The 6 Steps to Lifelong Success
22 Sept 2021 · 13 min
In this episode of The Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard outlines his high‑performance framework for achieving long‑term success, health, and positive relationships. He explains that while research identifies about 100 performance variables, only six truly drive sustainable well‑being. Burchard introduces his "Growth Day" ritual—starting each month on the 1st with two hours of deep reflection, a Whole‑Life Assessment, and the identification of five major moves for the month. He stresses the importance of breaking those moves into actionable tasks, blocking dedicated time in the calendar, and communicating those blocks to partners or teams. Weekly (Sunday) check‑ins and daily routines—including a 60‑minute morning ritual of movement, reading, and planning with mental‑rehearsal visualization—are presented as essential habits. He also describes the "Friday Finisher" practice of defining non‑negotiable weekly deliverables to free the weekend. Throughout, Burchard promotes the GrowthDay platform and community as tools for accountability, coaching, and habit tracking, urging listeners to share the episode, join the community, and adopt disciplined, intentional habits for lasting growth.
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Hello my friends.
I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today.
I believe that every day we can be inspired.
We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week. Sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening.
Now let's begin. There's 100 different performance variables in the literature that has been shown to lead to long term success. But only six of them lead to long term success and well being. Which means life satisfaction if you will, happiness and positive relationships over the long term. Meaning you and I both know some people have success and then they're jerks to everybody around them and they're miserable inside or they have success but they burn themselves out completely without realizing. You can have quote unquote success but real success means you achieve your long term goals and while achieving your long term goals you maintain health and well being and you maintain positive relationship and community. That's high performance. That's what we academically mean by the study of high performance habits. Here's like you want to know my famous battleboard technique? Here's How I think of winning the month, winning the day, the hour, the year. Okay? Everything begins for me on the 1st of the month. The 1st of the month has always been my growth day. So that's why we started calling this growth day, right? The first of the month. Every first of the month, always, since I was 19 years old, gets probably about two hours of real deep reflection and personal development. That means for me, journaling and planning, journaling to capture where am I at my life? How do I feel about all these major areas of my life. My health, my relationships, my wealth, my career, my lifestyle, my adventure, my family, my friends. So I do what's called the whole life assessment in the high performance planner. For those who have that, I basically journal on the high performance planner, the whole life assessment. I do that every first of the month. And I've been in that for years. And then I also look out at the month. And I asked myself some simple questions about this upcoming month. I asked, what are my five major moves this month? Meaning what are the five major activities or initiatives? You might call them projects that I'm working towards and I'm moving forward. Those got to be on the board. I got to know that each month we call them the five moves. So I know my five moves for the month. So I start with that second plan, which is, okay, what's my five major moves? Then I break down my five major moves. So an activity, let's say one of the major moves is write book, right? That could be a major move. Well, what are the moves under that? What are the activities below that? Contact agent. Write three chapters, do this type of research, and do these interviews. Okay, cool. Then I make sure that whatever I just wrote down has. Listen, block time. Block time, meaning whatever those five major moves I gotta do that month. There's block time in the month. A block of time. A block of time, meaning there is an hour dedicated to those subtasks of the activity. It's blocked in the calendar. It's protected at the beginning of the month. It's locked in that calendar. Nothing moves. The five major moves. Y' all hear me, though? I set those like anchors in the month. Everything else rotates around those, is rescheduled around those. Those things are going to happen. It doesn't matter. Those things are going to happen. So now I've taken major things I should be working on. I've broken it down, and it lands in the calendar. Now, sit down with your spouse, or sit down with your executive team, or sit down with that right hand gal. Or guy that you have and go through the calendar.
Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go the next level in your life right now?
The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need.
To journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app.
It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community.
That you need to level up, to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs, and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growthday app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day. We are here for you. And every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self improvement a way of life. Let's make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.
I can guarantee your success based on how much you communicate your calendar. Let me say it again. I can guarantee your success based on how much you communicate your calendar. If no one knows what you are trying to do, no one can be along for the ride or support you.
If no one knows the time in.
Which you're trying to protect, they can't be your block and tackle person with you. So if you are striving alone in.
The dark all the time and not.
Speaking to anybody, which is the lone genius metaphor that still exists in pop culture, but is completely antithetical to any real research in high performance, then you've got to realize, oh, I got to tell my spouse, my partner, this is what I am trying to do this month. Here are the major blocks. If you need to protect the time, these are what those blocks are. Listen, I am assessing where my life is. I am planning the month ahead and I am communicating the month ahead. You do that on the first of the month. It's a shift. It's a huge shift. Especially if you're not currently doing that with discipline. Then my next growth day, if you will. My next growth day, if you will, is on Sundays. Sundays, I do a very similar process. It's shorter, but I also look out on that calendar and that's Where I share with Jen, I might reshuffle things or change things. So I'm really focused on making sure that. And by the way, I want you to all know I suck at planning. And I do this so that I still achieve my dreams. As you heard me share earlier, I have very free mornings for me. I really protect my mornings. But still on Sunday, I evaluate where I'm going. Is this what I want? Okay. Is that where I'm going? Great. Okay, cool. On the daily, every day. Let's talk about that. Every single day I have my morning routine. You got to have your morning routine. For me, I get up for 20 minutes. Basically I do 60 minute morning routine. And I built my life to be able to do that. And so it usually has this combination of these things. 20 minutes of movement, 20 minutes of reading, personal development or leadership or history. 20 minutes with that high performance planner, planning out the day, setting the intention, prioritizing and visualizing the day's activities. Here's what I mean by that. So when I write out my planner for the day and I have a meeting or a presentation or a work effort in the morning, I already know that block of time. I close my eyes, I imagine that block of time. I how would I do that with excellence? How would I do that with excellence? How would I do that with joy? What might trip me up or stress me out? And how would my highest self deal with that situation? So I look at every major thing I have to do that day and I just close my eyes and I visualize it and think about those questions. In other words, that is what a pro would call mental rehearsal visualization. Good old fashioned personal development. Imagine it before you do it and you'll do it better. Especially if you heard what I just shared. What might trip me up, what might stress me out. So as an example, today I thought you know what might stress me out? Trip me up. If I don't eat enough. I better make sure I've got food, I've got water, I've got everything handled. Okay, great. Because when I don't do that, problems after this many hours. Okay, cool. Got to make sure I do the self care. So I imagine that this morning. Okay. God, that gets that mental visualization preparation every day. Every day. So that might sound like a lot, but it's not. Other secret growth day members, you know this Friday finishers. A Friday finisher, what does that mean you should have next to your computer or on a wall somewhere? A Friday finisher is your task list for the week. It means These things might be, you might call it your deliverables, your tasks. It means these items are finished by end of day Friday. Friday finishers. They're non negotiables as well. Like, I gotta finish these by the end of the week. And by knowing my Friday finishers, I get to go in the weekend free. I hate, I don't know about you, but I hate getting to a Saturday afternoon and going, oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that thing. How much stress we have. Oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that thing. It could have taken 20 minutes of planning. And so I know that sounds like a lot. And some of you go, boy, Brendan's a control freak. No, remember, I'm wandering around like an idiot half the morning. I'm not a control freak. Guess what? As you've always heard, discipline gives you freedom. The more disciplined you are about the blocks of time in which meaningful processes, meaningful pursuits must happen. You protect those. You organize your mind and your day around those things and you move towards them. I promise you it will give you a different result. I promise you that will be a different result.
Okay, my friend.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode.
It's on each of us to spread positive and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, Leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the growth day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.
Sam.