Top Values to Lead with Excellence

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 and 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.

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Now let's begin. How can you reach a higher level of excellence in all you do? Excellence in your relationships, excellence in your career, excellence in your personal life. It's a tough one, right? Because we all want to play our A game. We all want to be our best. But sometimes we get tired, we lose clarity, we burn out. Other people around us don't understand us. Other people around us aren't playing at the same level of excellence. And it can be frustrating. I get it. So the first value of excellence is this. You have to play the long game. You have to play the long game. Now I know it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. But listen, if you don't have the momentum you want in your life right now, you haven't been playing the long game. If you've been too stressed or Too burned out or you've over committed yourself, you're not playing the long game if your health sucks. Not playing the long game if you're wrecking relationships, not playing the long game if you don't have a vibrant, amazing community of peers around you, supporting your dream, cheering you on, not playing the long game. Because playing the long game does not just take what shows up, it architects the future. Oh, write it down. Playing the long game doesn't take what just shows up. It's architecting the future. And I think a lot of people live mediocre versus excellent lives because they weren't playing the long game. They weren't thinking like, okay, three years out, how do I scale? Three years out, how do I stand out? Three years out, how do I have success unparalleled in this industry? Because you know, and I both know many of you are here because you're in transition and something new is coming along and you're trying something new, you got a new hobby, a new way to make money, a new way to serve. And sometimes in that transition you go into survival mode. Survival mode is not the same as the excellence mentality, is it? Right. Survival mode is let me take what's here, Let me do the bare minimum to survive versus think strategically and play the long game. Now I said a few things that I think are really important. Like let's take that big old thing called burnout. Most people when they've become burned out, it didn't happen immediately, it happened bit by bit by bit. I talked with my coaches this morning about that. It's like when someone's in burnout. Don't think it was one big project that tipped them over the edge. It was little decisions bit by bit by bit by bit by bit, where they gave away their time, they gave away their freedom, they over committed, they didn't say yes, they didn't say no, they didn't sort of like lay out the turf, they didn't set their boundaries. And over a period of time they burned out. The problem, which I think you all know, is that if you're a high performer, you can survive on burnout for a long time. A lot of burnouts, you know, they're operating at a high level of efficiency. I mean, they're burned out, but they can go six, seven months at that. And they don't take the time to step back and recharge throughout the day, not once in a while on a vacation throughout the day. They're not using transitions, they're not using those moments to like, reset, recharge, go at it again. And they don't do that because they believe they're invincible. They can't see all these decisions adding up to exhaustion, adding up to burnout, adding up to running out. And I know that, like, always looking out a few months is part of excellence, isn't it? Otherwise, you can deliver excellence once, and then you crash and burn. And many of you know this. Your success has been up and down. And really, if you look at the peaks and the valleys, the peaks and the valleys weren't successes. The peaks and the valleys were crashes. And that's how you know a person of excellence. Did they have this rhythm, this scale, this. Even if there were some, like, lower points, were those rhythms of excellence, or was it, boom, launch that thing, crash, boom, do that thing, great, crash. And it was just up, down, and it was just, crash, crash, crash, crash. A lot of people I can look over the last 10 years, I'm like, your last 10 years wasn't defined by momentum or excellence. Your last 10 years was defined by, like, survival. It was defined by, like, luck. It was defined by crashes and burns and, oh, my God, you must be so tired. And you're like, yes, Brandon, I am. And that's why this is important conversation today. If you know you're a person of excellence, and if it's true, I would not see a rhythm of crashing and burning. I would not see a rhythm of burns and busts, burning out, failures and exhaustion. And it's really hard because I know, trust me, like, there's so many nights, I'm like, oh, my God, if I just stay awake for four more hours, I can get these projects done. And you know what? And then I'm a complete idiot. 72 hours later, I know it will catch up with me. Those who play the long game don't compromise in the short game because they know it catches up later. And that catch up is a devil. It is a bear, it is a beast. It knocks you down. And what happens is you compromise three hours here, but then, because that compromised three hours here, you're knocked off your feet three days over here. So if you'd taken the three hours to recharge, you wouldn't be worthless for three days in the middle of the week. So I know that some of this is common sense, but it's my job to show up and make you do the self analysis and challenge you every single month, man. How's your stress been? Have you been steady in delivering excellence, or have you been steady in barely making it two different things. And so I value you being here because, listen, it's true for me too. When I got sick, I literally stepped back and thought, hmm, okay. Have I been failing to do what I know I need to do in my high performance habits? Have I been failing to recharge during those transitions? Have I been failing to protect my plate? Have I been failing to say yes or no at the right things? Have been failing to look the long way for me. I really feel like I failed to play the long game a little bit. Only in the sense of I went a little too long in playing the long game. Like, it's easy to burn out when it's solo and it's you. But listen to this. If it's solo and you, it's more important that you don't burn out. Isn't it true? We think, well, it's just me, but so it's all on my shoulders. I have all the responsibilities in the world, so I better just hustle and I better grind, and I better be 24 7. No, that's when you got to protect yourself even more. That's when you got to play the long game even more so that you can sustain. That's the mistake we often make. Well, it's just me. I better double down. I better SWAT team this. I better not sleep. That's the times. No, no, no, don't do that. Really play the long game. But I mentioned I made a mistake. And my mistake was, I think it was about almost four years ago now. I decided I was gonna release a certain product. And I said, okay. I started playing the long game. I said, okay, which quarter will I release this on? And I literally knew it was probably gonna take about two and a half years to release it. And so I knew I was playing the long game, but I made a mistake. Listen to this. If you are playing the long game and you want to deliver with excellence, you must have your monthly and your quarterly goals still attached to that long game thing. Ah, I'm so good at monthly and quarterly goals for the year. But your long game will be compromised if you don't have the monthly and quarterly goals figured out for the long game. I knew it was about two and a half years. So what I did is, yeah, I had it set up every month. I'd kind of look at it. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's coming, isn't it? Easy to say, I'll do that later. So you don't prepare, you don't finish. You don't tie up the loose ends. And then when the thing's supposed to come out, you gotta crash and burn that 30, 60 or 90 days before I will share my most vulnerable and true stuff with you guys. I have this thing with my wife. My wife said I am never allowed to say in 90 days, honey. She's like, never say that phrase to me ever again. Because I'm like, oh, honey, in 90 days, it'll be great. I'll be home more. It'll calm down. She's like, you said that for, like 10 years, jerky. So I am not allowed to say 90 days around my wife at all. I don't know if any of that's true for any of you, but it is like, brendon, do not bring up 90 days because it's usually that 90 days. If you have to crush it for 90 days, you probably failed to strategically play the long game. Where did you fail to plan out far enough? Where did you fail to play the long game? If you're honest, like, write it down in your journal. Be honest. I think that is a hugely important thing to be honest about several times throughout the year. I mean, because what happens is it's easy for all of you to get in this crazy momentum where you're like, oh, that was fine. I did the best that I could. And I hate doing this because I love you guys, but you asked me to be your high performance coach. And high performance coaches challenge people. And when someone says, brendan, I'm doing the best that I can, I have to ask, okay, where could you have leveled up in the months previous so that your best of what you can be doing right now could be more sufficient? That's a tough one. Right? But that's why I get paid the big dollars to work with people at the high levels in coaching and why we built the number one coaching program in the world with certified high performance coach because we're willing to go there with people. It's like, brent, I'm doing the best I can. I agree. And I'm not discount. Like, lots of you have so much crap going in your life. Someone got sick, the kids are graduating. You moved to this. You're trying that new thing and you are juggling so many things. You seriously deserv virtual hug right now. And I love you. But if you're that person who's always saying, who's always saying, I'm doing the best I can, I'm doing the best I can, then as a coach, I would ultimately have to ask, great. I acknowledge it and trust Me, I believe it's true. So let me ask this. Where in the past several months could you have thought more strategically so that you're doing your best right now could be more sufficient and sane? Because sometimes your best right now is not enough. And if you're honest, sometimes you gotta go, I'm not doing good enough for my family. I'm not doing good enough for my team. I'm not doing good enough for my family. And I know, being the personal development guy, people hate when I talk like this. They're like, geez, Brendan, you know, where's the dancing bears? Could we have some balloons, please? But I'm also like, high performance is like, getting real and calling a fail a fail. Calling the struggle the struggle, honoring it, acknowledging it and going, you know what, man? I want next year to be a better one. And if you want to be a better one, you gotta do the self analysis. Where did you fail to play the long game? Like, I got a whole sheet. I was journaling about this last night. And by the way, can you do this without beating yourself up? Totally. Like, as I was writing it, I was like, geez, Brendan. And I was just, like, laughing at myself. And you don't have to hate yourself. You don't have to make yourself a failure. But is there failure of strategic thinking? Sometimes, yeah, that's just a behavior. It's a mindset. You're not a failure. But sometimes your strategic thinking failed to show up. And I had six pages. I didn't get mad at myself. I didn't go to bed depressed. I didn't feel bad about my progress. I just acknowledged that and go, huh, that's something right there I really want to work on. I better really think through that. I better check that out. I'd really, really better think about that. Number one value of excellence is playing the long game. You get that, right? Everything changes.

Hey, it's Brendan, and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time.

Which is, Brendan, where do you get.

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Okay, number two. The second value of delivering and living a life of excellence is to geek out on the details. On the details. This is where perfectionists are now rejoicing. Yay. That's me. I love the details. I love you for that. I want you to go to an unbelievable degree of excellence in the details that matter. Oh, snap. I want you to geek out on the details that matter. I can't tell you how many people claim that they're perfectionists, but they geek out on things that don't matter. At least a perfectionist would say, these are the things that move the needle. These matter most. Let me perfect these in motion. Other things aren't as important. You've got to geek on the things that really matter. And sometimes they matter to you, and sometimes they matter to the end game or to the brand or the perception or to your team. But you must know what matters. So if you and I went to lunch right now and I said, hey, show me what are the major things that you are geeking out on right now? Just like, walk me through those, would you? And if you are struggling to figure that out, I know you're not in the right mindset of excellence. And again, I say this with respect because we're all so busy. But those who are really excellent driven, they know the details that they got to be paying attention to, like they're geeking on them 24 7. And it's hard because there's so many things you could geek out about. There's so many things you could pay attention to. Like if you're gonna perfect something, perfect something that matters, matters to the end user, whether that's you or the customer or the team or the service. And that's what's really important. You have to know what those are. Let me give an example of times I've done it really good and times I've done it really bad. Because I struggle with this one too, right? Oh my gosh, I love the details. If you don't know something about me, something that I am really proud of is I cover the details. Like, I am a stickler for the details. Like, before we began this thing, I didn't like one of the leaves over here. I was like, turn that leaf around. If you've seen my stuff, I designed all my book covers. If you've seen my stuff, I designed the exact, like this type of red versus 40 other types of red. Like, I have done like an unbelievable dork level of detail in my career. Career. Sometimes it didn't matter and sometimes it did. Let me give you a great famous example of one that didn't matter. I hope you all read Motivation Manifesto. If you have. Thank you. Many of you know I had a multimillion dollar deal where this book was wrapped up, Motivation Manifesto. And when I turned it in, the publisher said it was crap and they hated it and they turned it down, made me pay the money back. And it was a really horrible, horrible time and scary because I had spent three years on this project to the most minute of details to every word. There's. There's no fat in this book to trim out. It's. I mean, it's like almost every sentence could go on a wall as a quote card or as a frame. I worked on it, like to make sure it was just so precise. Took out all the junk word. Just like went so hard at getting this exactly perfect. And the writing, man, you got to geek out on the details, right? The sentences, like the rhythm, the writing, all that. Really geeked out on that, right? Geeked out on the color of the gold on the front.

That's really important.

It's what the world sees, right? I geeked out on like how it felt because people are going to hold this thing for 6, 10, 15 hours depending on how fast they read. Geeked out on all of that. Geeked out on the ribbon because they're going to use that ribbon. That matters. But I also, if you didn't hear the story of this I studied revolutionist writing and revolutionist rhetoric for, like, a year before I even started writing the book. So I could get the pentameter of how people talked in times of revolution, because I wanted this to feel like this. So if you ever read this book. That's not how I talk. It's not how I sound. But. And some people love that. Some people hate it. The publisher hated it. But I really studied, like, the founding fathers of the United States or, you know, leaders in other countries, men and women throughout time, who helped spark revolution, this call for personal freedom. And I went way deep into the rhetoric to really get it. And that all mattered. But I went so deep, it was like. I remember one day I spent. I'm not kidding, okay? I gotta be honest with you guys. I spent three days researching to find out what this font would be, the chapter head title. Three days to find this font. Because this font, remember, I was studying revolutionist writers and leaders, okay? And the founding sort of fathers of the United States, as they call them. I don't like that language, but they call them. I went back and researched for three days to find out what was the first font that Benjamin Franklin used in his first print shop in. In Philadelphia. That was a horrible use of three days. No one cares. No one cares. I know that. And once in a while, someone say, that's a neat font, Brendan. And I'm like, oh, thank you. And it was three days I could have spent doing videos for the book that matter. It was three days I could have spent talking with team, delegating, preparing. It was three days of editing I could have done right. The needle movers are the things you need to geek out on. Geek out on the details that matter and challenge yourself with a simple daily question. Write it down. Is what I am focusing on right now? Is what I am focusing on right now relevant, Needed. And a needle mover? Is it relevant to what I'm doing right now? Is it really important? Is it something that's gonna move the needle? Or am I just, you know, doing dumb stuff? I mean, I know people. I'm not kidding you. Who will spend an hour to get the right filter from seven different apps on a photo for their Instagram stories. It's there for 24 hours. I'm like, oh, what is wrong with you, girl? You got a world to change. How about instead of an hour on that filter, you knock out seven amazing videos? Why can't we do that? That's the difference. You got to start busting yourself. You want to go to Another level, next level excellence. You got to start doing an audit of your time. Here's how I do it. I'm somebody who's very aware of the clock during my day. Even when I'm taking time off, even when I'm screwing around in my weird Brendan Nutty professor kind of way, I am very aware at the top of every hour. It's just something that I have on my phone at the top of hour. Usually I have it bing or go off or something. I like to use at the top of the hour as my time to reset. So many of you know I like to take 15 minute breaks. That 50 minute break usually comes at the top of the hour. And then it might take 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes and then I'll reset, but I'll reset to try to get to the top of the hour. And for me, just the top of the hour is a great time to go. Okay, what am I doing right now? And believe me, being an influencer like many of you guys are, I gotta be good about that. Cause you know what, some days I'm like 17 layers deep in blue links looking up stupid stuff and I'm like, oh my God, this has nothing to do with, with what has to be accomplished this week. So practice your high performance habits. Make sure you read that chapter on productivity and go back to pqo Prolific quality output. This high performance experience we're creating takes some self analysis, right? And I'm being honest with you, where I screwed up that attention to that headline, which 99.9999% of the million plus readers of this book have no idea about and do not care. That was a mistake, okay? Some details that really matter though are like my sales videos. If you've ever seen a sales video from me, especially like the longer ones I think about that I'll spend a day, two, sometimes three days, just thinking through it, talking through it, writing notes through it, practicing, trying. Because the details that bring you revenue, those matter than the details that don't bring you revenue. Can I get an amen from some business owners out there? Right? The details that bring you the revenue, those are the needle movers. You got to pay attention to that. We like to pay attention to the numbers that make us feel good. And sometimes we miss the numbers that really matter. And so even yesterday I was sitting down with my team, I'm like, this is all great, but where's this number? Because this is the number that actually tells us if we're really profitable or if we're kind of Dogging it. And we didn't have that number yet because we focus on the first numbers, but not the numbers that move the needle. Look at all the things we could focus on. I need you to focus back on your revenue drivers. Get detailed to that. Also, if you own a business, I want you to get geeky on the details that matter, which is the life cycle of communication to your customers, meaning the customer journey. Like, are you geeking out about the details of the customer journey or are you like most online marketers who just sell something and they don't think about the conversation afterwards? And for me personally, I've had ups and downs in that in my career, if I'm honest with you, there's been times when I was so under the water. I just set everything up. I wanted to deliver with excellence, got the thing, delivered excellent. But I didn't nail the communication follow through. And I own that. I had to get better at that. I was like, okay, Brendan, you gotta get better at this. Own it, man. Own it. Own the fact of the matter that you gotta level up in certain areas. Are you sufficiently focused on the details that are bringing you revenue, that are bringing you connection with the audience, that are bringing the real growth to the business? I have a friend who, you know, in the last, I would say, three years, really started focusing on social media. This person had an unbelievable process for sales. Like, I mean, this person was like making regularly, year after year, millions and millions and millions of dollars. Had a team of like maybe 12, 13 men and women who were their salesperson. This person focused on those 12 or 13 people for years and just got that sewed out in millions and millions and millions and millions, then got addicted to social media and started spending all this time creating great content, building fans and followers, and focused on all those little details, all those little levers, and by the way, did an awesome job at it. And the revenue of those 12 started going down. And I said, man, what's it really about? Is it about the fans and the followers or about the customers? And I'm not trying to create a false dichotomy here, but sometimes in our mind, we need to know the difference of what moves the needle for our life, for your spouse, for the lifestyle you want. My friend, you got to get honest. You got to know if what you've been focused on is the right thing. And you got to geek on the details.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendan Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity 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 podcast 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.