Kwik Brain Episode 35: Supercharge Your Brain & Life with Brendon Burchard (Part 1)

Welcome to Kwik Brain, bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik.

Free your mind.

Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity.

I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear.

I knew what I needed to do and how to do it.

I know kung fu.

Show me.

Hi, Kwik Brain. So how do you supercharge your brain And your life? I'm very excited for the answer in this very special 3-part podcast with New York Times bestselling author Brendon Burchard. Now, this is a very rare conversation on how to activate the 10 human drives that shape everything you think, feel, and do in life. So how does this relate to supercharging your Kwik Brain? According to Brendon, our brains are hardwired to meet very specific human drives, and learning how to harness and activate these drives is the secret to success and happiness. Now, I've known Brendon for almost 10 years. I've spoken at his High Performance Academy and World Greatest Speaker events. He's spoken at our Kwik Learning Superhero U conferences. I love his books so much, I've gifted hundreds of copies to my friends. And Larry King and I even co-hosted the launch party for his mega-hit book, The Motivation Manifesto. Brendon is a master trainer and coach. If you know him, you know he has the highest level of caring, commitment, and mastery. In this conversation, he will challenge the beliefs and behaviors that keep you from being extraordinary. Now, if you enjoy this episode, make sure you do 2 things. Number one, subscribe so you can receive the next 2 parts to our conversation. And number 2, Brendon has a brand new book. It's called High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Became That Way. Whether you want to get more done, lead others better, develop skills faster, or dramatically increase your sense of joy and confidence, the habits in this book will help you to achieve it. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Look, if there's anything broken or not fully charged in your life, let's use your mind, your human drives. Let's activate them to make you feel fully alive. So if you want, I'll walk you through those human drives.

Definitely. I want to go through it and, you know, You mentioned in the book some of the neuroscience also talking about neuroplasticity, but you're just another example of somebody through focus and attention and commitment and having the right strategies because I know you're a strategist. Why don't we jump into the 10 drives? Now you break it down into baseline drives and forward drives. What's the distinction between the two?

Yeah. Just what you said, by the way, is just profound. I had to learn it when I was hurt, but nothing in life is fixed. Gravity, physics is fixed, but your relationship is not fixed. It's fluid. Your potential is not fixed. It's just like the universe. It tends towards growth. And so as you choose to expand, the good news is your brain, literally, you can not only re-fire, but as they say, rewire neurons and neural connections in your mind to not only actually regrow parts of people's brains, I mean physically reengage and restrengthen physical components of their neural connections, and to create unique experiences and to create practices that literally release more of a given molecule, or what most people in the neuroscience world refer to as a hormone, in your brain. You want to experience more happiness in your life? Do these activities because we've proven in neuroscience that they actually release more dopamine, more vasopressin, more oxytocin so that you feel more happy, more elated, more connected. Now we know how to do that. That's amazing. That's astounding stuff. And so these human drives are all taught in that context that you can Strengthen and rebuild not just your brain, but your life. And so the baseline drives, these are the most fundamental of what it takes for us, not even, it's not even just to be happy, but certainly to be satisfied and to feel secure. So these are the drives, the baseline drives at an umbrella level, at the big picture, the 30,000-foot level if you will. The baseline drives function These are our drives for self-knowledge and social connection. Self-knowledge and social connection. That's the big picture. And here's what the 5 drives are that make us experience that and want that. The first drive is the human drive for control. That we want to have an element of control over our lives. And everyone listening to this, you know the times, the worst times of your life, when you were struggling the most and you were scared the most, you were the most fearful and things were not turning out, is when you had no control, right? And that oftentimes for some people feels terrible.

Mm-hmm.

The opposite also about the drive for control, I know a woman, her name was Sarah, and she was, I mean, this woman had everything dialed in. I mean, she had, her life was so organized. And she had calendars for her calendars and checklists for her checklists. She was the most put-together person I've ever met. Her level of control was unbelievable. And she was miserable. And so in understanding the human drives, we have to learn that they can all be activated in a positive or negative way in our lives. And control is the one that most people use Negatively, out of all the 5 drives. What they tend to do is they try to gobble up more control in their lives and they try to control other people. And by gobbling up more control, they lose the ability not only to be present and fluid with life and its ever-changing nature, but they also end up really upsetting a lot of people because everything has to be just so. And so it becomes obsessive or it becomes a situation in which it's selfish. And so this can be activated in a negative way. But to be more fully alive, a very simple thing they can do to activate the drive for control is to do what we call control for new. Which is, you ought to be spending just as much time trying to think of new things that you can go and experience and do in life as you spend trying to manage and schedule What people try to do is they try to control the world, control the agenda, get everything in place, make everything perfect, and they're spending so much time for that control, which gives a baseline level of security, and yet it sucks away life when we're not also actively planning new experiences. Going to— I mean, it can be as simple as going to new places in our cities, going on new experiences with our lovers, with our family. Creating new ways of trying things, like approaching things from a fresh perspective. Controlling for new is having that perspective that looks for what can I create or do now that will challenge me? And what's interesting about this is how much this relates to neuroscience. That, matter of fact, they found in all of satisfaction studies for life satisfaction with people, That what really activates them the most is the sense, usually, of dopamine. And that the sense of dopamine comes from the molecule and the hormone release of dopamine in the back of the brainstem. And when that dopamine hits, we feel enlivened. Well, what drops that? Well, new experiences are like the Pez dispenser of dopamine. That when we do a new experience, it forces us into presence. It turns our brain on through the molecule of dopamine. To say, hey, pay attention. This is new. We haven't seen this before. We need to understand and master this. What's going on? And it feels, it feels like almost a heightened level of engagement. That comes from controlling for new.

What is the second baseline drive that you talk about?

Yeah, and I'll move more fluidly through these. The second one is our drive for competence. Like you watch a little child, you know, strolling around, or a little infant, you know, a toddler bouncing around. Their whole world is about competence. Understanding and mastering their world. They're trying, it's not just control, but it's also about exactly what you're teaching with your course here, learning. That we have to feel like we understand our environment. When we don't understand our environment, we don't feel like we have control, but we also have a different level of identity. In that we have to feel like we can walk, the more that you feel like you can walk into any situation, learn, figure out, and handle it, the more you're going to have self-esteem, self-reliance, and frankly, success. And so the simple thing you can do with competence is to set— what I would challenge people, and everyone's learning here, we challenge people, you know what, set a learning challenge for yourself every 30 days.

Hmm.

So every month, have a new learning challenge for yourself. What are you going to learn That month that is new, that pushes you beyond what you're already capable of into the realm of mastery, where it does stretch your knowledge, your skills, and abilities. What is it? Because if that's not there, there's never going to be the zest for life. Because the zest for learning, just as you're teaching, opens us up to a whole other level of experience in life.

Yes.

So competence can be activated that way. When people feel incompetent, they feel incapable, And they feel like they just don't want to go out there. But when they feel competent, in psychology it's often called the competence-confidence loop. The more competence you have, the more confidence you have to try new things. The more you have the confidence to try new things, the more you develop more competence, and it becomes this great upward spiral. You know, one thing I'll say, if you haven't checked it out, it's one of the most important things, is the ability to develop more competence is actually a study of adult learning and there's science to it. And they've proven, there's 10 factors in the book that actually show whether or not you will successfully learn something or not. And as you look at these 10 factors, it will tell you, like if you're trying to figure out, will my student succeed at learning this, ask them these 10 questions. If these 10 questions that are in the book and the resources we give out with it, They're like a competence guide. If people don't— we do these in corporations. If people just don't feel like they're competent based on these 10 things, they won't even try it. So effort level is completely dictated by competence level. Once you know that, you can unlock the mysteries of the universe.

Wow, we're only on drive number 2. That's awesome.

I'll go fast, okay.

No, no, no, this is so rich. That's why I love the book so much. But what's the third drive?

You know, the third drive is about congruence. That the human drive is oriented towards integrity and being congruent with who we know we are and who we know we're capable of being. And when we aren't congruent with who we know we are, we feel like a fake, a phony, a sellout. When we feel like we're on path to Really expressing who we really are and to doing the things that we know really bring us joy and to moving towards our highest self, those are the times when we feel most activated in life. And some people, they get off that path and they accept a certain level of story in their life of who they are. But internally their drive says, dude, you are more than this. And because they feel incongruent based on how they're living. I like to say, some things, man, when you talk with people out there, their real potential and within them there's a greatness. There is something in them that they feel like a lion, but they're acting like a mouse.

Hmm.

If you feel like a lion inside, but your daily habits are like a mouse, you'll be miserable because it's incongruent. So to be congruent has to start first with claiming what is your identity. So for example, what are the 3 words that define you that you're going to live towards and be and exemplify every single day of your life? And because you know what, if you don't define it, you can't be it. You know, it's like you teach creativity, right? You ask a group of people, raise your hand if you consider yourself good at creativity or you're creative. And all these people raise their hands and you say, okay, what's creativity mean? And they're like, uh. It's like if you don't know it, if you've never defined it, you can't know if you're being it. You can't evaluate. You can't describe. So everyone should decide, well, what am I? If I had to define myself or define what I'm going to leave out in 3 words, and 3 words are just arbitrary, it's just an example for the call, what would those be? And to live those every single day. Like mine, part of my 3 words, and I have 3 words for myself and then 3 words for how I interact with other people. And those are the 6 words that define my entire life. But for me, what I do for myself, my words are present, engaged, and bold. And as a matter of fact, this year I changed it from engaged to enthusiastic. Present, enthusiastic, and bold. You meet me and you're like, yeah, that's totally Brendon. It's not an accident, because I'm trying to be that every day because I see that as my best self. And everyone should do that to be more congruent. But here's the difference too, when they do high-performance studies. There's a massive difference between self-identity definition and values definition.

Hmm.

So what you have with those ones like love and growth, as an example, those are values definition, and those become great evaluative tools. in life to make decisions upon. However, they don't always necessarily guide who you are because, see, you are not growth.

Hmm.

Growth is something you achieve. Growth is actually an outcome definition, right? So at a personal level, you have to say, who am I? Not just what do I value? It's a very different game of being congruent. You have to be congruent with your value, by the way. I'm not discounting those. But we have to start with first, who am I? Then, what do I value? And they are, of course, tangled in the spider web of self. But there's a difference. And having that distinction of who am I, knowing that and having those 3 words for self, not just values, will also take you to another level. I love that.

I hope you're enjoying this conversation as much as I am. Here are 3 things to do right now. Number 1, share this episode with someone you know must hear this message. Tag Brendon and myself so I can properly thank you. Number 2, if you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe to our show so you receive the next 2 parts of our conversations. You absolutely won't want to miss it. And finally, number 3, go to Amazon, go to Barnes& Noble, and and get Brendon's brand new book, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way. According to Brendon, it turns out that just 6 habits move the needle the most in helping you succeed. Anyone can practice these habits, and when they do, extraordinary things happen in their lives, relationships, and career. Put simply, this book will help you win. Read it, apply it, devour it, enjoy it.