Why Being A Cynic Isn't Serving You And How To Shift Your Mindset For The Better (From GrowthDay LA)

Cynics, they think you're going to fail and they think you're a bad person. You got to go back and do the mental work to teach yourself to recognize the possibility, to have optimism again. If you have high distrust, I want you not to be shocked by a low bank account. It takes a lot of trust of others to build real wealth. Things happened and they sucked. We didn't want it, it wasn't okay. But we don't get to blame it for our current trust issues. Cynicism is the number one reason that people who do have opportunity fail to draw from it. I can tell you why you won't be wealthy. It's the easiest thing. I told you. The number one distinction I've learned in 17 years see possibility. They see possibility. This is why you'll lose the money or you won't chase the money in a healthy way. As we'll talk about, it's the two killers. It just will absolutely destroy you. And here's the truth is most people have been so destroyed by these top two things, they don't realize the freedom of the bottom two. For those watching and can't see, slide behind me says envy and cynicism. I want to start there. Envy and cynicism. See, if your drive, if your mental look, is to see other people of and envy them. Like envy it. Like want it for yourself, but feel bad that they have it, that's envy. Like, I want it for myself, but they shouldn't have it. And then you add cynicism. What cynicism means is it basically is a deep pessimism and distrust. Cynicism means deep pessimism and distrust. So watch how these two combine to kill all of your motivation, all of your drive, all of your chances. And I want to let you know, most people have these in spades. They don't realize how deep it is. They have envy. And you'll know if you ever had envy if you said, oh, those rich people. I was with a group recently and somebody said that she didn't know that two of us were of high means, if you will. Materialistically, I mean, I generally mean it. We, we were at this lunch, she didn't know, and she goes, all these rich people right now. And I just said, where does that come from? All those rich people. So wait a minute. All those rich people, what are her chances of ever finding wealth? Ever see the body and the mind? The spirit won't go after something that you despise because remember the first point of congruence, your body Your mind, your brain, your spirit. You will not go after something you despise. So if your parents taught you to despise those rich people, you won't do the work. You won't accumulate. If you accumulate, you will spend, spend, spend. Because your unconscious says, I don't want to be one of those rich people. Often I tell people, if you find yourself saying that, and by the way, I had said that before I learned I needed to get around successful people. I was saying all those rich people, like other people say all those ethnicities. It's usually a general lack of awareness. And sitting with people like that, that's where our diversity struggles usually come from. It's immediate biases and blocks that we have. And we've never even sat with a person like that. And we're just judging them. We're just hating on them. We're just coming from some unconscious feeling about them that we don't even know. That was me. With successful people. It's one reason I made sure I was like, I gotta. I gotta get around successful people. I don't know any. I don't know anyone working as hard as I want to work to achieve the things I want to achieve, to serve at the levels I want. I gotta get around those people. I gotta figure it out. So envy often sounds like all those rich people, they shouldn't have it. They're bad, all of them are bad. And rich is bad. Could you imagine? So check yourself. A lot of wealthy people employ like 80% of the U.S. so if you like jobs, you probably like wealthy people. Do you like jobs? You like wealthy people? It's really a weird mindset. Something happened and shifted to the United States where having wealth was bad. And I want to share that with you. It's because often cynicism took hold of us from the media. Cynicism, deep pessimism and distrust. And this is rampant in our culture now. It's like cynicism's so, you know, it's. It's rampant. I don't know how to describe it. It's like. It's like a poison right now. People are drowning in pools of pessimism. They're constantly thinking, everything's bad, everything's negative, nothing's going to get good. And the pessimism is so deep, and sometimes you have it in your heart you're pessimistic. You don't believe your spouse can change. And even if they say they can change, the cynicism kicks in. I don't trust you. And you're going to do mean things. I don't trust you. You're going to do mean things. It's going to turn out bad. I don't trust you. You're gonna do mean things. It's gonna turn out bad. I don't trust you. You're gonna do mean things. It's gonna turn out bad. And this wheel goes on in our relationships and in our culture and our businesses. I know a lot of business owners who went broke because they got on that wheel. They spiraled out. They worked equally hard, but mentally, they spiraled out of the business. They didn't believe in the business anymore. They didn't believe in their team anymore. They started distrusting their team, being mean to their team, they started detaching. They were still working hard, but they were pulling away because cynicism was starting to poison. It corroded them. Even though they showed up and did the work. Some of you, you're showing up and doing the work, but you lost trust in possibility. So you're not whistling while you work. You're corroded while you work. You're angry while you work. Why do I have to do this? F these people, they don't work as hard as me. Not going to turn out anymore any good anyway. And this happens in people's lives, and they're not aware of it. So I hope that just talking about it, if you recognize any of these thoughts, you need to do some deep work. You need a life coach, you need a therapist. You got to read NORMAN Vincent Peale 17 times. You got to go back and do the mental work to teach yourself to recognize the possibility, to have optimism again. Did you know there's a high correlation between optimists and higher income levels? Did you know optimists also live longer? That's an actual truth, by the way. Some people are like, I don't know that's actually real. If you can see the good in the future, if you can see the good in the future, that's the seeing the possibility. You can see the good in the future and see good in others. Because you know what? Cynics, they think you're going to fail, and they think you're a bad person. In the modern world, we call that Twitter. I thought it was funny, too. It's like, oh, everybody's bad. Everybody. Like, listen, I wish you could hang out with me. I wish we go. There's a mall somewhere. I wish we could go to the mall and walk. I walk by people, strangers all the time, and. And my mind, literally, I trained myself to do this because I recognized I was cynical after grad school. Because in grad school they taught you to be smart and academically decisive and recognize distinctions. And once you recognize distinctions and you're smart, you know what you do? You start cutting people apart with your logic. Because you're logical and they're illogical and there's only that choice. Their logic doesn't make sense. Mine does. They're stupid and they have bad intent. That's what we start doing. And I recognize. You ever hear yourself say something negative about a person? You don't even know them. You're like, whoa, where did that come from? And you're like, was that what I ate last night? Why am I. And I reckon I was saying weird stuff. And the reason was is because I was so broke in this fancy amazing city and I got bitter about it. Now, bitterness is a dressed up word for envy and cynicism. It's just easier to say. And people can justify their bitterness. If you say envy, oh, I'm not envious. If you say cynicism, I'm not. Oh, no, I'm bitter. You know, I have some reason to be bitter. Of course I'm bitter. I'm divorced. Some people do. They justify bitterness. But if you say envy and cynicism, but I recognize I started judging people. So I said, I need to turn this around. I read my Norman Vincent Peale and I was like, okay, if you want a recommendation. The tough minded optimist. By the way, I know a lot of you have learned from personal development like I have Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill. Yeah. Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer. Oh my gosh. Come on. You ready? Those people changed my life. But so did Alfred Adler, Carl Rogers, Anyone? Abraham Mazzlo, maybe. Okay, okay, we got some humanist psychologists in the room. Thank you. Okay. Albert Bandura? Anyone? Okay, so the psychologists less. But yeah, those were huge for me too. But they taught me my thoughts will dictate my life. And so I have to be careful. And what I learned was my thoughts were often negative towards other people for no reason. And I were also negative to myself for no reason. And the reason I said I would love for you to hang out with me one day is because if you and I are walking in public, there's something happening in my mind. And what's happening in my mind is I'm saying I wish you joy, health, love and abundance. I wish you joy, health, love and abundance. I say it all the time. I'm walking down There I'm standing in Starbucks. I'm watching somebody. They're walking by. My mind's saying, I wish you joy, health, love and abundance. It's just saying in my mind. It's like, it happened so fast now. It's happened so many millions of times in my head that if you believe in the law of attraction, well, there you go. I don't know. I just. It just. I say it all the time. But I had to take control of my cynical mind and input the thoughts. Raise your hand if you follow. Now, some of you did that when you got into personal development, but you haven't been architecting those thoughts recently. You've been consuming information, but it's derailing you. When you first got into personal development, you had affirmation cards nearby. You had things on the mirror to yourself. You wrote down some quotes and put it on the fridge. You had it underlined. You'd read it several times. You memorized it. Remember memorization? Used to. Anyone? No? Okay. Yeah, we don't do that anymore. And, yeah, I mean, how many got into personal development? Like a real dork. Come on out in there. I know, I got. Okay, that's good. So you got into it. I want you to get back into that part where you installed the thoughts, not just analyze the thoughts. Our culture went whoop into analyzation. Oh, she must have those thoughts because of her childhood, because of where she grew up, because of her culture, because of. And we go 70 rounds trying to explain her bad thoughts versus going, hey, babe, this is better. You can install the thoughts up here. I'm not saying you shouldn't analyze them. Personal growth is about self reflection and self awareness first, self acceptance second, self accountability third, and action fourth. It's like the gates to change. It's always the same. If you're ever wondering, why can't I change my life? I'm like, you didn't walk through the gates yet. The gates are awareness, acceptance, accountability, and action. If you've studied my work before, hopefully you know that. If you haven't, take Transformation Week in Growth Day. Awareness, acceptance, Accountability, and action. For a lot of people, they have the awareness. They've analyzed themselves. 70. I mean, you know your Myers Briggs and your Enneagrams and your healing cards and your mystic rivers and all. I mean, you know all these things. I'm like, that's amazing. What are the five thoughts you should have that would help you dominate and win the weak and serve at your highest levels? What are those thoughts? Tell me those. Right? I can Explain myself. Okay. Can you manifest yourself two different things? Two different things. A lot of people can explain themselves, explain their story, explain where they came from. They'll tell you all day long at lunch why their life sucks and all the things that happen to them. And f my parents and this person, there's a hole, and you're like, yeah, go. What are five things you could say to yourself to fire yourself up, to win? What are five things you could say to other people to make them feel seen, heard, appreciated, loved? Stop trying to explain why your marriage is the way it is. Put the new thoughts and the new behaviors in and give that a whirl, baby. Give it a whirl. Oh, my gosh. It's so important, the cynicism. If you have high distrust, I want you not to be shocked by a low bank account. If you have high distrust, I want you not to be shocked by a low bank account. It takes a lot of trust of others to build real wealth. It takes a lot of trust of others to love other people. And no one unlocks the trust but you. You're the only one. You can't blame anyone. Please listen closely. And this is where I differentiate as a coach versus a therapist. I'm not a therapist. I train them, but I'm not one. This is a big differentiator. I want to tell you this. You don't get to blame anyone for your trust issues. Things happened and they sucked. We didn't want it, it wasn't okay. But we don't get to blame it for our current trust issues. We can understand it by saying these incidences happen, and I applied this meaning. But if I keep only blaming that, and I don't take some personal responsibility to now ask, how do I want to feel and think and behave? Now, the most efficacious study in all of therapy that's ever been done is called cognitive behavioral therapy. It is rooted in a very simple idea. You can change your thoughts and the meaning you apply to things in real time, and that will change your emotions and your reality. It's a deep science and probably the most studied therapy of all time. Now, it's. It's very clear. You've got to get ahold of your thoughts, and I want you to not blame people and just go, I'm here today. Let me put some new stuff up here. If I. When. When I was going through that pivotal time in my life, right before my car accident, some of you know I was suicidal, and when I was suicidal, if that shift hadn't happened, with that car accident where I said, I, I don't know how to be happy. I need to learn to be happy. Before that, I was cynical. All these happy people, they're so fake. Who said it? Be honest. Anyone ever. Oh, those happy. Oh, Brennan, he's so fake. He's not that happy. Let me talk to his mom. And then you find out mom's happier than me. Suck us. Oh, she's good. And that's what we do, though. All those happy people must be fake. Oh, those healthy people, they must all be on steroids or something. You just tell yourself you're immediately cynical. You don't believe they could be that happy, that wealthy, that happy, that healthy. And so that disbelief, boom. You anchor down, you stop. Cynicism is the number one reason that people who do have opportunity fail to draw from it. They just have distrust. And so therapists are right. Your trust issues are wrecking your life. So figure out what those are. You gotta trust your team. You gotta trust opportunities. It's hard. Will some people screw you, yes or no? Yeah, some people will, but not all those people, right? So you say all those people. You're being racist. I thought it was funny, too. Don't divide yourself ever. Those people, soon you say those. You've created an us versus them. You've pushed them away and you've categorized in such a way, you're shutting yourself down from a bigger picture. You've got to keep yourself open to a bigger picture. There's extraordinary people from all walks of life and in your own hometowns, and most of you, if you studied my work before, the truth is, most of you in a room like this, you've already met. You've already met a millionaire who could open some doors, who could mentor you, who could show you. And if you don't believe that 1 in 10Americans today are millionaires. 1 in 10. So for 10 people you met, one was probably a very wealthy person. And I'm not saying you got to go ask them for mentorship or all these favors. What I'm suggesting is there is more opportunity. That's just millionaires, wealthy people. It's probably three out of 10. And it's hard to understand that when you're stuck. Now, again, I know I'm talking to a different group here, but I also recognize that this will be recorded and I'll be sharing it in the future. To Growth Day members. And listen, we all struggle. I want you to know if the struggle is coming from up here with distrust and envy. Because you know what I can also predict if you're going to break through, because who breaks through that bottom part of that slide? Enthusiasm and encouragement. Enthusiasm and courage. When you've got enthusiasm, when it's in there. See, here's the thing. Wealthy people, they have enthusiasm to solve problems. They have enthusiasm to build teams. They have enthusiasm to do the thing. That enthusiasm shows up and shows up and shows up and shows up and shows up. Not envy. Envy stops you. Enthusiasm says, I want to go out and do this thing. Wealthy people want to go out and do the thing. Everyone say, do the thing. You got to want to go out and do the thing. Now, remember, you might have to fire yourself up to do that. I got to look at the battle board in the morning and turn on. It's like, you might have to have some growth practices that help you turn that enthusiasm on if it's not natural for you. But you gotta do the work. The second piece there is courage. Oh, I want you to have a courageous 2024. Who's ready for a courageous 2024? So write it down. What would demonstrate courage for you in 2024? In the next 12 months, as I'm talking, just be thinking about what would demonstrate courage in your life. What would be a show of courage? Is it trying a new business? Is it doubling down on something that's working? Is it joining a group? Is it asking for a promotion? Is it moving? Is it starting your own video? Is it turning on the camera? Getting in front of the stage? Is it raising your hand, asking for help? What is it for you? I always tell people, a lot of people have a gratitude list, but they don't have a courage list. And they wonder why they're stuck. I'm like, oh, you know, if you've studied me in growth, they've heard me teach this. I never want you to finish Friday. One of our Friday finishers, we call it don't finish Friday without making a bold ask. Every week, I want you to make a bold ask. I learned this from wealthy people. The stuff they ask for is unbelievable. You're like, man. But guess what? Everyone judges them for that. They're bold. They're asking for you to work overtime. They're bold. They're asking for people to give them loans. They're bold. They're asking people to join their startup when they don't know what's going to happen. They're bold. They're asking for a favor from their neighbor to mentor them. They're bold. And we think, oh, they're so bold, it's so inappropriate. And I'm like, and I'm over here asking for three months free rent. See, you're asking for something. What you ask for from the universe, is it the levels that you want to play at? Yet some people, what they keep asking for lacks courage. They're not asking for things with boldness or courage. B, it. Their asks are too small for the fate they're dreaming of. Their asks are too small for the fate or the destiny they dream of. Their asks are just so simplistic. And by the way, that's a. Make the asks, but also have that courage list. Also have that courage list. I want you to have that list. Appreciation list or gratitude list. But also that boldness or that courage list. Wealthy people, I'm telling you, they ask, it stunts me. They'll walk in the bank confidently and ask for a loan. And they're just starting. They just do that stuff. And you're like, whoa. You know, I was with the startup recently. They just announced that they raised $7 million. I was sitting down with these guys, and the guy looked at me like, literally, he has an idea. He's like, brendan, I know you're gonna be so happy if you contribute. I'd like to open a million dollars up for you to invest right now. I was like, yeah, I love that boldness. I ain't giving it to you, but I love that boldness. Not my lane, but let me connect you with some people in my lane. I love it. Go ask. Why aren't you asking for more? Because you got disappointed in your teenage years. Why aren't you asking for more? You got discouraged in your 20s. Why aren't you asking for more? She already said no. He already said no. Why aren't you asking for more? Because it's scary. You don't ask for more because you might get turned down. We hate rejection. We hate to be judged. But guess what? The greatest salespeople in the world, they got, they know you gotta knock on more doors. And you're gonna knock on a thousand doors. They're gonna say no. A hundred are gonna say yes. And that's just the odds. You gotta deal with it, right? When I put my first stuff up on the Internet, it was like, no one bought. No one bought. No one bought. It was like, why are only one out of a thousand buying? Then someone says, that's pretty good. I go, really? Oh, okay. He said, keep going. I said, really? Yeah, keep going. Some of the best answer you ever get encouraged is keep going, but keep expecting. Seeing that Possibility. Know when you're defeated. We can talk about that later. Know when you're defeated. Know when that defeat mind is going on. I literally call it that for myself. I'm like, oh, that's the defeat mind. Defeat mind is talking to me right now. I don't need defeat mind to talk to me because defeat mind doesn't solve anything. Defeat mind stops me. Defeat mind hurts me. What I need to learn to do is I need to turn on the possibility mind. Okay, what is possible? What can I do? What steps can I make? And I just got to notice. Can you listen to those two devils and angels? Can you listen when defeat has. Gotcha. Right? I love that thing. I was in a. In a room recently and I was giving a speech, and in the back of the room, the green room, they had this little. I think somebody left it there, you know, have those big bulbs for the. I think people put makeup and stuff back there. I was wondering what. What's all these green rooms for? Do you have a bottle of water? And they're like, that's all you need. I'm like, give me a bottle of water. But I was backstage, I was having, like, questions about myself. Not this event, but another one. And I was back there and I was kind of pacing. I was getting my body ready to come out and jump and do the things I do. And I happened to look over, and on the mirror was this little post it note, and it said, not today, Satan. Have you seen those? Oh, I love that line. I was like, satan, you're not going to get me today. And that's to me, that defeat mind, the thing that wants to stop me, the resistance, that thing that prevents me from courageously and boldly acting. I want to live a life of courage. Anyone else? Yes. Turn the person right, shake them, say you're more courageous than you know.