Motivation Mashup: Eliminate Stress and Pressure From Your Life

We must learn to center ourselves amid the chaos, the stress, the struggle, the challenge, the bad day. We must in the moment be able to flip from anger to peace. In the moment be able to flip from stress to clarity, to ease, to freedom. We must teach ourselves to center ourselves both when we don't need it and.

When we do need it.

And I think that's what's really important. I think one of the greatest disciplines we can ever give ourselves is this topic of centering. And so we must actively train ourselves as if we were going to have 10 times the pressure on us as we seek to achieve our dreams. Because I'm sure many, I mean, how.

Many of you guys feel like the.

Next mountain you climb is going to demand so much more of you than the last one? Like many of you guys, you got your dreams and your eyes set on huge ambitions, huge aspirations to provide for your family, to change the world, to do something significant and important. And when you've got that big dream way up there, trust me, it will.

Demand more of you next time.

So you must start training your mind now to deal with stress. Many of you, that means it is finally time to start learning meditation. It's like you've been thinking about it, you kind of meditate once in a while and you've thought about it or you did that one retreat one time, I'm like, make it a daily part of your life to center yourself every single day. For some of you, centering yourself, that just means closing your eyes, thinking about who you want to be, thinking about what's important, just calming your mind down. Other people, centering is like, like that can be just like, if you're super stressed, lay down, take a quick nap. For some of you that can mean like the important self talk. Some of you, that means meditation. Like for me, if I don't center myself every day, twice a day, actively the next day, I know I'm gonna get short with somebody. I'm gonna let anxiousness get to me, I'll get my nerves, I'll get frustrated, I'll bow out, I'll quit. It's so clear, it's like super obvious to me that the days that I don't center end up in tomorrow's that are chaotic. And so I just got to make.

Sure I take that time every day.

That might mean you go take a 45 minute walk. Many of you guys know every single day I walk outside every day. Rain, water, snow, sleet, I don't care. I will walk 30 to 45 minutes outside every Day I don't miss because that just being out in nature and breathing and feeling the wind on my face and the sun and just calms me down, gets me grounded back into the earth and in nature. And it's like, ah, okay, every day. So for what, 20 plus years, I meditate at least once a day. I think for the last 14, maybe 11 years I've meditated twice per day. Sometimes it's only five minutes of both sessions, so sometimes it's 10 minutes both sessions. And when I don't get that, I might take like a 30 minute nap in the afternoon. At some point I'll sneak away. Even when I used to have a corporate job and work for somebody else, I'd go close the door in one of the rooms, one of the meeting conference rooms, I close my eyes for 20 minutes, I meditate, take a nap, lay on the floor, do whatever I have to do to recenter my mind. Your ability to deal with stress at this stage is dictating your ability to reach the next level. And so if you're somebody who is always dealing with that negative emotional range, nervousness, anxiousness, stress, depression, some of the big issues that came up today, make sure you seek support. Go see a professional, go see a therapist, go see a psychiatrist, go see whoever your doctor recommends you to to get support in that mental health department. For those of you who aren't dealing with clinical issues after those conversations, maybe it's time for you to finally do the things you know you need to do to calm yourself down. Right? Don't look at so much social media every day because going into here is not centering you. This is reaction mode. That's all this is reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction. And every one of these swipes is firing more chaos in your brain. Like literally it's hitting more dopamine and it feels reward, reward, reward, reward, reward. But your eyes are burning, your attention is burning, you, you're exhausted after, not reinvigorated. We need reinvigorating activities for you each day. So what are some reinvigorating activities? Reinvigorating activities for me might always start with sleep, always include meditation, always include a walk outside. For me, always include a cold shower.

I know none of you, you're gonna.

Hate the idea of a cold shower. For me, I take Adaptogens. These are stress support supplements that help me just like, okay, more able to deal with the stress because my mind is a squirrel and it's crazy, so it centers me again. That's the same product, hpex Optimized for me. Some of you might take supplements that you. Maybe you take some, like, calming chamomile tea, right? That costs super cheap. Like, whatever you need to do, you need a centering practice every day. Because the more you center yourself every day as a discipline, then in the moments that matter, the more you're able to lock it in. So a couple things you can do in moments that matter, right? When all of a sudden you feel yourself get angry, you feel yourself get freaked out, and that's about to win. The very first move you must do when you feel that coming on, when you're, like, getting whacked around and in the chaos, the very first thing I want you to always remember to do is center in on your breath. I want you. Soon you feel, like, angry. Start taking deep breaths from the belly, and I want you to count those breaths 20 times. Just start, like, immediately start counting your breathing. If someone's hollering and screaming before you holler and scream back and react, Breathe. The best way to center the mind and the body is through deep breathing. There's literally thousands of years research behind this in terms of both. The more anecdotal to what we now know in neuroscience that deep breathing can deeply calm the mind and help you make better decisions. So just breathe.

Just breathe.

The first thing is breath awareness. Second thing is body awareness. Be attentive to when. When you feel like, how are you holding your body? A lot of people get really tense in their shoulders and their neck, which is cueing their brain to go, emergency, emergency, emergency. Get out, scream, holler, fight. And what I want you to do is first breathe. That's breath awareness. Second body awareness. Drop those shoulders, pull that chest out, elongate that neck, put your feet shoulder width.

Just stand up.

Like, just be tall and stand and.

And breathe.

That's huge. If you're alone and you're feeling these things or if it's proper. I mean, sometimes I do this with my wife and she's around. All of a sudden I start feeling anxious, upset or something. I will literally drop down in a downward dog. I will breathe, I will roll around on the floor. Like, I mean, I would just go, I'm telling you what, I will just start stretching myself out right as we're in a conflict. I know I'm a child and she knows this. Appreciate because I'm calming myself down. Because for me, centering is a very physical thing.

It really is.

It's like, it's a physical thing. And that's so important for me. So Breath awareness number one. And I really encourage you to set an intention to count. Don't just focus on your breath count. Breathe count, breathe count, breathe count. Second, make sure you use your body, get body awareness. I really encourage you drop those shoulders, straighten your neck out, open up your body will give you more energy. And then third, what I really encourage you to do in centering and this is really important, as you're breathing out, you're breathing in. A lot of people think of just breathing out in. I want you to breathe out and imagine yourself breathing out and it's just dropping the energy and grounding the earth and pulling it up and grounding the earth like you're breathing out is just as important as an intention is breathing in. And if you can get in that mode, you just start noticing, you feel better. And then that third piece though, outside of the centering into the ground, the third thing is intention, intention, intention. For me, I train myself on three words. I want to be. And I'll remind myself, just remind myself those three words. Remind myself those three words, Remind myself those three words. Because it's easy for me to reactive and be responsive. Instead I want to be intentional. So know those three words that really defined you and repeat those.

Like oftentimes when I'm.

If you ever see me around and I'm like this, all I'm doing is I'm kind of rocking, I'm breathing in and out deeply. I'm getting attentive to my body and my posture and I'm repeating my three words just to reconnect. Because I do that every day in the moment of crisis. Because see, moments of crisis, it feels like everything's out of control.

But what can I control?

Breath body awareness. What I say to myself, Breath body in errors. What I say to myself, I do that over and over and over again and it really helps me lock back in. I hope this supports some of you because emotionally learning to be centered emotionally will so support you as you go to change your life.

In Tuscany right now and answering your guys questions as always. But this one was a really good one and perfect for our setting which was Brendan. How do you find inspiration? Well, obviously Tuscany is helping. Right now Denise and I are on vacation, part of our summer vacation and stopping over here and it's just stunningly gorgeous. But it's a really good topic because you know, you guys see it all the time, all the content I produce, the podcasts, the, you know, six different books, the 20 plus online courses like how, how do you do all that well, you have to learn to like set up your life for inspiration. Inspiration is not something that hopefully will happen one day and you come up with the greatest idea of your life. You have to consistently put things into your life to generate that level of creativity and inspiration that happens on an ongoing basis that gives you ongoing breakthroughs. And that's the way I think about it. You know, on this trip, let me share four things that we're really thinking about to get inspired.

Alright?

Number one thing that I think of with inspiration is adventure. Because what we often think about is, well, I'll just be inspired by, you know, picking up social media and I'll scroll through things and that will help me become more inspired. I'm like, no, that will help you become distracted or become someone who mimics other people instead. I think one way to really get inspiration in your life is to break your pattern of routine and do something that is adventurous. So Denise and I this morning we went on a big balloon, hot air balloon ride, which was spectacular. Yesterday we did something more simple. We took a long bike ride, but, you know, kind of adventurous, I would say, here in Tuscany.

But we're always trying to figure out.

Like what's something that we can do physically to activate our brain, our body, our breath, our movement. Because from that it opens up your brain, opens up new ideas and thoughts. So one, begin with some type of adventure, like have you scheduled any adventurous things in your life over the next six, seven months? And if you haven't, then you can't be surprised that you're not having better breakthroughs. Number two, I would say to draw inspiration, revisit and learn about history. You know, these places that we're seeing in Tuscany are, you know, 700 years old, a thousand years old, which is pretty epic, right? And if you think about that, a big piece of learning of life is visiting history. When we were in Florence, we checked out all this amazing locations that you know from where Michelangelo and Leonardo and some of the great artists and really standard bearers of culture emerge from. And we learned so much. I just felt like we were constantly learning on that. And seeing all this artistry from history, like art history especially, is really inspiring to me. And I got all these new ideas of things that I want to create or do based off of that. So I think studying history, I've just also finished another book of the week. And I studied four US Presidents and how they handled conflict and challenge in really times of crisis. And learning from history has always been something that inspired me to want to Be a better artist, but also a better creator and a better leader. There goes Denise. She doesn't know I'm filming, but she's a really huge inspiration for me because she loves all things art and culture, and she's always getting me to work out and take care of myself. And it's kind of like watching a wild animal. Right now, I feel like I'm a guy on one of those, you know, Discovery Channel things. But that girl right there has been one of the great inspirations of my life. I love Yanni. Look at that.

Yes.

The grapes. The grapes. Note number three is people. People shouldn't spy you. And I'm thinking about that because we're in the vineyard right now, and I was thinking how yesterday was it.

Yeah.

We did this cooking class, right, with this amazing chef who is so passionate and enthusiastic about Italian cooking. And I'm somebody, as you know, I don't know much about cooking. I think it was my first. Well, it was my first Italian cooking class. It was amazing.

I know nothing about that.

It was so inspiring. Afterwards, I said to my wife, I was like, you know what? I loved that. I loved learning from this guy and hearing about him.

He was funny.

He was a great chef. And even though I'm not a cook, I was inspired to cook. And I think about how critical it is to be around new people with different skill sets than you that help you access different areas of inspiration for yourself. I mean, not just in terms of cooking. It just the way he was teaching made me think about how I teach. The way he prepared things made me think about excellence in preparing things in my own life.

And I just think it's so huge.

For you to get around people who are great and passionate at what they do as much as you possibly can, because you're going to find inspiration there. I know that sounds so basic, but think about how often you hang out with the same four or five people. You know, you see your family members, you hang out with a couple people, and the unfortunate reality is many people.

Live in a tiny little bubble. Because they live in a tiny little bubble.

Their thoughts are a tiny little thought bubble. And they're never really breaking the boundaries of their own thinking. They're never accessing higher levels of reasoning.

Because they have no perspective.

So get around more people. Hang out more with new people who have great skill sets where you can be inspired by both their mastery, their enthusiasm, and their own field of interest. When you look at this field, is that gorgeous? I don't know if you guys can See this? It's too bright. Last big idea for you for inspiration is journaling. It doesn't sound as sexy as adventure or history and art or hang out with amazing people, but the truth is, you need to give yourself some time to hang out with yourself and actually think about what you want in life. Because isn't it true you often go on vacation, you see amazing places, and you're like, oh, I'm inspired.

Or you sit by the pool, or.

You sit out, you know, somewhere just having a picnic, or maybe you're at the cottage coffee shop with your journal, and you just write about life. And, you know, I've got my hat on here. Live, love, matter. And I think, you know, of how that simple sort of lessons from my car accident, whatever it was, 23 years ago, inspired this whole life that I have. Because after my accident, I sat down, I journaled what I wanted to learn from that experience of my car accident. I wanted to learn to live. I wanted to learn to love more. I wanted to learn to make a difference. And that really came from journaling and just writing about. What do you want life to be about? What do you want life to be about? The more consistently you journal and you write, what do you want life to be about? I promise you, my friend, I promise you, you will start feeling more inspired way more often. But you got to do the work. You know, all these things. Planning, adventure, you got to do that work. Learning about art and learning about history.

Got to do the work.

I mean, getting yourself around people who are inspiring, enthusiastic, you got to travel those events, do those things, and finally journal every single day about what you really want of life, what your thoughts are, what your feelings and needs and desires and observations are about life. Because the more you write and observe about life, the more you are inspired. In Tuscany this morning and going on our first ever balloon ride, which we're excited about, still waking up, honestly. But I've heard this is amazing, and people talk about it all the time. One thing you have to do when you're traveling is you've got to go on local adventures. Sometimes that means, like today we go on a balloon ride. Sometimes that means, you know, we go on a bike ride. Sometimes that means we take helicopter tours, you know, wine tastings, you know, go to the best restaurants, have some chef things, or just go to local park.

And have a picnic.

It doesn't have to be fancy, but the whole point of traveling is to get out and about and enjoy life a little bit. So this camera and me, that's going.

To be our balloon. And there's.

Morning sunrise coming up. Tuscany sunrise on this side. And the sunshine of all sunshines right.

Here.

Wasn'T that smooth. It just came down so smooth. And then, I mean, he just, I think he landed like right over there, kind of touched the ground, really softly touched it again and then put a little more air in it and bounced it right onto the back of his trailer in like one smooth dance move. And now they're letting the air out. And that's our balloon adventure.

What do you do when the inevitable adversity enters your life? A difficult situation, some bad news, you lose the job, the medical report comes in bad, something negative happens, something you didn't anticipate that just kind of just craps on your life. And all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, what do I do? You know, when that adversity strikes, you got to see it. Not just as, you know, this terrible moment, but perhaps a called moment, a moment in which you are being asked to rise up. A moment when you are being asked, being challenged, being brought to task, to be able to summon your real strength, to be able to summon more empathy, more love, more caring, more strength, more ambition, more go to it. In this, I don't know what is for you, but when adversity strikes, I always keep a pretty positive head on my shoulders and go, okay, this is hard. I don't pretend it doesn't suck, but I have to be able to move through it if I'm going to survive. And I know you know that as well. So what I thought I'd do is just share five big ideas with you of how to manage adversity, what to do when it strikes, how do you deal with it better than maybe you have in the past? Because I know if you're watching this or you listen to this, you know that, you know, you're a striver already. You got some basics, you've got some resilience. It's just, it's harder now because there's so many things going on for so many people. It's harder to bounce back. It really is. When everyone's juggling so many obligations, so many ambitions, so many opportunities, man, when you stumble now, sometimes it feels like a real crash and burn. So what do you do? Number one, have confidence, my friend. Have confidence. I know that might sound silly or like some, you know, self help motivational crap, but no, here's the deal. You got to have confidence that you're going to deal with this, that it's going to go, okay, that you'll turn it around or that you'll confidently deal with it in a way in which at least you're okay with it. Now, let me qualify this. I don't mean confidence meaning like, well, negative situation. You're like, I've got this. I can handle this. Ha ha ha. It's not like that. What I mean by confidence is confidence. Real, genuine, authentic confidence. To me simply means a belief in your ability to figure things out. That's all. When the stuff hits the fan, just go, okay, I didn't want that. But I'll figure it out. That's all I want you to say. I'll figure it out. I'll handle it. Things will be okay. This is difficult. I will survive. I know that sounds so basic, but if you don't frame everything else that comes after that, it's just too hard. Just too hard. We will get sucked in negativity. We'll get sucked into dread or into bitterness or into sadness. We just have to immediately go, oh, gosh, okay, I'm going to have confidence. I know I can figure this out. Because you know what the reality is? You figured things out in the past that were equally as difficult or harder. Or if you haven't, if this is the biggest adversity you've ever faced in your life, guess what you're going to need to survive, my friend. Belief in your ability to figure things out. That's confidence. That's first stage. That's number one. Number two, keep perspective. And this is really important, your adversity. That seems so difficult. Two things to know. Number one, you're not the first person to be challenged with that adversity. Out of 7 billion people and thousands of collected years of recorded human history, none of us are going through anything that unique. I know that sounds mean to say, but, you know, I've always found that people who really believe that their adversity or difficulty is so different than everyone else that nobody can understand, they become bitter. You don't understand. Or they don't ever ask for help because they don't think anyone can understand them so that they get mad at everybody else, or they push everybody else away or avoid the very thing that could serve them, which is seeking some assistance, as we'll talk about. So I'd like you to do is keep perspective. No one is the first person to ever get cancer anymore. No one's the first person to lose a child anymore. No one's the first person to lose a limb anymore. No one's the first person to be in a car accident anymore. Other people have gone through it. So keep perspective. Realize that, you know, there's only two stories in humanity's narrative. That's struggle and progress. Lots of people struggled through what you've been through, but a lot of people have also progressed through it. So never feel alone and realize too with keeping perspective. Remember the times in the past. You did have some adversity. You called on some kind of strength. You summoned something. What made you help you get through it before? What helped you, you know, what helped you break through? What helped you deal with it? Can you remember those times? Think about that. What helped you before? What helped you before? Remember those times. It will help you keep perspective. You're not alone. You've been through some stuff before. Believe in your ability. Figure this one out too. Next big number three. Schedule action. I love this one. Schedule action. What means is when adversity strikes, so many people just go, oh my gosh, that's horrible. And they sit and they wait and they wait and they wait. Or they lay in bed and they're depressed and depressed and they keep hoping for something to change. But there's only two things that change your life. Either new, something new comes in, some new opportunity, new person, new luck, new grace. Something new comes externally in, or something new comes from within. Some new power, some new strengths, some new ambition, some new beliefs, some new resolve, some new willingness to fight and make it happen. Those are only two things that change. Either something new comes in or something new comes within. And I tell you that because you can't just wait and hope that everything gets better. Because if it's real adversity, it's going to require action. And what I tell people is don't kind of like sometimes act to deal with it, schedule it. What are you going to do every single day, even it's just three goals every day. To handle that, to deal with that, to cope with that. Just three things. Sometimes those three things are simple as take a shower. You know, sometimes just getting out of bed, taking a shower to start the day is a win. You know, I remember when I had my brain injury, it was a huge struggle. Just basic stuff. I mean, sending an email sometimes was a win. Making a call, you know, making sure I ate lunch to keep glucose coming to my brain. Like simple things were wins. But. But I had to schedule things because left to my own devices, I wouldn't do anything. I'd be like on the seventh season of some show or something. You know, you Gotta schedule action each day, especially when it's difficult. Next idea. I kind of preface this one, but it's important to tactically do this. Ask for help. And I don't mean ask for help when you are at rock bottom or all this stuff is gone. Now you're bankrupt, now you're broke, now awful things are happening. Most people ask for help way late. Soon as adversity strikes, ask for help. The second, if it seems in any way overwhelming, ask for help. Say, you know, ask your spouse or your partner, hey, honey, here's what's going on. I don't know exactly how I'm going to deal with it. You got any ideas? Or if it's a big thing, go to your business partner, go to your team, go, go to somebody at work and say, hey, here's a situation. Let's brainstorm some ideas of how to deal with this. That's asking for help too. If it's very, very traumatic, ask for help from a professional, a professional person in the medical or therapeutic field, psychological fields. Just get some assistance in how to think through things. Sometimes that's the greatest help we can get is, you know, even just going out with some friends or some girlfriends, sit around the table and say, hey, this thing happened on Monday. I wonder, can I tell you guys about it? Just get your perspective and just listen. Sometimes other people talking, how they're dealing with it or how they've dealt with it can truly serve you. Remember, you're not alone. You've been through stuff before, so have other people. And believing in your ability to figure things out, things will start to go okay, and then last piece, maybe sometimes the adversity sticks around for a while. Honor the struggle. Honor the struggle. If you've been with me in my High Performance Academy program or any of my seminars before, you know, this is a critical element, a critical mindset to all of success in life is to honor the struggle. As I said at the very beginning, this video, sometimes the struggle is put there for you. Sometimes life is happening for us to get better. And it's a demand and it's challenging and that hardship can suck. But know, know that that struggle is necessary at this moment. Now you got to deal with it. You can't avoid it. You've got to face this thing and say, okay, what can I move? What can I shake? Except the fact that we can't change everything. We can't influence everything, but we can change and influence our attitude, our actions each day. We can figure out something to move forward in our lives and a little bit more that we get of those little things that we can move forward a little bit more. We feel confident again. The struggle is something to be honored because it's going to forge a greater capacity and character later on. So honor it. Don't hate it. Because anything you throw hate at that quickly amplifies into flames of fury. Instead, have patience with it, see it and recognize it as a necessary thing at this time of your life. That's why it's been put there even if you don't want it. Have that mentality like, okay, I'm meant to deal with this now. I didn't want to, but here it is. So how do I keep my confidence? What can I remind myself about? Perspective? How can I take some actions today? How can I ask for some help and honor this entire process? If you do that, you'll survive this adversity. You might just thrive through it. But no matter what, they'll put you on that other end where you start to relive in the charge. I call it the three E's. Okay, the three E's of a relationship. This is when I know a relationship is great and can can improve in a conflict situation. So if I'm mediating or counseling or coaching, here's what I do I watch for in those initial interactions, when they're coming in, they're describing the problem. As an example to me, I watch for the three E's. First one, empathy. Empathy. Does it look like the person, the other is listening and is caring what the other person is saying and can understand it even if they don't agree with it? Can they understand it even if they don't agree with it? That's a big one for me. Can they understand it even if they don't agree with it? Ah, that to me is empathy. They care that the other person is hurt or confused or upset about something. Like there's just empathy. Often it's non verbal. I can see that the non verbal stuff is the easiest. But often what people don't understand is a lot of times empathy looks like listening. Even if you don't agree, it can listen. Like this can be empathy. Literally this can be empathy. Like you're like you think they're crazy, but you're giving them the allowance to speak. It's empathizing enough. Like we all believe that empathy is warm hugs and sunshine. But a lot of the time empathy is allowing turn, taking, asking a question, waiting, nodding, not arguing. Or it's saying, I heard you say this, I see it this way, those simple notes of validation, time, openness, make all the difference. Second thing I look for, of the three E's, the first E is empathy. Second E is enthusiasm. I think enthusiasm is the master of all emotion, right? Even more than love. You're like, you're crazy. I'm like, no, no. I know lots of people who have love, but there's no enthusiasm in the relationship anymore. There's no intimacy, no pop, no vibrancy, no variety. It's just. It's like they care for each other, but there's no energy behind it. I think the energy behind things is enthusiasm. When we're excited about building our life together, or listen, when we're excited about solving this problem together. I remember the first, like, I was doing a divorce referred mediation. I was in, like, grad school, and I knew this couple was gonna survive. It was like, five minutes into this thing because they were just like, we are so excited to solve this thing together. And I was like, you're gonna be great. I immediately knew. And it was so easy. It was so. I'm sorry, it was not easy. It was so well resolved. Because there was enthusiasm, even if we don't agree. Enthusiasm for the solution, enthusiasm to move out of this crappy time. I love when people do coaching or counseling. And I've talked to therapists who go, oh, my gosh, they were so happy to finally share their hatred for each other. They were so enthusiastic to get it out and to talk about it and to start working on it. The enthusiasm to work on it, the enthusiasm to improve it, the enthusiasm to build that future together, the enthusiasm to resolve it. That is such an indicator of things. So how do you feel? Are you enthusiastic to improve that relationship, to grow it? Are you enthusiastic to go deeper? Enthusiastic to do the things for your other who just loves it, you know? Are you enthusiastic about them and their life so important? Empathy, enthusiasm. And the third one, encouragement. The strongest relationships are built on encouragement, right? We know this from the social sciences. I know many of you guys heard me recommend for the last decade the work by John Gottman and his wife in research and relationships. I love that work. And one of the critical things that came out of that was such a simple distinction that happy couples tend to praise each other five times more than they complain or negate. And whether that ratio is true in all relationships across all cultures is not. Is probably not super validated. But what I do believe is the simple way to break that down is encourage your partner a lot.

A lot.

Encourage them, cheer them. You Know they got a big day. Do something. Look, I got this on this laptop over here from Denise. I don't. Can I see that? You guys probably can't see us too. No, not gonna show up. It's just. It's a post it note that she gave me like six months ago. I still have it on my computer. It says, I love you, I appreciate you. I know you are doing big things. I love you, I appreciate you, I know you are doing things. It was just a post it note she put on my computer in a really particularly difficult week that I was having. And we're both pretty good about leaving little notes around for each other, especially when we're traveling or we'll be apart or something like that. But also throughout the day. Like, she puts something over there that she likes or she does. I'm like, I love that. Good job. That's amazing. And we don't say that flippantly. Like we were like, that's great. That's amazing. Like, we cheer each other on a lot and I think that's huge. The ability to encourage one another is so vital. So vital. Okay, so the three things, Empathy, encouragement, Empathy, enthusiasm and encouragement. I look for those, I watch for them. But listen, don't just look for them, cultivate them. Cultivate them. And if you don't know how to do it, ask your partner. Be like, hey, how can I demonstrate empathy for you more? Hey, how can I bring some enthusiasm in this relationship? Hey, do you feel like I encourage you enough? What could I do better? Because ultimately all these things we're talking about, remember, you have to do together. It's about the relationship first. It's, you're going to build this life together. The most important phrase to me, if I was, I was advising him, was like, you're co creating your future together. Co creation. People support what they create. You create it together and you support it together. And that's everything. So it's never like, I'm mad at you for this reason. It's like, ugh, we were in that situation. Didn't seem to go good. What can we do better? It's the we story, not just the me story. It's the understanding that we must communicate together, plan together and work together to build the ideal future together. To build the energy, co create the energy together. These things matter. But they're open dialogues and you don't have to be right. And they don't have to be right. You get a turn, they get a turn. You understand? If they're not going to Agree with you. You understand, it's fluid, it's dynamic, and that's what makes a relationship great. Versus it has to be this way, or it has to be that way, or we butt heads, reveal uncertainty. This one is the opposite dynamic of how I used to think of confidence, right? We think of confident people as people are just like, you know, it's like Wonder Woman, right?

Is confident.

We think of Superman is confident, who just knows everything, really what it turns out to be. High performers are a lot. Listen to this. High performers are a lot less Superman and a lot more Clark Kent. That's what it turned to be in all the research with millions of data points. In all of my conversations, high performers were much more likely to reveal things like, I don't know. Things like, I'm unsure. Things like, how do you think this should go? Things like, could you kind of help me with this? High performers literally explicitly share that they don't know how it's going, they don't know how it's supposed to go, that they need some help, that they need some mentorship, that they need some guidance. That's confidence. Confidence is not holding back the deck of cards of your weaknesses. Confidence is a comfort with vulnerability. And when people say vulnerability, they often don't know what they mean. When we're talking about vulnerability specifically related to confidence and high performance, like measurable outcomes, the thing that we can measure and see is that high performers in group meetings, in team meetings, in social situations more often share their insecurity. They more often say, I don't know how this is supposed to go, or they'll be the person at that fruit punch bowl who says, you know, I don't really know anybody here. I don't really know how to start to meet some of these people. Could you introduce me to somebody? And that's how they handle the social networking where they're awkward. Instead of just sitting back at the punch bowl, drowning their sorrows and feeling bad about themselves, they. They engage the person next to them, say, hey, you know what? I feel kind of awkward here. I don't know a lot of people. Could you introduce me? That's how high performers are handling little situations in life. They're not the most confident person in the meeting who goes, I know everything here. They're the most confident going, you know what? I don't know this. Here's my question. What do you guys think? And that is how you lead confidently. You reveal that you don't know everything. Saying, I don't know is power, not weakness. But you've been trying to do too many things on your own, and that's one reason you don't have the confidence you deserve at this stage of your life. Because, see, I don't want to. I didn't want to start with my definition of confidence for you because I want you to be thinking about it, but I'd like to share it. Now that we've talked about defining and measuring. The way I look at confidence is I think the confidence that matters the most is the confidence in one's belief in our ability to figure things out. That's what I believe confidence to be. Do I believe in my ability to figure things out? Not do I know things? Because it's not always true. There's a lot of things I don't know. But do I believe in my ability to figure things out? Now there I'm confident. Not because I'm smart, because I'm good at asking, I'm good at saying, you know what? I don't know how to do this. What do you guys think? And I hope this is settling in for you because sometimes your confidence is so low because you think your confidence is correlated with what you know versus what you're willing and able to go figure out by revealing that you don't know. Got it. Next big practice for you that will really help is small changes plus integration. This one comes from my wife, if you didn't know. My wife opened two exercise studios throughout her career. Very, very successful at it. Ultimately sold them. And today, literally this morning in the car, I said, okay, I'm going to teach this thing on confidence. Like, what would you teach, honey? She's led lots of big teams and had an extraordinary quality of life. And I said, okay, well, tell me how. What would you say? And she says, well, to gain confidence, people need to make small changes. Not always go for the biggest thing, but make small changes and see themselves making those changes and then integrate that into their identity. Integration, if you heard me talk about it, it's a big topic in high performance. It's one reason successful people often don't feel like successful people or successful people don't feel confident because they've never integrated the wins. The wins. Wins. They've had a lot of wins in their life, but they never stopped and said, wow, I really appreciate that I got a little better today. I really appreciate that, put myself out there. I'm proud of myself for trying here. You know what? I am a little stronger because I did that thing to acknowledge that you've gained some Strength is everything to confidence is, isn't it? Write it down to acknowledge that you gained some strength. Look, if you had two kids and you survived, you've gained some strength, you get a little more confidence in life. I mean, come on, what else do you have to be through if you've already made some money in your business, but it's always more, more, more, more, more, and you never stop to go, wow, I really came from nothing. I made some money here. And you never integrated the win in your identity. You, your identity stays the same level over here, even though you've actually accomplished a lot over here. And I see that all the time. It's why I see people who are the same level of confidence in their 20s and 30s, and now they're 50 and 60 leading other people, but they're completely wracked with insecurity. Every night they feel like crap, they don't know what they're doing. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you should have so much more confidence. You should feel good about yourself. Integrate some of these wins. So what, what small changes could you make in, let's say, the next 30 days that you could celebrate? Simple, small ones, like if you just did little things, like maybe you do five extra reps at the gym, or you stay for 10 extra minutes, or at work, you decide you're going to share one new idea a week. You don't have to change the world, you don't have to innovate the world. You don't have to take us to Mars. You just say, ok, it worked. I'm going to share one more idea every week at work and I'm going to celebrate that every time I do it each week, by the end of the week or by the end of the month, I've shared four brand new ideas. Those are small. That's small. You can do that small. It's one thing. Little things. So think about your health. What small wins could you have in your health? Maybe next time you go to the grocery store, you just don't get the bag of chips. And that's a small win for the day because that prevents you from eating the whole bag of chips tonight or tomorrow. Nothing against chips, so don't attack me, but I think it's really important that you identify in your health, as a parent, in your career, what are some small changes you can make? It doesn't have to be a big global brand change. It might be one more little thing that you do and then that one more little thing that's important. For you to log it, recognize it it, and integrate it so that you're getting stronger. If you don't acknowledge it, you can't get stronger. Hey, everybody, it's Brendan. Have you ever heard that advice to take risks, but you felt like, I don't want to take risks. No one likes risk, right? No one wants to say, when they wake up in the morning, I'm going to take tons of risks today. Usually, risk brings about fear. We're worried that if we take a risk, we'll fail, other people will judge us, we'll look stupid, we'll feel uncertain or unsure of ourselves. And nobody likes those feelings or those outcomes. So as much as people say, take risks, it's easy for us to say, nah, I'm not into that. But we also know intellectually that we can't grow unless we take more risks. That your next level of success, that leap from this level to that level, there's going to be risk there. You know, it's from here to there, and there's that gap in between. You don't know as you take that leap, if you're going to do well, that's the risk. You might fall, you might fail, you might not do well. But if you're not making those leaps and taking those steps, you'll always be stuck where you were yesterday. And to grow, we've got to have a lot of courage to jump into those risks. So let me give you maybe a framework for how to think about taking risks. You know, I always think about three ways to think about taking risks so that I'm continually pushing and growing myself. So the first thing I think about when I look at my career or I look at my life, the first risk I want to take is I want to make whatever I'm doing harder. I know that sounds weird, but I'm like, how could I make my job more difficult? Because in the. Taking that risk to make it more difficult, all grow. I'll give you guys an example. Last weekend, I had the blessing to keynote a conference in New Orleans. Some of you all were there. It was at the Superdome in New Orleans, which holds like 100,000 people, but they kind of spliced it in half with a curtain. And they had 20, 30,000 people in the audience. This was for the Beachbody convention, and it was a blast. Now I could get up and talk to 20,000 people pretty regularly in my life. I'm doing it again next weekend. It's what I do as a motivational speaker. Right. I'm used to doing that. But I could just go on stage, do my thing, and get off, and that wouldn't be serving the audience as much. And so I asked my question myself. How can I make this presentation even harder on me so that I can grow? So I text two of my friends who happen to be in that organization. Tony Horton, many of you guys know he is kind of the founder of and trainer for P90X and Shalene Johnson, who does piyo. And I text them both. I said, what's your hardest exercise move that people usually can't get? Because both those people are going to be at the conference, and this was a lot of their super fans. So I was like, let's go. So Tony told me, he's like, the donkey kick is the hardest one. The donkey kick is basically you do a handstand, you kick your legs out, you land back plank position, you run your leg through, like threading the needle in yoga, and then you return and you do a burpee. Okay? And Chalene said, well, the hardest one is like what she calls the piyo flip, which is like, imagine doing a bridge, right, but then going to kind of one arm, and like, you're doing a bridge this way and one arm goes that way. I mean, it's not easy. So I decided in front of 20,000 people to do those two moves back to back in a suit. So imagine doing a handstand in a suit, kicking your legs out, threading the needle, then flipping over, doing a full extended bridge. Not easy, but I did it because it would be hard. Does that make sense? Part of the reason I got better as a speaker is because I was pushing myself. Pushing myself. I mean, I used to be. It's very comforting and easy to give a big speech and, you know, have a transcript or all these notes to read from. But I said, one day I'm going to be able to get up on stage and give a speech with no notes whatsoever. Now, that's hard. That's not comforting. It's not easy. But it's by putting challenges in front of ourselves that we grow. And that's part of taking risks. You know, I always say to people, look, if the only challenges you're dealing with in life right now are the ones that life dealt you, then you're not living a fully conscious life yet. And what I mean by that is you're living a life of reaction. If you're not moving and put. If you're not moving towards harder and more difficult goals, if you're not giving yourself challenges, if you're not taking risks consciously then. You're just reacting to the world. You're not growing. And so challenge yourself the next time you're going to go do something, your art, your career, put yourself out there, try something, make that sales call. How could you challenge yourself to make that process even harder so you get better? Obviously, you know, you need to do that in the gym too, right? I mean, part of growing a muscle is stretching it, making it harder, making it difficult, pushing it beyond its current capabilities. That's how you grow muscle. Same thing. That's how you grow in life. The second big thing I think about is how do I do what I'm doing and take a risk by being different, Right? So think about what I've shared so far. The first way to take a risk is to make your process harder so that you grow and stretch. The second way is do something very different. Mean maybe you're already good at something, but now you're going to completely switch up how you're doing it right now. Many of you know I have a podcast about to change that podcast from something that's been very successful. You know, we had top 10 for over 100 weeks in my category. We're completely changing that up. So for those who listen to Charged Life, that's going to be switching up this weekend to the Brendon Show. And it's completely different. It's a new format. We don't need to do it the old way worked fine. But part of taking risks is making yourself evolve, not being the late comer to evolution, right? So think about how can you do something different? I'll give you an example. When we first started my YouTube channel back in, like, 2014, when we really started doing weekly YouTube videos, Travis had this great idea. He said, you know what? What if we did our videos in black and white? And back then, nobody was doing videos in black and white on a weekly basis as part of a show, certainly not in personal development. So we did it. It was completely different. It was a risk for us. I mean, would it work going from color to black and white in the modern era? It did. And some of those videos took off. I mean, million views, 2 million views now, some of them entering the 3 millionth view. That that happened because we decided to take a risk and be different. So how can you be different in your category, in your career, in your field of interest, whatever you're doing, how can you purposefully choose to evolve and do something different? Because that's a risk. And sure, not all risks are rewarded. But I'll tell you what's never rewarded. Stagnation. And then the last one. Part of taking a risk is being more personal, teaching yourself to share more, to be more vulnerable. It's hard. I get it. You know, I'm in front of a camera, in front of stage, all of my life. I shouldn't say my adult life. I mean, over the last 10 years of my life, it's been a very public journey for me. You see, if you're on with us on Facebook, you know, this is. We have 5 million fans on this Facebook page alone. Doesn't count our other Facebook pages. You know, we've just started and we're growing our Instagram channel. Hey, guys. On Instagram. I mean, this has been a journey for me of being in front of the public eye. But even me, for my next level, I'm going to have to share more about my personal life, be more thoughtful about that. And that takes a lot of vulnerability. It doesn't scare me. I just know I need to do it. And I'll give you an example, you know, when I first started my career in personal and professional development, you know, because if you ask me, Brendan, what do you do? I would say, well, I'm a writer first and I'm a trainer second. I've been blessed to train more people on the topic, motivation to high performance than anybody else in the world. Now, our videos have been viewed over 100 million times, over 10 million fans across our Facebook pages. I've been blessed to reach a lot of people, but I can share with you. When I began my career, I thought I had to be Mr. Buttoned up, you know, so proper. And because I came from the consulting world, you know, if you ever had a real job in organizational America and then you start doing this, it's hard not to be stiff, you know, and not share as much. But I remember the first time I ever shared with my audience back then. I shared with them about how when I started my career, I went broke. And I mean bankrupt broke, and I was in bankruptcy, and I was struggling to start my career, do my own seminars. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, people were making fun of me. I'm sure people are making fun of me right now on this live cast. You get used to that part. But. But, you know, it was new and it was scary. And I'll never forget, though, that after I shared that, so many people would come up to me and, like, I've struggled with that, too. I've been bankrupt Or I came from poverty, and I worked hard and I made it, too. And people would share their stories with me, and it was really inspiring and taught me that, you know, people won't believe your successes if they don't believe the struggle. You got to share where you struggled more in life, and that feels like a risk. But, you know, you got to be honest. Does your family and your friends and the people you serve, do they know what you really think, what you really feel, what you really desire in life, what you're really going after, what you need? Because if they don't know that about you, that's not taking risks. Look, being quiet and avoiding difficult conversation is not taking risks, and it's not the path to growth. The path to growth for so many of us is another level of personal authenticity, another level of personal sharing. And if you don't do that, then you're not risking. You're just going through the motions. So I would say that today, when you're thinking about the next level of growth for yourself, think about risk. When you think about risk, think about it in these three ways. Okay? Number one, think about, how can I make my process even more difficult? How can I take on a challenge that's hard for me, that would push me outside of my comfort zone? Number two, how can I do something different? I mean, even though I don't need to do something different, like, really switch things up? And then, number three, do something more personal. Share something more personal. And watch how those risks start rewarding your life. Look, we can all go from, you know, an average person to an achiever, and we can all go from an achiever to a high performer. But it's going to take some new habits for you to get there. And I hope that this conversation about taking risks inspired you to think about just that. This can be your day for personal growth. This can be that day you committed to and you remember. You go, that was the day I.

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