War & Peace - How to Overcome Any Challenge
10 May 2014 · 8 min
In this episode of The Charged Life, Brendon Burchard introduces his "War and Peace" model for tackling personal challenges and suffering. He argues that any significant problem requires a dual approach: go to "war" by attacking it from multiple angles with aggressive, varied strategies, and simultaneously cultivate "peace" by honoring, accepting, and finding calm within the struggle. Burchard illustrates the model with personal stories—including severe car accidents, a brain injury, bankruptcy, and his father's battle with leukemia—showing how he applied relentless, multi‑pronged action while also learning to accept outcomes beyond his control. He critiques the common habit of trying a single solution (e.g., only counseling for a marital issue) and urges listeners to overwhelm obstacles with a breadth of tactics: seeking mentors, reading, networking, and concrete actions. He also emphasizes the importance of recognizing suffering as a catalyst for growth, maintaining presence, and achieving a higher consciousness that accepts reality without negative attachment. The episode concludes with a call to subscribe, share, and access free motivational resources.
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Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brendan Burchard. Most of us are suffering from something. You know, we're suffering something in a relationship somewhere. Some of us are suffering physically, some of us are suffering emotionally. You know, there's a lot of suffering in the world, and people often ask me, how do you deal with it? And I think I have maybe a unique approach, I would say, after having been through a lot in my life, I've been through through car accidents and brain injuries and broken nearly every bone. It feels like at this point in my life, some of our adventures and some of our accidents that I've had, maybe you know my stories, but, you know, I've been through a lot physically and a lot emotionally in my life, from the brain injury that left me in a very challenged situation, such a deep concussion, to struggling every single day to control my emotions, to control my motivation, to try and figure out how to heal properly physically from the rest of things that happen to me. And I've also gone through some emotional suffering like anyone else from losing people, loss of love, sometimes loss of life. We all go through things. But a lot of people, when they say that they're suffering or they're really challenged or they're really hurt, they're really angry, there's a lot to it. But what's the ultimate solution? No matter where we're at, how do we break through that and overcome that? Well, I call it my war and peace model. You know, my war and peace model is if you got a challenge or a problem, including suffering in your life, you gotta go to war at it, and you have to have peace about it. And here's what I mean by that. I had a friend recently say, brendan, you know, oh, I'm suffering in my marriage, man. I said, what do you mean you're suffering in your marriage? He's, ah, just, you know, ah, we're not clicking. We're not doing well, you know, I don't know what's going on. I said, okay, well, tell me more about that. He says, what they were doing. He says, well, you know, we started going to counseling. I said, great, how's that going? He says, well, you know, it's not working. We go to counseling and then we go home, we just fight some more. And I said, well, what else are you doing? He says, what do you mean? I said, what else are you doing? He said, well, we're going to counseling. I said, I don't know, but what else are you doing? And therein lied his problem, and therein lies A lot of folks problem in overcoming things in their life, they try one thing to solve it. One thing. And that's why they fail. Because major challenges, major frustrations, major problems in our lives demand multiple areas of attack. It's like when you go to war. I mean, you send in the planes, you send in the ground troops, you send in people from the flank, from the front. I mean, you go at all sides trying to win. And if you've got a major challenge, problem or struggle in your life, they're gonna go all sides. This guy, my man, was like, hey, you know what? You need to go out and start interviewing couples who've been married for. For a long period of time. What were their secrets? What books are you reading? What are you reading online? Who are you connecting with? Who can mentor you, coach you through, besides just the counselor? What are you doing? Specifically? Activities, Real things. How are you being more present? Tell me, what are all the strategies you're putting into this game to win? And he was just like, what? And I know that's overwhelming to people, but come on, are you really gonna overcome your challenges if you don't overwhelm them? Right? You're so overwhelmed with the suffering and the challenge and the frustrations. You got to start overwhelming those things with the number of areas. You're hitting that, baby. I remember when I went bankrupt, I was like, okay, I have this dream to write these books and to become a trainer. I'm gonna try everything, man. I'm gonna bust through this thing. I'm gonna put every direction that I can on this thing to move the needle financially in my life. And then when I get one that hits, boom. I'm going to commit to that and work it. And, you know, if something else isn't working enough, then I'll add another element, another strategy, and stack all these strategies on until, pow. I took that thing out. You know, I think that's what we have to do. We have to overwhelm the very obstacles we have in our lives in order to obliterate them. Now, if that sounds way too masculine energy for you, that's okay, because I said the strategy is called War and Peace. We also have to learn to be at peace with the struggles. We have to learn to be patient with them as well. We have to allow the struggle in our life. I always say to people, you know what? Honor the struggle, honor the suffering, Honor the challenges. Honor that deep, dark frustration, those emotions that are negative, those things that really freak us out. Honor those things. If you've got struggle in your life, honor that. Know that that thing has been put before you by divine hand in order to challenge you, in order to make you a better person, in order to make you more loving, in order to make you pay attention, in order to make you to honor and find the zest in life. And if you don't believe in a divine hand or the cosmos or anything, at least look at it and say, you know what? Maybe this thing I could use to appreciate life will even better. Even if you can't ever. If you can never obliterate that thing, you can never fix it to at least be at peace with what it is. You know, it's like war and peace. You know, I lost my dad to acute myeloid leukemia in 2009, and from diagnosis to death was just 59 days. So we didn't have a lot of time. And one of the things I remember from that experience that still I'm always amazed by was the peace that he had in the final weeks about his life going away. You know, he was. He accepted it. He fought what he could, believe me, he fought. I mean, he was a Marine. He fought, but he accepted as well. You know, he knew he was doing his best. He was putting full play and force to overcome that. Went through multiple chemos, multiple challenges. I mean, he went through everything he could, but as he was going through it, he was also at peace with it. There's a presence to being a warrior, right? You've heard the peaceful warrior concept. It's like you can have a presence and a peace to it. Why you're fighting to know that maybe you can't change the outcome, but you're going to work your best towards it. And as you're working your best towards it, you're going to be okay with yourself. You're going to honor that the struggle is okay. That working through and being frustrated and challenged or scared or overwhelmed or freaked out, as you're working through something, it's okay. Be at peace with it, look at it and say, this is the way it's supposed to be. Right now I'm trying to make it better, but as the world is right now, I'm okay with it. To accept the world as it is is a higher level of consciousness, even as we seek to change it. Right? It doesn't mean we have to approve of it. I'm not saying we have to improve it. I'm definitely not saying we have to settle with it. But to accept it as it is, to have no negative attachment or baggage to way the world is right now. It's like, no, no, it's, it's cool. Everything is good right now. Okay? You don't need anything else right now. Wherever you're at and struggling through and suffering with things, I get it. It's okay. Now what are we gonna do to try and improve it? Asking those types of questions and finding that type of peace as we work from every angle to improve our lives, that makes us smarter. That makes us more likely to break through. And that's the journey that I hope that we can all take together as we do face those inevitable strug inedible sufferings and challenges of life to meet them with that style of grace and positive attitude, that style of presence and consciousness. What more could we ask from Living the Charged life? Hey everyone, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe to the next one and tell a friend about us. If you want free books and world class training on motivation and high performance, visit me@Brendon Burchard.com and enter your name and email for our newsletter list. Until next time, stay charged and go out there every day of your life and live fully, love openly and make your difference today. Sa.