The SHOCKING Blessing of FEAR

If the only challenges you are facing in your life currently are the ones that life has just thrown at you and you're just reacting to, you have not yet started living a conscious life. We have to stretch ourselves. How y' all doing? What a great joy to have you here in this historic theater, the Alex Theater in Glendale, California. The gift that I get to hear and feel in this incredible theater is our best clients in the world, our ultra members in this room, bringing it for us. Three weeks ago, I keynoted MGM grand arena, right? And it's like, you know, this arena is like, I don't know, 20, 30,000 people. And then there's an overflow room and they're watching and. And we had another couple thousand people there, I guess. And then There was another 10 or 20 online watching at the same time. It was 20 to 40,000 people live watching my keynote that morning or that night, I went to bed in Vegas and I just felt calm, felt fine. Went to bed, got up, started looking at my slides, started preparing, started stretching out my body, doing my weird vocal warmups and all that chigong. You see me do my events and just getting myself ready. Got in the shower, felt good. Had a little breakfast, felt good. Went to the theater or to the arena. Felt good. Went to the green room. All these people came back to say hi. Felt good. Went backstage, felt good. I'm sitting there going, this is crazy. I'm gonna speak to all these people. I feel fine. I didn't feel anything. I felt like in flow. And I'll share with you today that speaking. And this was one of the things I was terrified of. We're gonna talk a lot about our fears today. And I kept saying, I'm like, what's wrong? Everything feels so right. What's wrong? You ever have that before? Everything feels right. But you know something? All your neighbors say, you have all the reasons in the world to be happy. Why can't you just be happy if the only challenges you are facing in your life currently are the ones that life has just thrown at you and you're just reacting to. You have not yet started living a conscious life. We have to stretch ourselves. We have to do it. No one's gonna set your stretch goal for you at work. It's gonna be a BS Goal. Cause they're gonna make sure you can achieve it by the quarter end. Cause God forbid we do anything that takes longer than a quarter. Your boss doesn't have a clue about your potential. Your spouse doesn't have a clue about your potential. With all respect. The only one who knows your true potential is when you really tap deep into it and he who provided it. And I thought we would call today's talk the shocking blessing of fear. If you always know how it's going to go, boredom lives there. If you always know how it's going to go. The peddling of the, you know, self help gurus who say you need certainty, that's where they're at. That's not how life really works. Those who remain curious, open, those are the ones who succeed further, they're learners. If you're always grasping at some adolescent desire for certainty, you're in the wrong group. Because I don't know, I don't play at any levels. It's in the highest levels of the world of anyone peddling certainty. What they're peddling is the reality. You need to be adaptive, you need to learn. Yes, trust yourself, but be curious, Challenge yourself, Be so curious about how it could be different. Do something new. And when you do that, I promise you that's where life really is. Grasping to make it exactly as we want. Didn't we just fail at that the last three years? Didn't we just find out that doesn't work so good. When you try to, you know, edict how the world has to be and how your relationships have to be and how people have to act, it doesn't always turn out so good. We need to be more adaptive, more flexible, more open, more curious. Not just in our own lives to ignite ourselves, but I think in our relationships too. Sometimes you forget in your relationship the persons that you love, you kind of forget. You don't pay attention to them anymore. You don't listen to what they want anymore. You don't know their goals anymore. You're not curious about them anymore. You know, I know my wife, I know my husband, he's always this way. And then you put them in your little certainty and expectation box and all of a sudden they're not thriving in the relationship anymore because they can tell you're not genuinely interested anymore. So we've got to change, we've got to do things that are new. Did you know most people can't even predict their own happiness? They don't even know what brings them passion or joy or fulfillment. They haven't been in rooms like this to do the work on ourselves. But you gotta reengage it. It doesn't get any better. But if you can change your mind and tell yourself a different thing, this will be fun, it will be hard, but I will have achieved something, I will have made something different. I will have overcome a fear that was my own fear. Most fear is just poor management of your mind. If you want to fear something, fear living a false and constrained life. Fear that. Fear going through life not being you and feeling it. Fear that don't fear, make believe stuff. Fear that life is short and we should live it and experience it and really feel it. I learned those lessons. I started telling everybody about it. People say, oh, I like that. You should teach, you should talk, you should start this thing. And I thought, maybe I'll write a book one day about, you know, some of the lessons that I learned. And so I went into the next huge fearful thing of my life, which was, you know, went through school to, you know, get my degree, got my degree, got a good safe job working for somebody, teaching and training in the consulting company. But I wanted to write a book. So for all the years I was there, I was like, I want to write a book, I want to write a book, I want a book. But I was terrified. It wasn't like it is now, you know, it was scary to be a book author back then. And I remember that decision. Who's ever made a decision to leave a job and to do your own thing? That's terrifying, right? You lay up at night thinking about that. Sometimes you're fired up and sometimes you're like, what am I doing? I quit the job. I was like, what? What am I doing? This is crazy. And I did what every great writer does. I quickly went broke. You know, I went so broke I didn't know what I was doing. And I was so scared, I quit the job. I didn't know how to write a book. I'd never written a book about, like a real book. I didn't know what to do. I was terrified. I was dating a girl at the time and she was the girl. She was the girl. She was the girl. I just knew it. I met her at the gym. Me, scrawny, Brendan Lee, you know, I went to this gym where everyone was huge, and then there was me. And this beautiful girl walked in and I was on this machine, whatever this one is, where you're doing with the back thing. Your legs are up over there and you're doing the back thing, you know, so I'm doing this and I'm like sweating on this mat. And she's sitting there and she's doing some sit ups. I'm like, hi. My dad had always taught me, if you ever meet a nice girl, you should know Everything going on in the city. So you can ask her to do something nice versus just go to a movie. And so I'd read the newspaper. I always knew what was going on. So I ran into her that day, and I knew that weekend they were doing a show that was opening at an art museum. And so I met her and I said, hi, how are you? And I was so excited when I saw her. And I hadn't seen her in several months. And her name is Denise. And she walked up, and I go, hi, Diane. How are you? She's like, it's Denise. I'm like, oh, I know we haven't seen each other. You probably forgot my name. She's like, hi, Brendan. I was like, oh, God. But she let me recover. I said, oh, well, do you like art? Well, there's an art museum, it's opening on Sunday. If you want to take, like a Sunday stroll and go to this art museum, I'd love to go there. I have two tickets. And she's like, oh, well, I'm gonna go work out. Come ask me later. I said, I'm leaving right now. What's your number? And she said, 415. She tells me the number. I repeat it back to her. She goes, okay. And I repeat it back to her. She goes, okay. I said, okay, I'll call you. And I go out of there. Cause I don't have a good numbers memory. So I run downstairs to the front desk and go, do you have a piece of paper? Do you have a piece of paper? They're like, what? I said, piece of paper, piece of paper. And the lady starts fishing for a piece of paper. I'm like, good Lord. So I run. I run six blocks back to my house, repeating her number, 415. Screaming at the top of my lungs, getting this number in my head. I run up into my apartment, I write it down, like, oh, okay. Then I call, and I get her voicemail, and it's her. I'm like, yes. Oh, okay. So I called her. We set the date, we go to the museum. We have this great time. Because I'm like this all the time. So in a very stuffy museum, I'm your best friend. We're gonna have the best time, right? We had the best time. Everything's great. And I can feel. I remember at the museum, we go up on this little hill. We go to this little coffee shop. She asked me if I want, you know, do you want to hang out? Do you want to have a coffee? I'm like, no. She's like what? And could you imagine me on coffee? So I quit the job and as I said, I quickly went broke. And now I'm with the girl. But I have no money and I can't afford my rent anymore. So I go live on my friend's. I gave up my apartment and I'm living on the floor of my friends. And this goes on for months. And at some point now I either have to go back to Montana and live with my parents, or we have to move in together. And we didn't want to move in together until maybe one day we got married or something. But she says I can move in. She believes in me. And it was the hardest thing to have someone believe in you when you know you don't deserve it. I went home that summer and I picked up a little desk that I could move into her apartment. Her apartment's small, so I was gonna have to write in the bedroom next to the bed. I think I have that picture. That's my writing desk. I know you think it's fancy, right? This is the dream of all the writers. Of course, now, of course, I recognize how ridiculous it was. I had my mom's three legged table and I was writing on this desk. When she goes to work, I fold out that thing and I'm like, I'm gonna go to work too. She leaves and then usually I kind of fart around the house. And at night she'd show up and I'd be doing this. How's it going? I've been riding here all day, babe. I'm awesome. So I lied about my progress for months. And whenever you lie about working hard, your brain hears it. You lose self respect. You lose real progress in life because you know you're faking it. You know you're not showing up and doing the hard work. Your brain knows that you're choosing a cowardly life. It's not nice to say, but the brain knows it. We lose self discipline and we don't like ourselves as much anymore. People don't like when you say that self worth is tied to self discipline. It's just that it is. And so I didn't like myself. And the truth is, now I was going into bankruptcy. So every morning I'd fold out the thing. I'd get everything ready, my little writing tools. And on the bed next to me, I'd set up all the vision boards, all, all the research, all the books, all the papers. Denise would go off to work, a real job. One night, faked all day. She comes home and I'M typing, we have a nice dinner. I go back in, I'm pretending to type. She goes, showers, gets ready for bed. She comes in, she comes in, she sees me working diligently kiss on the cheek. Good night, honey. I love you. She goes to go to sleep, crawls under the covers of the bed. But on the section where all of my bills and unopened credit cards and bankruptcy papers were. So I'm pretending to type. I look over and I see the love of my life sleeping under the weight, my bills. And it was just like, you know what I really fear? And I didn't know until then. I feared not being able to take care of my family. And I don't know why that hit me that day, but it hit me. And I just hit those keys. She's sleeping that night, all night, the whole night, right? Next morning, as soon as I got up, next night, next morning, next day, next day, next day. 18 days book is done. 18 days. Becomes number one on Amazon, becomes my first book, my first big book with HarperCollins. It comes out, it goes straight up. And I was like, yes, I've made it. I start writing another one. And then a few weeks later, it goes straight down. You're like, oh, I didn't know that was gonna happen. Defeat or discipline. Now I know I have the choice. Defeat or discipline? Discipline. Keep going, kid. Come on, just show up again. Don't go back where you're faking it. Don't go back to faking it. Do the work. Six bestselling books later. New York Times best selling in a row. It was just like, wow. And I tell you, I didn't go back to the fake life. I did the work writing that book. One of the most scary things that ever happened to me was self inflicted. When the book didn't do what I wanted it to do, I realized I didn't know marketing. So I had to learn how to do video. And so I went down the block, I got a $300 flip video camera. I'm still broke and all I have is my books. So in the house, I set up all of these books and I tape, duct tape this flip video camera around the thing because everyone said, you need video. And I press start. And I would get over there, I look at the camera. Hi, I'm Brendan Burchard. Hi, I'm Brendan. No, hey, I'm Brendan. Hi. Have you ever done video and you can't even explain yourself? You can't even introduce yourself? And I remember doing that video and feeling stupid. We had nothing. So Denise had three IKEA lamps in the house. You know, those big IKEA lamps. And so we'd set up the IKEA lamps. I would set up the IKEA lamps when she went to work, and they would be right off the thing to light me up. And then I'd shoot the video, shoot the video. Shoot the video. Shoot the video, shoot the video. At night, I'd start editing it. She would come home like, how'd the video shooting go today? I was like, terrible. She'd watch it. She's like, oh, that's bad. I'm like, isn't it bad? And we'd laugh at how bad I was at this. But you know what? I discovered something. You don't have any fear to start. Everyone says I'm scared to start. No, you're scared to be seen starting small. You don't have fear. You're embarrassed to be seen starting small. So I thought, I don't think I should put them out. They're terrible. I'm. I'll be fine. I don't need to do that. You know what, Denise, she's making enough money. We'll be fine. I don't need. You know what? I could just go to get a job doing something stupid. I'll make some money. I'll be fine. And in that moment, I heard myself, I'll be fine. You know what fine is? It's a four letter word. Do you know why most people don't have performance, edge or hunger? Because they're good at surviving. Because when you're good at surviving, why, hey, man, I got by. I paid the bills. It's just enough mentality. I'll do just enough to get by. Just enough not to get fired. Just enough for him to stay with me. Just enough. And people who are just enough people, they never break through that level of ambition and potential that they were given in life. Even when I got all the cameras right and everything on me and I started talking, I looked like that. That is the best lighting I achieved. That's the best shirt I owned. That is about seven IKEA lamps burning my face off. And I'm gonna sell something on the Internet. I'm going to teach you and I'm going to inspire you. And I look like that. Survival says, don't release this, Brendan. Ambition says, do it anyway. Then when I got really good, you know how in sales, confidence is everything. Well, this is how my first year went. That's my most confident look. That's my best shot video right there. I sucked. I Couldn't talk on video. I was awful. And then I just said, well, I have no skill at this. I guess the only way to get skill is keep going. Some of you, you fear you're not good at something. I'm here to tell you you're not. Why is that so threatening? Most of the world hasn't developed skills because they just haven't tried it enough. They want to do something, but they try it. One weekend they set up the video camera, they shot it. They knew they looked like that, and they stopped. Well, I looked like that, too, for a year or two. It was bad videos. A year or two. But you know what? By the end of 24 months from that video, I had made $4.8 million on the Internet. $4.8 million. I think the first couple hundred videos really sucked. And then I learned to just like, why am I trying to be somebody else? Hi, I'm Brendan Burchard. Yeah, no, it's like I was. I let my dorky, weird, authentic self happen. It's okay that you suck at this new dream. Don't complain and blame anybody else. Of course you suck at it. I suck at everything in my life. You got to teach yourself to have fun. I remember, this is my first event. My first event ever. Now we. I speak to, you know, Bridgestone arena and the Superdome and MGM and all these big arenas with 15, 20, 30,000 people all around. Well, that was the first one. And no one ever believes me when I show that. That's the first room. That was my first seminar. That was the whole room. That's all I had. And I remember I came out that first run. I had rented the screen. You ever go to a hotel and you rent the screen? They want $5,000 for the screen and the projector. I'm like, it's a screen and a projector. How could it be $5,000? I'm broke. I'm crying about it. And I have to go get these little speakers. Cause I want to sing and dance with people. And so I'd have my laptop on this little. Like a little table. Like this table right here. I'd have my little laptop, and I have speakers right underneath. So I'd come out and go, welcome, everyday seminar. And I'd press the play and I'd go. And we'd clap and I'd go, okay, great, great. And I'd have to run back over and press pause. It was so ridiculous. But it started catching fire, and I stay. Here's the thing. The first one didn't make any money. The first couple didn't make any money. One of them made me broke. Another one made me a millionaire. Another one made me broke. It was just like, oh, my gosh, I don't know how to do this. But the thing is, I kept showing up through all of it. That self discipline, that self respect that comes with, okay, today sucked. Tomorrow, a new day. Took five years, five years from that goofy video for me to finally propose to Denise. And it took five years because I was earning my self respect. I wanted her to marry a man who respected himself. The truth is, there were a lot of nights, as you heard, I faked it. I didn't work. And then I would see her going to work and commuting. And when I saw her sleeping under my bills, I'd found somebody to fight for beyond my own survival. If you're not working, if you've lost the hunger and performance edge, don't blame retirement. Don't blame the empty nest, don't blame the economy. What has happened is the. You lost your focus on what to fight for. I was gonna fight and love for this girl. I was gonna write and succeed and win and build a future for this girl. I found something to fight for. Some of you, it's for your kids, for your parents, for your grandparents, for your community, for your church, for your God, for your team, for your company, for your dream. But you better not start your day detached from that. Because when you are detached from those things, you will devolve in discouragement and defeat. What should I do today? How can I earn something today? Earn this life. Get that self respect. Build something. Some people, they'll think you were crazy. There's plenty of people I dated or I was in relationship with, they thought I was crazy. Throughout my life before Denise, she believed in me. I don't know why. I literally have no idea. Did you see these pictures earlier? Could you imagine she works all day and comes home. Honey, I gotta show you this video. And this is the video. And I'm trying to be credible enough for people to give me money on the Internet to learn from me. And that's me. She believed. I don't know why, I don't know why. She believed me through this, she believed me through this. And she married me. And I came up with this crazy idea, this crazy simple phrase in my life. The next level. You know, most people are focused on avoiding pain and running away from fear. What's the next level for you and your family? What is it? What's your next Level for health. What's your next level financially? Not because you have to strive for endless means where you're never satisfied. No, you can strive satisfied. You can be completely content and happy and joyous and grateful for God for today's blessings and still work tomorrow hard to build more into his future vision or your future vision for you, there's more potential in you. Next level. There's something there for you. 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 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. Stop spending the day complaining about what's here and start thinking about what can be there for you when you grow into it. I'd written that first book, Life's Golden Ticket, and I'd done those little events and those little seminars. I thought, you know what? I'm going to go big. I'm going to do something no one's ever done before. I didn't know how. I said, you know what? I'm going to do Life's Golden Ticket. It's a parable. It takes place in an amusement park. The book does. And there's a character who goes to the amusement park and has these magical experiences with these different carnies and people at the amusement park who reveal to him why he can't love and why he can't have success in life. I said, honey, we're going to bring it to life. She says, what do you mean? I said, I'm going to rent the Ringling Brothers circus tent, and we're gonna get these characters and we're gonna get people in there and we're gonna act out life's golden ticket. You're gonna get a tent. I'm like, a tent? My friends are like, how are you gonna afford a tent? I go, I don't know, but I'm gonna get a tent. So I contact Ringling Brothers and I said, I would like to partner with you to get your tent. And to bring people there. And we're gonna do kind of like a revival, but more of like a self improvement thing. But I need all your, you know, I need your strong men. And I need some, you know, people from high wires and stuff. And they're like, who are you? Can you afford to do a buyout of our tent? I go, oh, absolutely not. See, the whole world's like, who are you? You're so scared they're gonna say, who are you? You're terrified you're going to come up with this idea and someone's going, who do you think you are? Everyone at every level, at all of your next levels, your next level of income, they're going to go, who do you think you are? Your next level of work and promotion. Who do you think you are? Everyone is always going to ask that, so you better know who you are. Everyone says, no, I can't get any. I can't even. I try to rent a wedding tent and they make fun of me, let alone a circus tent. And then one day, I'm driving down near Long Beach, California, and I look off on the exit ramp and there's a tent. A red and a white tent, just like in my book. Oh, my God. I hit the brakes. I go reverse on the interstate. No one said I was smart. I take the exit, I drive down, I literally get out. I run up to the gate. I'm like, can I talk to who owns this? Them. She goes, you gotta buy a ticket first. And I had no money. I said, well, I don't have any money. She's like, what do you want? I said, well, I want to rent the. She goes, I don't know. I said, I'll wait all day. If I could just get five minutes with him. Please, please, please. And I stood out there for four hours in the sun. Finally, I think he came over just because he felt sad for me. I mean, he came over and says, all right. Someone says, you want to rent the tent? I said, yes. And they had the whole thing. They had the Strongmans and the lions and the tigers and. I mean, they had the whole thing. Everything that I needed, everything. So I tell him about this book that I've written. I want to bring it to life. And could. Could. Could. Could we do something? And he says, well, how would we do something? I said, I don't know. Just like, maybe I'll help you fill it. We'll. We'll fill it for the weekend and we'll split the proceeds. He's like, well, I usually do it. And I make all the proceeds. How about we get this much what we usually make and then anything extra we'll split. Yes, let's do that. And this is the Life's golden ticket. 10. That's the inside of the tent. That's the Life's golden ticket tent. That was me in the center ring. I dressed up like Henry in Life's golden ticket, who's a gardener and a groundskeeper in the book. I'm taking this lady up into this ferris wheel. Like I'm up. I don't know if you. That's us going up. She's telling me the problems of her life. I'm coaching her as this thing is lifting up and I'm thinking, I don't know what this thing is connected to. And remember, I was scared of heights. I'm changing outfits, I don't know how to speak. I'm making it up as I go along. And I was alive. Ladies and gentlemen, You come to life when you stretch yourself and you push yourself. I get my parents to come and volunteer and we're just all believing it's going to turn out fine. We have no idea how to do it. My parents are checking people in, my dad's carrying boxes. And it is terrifying every single day. First night of the event, I felt, oh my God, we pulled it off, thank God. The first night. And it's a three day event. We leave all the gear in the tent and a tent, you know, gathers moisture over the grass and then drips down. It dripped down all over the technology, ruined all of our sound in our video the first night. By the mid second morning, the fire marshal comes over and says, hey, because he sees the big tent, thinks there's money, comes over, says hey, I walked around here and you know your extension cord isn't six inches from the thing over here. That's a $500 fine. And then by afternoon he comes back with another city guy and says, hey, you know you only have two air conditioning units out here. You need to have three, otherwise we're going to shut you down. By the end of lunch I have to go and ask family and friends and other people to help me coordinate and find somebody who will give us an air conditioning unit, which they do for $15,000. We had to borrow the money just to get the thing to go on. And we're trying to pull it through. And I've got speakers coming. John Grave, who wrote Minnow from Mars, Wind from Venus, Marianne Williamson. She's coming to speak. I got big names Coming to speak at this thing. Cause there's a tent and this kid, this nobody in the industry who no one knows he's got a tent and they got. And people are there and they're showing up and he's just. He's great. No one's ever done that before. You gotta come down here. So they're coming and I'm just putting on. Smile. Okay, here we go. This is going to be great. Every day I feel like it's going to fail. And I was alive, you know what I'm saying? I knew they had a high wire and they had a trapezius, you know, with the person they swing on the ropes and they jump and they land on the other side or they fall into the net and they had this wire and I think it was 50ft in the air. For some crazy reason on the final night, I tell the audience, if you guys rock it out with me, if we just change and everything, I will go up on the wire. And everyone's like. And everyone jumps and like, they want to see me die. I'm like, they get so fired up. Now I've said it. I have to commit to it. Oh, my gosh. Should we take a 20 minute break? I go back with the team. I'm like, how do I do this? The guy who ran the Mexican national circus says to his son, go get the helmet. They give me the helmet. They connect me up. I. When I climbed that rigging to get up there, my hands were sweating like you'd be in a sauna. Have you ever been so scared you can't even breathe and you know you can't breathe in the very moment you're so scared, like, I can't breathe. So you almost start hyperventilating. And I'm standing there, I'm like, oh, my God. But I have to do this. I'm saying change is possible. All I have to do is take this step on this wire. These people have come here for this. I stood there for 15 minutes. I'm just standing there, just looking. They think something else is going on. The guys are playing music. It looks like everyone's getting ready. Oh, no. I just frozen. I was frozen. And I just kept thinking how scared I was. And then I remembered, I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. Somebody to fight for. Someone to fight for. If you can't get over your shit, you better find somebody or something to fight for. You better take your focus off your stuff that you got from your school, from your high school, from Your building, from your house, from them. Those things you haven't forget. That's shame. And you better take your eyes off of yourself. We live in a culture that is a selfie culture. And you better turn it into a service culture. You better go, who needs me now? I was like, these people, they are clapping. They have come to see this. My family is down there. I gotta pay for that $15,000 stupid thing. I. They. I need. You know what? Here we go. And I just. Love. I just took this step and it shook. I pulled it back, shook. And I was like, well, this is just stupid. This is just not. I said, well, either way, I'm gonna fall. I. Either way, I'm going to fall. Might as well make it fun. I go, bam. And I fall off the thing and the cable catches me and I bounce into the thing and I get up and everyone's like, yeah. And the audience went ape. Crazy, Crazy. You got to reinvent. You gotta find a new way to do things in a different way, in a different format. Even if it's awkward, even if it's weird, even if you don't know how it's gonna go, even if you don't have the script or the outline, you just. You've gotta do something new to be on the edge. On the edge, on the tightrope again. There's life beyond the comfort zone. You gotta find that again. If the only goals you have are things you already know how to do, that's not a goal. That's a task. It's a checklist item. A real goal, a real dream. You don't know how you're gonna manifest that. You don't know how you're gonna build it. And when other people see you do it is a difference maker. My whole family there. This is my favorite pictures of my entire life. At the end of the show. Is 16 years ago when I broke through in this industry. That day, that tent, that moment I can look back and go. That's when the other speakers started opening the doors. That's when people said, holy, this kid is not joking around. My career has been a rocket since then. I've been blessed. But my reason for that picture, I told you, my mom, my dad volunteered. This would be my dad's last event. Maybe somebody in your life needs to see you do the dream. Maybe someone needs to see you do it. My dad was so prideful, he couldn't believe. He said, brandon, all these people came. He's up first one in the morning moving boxes and helping everybody. He did Three tours in Vietnam, got all shot up. Fought and fought and fought and struggled his whole life. His whole life. But he sees his kid reaching for a dream. One of my most cherished pictures. Dad, Mom. On Mother's Day, he wakes up nine months later. His back hurts throughout the day, doesn't get better. Mom says, let's go to the hospital, check on what's going on with you. Now he's healthy as an oxygen. He's playing bowling and golfing and racquetball. He's beating the kids at the air force base, playing racquetball as a 69 year old man. He's whooping up on me. He's fine. He goes there, gets a diagnosis. They see his spleen is enlarged, do a few blood tests. By the end of the day, they say, Mr. Burchard, you have seven days left. AML has taken your life. Cancer is everywhere. So he said, I want to go home. So I went home. We brought him home for hospice. And I got to be with my dad. They gave him seven days. You know, the old gunny sergeant, he made it 59 days. He just had to show him, you know, if you ra. You understood he had to make it in that time. I asked him a lot of questions about life and his answers were always simple. And I interviewed him about life because I wanted to capture that before he was gone. I told you earlier that life is precious. It really is. And most of the things we already know. You knew it before you came in here. Everyone at home, I didn't tell you anything new today, but maybe you make a new decision today because you realize life is short. My dad's advice was super simple. He was a very simple man. His greatest joy was when I got married. Him and mom dancing. And you know what? They loved to dance. They weren't great at it. But you, at our wedding, they were out there boogieing, dancing so much, having such a great time in just loving life that all of our friends, spontaneously, all of our friends just got off the dance floor because he was boog. Now you know where this shit comes from. You know what I'm saying? But you see me doing with joy. You see me doing it with joy. I can't hit a beat, but I'm having the time of my life, you know what I'm saying? On his deathbed, he told me the most simple and elegant things about life. If you want to have a good life, be yourself. So many of us, we're not honest about our problems, our challenges, what we're going through. So we suffer in our silence. So many of us, we know we're not doing our best because we're scared. But we keep stopping when not knowing how is the very cause to continue. He said, take care of your family. Take care of your mom. Love her. Told us, you kids, when I'm gone, you love your mother. You love each other. Be there for each other. Take care of each other. My mom in this room today. Mom, are you here? I'm trying to find her. It's been so dark. She in the bathroom or something? She probably said, this is so long. I can't believe this son of mine. Maybe there's someone you need to care for and you need to get out of your own head. Take care of your family. My dad said, I love that one. Treat people with respect. Everyone says, what's the secret to your career, Brandon? I said, well, my dad told me to treat people with respect. I know you're going through a hard time. I'm not preaching at you. I suck, too. But if we keep going and respect ourselves, he said, be a good citizen. He said, most importantly, follow your dreams. Hi, Mama. How are you? She's. She said, you okay? You're sweating. I just want to thank you for working so hard and being there for us kids and for dad and for believing in me. My mom cared for us so much. My dad worked so hard to care for us. They always believed in this. When I said I was going to do the tent, mom was like, that's cool. Everyone else thought I was crazy. She thought it was cool. That's cool. Life is short. If you have family, you have friends, you care for your life. I have a very simple way to end today's show that. I'd just love to tell you something. I've seen my mom do it, my dad do it. I've seen it make the greatest difference in people's lives all around the world. It's all the things we talked about today to overcome your own fears. But at the end of the day, the most important thing you can do is realize this life is a blessing. So earn this life. I'm Brendan. That's my mom, Christian. Thank you guys for coming here today.