Falling in Love. [Progress Mode Podcast Episode #3]
Bren Burchard shares how passion and partnership drove his progress from bankruptcy to publishing bestsellers like Millionaire Messenger. He proposed to Denise with a Larimar ring, learned online marketing, and built a career by focusing on needle-moving skills and helping others succeed.
Chapters
That's the hardest truth to face, is that the overwhelm isn't necessarily going to go away. That in each new level of progress, there's newness, there's novelty, there's uncertainty, there's difficulty. Overwhelm becomes a part of life. And so you better figure out what you're going to fall in love with, who you're going to love, what you do that you love, that is more important than the overwhelm, right? If there's something that you love, a passion, a project, a goal, a dream, a person, guess what? When you are overwhelmed, you won't stop. Hey, it's Bren Burchard, host of Progress Mode. Thank you for listening to season one here. This is episode three, and we're gonna talk about overwhelm and also falling in love. You know, when you really want progress in your life, one of those areas you want so much progress in is your relationships, right? You want deeper, more full, beautiful, extraordinary relationships with the people that you love. Your spouse, your partner, a greater depth and relationship with your kids or your family. It's so important that we do not separate relationship progress from overall life progress. You know what I mean? Is a lot of people, they have a lot of progress in their job, right? They're seeing progress in their promotions or their earning or their revenue over a period of time. It makes them happy. But if you have a lot of progress in the area of career, but not also in your personal life, especially in your relationships, you can still feel unfulfilled. There's a lack of wholeness and completeness in your life. And I know you know that because everybody, every one of us, different seasons of our life, we give more priority to family or to love or to career. They're just seasons in which those kind of shift in your priority. The most important thing when you are in Progress Mode, it's a holistic viewpoint to your life. Previously, in other episodes I shared with you that progress has a few components. One, there's a vector to it that means there's direction, right? Like, you might change, but if you're changing in the wrong direction, that does not feel like progress. So progress has a positive direction for you. It also has a speed or a pace or a velocity, meaning I'm going in the right direction at the right clip that I enjoy. I'm not overly overwhelmed or stressed or anxious or challenged. I like the pace I'm going at because if there's lots of directional change, but it's too much for you. You don't like it, you. You wouldn't call it progress. You'd call it fear, you'd call it freaking out, you'd call it being a hot mess. But there's also an element to how much change is happening. And sometimes in our relationships, you know, at the beginning of a relationship, there's a lot of novelty, there's lots of change happening. You meet a new friend, you go on those first couple dates with somebody who you're, you know, you're interested in, and there's so much change happening in that relationship. It's very intoxicating. And. And then you're married seven years and you're like, why are we not changing as much? Why are we not having this fun? It feels the same. And you get bored. And not many people would call boredom progress. So it does matter. And I want to share with you today a little bit of a story that I usually don't get to share and complete on stage about one of the most important areas of progress in my life, one of the most important struggles, one of the most important crises, one of the most important turning points in my life. Those came at different times in my life of relationship or partnership. And I'd love to tell you about those inside stories that help kind of make my life so much better, but also where I really fought and struggled in those areas, and then also share another story of a pitiful time in my life about another book that I wrote. In episode one, I talked about my first dreams of becoming a writer and a teacher and a coach, and my first book, the Student Leadership Guide, and how people didn't believe it and made fun of me. And I actually avoided the dream and went and got a regular job until I felt the desire to really write and go for it and to turn into progress mode and in the direction of my dreams. And that's why in episode two, I shared with you the story of life's golden ticket, which was the book I really went all in, really believed. And despite all the turn down, all the rejection, all the struggle, all the new ideas I had to come up with to make that book happen, I'm glad I stayed in progress mode through all those difficulties and that struggle with money, that struggle in living on my friend's floors, and that struggle of, you know, hoping that my girlfriend believed in me because she was basically housing me. It was a really difficult time. And then you heard at the end of that episode that life, school, and ticket did pretty good, and it gave me a jumping off point. It wasn't the complete dream it wasn't number one New York Times, it wasn't selling tens of millions of copies. It was kind of a, an affirmation that I was on the right path and that maybe, maybe I could stay committed and that maybe, maybe it could turn out to be something extraordinary. And that's where we enter today's episode on. I like to jump into just a pivotal moment in my life with that release of life's golden ticket, something I didn't share with you in episode two. And I've actually never talked about ever on camera before. And that is, you know, know when I left my corporate job to write this book that became life's golden ticket, you know, it was, it was like a long time of struggle. Living on friends floors, moving in with my then girlfriend, watching her sleep under the weight of my bills as I'm going into bankruptcy, having the breakthrough with what it took to get that book out and to launch that book. It was interesting because during that time as I'm living with my girlfriend, you know, she's paying for all the groceries, she's cheering me on, she's watching me shoot these videos in her kitchen. Back in a time, no one was shooting videos. There was not like vlogs, there was not like video courses yet. No one was live streaming just yet. Certainly not at any given scale. Remember, this is pre Facebook. And so I'm in this place where this amazing woman is, you know, watching me film from a flip video camera duct taped to a box in her kitchen. I've got all these IKEA lamps like, like tilted down, lighting my face because we have no lighting. And I was terrible. I was really, really bad. If you think I'm bad now on video, which I am, I was really bad then. It was like embarrassing, it was awful. And yet she's like cheering it on and she's laughing and making fun of me as I' but for somehow. I want you to hear this. I was lucky to then at that moment fall in love with a woman who never doubted me or guilted me for working on my dream. She saw it as a character trait that someone who works on their dreams, who stays in progress on the path toward their highest aspirations, that's character, right Today. Sometimes people judge you and they think you're crazy. So in other words, they think something's wrong with you, like there's a character flaw. Like, why do you believe this crazy idea? Are you crazy? Instead for her, somehow it was like, well, obvious. You want to write, you should write. You want to speak, you should Speak, you want to teach on the Internet, as it's, you know, as it's a possibility, then do that. She believed and supported the passions, and it's one reason I fell in love with her. And during this time, I'm moved in with her, of course, her family, I'm sure my family. I'm sure a lot of our friends together, they're kind of, you know, wondering, like, who is this guy? You know, he's kind of living and she's taking care of him and is this going to work out? He could go get a job. Why did he quit his job? Is he crazy? Some of them supported, of course, but also everyone was waiting to see. Everyone was in a moment waiting to see. And that's a hard time in progress mode when you're in the process, when you're starting from scratch, no one knows yet. Some people believe, some people don't. Like I talked about in episode two, I got rejected all the time. But for some reason, she believes, and I'm in progress mode and people are wondering about it. And it's. It's a. It's like one of those things, oh, let's see if this book turns out. Let's see if life's golden ticket sells at all. And, you know, maybe if the book turns out and maybe he gets booked more and maybe the dream takes off, well, maybe then he'll have made it and, you know, he'll propose and they'll have this, you know, movie ending of a wedding kind of thing, right? It's like you fight, you struggle, you're through bankruptcy, somebody stays with you, they believe in you, and then you have this big outcome and you get married. I knew people were thinking that way. I had some friends saying that, oh, hey, if the book takes off, are you going to propose? Are you guys going to get married? And I decided, you know, I don't want to wait till the book comes out to propose to her. I don't want this to be a conditional marriage of like, hey, if I make it in my career, then it's okay to tell her I love her. I grew up around a lot of that mentality. You know, maybe that day and age, a lot of people felt like, well, you make it and then you propose. But that wasn't how my parents started. You know, my parents started from nothing, and they had a really tough life. Really tough life. My dad grew up in a tiny little place in northern Montana. I mean, literally living on a ranch. And at that level where they're in the middle of Nowhere, they, they went hunting for their food. You know, he joins the military, becomes a Marine, serves three tours in Vietnam. My mom is born in Vietnam and she's French Vietnamese. And she ends up at some point coming to the United States. My dad comes back from Vietnam and then meets my mom. They get married, they have me, they move back to Montana. And that's where I was raised. And so it wasn't like I ever had this story in my mind that, you know, people have to have it all perfect then to get married. You know, they did not. You know, my dad was surviving PTSD from the war. My mom is being displaced and trying to figure out what's going on with her life. Like they were, they were kind of, they were like they were beginning life together. And I wanted to begin life with the woman who believed in me, who I was falling in love with. And so I decided to propose to her before life's golden ticket came out. Before, like the quote, unquote achievement had to happen that everyone was hoping could happen. And so, you know, I had decided that at a new year getaway with a bunch of my friends, I was going to propose to her. And I actually had this like very, you know, simple ring that I was going to have delivered there. And yet in a snowstorm, this ring never got to where we were in Montana. And I was going to propose a couple days later. And I remembered that when I had my car accident when I was a 19 year old kid, I was in this foreign country. I know this. Just stick with me for a minute, I promise. When I was a 19 year old kid, the first one I ever loved, we broke up and I went down to this beautiful island called the Dominican Republic and had a job working there. And that's where I got in that car accident that changed my life forever. While I was down there, I. I was writing on this journal about the woman I would hope to meet one day. And I wrote all these pages about the type of woman who I'd hoped to fall in love with. And I remember journaling that day and I was walking back to where I was staying along this road and there was like some people selling things on the side of the road. And I, I bought this little ring and this necklace called Larimar. And Larimar is this beautiful jewel from that area of the world. And I bought the necklace and the ring for a girl and I also bought one to go around my neck. And the very next day I got in that car accident. When I went to the hospital, we didn't, they didn't cut. They had to take off, you know, all my clothes and stuff and treat me. But I didn't, we didn't take off the necklace because it was like the jewel of the island. So I had this ring and this necklace that I had bought for a future girl that I journaled about. Now I'm in Montana, book's about to come out, having news with my friends. The ring, the diamond ring that I'd ordered does not show up to propose to this girl. And so I end up calling my brother to go route through all of my stuff to find that ring, that Larimar simple ring, and get it to us in Montana. And he gets it to me. And I propose to Denise. The girl who took me into the apartment, paid for my groceries, cheered me on. The girl who I saw sleep under the weight of my bills and my bankruptcy papers. The person who just believed in me when I said, I'm going to speak to arenas of people, I'm going to write best selling books, I'm going to coach other people. When she saw me reading all these books in psychology and performance, she saw me having a leadership career before she knew I had a grad degree. She, she, she knew I there, there were some indications there that I, you know, had some competency, but I had no progress really in a big step change in this new, you know, new career. But she believed. So in Montana, I proposed to Denise. And I just remember it felt like this great completion of a moment in my life because I got to propose with that Larimar ring which was with me, you know, when I had that car accident all those years prior and I was still wearing that, my own Larimar necklace. And I, I propose. It was very simple. And I remember, you know, she was so excited and I felt like it was a new beginning. Have you ever, have you ever had that, that feeling of a new beginning? Maybe it's a new relationship, maybe it's a new job, but it feels like the whole world is going to change for you. As I said in the last episode, there's only two things that change your life. Either something new comes into your life. Like this was a new moment, a new person, a new marri marriage. You know, this is a new moment. The book's about to come out. It was very fresh, it's very exciting, is very like exhilarating, and it was also overwhelming all at once. Have you ever had those new seasons of your life? I want to say something to you and I want you to Listen and not feel offended as I say this as a coach. If you haven't felt that new season in decades, it's time to make one. If you hadn't had that freshness, that new feeling that you're about to start a new journey, it's time to do that. I'm not saying you got to throw away your old spouse and get a new spouse. We're not talking about throw away the job. Get a new job, quit this revenue stream, start that. I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying there should be moments, and a lot of them in your life, seasons in your life, where a new feeling, a new beginning, a new you starts. Because you're going to make some bold moves, you're going to make some bold commitments. Those cannot be just accidental in life, because if they're accidental in life, it only means you're living a life that's in two styles. You're living either a life that's just reaction mode all the time, not progress mode, or you're in iteration mode, like small, tiny steps, you know, consistent discipline, that's also important, right? We're always gonna have some level of reaction, and we're gonna have some level of consistency. Discipline, iteration, small improvement. But there should also be a mark or seasons of your life in which it feels like you're entering a new era because you chose to. Because you committed to something. See, my story began as a heartbroken kid, and there I was now proposing. I know for many of you, when you got married, that was. That was a big commitment. You were excited, but you're also a little scary. Like, wow, I'm dedicating life to somebody. You know, that's a. That's a. That's a new day. That's a new beginning. Some of you, you had a child and you could see that was going to be a new era of your life. Like things were going to be completely different. They would never be the same. Maybe you moved to a new city and you just feel like a freshness in your own. Your personality got refreshed when you moved to a new town. You thought, this is a new beginning for me. I want to say to you directly here in progress mode, that that should not all be accidental. That as you seek to live a great life and as you are an aspirational path to building something that you really care about, a whole and amazing and extraordinary life, you have to have those moments and you have to create them. You know, I had to make a decision to go from this to that because progress, as I said in episode one, there's always that beginning picture and the after picture and every month there's a beginning month and the after of the month. And you can have progress every single month of your life. And I'm trying to put you in that conscious mode, but also that, that ambitious and that aspirational mode. Maybe this is a new season for you. What decision would you have to make for this to be a new season for you? I'm in season one right now of progress mode. This was a big decision for me to sit down and just have a conversation like I'm Uncle Brendan with you versus you usually see me standing on stage teaching on YouTube or you hear me teaching in growth day. Here's five frameworks of psychology. I'm not like storytelling in my usual life like I'm trying to do with you here. I'm usually the trainer, I'm the high performance guy on stage teaching a framework of five performance psychology things, getting the audience motivated here. I'm trying to have a sit down conversation with you. This is a different season for me right now. I don't know how it's going to go and I want you to know I made that conscious choice to have a new season. I didn't need to right my old work and the things I've done previously, they're working great. But sometimes you refresh yourself. Does that make sense? You actually choose a little bit of the overwhelm to refresh yourself, to level up yourself, to take yourself to a next level, a next stage, a next era. You make that decision. That's real progress mode. What commitment would you have to make to get there? I wanted to take that relationship to the next level of progress. So I proposed to the girl who believed in me. And we were so young, you know, we were late 20s and just, you know, so young. I look at back at the time, I think wow, we really, I can't believe we did that. I can't believe she believed in me when she was sleeping under my bills. I can't believe, you know, afterwards, you know, when it seemed like life's going ticket was going to happen and a trajectory was going to happen and things were going to go good that I just decided to commit. You know, the world doesn't need another set of half interested or half hearted couples. The world doesn't need more half hearted parents. The world doesn't need more half hearted leaders. Nothing great in your life is going to happen when you're half hearted. You're going to make a real commitment to something. You're going to get clarity towards something and you're going to move with courage towards something that might be unknown, but you know it's the right next season or step of your life. And that will be bold, that will be different. That's progress mode. Because in progress we don't measure just direction of velocity, we also measure magnitude of change. And what I'm trying to be as an inspiration point for everyone here in progress mode, I'm trying to be the inspiration point of saying sometimes you, you need to peak it, sometimes you need to take things to the next level. You need to have some bold moves, not just consistency. We are in a world that has been sold. This idea of just consistency over a super long period of time will compound into greatness. But study any great story and they will tell you and they will identify. There was four or five or six major big moves they made in their life. And those major big moves set like the direction of their life. It doesn't mean they also weren't consistent. If you've read one of my books, High Performance Habits, you know that consistency in discipline really matters. That's for a future episode. Right now I'm trying to share with you. Sometimes there's a step change in your decision making. A bold move, a new you, a new era you decide to go into. I decided I was going to go into this industry that back then was known more as like the expert industry, the thought leader industry. You know, to be accurate, back then it wasn't even an industry. And that's where my turning point came in. Here's what happened. If you were ever trying to pursue a dream and you feel very overwhelmed because there's not a lot of like direction or research or mentors or whatever. Maybe that's just a blue ocean. That's a new direction. See, I'm at the stage at that moment I propose to the woman I love. I'm trying to get Life, School and Ticket ready to launch. You know, everyone in my family, all my friends who have slept on their floors, you know, all the clients, I was starting to get coaching clients. Everyone's waiting. What's going to happen with this book? You know, I'm speaking at these colleges, they're wondering what's going to happen with this book. And I don't know exactly how it's going to. I'm lining everything up like I shared in episode two. But here's what I can tell you. As I was working towards it, I realized there was a Big problem. It was, like, hard to explain to people what I wanted to do. I don't just want to write books. I don't want to just be a speaker. I want to be coaching people. And I'm doing this online video thing and writing these newsletters and blogging and. And sending out video. This was new. This was very different back then. And what I realized was there was no roadmap. I couldn't find it. Everyone, you were either a writer. So if you're a writer, you went to writers conferences. If you were a speaker, you went to speakers conferences. If you were a seminar leader, you went to seminars on how to do seminars. If you're a blogger, you went to events on how to do blogging. But tying it all together, especially with video, online marketing and emerging social media, it just wasn't there if the roadmap isn't there. Welcome to your new era of leadership. I want you to know this. That is not an era of uncertainty or overwhelm. That is an era of leadership. You're paving a path, baby. You're doing something new. If everyone's going, what the heck are you doing? I've never heard of that. Then they're doubtful. And you've done the research. You tried to read the books. You've gone to the conference. You couldn't find the answer. You're in a new era. And instead of being scared of it, enter it in progress mode. Faith that it will turn out. Making a big bet, making that commitment towards it. That's how you get to an extraordinary life. You can have a good life without doing that. It's hard to have an extraordinary life without doing that. And so let me share with you what I mean and what happened. Life's going ticket hits as I shared in last episode. You know, it hits. We're topping on Amazon. I'm. It's selling just enough, just enough to give me the notoriety to get my speaking went through the roof. I do a seminar in a circus tent. It takes off enough for me to start making it, but not big enough for me to be satisfied. And one of the things I realized I had gone on a couple shows, they got me publicity to go on these couple shows. And you know what? I went on these shows that didn't sell many books. I was doing everything they told me to. They said, go on a book tour. I want a book tour. It didn't sell many books. I went on these radio shows. They told me to go on. It didn't sell that many. I thought something's wrong something. Am I doing it wrong? I'm asking mentors and everybody else, the outside world. The book hit hard, but as soon as it hit, it also started declining because I wasn't on those media shows or radio shows as much. I was like, why is this book I don't understand? And I was frustrated. As you heard, I put so much into that book and it was good and it became greater, but it was not. Was not matching my expectation. I said, I, I need to learn how to sell this book on my own. And started studying online marketing more and more and more. Can I ask you a question? What do you need to study more? What do you need to dive deep into at this stage of your life? If you think of everything you are doing, what is making the most difference right now? Could you go deeper? You know, what was making the most difference to me at that moment in the time was I had built a webpage and I was selling tickets to my live event that was actually making me more money than the book, that was making me more money than the coaching sessions. I was like, oh, this online thing to an event. I like, I wanted to be a writer and a coach. I didn't say I want to be a writer, coach and trainer yet, but it's training at live events that's going to be the thing. Huh? Didn't know that. I also was not that good of a public speaker. So I was like, I guess I'm going to have to learn that in this new era. I'm going to have to learn video, online marketing and speaking. I want you to know this. I was terrible at all of them. So I'm asking you for your next era, your next stage, your next breakthrough. What do you have to learn? What are three skills you got to dive deep into and have a breakthrough in? Well, as I'm developing those skills and trying to learn, what I realized was everybody's still talking like we're siloed. You're a writer, you're a speaker, you're a seminar leader. Maybe you're a coach, or maybe you're a blogger or a vlogger, or maybe you're on social media. And I was like, this is all the same thing. All we are all trying to do across all these. These are actually. These aren't industries. It's not the writing industry, it's not the speaking industry, it's not the event industry. This is the same industry of people who are trying to share their message or expertise in the world and get paid for it, have a Living off of it, make a difference with it. This is a group of people, they have a message and they're trying to share that message with other people as like a career. And the industry is not writing speaking events. You know, what later on became content. The, the industry is. These are thought leaders and they're using these different modalities to do it. And so, you know, they're really just messengers with a good message, with some competency that they want to make a difference with and they want to have a career at that, and they can. And so I thought, maybe I need to teach that. Maybe I need to teach how I came up with the concept of a book, how I got an agent, how I got a publisher, how I had self published, how I got coaching clients from that, how I built a web page, how I'm selling event tickets, how I got partners who are agreeing to launch this book with me. Maybe I need to teach that. Partnership model. Yeah, the partnership model is a thing. I never thought about that Maybe, maybe I need to teach this. And I didn't think I need to teach it because I just knew that. I just thought there was a change and people were asking, how'd you do it? How'd you do this? How'd you do this? How'd you do this? How'd this? I thought, I guess I'll teach it. At that point, I was having success at it, at least enough for me. Because sometimes your early success seems like a late stage success to somebody who's just starting. Let me say it again, Sometimes your early success seems like a late stage success to someone who's just starting. I was talking with people who didn't know how to conceive of the book or write the book, didn't know how to build a webpage, didn't know what a blog was, didn't know how to do online video, Never had a partnership or sponsorship in their life, never sold a ticket to anything. I was like, I can show them what I'm doing. So I did a first little event for maybe, I think it was like 20 some people. And that little event became a turning point. I was like, oh, one of the turning points in your life is when you say, what do other people need to learn that would help them on their journey? And have I ever done anything on that journey? Have I ever? And I realized I could help the industry grow up into the modern era of online marketing. While there were some online marketers out there, they were more selling, like how to do online marketing to get rich quick like get rich quick online marketing. I was saying, oh, if you have competency and expertise and you're a thought leader in a skill set, here's how you would put that together in a framework. Here's how you put that together to sell a ticket, here's how you put that together to have this whole suite of books, events, coaching, online courses. And you could really take that message. You have and you could make and you could earn from that. And so I started conceiving of this idea. Life school and ticket comes out. I do some events, I'm doing coaching, I launch online courses, I launch that newsletter. And from that moment where my then girlfriend believed in me and she's sleeping under the weight of my bills, to me writing that book, to getting that deal, to launching it, to doing the seminar, to launching online courses, it's, you know, maybe, you know, within a two year, two and a half year period and we're millionaires. It worked. It was something so new. It was like stunning people. It's on me. We bought our first dream house. We did good enough. She. She was able to quit her job that had supported me. And I asked what does she want to do and her dream, her progress in her life, she wanted to open up exercise studios. She had a dream to do this particular kind of exercise studio. And so we moved to a town that didn't have that studio so that she could pursue her dream because I had started to make mine. Do you understand? One of the reasons you need to be in progress mode and you need significant change in your life and the reason to keep going for it is so that maybe you can achieve or experience or sense your dream so now you can help other people achieve theirs, especially those who you love the most. So she supported my dream to launch books, coaching and training and I was able to support her dream to now start a studio and take the risk of entrepreneurship and grow into that. I love that our story is so much growing together and this time was really magical in life and people started noticing what I'm doing. I started doing more of these events where I was teaching people how to do exactly what I was doing. I was doing my events that were more personal development, leadership and psychology. But I started doing this event like, well, here's how to do marketing, here's how to do this industry that we then called the expert industry, then called the thought leader industry, you guys now call the creator industry. But Remember, this is 2006, 7, 8, 9. And in 2009, I decided to take that seminar. I was doing. And this concept I'm telling you about, this new world that I felt like I was entering a new era. Many of you, you're entering a new era. Right now. We're all entering a new era. We're entering a new era of AI and technological shift, right? You can feel a different energy in the world and either you're going to be in reaction mode, small playing mode, or you're going to be in progress mode. And so I said, I'm going to be a progress, I'm going to lead in this new industry. I'm going to take this concept of being a messenger, making money with it, making your impact, taking your life story, packaging it up to help other people. I'm going to launch that and that became the next book concept I'm going to hold up for you. For those who are watching on video, this is the Millionaire Messenger. Now, you've probably also never seen this particular cover because I also made this cover in PowerPoint and this actual one, you can't tell. It's. If you could see, you can see. This is. Actually I printed out this paper. So I printed this out, I cut it out and I put it on a book. Because look, this is not even my book. This is my main man, my buddy Robin Sharma's book. Oh, I can't. I don't want to tear it off, Robin. But this is his book. You can almost see through there. I don't know if you can see it. This is his book called the Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma. He had signed it. Dear Brendan and niece, live greatly warmly Robin. And I think this book came out for him in. I must have been writing this one. So it's probably 06 or 09. Yeah, 06 and 09. So somewhere in that three year period he gave me this book and I like the size of it. So I printed out the COVID and I put it on my desk and I would look at this book cover every day as I wrote this book. Can I tell you something about progress mode? You need to visualize it. You can't keep just showing up and scrolling on your phone. You need to have something visual in your house, in your office, in your studio, in your car, on your mirror. You need to paint the dream somewhere and look at it and seek it, look at it and seek it, look at it. I looked at this book every day. This cover that I made in PowerPoint, I obsessed and thought about it and end up writing this book. I told you, you've never seen this book because I Learned two things in launching this particular cover and the reason you've never seen this cover. This invented the modern creator industry. If there is one book that did what this book did, it's this, and I'll share it with you. I came up with this concept. I was understanding the power of partnership in my life because, as you heard in the last episode, I had this partnership with nonprofits who helped me promote Life's golden ticket and other events that I was doing. I had sponsors promoting some of the things I was doing. I was learning. Wow. If you're starting from scratch, the. The best thing you can do is take your expertise or your knowledge or your passion, your mission, and find other platforms or people who can help support it and create some kind of partnership. There I found a group of online marketers who were in partnership. They would promote each other's stuff and take commissions from each other. Meaning that's the affiliate marketing space. So I was learning the affiliate marketers, and I worked with all these affiliate marketers to launch my courses and my events and the back end of my coaching. And that's how I became a millionaire at that point. From that kid who was, you know, from a tiny town in Montana, to brokenhearted, to bankrupt, to believing, to finding his first real love, to getting married, I realized that a lot of people were actually living life like that too. Maybe I can find other people who are interested in doing what I'm doing. And in partnership, we came together and we promoted this book, the Millionaire messenger, with a bunch of affiliates and other promotional partners and all my students at my events as all promotional partners. I got all these promotional partners. Literally. There's a chapter in the book that shows how I got the promotional partners in the Millionaire Messenger. And something incredible happened. Like, incredible. I said, you've never seen this cover because this is one I made on my computer. This one is the one that came out. It looks the same, except that the top there's a ribbon. And the ribbon says, number one New York Times bestseller. Now, I want you to, if you're in your 20s, your 30s, you're listening to this, I guarantee you're not impressed with anything I've said right now. If you're in your 40s, 50s, and above, and you're hearing me say that this was all happening in 2000, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, you're like, what? Because there was no Crater Marketplace. There's no creator industry. Like, even putting a video up online. If you put up a 20 minute video online, it would take two hours to watch because buffer speed was so slow. It loaded so slow, it took hours to watch it. People were not doing online courses at seven figure levels. I'm the first person in all of personal development to have ever done multiple seven figure online courses preceding everybody else in the industry. This book, like, is the first number one New York Times bestselling book that basically outlines what becomes later on the creator industry. If you read this as a podcaster today, as an email person who has an email newsletter, if you think about video courses or affiliate promotional partnerships in this space, this was the first one to number one on New York Times. I'm not bragging about that. I'm literally sharing that with you. If you hear my voice as surprise, like, this is my surprise voice. I was like, oh, my God, that thing took off. I mean, tens of thousands of copies the first week. We were like, what? It was shocking and overwhelming and it was a proving point that maybe I was in the right direction. It was like, you know what? Something feels like major progress in my life right now because I'm supporting my wife. She used to support me. I'm supporting her in entrepreneurial dream. I'm actually supporting other people who want to do something like I do by writing this book and teaching the seminars. And something really shifted in my head. I didn't hear it until that stage of my life. And it's that famous quote from Zig Ziglar that says, if you want to achieve all of your goals, help more people achieve theirs. I'm not saying exactly right, but it's like, if you want to achieve your dreams, help more people achieve their dreams. You'll be taken care of. And I learned that a lot of progress is mentoring and helping other people. And as you do that, there's like a wave of energy behind you that comes from that level of mentorship, that level of contribution at this stage. Is there a place you could make some progress in your life by mentoring others, coaching others, lifting up the industry that gave you a blessing, lifting up people who are like you, who struggled or are struggling like you struggled. Can you take the struggles and turn that into stories that help people? Can you take the mess that you had in your life and turn it into your message? The millionaire messenger and I can share with you two things that shocked me when this book came out. Number one, the amount of established speakers, writers, teachers, big people in media, and bloggers who absolutely hated me. They're like, who are you, kid? We never heard of you. You're not even selling millions of copies. I don't see you out on the road speaking as much as I'm speaking. And it was a youth thing. They didn't like that I was so young. Also, I know this doesn't sound like something maybe you care about or knew back then, but I didn't do a book tour. I did not do any please listen to this millionaire message hit number one, New York Times. I never did one single interview for the book. Zero interviews on major media. Zero. I did no traveling for the book. Zero did not leave my house to launch this book. Why does that matter? Because I was proving the book. I was like, you can from scratch launch things. You don't have to be famous, you don't have to be known. You just need to find a way to help people. And I taught the partnership model, the email model, the ways to frame your story and message and get it out there. That was not traditional media. Have you ever noticed that traditional media fights innovation every step of the way, right? Traditional media or traditional media in any way didn't like the newcomers, right? Traditional music really didn't like, you know, Napster or Apple selling, you know, songs at 99 cents or the first versions of Spotify. They weren't super pumped, right? Traditional publishing didn't like ebooks at the beginning or audiobooks. Traditional publishing did not like self publishing at the time. You know, a lot of the major media, they did not like us podcasters, us YouTubers, they didn't like it because it wasn't the traditional path, it wasn't traditional deals. The lawyers and the people weren't making as much money with these new kids just starting up and doing things from their house and their bedrooms and with, you know, just their dreams. And so I'm proud to be part of that story. I did not know when you go to do something that is new and innovative and out there, I want you to tell you this, don't be overwhelmed at it and don't think you're stupid. You starting something new in a new era and a new direction of your life, sometimes you're that first person to see the mountain and climate. Just happens in every person's story of greatness. Somewhere along the way, they were first. They were the first person to get there, they were the first person to try something and they just had that deep sense that it was going to turn out. And they stayed. Despite the doubt, despite the uncertainty, despite the overwhelm, they stayed in progress mode. They looked at their day, they looked at their week, they looked at their month, they Said, what's the priority? What do I need to move forward? What matters most? And I want you to ask that what matters most right now that you could double down in. See if I didn't recognize that the traditional path, what I thought I was supposed to do, the traditional path was being. It was very small. And I recognize, well, once in a while I do it, you know, I do an event on the, you know, advertise on the Internet that seems to do pretty good. And I double down there. This introduced me the concept of identifying the needle movers in your life, that sometimes we're doing so many things that we're overwhelmed. And what I need you to do is go, what are the two or three things that matter the most? And if I doubled down there and I deleted the other things, I would tell the stories. It's like when Steve Jobs, you know, got kicked out of Apple and later came back and he saw, you know, dozens of product lines and he's like, why are we doing all this? And he stripped it down and launched like with four of them. He got the focus of the company back and pushed there hard. The rest is history. At this stage of your life, can we get your focus in? Can we clarify what really works and where you want to go on the path to the millionaire messenger? And afterwards, I had to clarify, oh, this is the industry I'm playing in. It's not over here. This is what I'm playing in. Okay, where am I winning here? Oh, here, let me double down. I'm winning on doing events and I'm winning with coaching clients and I'm winning with self publishing. This book, after it became a New York Times bestseller, more or less self published, like non traditional, end up being. This is a version. If you ever seen it, you probably have. Simon and Schuster bought the book later. Even though I launched it non traditional. After it hit New York Times, I had believers and led to a bigger deal. The next book deal would go from this kid who's self published. Like kind of started his own book with a student leadership guide, did Life's Golden Ticket, kind of self published, but then got a publisher. The book came out, did okay. He got frustrated, didn't know online marketing, learned more about it, really learned more about it, really learned more about it, launched it himself. Number one New York Times. This kid, you know what, he's resilient. He's a hustler. He works through it. He's learning the new world. This kid's learning the new world. He struggled in the past, but let's give him a multimillion dollar deal. And that's what happened next. After the Millionaire messenger. It took all those years for that belief to be formed. To get to what most people would start at the dream. I never had the dream of the number one New York Times or the dream of Millionaire. That wasn't what I was trying to get to. I just wanted to make a full time living doing my dream. Writing and coaching and teaching. Please listen. I wanted to get to my dream of living full time, writing, coaching and teaching. Why? I would just say that again. I wanted to get to my dream. Living full time, earning full time, writing, coaching, teaching. Why did I say that three times? Clarity. Oh, that's what I'm going to do at this stage of my life. Progress mode. The biggest shift to get you into progress mode is get clarity right now. What do you want for this next stage of your life? If the next stage of life is like, well, I want to make partner at my company and I want to have more time on the weekends with my kids. Great, now you know it, clarify it, work for it maybe. No, my next stage is, you know, I want to lead this initiative, start this movement and get more fit and have this. Okay, great. Where have you had a little momentum? Double down, go there. So please listen. Clarity, double down. Clarity, double down. Clarity, double down. That is how you get into progress mode. It starts with an understanding that sometimes you're going to feel overwhelmed and doubtful. But as you get that clarity, everything changes. The greatest clarity I like to share with you. You know, I would love to share the same story of Millionaire Messenger. I have all these books I'm holding on the videos. I know you can't all see it, but you might be listening. But I know I'll get judgment for it and I always do that. I have all these books and these different languages and I don't know many of these languages, to be totally honest with you. I wish I learned more languages. But I've had the blessing of traveling around the world and, you know, I can't tell you how many people in our industry who've joined my masterminds and come to my events because this little book, the Millionaire Messenger, I thought I was just going to give out to, you know, help people who are trying to do something weird like me. I didn't know it would become a huge industry. I didn't know because of my efforts there I would get to help a product start. And a lot of people start using the same product I was using called kajabi and I started using Kajabi and my friend Kenny there, who had started it, I'd give him product feedback for years and years and years. I drive, you know, most of the clients onto the platform over a period of time. That little thing that I started, that book and that company that I was blessed to help develop and drive most of their customers over years, you know, that went on to become a $2 billion valuation, that went on to become a number one New York Times selling book, that went on to become career as an author. I actually didn't know that. What I did know was clarity. I want to be a writer, a coach, a teacher, or a trainer, and I want to make a living at it. And I'm going to do that every day. If you find your clarity and just do that more often, let the outcomes happen. I could not see back then certainly that, you know, what is that a decade later, you know, I'd have stock in a $2 billion company and pretty much every major influencer of the last 15 years become great friends, attend my events, I speak on their stages and vice versa. I had no idea any of that. I want you to draw it back. Clarity, double down. Clarity, double down. But the bigger story here is that, you know, for those who can see if, if I could show off anything on this whole video, if, if it sounds any braggadocious, I hope you hear the surprise. I'm surprised and I'm humbled and I'm so grateful. If I can share anything that means the most to me, though, it's. It's just that ring on my hand that that girl who slept under my bills believed in me and that we believed in each other. That, you know, as new levels of progress entered our life and new stages of success. She believed in my dream and supported me. I believed in her dream, supported her. She built an amazing business and had an exit of her own. Then we moved to a place that was my dream, to live there, and I loved it and I felt very fulfilled. And then we moved to a place that she loved and we moved, you know, crisscross across the country, going to places that we love and support each other. Because along the way, on progress, if you can achieve great milestones, that's wonderful. But really, if along the way you can fall in love with what you do and you can fall in love with the people you are doing it with, that's real progress in life. That's the real shift, that's the wholeness that you're after, that's the fulfillment the joy, the satisfaction. It's other levels I'm here to say. You. I know it sounds like I've talked through a lot of stories and hopefully sparked a few decisions and ideas in your own mind, but I could end this episode. So simply fall in love with what you do. When you do that, you're going to have to make some critical choices and decisions that people are going to think are crazy. They're going to be like, stunned by your commitment. They're not going to believe in you. You're going to question yourself. And if they don't believe in you and you're questioning yourself and you stop, you'll never know the great depths of loving your passion. You'll always feel like you didn't go for it. But if you love what you do and, and you aim yourself over and over and over towards the love of what you do versus aiming yourself to the doubt you have or the doubt or the oppression imposed on you by other people. I said there's always two enemies in progress. I'll keep bringing it up. One enemy, self limitation. The other enemy, social oppression. People with lower standards or people pressuring you to do something that is not your path. Your path. You wake up in the morning every day and you know, I can keep moving towards that. I can keep doubling down on what's working. I can pursue the things that I care about. I can do that. I can act from that place today, even if I'm overwhelmed, I'm uncertain, I don't know how it's going to go. I can wake up each day and I can go into progress mode, moving forward somehow. Big moves, little moves, but moving forward in a direction at a speed that I love, making real improvements in my life. You can do that. I know that you can. I hope you enjoyed this conversation today. If you'd like to stay in conversation and get all the updates, behind the scenes, additional resources, and my weekly newsletter for free, go to progress mode.com Please also do me a favor. Share this episode with somebody who, you know, they got to fall in love with their passion or fall in love with this next stage of their life. Do that for somebody else. Because it's in giving that we receive. As I shared earlier, it's in like helping other people achieve their goals and dreams that we achieve our own. So if this message resonated with somebody that you feel like they just got to get this, you got to give it to them. Please give this episode to somebody else as a gift today. Just share, share it with somebody. Share this link. I know it can make a difference. And for you, tomorrow, as you think about this next stage, this next era, as you think about moving in the right direction in your life, I know tomorrow morning you wake up, those same doubts will be there. You might feel overwhelmed. So you just have to remember Uncle Brendan screaming at you from across the ether, saying, hey, listen, I know you're unsure. I know it's difficult, but I know it can be overwhelming and scary. But you got to switch on your brain. You got to go from doubt and fear into faith. In that forward position, two things are going to change your life. Something new comes into your life, or something new comes from within. I want you to believe in yourself and move with real clarity and conviction at this stage of your life. It's time to switch on progress mode, baby.
