Take Charge of Your Self-Esteem

Boosting self esteem and shifting into the mindset of success. I'm so excited to get to share that today with you with some of my great friends like Ed Mylett will.

Be in the house today. My main man, Trent Shelton will be in this house today. Lori Harder will be in this house. Ben Newman will be in this house. You're getting the top three mindset and performance coaches in the world on this stage today. Every single person in this room has.

Made a commitment to their personal development to get better for yourself, for your.

Family, for your community, for this world.

During a time when where we all want everything to change.

True, we all want everything to change.

But social change doesn't happen without self improvement. And so I honor everybody here making the effort to be here in LA.

Or online who are here to go.

How do we get better? I'm gonna jump to a little bit of the conclusion that I've learned now. I've coached people full time in my life and career for 17 years. Full time, at least 3 individual clients every single week. 3 million plus clients have taken my online courses on personal development. Over a billion video views and quote card views out there. 104 Day Life Transformational events. And I can tell you the simplest and the most straightforward thing. Whether or not you answer what I call the thunderous question. The thunderous question. Now don't worry, I have a lot of things to teach you because some of you won't like that. I'm gonna start with this one and that's okay. Cause I had the marching band today, I can just jump right in. I can tell how you feel about yourself as an adult. Now we have a lot to cover where your life, your experience, your childhood, that might all lead to exactly how you're feeling right now. There's no question about. But once we get into an active adulthood, when we start taking responsibility for who we are, how we feel, how we show up and we'll talk about all these concepts. Today the thunderous question is so elegant. I can tell how someone genuinely feels about their life on an ongoing basis as an adult with what I call the thunderous question, am I getting better at life? Am I getting better at life? This has a lot to do with how you feel about yourself. If you hated yourself last Monday, yes, we can go back to your childhood when you were five years old. No question, we could dig that up. We could also dig up years, 15, years, 20, and every time somebody treated you really poorly. We can absolutely do that. And that's very valuable if you've ever been at any part of what we do at Growth Day, we always teach the incredible value of working with a therapist or, or working with a licensed professional, or working with a coach or working with somebody who has expertise in anything you're struggling with. And if you struggle with your self concept or self identity, if you hate yourself, if you've been through trauma year after year after year, please make sure you get a therapist. Can I get an amen on a weekday, ladies and gentlemen? It's like that's important. And an operational level. Every day when you're active in your adulthood, you want to know, am I getting better? Cause who's ever been really down, you've been in a bad place, maybe you've been in a hospital with a terrible medical situation. And you know what? Life felt terrible and you felt terrible about yourself. And then one day you woke up and just felt a little better. And that little better was a life changing better. Anyone ever had that? Like you're injured and then you're a little better. That little better feels like 10 times better. You feel a different sense. Or sometimes you went a week and you were just burning, you were cranking and then you got that seven hours of sleep and you woke up, you're.

Like, and you were like, I'm ready, give me the stuff. You were superpowered, you charged up, you finally slept. So sometimes a little better is 10 times better.

Who knows what I'm talking about up here? It can be way better. But overall, I think over a period of time, whether or not you feel like you're getting better at life, listen, when you're starting out parenting, it sucks. If you get a little better at it, you feel better about yourself. When you start speaking on stages, you're completely terrified, likely to throw up or poop yourself backstage and never tell anybody. You go to the bathroom 17 times just to check if you have to pee.

Do I have to pee?

I don't know, I'm in the bathroom. Do you have to? I don't know, I just, I think I should, right? I gotta be up there for a while.

You just have all these little things.

That you start doing and the question is, over a period of time, are you getting better? Because if you feel like you're getting better, stronger, faster, more capable, more caring, more kind, more connected with the people you love, more healthy, I can guarantee your self concept goes up. Academic literature validates it over and over so much. What people just need is a little bit of progress in the betterment of what they're Doing it doesn't have to be crazy big. But if in general they feel to use another language, if they feel like they're growing, things shift. One area of self esteem is called self efficacy. And Albert Bandura really drove this home through academic literature for decades. The idea that self efficacy is that shift where we feel like we are capable to handle the challenges of life and more importantly, we're capable to do a given task. I have confidence if I know I can do that thing or I believe in my ability to do the thing. So whether I've done it before or I believe I can do the thing is called self efficacy. And if I believe I can do that thing, I feel better about myself, I feel better about the task, I feel better about my ability to complete the task. We all know that. But there's a shift there. When we start looking at our life more, like we do in self improvement, like we do in growth day, holistically, and we create routines in our life. To ask the thunderous am I getting better? This requires the most simple and elegant thing in all human consciousness. Do you have a list? Are you tracking it? Can you even tell if you improve? One reason. Adults who are 40 years old still have the same sense of self, same sense of value or worth or perceived value or love when they feel it at age 40 and it's exactly the same as it was at 20. Isn't it true they had life experiences? I mean, there's 20 years, but they still feel exactly the same. They had 20 years of wins, of surviving, of trying, and they still feel like the 20 year old self, not the 40 year old self. They value themselves at 40 no more than they did at 20. And worse, some people value themselves less as they age, even though they've been.

Through all that stuff.

Everyone raise your right hand, say, I've.

Been through enough, I've been through enough. If you don't care about yourself now, what else do you need to go through? If you don't like yourself now, what else do you have to survive, for Pete's sake?

It drives me wild, people. I hate myself. Why? Tell me about your life. You hear about your life and you're like, that's pretty amazing. You survived a lot of challenges and crises. Maybe you had kids, maybe you fell in love, Maybe you did like a job once. Sounds like it's going kind of good. I don't know, Brian. I don't like myself. If you don't like yourself. Can I ask you a question? Have you been measuring yourself? And what have Your measures been. And would you give those measures to a 20 year old who's not you? Because sometimes that question, am I bettering myself? Is hard because that means you have to measure yourself. And then some of you measure yourself so unbelievably unfairly, with the most obscene expectations that your measurement of yourself is based on impossible or ridiculous or unfair goals. And so you went from maybe 20 feeling good to 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 feeling worse because you didn't measure anything along the way and go, huh, I am getting a little better. As we talk about in ultra all the time, you didn't integrate your wins, you had wins. You didn't integrate the win, the success, the progress into your self concept. Your self concept stopped at a trauma, Your self concept stopped at a bad day. Your self concept stopped at a certain income level, your self concept stopped at a business level, Your self concept stopped at a divorce. And you had all these wins, successes, wins, success, survive things. But none of them went. It never got in there. Never got in there. Ladies and gentlemen, let's put it in. Let's put a little bit in.

Let's put some goodness in there. Everyone say, with me, I'm here, I'm ready, I go in strength.

Yeah, you got to start putting that in.

You don't feel stronger because you ain't.

Put nothing in there. You haven't noticed the progress. You haven't taken in the joy. You didn't measure it. This is why in growth they were like, measure your habits every week. Great. Give yourself a score every week. Great. Watch. See how you can improve. And then people say, but, Brendan, what if they have a bad week? I'm like, welcome to life.

Well, Brendan, you're just selling hope.

I like hope.

You're telling anyone they can succeed. Sounds about right. It's hard to attack me when I'm.

Just saying you got potential, babe. It's hard to attack me when I've seen people like you day after day, year after year for two decades of my adult life. Watch them transform and shift and become more. Just because you've had limited exposure to your own potential, don't pretend that's market reality. And people don't shift and change and.

Activate their free will. Ladies and gentlemen, if you only knew.

What was in here, but you think you need new to be in here. If you only knew what was in here, but you think you need a new thing. Well, I need a new level of income. I need a new team. I need a new car, I need a new relationship. I Need. It's like you didn't even count the last 20 years. If you were subtly aware of what you have been through, subtly, if you were subtly tuned in with how much you have achieved, if you were subtly tuned in with how much God gave you, if you were subtly tuned in with the actual opportunities of a global marketplace, you would wake up in full, we wouldn't have to fill the tank. The tank and the cup would be overflowing. Can I get an amen on a Wednesday, ladies and gentlemen? Completely different. Completely different now. I know, I know. Don't worry. For all my friends. You gotta understand, doing what I do as a high performance coach, all the academics love my stuff. We got psychologists and sociologists and human behavior experts. They watch every word I say, and.

They'Re like, you're mixing things up.

I'm like, hey, life's a salad.

Let's throw in some spinach here, a little bit of kale there. It's all okay. We're all gonna survive.

For today's topic, I think it's important to understand it's time that we're okay and actively asking, am I getting better? It's okay. If you're in addiction recovery, it's okay to ask, am I getting better. If you're playing a sport, it's okay to ask, am I getting better. If you're a husband and you've been a jerk to your wife, it's okay to ask at night, can I get better at this? If you're struggling as a leader to communicate and you keep saying, well, it's just not my style, it's okay to ask, can you get better? Because people are counting on you. And the world can not keep defaulting to people's resolutions not to change. If we keep doing that, oh, we gotta change. Nothing can change. We gotta go backwards. We're not gonna shift into the potential, am I getting better at life? It's a thunderous question because I see, to me, it's one of those elegant questions in coaching you can't run from, are you getting better? Because you know. You know. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here. But remember, we have online members and Growth Day from all around the world tuning in. We got Ultra members from around the world now tuning in. Ultra members. We got 30 or 40 people in our Ultra Espanol watching right now in.

Our new Zoom for our Spanish clients. Can you believe Ultra? We got people all around the world.

And the question we can all ask is, am I getting better? So I wouldn't be a proper personal development person if I didn't start the day with what do you want to get better at? What do you personally, at this stage of your life? Don't fool yourself at this stage, not your 20 or 30 or 40 year old self, you now here today. What do you want to get better at? We're going to talk about this later. What do you want to get better at? And don't fear that question. Be proud of that question. I love that. I want to get better at being patient. Me personally, I'm not giving you a metaphor. You know, being patient has been on my personal and professional goals for, I think over 20 years. Every month I set personal professional goals. You should too. That's why we're here on the first day of every month. So we can think, what do we want to get better at? Together, Is this cool? What do we want to get better at? And if that list scares you or you don't have a list, we got a problem. Cause if you don't have a list right there, I promise you life will start feeling mundane and you will start feeling like you're sliding into nothingness over a period of time. Human beings are goal directed animals. We are, we're built that way. Even sociologically. We are driven to connect and to improve relationships over time in every measure of the human experience, from evolutionary psychology to archaeology to economics, we understand how much we want to connect and we want to get better. Don't fear it. Measure it. Don't fear it. Measure it. When it's on that paper, when it's on that board, when you look at it in growth day, you're like, okay, great. Something to show up for, something to grow into. Because if we take out your impulse to grow, you know, what's left is misery. It won't feel like it at first. At first it feels like a nice vacation. At first you're like, hey, this is pretty nice. I got nothing to do.

But every friend I've ever met who.

Retires or has their big day or does whatever and they don't continue growing, it catches. One day, they're on the ninth fairway, on the third daiquiri, and they look around, they're like, what the hell am I doing? So at some point, we all need this list to get better at. And I promise, if you face it, not fear it, I have so much to improve in my life. So much. I can be such a better husband, I can be such a better speaker, I can be such a better leader. I can be such A better person who's healthier. I can be such a better caregiver and I can be better to myself. Raise your hand if you get this one because that's better too. Getting better at life is learning to treat yourself better. It's learning to treat others better that's better at life. Cause if you still treat your spouse the same as you did in year five and you're in 15, you got a hurt situation coming on. If you don't grow in the relationship, the relationship decays. We all know that. So this stuff is important. The betterment of who we are and how we treat people. I think our society is lax on now. Everyone's fine. We should love everybody. I'm like, absolutely, everyone can be fine. But in personal development and in high performance work, if I work with an athlete and they're just fine. Fine. F, I, N, E. That's a four letter word. Ladies and gentlemen, could you.

Have you ever sit down with a friend?

How you doing? She's like, I'm fine. And like, ooh, ah.

This is gonna be.

Let's just. We'll take the whole bottle.

This is gonna be a whole long lunch situation. If she's just fine, you know the trouble is coming. You know you're about to hear the stuff.

Cause we're not built to be fine. We're not. There's something more. There's a higher consciousness to happen, a better flow, a better sense of life and energy. I know you all know that I'm preaching to choir sometimes, but who's already found a little bit of a list of something you can better in your life. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, turn the person left, right, shake them and say you can get better.

Oh, we got new people. No, no. Turn to the person to the left or right, grab their shoulders, shake them, say you can get.

Being around like minded people, I think that's important to have your energy protected with good energy because there's some energies out there that are not so good for you or not so protected. So this is a good situation where you can reclaim that power for yourself, where you could be like, yeah, this is the space I deserve to be in, you know? So even though came here from Arizona, three o' clock in the morning, slept for three and a half hours, I'm here today with my good friends. So it's like those little sacrifices get you to the milestones you want to be in life.

Congruence issue. This is about alignment with who you think you can be, what you think you are capable of, what Your values are. It is living in truth and congruence and alignment of who we know we are and can be. And that's so important. You go too many weeks and months playing a smaller game that you know you're built to build. You'll feel it. Now, I know some people say, but Brendan, that plays right into self esteem problems because you're setting unfair expectations. You're saying people have unlimited potential and then when they find out that's not true, then they feel bad about themselves. I'm like, well, you define truth for me because I don't think you can and I can't. That truth rests on the person's shoulders. Your truth is your truth. You know what you're here for, you know what you're capable. You know, you know when you're dogging it, you know when you're playing in the minor leagues, but you have the capability to play in the big leagues of life. You know it. You know every person I've ever met in my life, and this is one of my mean questions as a high performance coach. I ask them, hey, how was the week? They tell me about the week. I'll go, was there any moment this week you were half assing it? Now, apparently you're not supposed to say this anymore. I've been told, everybody knows when they're half assing it in every area of their life. They know when it's not full expression or full authenticity or full truth or full kindness or full at bat. Everybody knows. I had a friend last week. I've really, you don't wanna be friends with me. Cause you call me Brandon.

Da da da da da da.

Things are going good. Friend of mine, tell me about their relationship. They're trying to better their marriage. Tell me everything. And they went on a date night and they kind of told me about the date night and they talked about all these games, their kids are in sports. So tell me all this stuff. And they kind of breezed by the date night thing. So I said, it's funny, when we were talking, you said the date night thing, you kind of breezed by. Tell me about that. They kind of told me about it. Well, she is this and she is this and that is this and this and this. And I said, interesting. I said, can I ask you a hard question? He goes, yeah. I said, were you half assing it on date night? He's like, what? I said, were you half assing it on date night? Did you show up on date night for your wife or not? He was like, oh, well, Brendan, I'm.

A hard friend because I measure the things.

I just believe that when you engage something, things change. But see, we have a society that is so disengaged and has allowed people disengage that we can talk next to each other and a person can be on their phone as we're talking. Fully disengaged from the conversation. That's totally allowable. Completely. Who has this in your household all the time? You're like, oh my gosh, that would drive crazy. When that happens in your household, the household starts falling apart. We gotta be in a fully engaged environment to be happy. This is not my opinion. Study one of my favorite books of all time, mahalichentmihalyi, one of the great positive psychologists in history talks about the concept of flow. And you can't have flow without being fully engaged. You can't win on the sports field being half assed because everybody else there is being paid. They're engaged. You can't win in a marriage when you got one partner way more engaged than the other. Like being fully engaged is important. Why does that matter when you're talking about congruence? Brennan I thought congruence was just living in alignment with my values. I'm like a lot of people live in alignment with their values half ass. And that's when they half like themselves. See, the problem with congruence is it has to run pretty tight. What that means is you don't have an extreme level of flexibility when it comes to who we know we are. Meaning if one of your values is to be a kind, loving person and you're a jerk to somebody you know right off the bat, you shouldn't have done that. It was a break. And it's got to run fairly tight for you to feel the best about yourself. It doesn't mean for you to feel perfect. No one's talking about perfection in this room. That's where a lot of people get off in their self esteem, where they start feeling bad. It's got to be perfect. I don't need to be perfect. I just need to be aligned. It's going to be tight. It can be a little bit loose, but it's got to be a little bit tight in alignment in congruence of who I am. And consistency is where it matters. Congruence requires consistency. You can't be congruent with who you really are and get the benefits of valuing yourself and perceiving yourself well. When you keep breaking your values week after week after week, when you keep doing things you know, aren't adding to your life week after week after week. Because duration matters in self esteem, consistency matters in congruence. And you've all felt that before. You're awesome for a week and then not so much for three weeks. That week doesn't always carry the month. Self esteem is a very adaptive and flexible thing in real time. That's why I say congruence kind of got to run tight because you might not remember how great you were three months ago today. If you were a jerk to your spouse this morning, does that affect your self concept? Even if you took her to Greece this summer? Didn't happen to me. I'm just, I got points in Greece one John Gray fans know that joke one point days. So I want to let you know that congruence, it's a consistency thing, but it's an adaptive real time thing. You got to run it tight. I mean it's got to be there. You got to be congruent consistently. Because so often our self esteem is disheveled by the day's situations. So we got to be attentive and aware to who we are being right. It's easy to be incongruent. It's so easy for people these days to cheat, to steal, to lie. It's celebrated. It's something that's so part of our culture. We look the other way, we don't even notice it anymore. But there's a higher standard that only you get to give yourself for congruence. What I tell people is the problem with self esteem so often is no one expects anything from you in it. The problem with self esteem is no one expects any. No one checks in on it, no one cares about it. You're the only person who sets that standard for yourself when it comes to congruence. People will let you break it. And I know this cause some of you are people pleasers and you've let people in your life break their congruence and their word with you. Day after day, month after month, year after year, who knows what I'm talking about. She raised her hand like, can I say that? I don't know if that was your.

Husband, but the hand started going up shop. Put that hand down.

I don't know.

Sometimes he asked me to raise my hand. It's not always good.

Gotta listen. Congruence is so important. I want you to feel like you are living in alignment with your body. Best self. Would you write that down? Alignment with my best self consistently. Alignment with my best self consistently doesn't have to be perfect. But alignment, remember, it can be loose, but not too loose. You got to play tight alignment with my best self consistently. Because who wants an extraordinary quality of life? Like, I want the ultra life, I want that extraordinary quality. I don't want a normal Monday. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy normal, mundane moments. But I want life to shine. I want life to be elevated. I want to experience the beauty and the gratitude and the fullness and the richness of what life really is. But I will never experience that, even if I have all the stuff and the relationships, if I'm out of alignment with the best of who I know I can be. This is the stuff of self esteem. Third idea today, what we call the wall of willingness. The wall of willingness. So often when I coach somebody, I can hear how they value themselves based on how they dealt with the last hard thing. And if you're in a place where you're like, brendan, I'm hearing what you're saying today and this sounds good, but I don't like myself. I've made mistakes. I'm upset with something that's going on, I don't feel good. I want to let you know that's normal. Don't hate on yourself for that. And could we look at the last couple hard things you dealt with and just ask, how did you talk to yourself and value yourself? Because what I've always found. And you check me on this. If you're not having a good day, you check me on this. If it's a bad year in business, you check me on this. If you're like, brendan, I've been through two and a half years of anxiety and hell, let me tell you something, check me on this. Have the last couple hardships, struggles, crises, difficulties, bad times, have all of that added up to today? You're less willing to take on hard things. That's the wall of willingness. People hit it and they hit it hard. They just, they wake up. Brennan, I hit a wall. I am no longer willing to try. I am no longer willing to push. I'm no longer willing to get better. I'm no longer willing to live in alignment. I'm no longer willing to struggle. It's like they hit this wall of willingness to do hard things. What if you study my work, we call honoring the struggle. See, we don't hit a wall. We just know the struggle is there. The struggle is always going to be there. It's going to be difficult. And instead of facing it as a wall, we just know it's the flow of life, hard seasons, difficult seasons, the flow of life is going to flow through your self esteem too. And instead of getting discouraged and mad at yourself and then hitting a wall of willingness to no longer be willing to try, if you hit that wall and you're no longer willing to try, two things happen in your psychology. First, you hit it and you say, I'm out, I'm not willing to try, I'm not engaging in hard things anymore. Two things that happen. One, you stop developing. And soon as you stop developing, your brain hits that thunderous question. You don't feel like you're bettering your life anymore. You feel worse. So it's kind of funny. It feels safe to stop trying to do hard things. And it's crazy dangerous because when you stop trying to do hard things, you stop developing. When you stop developing, your mind starts playing little tricks on you. First, as you stop developing, you know you're not getting better. So your self esteem lowers a bit, right? Self esteem goes down a little bit. There's no, look, I did that, I tried that. So there's a little bit of lower in self esteem. But then the brain plays a trick on you. You start getting discouraged, seeing everybody else still going, we're social beings. So you hit a wall of willingness. But other people are going through the wall. Other people are still on the road, they're going just fine. And you kind of, you're holding back, you stopped. And then the brain does this thing where it starts blaming other people and hating other people for their progress, creating social division. So now we're discouraged, we're not developing and we're divided from others. This slippery slope, if you heard me talk about it, all of a sudden, slip, slip, slip, slip. And that discouragement, lack of development, division of others leads into defeat. And when you feel defeated, that's not called self esteem. When you don't feel empowered, emboldened, strong, capable, loving, flowing, generous, kind, instead you feel defeated. You have to hear what I said today because we can boost that. We can change that by working it backwards. We can just go, oh, there's a wall. I hit it. I've decided I'm not willing to try hard things anymore. I better try hard things. It's the great unlock. It's moving out of that comfort zone that's actually defeat zone. Do you know how many people confuse the two things? There's a great confusion in the world between the defeat zone and the comfort zone. They're two very different things. One is very discouraging, one is homeostasis and authentic flow, comfort and the comfort zone is not a bad thing. I know everyone teaches the comfort zone is a terrible thing. I'm like, comfort zone's good. If you're in a good place and you're in a vibe and you're flowing and it's smooth and it's just like, oh, that's a good place to be, that can be nice, right? It's all right. You don't. Self esteem isn't being heightened and jumping out as a clown with a marching band 24 7. That's not self esteem, right? That might be energy, but it's not the same thing. We shouldn't confuse those. You don't need to have heightened levels of energy, but what you do need to understand is when you're defeated versus being in comfort zone and people confuse them all the time. If you're defeated, you're unwilling to take on the hard things. And the first thing, you gotta notice this in you, I know it in yourself. But for those I know a lot of you are leaders, influencers, teachers and motivators. The world right now feels very discouraged, very defeated. That's why we have this huge problem of disengagement at work. People are working from home remotely and they're not even engaged. They got all this set up. They got the little room, they got their little zoom background. They've done everything. They're not even logging in. In some countries and some companies and some teams. When you see a team lose and you watch them walk in the locker room and the defeat is hanging on them and they start blaming the other team and the other coach and the players, it's like poison. It's just like the defeat. You just know you can predict now they feel defeated. You can predict how they show up on the field. Well, how'd you finish your last Friday? Did you finish last Friday defeated or on an uptick? It really does matter. It really does matter. I want for all of my teams, I tell all of our high performance coaches. We certify high performance coaches.

We got any CHPCs in this house? Hey, what's up, y'?

All? It's one of the things I tell our CHPCs. And if you want to be a great leader, you have to hear this. If you're a good leader, you are paid to push. You're paid to push people beyond that wall of willingness. They might not want to go there, but when they do, that breakthrough, that boost, that energy, that confidence, that momentum, that's irreplaceable, that Is like fire. When you see someone go from defeated to breaking through that wall of willingness. And they try. And even if they fail, it's like they stand up. They're like, I tried, Mom.

Look, they're fired up.

And you keep that momentum as a leader. Trying, breaking through. Trying, breaking through. Trying breaking through. Willingness goes up. Self esteem goes up. Willingness goes up. Self esteem goes up. Willingness goes up. When you're completely unwilling, self esteem goes down. And you can feel this in every energy, not just your self esteem. You can feel this in social esteem of a marriage. When both people in a marriage have disengaged. Both people in a marriage have said, I'm out. I'm unwilling to try. You can feel the energy in that house. Don't go to them on Halloween. Cause they got no good candy. Like, I'm telling you, that is not the house you knock the door on. Like, see, the more people feel bad about themselves, the more they disengage from themselves and disengage from others. Then they lack congruence because they're not being in full. Then they can't answer the question, am I feeling better? And it's like a death spiral. It's a loop for your mindset that just. You're like, I can't break it. Yes, you can. Be more willing, try again, push. Be more willing, try again, push. Be more willing, try again, push. But Brendan, that's exhausting. I'm like, welcome to life.

When does that end?

When you stop breathing.

When does that end?

It doesn't. It doesn't. I'm one of those guys. I actually think in heaven there's gonna be hard work.

I think I'm.

Get up there.

God's gonna go, hey, I got some.

Stuff for you to do.

I'm like, I. Oh, man. I thought the daiquiris, I thought the clouds and the daiquiris.

He's gonna be like, bro, you got. So you got stuff to do. We got some work to do down there. Some people are struggling. I think the hard work doesn't end. You think the work is gonna be less in heaven. I think you're being called up. I think you're going from the minors to the majors. Ah.

I think you didn't even know you're training goodness now to deploy it bigger later.

That's my willingness. I'm getting good now so I can serve bigger later. That's my mentality. Bettering myself so I can be of service. As we will talk about the willingness get back in the fight. The willingness get back on the dream, it's okay that sometimes you had a bad run. It's okay. Life sucks. Like I said, we're flowing through life. It's ups and downs, it's natural, you're dancing with it. But you gotta get back in. You gotta keep reinserting yourself. You have to assert yourself back into the flow of life. That's the willingness, asserting yourself into the flow of life. Right? Sometimes you're going along with it, sometimes you're rowing. But you're in charge and you're in the boat. We have to remember willingness, willingness. I can predict your self esteem based on your willingness. It's so easy to do. And remember, self esteem isn't soft concept. It's how you value yourself, how you perceive yourself, how that manifests itself and how you show up in life. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmode.com, click on Private Group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progress mode.com the energy factor this is one of my favorite ones. We don't take this serious enough. As a society, particularly in North America, with 70% overweight, an unbelievable amount of children and adults, into chronic disease and obesity, we have a very big problem. And so often people separate psychology from biology and they don't realize how you feel about yourself is how this thing is running. You know, if you slept great, ate great, worked out well, fed yourself nutritious food and you really took care of the temple. Listen, it is a misnomer to talk about the body and the brain as if they're separate. The brain is running the body, the body is the brain, the body, they're not separate. Like people still misconceived that. It's like we've skipped that in school somewhere. There is no brain body connection. It's the body. The brain is something in the body.

The brain is not outside the body. There's the brain, there's the body. You guys should work together more. It's the same thing. It's right there. Whatever you put in here, he's right there. This thing is eaten from this thing. There's no separation. So that Big Mac that you ate, it's up here, not just here. When you sit down here and this gets flabby, it's up here. And people don't realize this.

You know what's fascinating? One of my favorite studies we did in high performance research was that we found people's both enduring mood and their in the moment energy was primarily dictated by the last 72 hours of their life. It's like amazing. Missed three nights of sleep. Feel like crap today. Eat like crap for three days. Feel like crap today. Don't move for three days. Don't feel good today. It's funny, the last three hours, and I told Ultra members, this is one of the critical things we have to learn to adopt is that your feeling at any given moment, even now, has a lot to do with your last 72 hours. How many of you flew to be in here?

You're not in la.

You flew to be here. Would you stand up?

All of our members who flew to be here, will you stand up? Recognize our out of state friends. Let's go. Oh, wow. This is not a local crowd. Have a seat. Well, guess What? That last 72 hours of flight and jet lag, that has a lot to do with it.

He's talking about self esteem. If you traveled from outside the United States of America, would you stand up and get recognized? Our international students who came here today.

Let's go. Wow.

Hey, that's awesome. Awesome. Thank you. So cool.

I love you too. Hey, that travel, that adds up.

Some of you been on the road so long you don't even feel anything about yourself. And we have to talk about that because there's an energy in self esteem. It's aware, it's alert, it's vibrant. I like myself. I'm excited for myself. I'm excited for this day. I'm excited to see how Brendan shows up today. If you don't feel that energy, start with the temple. If you feel numb, start with the temple. Start there. Always. Some people say, yeah, go to. No, no, Brandon, if you feel numb, go to therapist. I'm like, yes, go to the therapist. And let the therapist who's progressive and has any education in modern science tell you, start walking, start working out, starting it better.

Add healthy habits to yourself cause it will help your psyche. Can I get an amen on a weekday?

Ladies and gentlemen.

If you're talking with.

A therapist, a coach, any professional in any license in any industry in the world, and you're not feeling good and they don't ask you about your healthy habits, leave that room and find somebody.

Who'S got a brain.

In the modern era.

It'S a critical.

How we feel about it. You should feel energized. Cause the temple's energized. I don't. Everyone's like, do you have to sit there and razz your brain up in the morning? I'm like, nah, I work out. The brain turns on. Like, if you wanna win, do your personal development mindset in the morning, work out and eat something nutritious to start the day. Like, we teach this. Companies exist for that. Beachbody body members in the house.

I know you guys exist for that. It's like, this is not a hard triangle to win.

Morning mindset, morning workout, morning nutrition. Start that day and you'll be like, holy wow, I'm still. I'm rocking at noon. I'm going at three. I want you to experience that your esteem has a lot to do with energy. Remember how you feel and value yourself and show up is a reflection of the esteem you have for yourself. When your esteem is low for yourself, in your mind, that translates to your body. The worse you feel about yourself because of everything we've talked about so far, the less you'll take care of yourself. If you're like, why don't I follow through on those healthy habits? Probably because something we've talked about so far, and if you haven't been able to break that for yourself, please work with a professional. Please get a coach, please go to the gym. Please talk with a therapist if you can't break. If you're like, brandon, I'm on year five, I've not been able to break this energy problem. Get someone in your life to help. I promise you'll be like, whoa. Because we're getting you years of. See, it's not about years of life. It's about years of life that you feel good, feel good about yourself, feel good about your opportunities, feel good about how you care for yourself. And it's important because generationally, we're really screwing this up. We're not equipping the kids very well in the energy part. And the energy part doesn't stop at the body. I'm somebody. I'm a spiritual person. Many of you guys know I believe in God. And my introduction to personal development was standing, bleeding out, thinking I was going to die on a wrecked car. And then I had A connection moment where I knew I was going to be okay. And that moment was the beginning for my faith. That was the moment where I was like feeling blessed. And I promised God that I would earn my time on this life. I promised him. I said, I'm gonna earn it, I'll earn it. And I share this with you because I also want you to have the gift of spiritual energy. Spiritual energy that might mean something completely different for every person to your left and to your right, but when you tap into it, the good news is that, well, is abundant. Maybe that's the universe for you, oneness for you, God for you, consciousness for you, it's meditation for you, it's just a quiet walk in the woods for you. But some level of spiritual energy. If you can find that, it's just like it's a whole other thing. And I know some people say that has nothing to do with self esteem. I'm like, really? How can you say that? Because I believe mind, body, spirit, all affect how I sense myself. And if I only sense myself in my own little coffin of life, if I can't see beyond myself and tap into something bigger, it's hard to feel bigger than every momentary crisis or circumstance. You know what I'm saying? It's like when I'm in it and.

It'S hard and it's a struggle, I'm.

Like, whoosh, I'm tapped in, I know I'm gonna be okay, I know I'm gonna be loved, I know I'm gonna be supported.

I know, I know.

Do you know how incredibly powerful that sense is that you already cared for, that you already loved, that you're already part of something that's beautiful and generous and big and energetic, Whether you call that God or just you have the humility to look at literally one of those galaxy maps that shows how tiny the little blue dot is? As we all learn from Carl Sagan, when you see that little blue dot and then they zoom out and they show you all the other trillions of stars and they're like, haha, just kidding, that's just your galaxy. There's a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion other galaxies and you're like, ooo. Do you know how huge a trillion is? Unbelievable. And so for you, what is that? How do you tap into that when you don't feel good about yourself? See, even David questioned himself facing Goliath. So we always will question ourself, but when we tap into something higher, we can see something higher in ourself. And that self esteem gets A boost. I know some days Brendon Burchard sucks. Oh, yeah, a lot of those days.

And the days that Brendon Burchard sucks.

The good news is Brennan Burchard goes and I'm a son of God. Shift. Boosted. Boosted. Boosted. Boosted. Whatever that boost is for you, you gotta find it. But don't think it's just mind and body. It's mind, body, spirit. Tap into a different energy. I promise you'll be like, whoa, what's going on? And it's not a preaching about God. It's a preaching about energy. There's an energy flowing through you, part of you that you're tapping into or not. And if you feel shut down, check that wall of willingness. Check how much you've been measuring whether or not you're improving and care about those things again. And it's a shift. It's a shift. Another big shift is where we are as a generation. The selfie generation is poisoning the self esteem of an entire living body of beings. About 9 billion people. We are in trouble. Anyone sense this? We are in. We are in a mental health crisis and everyone's going to blame the phone. I'm not blaming the phone. I'm calling it something different. To me, it's a selfie generation. And no, that doesn't mean your kids. If you're alive today, we are all part of a selfie generation. Oh, it's the kids.

You gave the kid the phone.

It's the kid.

You gave the kid the phone.

It's the kids.

These days, all they do is stare at the iPad. Where'd they get the iPad? In the gutter. They found the iPad unboxed in the garbage. I mean, at least when I was.

Growing up, they could blame porn on garbage bins. We cannot blame devices on anyone but the parents giving. But it's not about the kids. The self regeneration. Is everyone alive today? And let me share with this to you, it's the selfish individual mirrored concern. It's the metaphor of turning that button so the camera flips back to us and that we feel how that is so important. And we have become a selfie generation that prioritizes status and liking and measured friends that aren't even really friends. They're browsers. We always forget. Everyone's like, oh, Brendan, you have a million fans. I'm like, that's amazing. But I also know the truth is many of those people were sitting on the toilet scrolling.

Hey, poof. It's true. It's not disrespectful. I Followed many people who I like.

When I'm laying in bed and I'm.

Like, oh, yeah, that part.

It's a. This is not intentional. This is very different Growth day. That's an intentional buying audience. We have to understand that everything happening online, even I'm being facetious. I love my audience. I love the people who want to learn. I never ever even talk about as my audience. I've always said our community, our community, our community, our community. People who love personal development, people who do the work, leaders, strivers, achievers. I take that incredibly important. I take it as a job. And I recognize those who are really lacking self esteem got in that mode where all they do is is observe self. Because there's another side of self esteem and that's the service side. Self esteem is not psychological. It's psychological and social. And so the service generation will change the world when you're part of that. I know Ultra members. I know that's your heart. Yes. That's like what we're doing, like service. I know this sounds so old school, but you want to see yourself feel better. You want to boost, go volunteer.

You finish a day of volunteering, you.

Finish a day of volunteering, you're like, I feel great. You get perspective of other people struggling more than you. You get to be helpful to other people. And I know some of you are like, I get it, Brendan, but I have a good self esteem. Things are going good. I'm like, great. Have you struggled to break through? A lot of people have a very positive self esteem, but their self image, their vision for self, because it doesn't extend beyond themselves, they're not breaking through to that success. Cause success is not just about how you perceive self individually. It's also about how you show up and you want to start feeling awesome. Volunteer, give. It can be so simple. It can be literally just going and helping people who need the help in your local community. It can be literally helping out at the playground to fix the swing set that is broken. It can be literally volunteering to clean up on the highway. It can be literally feeding people. It can be literally building house for people. It can be literally mentoring somebody who's trying to start and do what you're doing. And you just go, let me give you an hour, kid. They ask you for the coffee, take them out to coffee and help them. We get this culture. Like, I'm never going to help anybody. I'm so efficient with my time, Brendan. I'm like, I know a lot of efficient, miserable bastards.

Anyone know any I know some highly.

Optimized people who haven't left their sauna from 1975.

It's like you need to get out of the house.

You want your self esteem to grow. See the people, feel the people, talk with the people, serve the people. When you do that and it's real for you, you're just like, woo. Like I'm so pumped backstage. Not for myself. I'm like, I can't wait to see the people. I can't wait.

Who's happy to be at Growth Day today, ladies and gentlemen? Then turn to the person left or right, grab their shoulders, shake them and thank them.

Thank them for being here. Catch this one. Your self esteem. Listen to this. How you feel about yourself, your worth, your value, your caring. How you feel and sense about yourself is so tied to service. And here's the thing. If you don't have the success that you want in life, your self esteem and your service have not yet reached the deserved list. Neville. The deservedness level. That's a hard one for a Montanan. Deservedness to get. That there's a block in how you feel about yourself and how you show up for others. That's what's happened. I said that's not fair. But my success that I want is so huge. I'm like, I work with people. Their success is so huge. And two things are gonna happen. They have the vision of themselves capable of doing that. So they get it. They break through that wall of willingness over and over and over. Cause they perceive themselves as worthy and deserving and strong and capable enough to get it. Or the universe plays a bad old trick, it gives it to them and they've not sufficiently done the work and they hate themselves. Now they got the success. They don't even like themselves. And so they use the success in abusive ways. They don't even like themselves. Their self esteem and their service did not match the success they accidentally fell into. Or maybe they were granted, but not at the level that was appropriate. Between the two things. Perception and value of self. Perception and value of service to others. Lots of success. Those were low. That was high. They'll always break it. They won't know why, but they'll break it. They'll break the success. They'll misuse it. They'll not care, take it. They'll not serve others. They'll not see themselves capable of. So they'll default to lower impulses and that big success never manifests again. Goes away. Or they get canceled because they do something wrong. And this sounds bad, but I'VE worked with these people who, they got it, they got the success, but they never worked on themselves. There was no self awareness, no congruence. They got the big dollar, the big game. And I don't say any of this judging because I'm like, remember, they're just flowing through life. None of this today is judgment as we'll talk about. But I am here to challenge. And if you feel like I got the success, Brendan, and I didn't earn it yet. Okay, let's revisit some concepts in self esteem and let's revisit your service right now. Because many successful people wall themselves off from the normal people who knows what I'm talking about. It's like the more success you get, now you got the bodyguard, the more success you got now you got the house and the gated community. The more success you get. You don't talk to your customers anymore, the more success you get. You talk to two people who lead a company of 50, the more success you get. It's easy to start thinking, I don't need to do that, I'm that special. And maybe you are. But if the service side drops, the engagement drops, the division happens, the discouragement happens, and then you have very successful people who feel defeated because they're not in the game and all they gotta do is get back in the game. The two self improvement service. If you are bettering yourself and you are serving others, I promise you it's a different thing. It's like there's a pop, there's a vibrancy, there's an energy. Like where is that coming from? You're into self improvement and you're into serving others. When those are equal value, when those are at a level in which it has that match to the extraordinary life or the service or the success or the thing, you're just like, I feel different. And who's ready to feel different this next decade of our lives?

Yeah, I want to feel amazing. Everyone shout with me. I want to feel amazing. Try to person right, shake them and.

Say, you should feel amazing.

Coming today, I was looking to reconnect with this amazing community. You know, it feel like a. I feel like a embraced by my own family connecting these beautiful leaders looking to fulfill their dreams. They really inspire me. I'm seeing Brenda Burchard on the stage. How I told him before is like he was giving me permission. It was like an invitation to be myself. Because looking to him being free, you know, jumping, dancing, expressing with his own being, he has inspired me to be myself. So I'm so happy to reconnect because last event, I couldn't come because I had a personal commitment. But I'm back so I'm happy to be here.

Now let's talk about the things that kill that self esteem and that momentum.

Cause that'd be motivating. Okay, good job, Bernard.

I want to talk about the three devils.

There's three of them and they're all over us today. It's so difficult to fight and I really believe that it is a function of the selfie culture and generation. But these three things, you want to watch someone's self esteem tank increase. These three things, number one, Judgment. Rapid, speedy, impulsive judgment. Not just judgment, because we all need good judgment to lead good lives. Speedy judgment. Harsh judgment. Automatic judgment assumption. Bias driven judgment. And we are being conditioned and trained with our phones to judge, judge, judge. 1500 posts a day. You are judging worthy or unworthy and that is training your brain. Speed judgment. What's wrong with our culture today? Speed judgment. The inability to listen, to watch, to ask questions. Speed judgment. She's like this, he's like that. That group is like this. That country's like this. Speed judgement. Speak judgment. All these automatic immediate labels of worth, of value, of good, of bad. Those immediate judgments will crush somebody's self esteem whether they're coming internally or externally. When a behavioral scientist or psychologist works with you, they'll often do processes like cognitive behavioral therapy work. They're exploring the thoughts that you have about yourself. And the thoughts that you have about yourself drive a lot of your self esteem. There are more things, but a lot of it is what this is, which we'll talk about later. Well, one of the things is when you're mean to yourself in judgment, no wonder you feel bad. No wonder you don't have the drive or the focus each day because you're so mean to yourself. Well, the problem is you're not just mean to yourself, you're watching other people all day be mean to themselves too. On the Internet, that one post shows up and that person's punching that person. That one violent thing is happening, that one conflict, that one hook that they're trying to capture your attention with because if it bleeds, it leads. And all of a sudden there's just judgment surrounding you. One of my secrets to life personally of being happy and happy with myself is limiting all of that noise. Like when that noise. Who has enough noise up here? I don't need noise from external, but I also limit it. Internal meditation. If you don't have A meditation practice start because your mind is in constant judgment. When you learn to meditate, you're able not to turn it off, but to decrease the noise. If you're not taking a few moments each day to get out of the judgmental mind, then it's really hard not to judge yourself. So hard all the time. So a simple meditation practice. Every day you want to meditate with me and tap into the universe with me. 1:30 every day. See you there out in the universe meditating like it's just like that midday for me. That release meditation technique releases judgment. And it's just like dropping that devil for a minute. Just dropping that thought, dropping those thoughts about myself. Please, if you haven't ever done this before, if you really want to feel more confident and capable and strong, start writing down every day, what were the thoughts you had about yourself today? And start asking if those thoughts are going to be the thing that take you to the next level of life. And when you see those thoughts and they're unfair, you got to question them. If they're not truthful, you got to question them. If they're un. If they're mean, you got to question them. You got to learn to question and observe your thoughts in meditation or as a self improvement practice. I know the second big devil comparison. My self esteem has nothing to do with any of my peers who will come up here today. Ed's gonna come up here and crush.

It today and Ben and Trent and Lori.

And none of their performances or who they are has anything to do with my self esteem. When I scroll through social media and someone has 10 million followers more than me, literally no reflection of myself. When you are comparing yourself to others, you are constantly chopping yourself down. Comparison is chopping yourself down. It's almost impossible to compare yourself in a positive way. Even if you compare yourself to somebody who's way better in an aspirational way, that can also be discouraging. Your job is to compare yourself to yesterday. Compare yourself to your congruence, compare yourself to your best, your fullness, your completeness, your engagement. You compare yourself to you, not to other people. And that is a shift. There's nothing in my mind of anything I ever do. I'm like, ooh, she did it better. It's like, no, no. Did I do my best? And if I didn't do my best, let me live back in alignment. Let me keep it tight with that congruence. Let me do a little better. Not in a diminishing way, in an acknowledging way that says I Can be better. And being better should be the most positive thought in your mind. It's like, to work on yourself doesn't mean you suck. To work on yourself means you're getting better. So listen to that self talk of comparison. Well, she's better. This is better. That's better. No, no, you do your thing and you compare yourself daily to your congruence. Being and living in alignment with the best of who you are. Oh, the third devil. I forgot the third devil. Third devil. Oh, this is good. I'm gonna offend a lot of people. I'm gonna say it.

All those on the Internet, forgive me a lot of offense.

People are gonna be pissed. The third devil of your confidence, of your life, of the enjoyment of life, of other people's self esteem, of whether or not you're going to contribute to people's confidence and joy and success in life, is a devil you get bought into. And sometimes you espouse that third devil is called gossip. Oh, well, that hit.

If you're the gossiping party in your.

Friendship group, you're chopping them down.

If you're the gossiping party at work.

You'Re chopping it down. If you're the gossiper at home, you're chopping it down. Gossip kills. Gossip kills. Cause gossip makes everyone compare themselves to each other. Oh, she did this, she did that, and she did that. And that judgment. She did this and they did that. Comparison. She did that and they did judgment. Gossip is just a judgment comparison loop with a microphone. That's all it is. And if you're at that microphone, you better stop because the mind also starts playing a trick. The more you. This is crazy. The more you gossip, the more you develop narcissistic tendencies. Did you know those are correlated? Like high? Like 0.6. I think I remember. It's an unbelievably high correlation. The more you gossip socially, the more your narcissistic tendencies go up. And remember, narcissism isn't. You love yourself. Narcissism, you usually dislike yourself. And so you act out. You put on fake facades of strength. You become oblivious to others gossip. And this is so rampant in people. Like, I literally, there's people who I love, I won't answer their phone. There's people I care about, I won't go at a meeting with them. Because if they're always there to talk about other people, I'm like, uh, oh, something is broken. And I don't need no broke energy around me. I got a hard enough life. You know what I'M talking about. Ooh. And here's the deal. Most people gossip way more than they think. So as I ask you, could you journal about your own internal thoughts? I'd love for you to journal about the thoughts that come out your mouth. I did this in college. It was so powerful. I had a great professor ask. I want you to journal about the gossip you did each week. Who did you talk about? What did you call them? Why did you say that? Did you have all the facts? What was the result of the other person? How did they feel if you talked to them or it got back to them? When you were gossiping to this social party about this other party, how did this party feel about what you were saying about the other party? It's just an absolute promise. The more you gossip, the more you degrade your own self concept. You think you're judging other people. It's tearing you down and you don't even know it because you're becoming less kind. And as you become less kind, your self esteem goes down. As your self esteem goes down, you get discouraged. You divide yourself from other people. You start feeling defeated. And that's why a lot of gossipers are gossipers. They're defeated. They had less willingness to try, started judging other people. Because you know who doesn't gossip a lot? Really successful people in the arena doing the work. They don't have time.

They're just like, they're just like.

Because they're busting through the willingness wall, they're not discouraged, divided, defeated and gossiping. The gossips are usually in the seats of the arena and they've never even been up there.

So they're going to judge everybody else.

And you have to know that as the high performers in this room, of course they're going to judge you. Of course they're going to compare you. Of course they're going to gossip you. But remember, that's three devils nagging at you. You don't have to listen, you don't have to believe. When someone throws judgment or comparison or gossip at me, I don't reply. I've been on the Internet for 20 years. I don't reply, I don't engage. Half the time I don't even know that it happened or read it anymore. I don't even care because I'm on my path, I'm on his path. I'm in service to people. And all that other conversation is conversation. And their conversation about you has nothing to do with your permission to succeed.

Can I get an amen on a weekday.

Change Your life. Last big idea for me today is that you want a better self concept. Self confidence, strength, esteem. You have to realize you're directing your thoughts. You're narrating your thoughts. You're directing your attention every day. Where's your attention? Cause that attention is either building you up or stripping you down. Where is my attention? That means you're the director. You're the one zooming in on things. You're zooming in on your past, your present, your future. You're the director. Where is the lens of your attention going? Be careful because either you're choosing to film a horror story or you're filming a love story. You are the director. The more you film the horror story, the conflict story, the anger story, the judgment story, the comparison story, the gossip story, the more your movie star sucks, the more you feel that awfulness, the more life feels horrific, the more you can teach yourself to zoom in on people who are into self improvement, people who are into service, people who are getting better. The more your life tells a different story. And you're like, you come back to life. You're directing a better movie. You're directing your self esteem, you're directing your confidence, you're directing your vibrancy. You're directing that in a whole new way. And then you're listening. You're realizing you're narrating your life. You're narrating what happened last night. Today, you're narrating what happened when you were 10 and 15 and 20. Today you're an active narrator. So listen to those thoughts. It's so important. And here's the thing. When you realize you're the director and the narrator, since we're in la, the metaphor that a lot of big studio heads will give a new director or a narrator on a show, they'll say, listen, make it your own. When you make it your own, your confidence goes up, your esteem goes up. Don't do it like everybody else. Make it your own. Do it your unique way that taps into your confidence who you really are. A great director, when you think about Scorsese, makes it his own. When you think about the great narrators who animate the voices of Toy Story and others, they're making that character their own. And when you make it your own, it has way more success than when you copy everybody else. When you copy everybody else, the movie gets no plays. Your life doesn't feel real. I don't know if you all know this. For those who are new, I know our altar members know, but you're sitting in the historic Alex Theater in Glendale, California, right now in these seats. Walt Disney himself sat here and screened all the great Disney cartoons and movies while he was alive. Right where you're sitting. In that chair. In that chair. He brought his company, his team, his advertisers, his producers here to watch the cartoons. He saw a different vision. You got to see a different vision for yourself.