The Power of Love and Faith

If you are in loving relationships with others, family, friends, significant others, however you want to define it, please express it. Please express it, whether that's showing it to them, telling it to them, holding them. But I think what's important is that consistency in that expression. Normalize the conversation of love. Let everyone know, don't hold back, don't feel shamed, don't feel silent, don't feel like you can't do it. People need to hear it and it will change their lives. Today's topic I think you'll find some inspiration in every day I try to give you a new topic in personal development to explore. And today's topic is on love. You know, so many people feel like they don't receive enough love in their lives. They feel like when they were kids, they didn't get enough, when they were in high school, their peers didn't care enough, love them enough. They feel like their mentors or the people around them, their spouses, are inadequate in the amount of love that they are sharing. And often people feel like there were times in their life where they didn't have any love. And I always like to share in that circumstance that of course, that's part of the human journey, that there are times when we are alone, that times when we are misunderstood, times when we are sort of brushed to the side. And that's sort of the hardest parts of being human, isn't it? We have such a deep desire for connection and belonging and love. And when we don't have it, I get it, it's difficult. I hope though one day you'll also read the book, the Motivation Manifesto and there's a declaration in there about love. And one of the things I like about that chapter and I felt and experienced in writing it, just this incredible flow about the reality that love was never lost, it was never gone, it was never absent from our lives. I believe that from a spiritual perspective. But I also believe it because I think love is universal. It's always there to be seen, felt, experienced as an energy that is a life force or spirit or God or something else, that somehow we can bring our attention to it. Even when we don't have someone near. We can cultivate love. I mean, think about that. You can think about a long lost lover or a family member who's no longer here with you, who cared about. And you can cultivate and generate the emotions and the feelings of love. You can remember a family member who has passed away and suddenly be brought right into that loving feeling, that loving memory of them, that's what I mean by it's always there. So I'd like to share four ideas about love today that might help. The first one is about expression. If you want more of that vital and beautiful and soul deep feeling of love, then at some point you have to express it to others. You have to share it more with others. I know families and I've coached families who you know, their father or their mother or someone important in the caregiver relationship. Never shared explicitly that they loved their family. They just never said the words, it never came out. And for that, others felt hurt because of that. Others felt they were unloved. Even if they showed them, even if they cared for them, even if they were always there for them, even if they played important parts in their lives. Not saying it, not expressing it in the way that others needed to hear, made that love feel absent from their lives or insufficient. And I think it's important that if you are in loving relationships with others, family, friends, significant others, however you want to define it, please express it. Please express it. Whether that's showing it to them, telling it to them, holding them. But I think what's important is that consistency in that expression. It's not worthwhile to say it once a year or once every five years over, say it, overstate it, normalize the conversation of love, let everyone know, don't hold back, don't feel shamed, don't feel silent, don't feel like you can't do it. People need to hear it and it will change your lives. Expression. Because you know, another part about expression is the more you say something, the more you put something out in the world. The world has a funny way of attracting it, doesn't it? That leads me to my second point. Reception. So many people have had beautiful moments in their lives where love was there and love was expressed, but they didn't receive it. They. They didn't take it in, they were blocking it because the person sharing it wasn't perfect. I work with a lot of families throughout my career as a coach in helping people reach a little state of forgiveness. That hey, if someone who did something bad a long time ago comes and tries to share loving thoughts and tries to create a new connection, you don't have to accept it, certainly. But to receive that is a beautiful thing. To no matter how hurt or how jaded, we get to still be open, to have our antenna still working and receiving and sensing and seeing and feeling love. Even if not from a perfect source, if we blunt out the emotion of love to all others Just because they didn't love perfectly, we would always be and forever isolated and alone. We have to be receiving, opening to love. And I'm sure as I'm speaking, you're thinking of somebody, somebody in your family or somebody in your life who they've been trying. Maybe it's time to open up your energy to them. It doesn't mean they did everything perfect. It just means, you know what, holding a grudge or being jaded, that's going to limit your expression, which will limit how much it comes into your life. Third idea here is attention. Pay attention to how others express their love. Pay attention to what other people say. Pay attention to other people's love languages. Pay attention to, to all the love in the world. I always loved that movie Love actually, and how the tagline of that movie was love actually is everywhere in our modern society. Especially in the year of the pandemic where we were all so locked down and shut away from people, we so often failed to see that love is out there, even if we didn't feel it, even if we were separated, even if there's so much turmoil online. Please remember, love actually is everywhere. If you look for it, I see it every day. I'll share something a mentor and friend of mine, Ethan Willis, has taught me. He is my partner and CEO over at Growth where we provide our coaching and, and he runs that part of the business. And he said recently that in sharing something at his church that he asked his congregation if they could, if they could just write down something every single day and they could journal one sentence, maybe two sentences, where they had noticed the Lord's hand in their life. I thought that was so cool. Just one thing. Some favor you received today, could you write it down? Some blessing you received today, write it down. Some turn of good luck today, could you write it down? And whether or not you're a spiritual person or you believe in God, I think that was so powerful that we could take a moment to just write down when something favorful happened in our lives. Whether you ascribe that to a higher power or just random chaos or just good fortune and luck and you're happy for it. Capture it. Give yourself attention to noticing those things. In the same way, notice when others give you that gift, send you that text, send you that audio, write that email. Just those simple things that people do. I mean, it doesn't have to be big. Sometimes the act of love is someone took out the garbage. Just notice, praise, give thanks. Last big idea today is amplification. If you've been blessed with love in your life. Amplify it when someone shares it with you, talk about it, zoom in on it. Have conversations about it. So many people have never actually had conversations about how they want to be loved, how they want to be cared for, what they expect in relationships, and how they would like to give and serve and love. And I think by making it explicit, something powerful happens in that conversation with others, we get to lift it even higher. It's like an upward spiral of a conversation. Whenever you hear someone share, yeah, I just love my daughter, talk about that. Amplify that conversation. Don't just go, oh, that's nice. You know, what are you ordering for lunch here? No, when someone mentions love, extend the conversation. That's what I mean by amplification. If you're around me and you say, oh, I just love this thing, I don't care if you say I love this dessert or you say I love this person or I love my dog or whatever it is, I'm going to stay on that conversation point and I'm going to drop the word love 10 or 12 more times, ask you to tell me about why you love that person or that thing, and amplify the conversation surrounding surrounding love. Do that as a practice. I think you'll notice some magical things happening in your life every day. We have an opportunity to amplify love around us and we take it upon ourselves. Do that with intention. I promise. I promise. Life feels differently. It's just a reminder that love, like anything else, is something we can do every single day. Because we all know every day is a great day to grow.

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 progressmode.com I'd like to.

Talk today about having faith, knowing that you're stronger than you think. The future holds good things for you. You're being guided to an ultimate and incredible destiny and that you are supported. Now, whether or not you take faith to mean something of a spiritual connotation or not, I'll leave that for another episode. That's really up to you. What I'd love to share though is the personal development side of faith. That emotional, intellectual, social, or yes, even that striving spirit part of faith. So four big ideas for you here today on faith. Number one, when there's faith present, the emotion of peace is there. I like this way of thinking because sometimes I tell people, one way you really want to design your life is to design what are the emotions you want to experience in life. And like everyone I have ever met, I bet you would love to have a little more peace in your life. Well, one way to easily access the emotion of peace is to have faith. To know that things will turn out well, to release the need to control every single thing and to just know. To know things will turn out well. That deep knowing that you're supported, that you're guided, that things in the future hold good things for you. Omg, that is the way of faith. Second big idea for you today is that to achieve that emotion, well, you all know that so many of your emotions, at least your longer term feelings, are driven by your thought patterns. So the beautiful part of faith is that you can intellectualize it if you want that experience of peace. And the way that you do that is through that intellectual mechanism called trust. Trust, it's different, right? Peace is almost a result of trust, isn't it? That if we can remind ourselves, oh, let me trust in this process. Let me trust in my growth. Let me trust in the weird coincidences that universe or God is giving me. Let me trust in the next step turning into another positive step into another positive step. Let me trust this conflict will end in my favor. It's a choice of how to think about something. And that's the beautiful part about how our personal development and our human behavior is shaped. That we have the psychology, the ability to shape our thought patterns by intention. And by those thought patterns replicating over and over and over and over again, they gain greater mastery over our own emotions. Our thought patterns can create an emotional pattern. And I think that trust, building trust in your day is so important. Trust me, just like you, there's plenty times in the day where I think, oh my gosh, why is this happening? Well, anytime I feel myself saying, why is this happening? I say trust. Brendan, I might not understand. Doesn't mean I have to be passive and not fight, not challenge, not take action. Some people think that trusting is just allowing everything and never being an agent in the world. But no, you need still to have that agency. You still need to take action. You still need to be a person of will and responsibility and action. But I can intellectualize. When I'm feeling a lot of conflict or a lot of noise or a lot of confusion or a lot of uncertainty and worry, I tell myself, trust, Brendan. Trust, Brendan. Trust the process, Trust these people, trust this outcome, Trust God, trust the universe, whatever it is. I make myself say the words. So that intellectual pattern creates the feeling of peace. Third big idea for you here. When faith is present, optimism is there in your social relationships. See, if you're the person who has trust and faith, you're the person who has trust and peace. You also have that idea in your mind, however crazy it might sound, that really good things are coming, that the future will be good. And when you believe the future will be good, you are an optimist. And when you are an optimist, that energy of positive movement and energy spread socially. So in faith, the emotion we want to feel is peace, often or connection, the intellectualizing part of his trust. But the social part of faith often comes up in optimism. Isn't that true? You start encouraging people more because you believe good things will happen for them too. And you believe they're stronger than they think. And you believe they're being guided or supported in. In a way that's beyond them, maybe even higher than them. Isn't that beautiful? I love that the most optimistic people I've ever met were people of high faith. Whether that was a high spiritual faith or just high faith in the world turning out in good ways. Last big idea for you today is that that spiritual side of faith really demands and asks us to grow into the best of who we are. So much of the world's spiritual texts, which I've made a little bit of a study in my life, especially in my 20s, I realized was just asking me to be a better person, to become more. To challenge my base impulses and choose the things that were more honoring of myself, of other people, of the world, of God. And when I got that, it made a big shift. And again, whether you believe in God or not, this is not that forum for it. But for me, there is something we do know from psychology, too, that the work of Abraham Maslow and a lot of the humanistic psychologists, that seeking of transcendence in our life, that is the spiritual impulse to grow, to extend, to challenge ourselves, to rise, to become something even Better not just to survive, but to thrive. To thrive by growing our skills. Thrive by growing in our relationships. Thrive by gaining greater self mastery. If anything, what do those things require? Growth. Isn't that why we're here in growth day? So some people come to growth day because they just, you know what, they got this challenge or this problem. They're trying to deal with their stress, they're trying to become more productive. Maybe they're trying to just learn something about themselves or find clarity or a little more confidence and purpose. But they're trying to, you know, make something better. And others, they just have a great aspiration. They just know that someday in the future they have faith that they're going to be called upon to lead. So they better start skilling up now. Gaining greater self awareness now. Better personal accountability now. New insight strategies, ways of being and living now. Discovering how to develop themselves now so that they are ready when that gate opens to greater abundance, when that opportunity comes knocking, when they have the final challenge to get that proposal, win that deal, breakthrough on that launch, make something magical happen or lead their people. We gotta challenge ourselves. Cause every day I'm trying to put some new idea, some new self reflection, some new point, something. Trying to reach across this microphone into your ear and shape your brain to say, hey, I love this personal growth stuff. Every day I just get one new idea, one new insight, maybe a little spark of motivation. That's good. Because every day we have to try to live our lives in, in faith and keep growing. Because every day we know in our heart, in our soul and in our spirit is a good day to grow.