Life and just leave a review. Tell us what you like about the show, rate the show, ask me any questions, post any messages is there for me. I would really appreciate it. As we grow this podcast and we're in a new category now, I think it will help some people learn about what our audience thinks about it. I've never asked for it before. I would love for you all to do that or help us out that be something we deeply appreciate because you know, I just we're supported by you guys. I also chose not to run ads on anything I do. I don't know if you know this, but my YouTube show that has what, over 46 million views. I've never allowed YouTube or Google to run ads on any of my videos. So here we are with tens of millions of views and downloads and I've never monetized it by having a sponsor message busting in your ear. And I chose to do that because I just want to share positive messages, good life advice, good conversations about living a good life without interrupting the it with ads. And the only way I'm able to do that is you all support and share these types of things. People find out about me, they buy my book, they come to a seminar and I just choose to use that to self fund the podcast and the YouTube show. So just one favor, please go to itunes, leave us a review, tell us what you think that hugely help in this episode. Now I'm going to play an edited version of what I learned from my dad and an edited version of the four greatest transformations I've ever had in my life. There's a little bit overlap between the two because in the second one I do talk about my dad. He was such a huge impact on my life. So I hope you enjoyed that. But I hope you pick up something unique and different the second time when I mentioned that. But I think you'll also learn a lot about not only from my childhood or what happened to me in college or what happened in the corporate world, but the entire journey to getting here today where I get to share these things with you and simply say thank you. I appreciate you being part of this story. I appreciate you supporting us telling so many friends about the Charge life and everything we do. And I'm so looking forward to coming episodes. For now, just enjoy these life lessons. I hope they bring some insight and inspiration into your own life. Here we go. My dad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on Mother's Day, May 10, 2009. It was out of the blue the week before. He was golfing and playing racquetball, which he always loved. The doctors gave him a 5% chance of making it. They said it was the. The worst case they'd seen. You know, on Mother's Day, dad basically had woken up and had started walking down the hallway, and he was a little off kilter, and he kind of grabbed onto a wall, and my mom said, what's wrong with you? He says, I don't know. I got this pain in my side. And he didn't know what it was. And throughout the day, it kind of still hurt. So he said, let's go to the doctor. So he went, and pretty quickly they discovered, you know, wow, his spleen feels like it's enlarged. And. And then they did the tests, and sure enough, acute myeloid leukemia. There's two types of leukemia, and aml, as they call it, is the one that is the bad one. You get that diagnosis, and everybody cries because it quickly takes over your body. Essentially, from what I understand, it kind of the stem cells that your body is producing start becoming not good, and your cells kind of take over your body in negative ways. And pretty quickly the cancer spreads and shuts down your organs. And it's all very quick from diagnosis to death. We just had 59 days with my dad, and dad, you know, he was an extraordinary man. Funny and supportive, strong, loving. His message to us kids throughout his life said everything you needed to know about the man. Be yourself, be honest, do your best, Take care of your family. Treat people with respect. Be a good citizen. Follow your dreams. He shared those seven messages with me in an interview in his last few weeks. I called him and I interviewed him about his life, and I recorded it, and I'm glad I did. You know, I grew up in a generation, at least the time then we. We didn't have a lot of video from when we grew up. Matter of fact, I have just, you know, friends videos of my father. We didn't have it like a video camera when I was a kid. And most of the footage I even have from my dad was just at my own wedding, and he was just tearing it up on the dance floor with my mom and some friends. Caught it on a Phone. But those seven things he shared with me in my last interview with him, because I asked him, you know, what do you want us to know? What do you want us to remember? And again, he said, be yourself. Be honest. Do your best. Take care of your family. Treat people with respect. Be a good citizen. Follow your dreams. Dad's dedication to those messages was basically it. That's what he was always saying those things to us in one way or another. You know, one of my favorite books I ever got my entire life, my dad gave me called Lend Me youe Great Speeches in History. And when I open it up, still to this day, there it is from my dad says, you know, be yourself. His dedication to others spoke for itself, too. 20 years in the United States Marine Corps with three tours in Vietnam, 25 years working with the state of Montana, 34 years with mom, 69 years as a fine man. The day after Father's Day, we learned that his second course of chemotherapy was ineffective. The cancer had taken his body. He understood the outcome, and he was at peace with it. He would have only had a few weeks to live at that point. And dad chose to be at home in hospice care, surrounded and cared for by his family. All the nurses I remember cried when we left the hospital because they'd all come to love his sense of humor and his stories about life. Everywhere he went, he respected others and shared a good joke and a story. He set roots of friendship everywhere. Everyone loved him. I lucked out. You know, in his short time at home in hospice care, dad left nothing unsaid and nothing undone. Our immediate family was there with him. My wife, my mom, my two brothers, Brian and David. My sister Helen, and her husband Adam. We were blessed to have that time with him. We got to tell him how proud we were of him, that he had lived a good life, that mom would always be taken care of, which was his chief concern, that his values and spirit would live on in each of us. These were things that were important to him until he lost his ability to speak in the final two days. He always asked that we take care of mom. And we will. You know, it's hard to see your dad fade away. To me, it was the worst thing ever to happen in my entire lifetime. And I hated that. I couldn't help it or control it. It reminded me in some ways of, you know, back when I used to go to work with my dad. You know, in those years, he worked in Montana. He worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles, the dmv. If you're in The United States. You know what that means? That means you got to go in and get your driver's license. And nobody likes that process. And worse, because nobody likes that process, they go in immediately with a bad attitude and worse. It's a state regulated sort of office in which the people who work there are incredibly disempowered by regulation and paperwork and, you know, old equipment and technology and absurd red tape. And my dad ran the DMV in the town where I grew up in. And I remember going into work with him sometimes and just watching people treat this great man with such rude behavior. I mean, I would. People see people literally scream at him because, you know, they forgot some paperwork. I'd see people just, you know, cuss and curse and, you know, cut in line. And just the worst of human behavior happens when there is impatience. And when you go to the dmv, you see, you know, dozens and dozens of people who are impatient with the process because the state obviously doesn't pay a lot for it because it's not a revenue generating thing for them, really. And so I saw my dad treated poorly for a lot of my life, and yet he had this amazing positive attitude. He got up in the morning, he was excited to go to work. He got there. When he dealt with people, you know, for the most part, even though he was a Marine and was trained to kill, he never did it. He was kind to these people somehow. Even the ones screaming in his face as their daughter, you know, failed the test because she ran the car up on the curb. You know, he would stay cool and centered. Sometimes it got to him, but for the most part, he handled it well. And so I grew up watching people treat my father poorly. And that's why his advice to me, treat people with respect, means so much to me. It's one reasons I respected him so much, you know. But as he was fading away, he faced it with that same grace and strength, even as the side effects of chemo made him terribly sick. He was appreciative and loving as we each cared for him. He knew his time was short. And it was amazing to see him so loving with us, so at peace with what must be. Dad died just before midnight. By 12:30am on July 9, 2009, the nurse gave the official pronouncement. He went peacefully, without any pain at that point, with just a long series of labored breaths, spread further and further apart until he was gone. Dad died as I held his right hand. My brother Brian held his left. And mom and my sister were by his side at home, with family all around him, exactly as he would have wanted. A few weekends before dad died, when he had discovered that his chemotherapy hadn't done the job. I was teaching a seminar. Around 400 people had traveled from all over the world to attend. I was in San Francisco, and dad was in Nevada, where he and mom had a second home from, away from Montana, where they would go sort of like snowbirds. When it got cold in Montana, they'd go down to this little house they got in Las Vegas where my brother lived. That's the house where he got sick. Well, anyway, the night before my seminar, dad called me and broke the news he had just a few weeks to live. They had said he didn't want me to overreact and cancel the seminar, something he knew I would quickly do to go be with him. So the next evening, after teaching for nine hours on stage, I picked up the phone and called dad. Like I said, we'd come up with the idea of my interviewing him, asking him a wide range of questions about his life and recording the conversations to share with my family later on. And I especially loved one particular message he shared. For all of us kids, he said, always love your mother and your brothers and sisters. Keep faith in yourself and help other people who are less fortunate than you guys are. And don't be afraid to ask for help and love. Just be good Samaritans and do the best you can. From that conversation, I learned so much about him. There was no surprising revelations about his life. It was just how he spoke and how he dealt with it all. He had such an openness and optimism about him, a willingness to meet the uncontrollable with a measure of choice and will. Dad fought the good fight against cancer during his last week. When it was clear that he would not live to see another, he accepted it and seemed to release any fears. He never complained about anything. Not about the pain, not about the bedpans, not about the consistent and constant nosebleeds, not about the injections or the rolling over to change the bed sheets. He simply accepted and chose to meet life's biggest and for most scariest transition with love and grace. In an uncontrollable situation, he still directed the strength of his character, the Marine, in him, defining the meaning of it all on his own terms until the very end. To say that death is generally unwelcome and uncontrollable is an understatement, but it happens nonetheless, as do many things we do not plan or wish for. Yet amid all our struggles, even our final battles, should our wits and will allow we have the ability to control the way we meet the world, define the meaning of our experiences, and leave an example of how remarkable we can be throughout it all, if we choose to. I hope that if you still have family, who you care about, who are aging, you take a note from this page here, and you remember that you have an opportunity to interview them, maybe before they pass, just, you know, take them out to lunch or take them out for coffee and, you know, maybe record it on your phone or record it, you know, on some conference call. But just ask them questions about their childhood and how they grew up and what they remember of their parents and what lessons they learned from their parents so that you can pass on generational lessons to others. Ask them how they felt about life, how they decided what to do, how they overcame their biggest struggles, what their biggest struggles were, what they thought about life, what messages they want to pass on to you, what they're proud of about their family, their siblings, their life, what they wish they had done, what wish they still have. Just have a real conversation about life and record it. Because I can tell you when they're gone, that recording will be one of the most valued possessions of your life. Every year, including last night, I listened to my recording with my dad, and I always make sure I go on a walk before I do and try to get centered. And then I come home and I open up the big tissue box here, you know, and I know I'm going to burn through them all listening to what became about two hours of recordings with dad. And it's hard. When I recorded it, he was already in the hospital, already under multiple treatments of chemo. And there was times he fades off in his thought, and there's other times when he's just right there with it, because I recorded over two different sessions. But I can share that, man. Having his voice in my ear means a lot to me. And, you know, I know it means a lot to some of you, too. To all of you who met my dad at my early events, my first seminars, way back when I was just starting, before anybody really knew who I was, before anybody knew what I might become or lead or do or contribute in my life. To those who met my dad, thank you. Thank you for believing in me. Because of you, my dad got to see me do my thing. Because of your support, you know, recently, tens of thousands of you guys supported the new version of my book, Life's Golden Ticket. And you'll never know how Much that meant to me and my family. Life's Golden Ticket was the last of my books my dad would get to read. He never got to read my next three books, each of which would finally become huge New York Times bestsellers. But I never got to give him a hug and high five and celebrate that New York Times bestseller status, because I didn't get that when we initially released Life's Golden Ticket. But those things are pretty unimportant in the scheme of things, as you know. I'd trade it all just for another walk around the neighborhood with Dad. I remember though, when dad read that first draft of Life's Golden Ticket, he was the first reader besides me. It's still a vivid memory. It's like yesterday. It was 2003 and I was home writing my book in my tiny childhood bedroom on the second story of our house in Montana. Great Falls, Montana. I was typing on a laptop on my mom's fold out sewing room table. I was surprised when I finished writing the book. I just didn't see the end coming as it did. Writing Life, School and Ticket was a lot like I always say, kind of like watching a movie. And I was just faithfully transcribing it. I knew the character's psychological journey I wanted to take him on, but each of the chapters was a surprise to me. I didn't know exactly what the conversation would be or how it turned out. It was just that great experience of flow that happens when you're writing fiction and you're in it, you're committed to it, you know, you're there. So, spoiler alert, there's an end at. There's a surprising end at the end of Life's Golden Ticket. If you haven't read it, please do. But I remember when I finished it and I finally convinced myself that the book could actually end the way that it did. I printed the manuscript out on this crappy little printer I just bought from an office store. I think it was like an Office Max or something like that. I printed out. I read it and I cried at the end because it's emotional at the end, but also because the book was done. Then I went downstairs. My dad was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. He was always there reading the newspaper, watching TV or doing some project. I handed him the manuscript, this big obnoxious ream of paper, and I said I hoped that he liked it. He said he'd read it. I went into the basement of the house where we had a small home computer. I remember, you know, back then, this is 2003. You know, home computers weren't all that common yet, but it was connected to the Internet and I started researching how to get a publisher. A few hours later, dad came down the stairs holding the manuscript. He didn't say a word. He was just sort of standing there nodding and had tears in his eyes. He was the kind of guy you could easily tell when he had a lump in his throat. He walked over and gave me a hug, a long one, and said, I'm proud of you, son. This was in 2003, six years before he had passed. It took from that moment in the basement, it took another three years for me just to get an agent. Then the book was rejected by over 15 publishers. Harper San Francisco, now called Harper One, ultimately got it, and they released the first hardcover edition in 2007. They believed in the book because they also published another fiction storybook that took some years to get some legs. Called the Alchemist by my main man and friend, Paulo Coelho, who I've been blessed to get to know and serve and help in these last few years. Of his book launches. He's now the longest running author on the New York Times bestseller list with the Alchemist over 400 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The Alchemist, one of the great books of all time. And the editors and the publishers at Harper kind of understood the idea of an. A parable. And for whatever crazy reason, they believed in me. And when Life, School and Ticket came out, the first version, it did okay. But in retrospect, I had no idea what I was doing. And Harper was going through this major rebranding at the time from, you know, Harper San Francisco to Harper One. So, like a lot of the authors, I got lost in the shuffle and the mix. And despite strong sales, it debuted at number one in its category. It just didn't have the legs we had hoped it would take. Then nine more years before I would have the influence needed to. To get the publisher to re release it and finally put the envelope in the back of the book as I originally dreamed of. The character of the book at the very beginning is handed a ticket or handed an envelope. And she tells this character that inside that envelope is a ticket. But he can't open it. He just needs to take the envelope to this abandoned amusement park. And she says when he goes into that amusement park with that envelope, that a miracle will happen. And that sets the frame for the book because as her last wish to him, he agrees to do it. And when he steps through the amusement park, A miracle does happen and he learns all these things about his life. I don't want to ruin the book, but you get the idea. In the original book we didn't include the envelope in the back like I wanted to with the golden ticket in it because I was a new author and it was too expensive and we just didn't do it. But I think it was important to the book and obviously based on sales. Now it certainly helped, it helped complete the story for a lot of people. But it took all these years of me building my brand and getting my message out there before I had that kind of sway to say, hey, go spend some more money to bring this book out and give it another chance. And I know my dad would have loved the envelope in the back because he liked that kind of that something cool or about something. And I also convinced the publisher to let me design the COVID If you didn't know. I've designed now all of the covers of my books personally, you know, multiple New York Times best selling books now and I designed most of them in a janky system on my, on my computer and, and then they cleaned it up a little bit. But anyway, maybe I didn't get enough arts and crafts when I was in school. Now all I can say is it's nice to see life's golden ticket getting its own second chance. You know, people always ask if the father figure in life's golden ticket was based on my dad and he was not the father character in the book, if you've read it is pretty awful and but you know, as you know, there's always second chances. Personally, I lucked out with an amazing dad. He could certainly be tough with us when we were growing up as kids. I mean he was a Marine after all with three tours in Vietnam and 20 years of service in the Corps. But all dads where I grew up, Butte, Montana, Conrad, Great Falls, Montana were tough. It was just the way it was back then. And you know, by the way, by the time I hit high school, my dad was becoming a big bellied Buddha. You know, this calm, thoughtful guy who could drop a one liner of wisdom that make you go, what you know. By then he became my best friend. After dad died, I went to our old home in Montana to clean it out and ready it for sale. Mom had decided she didn't want to go back there. She wanted to stay at the house, the small little house in Vegas. And ultimately I bought her a different house and. But I had to go up to Montana and get the house ready for Sale in boxing up Dad's things, I found the first edition hardcover copy of Life's Golden Ticket with notes and highlights in it in Dad's nightstand drawer next to their bed. I still have that copy with his notes and I cherish it just like I do the audio recording that I did of Dad. I share all this because, you know, it's an emotional day and weekend for us. I miss my dad. All my family does. But I just wanted you to know something real about this strange guy talking to you over the airwaves. This strange guy maybe you see posting some quotes on the Internet. You know, maybe you watched my videos here or there or been in one of our courses or attended our seminars. I just wanted you to know something about that book, mine, Life's Golden Ticket that maybe you might be holding in your hands. You know, books have stories far beyond what's on the page. So I just wanted to send you this today and say thank you on behalf of my entire family for your support and for being part of this story. Listen to your intuition that's saying I'm ready for change for the next level of expression and growth and vitality and love. Just start acting as your most intentional loving self. Trust. All will be well from there. I would attribute so much of my wealth today. Not just my financial wealth, but my physical wealth, my mental wealth, my joy and abundance in my family, in my relationships, in my contributions to the world, yes, my finances too. But my overall sense of well being, abundance, joy in life came so much from these four experiences and I thought I'd share them with you and I thought it'd be a good way to end this too. So far in these sessions we've been discussing some inspirations from my book Life's Golden Ticket. I hope you picked it up by now and got all those bonuses. I'm giving a free course and a free webinar and a free video on the whole book writing process. When you go to Life's Golden Ticket and grab the book from that site, Life's Golden Ticket.com but I want to go beyond the book and end this special series with these four stories experiences. The first one you all most likely know, but I'd like to give some new takeaways from it. If you've been following me for a long time, you know about my car accident. When I was a 19 year old kid, I had a car accident that truly inspired my greatest change in life. Up to that point I was a very depressed and sad young man. Having come out of the Breakup with the first woman I ever loved. We thought we were going to get married and had gone to college together and you know, shared a U haul over to school. I went to the same school as she did, basically following her and you know, ended up. That relationship didn't last and by the end of that year she had sort of, well, broken my heart. She cheated on me. I fell apart completely. Sometimes when your relationships fall apart that you have your identity tied to you fall apart. And by the end of the year I was depressive and then I had the opportunity to go and work in the Dominican Republic with a friend and I went down there and we were in an accident. He was driving and it was just one of those magical, blessed experiences. Not many people would say that about their car accident by the way, you know, because yes, it ca pain, yes, it caused a lot of that fear of mortality. But that for me As a young 19 year old man was the turning point. We'd rounded a corner going 85 miles an hour. And in those next few minutes and moments I discovered what I call now life's last three questions. And I'm not going to go on a big story about the accident because lots of you all heard it before. But essentially I learned at the end of our life, we ask questions to evaluate whether or not we're happy with the life we lived. We tend to ask questions like these. These were my questions as well. Which is number one is did I live? When you're crashing into death's doorway, you want to know did I live? Did I live my life fully and vibrantly, authentically, cheerfully, joyfully? Was I really alive present here? Could I feel it and sense it? Feel life? You want to know. It's so bad that every part of you has a sense of regret if you don't feel like you really lived. It's not about what just you did, it's also about what you didn't do. You have the sense of you want that aliveness in your life and of course you want that now too. At the end though, it's a little more severe of a feeling. You also ask did I love? Did I love openly and honestly, completely. And as you can imagine, my answer to that question was a no. I hadn't been living my life through my heart. I hadn't loved, I hadn't really felt any emotional range of life in any way related to compassion, caring, kindness, love. Because I was broken. I was sad and depressed. And then the last question I asked if you've read the story in the charge or in my other works. I stood on the crumpled hood of a car, bleeding after having crawled through the windshield of the car. And I looked down at my bloodied body and there was, you know, blood oozing all over the hood of the car from my feet and legs. And I had my mortality moment there, looking down, realizing that life could go away. And I just thought, did I even matter? Did I even make a difference? Was there a purpose to it all? I didn't like that question either, the answer to that question. Because, you know, as a 19 year old kid, I hadn't really looked outside of myself, hadn't thought about these terms we all throw around so easily today of making a difference and meaning and living a significant, contributing life. I remember watching the blood go off the hood of the car and seeing this glint, this spark, something in the blood that made me look up, this reflection. And I saw this bright, big, beautiful moon in the sky that night, kind of a big blue moon. It's so big, you wonder why it's so big. And the blueness of it just emanating in the darkness of the sky. And if I felt this fear and the sadness, you know, of these questions, of this experience of evaluating life, even in these short moments, I don't know, when I looked up, I felt something different. If this fear had shot down earlier, this faith came up and it felt like this connection, like I was still here and I was grateful for it and I knew it would be okay. And I remember I felt like I got what I call life's golden ticket, like my second chance. It was like the big guy reached down and said, here you go, kid, you're still alive, you can still love, you can still make a difference. But now, you know, the clock is ticking. And I remember getting that feeling, that sense that I was. That I was okay, I was alive. I could be grateful for this beautiful moment, even amidst this chaos and this crash and this hurt and this pain and this blood. And I felt like at that moment I really was gifted with something. You know, I call it now that life's golden ticket. A second chance, redemption. Moments to begin again. Because that's how I felt. Like I thought, I'm alive, I will earn this. I will earn this opportunity to be alive and to care and to give and to live and make a difference now. Because I wasn't doing it before. And I don't pretend that it was an easy experience from there. I think I passed out at some point under the hood of the car. And luckily my Friend and I, we both survived cuts and bruises and broken things, but we were okay. And ultimately, you know, I've shared that story all around the world, and usually a lot more drama and depth than that. If I was on stage telling the story, but just here sharing the story into my microphone in a room by myself, I just, you know, kind of reflective about it because you all asked, what are your big changes? And as I've shared that around the world, you know, lots of people come to me saying, but, Brendan, I had more injury than you. My accident was more dramatic, or, you know, I lost somebody, or, you know, extreme circumstances were like this or that. And it didn't. It didn't change my life, they say. And I say, well, I get that. You know, lots of people can have the same experience. One person changes from it dramatically, and the other person doesn't. So why? For me, it comes down to the power of intention. You know, I left that incident, and I looked back at it and I said, you know what? That's the defining moment for me, because I don't want to be in pain anymore. I don't want to be in depression anymore. I don't want to be the same person I was before. It was a demarcation line in my life. Not because of it as an accident, because I chose it to be. Look, the demarcation line, if you think about it, the demarcation line could have been when she cheated on me and broke up with me, but I didn't get it. I just fell into depression. Demarcation line could have been going to a new country to work. That could have been the new beginning, but it didn't. It was that moment on the hood of the car. Why that moment? I don't know. Maybe it was divine. But no matter how you would define it, that was the one I defined as things must change now. And I have the deep intention to be a better person for me, as many of you know, I mean, from our 4.4 million fans now and followers on Facebook, on my page alone, not even our company websites, just Brennan Burchard Facebook page, the tagline, live, love, matter, that was my intention. I left what psychologists call a critical incident moment that switches and change things, what I call my turning point. And that turning point became an intention for me. I just said, next time I face life's last questions, I want to be happy with my answers. You know, I want to get to the end and say, yeah, I really live, man. I did my life, not my professor's life, my parents Life, my peers lives, my friends lives, my girlfriend's life, my life. And I loved every single day. I brought heart and passion and emotion to everything I touched and felt. And I made a difference because I thought beyond myself to serve. And so my number one change in my life ultimately came from a car accident. And the change was intention. I set a new intention. I was going to be an alive, vibrant, loving, service driven man. And now for 20 years, every single night that I go to bed, I say, did I live today? Did I love today? Did I matter today? Because you can have the intention, but if you don't measure it every day and ask if you're sticking to the intention, then it's just all hopes and dreams and stardust. The second thing I got from the car accident was a decision to be more confident. The number one is I got the power of intention just given to me, blessed or whatever. But see, I went back to college that later that, that next fall. And when I got there, I really thought I want to be different. And I recognize one of the reasons I got hurt in that relationship is because I didn't have my own identity. I was, my confidence was at whim of other people. Am I loved, they support me, they believe in me. I didn't have an internal strength of confidence. And I thought, you know, I want to have that. And I thought about the time that after the, you know, relationship ended, I just couldn't even barely talk to girls. I was so hurt. And I was in that relationship way sort of shy. I mean, I was, I was outgoing kid, believe me, don't worry about that. But I was, I wasn't confident. You know what I mean? You can be someone who talks and has a good conversation. Doesn't mean you're necessarily confident. And I wanted that kind of confidence that just made me at peace and strong with inside internally, no matter where I was. At networking event, sure. Talking to a new girl. Absolutely. Hanging out with the guys to express my thoughts and my true beliefs and feelings about something. Yes. Standing in front of an audience, Yes. I wanted that kind of confidence. The kind of confidence didn't change from situation to situation, but it was in me, it was part of me. And so I started reading books. It got me into personal development. I started, you know, reading the Greats, Wayne Dyer, you know, I started studying Earl Nightingale and Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie. I mean, I was going back, I was with augment reading OG Mandino. You know, I was studying Tony Robbins CDs, John Gray, David Box, you know, Susie Ormans I consuming Marianne Williamson and Debbie Ford. And, I mean, it was just. If I could get my hand on it. I was reading stuff from more of the Yogi style, a lot of Eastern philosophy. I studied deeply into Taoism and Buddhism and even the origin of Christian faith. I was doing anything I could just to understand myself and my world. But it was all with a goal to become more confident. Sometimes we have to say we. What emotion do. What emotion or strength do I not have that I would need to live into the next best part of my life? And for me, I didn't have real confidence. So I started developing that. And it wasn't just reading. I forced myself to talk to people. If I sat down at a table, I said, I'm gonna talk with these people. So I became the storyteller. Even though I was a little weird about it. I'd just start telling stories and telling stories and having a good time. If I saw a girl and I was single and. And I was attracted to her, I made myself on the spot, walk up to her without even thinking, with nothing to say. I thought, you know what? I will arrive and something will come out of my mouth. Most of the times, nothing came out. Then after that, stupid things came out of my mouth. And I felt embarrassed and silly and dumb for, I mean, most of college. But I tried. I put myself out there and ultimately became much more confident. The third thing I got from my car accident out of intention and confidence was the desire to be a leader, a person of influence. Because I thought about all these people who are influencing my life. You know, was blessed. As many of you know, my stories of my. Where I grew up to have grown up very, you know, struggling a family of us four kids and, you know, just trying to. Mom and dad trying to make it. But I, you know, I had all these people. I was reading these books and studying, and I just saw all these great. One of my things in studying confidence was I read all these histories of the presidents of the United States and world leaders and, you know, was studying back then everything I could on Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and just the greats. I mean, everything I could on FDR and. And I just really got into studying biographies. And I thought, you know, what? Every single one of these people ultimately asked the same question I did at the end. Did I matter? Did I make a difference? Did I bring purpose? But part of their purpose was in service. They really thought about a legacy. They thought about leading other people. Not just as far as having a destination for people but having that intention to help people become their best. Because here I was, this kid trying to become my best, and I saw all these people helping me do that, and I wanted to be like them. And I would say that was the first big change. It was sort of thrust upon my life, an accident, didn't ask for it. Lots of people had one different. But what I took out of it was the intention to live love, matter, the desire to be a more confident person on my own, and the hope, the dream that I could lead and influence people one day. So what incident has happened in your life that you did not want, but you could draw strength from if you chose to? Not that you did choose it, but you could. I love to ask people that what incident did you have in your life that you did not want to happen, but it changed your life? And what lessons could you draw from it as far as a strength? What could you do now thinking back to that same thing that maybe you didn't want to, maybe you've cast it into the darkness and thought it was always a bad thing never to see the light of day again. And I say, hey, you know what? It's not about revisiting all the negativity or the horrible or the traumatic or the difficult moments of our past and have to rehash everything. But it's to say, hey, you know what, Use those as tools, instruction points to say, you know what? Those things now have set an intention for me to be a specific type of person today. And I've always found that specific type of person for all folks who experience dramatic change is they become more intentional, loving and willing to make a difference. About 15 years later, after the car accident, I had another injury in another country. Apparently people should revoke my passport. And I was down in Mexico with some friends and we were riding ATVs, four wheelers. And we'd been riding safe pretty much all day, nothing really crazy or technical. And we could all ride four wheelers. We all had experience on it. And at the end of the day, I was having a moment riding down the beach, fourth gear, 38 miles an hour. And I just kind of looked over to the ocean and took my eyes off the sand for a moment because it was flat and everything was going good. And I just happened to hit, you know, a little pillow of sand that, you know, gosh, it was so flat, I didn't see it. And that little pillow of sand wasn't very big, but it picked up the bike just enough in a way, or picked up the four Wheeler just, in a way, landed on front left tire, boom. Went over and I hit the ground and I started rolling. And I remember all the sound of the gravel and the sand and the dirt hitting my helmet and my head bouncing off the ground. And I just remember the sound next to me, this boom, boom, boom. And the ATV was bouncing alongside me as I was rolling. And I remember thinking, God, please don't let that land on me, because, you know, 600, 700 pound, four wheelie landing on you would snap me and break my back or neck and be paralyzed. Oh, I got knocked out. When I came to, I could hear sort of ATVs in the distance. I passed out again. Came to, my friends were standing above me, passed out again. Then they're kind of like the medic who was traveling with us. Which, by the way, if you're traveling with a medic, you probably know you're doing the wrong thing. So the person's like this medic is feeling up and down. You don't have any broken bones here or there or whatever. And does this feel? Do you feel like? I was in shock. I didn't feel anything. My friends ultimately helped me sit up. I ultimately got on a four wheeler and thought I could just go along with them. And then I went to raise my hand to put the bike into gear and I realized my wrist was all cocked to the side and, you know, I basically snapped my wrist in half. I had thrown out my hip, bruised up a bunch of my ribs, whiplash thrown out my shoulder, and I was in bad shape. My friends got me to a hospital and I had a couple hours laying in bed before they could give me painkillers because no one really spoke that much English there. And we didn't know if I would be allergic to it until the Osteo got in there who spoke English and could treat me. So it was a long time there. And I remember having the moment to think, you know, if this is it, because I knew I was damaged inside. I broke my ribs before, but something was wrong, I could tell. And I just thought I might be bleeding out inside. I might be in a lot of trouble. The nurse kept coming in maybe every 5, 10 minutes and pressing down all over my chest cavity and my stomach, feeling for that internal bleeding bloat that people get when they're hurt inside. And I just kept thinking when I was laying there, if this is it this time, did I live? Did I love, Did I matter? And I can show you it was 15 years later. And for 15 years I'd ask that question every night. Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? I just thought, if this is it, did I really. Since last time, I've had 15 years an intentional person. Did I do it? And I just remember laying there crying, thinking, I'm good. I just kept thinking to myself, I'm good. That was going to be my moment. Fifteen years later, I knew I lived. I knew I loved. I knew I'd made my difference. The utmost of my abilities. Doesn't mean I didn't mess up sometimes. Doesn't mean I'm perfect. Definitely doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes or be rude to people or do something dumb once in a while. But overall, I was good. But something else came from that. After I got home and got all healed up, it turned out that I had post concussive syndrome, which means I had a brain injury, a traumatic brain injury. I had damaged my prefrontal left cortex, my hippocampus, and my cerebellum, which threw off my executive control. Like being able to strategically plan, it threw off my ability to emotionally regulate myself. So I found myself being angry. I threw off my short term memory. And without your memory and context, sometimes you just kind of lose yourself and cerebellum, that's your kind of motor control. So I was kind of out of it. I was losing my racquetball games. I didn't feel like working out. I just felt all weird. And I didn't really understand all those things coming together for a couple months. So I'd really suffered through and so did the people around me. For a couple months. I didn't, you know, I wasn't great to my team. I wasn't great to my wife. I wasn't great to other people around me. I wasn't horrible. I just. I didn't have. It wasn't me, it wasn't Brendan, that vibrant, fun, compassionate, caring, loving guy. I was short with people because without the emotional control of the prefrontal cortex, I was kind of like, hey, I was like sparking at people with the guy who never, ever really argued with people. And now I was. And then I wasn't feeling the energy and the joy from my life, for my events, from my work, and I ultimately just felt horrible. I thought it was just the injuries. But then I was diagnosed and I was blessed to be treated by a phenomenal, phenomenal psychiatrist and brain imaging expert who knew neurology, who knew the structure of the brain, and who ultimately changed my life. I give a lot of credit to Dr. Daniel Amen for being an expert who not only brought the conversation of brain health to the real public in the United States through his public television specials that have raised tens of millions of dollars for public television, but also the guy who scanned more brains and behaviorally tracked people with those brain scans than anybody else in the world. You can go to Amen clinics to learn about him. Amen. Just like you would say amen in a sermon. Amenclinics.com I'm not associated, just love the guy. And he diagnosed me and helped treat me. And I'll share with you. It wasn't a miracle. It was a long road. It took about 18 months to get my brain back to where it probably should be and then probably another six, seven months to optimize it. And so here's what I learned in that the big change, I didn't want that injury either. But from both those incidences, something drew from it. I knew I said, I got to learn something from this. What am I going to learn from this? And what I learned from it was the incredible importance of honoring the struggle. Those 18 months to get my brain back were, were so frustrating. I couldn't control my emotions, I couldn't control my focus. I was just struggling every amount of willpower and motivation, discipline, volition that I could possibly summon each day to make it through the day and still operate at the level people expected me to. Because you guys understand this was also a moment when my brand was like crushing it. You know, I just rolled out a number one New York Times best selling book within a couple months of that had generated over $5 million from that book launch and resulting online course had, you know, now is tracking on a million fans joining us on social media around the world. Like things were just, I mean I was getting the calls from the dream clients, the olympians, the Fortune 50 executives. You know, it was the times of meeting the US Presidents, whether it was a Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. It was a time of meeting Branson and Arianna Huffington and so many legends and leaders over these next couple of years. And I was compromised and it was such a struggle. But I knew that the way in which we meet struggle determines not only our character, but our destiny. Because look, anyone can have a great day and have a great day and be cool to everybody, but it's when everything goes wrong. Can you be the peace amid the storm? Can you be the strength amid the chaos? Can you have the focus amid the distractions and the troubles and the pains? Those are the real challenges. In life. And for me, I learned and started teaching this concept of honor the struggle. Be okay with. Don't fight it. Know that the struggle is going to be there. And it is there specifically to make you a better person to serve now at the next level. Notice I didn't say it's not there just to make you good. It's there to help you, to empower you now to serve. Because you know what a struggle gives you a new strength. You know what a struggle gives you a new toolkit to serve at the next level. And I knew that and I tell people all the time, don't hate the struggle. I know it's difficult, but tell you what, when you hate the struggle, everything quickly goes bad. Because you know what? Hate, whatever a hate is applied to, it destroys. Apply hate to a relationship, it's destroyed. Apply hate to someone's perspective about this group or that group or this race or that race or a person like this or a person like that. Relationships fall apart. Apply hate to the process of growing in a career. The career stagnates. And you have to realize that everything that hate is applied to, it quickly dies. If you are on the path to your dream and your constantly complaining, bemoaning the amount of work to get there, you'll kill the dream. The way that you meet the struggle directly impacts your overall motivation for the dream. So you have to honor the struggle. When it's hard, know that it's going to be hard and it's okay that it's hard. Accept that this is going to be a difficult, uncertain, vulnerable thing, and that's okay. Allow yourself to be uncertain, vulnerable to go along with the process. Yes. Be intentional. Yes. Direct it. Yes. Be confident. Yes. Know what you're doing. Yes. Know that you're a role model, all these things. But at the same time, allow yourself to be at peace with what is, even when what is is not what you currently want. Honor that this is part of the game. It's like if you go to the gym, you recognize that there's going to be a little bit of pain for that gain, as they say. Well, the same thing in achievement and in growth. It's going to ought to be a struggle. Honor it. Look forward to those moments to develop your weakness. Look forward to those challenges that require the most of you. Don't be like, oh, I hope I can do this or I hate doing that. Instead, say, you know what? I'm going to fully engage with this. I'm fully present with this learning experience and that's all struggle really is the learning experiences. I would say the third major change I had in my life was bankruptcy. I had this dream to do what I'm doing today. If people say at a cocktail party, brandon, what do you do? I say, I'm a writer and a trainer. They usually say, well, about what I say about motivation or marketing, those are the two things that I'm deeply passionate about. I've studied motivation and high performance at elite levels now for 20 years. And I've studied business and marketing at elite levels for 20 years. When I say elite levels, I mean studying the best, studying under the best, and now getting to work with and coach and advise the best. I've learned a lot. But when I began, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I had been studying a lot, but I hadn't actually done it. I started writing a book. I started doing seminars. I started this industry. And back then, there was no today, you know, my program, Experts Academy, There was no Experts Academy. So if you wanted to write a book, you went to a bunch of writers conferences on writing books. If you were a speaker, you went to a bunch of speaking conferences on being a speaker. You joined association. If you want to do seminars, you went to seminars on how to do seminars. If you want to do online training, you studied online marketers. One guy over here, one guy over there, this is guy or there. I mean, it was just like all over the place. And I was lucky that I was coming out of corporate America, out of college. I'd gotten a job in leadership. And so I was doing leadership development, consulting, organizational change and change management. And in that process, I just learned, luckily, I learned how to kind of train, how to advise and teach, but I didn't know anything about business. And I learned about best practices that when you go into an industry or company, you're trying to find out what are the best practices, the little moves that make the greatest difference, the processes that are contributing the most, the results. And so I started studying that in our industry, and then, boom, started having some success, and then, boom, quickly went bankrupt when I had a frivolous lawsuit against us. And I didn't understand how business worked. I didn't know about insurance, I didn't know about legal stuff. And I got taken advantage of and was wiped out immediately. And I was terrified. Here I had quit my job. I didn't have any money. The bankruptcy wiped everything away. I couldn't even afford my apartment. I had to move in with my girlfriend, had nothing. And all I can say Is fortunately, she believed in me. And every day I just worked, I just tried, I tried everything. I was like, okay, if I need a website, I'm gonna learn how to build a website. Oh, people are doing sales copy on sales letters. I'm gonna learn how to write a sales letter. Oh, people are doing video right now. I'm have to learn how to do video. I didn't know how to do any of that, but that didn't stop me. If you don't know how to do something but it's relevant to your dream, then your real job is to devise a curriculum for yourself to develop those skills. Not say, well, that's just not a strength of mine, so I shouldn't do it. It's like, no. If those are skill sets critical to success in any given industry or career, you learn the skill set, strength or weaknesses, be danged. You get in the game and you develop into the person who can do that. And that's what I had to do. And so I learned how to do all of this. But I'll tell you what I learned out about the bankruptcy. Number one, never let your small beginnings make you small minded. Even though I'm sitting there in this tiny apartment on a three legged fold out table that I borrowed from my mom with a laptop that wasn't even mine, trying to do my dream writing and building web pages and things like this, I had no idea what I was doing, but I could see where I was going. I didn't know, I mean, I didn't really have examples because back then there weren't, you know, there was, you know, there was a good seminar guy over here, a good online marketer over there, a good person on TV over here, but I didn't see anyone kind of doing a lot of what I want to do in the multiple modalities. You know, I didn't see someone killing it on video and on stage. I didn't see someone killing on video on stage and in the media. I didn't see someone doing all that and writing multiple New York Times best selling books. I didn't see somebody doing that and, and actively coaching people. I didn't see any doing all that. And then turning around to people who were beginning and saying, hey, let me show you how I've done it. I just didn't see exactly what. It's not like I had the perfect role model and I tried to mimic them. There are extraordinary people who I learned from or attended their seminars and learned great things. I mean, I think about the impact of Studying and learning and attending things. You know, whether it was a hay house event or Wayne Dyer or Tony Robbins or John Gray or David. I remember sitting in these audiences Mark Victor Hanson, Jack Canfield's events, and I was learning a lot. I didn't see exactly what I wanted, though. But here's the deal. It didn't matter. I just dreamt it all up. I dreamt about what would I want to do with my day, what would I want to create, what would I want to give. Even though here I am broke in San Francisco, which is a horrible place to be broke because, you know, a burrito in San Francisco is like 8 bucks, you know, a tough place to not have any money. But as the great Zig Ziglar taught us, you don't have to be great to start, but you had to start to become great. I like to remind people, if you got a dream, never forget when you knock on the door of opportunity that it's work. Who answers that door? I like to tell people, no matter how small you start, start something that matters. Don't let your small business, your small beginnings, your small struggles, your small quote, unquote life prevent you from thinking big. I dreamt big things. I was like, someday I'm going to meet a U.S. president. Someday I'm going to get to coach somebody at the top levels. Someday thousands of people will be in my audiences. And it wasn't believing it from a place of ego, like, oh, look at me. It was like, no, Because I will have attained success enough that that could happen. I will have worked my butt off, honored the struggle, lived as an intentional man with confidence and the hope to influence other people positively, that I will get there. It wasn't ego. It wasn't outsized ego. It was readiness to work. I had the dream, and I was ready to work. The second thing I learned from bankruptcy is that you got to have discipline to pull yourself out of the pit. You got to climb every day. Then when you get out of the pit and you get level, grounded, you got to work every day to pull more people out, to serve others. Then after you got a tribe of people, you've served them, and you start marching to that mountaintop, you got to work every day, every step to keep going. Always marching, always moving forward, always aiming towards that horizon line, always waking up each day and throwing that spear of purpose as far as you can and working diligently to go pick it up again and throw it again. That daily discipline, that belief that says, hey, I had better. I had better make this happen. Because you know what? No one was coming to save me. I didn't have no bank came in to save me, no loan, no investors. That's not true. Because I had some family and friends who helped me through bankruptcy financially. Not enough in terms of it, didn't make it comfortable or easy. But you know what? They believed in me. They gave me what they could. My dad and mom gave me their entire life savings. Didn't even get me through a couple weeks, but they believed in me. A couple buddies who were just starting their careers lent me a couple hundred bucks or a thousand here or a thousand there to get going. My girlfriend, she lent me a thousand here, a thousand there. These were big. They believed in me. And they believed in me. Not because I was some special kid, not because I was. That I had any real. I don't know, I don't think it was rather obvious that I would be who I am today in terms of, oh, Bernie Burchard. No, you know what the reality is? They knew I'd work for it. Because isn't that who you want to give money to? The guy that's going to go earn it? Because I learned to earn life from my accident. I learned to live each day intentionally from my accident. I learned to honor the struggle from my injuries. And soon I pulled out. I got out of that pit. It took about 18 months of the most focused discipline. It felt like, you know, 24, 7 type of work, no holds barred went for it and in 18 months had generated 4 million plus dollars from scratch. That was also, I would say, a thorough, disciplined application of best practices. I wasn't doing anything, I would say, different than a lot of people, but I was doing it with a whole lot more consistency, with a whole new level of excellence. Working hard and consistent at the highest levels for as hard and as long as I could. The truth is I didn't take care of my well being back then as much as I should looking back. But there was just. You know what? I think everybody's got those moments of discipline, those moments of go time in their life where it is just full throttle immersion into what you really dream of and desire. It is a daily discipline unseen by people who don't need it, want it, believe in it, willing to work for it, who honor that struggle. I mean, I worked, I worked harder in those 18 months than many of my peers had done in decades long careers. And I don't mean that to be flippant. They told me that, you know, so this is not me being Braggadocious, like, dude, you. I've never seen someone work like you. I mean. I mean, literally, as people were standing on our stages saying, you've been more prolific in the last two or three years than I've been in 30. You've written more books, done more hours of video and created more online courses than anybody. And today I would say that still stands. You know, as the Oprah Winfrey Network said, I'm blessed to be one of the most successful online trainers history, not just today in history. It's because the number of courses, instructions that I've created, that we've graduated a million people through our online courses and online video series, that's not really that common, especially when those are things that people really had to raise. There wasn't just, like, stuff on YouTube. We've been blessed on YouTube as well. 40 million plus views in this last year. But I'm talking about, like, courses and video series training. This was an entertainment. There's no videos of cats humping cats on my pages. You know, there's no cats, there's no babies. This is an adult talking about personal development and training with other people. That's unheard of. And the celebration that we've gotten from the community has never gone to my head like, oh, look at us. It's just like it's a natural result of daily discipline. That's all I tell people all the time. There's no magic to me. I genuinely don't believe that there's people who run more miles than I have. It's just that I made sure the miles I ran were the ones that counted. I found out that Pareto's principle, those 80, 20, those best practices, those little moves that made the biggest difference, I knew what those were. I'd look for them, I'd seek those out. So I tried to be efficient and effective and world class from day one, not when I made it from day one. I said, how do I do this? With the highest levels of distinction, excellence, and service. And I brought a daily discipline to all that. The last big change I had, y', all, was the loss, I would say, of my dad. In 2009, my dad, who was healthy and retired, just starting his retirement, he just retired. And he woke up one morning, it was Mother's Day, and he walked down the hall of the house, and he kind of was stumbling a little bit side to side and grabbed the wall. My mom said, what's wrong with you? I don't know. My heart, my side hurts. And she said, we've Got to go to the hospital. He said, nah, you know, I'm fine. Dad was a Marine for 20 years. Did three tours in Vietnam. When he came back, he worked for the state of Montana for another 22 years of his life. An incredibly dedicated man. Good man. So on Mother's Day, he went in and had a test. The doctor said, seems like your spleen is enlarged. Let's see what's going on here. And then was soon diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. A couple different types of leukemia. AML is the one you don't want. They gave him a week or two to live. From diagnosis to his passing was about 59 days. It was a tough time for the whole family. It was out of nowhere. And he was such a vibrant, loving man. He was so hard on us when we grew up. And then over years, he became kind of like a Buddha, you know, and his belly got bigger because mom was used to cooking us for us four kids. And then us four kids left, but she kept cooking the same amount. So dad ate it. I mean, he was a garbage disposal. And he was just this happy, jolly dude who everybody loved, who had been through more difficulty and struggle and challenges on a daily basis than almost anyone I've ever met. Not just because of his military experience, not just because of Vietnam and getting shot up over there, but because, you know, his job. He worked and ran the dmv, where you go to get your license. And that's a very thankless job. And a lot of people have opinions about that work. But you know what? The people at the DMV are so disempowered by the state, by the technology they're given. They're doing the best they can with what they got. And my dad was running a good one, but still, people came in every day and they insulted him, and they were awful to him because they didn't follow what they were supposed to do, or they didn't, you know, do this or that. But, you know, people project their. Their faults or their angers, their frustrations on people pretty easily. And dad had to deal with that every day. Mama, who's French, Vietnamese, and English is her third or fourth language. When we were in Montana, a lot of the ladies who she worked with at the hospital would make fun of her because of her accent, and she would come home crying because people were being mean to her, and she was getting passed up on jobs she deserved because of the way she looked and talked. And so I grew up watching my parents be belittled, my parents be treated Poorly. And as much as we were poor as a family, financially, I'm lucky, truly lucky that I had two loving, giving parents. And as dad was in his final weeks, I asked to interview him. I said, you know, dad, I'd just like to ask you about, you know, some questions about life. And I wrote down 30 questions about life. I just thought, I want to know about my dad, and I want to, you know, be able to know these things and carry them on. So I recorded the conversation and asked my dad over two sessions about life. And I'll never forget the things he said. And it's really the only recording we have of him. And it's hard to listen to. I can only listen to it once a year. It's been very emotional experience to hear his voice again. I'm sure those of you who have lost somebody and had a recording, it's difficult sometimes to visit, but it's also a beautiful experience. And I heard dad and I listened to him. And one of the questions I asked, I said, you know, what do you want us to know about life? You know, to have a good life? Like, what should we know? And his answer, I'm really. It means a lot to me, and I'm actually really proud of his answer because I wrote it down. I've put it on Facebook a couple times, and it is, to this day the most shared and liked posts that I've ever done. Every time I post my dad's seven reminders to us, they are the most popular. And here's what they were. Here's what my dad taught me. Be yourself. Be honest. Do your best. Take care of your family. Treat people with respect. Be a good citizen, Follow your dreams. And, you know, when he said that, it was so casual. And it's funny, because in some way, he's taught us that our whole lives. And now I've shared his message with literally tens of millions of people. I'm sure that quote has already been liked and shared and thrown around the web in some way or another. Probably 100 million people by now. And you know what it is, what I learned from that? Your life is a message. Someone's going to carry on your message. Your son, your daughter, your loved one, the people you care for, those who you influence and lead. Somebody's going to carry on your message. And that means strive to be a role model, to live such a good life, so intentional and so loving, that others just carry on your messages. Because when my dad shared those seven things, I can tell you, I just. It was so natural. It was just like. It was obvious. And when I think about those things, he'd said those to me all my life, I never really put it together. Like, one of my favorite books I own is a book from William Safire called lend me your ears, Greatest speeches in history. And when I open up that book, there's a little inscription for my dad. Be yourself. He'd been saying it in one way or another, and notes and cards and sitting down on the couch, Sitting and talking and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And his white Hanes T shirt, corduroy white shorts. Sitting there on a hot summer's day with all the doors open in Great Falls, Montana. Watching some TV and football and just talking about life. He was a simple man and an extraordinary man. My mom, if you ever met her at my events, she is the vibrant. I mean, people think I have a charged life, that I'm vibrant. I'm like, well, that's where I get it from. My mom is just, boom, she is charged. Despite having grown up and being separated from her parents in Vietnam and later on in France, despite going to boarding schools where they picked on her and punched on her, despite owning no material possessions and coming to the United States, despite being in a relationship when she got to the United States with a person who beat the crap out of her, despite having moved to Montana with my father with nothing but a dream to have a better life, despite having being broke, despite having been made fun of, my mother is a vibrant, loving, compassionate, present woman. So you know what people say, Brendan, you sure are lucky with all that success. And, you know, I say, you're right. I worked hard. But here's the deal. I lucked out on the parent train. Both of my parents see, everyone's got some caregiver or some influencer, some role model made a difference who's either with them or not with them. I think the difference is just like, similar to what happened with my car accident. I look at the relationships in my life like I look at the situations in my life, and I say, well, what can I learn from this person to become a better man? What can I learn from my dad? What can I learn from my mom, my little sis, my two older brothers? What can I learn from my students, from my fellow teachers? What can I learn from what's happening in society? What can I learn? I'm always asking, what can I learn? Because I know that as I absorb more learnings, I become a better person. As I become a better person, my life becomes a better message for others. To share later. Like I said at the top, I don't know if these are the biggest changes in my life and most of these ones are pretty difficult. A car accident, a brain injury, losing all your finances and bankruptcy, losing your dad, nothing. I didn't ask for any of them. But we've all been through a lot of experiences we didn't ask for. So what are we going to do with them as you get Life's golden ticket, which begins right now, begins in the morning, begins the next morning. Every morning's a blank page, every morning's a new breath, every morning's a fresh start to say, what am I going to show to the world today? How am I going to hone myself to be better, to be happier, to serve more, to be a better influence, to live a better message? We get every single day to ask these questions. That's why second chances aren't really just number two. They're evergreen, perpetual. Every moment is a moment to be a better husband, a better wife, a better child, a better servant, a better leader, a better contributor, a better human being. And now we just have to choose those. So what's the change that you're going to choose now? What intention do you want to live for yourself? How can you live your highest so you can influence other people despite and in honor of the struggles? Those are the questions that I ask and those are the questions that I hope served you today with this podcast. If you like this one, do me a favor, share it. Just tell people about it. Say, hey, you know what, I heard a good story today. I got some inspiration today. Check out this podcast called the Charge Life by Brendan Burchard. I think you'll like it. If you enjoyed this session discussion, I hope you'll go listen to a bunch of our podcasts, download them all, have a listen, share them with people. These are all here, they're free for you and as yes, as always, they are ad free. I appreciate your support in all this and I hope you enjoyed this session. You know, I promised to do something for you all special in this podcast and so what I wanted to make sure that we did for you. If you haven't got a copy of Life's Golden Ticket, go to lifescoldandticket.com there's a link to get on Amazon and then you enter your receipt number. You get a bunch of free courses from me. And I also wanted to give you one of my favorite new tools. It's a tool of how to get ahead faster. Just go to brendan.com 10x Brendan b r e n d o n.com 10 that's the number 10 and then x brendon.com 10x to get download of my favorite ways to achieve more. I hope it supplements all the changes that you're doing. It was something I created literally just for you guys because I thought, okay. I want to say thank you to this community for having support us so much in this podcast. I hope that each and every single day you wake up with that fire inside, that motivation, that blessed grace that says today is the day. Today is my day. Today is a day I can begin anew. Make a difference, make a change. Change, make progress. Live my message. I hope that you'll do that. I look forward to seeing you out on the road someday, maybe at one of our events. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference. Today.