Stop Living on Autopilot

We are built to hunt. We are built to chase something we are built to build. Every human wants more aliveness, more energy, more pop, more vibrancy. You are the power plant. You get to choose to bring joy, even to the suck, to the difficulty, to the things you don't want to do. You have principles of how you are operating your life. I want you to become ultra aware of them. You're being guided by something, guiding principles. Do you know what yours are? The triangle. My organizing life philosophy. What's your picture look like? This is what my picture looks like. I know exactly what my philosophy of life is because I know what human desires are. I know what my desires are. They look like this aliveness. Every human wants more aliveness, more energy, more pop, more vibrancy. Sometimes it's adventure, sometimes it's variety. Sometimes it's just the feeling of passion and excitement, enthusiasm or even health. Every human wants deeper connection, real relationships with. With real family, real friends, real team, real community. Every human wants those meaningful pursuits. You want to pursue things that matter to you, that bring meaning, fulfillment, real depth. And if you've fallen out of pursuit, you're also like, I don't what happened to me? I was so driven. I was so excited. And you might have a meaningful life. A lot of people have a meaningful life. They got great kids, they do good work, they try hard, they do have good relationships. But they forgot the hunt. We are built to hunt. We are built to chase something we are built to build. It is something that defines us. So importantly that when you remove it from people. Do you know, most men in North America, they die two years after retirement. That's the average. They retire and die two years later. Now, retirement in North America is in the 60s. Most of us, and most healthy people live in their 80s for literally thousands of years. And so you have to understand, it's like, oh, no. Biologically, we can do that. Unless we poison ourselves or we forget purpose. We don't take care of ourselves. And I'm here to tell you, growth has a lot to do with what you're pursuing and pursuing. Might just be you're pursuing an interest or a passion, trying to make more for your family, trying to make your impact. But that I got something to do today, part of now. It's okay. I'm Mr. Take Time off, recover, vacation, sit in the sand in Puerto Rico with their pina colada. If you don't know, you gotta know. But you gotta pursue something. And in the middle you got growth. Well, there it is. That picture is a huge part of my life philosophy. So, number one, I gotta live love and matter because life is short. I wanna live it. I wanna. I want to love people. I want to make a difference. Life is short. It's precious. I'm going to be present. I'm going to teach myself to tap in. I want to be here. I want to be with God. I want to be in this moment. I want to be here with you. I want to sense this moment because it's magical. I know that when I leave this stage, I might not ever get another one. I know that when I make that call with a family member, there might not be another one. I know if I get to work with a coaching client, I might not ever see them again. When you take life seriously, it changes. Then I add the triangle. I know what I'm after. These are operations for me, right? Like if you're a CFO or a COO and you're paying attention to all those metrics of your business, are you paying attention to the metrics that fulfill your desire and your humanity? But bringing joy is a central philosophy of my life. It's why I teach every audience for 20 years about joy. I teach about you being the generator. You are the power plant. You get to choose to bring joy, Even to the suck, to the difficulty, to the things you don't want to do. There is days on the road or clients I'm talking with, or some big crisis in some business I'm working with, or I have, and it's like, ugh. I can be like, oh, this sucks. I can just be angry and frustrated all day. You were not destined to be angry and frustrated all day. You got a get out of jail card. You got a hall pass when you were in high school. After high school, being frustrated and angry all day is a lack of commitment to doing the work. It means no one ever taught you how important personal development could be. It means you didn't read the books. Get the mentors, get the coach, the therapist, ask for some help. Your destiny is not the level of angry and frustration that people feel. Especially in our country today, when there are so many blessings and everyone's running around mad. That's up here. That's not doing the personal development. Your hardship really sucks. If you think it's unfair, I'm here to say it might be. But your hardship is also extremely common. You're not the first to lose a child, have cancer. You're not the first to lose a business. You're not the first to be cheated on. You're not the first to be taken from. You're not the first to sit alone in a room wondering if you can. If you can pull it off, you can turn it around. Your back's against the wall. You're not the first to lose your health. And I think part of our struggle in our world, it's become such a selfie culture. It becomes so individualized. We Forget there's literally 8 billion other people on the planet. There's generations before us. We have written record back to like literally 15,000 years ago. 15,000 years ago. They had diarrhea too. 15,000 years ago. They also wanted to smack their kid crazy. But you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying they did 15,000. Like, listen, there's nothing new that you're going through. It feels like it for you, but if you make it extremely personal, you ensure you're suffering. Soon as I know, man, I'm going through this. This is hard. I bet somebody else has too. Hey, Ryan, how you doing? You ever dealt with this? You ever know someone who does? Oh, let me talk to them. That immediate, it's like an escape hatch. Humanity is escape hatch. From your pain, you're in that silo. All you gotta do is open up the door and talk to people. Ask, get the mentor, work with a therapist, talk to your friend, your counselor, reveal the truth to your spouse, to your parents to like. All you do is open the door. They're there. There's 8 billion of them. Have you driven in LA? There's at least nine of them right here. There's so many people. So these are some guiding life philosophies. Now, what are some of yours? Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode. If you and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to Progress mode dot com. See, when I tell people to get organized, they think I'm going to tell them about file folders. But I'm like, without an organizing philosophy of life, it's all just stuff and tasks and activities. Next, deepen the life philosophy with life principles. Meaning you have principles that are guiding your behavior. You have principles of how you are operating your life. I want you to become ultra aware of them. See, other people might use other words. You know, some people call it like a life ethic or a way of being. But see, there are certain principles that make you operate the way that you do. You need to know those. A principle of humanity might be as an example. You have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. Now, not everyone uses that language. And I just call it the default mode network. Good job, scientists. You name something we've been talking about for 15,000 years. But, you know, we get caught in our. How we label things. But more importantly is you're. You're being guided by something. Guiding principles. Do you know what yours are? I didn't. When I got into personal development, I never even thought about it before. I'm like, why do I operate the way that I do? I had no clarity into it. I'd never done personal development. I was a teenage kid who was coming out of depression and suicidal ideation. And I had to figure out, how are people happy? How are people dealing all this? I know I am guided by three principles that these things are just running. They're my operating principles of life, whether I know it or not, conscious or unconscious. Number one is identity. Who do I think I am? Or as one of my great mentors, friends and business partners in our coaching business, Ethan Willis, says this, he goes, it's not always just who do I think I am? It's whose am I? I love that one. I'm a child of God. I don't know if anyone else in here, but I believe in God. So whether that's your belief or not, I have a lot of faith and I have a lot of connection. A lot of my identity isn't just little Brendan struggling. It's. I'm part of something bigger. My identity is a communal identity to humanity. It's a place in which I feel a connection to something higher. And so I don't get down in the dumps about myself. An operating principle is, Brendan, you're taking yourself too seriously, and your identity is hurt. That's why you're lashing out. You have a principle of protection. Oh, see, people, a lot of you have a principle of protection. You gotta fight, you gotta argue, you gotta protect yourself because you got hurt and you don't know that that's what's happening? You take things so seriously and personally. And a lot of us got into personal development to learn to deal with that stuff. Like, why am I offended and angry all the time? Why do I, like, scream at my girlfriend? That's why I was. I was like, what is the principle that makes me, like, scream at my girlfriend? I remember at some point in my life, I'm sorry, some point in my marriage, Denise said something to me, and I'll never forget it. She said to me, and we were just talking, and I think I had condescension in my tone. She told me I did so I must have. 30% of men can't hear it. They actually cannot discern it in auditory tests that 50 people will listen, and it's so obvious that someone's being condescension. But 30% of men can't identify the tone versus other tones. Isn't that weird? So she said, something changed my life. She goes, what is it about me that makes you think you can talk to me like that? And I was like, I don't know. It was such a powerful question. What is the principle that makes me think I could speak to someone I love like that? Where did that come from? That was coming from a principle of protection in my identity. Is this too deep you all hear? It's just like, oh, wow. Intention. I have a principle of intention. That means if I'm going to do anything, I. I do what one of my mentors and friends, Oprah Winfrey, taught me. She starts every meeting with asking the people at the meeting, what's our intention for this meeting? Everything she does, I'm like, oh, wow, that's such more. That's way more conscious. The principle of intention, the principle of initiative. We're going to move. We're going to take action. I'm going to take initiative. I'm not going to wait. Everyone say, don't wait. Don't wait. You got to go to the next level not five years from now. Now, move, take initiative, right? That's why I love that old school personal development, right? That's when you're sitting there reading, you know, Napoleon Hill or Earl Nightingale. You know, you're. You're deep in it with these guys and you're like, oh, man. Initiative. They make whole chapters on taking initiative. I love that stuff. Fourth, I know my principles, that I am operating from the four Ds as well. You know, in our industry, we'd like to make it easy. We like to say, hey, you're operating from that principle. That you either move towards or away was never sufficient for me. I'm like, that's too basic. There's got to be something beneath that. Actually, what I found out is a lot of us, we operate based on a principle of deficiency. I don't feel sufficient, so I need to fix that or make up for that or compensate for that. Does that make sense? Anyone ever date someone who's always compensated for something? Yeah, only the girls ever laugh. I thought that was funny. I came up with that joke just now. That's a good one. I want to watch that one on the Internet. Some of us, we're operating our life based on demand. The demands our family tells us. Our principle is meet the demand. If they said, I have to do it, I got to get that degree. I got to go to that school, I got to marry that person I'm going to. My principle is to match the demand of the world. Other people. Their principle is distraction. To turn away from things to distract themselves instead of engage themselves. And I also know one of my principles is drive. Am I operating based on an inner drive, or am I operating based on deficiency, demand, or distraction?