The 7 Ways To REPROGRAM Your Mind For ABUNDANCE & SUCCESS | Brendon Burchard & Lewis Howes

You have to honor the struggle involved in building a business. Because if you complain about it, you moan about it, anything you apply hate to quickly dies. Ooh. Don't just get more stuff done.

Get more of the right stuff done. And really go in on it. And if you keep dampening yourself based.

On what other people tell you to be or how you're supposed to be, then all of a sudden one day you wake up unfulfilled. And you wake up unfulfilled, guess what? Not easy to be motivated. Not easy to be motivated. Then guess what? You're not gonna create the content The curriculum, the products, the programs, the business.

Most people never realize how important their mindset is. That's why in this video, Brandon Burchard sits down to talk about how to reprogram your mind for abundance and success.

I think what high performers do is more intentionality, more exerting of will, certainly more discipline. that's what's happening. That's why there's magic starting to happen. And then we compare it or combine it with the social habits, which we can walk through, and it was like, that's what makes it all come together.

So what's the first social habit?

Increased productivity. It's kinda like no duh, high performers are productive dudes. But what the uniqueness is, they're not just pushing more paper or checking more boxes, 'cause I both know a lot of people who, you know, their busy work isn't their life's work, so they don't feel fulfilled from their productivity. High performers are fulfilled from what they're accomplishing, which is a big, big, big measure. And here's what they did. They identified their primary field of interest, which is a big deal. Then they identified what we call PQO, prolific quality output, which is what's the outputs that matter and get recognized and rewarded the most in this primary field of interest. And then they went all in at it. They became almost singular focus. When Jobs came back to Apple and got rid of all the product lines, said these are what we're doing, that was prolific quality output. We're gonna be prolific quality output on these things, not those. So it's important, like for me, I thought for, there was a period in my life where I thought my primary field of interest was personal development. and that's what most of the world knows me for. I've never posted any marketing on my Facebook page in terms of like marketing advice. I teach that, that's way down in my funnel. My front, my YouTube, my podcast, Facebook are all just personal development. So I really identified with that. And then I launched my first book, Life's Golden Ticket, which was my life's message, and it kind of bombed. It had bestseller and then it died, you know, bam, pow. And it really bummed me out. And I realized why. I said, you know what? I've been thinking my primary field of interest is personal development. And so I did all the book, I read all the books, I went to all the seminars, I studied with the gurus, I became friends with Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, the big names. That's what I thought it was. And then I had to make a shift. And I shifted my primary field of interest to how to share a message. And it completely shifted. When I started learning, I was like, you know what my primary field of interest needs to be is how to share a message, because I already got the message. And then I said, well, what's prolific in this area? Well, what's prolific is what's recognized in this particular area right at that time, this is 2000, you know, 6, 7. Online video was just coming in. I mean, YouTube and Facebook were young.

YouTube was like 2004, I think, or 2005 or something like that.

Young. And, but what's mattering now is video. And I went all in. You know, I've created 13 online courses because in my primary field of interest, sharing that personal development message was everything. So I learned how to share everything. And I went from, you know, kind of a busted first book to an 18 months, 4.6 million in revenue.

Wow.

Because I learned how to sell. and I learned that sharing and selling a message was just as important because if you don't make the money, you can't sustain the message. I had the message, but I wasn't making any money. I was the poor broke writer dude. And I was like, so I shifted my primary field of interest and I went, I gotta understand marketing. I gotta understand business. And what's gonna be prolific in those, in what I'm doing now, and that's.

Creating products to sell.

Oh, I gotta create my products, higher quality products. I showed you like my brochures and yeah, beautiful stuff. Just like super branding, you know, all my books, you know, I created, I did all the covers of all my books and I obsessed about, I was like, the look and the feel and the stuff I didn't care about before. And that changed everything. So what I tell people is if you want to increase, don't just get more stuff done, get more of the right stuff done and really go in on it. I mean, super obsessed about the quality and really focus, you know, it's that old saying, the main thing, is to keep the main thing, the main thing. Exactly.

Yeah. But you got, you were careful what.

Your main thing is. It's tough. Because, you know, and I especially, more abundance, high performers really struggle because you have, I mean, 50 doors.

Opportunities. 50 doors.

And you want to take all of them, but you'd have to cut yourself up into 50 places. So you got to really identify what that means. The book helps people figure out what is that per lift, what's my primary field of interest really at this stage of my life? what's the prolific quality output I need to do here? And then it teaches them the habits during the day, like block time.

How.

To set intention and release tension, how to know when to quit on stuff. All that's in that book as well.

Powerful. So productivity, they know how to be productive on the right things.

Yeah.

Awesome.

This one, surprising, the next habit is high performers develop influence more than those around them. It's not 'cause they're cool. Amy, look at me. I'm not getting ahead on my cool factor here. I just got these new Nikes. I walk into the store, I walk into the store, I was like, what's your newest shoe? They're like, these ones. I'm like, I need that. And they're like, why? I'm like, 'cause Lou's has sneaks, man. I wear suits or I'm either on stage in a suit or at my studio, kind of formal, too. I was like, man, I gotta get some sneaks. I said, Give me your newest sneaks. So I'm not getting ahead on the cool, I don't develop influence 'cause I'm cool. It's not your personality that gives you influence. It's how you treat other people. And specifically the way that people high performers gain influence is, is this way too much? I'm, I'm, yeah, you know, get it.

How do you develop other people?

Here's how you develop influence.

If you really want high level of.

Influence, obviously you gotta do all the basics, treat people nice, be kind. And in the book, what I do is with each habit, I say, here's the basics, but then I go, here's what the needle mover practices are. The highest performing influencers, what they're doing, often they don't know they're doing it, by the way. The first thing they're doing is they're teaching people how to think. A lot of your show gained influence, I really believe, because you're really good at teaching people how to think.

Thank you.

You're shaping their mindset, but high performers are really doing it explicitly, and you do this too, where you say, Here's how to think about that, guys. Or high performing leaders tell their team, Here's how we should be thinking about ourselves. Here's how we should be thinking about the competition. Here's how we think about the future of the company. They're saying it, they're explicit more often. Here's how to think. I mean, what is it? The seventh most read book in the history of the world is Think and Grow Rich.

Crazy.

It became that way because he taught people how to think about money. We have to tell our audience how to think about things. The second thing they're doing is they're challenging people. And they're challenging in a specific way. If you listen to a great orator, a great speaker, The pros, when I know I'm like, oh, this person studied speech before, is they challenge the audience in three ways. They challenge the audience's character. Then they challenge the audience's connections, their relationships. Then they challenge the audience's contributions, what they're giving. You hit all three of those, the audience is like, I have to listen to her. I have to listen to him. Because not only are they shaping how I should be thinking, 'cause maybe I was thinking wrong, But now they're pushing me because, you know, it's just like a great coach. The greatest coaches, they're not just saying throw the ball better. They're like, Lewis, you're a better man than that.

Come on, man.

They're saying, look, you're treating your team like crap. They're like, look, you're not contributing to the team here. That's a different challenge than just throw the ball faster or catch the thing, you know. So I studied that from them, but those are the primary things. And the third thing, of course, is role modeling, you know.

Standing.

I mean, if I'm the bring the joy guy or I'm the honor, the struggle guy, or I'm the high performance.

Guy and I'm off my game, people.

Are gonna know that.

Yeah. So that's.

I'm always trying to role model what I do, which is hard when you're talking about high performance, because everyone thinks, well, don't you have a bad day? I'm like, dude, I have bad moments. I wouldn't say bad days because, yeah, I don't want to go to bed and feel like the day was bad. But at the same time, I think that's why they're developing influence. And so much of this, when I talk about habits, I talk about them in a different way than other people. Most people talk about habits like they just want the tricks to make it easy. This book is full of deliberate habits, meaning you have to consciously think about these and consciously will them consistently. I mean, this book, I think, will be kind of something people return to life. over and over and over because it's not ever going to be... I didn't want to write an easy book. I want to write a book that said, this is the hard stuff, but if you do it, the payoff is there.

Right.

Yeah. No, influence is one of the most powerful things. And if you can't influence or enroll people in your vision, then it's going to be hard to make the vision come to life. Yeah. That's it. So there's certain elements of how to gain that influence and how to be a role model and be effective and step up on all these different things you need to do to continue to be enrolling machine in your vision.

Yes, yes.

Whether you're working on a team, it's your business, it's whatever it is, it doesn't matter, but you've got to be supportive and enrolling to influence people. Yeah.

So I firmly believe that. And for, I mean, we have a lot of friends who probably listening who do social media or they're in marketing positions or they're trying to grow their business or their brand. And I tell people, oh, I said, you want, you want to make this podcast powerful, look at the last six months and ask yourself, how strategic have I been in telling my audience what to think? How strategic have I been in challenging my audience? How strategic have I been in role modeling the actions, thoughts and feelings I want my people to feel? And if you've been surviving and growing without that strategy, you're friggin awesome and lucky. Now your next level of high performance is let's get more strategic. That's what's gonna change the game for a lot of people generating their influence. Because people are like, how do you have five million on Facebook? I'm strategic about those things. It's a lot of like how to think, a lot of challenge. Like I'm constantly beating those because I also want people to do that for me. It's why I listen to your podcast. You do that for me. I listen to somebody, I was complimenting you, your Sarah Blakely interview was just outstanding. And that inspired me to think many ways differently.

Yeah.

You know, and you know, I both dear friends with Tony. Robbins and Robbins made his entire career on challenging people. I mean, your first hour at his seminar, you've been challenged more than you've probably been challenged the last decade of your life. And so, you know, be strategic about that. If your leaders in the room, stop placating your people. Like leaders, especially today, they want to be so popular with their people. And I say, popular is good. And that will come from kindness and role modeling the way. but challenge your people more strategically. That's why I get to work with, you know, I work at the Fortune 50 CEO level as a high performance coach. Those guys, they don't mess around. When they write that check to me, it's a quarter million dollars. They, if I don't get the result, I mean, in two weeks with them, if I don't start shifting them, I'm screwed. One of the first things I do with them, by the way, is I come in, I open up their calendar and we just start obliterating things on their calendar, stuff that's not the main thing anymore. and I'm constantly challenging them to return their focus to what matters. I'm constantly challenging them to challenge their teams. I'm constantly challenging them to be more optimistic or powerful or present, whatever it takes for that person. I get paid 'cause I challenge people more. That's it. So that's what led me to be a high performance coach. And by the way, that's not comfortable for me. I'm from Montana. Many of you guys listening who's been in my seminars, you meet my mom there. My mom's at my seminars. We are like the most laid back, like happy-go-lucky family you ever saw. Like my mom is, you know, what is she? 70 this year? Yeah, 70. And she's just, she's a spark plug. She's amazing. Yeah. She's amazing. So, but super, you know, like my family would never challenge somebody. I didn't come from that. I had to learn that. 'Cause if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have the influence, I wouldn't achieve things.

I think we need those challenges for ourselves. We need a challenge. It's like kind of like in a big game. You need a challenge to be able to see how, how great you can become.

Yes.

You need a competitor or you need something that you feel a little bit scared about or a little bit unsure about to see how you can rise up to that challenge. And if there is no challenge, we're never going to perform at the highest level.

Yeah.

I think it's we got to constantly challenge ourselves if we want to step into something new. Otherwise, we've developed a strength and a comfort zone of what we're comfortable with.

So I looked at my, my quotes. I was like, have I written much about greatness? And I found this quote that said, the journey to greatness often begins the moment that challenge and contribution become more important than comfort and ease.

That's a good one.

Yeah. It's really good. And so we have to challenge ourselves, but the habit here, the social habit, is develop influence. And you develop influence. Teach people how to think, role model away, and then make sure that you are challenging people in those three areas. Challenge their character. You got to do that delicately. The book teaches you how. Make sure you challenge relationships because that's so important and challenge people what they're giving. And if you do that strategically enough, you know, part of your message in greatness is challenging people to follow their dreams. You say it all the time. It's one reason I love your show. You're constantly challenging people to follow their dreams. And not just like, hey, follow your dreams. Like, hey, do this. Yeah, I love that.

You know, I think it's one of the reasons that the show is so awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it. So there's mayhem that comes with being an influencer. What does that mean? So you're telling me that I can't just be an artist and put out my content and I'm gonna start making money and everything's gonna be happy, go lucky and work forever.

Yeah, some of your family's gonna hate your success. Gosh. And you're following. Yeah. You know, you're gonna be a lot of haters.

Some of your friends are gonna be.

Like, what the hell are you doing? Who are you? I don't get this. Why are you posing? You know, some of you know, Some of your girlfriends and your boyfriends are going to be like, you know, too much time away or why can't you be more present? Your mind is always on your dreams. You know, people, there will be relationship mayhem when you commit to your dreams. And that's what the universe set up to test if you wanted it or not. Because it's not just the mayhem of like, oh wow, I got money now or I'm nervous because that's always going to be there. Like, I'm nervous right now. I'm talking to Lewis Howes, right? I'm on a show. There's a wonderful woman over here. There's cameras going, I'm like, Ah, I'm a little weirded out. I don't do a lot of interviews. I'm great on camera, in my studio, doing my thing.

Alone.

Yes, here it's new to me. I'm sweating, I'm all nervous. There's always going to be mayhem. There's the internal mayhem of the self-doubt, the fear, the frustration, the lack of motivation and discipline that just upsets us that we all have. But the real mayhem that really messes up people in the influencer space is the relationship mayhem. your brother don't get you, your spouse doesn't support you, you have a partner who steals, you have somebody who takes advantage of you because all of a sudden now everyone wants something from you. And when everyone wants something from you, there's gonna be some, you know, relationship mayhem, there's gonna be some distress, there's gonna be a lack of, there's gonna be a lot of problems. And I tell influencers like, anticipate that. Know that you are gonna be challenged. Know that every, You walk off stage and there's 10 ladies in the audience, right? I walk off stage, there's four. But you know, they want something from you, yeah. Everyone wants something from you, whether it's a business deal or a money or a handshake or a selfie or something. And I joke about it in some ways because it is funny for a guy from Montana who's awkward, as weird as I am, to get the invitations and the offers, but also like the schemers and the scammers. Yeah, a lot of it.

It's hard to tell what's true, what's not true, what's like the the right opportunity, you also as an influencer get an abundance of opportunities. So the mayhem of hurting people by saying no over and over and over again.

Yes.

That's challenging in itself. Because you want to say yes, you want to help, you want to be a part of projects, but then if it takes you away from your message, your method and your model, then you're hurting yourself as an influencer.

Yeah, and I tell people it's like the way through, because there's two kinds, right? The internal kind and the external kind. The internal self-doubt, struggles, difficulties, the external, the relationships, the business, the turmoil, the chaos of the world. And the way through both of those, the internal kind, is through your own mindset and habits. You've got to do everything you can to dial in your mindset and your habits, from how you think of yourself, to how you take care of your body, to what you focus on each day, to how you reward yourself. And the more you dial that stuff in, the less, like to me, at any given moment with the size of the brands and the businesses and the teams and the relationships, something's going wrong, you know, something is just not right. So I've got to find to be able to the ability to be peaceful and present, the ability to deal with the stress and the challenges, you know, the nervousness, the anxiousness, the anxieties. I've made a life of trying to master that internal world.

And so the mayhem is really, when the mayhem comes, you've got to be mastering your mental health, which is the next thing you talk about, which is everything you've been saying is like making sure you take care of your health, your habits, your relationships, your reclaiming your agenda. Because when we don't reclaim our agenda, we lose our mental health, I feel like.

Yeah, absolutely. That's when you're like, ah. Yeah, and so my life is so out of control. I'm like, who let it get out of control? Like let's take some ownership, but yeah, if mindset and habits can really help with the internal mayhem. With the external mayhem, you need mentors. It's like mindset and mentors can solve a lot of problems.

That's so true.

Mindset and mentors can solve a lot of problems. And the external stuff happens, it's like one of the reasons, you know, we were just with Rachel and Dave in Puerto Rico and you know, the reason I met them is she kind of reached out on Instagram and said, I, you know, first she promoted my book, her horse habits with, I didn't even know her. She was talking about it and I heard all these people saying, There's this lady talking about your horse. But then she had the proactive nature to reach out and say, you, know what? I don't know what I don't know. You know, could we get together and say, Come up to Portland? And everything they were asking was kind.

Of like, what are we going to run into that we don't know that's happening? And because she sought out you and a few other key mentors and you guys guided her and Dave on, Here's what's going to happen. Here's what people are gonna be asking you for, here's what you're gonna need to look out for, and here's the business model you should be adding in. You've helped her make multiple seven figures in six short months of just adding in a few things where if she didn't know those things, if she didn't seek out the mentorship from you, she wouldn't have been struggling more.

And others too, and like you said, she sought out a lot of people, which was really great, and for the record, because we were mentioning her and a lot of people a lot, because we were just with them at my house, right? So it's just a different, But no one is taking credit for anything she did or I did or you did.

She's done the work.

She took command.

She's implementing.

And she got the mentors. That's it. I was one of those. She got lots of them. And same with you.

Everyone on the walls.

I'm like, oh all these mentors all around the wall. That's what you have to do is your mentors, the people you're around, your community again, they're going to help make sure that as you take command and you deal with the mayhem of life, you're doing it well. I'm not allowed to screw up a lot.

No.

Because my friends are like, Yo, I have a great group of friends. They're like, dude, what was this video? Or what was that? Or I heard you did this, is that true? And they'll like, there's no way because I've surrounded myself with such quality people. They hold me to a high standard. I want to be a good person for that. And my role model mindset won't let me not do that. So, I think mayhem, solve it with good mindset, work on yourself. Big shout out to Rachel and Dave who've gone through that huge process. You have done that huge process. And so is Jay. All Jay's internal work becomes a reflection of his external successes. That's it. All of us. And when you're a monk for four.

Years, it helps you keep your mental health in check when the mayhem happens. Help chill out. He's doing two hours of meditation every morning. He's focused. He's doing the work. He's still doing the work. Still doing the work. I think it allows you to, deal with everything. What's all the press being on Ellen today's show and billions of video views and it's like all the mayhem that comes with impacting people and which we're talking about next is meaning. When you have your message, you want to be an influencer and reach people and you want to build meaningful life and a meaningful business, there's going to be a lot of stresses also. So you got to take care of the mayhem with the mental health. But what does meaning mean? For influencers.

Yeah.

And what should we be thinking about as influencers?

I think the first thing is how often people get it wrong as influencers. They're waiting for the day to come where they can finally have satisfaction and fulfillment from their efforts. Oh, when I get to a million followers, when I make a million dollars, then I can like myself, feel good about myself, enjoy the day, rest peacefully. I'm like, if you can't teach yourself to rest peacefully now, you're screwed when the mayhem really hits. That's what happened to a lot of people. Like, oh, well, Brennan, you know, I'm so stressed out and so upset. I'm like, Now? You haven't started yet. I mean, give it 10 years. So you really have to immediately take control of that, including the meaning of your life. It's like you have to train yourself to draw meaning from each day. Each day, you have to train yourself to draw meaning from it. Because otherwise, it's just one day after another. And I tell people all the time, I've faced my death twice in significant ways. Being in hospital beds, think I'm going to die, both accidents. And I learned that real reverence for.

Life.

Shows up in the oddest of ways. Real reverence for life is, did you feel this day? Like, did you feel it? Or did you just kind of bumble through, finish it, do the meetings, you know, Now you're tired, go to bed. Or did you like make yourself feel it? Like get present, get aware, take that breath, feel the earth, you know, feel your life, feel the blessing of your spirit. And so many people, that happens when they're on their deathbed at the end. I was lucky. I had that as a young man. I got mortality motivation at 19 to realize you gotta have reverence for life. You have to make each day meaningful, do meaningful things, but also draw meaning from it. Not later. And some of the most miserable bastards I know are people who literally are waiting for someday to enjoy life. But reverence for life shows up in how you felt the day. Reverence for life shows up in your time management. I tell people all the time, look at all these days you wasted. Don't tell me you appreciate life. A lot of people have a gratitude journal. But you know what shows gratitude? Let me see your calendar. Your gratitude journal, that's a nice reflection. You wanted to talk about real gratitude for life, reverence for life, show me your calendar.

Did you maximize each day?

Is that what you mean? -Yeah. Are you actually using your days wisely? Because if time is short, if life is short, then you better be using it wisely. It doesn't mean you need to stack everything in there. It's just like, can I see in your calendar that you're enjoying life? Can I see your building and growing and taking it seriously?

Do you have some time with your.

Family and friends schedule? -Are you playing? Are you traveling? -Are you playing? Are you enjoying life? Is there some time off in here? Or is it meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, business, business, business? Like there are a lot of people, especially influencers, they wake up, they create content all day, they check their stats, they go to bed. And if that's your life, that's a very unique kind of secret hell.

And that goes by pretty quick.

It goes by pretty quick. And the frame is in comparison, right? It's a unique kind of hell is waking up and doing something every day only to check the stats on it versus really connecting with the audience, really connecting with why you're doing it. You know, I'm looking above your head here and you've got some legends up there including Tony Robbins who's both of our dear friends and he's helped us, we've helped him in many ways. And listen, he wouldn't be doing this this long if he didn't take deep meaning from the actual work.

Every day. Because it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work.

A lot of energy, five days in a row, 12-15 hour days on stage, not peeing, not eating. Yeah. You do the same thing. 15 hours a day, no problem.

You do the two longest events in the entire industry.

Crazy, man.

And the two longest single lead trainer events. And you don't do that unless you make yourself draw a meaning. Because otherwise what's gonna happen is, and what I tell people all the time is like, if you are constantly exhausted, you're not in meaning mode yet. And because when you're in real meaning mode, it won't let you run yourself to exhaustion.

Mm. Yeah.

It won't let you do it. It will say, hey, man, enjoy this moment for a beat here. It's when you're going, that means you're not in meaning mode. And because if you're in real meaning mode, it won't let you exhaust yourself.

That's true.

Creativity is not strongly correlated with high performance.

And if you told me that seven.

Years ago, I would have fought with you for like two or three hours. But then in one interview with one of the world's largest CTOs, chief technology officers, he said, Brendan, you know, they're a top 10 brand in the world. I said, We don't, he said, My team, he said, I'm not creative. My team's not creative. But we know how to execute and scale. And execution and scale is really important to long-term high performance. Creativity might get you in the game, but a lot of people are creative but can't work their way out of a bag. And I was like, I would have argued that forever because I'm a great writer and a coach. I would have never thought that. Age, nationality, ethnicity, and here's a big one, compensation. Here's a big one, personality. Here's a big one, strengths. They are not correlated strongly with high performance. Some of them have weak correlations. And all those things, by the way, because if academics are listening to that.

They'Re like, no, he's wrong.

And this is tied towards high performance. It's not that those aren't important. those things can shape your mood. They can shape, you know, lots of important life outcomes, well-being, health, happiness. But when we're talking about high performance, those are less important than these six. And what I keep telling people is, I'm not saying those aren't important. These just happen to be more important. So the six habits. You want me to do those?

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

So the personal habits, and these are the ones that move the needle the most. Number one, high performers, you like this one, high performers seek clarity more often than their peers. And what that means for them is every situation they go into, they're seeking clarity and setting intention. And it's not like once in a while they're doing way more often. It's like, you know, I've been blessed to work with Oprah Winfrey. When she has a meeting, at the start of every meeting, she asks, what's our intention here? What's the intention of this meeting? not what's the agenda, what do I do, what's the intention? That's every meeting. So she's seeking clarity at the beginning of every meeting. That's why she's so amazing, right? If you think about her whole career, she was always trying to have people seek clarity on who they were so they could be themselves. That's what high performers are doing. They just do it more often. They seek clarity before they shoot that video, before they have the podcast interview. But specifically, we found three practices help you get better at seeking clarity. Number one, they are seeking clarity in what we call the future for. So you've probably heard that successful people are more future minded. It's true. And specifically what they're looking at, if you talk to a high performer, they're more clear about who do I want to be in this upcoming situation. And by the way, it's not about who I am, it's about who do I want to be. They're more future oriented. They're more intentional about who they want to be in social situations. So it's like, I want to have this type of interaction with Lewis today. That's intentional. They're more clear about what skills they need to develop to reach their next level of success. Here's how you really know an underperformer. Open up their calendar and look for any evidence they have planned their own curriculum for greatness. If they don't have classes or courses, if they're not actively skill building, There's no chance at high performance. I mean, maybe they can dumb luck into it for initial success, but high performance is long-term success. You got to be building your skills. Constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly growing. Being aware of that. And the last of the future four is, I know the service I want to provide in the future. Talk to any high performers, I'm sure you've interviewed them. They kind of know the service and the difference they want to make. Maybe not precisely, but they're asking the question. So that's some of what we know. They seek clarity. And that's kind of the first practice is asking questions in those areas. And the other two real fast is when you're seeking clarity, they're more clear about the feeling they want to have. Like an Olympic sprinter whose one gold is more likely to have said before he went or she went on the track, How do I want to feel out there? Not like just the result, like when the foot's in the block and I'm arms down, like what do I want to feel? Like they're very aware of the feeling they're trying to get.

Yeah, I don't want to feel nervous and stressed. I want to feel calm and clear and smooth.

Yes. And they're doing that self-talk, which is seeking clarity. And then the last one, which is really important, they're clear about what's meaningful to them now and what might be different in the future. which is something I didn't know until we did a lot of the interviews or the conversations is a lot of people kind of know what I like now. They know what their passion is, but it's like, what's gonna be meaningful to you later? Like in five years? They've thought about that. You know, I would say that they've done the work. So that's just the first habit. And so the book kind of opens with that story of like finding what's We all have to decide who you are and what we want and how to get it at this stage of our life. And when we don't know that, you know, reaching high performance can be really hard.

Yeah. It's all about clear vision for me. It's the first chapter of my book is the greatest leaders in the world have a clear vision.

Love that.

Yeah.

That's it. And they got that vision by seeking clarity.

Yes.

That was the habit that gave them the vision. They were consistently seeking, like, how do I, what do I, I mean, they ask themselves more questions. That's one of our findings. They literally are doing more of the self-talk, asking more of the questions, which is so important.

Yeah. Awesome. And I love how you talked about this. You say the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contributions. Then why do so many of us focus on our strengths and personality?

Yeah. That was a huge finding. That's another one. I would have completely freaked out on anybody.

Strength finders, all these other books out there, you know, Yes. We focus on our strengths.

And unfortunately, one, that's in the history of personal development, that is the greatest false dichotomy that has ever been. Focus on your strengths or it's like you have to do both. You have to do both. But what we found in our research, which surprised me, high performers do not report working on their strengths any more than regular people. So that's not what gives them the edge. One of the chapters opens up with this guy who wrote this email, really highly successful guy, And he wrote this email to me, he says, you know, and I'd put him through all this. I put him through StrengthsFinder, the Berkman, the Colby, the Myers-Briggs. I put him through everything. This was one of my first coaching clients ever. I knew everything about him. We knew all his background, we did all the homework, had his peer review, you know, his 360 assessments from work. And then I watched him fail for two years. And he wrote me this email and he said, Brendan, stop telling me like what successful people are like. because we know my strengths and I'm not getting ahead. And start telling me what they do. And that's what this book became. It's like, what do you need to do? Because in this email he wrote this, which is where that finding came from, he said, this was so good. Listen to this line. He said, As a leader, I have to be honest with myself that my mission and vision should never be made to bow down to my limited human strengths. I should have to rise up to my mission or vision. The strengths aren't the relevant thing is the question is what is necessary for me to develop into to reach that mission? It's like, your strengths are great. And it's like, yes, of course do your strengths. But that's kind of like what I tell people is like, if Let's imagine you have a bear, and that bear wants to go on top of this cliff over here, and it's never been on the cliff, and it wants to get that new honey up there, right? Telling the bear to focus on the strengths, to go somewhere it's never gone before and do something it's never done before, is stupid. It's like saying, hey, you know what? Just try being more of a bear.

Right.

If I just say, you say, Brendon, I got this big new vision. I just say, just try being more of Lewis. I mean, at a spiritual level, that feels good. But you and I both know you're gonna have to develop far beyond your comfort zones. And strengths are typically comfort zones. We gotta overcome that and go to the next level.

And develop new skills and overcome certain fears and all these other things that are gonna help us get to the next level.

Yes, right or. Yeah, yeah. The whole conversation of beyond the comfort zone really requires us to go beyond our strengths. It really requires us.

That is our comfort zone.

That is our comfort zone. But we already know what we're good at. And the problem with the strengths finder and all of the strengths based movement is the assumption, and they're all written academically this way, based on what are called innate strengths. And innate strength is the assumption that you had that from birth, and that those innate strengths are what you focus on. And I'm like, well, if you had it at birth, you probably had it when you were 15 years old too. So if it's innate, you had it at 15. Are the strengths you had at 15 sufficient to serve you at 50? Hell no. You need to develop beyond what's innate and go to a whole other level. And so I take on strengths in the book in that way. But I also say it almost doesn't matter because a lot of people have strengths and they suck at work because they're not doing these habits. I mean, how many people do you and I know who are amazingly strong and their strengths finders are amazing and they don't do anything all day.

That's it. Yeah. a lot of people. I mean, in the sports world, there's a lot of great, talented people who had the greatest gifts, but they still weren't able to win. Yeah. Or they were lazy or they wouldn't, you know, hustle or sacrifice their body because they just relied on their talents, their strengths. Yeah. And so they were never able to get to the championship game or get on the best teams because. Yeah. And they had all the talent in the world.

And you're just like, if I was as gifted as this person, I would be incredible, you know? I mean, that's the whole thing about the talent code or a lot of new sort of newer research and performance. It just says, what's more important is what you do with what you got to develop into the vision of the mission you need to serve. And so the book kind of lays out a lot of the science behind that and then goes into, you know, obviously most of us oriented towards the six habits.

So in terms of clarity, what is that habit that you take on on a daily or monthly basis with how it, with clarity? What do you think about you're like, every morning, what am I clear about? Or how do you apply that habit to your life?

I apply it in a couple of ways. First, for me, every situation I go into, I'm consistently asking, what's the feeling I want to have here? If you ever see me teach, it's often I would say, Bring the joy. So I have joy triggers that I've set up in my mind that makes me more intentional about things. So for example, a door frame trigger. Whenever I walk through a door, I say, Bring the joy. So when I walk through that door right there, it's like bring the joy into this room. It's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions. And not that I shower every morning, but the ones I do. The first question I say, what can I be excited about today? So it forces me to be clear about what's gonna draw joy and enthusiasm from me. Number two, I say, what might trip me up today? Because usually I know what's going on the day. I'm like, what might mess me up? What might, where I might not perform well, what might bother me? And number three, I say, what can I do to surprise somebody today? To give a gift of appreciation or acknowledgement today? And so I think through that in the morning. So I think that helps me begin my day pretty clear. Then when I sit down before I do work, I literally look at my calendar of the day. I did this morning. and I look at whatever's going on in the day and I think about it for 20 minutes. It's one of my 20 minute routines in the morning. I literally think about my calendar for 20 minutes a day. People think that's crazy, but what I'm thinking through when I'm looking at the calendar, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have that call. What do I want to happen on that call? What's my intention for that call? What's my goal for that call? What's the feeling for that call? How do I wanna end that call? You know, I'm gonna have that time with Lewis. like, how do I want to be there? And how can I make sure I enjoy it? Because it's a big deal, you know? I love your show. I want to do a good job. I want to share something good for the people, even though I have no idea what you're going to ask. And I want to be present for that and make sure I'm really there, even though maybe I have a head cold today. You know, it's like just thinking through it. I think that helps me. It keeps me asking questions. Every Sunday, I do a life arenas assessment. That just means I think there's 10 areas of our life and I score myself in them. And this is about my 11th year of doing this.

Wow.

So each area of my life, you know, from emotional quality to happiness to relationships to time to hobby, et cetera, I just give myself a score of one to 10. And one means I suck. And I was horrible in the previous week on that. 10 means I did a good job. And then I ask, how can I do better? It's my Sunday routine. And it just keeps me clear. And it's not like I don't sometimes, like everyone else, you know, wonder what's going on or what I'm doing. But those habits, those were my habits. You have to establish your own for seeking clarity. But when you have them, you weaponize your life.

Absolutely. Yeah. Clarity. Powerful thing. Without Clarity, it's hard to achieve a dream. Yeah. It's hard to get better, it's hard to grow and be a high performer.

Yeah, no clarity, no change.

That's it.

No goals, no growth.

That's it. The second one that I see here is energy.

Yeah.

What do you mean by energy?

So in the way we- Peak energy.

High energy all day long.

Yeah, no, it's not caffeinated energy, but the habit is generate energy. Not necessarily have energy.

Create energy.

Create energy. And what they do, the way we measure that was kind of academic, mental energy, which is tied to your focus and your stamina and your ability to manage complex tasks without too much mental stress. Number two is emotional energy, which is just the quality of your positive emotions. And number three is physical energy. High performers are 40% more likely to work out five times per week than the rest of their peers. So that means the top 15% most high performing people in the world tend to work out five days per week. And that workout could be defined as 45 minute brisk walk or hit intensity or whatever it is, but 40% more likely. That's a huge finding. And what we found is high performers just have better wellbeing and happiness and physical conditioning than everybody else. One stunning finding was CEOs, senior executives and business owners, they report expending as much energy as athletes who are competitive now.

I can imagine. Yeah.

Yeah.

I was surprised by that. I would have thought athletes would be 10% more.

I mean, the emotional and mental energy. Yeah. They have to, the decision making, the conversations, the big deals, the stakeness. Yeah. It's a lot of energy.

It's a lot. That's why, I mean, if you really want to achieve your dreams, you have to care for your body, your mind. It's why all these things finally resonating in the marketplace because the science of meditation or taking a break or managing your own energy, sleep is everything. And I think all of that is really important. And we say generate energy because there's this myth that some people have happiness or they have, it's like, no, you generate it. You don't have happiness. You generate it. You create it. And so the quality of energy you have to create, like you and I both, I mean, if most of our audience knew our schedules, your schedule the last five days, it's like, how is Lewis even able to focus right now?

And how are you able to get here and do this as well?

Yeah, but it's because we said, well, this is our mission. Show up, man. Yeah, there's plenty of times I gotta imagine you walked on the field and you were like, I'm spent. Exhausted. You know, I remember you flew down to compete in-- yeah, I still play.

With the USA team handball team.

Yeah.

Team, and a year ago, I flew down to, I remember I did an interview in Miami and then flew out from Miami and then went and just went right into training camp and then played against Brazil, which is like, you know, Olympic, Olympic qualifiers and got our asses whooped, but it was fun, you know? But I had to have clarity and show up, even when I was like, oh, we're gonna lose. Like, there's zero chance. It was like the worst team in the NBA playing like the Warriors and we were just like, we had no chance. But I had to show up and give my best.

And you have to set all these routines. I mean, you know, the amount of routines that Tom Brady has in his life so that he can generate energy.

It's unbelievable.

Stuns most people.

It's unbelievable. And that's just, that's the thing.

That's what it takes if you want to be at that level. If you don't wanna be at that level, you don't have to do it. Yeah, you don't have to do it. I mean, everybody can just like, well.

I'm gonna go hit the Cinnabon, but it's like, it's pretty good. How do you wanna feel at three o'clock? If you wanna feel amazing at three o'clock, don't end lunch with a Cinnabon.

You know, it's crazy.

Gosh, it's crazy. Like, I'm 34 now, and I could eat, like, sugar and bad food for all my 20s, right? And now when I go off of sugar for, like, a month, and then I just binge for a day, it's like, I literally can't walk. My back is, like, so stiff.

Hang on.

Oh, my gosh. Like, my whole body is exhausted. Inflammation. So much inflammation.

Once I cut it out and then I bring it back, I'm like, yeah, oh, I feel so old.

Yeah.

Well, dude, I'm the same way. My seminars, like, I you know, we do four day event and it's just me. I usually have one or two big names come in, but it's me 12 hours a day, four days, and I never sit down.

High energy.

I never sit down on stage and super high energy. I mean, really going for it. Not just the clapping, the jumping, but really just expending heart. You know how hard it is.

Of course.

And I had to about the same time. I was 35. I had a. A famous strength and conditioning coach backstage. He works with me and Usher and. and he's like, what do you eat back here? And another guy came in and strapped the heart rate monitor on my machine. He goes, I'm equivalently burning, equivalently working out at the marathon level every day for four days. They're like, you,'re not eating. I was losing on average 11 pounds in my seminars. I do eight events a year, so I was losing 88 pounds a year. It was horrible for your health. So I had to learn how to eat. I had to learn that I do ice baths every night at my events, which, smart, no one loves to do that.

But here's the thing, I used to do it every day in football, like during the season. And it sucks for the first month, but then you start to love it. Yes, I have to do it. You know what I mean?

It's like you just start to, ah, it feels so good. Feels so good. After stage, you know, it's like 12 hours. No one says, I want a habit of taking an ice bath at the end of the day. But if I want to be high performing on stage, that's the choice. Yeah. Now, obviously, people listening, you know, consult your doctor.

Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

And only do it for 10 minutes. Don't stand for a half hour. Yeah, right, right. So. But all those things you have to. So what are your habits for energy? And the funny thing is, you stand on high performers.

They know them. They can tell you, I do this, this, this, this.

And you're like, man, you're on your game.

You got it down. Yeah.

And they're always probably looking to improve it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. They're always.

But they're very aware of it. And they. And they. What I found was they get pissy.

If they're off it. Yeah, of course.

I didn't meditate this morning and I was like, you know, I was kind of frustrated a little bit. Someone asked me, we were at our meeting today at the Soho House, he was like, how was your meditation? Because he knows I like to meditate. I was like, you know, I missed this morning. I did yesterday, but I missed this morning.

It's agitating when I miss my habits. Yes. It's like, ugh, I need to get up earlier. That is exactly what you just said. It just, it really agitates high performers when they're off. They're energetic. Absolutely. The third big personal habit, which by the way, I've been teaching high performance for a decade. We have the number one seminar on that and the number one online course. And I was wrong. I never knew this was a thing and you're gonna laugh because you're like, duh, dude, I could have sat you down. But I just didn't know. I knew, I taught it as like subtext, but I didn't know it was the thing. And that is high performers raise necessity. And what that means is they raise the necessity of performance in their mind before each performance. They say, I gotta do great. And they give themselves reasons why. So they're connected to their why. But it's different than just giving, like, know your why is nice. Know your why and give yourself Edge for it.

What do you mean?

Give me an example. Two guys walking out on the track field. Who's gonna win? Well, equal quality of experience, similar times, maybe they've raced before. The guy at the block so I'm gonna bet on is the guy who came out and said, Gotta do this for my mom. They have a reason to perform at heightened levels, and they have connected to that over and over. Now, again, some of this Duh, Brendan. But the finding, the research is they just do that more often than under performers or even, you know, good performers.

Yeah.

They're more connected to their reasons why and they're stirring it, man. It's like, and they do it from two angles. One angle is your internal standards. Like my values or my self-expectations say, I gotta crush this because that's who I freaking am.

Yeah.

Like when you walk out, you're like, you're not gonna you know, screw around on when you're playing handball, you're like, this is who I'm Louis, I'm an athlete. I'm gonna kick some ass here. It's that self expectation. Then though, they pair it with external obligation. Like, my team needs me to do this. The deadline says this time. There's some kind of external, they don't call it pressure.

My family, something bigger than themselves.

Something bigger than themselves. And that was another thing I was surprised by. They don't say, They rarely use the word pressure because they want it. Like people who use pressure, they don't want it. But high performers, I found they're connected. I'm doing this for a bigger cause, a bigger reason, a team. Or yeah, they're sometimes just like deadline. Like I'm an unbelievably high performing writer when there's a deadline. I'm a weapon. Before that, you know, I'm not always on my game. if you have those reasons, so you gotta have your internal reasons and your external reasons, and then your job is remind yourself of that more often. That's what's called raising necessity. And we were the first ones trying to prove that with the data. And I was pretty stunned that, remember, these three aren't like my opinion. You might say, yeah, yeah, these are whatever. I'm like, but these ones are more important than everything else we measure. Really? These are over 100 different habits. These are the ones that move the needle. So if you wanna move the needle in your personal life, Number one, seek clarity more often. Number two, generate energy with more consistency and will. And number three, raise necessity, raise the stakes before you go into any performance situation.

There's more money to be made now as an influencer than there ever was before. There's more opportunities, there's more models for making money, different methods. And you've got a couple of key themes and a framework on becoming an influencer, figuring out your message, the model, the mechanisms, everything, and I want to kind of break them down. The first thing you talk about is the message. It's getting clear in your message is what I'm assuming, right?

Yeah.

As an influencer, is it important to know what your message is and how.

Do you find your message if you're trying to become an influencer? Yeah, because the death of most influencers, they don't realize is their randomness. Right. You know, they're just excited. I'm going to post everything, you know, and I'm going to talk about everything. But they've never created a cohesive message that their audience goes, I get her. I understand her. It's not like you have to say the same thing over and over and over. But there has to be something that means something to you. Like one thing I admire about what you do, buddy, is how you talk about greatness. That theme and that messaging is so tight. And honestly, over the last three years, when I listen to your show, I'm like, he's just dialing this in.

Right?

You know your word choice now. You know your phrases. You know what you're saying. It's not just being repetitive on those, it's just that's who you are. And that integrity of your message is being shown, so you better be intentional about the kind of person you're trying to become. Because most people think about message, they go, oh, so I need to have a mission statement, Brandon. I'm like, no, no, no. You are the message. The integrity of who you are and how you show up energetically and how.

You treat other people, that's the message. The role model mentality.

Yes.

Yeah.

Become the role model of your message. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, 'cause that's what integrity is. It's like people are gonna watch you and go, are you congruent here and there? And if you're not, that message feels funny to them. But you and I both know a lot of influencers, they've never done any deep introspection. They've put on 50 different clothes and beautiful Instagram things, but they don't know who they are.

Or they got the mental health challenge, which is what we'll talk about later. But the message is getting clear on your message and kind of the theme of your brand. the theme of your influence, I think is key. And this cannot, listen, it doesn't mean you have to be a perfect human being. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to learn, you're going to grow, but it's like trying to be congruent with your message consistently. For you, you know, it's high performance habits for your book, you talk about it in your podcast, you talk about it in your events, you live that and you showcase that. For me with greatness, it's kind of like what are the core themes of living a great life and business, health, relationships and everything involved and it's trying to do the best to live that all the time and talk about it consistently.

Including the failures. Absolutely. That's part of it.

Showcasing the failures. I think when influencers showcase their mistakes.

And failures, it makes them more real, more likable.

Yeah, that's why everyone likes me because I'm a hot mess all the time. Exactly. So you got to get clear on the message first. Do you have a mechanism for, it's like, well, I kind of like everything. How do you figure out what your message is? Is there a process or just some journaling that you could share with the people?

Yeah, I mean first sitting down and saying, what do you want to be a role model on? If you want to be a role model, what is it about? And how does that translate into a person's real life? What would you say to an actual person to help them or inspire them? And you just have to start writing those words, like what would I say? What would I say? It's that whole thing of if you could put a message on a billboard or if something was written on your tombstone, What are those things? For me, a lot of people know it's like live, love and matter. Because when I faced my death as a 19 year old kid, I was like, oh, I learned I really want to live life. I learned, because I was a heartbroken kid, I wanted to love again and feel my heart again. I learned that life is super short, so you better make your difference. So live, love and matter became central to everything I did for 15 years. Every message revolved around that because that was me and that was a unique experience I had. I think a lot of people have to go and dig down deep into their experiences of their life and say, what were some of the gifts of the lessons that I learned? Some of the awful things that happened to us or the challenging things, those struggles, there's a story there. And that story can reveal some lessons or things that you might be a role model to for people. And it doesn't have to be so finite that it's like, this is it forever. Because you'll keep evolving, you'll keep learning. But there's hints there. And you can go dig in your past to find some of those hints. You can also just ask, well, what are the passions that I really feel in my heart that I just want to communicate right now? Some people it's like, well, that's fashion for them. Some people it's health for them.

Being a mom.

Being a mom, being an educator, just showing everyday life. That's fine because ultimately, again, you are the message. So the most important thing isn't to figure out, like, what am I going to say? It's the most important thing is who are you?

Who are you is the key. Dig deep, master.

Answering that question.

Yes, who are you? One of the things we do is we, I ask people, you know, come up with three words that describe the.

Best of who you are.

Mm. That's right. Like these are aspirational words. If you could think of like three words, when I'm at my best, these.

Three words really define me. Yeah.

And then I say, okay, now figure out what are three words that really describe the best of you when you're with other people. Like how do you treat them? And then what I have to do is I literally have them program in their phone as an alarm.

Yeah, I have that in my alarm. Still 8:30. You still do? Yeah. Which I need to say, I need.

To change to like 6:30, but it's like an 8:30. That's it. Mine's still in here. You know, I've been doing this for whatever. There was my 9:00 a.m. Dynamic, bold, and confident. And that was for today because I was like, you know, I'm usually a.

Little more reserved in Lewis's interviews because he's the man. You know, be a little more bold and confident.

I have loving giving achiever. That's it.

I love giving it to you. So, I could probably change that too, yeah.

Yeah, so I switch mine every week.

So, three words that you would describe as yourself and then three words that you would want other people to describe.

You as or that you would describe yourself as. Yeah, so three words you describe yourself as, like the best of who you are.

Yep.

And that's just you, like your identity. And then the other one is more like relationships. Like three words to describe how you are with other people. For example, my word there, bold. That can describe me as a person how I think, but I wouldn't want you to ever go, well, Brennan, when he's with me, he's real bold. That's different. How you are with other people should have a certain definition and description, and how you are by yourself should have a certain. And that's how you start to get to know yourself. Like, oh, I'm like this as a.

Person, and with other people, I'm like this is a person. It's like shaping your own internal identity of your qualities and reminding yourself of who you are.

Labeling yourself a little bit in a positive way. 'Cause most people, they take the labels the world gave them. Oh, you're just the athlete, Louis. Yeah, exactly. If you just took that and that was all you ever owned and you never explored beyond that, we wouldn't be here. That's true.

Right?

We're here because you explored, who am I? And you are still doing that. So am I.

Like, it's not like it's a thing that stops, but people want to see you working that through. I think like 15, 20 years ago, like in my teens, I used to say like, man, you suck to myself all the time. you're a loser. You suck. I hate you. You know, I'd say these words to myself, like, you're never gonna do anything better than this person or you're never gonna be enough. Whatever. I would say these things internally. Yeah. And those start to shape you as well. Yeah. And they start to shape how you treat other people, your reactions and how you treat yourself.

That's right.

So I think this is a very powerful, simple exercise that we've been doing for so many years now that we kind of forget. Yeah. The power of this. Yeah. But I'm glad you made this reminder because I never say those things to myself anymore. It's always like, you know, you're kind, you're loving, you're passionate, you're wise, you're giving, you're caring. I say these things all the time.

I never even say anything negative. Yeah, I mean, you give yourself patience on the days you're not. Absolutely. And that's a hard thing for people because they're supposed to be kind and one day they're a jerk and then they're like, I'm a jerk and they go back that whole bad label. But it's like what your audience wants to see if you're an influencer is you working through the development of you. They want to be on that journey with you and see like, oh, I see him or her becoming. Because they're willing to ask the hard questions about themselves and explore who they are. Because if you can't be an influencer, not explore who you are. I mean, even the great presidents of our time were always in motion of exploring who they are, the great business people. I mean, it's not like You know, Elon Musk has been exactly Elon Musk exactly 10 years ago as he is today. It's like you're seeing this evolution, this change, and sometimes it's a hot mess and other times you're like, oh, this person's, you know, people want to be on the journey with you as you're exploring who you are. And if you're not exploring who you are, you're not growing.

And if you're not growing, the audience is not growing. It starts to die. They're not interested. So true. So get clear on your message, figure out your three words, and that's a great start there. A lot of influencers that have expertise and they built this following and they're like, well, I'm still broke. I don't know how to make money. I don't want to sell something to my audience. I just want to add value and be of service. I just want to create cool content. I don't want to figure out this business stuff. It's too overwhelming for me. What should people be thinking about as influencers right now and over the next couple of years? as a business model? Maybe you can give a couple examples and then also talk about a little bit of your model.

I'd say first, if you're starting in this space and you're coming from that heart-centered service-driven place, which is where you and I both came from too, everyone starts, if their heart's in the right place, they're like, I just wanna give away free. I don't wanna charge people. I don't wanna be a jerk. I don't wanna do business. It's like, no, you're doing a disservice if you don't build a business. And here's the thing, often people don't pay attention unless they pay. You want to create a real transformation in people's lives. They have to invest something. They have to give something there. But I also say, listen, especially to the new folks, sometimes I go, Listen, kid, I love you. But since you're so smart and you know everything you don't need to make money, can you show me one major influencer, thought leader, person you admire today? One. Show me one who hasn't focused on building their brand and business. Show me one. Oprah didn't care about making money? She's changed a lot of people's lives. One of the richest ladies in the world. I've been at a ranch up in Maui. I can't even call it a ranch. It's the top of Maui. It's like, it's like, I've been to her other homes, it's like she, trust me, she cares about business and she's built a team to care about business because she knew she could reach more people. Find me one, one influencer like a major one, like an OG.

What they're like, well, this activist that's been like a non-profit that's like changing--.

That was in that movie that made $15 million for him. They banked away. You know, so it's like, exactly. You're just not, I mean, Tom Shoe, you had him here, right? He's still, he knew if he doesn't sell this shoe, we don't give shoes. So you cannot find a major influencer. No one has an, that's why I tell people, always notice what's working. Why is it every major influencer focused on their business? Why? Because they care enough about their people that they wanted to be there for them.

And most of these people weren't good at business in the beginning. They were talented, they were an artist, they were an actor, they were a messenger of something, but they weren't necessarily talented in the business. This is not something that comes easy to people. You're gonna have to learn it, you're gonna have to apply it. This is why you create so many trainings on this. You're gonna need to find great people on your team to support you. 'Cause maybe you don't want to build the model yourself and you gotta hire someone. That's right. And that's okay too.

Yeah.

Either way, you're gonna have to do it eventually. You're gonna have to do it eventually.

You wanna sustain this as a lifestyle and as a career and something that can give you freedom financially. Yeah. I've been blessed now to kind of be in the business as a mentor for people for 16 years. The biggest names have come to me, especially this last decade. Wow. And none of them ever said, you know, I wish I hadn't worked on building my business earlier. They always said, you know what? I should have focused on the business earlier. It would have given me more freedom. It would have given me more team. It would have given me more capabilities to build and scale and do those art projects that I wanted to do that didn't make any financial sense. It's like, if you, I was telling people, you want the freedom to do your art, have the financial resources that you have the freedom to do your art. So in our industry, there's so many different models. Today, most people are focused on the sponsorship and the brand model, and that shouldn't account for 10%.

Typical influencers who have a following, they're making money off sponsorships.

Yeah, and if that's more than 10% of your revenue, what you haven't accepted yet as a business person is what you have is a busy job that other people pay you for. And if they don't pay you anymore, you're fired. You don't have it. Or if you're falling asleep, you don't have a freedom. You don't have no, you might, there's a difference between having a business and earning money for individual contributions. Just acknowledge what you have. Oh, when I do this, I earn money. That means you basically have a job for other people who are in control. A business runs or waiting for them.

To like say, here you go.

A business runs while you're sleeping. You know, for 10 years of my life, I've had evergreen campaigns. that. So on average, if I stop working right now, we make the same amount of money for three years. Yeah. If I stop working right now for three years, same amount of Revenue. That's crazy. Why? Because I built a business and it was like I need to build some kind of automated processes that if I'm sleeping, I'm still earning. The business is earning. That's what a business is. It's like a business is automated process that earn, even if you aren't doing everything in it. Otherwise, you have a very lucrative hobby. You have lucrative individual efforts, but you're selling yourself short.

Or you're a hired talent.

Yeah, you're a hired talent. That's a great way to put it. You're a hired talent. You're a hired talent. You can make a lot of money doing it. Yes, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But again, let's have some aspirational figures. Tell me one aspirational, I mean, was, you know, Kylie Jenner sitting there going, oh, I'll just be a hired gun all the time.

She's like, I'm gonna build my own line. An empire. Why would I do that?

Because that's called smart.

And so, people buy from me. Yes. They're buying from me by, you know, a sponsorship post, they might as well.

Buy my own product. You got to build a business. And so in our industry, there's so many different ways to do that because.

There'S so many different things to sell.

What are the different main ways that you would recommend? Like, I always tell influencers, make sure you get something digital running in the background selling all the time. Um, my favorite thing, you know, you have to have digital sales and subscriptions these days.

So that could be course.

Yeah, so digital. My number one thing go to for most people is make sure you have a subscription program. That means people give you every single, they give you money every single month for access to your content library or to new content. So for example, you and me, we both go live every month and we charge people to attend that live and for the library of the other recordings of previous months and that model It's always running. It's game changing. And so that gives you a budget each month. Now the only issue with that is you have to show up each month.

To keep doing stuff.

So that's just one month.

You still got to put energy into it. So you got to put energy, but that's something that's buildable and scalable. It gives you things like monthly recurring revenue, MRR, which people really care about when valuating your business. It allows you to have metrics with your team to go, oh, how many new people do we have in? How many did we lose? Let's do better at both of those things to earn more. So, I love that. Digital sales, you've got anything from online courses to charging people to access to libraries, to webinars, to coaching.

-Online coaching, right?

-Online coaching, live or virtual. You have the ability to do seminars, workshops, events, retreats, books, PDFs. I mean, still this day.

-Audio.

-Audio programs. You know, I don't know if you ever saw our big campaign. We put 100 episodes in one of my podcasts on a thumb drive.

That was the greatest campaign. Thank you. So good.

You were running that for like six months because that thing was just crushing. Smashing. We sold a thumb drive for $7 with all our audios on it. Brilliant. Our best picked audios. People went crazy for that. We've sold swag and things like that, but we sell a lot of book packages. We sell a planner. So you've got products and swag. You've got live events and experiences, and then you have digital sales content. And it's about figuring out, well, which ones do you love to create and which ones work for your model and your message. It doesn't work for everybody. Like we were talking about Tony earlier, Tony Robbins. He doesn't have much of a membership program because his method, his passion is being on stage. And so you also have to understand everyone's got a different passion or a different way of letting their method shine. Like for a lot of my friends, they're like, Wait, you do online courses. I go, yeah. You do five week online courses. I go, yeah. They go, and each module is two hours long. Like my courses are these huge comprehensive, like major curriculum. I don't do short courses. Other people, they love a short course. Other people are like, I'm never gonna stand in front of anything and teach anything. That's just not my thing. I just wanna have conversations with compelling people. I'm like, well then do that. So this is where the most important thing is. your message, your method, and how you monetize all have to line up. And knowing who you are.

That's where it starts.

When you know who you are.

When you know who you are. Because for me, I don't want to be on stage every two weeks like Tony. You know, I do one big event a year and I speak on your stage or a few other speaking gigs and they pay me my fee and it's like, I'm good. Cool, I'll do that maybe once a month. Yeah. You know, maybe.

But it's like, I want to sit down and have the intimate conversation. Because you're great at it.

So this is your method.

And if you're on the road all the time, you can't have people here.

And my model used to be a lot of online courses because that's what I learned in 2008, 2009. That's what was working for me at the time.

Then I just said, when I met.

With you two years ago, you gave me this great feedback of like, you need to have recurring, you need to have a subscription. You can keep doing the launches and the courses if you want, but you've got to have subscription. Then I just said, I'm kind of tired of doing courses. You know, for me, knowing who I am and what I've already created, It's just a lot of energy for me. Yeah. They're hard.

Hard.

People don't appreciate how hard it is. Hard. So I just said, you know what? We're getting rid of the courses. We're going all in on subscription. Yeah. And it's been two years.

It's been amazing. We did that half day session with you that really game changer. So, Rachel had the same thing. She was kind of anti-selling something. I said, Let me give you all the business reasons to have a subscription. Watch what happens with your business. Watch how you can anticipate revenue. Watch how you can grow and have you give your team something to grow. grow that you don't have to do everything on. And it just, it always takes, it almost takes me three or four conversations with people and then they get it. You were like, I got it. And you, I mean, you were, I think you were actually like, 30 days. Yeah, yeah. And we were so pumped. I was like, oh my, Lewis is doing it.

And here's the thing, it wasn't perfect. I think a lot of, and it's evolved. You know, what we started it out as, it's now evolved into something else. And I think a lot of influencers get hung up on everything trying to be perfect you can just get it out there and start building it and then make it better as you grow.

That's it. Oh, my first online courses sucked compared to my 28th.

Yeah.

You know, but also when you figure out that model, you gotta work that thing.

Push it.

Like a ton of people, they'll take my course and they'll learn, oh, this is how you do courses. And they'll kick out one, they'll promote it one time. And they're like, oh, it didn't work. It's like, you have to stay on the model. You have to work the model. the number one issue I found with influencers often is they never step into the role of CEO.

They don't want to.

They don't own the fact that they are responsible for the business. So how- Because that feels like, well.

That'S not art, man.

Yeah.

But it's like, so, so it's like, but if a business owner never goes.

I own this business.

I own my dream. I am ultimately responsible for this thing growing. Once you accept I'm responsible for growing this thing. Even if you don't push every button, even if you hire the CEO or the CMO or whatever, once you go, I'm responsible for this message. I'm responsible for this business. Everything changes. Same thing happened with Oprah. I got brought up to train them when they were in a very significant transition. And her company and I did this course together called youl Next Bold Move. And she was going for her next bold move. She finished the show, left the talk show, launched Own, a digital network. Didn't go so good so far. And it was about a year or two, and she talks about this, so it's not speaking out of school here, she spoke about like, for a year or two, she was just kind of frustrated and angry and a little bitter, like, well, why isn't this thing taking off? And I worked so hard, why shouldn't I be doing it? And then she goes, it's on me. I gotta own this. And she stepped right back in, boom, turned that thing around in two years. because she stepped back in. And that's what owners do often is they kind of step out and they're like, they just, well, it should be easier now. No, it's never going to be easier now if you care about this thing called scale. -Yeah. -'Cause scale is going to require difference. -That's it. -And so once you get used to like, oh, I'm going to do different things to scale, then you stop bemoaning the struggle and the hardship. And this is what I always tell people, you have to honor the struggle involved in building a business. Because if you complain about it, you moan about it, you bemoan it all the time.

It's a job, it's something you don't love.

Anything you apply hate to quickly dies. Ooh. So, if you say, I hate doing email marketing. It's dead. You're toast, right? I hate doing podcasts. You're toast. Anything you apply hate to dies. And so, you have to go, okay, am I honoring the struggle here, allowing the hot mess but staying in it and owning it? The most important important thing influencers must do. I tell them all the time, especially new and really young kids, because we, you know, I've got a client right now. She's 17. She made 40 million dollars last year, making money. And, you know, so her parents hire me because I've been in the industry for a long time to kind of do some mentoring. And I can't say, it's like, listen, you got to take command. The 17 year old telling her, you gotta take command. Telling somebody they have to own something like that. Because listen, we all have the same aspirations. Same. We all have four aspirations our whole life. Our being goals, like who we want to be as a person and our desire to be congruent with that. Our relating goals, how we want to treat other people and show up with other people. Our creation goals, the things that we want to create the things that we want to contribute. Like, I want to do something, right? I want to do something with my life. That's a creation goal. I want to do a podcast. That's a creation goal. I want to leave a bunch of money to someone. That's creating a significant, you know, meaningful thing. And then our growth goals, how we want to grow along the way. So we have the same aspirations. So what makes a difference? If everyone has the same types of goals, I want to be a good person who's congruent and proud of myself. to relate with other people so there's deep, real, meaningful connections, love and care. I want to create things that I feel like draw out my passions and make a difference. I want to grow into the best person I can. If we all have that same thing, what's the difference makers? Usually two things. Number one, did you take command? Are you the captain of your ship or did you just get blown around by everybody else?

Were you responsible?

Yeah, did you take responsibility of that? Did you really take command of your life. It doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. It just means that you own it. And then the other thing is community, the people that you're around who help support you. We became friends because I was like, I can learn a lot from Louis. And you were also humble with me, like, Hey, how do you do this, Brendan? And we were just both givers. And it's like, that's it. I don't think we have any competition between us other than I think you're way more athletic and beautiful. But it's like, and a better interviewer than me, times a thousand. But it's like, you know, it's like we just, we deeply care about the community we have. But you're here because you were on your sister's couch and one day that wasn't allowed anymore. And you took command.

That's it.

And everybody has that in their life. So I tell influencers, you have to command, this is a 17 year old girl, I'm saying, you must. command the direction of what you're doing here. You're listening to everybody else. And she's one of these girls who's got all these reps and all these agents and people around her all the time. And I was like, okay, let's sit down. What does it look like to take command of this thing? If it was yours, where's it going? What's happening? And no one talks to her like that. They're all telling her what to do and how she's going to screw it up and how dumb she is because she's 17. And I'm the guy honoring her and going, well, she's created some kind of mat. There's magic here. Let's really empower that. Let's really open that up. Let's let her control and shape and shift that thing. And that's hard for adults to do. It's hard for parents to do with YouTubers. Out of the top 100 YouTubers, 15 have been real significant clients. And they, and expert scambi graduates, and they're kind of like, how often that they made 100 videos and made no money? and if they didn't say, I'm going to do this and keep commanding that of themselves, commanding of their will, commanding of their attention.

Yeah.

How many of those huge shows would have never had those millions of subscribers? And everyone of my talk to, they always say the same thing. It's like, yeah, at some point, I just, I, you know, I took it over. I took back control. It's like I tell people in motivation, my besto, you got to reclaim your agenda. You got to reclaim your life's agenda. You got to take command back of that thing again, because Life sucks it away. Distractions.

That's true.

Yeah, and the most important thing you can take command of is your business model.

What are we going to do here?

Don't wait for other people to tell you how to make the money or the agents to say, we'll go get you the deals. You have to be so, you know this, you have agents, you have to be so actively involved. Otherwise, you get like- Wait around forever. You get peeling. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's powerful.

Demonstrate courage.

And I think all personal development people, of course, you know, but they actually, high performers do demonstrate courage. Like we can measure it from peer feedback, we can measure it from their self assessments, we can measure it from, we have this thing called the high performance indicator assessment. You take it, you get scored on all six habits. It's free on the internet, on the internet webs. But this one peaked when we did the research and I didn't know it. and it is high performers are more willing to share their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings, what they need, what they want, and they do it more consistently than their peers. Even when there's risk or uncertainty, you do a great job. I know you have the book's coming out for you, talking about men and being vulnerable. That's demonstrating courage. you know, when you're not conditioned that way or you're not used to that, you know, that it might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

Yeah.

You know, when you talked about me doing this interview, that was like, it might not seem like demonstrating courage to go on Lewis Howes, but it is because I admire you and I also, I'm not used to sharing a lot. You know, you just let the work speak for itself.

Yeah.

So I had to like, okay, I need to share, you know, being willing to share this in different and unique ways. But I think for most people, it's when you were in your last meeting, did you share for your ideas and fight for them? Did you share for your ideas and fight for them? When you wanted to post that video and you were scared to death because people are going to make fun of you, did you do it? And when you wanted to tell your spouse that you're not getting what you need, did you say it? 'Cause all those are demonstrating courage. It's not just, you know, courage, we think pulling someone out of the river or something. And that's part of it. And we talk about the different kinds of courage in the book. But the ones that matter the most, move the needle the most, is sharing for and fighting for ideas, but also that vulnerability of sharing your wants, needs. I mean, high performers really communicate what they want. And you've probably seen this in networking opportunities, you meet somebody and they're like, I'm trying to meet this person. I'm trying to get that done. And they're not pushy with it. They're just clear. They're like, this is what I'm trying to do. This is what I want. This is what I need. The highest performing relationships in marriages, we correlated marriage and demonstrating courage, and they stay together longer. When you're willing to tell your spouse, I don't like that, and work it through. That's hard for people. It's scary to put yourself out there or follow your dream or start a podcast or start the biz, that stuff is scary. Telling your boss something's wrong, high performers report being whistleblowers more than anybody else. Because it takes a lot of courage to go, my boss is doing something wrong. So we teach how do you get to that without all the hype? What do we know actually moves the needle in psychological courage, which has been actually measured a lot in academics.

I love it. I love the habits. And I know you guys should go get the book because there's a lot of research that backs all these and also steps and practices they can to follow. So make sure you guys are getting this book. I'm curious. I want to ask you a couple personal questions.

Yeah.

What's the fear you have the most right now in your life?

The fear I have the most.

Probably.

Just, you know, anything ever happening to my family. You know, I'm a very, very, you know, I'm a great son, I hope. I lost my dad in 2009 to leukemia and he was my big mentor. He got diagnosed on Mother's Day, kind of woke up and walked in the hallway and his back felt funny and he kind of leaned against the hall a little dizzy and Mom's like, what's wrong with you? He said, I don't know, it's kind of swollen back here. They go to the doctor and his spleen was enlarged, which is bad news. It usually means your body's kicking off stem cells that aren't Good. So I got diagnosed with AML, acute myeloid leukemia, and they said, you, have a week to live. Now he made it 59 days.

Wow.

The most important interview of my life was I called him and I wrote down all these like 30 life questions. And I interviewed him. It was the first time I ever called somebody and recorded anything. It was my first interview. This is my most valued interview. so I called him and I asked him all these questions. Was he at the hospital? Because I was at a seminar and I didn't know. And I said, Dad, I'm going to cancel the seminar. I'm going to fly out. He goes, Don't. Just finish the seminar. Come over. Wow. I finished, so like day two or three of the seminar, I call and I interview him for, you know, I think 60 minutes that first night, another 60 minutes, and then I flew over there. But I got that recording and it just, I had such a great dad. great mom. People say, you know, you're so lucky, Brendan. I'm like, I, you know what? A lot of things I didn't luck out on, worked hard, but I lucked out on the parent train. You know, we grew up with nothing. Parents, you know, raising four kids, broke. But we had abundance. You know, we had love, and they believed in us. And my dad, his seven messages to me in his life, which I try to share all the time, actually, it's my most. shared Facebook post ever. This particular post, every time I put up, it's been viewed 30 million times.

Wow.

And just my dad's thing, he said, Be yourself, be honest, do your best, treat, I'm sorry, take care of your family, treat people with respect, be a good citizen, and follow your dreams.

Pretty good for me.

Like there it is. So, but losing him really made me connect with the rest of my family. And so fear is just, you know, family. So I don't wanna lose people that I love. You know, my whole story began when I learned that life is precious. In a car accident, 19 year old kid, I know you know the story, but I've had sort of mortality motivation my entire life since, I mean, I was lucky. 19 years old kid realizing, I'm gonna die. I'm standing on the hood of a car bleeding out after a car accident. I got death. Another time in my life, and it was the book that I talk about in the book the Charge, I had a brain injury, wrecked an ATV going 38 miles an hour, got taken to a hospital, I didn't know if we were internal bleeding. I'd snapped my wrist, broke my ribs, threw out my shoulders, massive concussion, which I didn't know until later caused a lot of troubles in my life with my brain. But I sat in the hospital for three hours because no one spoke any English there and I didn't speak any Spanish. So they couldn't, the first thing when someone treats you is, are you allergic to any of the painkillers? I couldn't answer the question. Like, I don't know. So I lay there for three hours. This is 16 years after my first accident. And I was laying there and the lady keeps coming in and pressing on my chest cavity and that's checking for internal bleeding. And I knew that. And I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, if this is, if this is my time, did I live? And did I love? And did I matter? Which is my intention after my first car accident. And I was happy with all the answers, but the number, so I'd lived my life, I was happy. But the number one thing I thought about that moment was, you know, my wife and just family. I just didn't, you know, so I think my, it's not like I have recurring fears or debilitating fears about much. I just don't want to lose anybody I love anymore.

Yeah.

I've lost a lot of people two days ago. Jess and I were actually here over at the hotel and I got a text from a dear high school friend who just got diagnosed with pre-severe breast cancer and that stuff, you know, I just want to lose people.

It's tough, but it's gonna happen for everyone, right? Yeah. That's the thing that's challenging.

Yeah.

My dad's loss was huge. That was just awful, you know, because it's so fast. Yeah. And he'd been healthy. But AML just, you know, it just takes you. And so I'm good with it because I've. So many people know my story of the second chance.

Yeah.

And they share all around the world. They're like, man, I. I was in an accident. I lost somebody too. And I hear all that and I'm, it's, it's one thing when you're hearing it and you're coaching or advising it's another one when it's your dad, you.

Know, or somebody you care about. Yeah. What about your mission to the world?

What is your mission?

And what would you like to achieve over the next?

Uh, you know, it's funny. It's one of the things you said probably made you like, I don't know about this guy because I'm always hammering home one message and some people are like, All he has is that story. I'm like, it's not that all I have is that story. It's I tell this story because that's my message. My message, when I tell my car accident story, the message that comes out of it is at the end of your life, you're gonna wonder if you lived a good life. And so you're gonna ask yourself questions to evaluate, did I live that good life? My message is find out what those questions are for you. That's it. Because if you can identify, if you can think like, what would I ask, how would I know if I lived a good life? You'd ask yourself questions. What questions would you ask? Because if you know your questions, then you get to wake up every day and you can live intentionally. So when you have to answer those questions, if you have a moment of cognition before you die and you ask the questions, you can answer them from a place of, you know, connection, pride, heart, be like, I did. I am, you know, I want to affirmatively answer at the end of my life, I lived fully, and I loved fully, and I made my difference. That's what I asked that second time after the ATV accident. That's what I learned I was going to ask at the first accident. Take my passport away. Well, every time I'm out of the country, these one of these accidents happens. I'm a little too adventurous sometimes, but I've learned that maybe sharing that message too often, people go, yeah, yeah, but I go, that's it, man. You can't live with intention unless you know the questions you're actually gonna ask at the end of your life. People say, How do I know what my purpose is? Know how you're gonna gauge your purpose at the end. You gotta know the questions. As I tell people, identify four or five, 10 questions you'd ask at the end of your life to see if you're happy. And then wake up, look at those dang questions.

Every day.

So I do it tonight when I go to bed, it's the same thing. 21 years, I've never missed. I go to bed, my head hits the pillow, I go, did I live today? Did I love today? Did I matter today? And it's not like I can be like, hey, Louis, every night, you know, I'm freaking awesome and the answer is yes. I mean, I have bad days, but enough of them are yeses that I feel pretty good about my life. And so that's the message I want people to know. Find out what your questions are, live.

Intentionally so you're happy with them at the end. Mm, that's great, man.

Hmm.

What are you most grateful for right now?

Well, one tactical one. I'm so happy to be mentioned in the book.

It's the best feeling, right?

Oh, my God.

It's the best in the world.

Oh, I'm so happy the book is done. I'm super grateful that that is, you know, because I, you know, a lot of my friends and family, like, where did you go? I mean, literally three years. We managed research teams, the largest study ever. I'm not an academic. So to put together a book like this, 30 pages of resources and citations to prove everything out with hardcore data analytics, honestly it wasn't my strength so it was exhausting. But it was what was required to serve at the next level. Because I wanted corporate audiences to be able to take this assessment and go, this is more rigorous than anything we've ever done. I wanted academics to love it. I wanted people who were entrepreneurs to go, I see what I can do. There are so many moving things I wanted this book to hit on. But it also exhausted me because it was just constant. So I'm super proud to have that done and grateful for that having come to a book I'm proud of. I'm extremely grateful for the patience and love of my family in this particular project. It took me away more than anything else. I'm actually really grateful that I've gotten to know you better and getting this to be the first like in-depth conversation with it.

Yeah, it's fun.

Because I think that you're very talented at holding a space for people, your team too, about holding a space for people to just be like, this is me. This is what I, you know, about.

Yeah.

And then I would also, you know, I'm always grateful for the God for the second chance I got from the standing on the hood of the car. Like, I got it. Like, knowing that each day you get up and you, it's not, self-help, psychobabble, it's like knowing that life is limited and you get a second chance every morning of showing the world more of who you are, breathing, taking that walk with your love, just having that every day, that kind of new beginning. I feel that in my career. I'm sharing that with you now and by the time this comes out, I'll have a new show out, the Brendan Show, I've never done that before, as a new opportunity. I'm grateful for the new opportunities. I think right now you and I have the ability to share our messages farther and wider than we've ever had before. I'm super grateful that we're alive right now at this time on the planet when I think our messages really need to be heard when we're surrounded sometimes by a culture society politics is so negative to have a platform to share something good right now. I'm so grateful for that.

What's the habit that you realize you need more work on or that you can improve on yourself?

Definitely raising necessity. I think the challenge you have when you're good is that you're good.

Yeah. So, you're like, I'm doing pretty good already.

Yeah. The better you get, the more expertise development you get, the easier it is to show up and go through the motions.

Yeah. You don't have to you don't have to prepare as much, you don't have.

To practice as much.

You just get good results.

Whatever you're gonna do is good enough. But what happens with high performers, it eats at them, because they know they got more in the tank. And they're like, you know what? That was good, but I could have got another. And it's not that they're dissatisfied. We take on that myth in this book. High performers are not dissatisfied. So people who say, Never be satisfied, they gotta look at why they're saying that, because it's not true, because high performers are satisfied. they're striving satisfied. Doesn't mean they're not striving for the next big thing, want to become better, but they're happy. Hyper performers are happier than all of their peers. I mean, by significant, almost double digits. So it's really significant. But I think for me, I need to constantly be reminding myself, like, okay, what is the reason you need to perform really well right now? And I need to be more consistent about that question. So I set up triggers in my life to do that, you know, from every time I stand in line, I have a line trigger, I have door triggers, I have phone triggers, you know, so when I stand in line, I always say, what level am I right now in terms of my presence and energy? Scale one to 10. One, I suck, I'm dead, I'm not even alive, not even feeling grateful. 10, I'm like, I'm vibrant, I'm joyous, here I am. And I rate myself consistently on that, and it just, Retouches me like the knee, I want to feel it's necessary to be grateful. I want to feel it's necessary to be great. I want to feel it's necessary to do my best, but you don't get that without reminders. So you got to set up alarms or triggers or some, you know, note cards around that, whatever it is takes for you to have that. But I know for me, Ray's, after the research, I didn't get how, I mean, I mean, you're talking from every athlete to every high CEO, this is what they did. they're. And I didn't find this. You'll see all the questions I asked them in the book. I really had to dial in their psyche. And when we found that, I was like, is that a thing that they'd really.

That's.

I mean, but they all do. And so it inspired me to that level. I'm like, I'm gonna raise my necessity, and I'll. I'm gonna practice everything in the book.

To get that up a little higher. I like that. Yeah. What's the first thing you're gonna raise in the necessity?

In terms of your business or relationships or health or what?

Whatever your life.

I would say I'm gonna raise necessity on probably at this point in my life sharing more. And we talked about that this morning because I never. It never was necessary. Yeah, I. I made my whole career training. Here's a problem. You're dealing with disappointment. You're dealing with stress. You had a fight with your, you know, lover. You don't feel fully charged. You don't feel connected. You don't feel like you're contributing. Here's the answer. Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4, because I knew that from the research or from my coaching experience, but I didn't share a lot into that. And I probably need to read your book. Masculinity, maybe there's something there, I don't know. So I just didn't feel like it was necessary to share Brendan. So I'm demonstrating courage, I hope, by making a show called the Brendan Show. Because I feel like for me to be able to pull that off without feeling like I should be punched in the face, I'm gonna have to Demonstrate the courage of like, I'm gonna raise the necessity to share more.

You're gonna own it, yeah. Okay, final couple questions. Well, before I ask them, is there any question you have for me or anything you wish I would have asked you so far?

Anything we wish you know, man, this is awesome. Now, question for you. Which of those habits would you work on?

I mean, every one of them, but I think courage. I think it's always being courageous to say what I think, to do the things that are the right things and not hold back in any way because I'm afraid of hurting someone, I'm afraid of upsetting a situation, or I'm afraid of looking bad or whatever it may be, whatever the fear may be in that moment. So I think courage stands out for me the most right now. I would say and then I think necessity would be the next one. It's like constantly, like, challenging myself to be more prepared in situations. Because a lot of times I just go on stage and I just, like, I really haven't prepared anything. I'm 10 minutes before. I'm like, what do I do? And then I just. I figure it out, and I go. And because we've had so many reps. Yes, yes. You know, you're way better than me on stage, but it's like, I've had, you know, eight years of reps now of training that I'm like, I can do good. I can do 80, and it gets a great result, you know? Yeah. But then afterwards, I'm like, I just know I didn't give everything that I should have. Yeah.

I got a tip for you on that one.

Yeah.

Knowing your work. Legacy. Here's your challenge. Your backstage trigger. Every time you walk on the stage, go, if this footage is the last of me ever.

That's a good one. I like that one. That's a good one.

Does that record?

How are you gonna show up?

Yeah. If I do that every time.

What are you gonna say? How are you gonna show up?

Even if I, 'cause sometimes I'm not prepared just like you. I mean, I hit five cities, but you know, here's 20,000 people in this arena. Here's 2000 at my event, you know, 1000 bucks a ticket. The expectation's insane. So I gotta be prepared for sometimes, but sometimes I don't have to be prepared because, you know, it's something I'm doing for somebody else. Uh, so it's easy to show up and not give. So it's like, because legacy is so important to you. I'm like, even if you're not prepared.

If it was the last footage ever. Boom. That's good.

Yeah.

You give your best, you know, you do your best. So those would be for me. Cool. Well, final one, two questions. The first one is called the Three Truths. And you've written many books already. Number one, New York Times bestseller. You've sold millions of copies. You've done the Brendan Show. Now you've done everything you've ever wanted to do. You've created it. And this is the last day 70 years from now for you, right? Theoretically, you've done everything. Any dream, any raising the necessity, you did it, achieved it. Like, nothing else you can do. You've conquered whatever you wanted to conquer. And everything's been erased for whatever reason. Every piece of content you've put out there, all your followers have nothing to see of yours. No books, sci-fi novels, no photos on Facebook or Instagram. You have a piece of paper and a pen to write down your three final truths. This would be your last message to the world. And the only thing that's recorded are what you write down is three truths back to the world. I kind of have an idea of what you might already say, but what would those three things be?

Well, I'll tell you what you know I'm going to say, but then I'll answer it in a different way too. Perfect. For me, it would be live, love, matter. And it'd be something around those truths. Because at the end of your life, what I found, you know, It's hard to give perspective to this, but for 20 years, I've been telling people to find those questions. And no matter what, and I don't know if you know this, but I volunteered in hospices for a decade. I've been with a lot of people in their last moments, weeks and months. I've been around a lot of that in my life. Because I wanted to see if what I experienced on that car was what other people experienced. In some ways it was. In some ways at the end, we all wanted to know, did I live? and how that was and did I love and did I matter? But hopefully that wouldn't be erased. But, you know, if it's related into greatness, I say, number one, like, the truths are knowing that, you know, outside of those, the truth is life will never be joyous unless you bring the joy. I really feel like that. So many people are waiting to have happiness, and they're just, they're waiting to like, well, maybe when my boss loosens up, I'll loosen up. Or, you know, when, when, when she's vulnerable, be vulnerable or it's like we're waiting for something. I'm like, your life will never be what it is going to be unless you bring that thing. You know, for me, I wanted to be, I want to be more bold in my life. That was one of my goals because I wasn't that, you know, I wasn't that guy who would just go out and do the things I do now. So I made gold like, I was like, bold is an intention. I set it as an alarm on my phone. My alarm would go off three times a day and bold would pop up. And I conditioned myself over seven years to be more bold. which is a big deal for me. And because I wanted, I wanted that, I had to learn how to bring that. So whatever you want in life, you got to bring it. I would say number two, honor the struggle. Like so many people bemoan the hardship and they hate it. And I was saying, you know, anything you apply hate to quickly dies. You got a dream and you're hating the process. You apply hate to the process, the dream's gonna die. you know, it's like, don't. Don't, you know, be very. Be very careful of what you put hate or things to. And most people do that with hardship. And I've always seen hardships like, I'm gonna honor this process. Sort of. It's a little Samurai mentality. You know, it's like, I'm gonna honor that this is difficult because that is precisely what's needed.

Yeah.

And then the last truth would be you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other people. because you can do the first two. But if you're not serving and connecting with other people, you'll never feel good about life. You might have a good life, have the good life. You could make a lot of money taking advantage of people. People do that. But you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other people. And a lot of it. One of the things in courage just came to my mind that we found from the research we kept digging down about courage. Courageous courage. ultimately comes from curiosity, which is such a weird thing. I didn't know that either. But you don't, you can't courageously connect with other people unless you're like, I'm curious to what they would think about this or I'm curious about them. You'll never try something new unless you're like, I'm curious to how that turned out. You wouldn't go for the, you know, the, the gold of the stars. And it's like, I'm curious if I can do it. Like, you have to, you have to wonder, like, is that possible? And so part of I think people's next development is being more curious about what happens if you did serve at a bigger level. Because the truth is you never feel good about life unless you do.

Figure out your market. What do you mean by that? What is a market?

Yeah, well, one, I don't like that term, especially for guys like you and me who we do so many walks of life, listen to your show and my show.

Multiple industries and markets.

Yeah, I look at how you you look at the analytics of like when I look at like the Brennan Show podcast is like holy crap, all these countries, all these like you can't, if you come to our events, I've gone to your events too, you can't do.

A demographic run of that audience.

It's not like all 32 year old male sales executives. No, and that's the car industry. That's the old world of marketing. You had to speak to one specific person. What people don't understand if they've never studied the history of marketing is that the reason that niche marketing came out that concept of just identifying one person to talk to. And some people now say, you know, identify your customer avatar. I'm like, no, you're identifying avatars. It's plural. Because the reason that came so popular in marketing back in the day was only for one reason. Because in the 20s, sort of the golden age of marketing and advertising, you only had so much budget to run a certain ad on one platform. So you really had to get super niche and narrow. Now we're able to reach a couple billion people. Now we're able to have broader conversations. So what you want to do with your market is try to understand what are the aspirations of the people I want to serve looking like? It's about the aspirations, not about the demographics.

It's the mindset.

Yes.

And I always talk about that, like for me, greatness is not about the 32 year old mom with two kids. It's more of a mindset and a mentality. And that's what we look for. Someone with a growth mindset. So, I call them conscious achievers. People are looking to achieve in their life, but in a conscious way. They want to grow personally and they want to impact people around them.

I love that.

If they have that mentality, then you're a part of the community. And that's who I try to speak to. But it can be a 16 year old or a 60 year old. It could be people from all over the world, but it's like this conscious achieving mentality.

I love that.

And that's what I focus on.

I love that. You gotta have that. Yeah, you gotta have that. And what I tell people all the time is like, if you're not out with your students, your fans, your followers, and you're not really getting to know them, at some point you're gonna lose that audience because you just don't know them.

That's true.

You need to know what's in their heart, not their age. You know it in their heart. not every part of their background or where they were raised and everything else like that. That kind of market analysis is overdone and corporations love to pay for that. And when they do deals with me, they're always like, Tell me everything about your people. And I'm like, they have the aspiration to go to the next level.

That's it.

For me, that's it. That is my market. I have always for the last 15 years marketed and talked to people who were in that transition moment of their life and ready to go to the next level. I didn't speak to those who were just starting. That was my audience, you know, who didn't know what person. I always went high end in the sense of, like, I speak to people who are ready to go to the next level. They've already got one level of, you know, security or, or, like, sense of themselves or success. And now they're like, you know what? Next level time. So they're, like, in that phase where, like, gearing up, you know? Yeah. They're like, here we go. They're not kind of like, oh, I don't feel motivated. I don't. that wasn't my audience. My market was an aspiration to go to the next level and I was focused on that and it's what made for me with our brands, like how did you do all those seven figure launches, 28 of them? I spoke to that aspiration specifically so people knew this is for me.

So here is- this is for me. So in like a 20 seconds, say you were doing a video to attract the aspirational mindset or the heart set of this individual. And you have a video that spreads out to the world and you know it's going to attract a certain type of person to come into your offering. What would you say in 15-20 seconds, a few key words that would be leading people into kind of where you wanted them to go. So it was the right kind of mindset. What would you say?

You're somebody who you've already, you feel like you've tried everything. You've been at this for years, you don't feel like you've to have gotten that breakthrough just yet. You're doing good, but there's too many days you don't feel as motivated or as driven as you really want to to go to the next level. And you feel like you need some more empowerment to really achieve that next level. Not kind of like just get inspired or motivated because that can come and go, but rather you're looking for real tactical solutions that will help you earn more, that will help you become more, that will show you like step by step. This is how you reach that next level. And not for my opinion, it's that I've spent 15 years researching the highest performing people on the planet. What they do is very specific. And if you're honest, you haven't been very specific. You've been random. And because you're good, you already have some success, you're able to just go through the motions.

Yeah.

But going through the motions is the killer of the high performer.

True. Right?

Because good to great, yes. You can be good, but that's not going to take you to the next level. So I'm going to assume already good, but you sense inside that there's a restlessness and there's a struggle there that you don't know what that breakthrough feels like, but you also, you're very aware of this next level. You have a dream, you have something you want to achieve, so let's just dial in your motivation, let's dial in your habits, but let's give you the.

Discipline and the willpower to make it happen. And that's why you need to go to Influencer 2019. He's got this dialed in. He's got the message dialed, the market, the message.

I got fired up being around you.

All the time, brother. We both really believe that we can help people do that because that's where our footsteps have been for 15 years.

To help people do this.

Yeah, it's amazing. So get clear on your message, the market. Then there's a method. What does the method mean?

I always love to talk about method with people.

Method acting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, for real.

It's like Picasso had a method. Van Gogh had a method. Beethoven had a method. They were thoughtful about the art of what they did. And influencers need to think about that. Like you thought about like, I want a podcast that's gonna be like this. Exactly. And as you hone that in over the years, the podcast got better.

Yeah.

Because you brought more intention to the method, right?

That's true.

Actors who just show up and kind of read the words, not good. But the greats, they're so thoughtful about the turn of the phrase and how they're gonna do this.

Right?

The great musician, the great artist, they obsess about the actual art of the thing. Because again, just showing up, especially when you're good, it's going to limit you. Now you want to be more intentional and say, what is this? It's like I've shared with you before, you know, having the blessing of working with Oprah, she starts meetings by asking, what's our intention?

Yeah.

Here. Greatness requires a lot of intention.

It does. It doesn't just happen by showing up. You gotta get clear on the results and the experience you want to create. You see a really high achieving influencer.

Do a photo shoot way different than somebody who's not high achieving. The intention and the placement of things of where this goes and how this closes. Closing everything. That's method. That's like bringing art to the method. When I wrote Motivation Manifesto, I was like, okay, I'm gonna write a book that's never been written before in its tone that hasn't been seen in 100 years. I was like, how do I figure that? I'm like, it was an art project. If what you are doing is an influencer doesn't feel like an art project, you're just simply doing it wrong and.

You'Re going to burn out and you're going to quit. So, give me examples of methods for someone like a Rachel Hollis and a Jay Shetty.

Yeah. What's like their method from your point of view?

Yeah.

Jay's super intentional about his videos. Like, I sit them down and we did an influencer day with him and we sat him, I asked him like 40 questions. How do you do these videos? He's intentional from when the video is changing to the tone of the music and when it's lifting to when other people appear in the video versus just him. He's intentional about the length of the video. He's intentional about what day the video is posted. He's made it.

Time, everything.

Because most people do, slop it together, throw it up. He's like really try to dial it down to a very specific process that draws emotion from people. And so that's a method.

Yup. And his thing is viral video.

Yes.

It's artistic viral video that creates an emotional feeling for someone. It's not just like this scientific videos or how-to videos. It's like an emotional feeling that people want to watch and share.

And you've thought through that too as well. That's why you've got hundreds of millions of views. And it's just like, versus guys like me who sometimes just put up a very inspiring video but we didn't put the B-roll in, we didn't put the music go up and down, we didn't.

Clip it at the right spot.

So that's a different method. It's a different method. Exactly. Different method results. And to those who put more into the method, they win. They're the better artists. An influencer has to understand you are in the art of impacting people. And if you're in the art of impacting people, you'd better focus on the.

Art as much as the impact. That's really good. What about someone like a Rachel Hollis? Someone who's skyrocketed over the last year and a half that seems like came from nowhere. We know that she's been working for seven years, written five or six books, and had a successful blog in a different space, but just boom, shot up one of the biggest selling books of the year behind, I think, Michelle Obama. Kind of felt like overnight, like this influencer with millions of followers and huge business within a year. Quickly documentary books.

She's great.

What would be the method for someone like that that you see? Or is it kind of more... No.

It'S again, it starts with being intentional about the art and what you're doing.

About your message.

Yeah, I mean she's still sending every single morning. She writes down, here's what my dreams, here's what my goal is, here's what I'm gonna do. She came out to this before everything really really took off. She came out to the house and we sat down together and it was so clear she was asking me questions about the like where her career could go that were really thoughtful. And people don't see that all the time because she might just post, you know, here's what I'm wearing today or here's a picture of the kids. But she's really thoughtful about where her career is going and she's super thoughtful about talking to the women in her market from a place that she's been there. Like she gets it. She knows that woman, she knows that person's experience and she's going to verbalize that and she's very thoughtful about the words she uses to connect because part of the biggest method in influencing is being very artful about your messaging.

It's true.

She doesn't say a lot of things over here, but she says these things over here all the time.

Over and over again. It's like a formula. It's like every six posts you see this, you know, another kid photo that's talking about this. Something different, you know? Yeah.

So she's always in the audience's mind and using the words they use and describing the feelings they have. She's also part of her method, her real art, is her vulnerability. To say, you know, start a book. I peed my pants. Like literally. You know, she, you know, this person dumped me. You know, I hated myself because I was like this.

I almost got divorced.

Yes. That takes a lot of body shaming. Intention to go, you know, I'm gonna reveal some things here that I'm not comfortable comfortable with, just like you did with masculinity. That was guts. That took a lot of art versus just saying, hey, here's a map. You know, let me tell you guys this. It's like, no, I'm gonna reveal this story and this vulnerability. That's art. And what people don't realize is the greatest artists of all time were incredibly vulnerable.

Yeah.

As much as they were telling you what to do. We love Bob Dylan, not just because he told us what to do and, you know, made want to throw our hands in the air and like march.

Or get fired up.

It was the vulnerability of the journey. That's why we love Kerouac. That's why we love Emerson. That's why we love some of the real greats is because they were thoughtful about sharing insight into their pain. Because people, you know, the influencers who fail always are bright and shiny. And they don't realize a lot of art does come from pain. And a lot of the messages that actually does help people, you know, is acknowledging things. Like for years, I didn't want to tell people that at the beginning of my career, I went bankrupt. I told them how much I struggled, it was hard, and I had to get out of my own way and all these other things, but I didn't want to use the word bankrupt. I was like, oh God, you know, because that was just like, here I am teaching people stuff, but I had this huge struggle. And I was like, no, and what dad said, that just happened. So let me describe what had happened. and not be afraid of it. I wouldn't know from that moment we would go on to build, you know, everything that we built by any means. But I wanted to avoid that because it was so painful to me. And at some point, real artists connect to the pain and they give it voice, verbalization or symbols.

Yeah. The greatest songs are not just, like, fairy tales. You know, there's. There might be a beautiful ending, but it's also, like, some darkness and struggle.

As well.

And that's what you can do in your business or as an influencer.

What would you know? The greatest art there always comes down to being almost always the method is you learning to fight for who you are.

Ooh.

Because right now, you think about the biggest memes that we see right now, it's always like, don't let them judge you. Don't let them tell you down. Don't let them tear you down. Don't let them hate on you. Don't let them stop you. And that whole, what's central to that, the architecture of that actual messaging is live your life. show your truth, be who you really are, not what everyone else expects you to be. And that's what always comes back to the message again. You are the message. And if you keep dampening yourself based on what other people tell you to be or how you're supposed to be, then all of a sudden one day you wake up unfulfilled and you wake up unfulfilled, guess what? Not easy to be motivated. Not easy to be motivated, then guess what? You're not going to create the content, the curriculum, the products, the programs, the business. Because you know, some people look at us sometimes and they're like, oh, well, you just as a podcast, they have you have this empire behind that. Right.

Right?

People go, oh, Brendan does, what is he? He does some email, he's big on Facebook with quotes. Okay. And they have no idea of a huge, you know, 200 employees across my brands, you know, it's like the impact that we've had, let alone just what I do, it's all the other people we've mentored and, you know, like inspired that can't come from a place of me being unfulfilled. That's right. I have to work so hard to be a happy, fulfilled, motivated, disciplined man. so that I can have that perpetuate across the brands and the business. That's it.

What would you say is your method then? And has it changed over the last 10 years? Yeah. Is it okay to change your method? Yeah, I think it always does.

I mean, no actor does a movie the same way. And if they do, you're tired of them. Right. I think it's a tremendous amount of diligence in sitting down and asking, what is it I want to convey here? And how do I want to do it in a way that's unique? unique to me and different in the market. So what do I want to convey? How is it unique to me? How is it different in the market? And so like my greatest art piece so far was Motivation Manifesto. You read that and you're like, I've never read a book like this my entire life. It's, you know, it's written like it's, you know, from the founding fathers of our country kind of tone. You know, it reads a little like the 1700s, but it punches you in.

The face every page.

To be or not to be.

Yeah.

It's like such a hard It's like you read it and you're like, Whoa, I really gotta focus on these words here. This guy, there's no fat in that entire book. There's not one word you could take out. I worked so diligently on that. I think what that was was an evolution of me saying, I don't want to just create books, to create books, to sell books, to make money, and to inspire people in this specific way. I want to be challenged in my own artistic process. I want to push the boundaries of what my art can be. I don't know how to write a book like this. It's not even my tone. I'm gonna figure it out. High Performance Habits. I've never done a full scale psychological science research based book.

And I was like... You went deep in that, like two years of research. Three years of research. Three years of pretty much every day.

You didn't talk to anyone. You were just like in the hole. Yeah, in the hole. The largest study ever done on high performers, even to this day, no one's beat it, right? Two million plus data points, people from 190 countries. We had all these academics looking at my research, trying to make sure that we got our correlations right and our variables right and all these other things. Like, I didn't know how to do that. But that was an evolution of me getting better and stronger and more nuanced at what I was doing. And I'm telling people, you know you're in trouble if you keep going through the motions. The more you go through the motions, the more you get miserable about the work. The more you're intentional and you challenge yourself to push your boundaries, the more you'll stay alive.

Yeah. What's the personal development quote by every famous personal development person, which is just like everything great is on the other side of fear or your comfort zone. Yeah, that's right. So you've got to constantly. It sucks because you're gonna get. It's good and it's bad because you get in the groove, you build this momentum of something that you're good at. Yeah. And you're like, okay, I've mastered this skill. And, yeah. Look at all the growth I'm gaining from this. But over a certain period of time, you're like, this is getting easy now. Yeah. And you have to constantly challenge yourself. Yes. And force the challenge because, well, you could just live off of this easy money, this easy success.

Yeah.

And stay there for a couple of years. But guys like me and you and the people that we hang out with, we're constantly reinventing.

Yeah, and pushing, pushing, pushing us.

And it's not easy. Yeah. It's not, and sometimes when you reinvent, this is the challenging thing that people don't realize, it's like you reinvent and put energy on something new, then the thing that was doing really well and making money over here, it kind of goes down a little bit. Yeah, that's right. And you had something for years, you know, that was making lots of money. And now you're reinventing it into a new model. Yeah. With influencer event coming up. Yeah. And it's like, well, this thing's been working for, I don't know, six, seven, eight years, like making millions of dollars a year, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of people every year. Yeah.

Why change this?

Yeah.

This is experts. Academy.

It's not broke. Why are you gonna fix it?

You know what I mean? It's like, Let's keep just doing the same thing. People are crazy doing this a little bit. He's referencing Experts Academy. Experts Academy is the biggest to this day. People love it. Yeah, it's the marketing trainer for all thought leaders.

It's the biggest, the best. People have built multimillion dollar businesses just.

Off of coming there and implementing this information. There were years where 65% of the New York Times bestseller list in the nonfiction category were Experts Academy graduates. We taught the whole industry, how do you do books? How do you do seminars? How do you do online courses?

How do you do subscriptions?

How do you build your following? How do you build the following? But we really focus on the business model, but we were talking to people who were experts or who identified as thought leaders. These days, people don't really see themselves as experts in many areas, and many people don't think of themselves as a thought leader yet. They're like, I was just a writer. Now I'm an influencer. It's like, great, okay, then I've got to change We have to adapt. Like, okay, it's a new phrase, it's a new language, but they have to learn the same business models and skills. So yeah, we're changing it up. And I think that the willingness to change it up is so important in the method because I just tell people all the time, if you are miserable, you have to know that neuroscience, neuroscience lets us know that one of the biggest things that lights our brain up is novelty.

It's true. Like difference.

Mystery, novelty, something new. And listen, anyone going through emotions for three or four years, and be like, oh phew, it's like, sometimes when you make it, it's like, oh, let's just do this for a couple of years. Let's take a breath. And I'm like, everybody goes through that, that's great. But if that goes on for too long, you become miserable. And then something has to break or challenge inside or in your market or in your business, and you go, we need to change, we need to grow, we need to transition.

And that's when the next level stuff comes out. Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day. I'm curious, why do influencers or anyone deal with self-doubt? When you've achieved a lot of success, why does self-doubt creep in when you're just starting? Why is self-doubt there? And how do we eliminate self-doubt?

Yeah, self-doubt is one of the first signals that you deeply want to grow. and most people start with self-doubt being a bad thing. I'm like, oh, it's a signal saying, you know what? I'm not yet enough to be able to do that thing I want to do. And that's okay. That's a great acknowledgment. Like, I hope everybody starts every new Endeavor doubting their capabilities, doubting their competency, doubting if they know how to do it. The difference is successful people and unsuccessful people in the way they deal with the doubt. Self-doubt for if you're struggling and you're always unsuccessful, it's because self-doubt is stopping you. Successful people, they have the same doubt, but they're exploring it. They're like, oh, and they're acknowledging it. You know what?

That's true.

I don't yet have the capabilities to do that. So agenda item, go get capabilities to do that. They don't let the doubt stop them. It's when doubt delays you or divides you from other people or destroys your progress that it's a problem. But it's a good cue to have come up, you know, because if it never comes up, you never say, I don't know. Or you'll never say, I don't know how to do that. Or you'll never raise your hand for help. So self-doubt is a good mechanism in the human experience. It's when it stops you that it's a problem. And so the goal is to explore it. And the goal is to realize that it should be a cue for you to learn. and ask for help. And what most people do, they're stubborn. You know what they do? They get self-doubt and they go silent. But in the silence of self-doubt, that's where the suffering is. When you speak it and you share it, say, Hey, Louis, I'm about to do this podcast, man. I've never done something like this.

I have no clue what I'm doing.

When I do this, how do you think through it? Could you coach me and mentor me? That is a proactive way to meet the self-doubt and then overcome it. But if I go silent with it, that's where the suffering and the stopping happens.

That's powerful. This one's on love. When do you personally feel the most loved in your life?

Denise.

Yeah, my girl. We met, you met my wife. So she believed me when no one did. And it's not just 'cause she believed me, she's just an exceptional human. she's kind, she's thoughtful, she's smart and beautiful, but she also, she just holds good space for other people.

She does.

She inhabits a good space in herself because she's at peace with being a good person. And then she, she was just, she's calm and she holds good energy. And it's been hard being married. And what I mean by that is marriage will challenge you. so much and I feel most love though in the marriage as much as it's a challenge, even though everyone who knows us, like we have this, like you've seen us, we are so sweet on each other. But the reason I say it's hard is because as you know, in 2011, I had a brain injury and there was a good two and a half years, I was not good as a husband and I don't think I was good as a man and what I mean by that is I was just like, I had anger issues because the brain injury, I hurt, you know, the prefrontal left cortex, I hurt my cerebellum, I hurt my hippocampus. I was having trouble with memory and motion and with controlling my emotions. And so the calmest guy in a marriage ever, all of a sudden was like being angry and like, getting upset about the stupidest stuff. And the reason I feel so much depth of love with her now is because we went through that. I really believe love grows in that subtle, what is that phrase? Love grows in that fertile soil of struggle. And we have struggled so much from having nothing to building our lives. She built an amazing business as owning exercise studios, had 30 employees, a great mentor to women. She went through tons and tons of challenges as a business person, as have I. But then that injury brought us really close together. Even though in the short term it was so painful that we survived it, that's where the love is growing so much.

What does every influencer need to be aware of? with the partner they choose, whether a relation, like a dating relationship or marriage. What do they need to have in their partner in order to be able to take their influencer message and share it with the world sustainably without too much stress and chaos from the partner.

You know that's good, that's good.

Feeling like, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this because I'm hurting my partner.

That's right.

I gotta dim my light a little bit 'cause I don't wanna make them feel insecure. What do you need to look for?

Yeah, say, well first read the chapter in Motivation Manifesto on love, because love is not something that exists in another person and love is a universal energy that we can tap into and we don't need it from another person. So it's removing need is the biggest and the hardest breakthrough in all relationships. Removing the need.

For yourself and for the other person.

Yes, not that it's always gonna be there. The second big idea is, listen, their permission or understanding is not required for your progress. People tell me all the time, well, she doesn't understand where I'm like, why do you think she has to understand? Why do we think everyone has to understand intimately our hopes, our dreams, our needs? You probably don't understand theirs. You can seek to understand it and you should, but it's okay if they don't get it. It's totally okay 'cause they have their own path. There's a lot of people in our world, you and I, we think like, what are they doing?

That's weird.

That's not what we would do. But they don't need our permission.

No.

You don't need the permission, the sport, the understanding, or the cheerleading of everybody around you to follow your dream. Because a lot of people say, well, I'm in a bad relationship, Brandon, and that's why I can't succeed. I'm like, okay, well, one, have some really honest conversations there, please. And a lot of them and consistently. But then also, if you can't change the relationship, then change your expectations of what that relationship is supposed to give you. because you don't need to be an influencer and to be a role model, everybody around you doesn't have to be perfect in cheering you on. In fact, you and I've had a lot of doubt and a lot of haters as we've grown. Matter of fact, I think the bigger you grow and the better you get, the more people will question you and not get it because your messaging is scaling. And so anticipate that not everyone's going to get it. But what I would recommend if you've got a good person and you're trying to grow together, it's just be so diligent about sitting them down and always painting the future. And I don't mean like painting 20 years out. I mean like, okay, honey, it's Sunday. Let's look at this week. What's your week look like? What's my week look like? That Sunday check-in to think about where you've been and now where you're going to go is so critical to growth. I mean, I can't even emphasize how important that is. Because if I know she's got a challenge on Wednesday, I'm gonna be a better husband for her on Wednesday. She knows I got a big interview, she's gonna cheer me on in the morning with text. You can't support each other unless you know what each other is facing in the upcoming next seven days.

That's powerful. Yeah, it's really powerful. What are you most proud of personally? in your life? Personal life.

Personal life. Oh.

Well, it could be your business too, but what is the thing, if you could say one thing I'm proud of in my life? You've done a lot of things, but.

That'S a great question, brother. I would say just consistency. Like, I know it sounds so weird, but like every great thing of my life came from being consistent and congruent. even when it was hard and difficult. Like I would love to say, well, what I'm most proud of personally is my love with my wife, my contributions, my books, but all those things had this consistency of effort behind them. I'm proud of myself for not giving up all of those times, you know, because I wanted to. You know, I'm proud that, you know, been a good man to my family and my friends for a really, really long time with very few exceptions that came mostly from my brain injury. You know, and I feel like I've been consistent all my life except for that period of time when my brain was not working. And you know, Dr. Daniel Amen who treated me and thank God for him and a couple other neuroscience guys who got me back on track of just, you know, I wasn't consistently working out or consistently being nice or consistently doing my art or my video. I was really struggling. Making it through that. I'm proud of that because that was really hard. I stepped up, I think you know the story, but I finished the Next Experts Academy, got off stage, a couple thousand people out there, and they do that thing where you finish and they call you back, and they're like, ah, you go back again, and you thank you, thank you, and you go back, ah, they did it again. Three times this happens. Three callbacks. I go off stage and I didn't feel anything. Didn't feel jubilation, didn't feel joy, didn't feel satisfaction, didn't feel pride, didn't feel like I'd even made a difference. I just didn't, because my brain was hurt and that part of the emotional processing just wasn't working. I just didn't feel anything. And I literally stood there and I'm like, it's time to hang it up. It's like, if I don't feel this anymore, it's time to hang it up. And I really did. I made that decision that day. I was like, I'm gonna hang up the events. and this was 2013 or 14. And it's like, you know, since then, tens of thousands of people have been to events. I was gonna hang it up. And luckily, I just. Sometimes when you know you're hurt or you know you're in pain, that's a good time to tell yourself, let's not make major decisions yet. Let's get some help. Let's try to heal. Let's try to work our way through, and then we'll make these big decisions. And luckily I had that, a mentor told me that. He said, well, you know, you're not feeling yourself yet. Maybe don't quit yet. And thank God. So I just stayed at it. Stayed consistent. Stayed consistent in my healing. Stayed consistent trying to be the best guy I could, and it turned around.

It paid off, yeah.

Consistency, man.

I know it's a weird thing to do. I think I've never heard that before. I know.

That's a good thing to be proud of.

Yeah. Because I think The hardest way to make a big impact is through being consistent. You can't make a big impact without being consistent a long time.

Because I'd love to say it was some accolade.

Yeah.

For me.

Or your marriage, but it's like it wouldn't be successful marriage without the consistency.

That would've been it. And if she hadn't been consistent.

That's true.

So having the heart of a consistent fighter, warrior, lover, caregiver, brother, friend, worker, artist, that consistent heart that can really turn into something meaningful.

What is, you talk about sparking joy all the time. What is the thing that brings you the most joy?

Teaching. Just teaching. I used to say it's writing, because I love to write, but the writing is really, I'm teaching. I just love to share. I love to share what I've learned or I've researched or I've seen with people. Teaching is, I feel like I'm a teacher at heart. I'm most happy and engaged. Even during this interview, when we were teaching something, I felt so much more calm when you were asking about me. It's like, it's just like, you're giving the framework. No, you're doing so great, you know? No, it's just where I feel so comfortable is just sharing and teaching. I was born to teach. I didn't realize that, but I literally had finished my 17th course. and I had a new videographer help me shoot that and he had never seen me shoot a chorus and he's like, oh my God, he's like, that's, I've never seen someone, because I'll do two hours extemporaneous teaching. I mean, I've prepared and I've prepared, I know my framework, but it's like, how? And I'm like, that, for me, I know that's a gift, because I suck at so many other things. I know that that's a gift. And so I try to step into that and every time I, I just feel like so much of joys in life, we sit around hoping we're gonna get, But when you are in your gift, the joy is just there. You don't have to work super hard. It's just there.

It's always there.

Yeah.

If what doesn't happen in your life that will create regret if you don't accomplish or don't live or don't be, it's the end of life. And if you don't do what you will regret it. Maybe it's something you haven't done yet. Maybe it's something that you're doing that you stopped doing. But what's the thing that you will live with the most regret if you don't do?

If I didn't make myself feel the days. Because, you know, achievements come and go. You're a New York Times bestseller. Three weeks later, you're still in the grind.

Yeah.

You know, hey, you hit number one podcast. Okay, we've both done these things. Now we're here. And it's like, I feel like regret really comes from you just didn't feel the days. It didn't have to be special, right? Because I've been with a lot of people. I've been in the hospice a long time. I'm doing hospice work after my accident. I wonder if a lot of people went through the same thing I did. And people don't talk about big things at the end with being regret. It's not like, you know, I should have moved to South of France and drink wine. It's like, It's more like, you know what? I wish when we had barbecues in my backyard, I was nicer to my brother. You know, I wish when, you know, when I was hanging out with my friends, I really saw them smile and I felt it. And so just taking a selfie and walking away, you know, it's like people wish they felt more moments of their life. And I'm aware of that for me too, because I can remember the rocking and rolling years when it was like, whoa. Like, now everyone, a lot of people do what we do, but when we started not, I mean, we were like, we were in that OG territory of our personal, of the space that you and I play in. And so I remember when it was just so unique and so crazy and things were going so fast and so many deals that it felt like two or three years went by like that. I didn't even sense them. Yeah. And I'm, I'm the guy who's so aware of his mortality because I've faced it so many times. I want to make sure I, like, feel it. You know, I just want to feel it. It's like a manifesto we talk about learning to hold two extra beats as time unfolds. So if you're gonna kiss your lady on your way out the door, like, hold that kiss for two extra seconds. You know, you give somebody a hug, hold that for two extra seconds. You know, at the end of the conversation, saying goodbye, just, you know, give them a good look in the eye for hold it for two extra seconds and just like, you don't have to do a tremendous amount of things to feel life more. Sometimes you just have to hold space just a little bit, just a few extra seconds to feel and appreciate it. When you say thank you, don't be like thank you, just like thank you and really hold that. You're creating meaningful moments in those spaces that you hold. And so I know I would be really regretful if I didn't do that enough. And that's been my own personal challenge since the brain injury, because it's easy for me not to do that. so I'm just trying every day to make sure I feel the day.

I love that. It's something I've been doing for a long time, which is giving long, awkward hugs.

Yeah, you are good at that.

It's like, hold it for five seconds. Unfortunately, now I have to be so cautious because of the time of the age we're in. Yeah, that's right. Where it's like, I'm almost like barely giving a hug. Especially if you're like a female. It's just like, can I give you a hug? You know, it's like, I've got to be very careful.

So it's like finding the joy in.

The things that and not being, you know, I don't know.

But it's still, you know, there's other ways to have it. You know, I just gave you an example. It's just like having that meaningful conversation for an extra two minutes and not.

Being on your phone during it.

Yeah, it just like, I really feel like the, the ultimate trying difficulties of our time is that people are not feeling the day anymore. They are swiping through the day and no real comparison is happening. emotion of the rise and fall of the videos is happening. But they go to bed at night and they're like, I didn't really. I didn't feel the day. I did a lot. I was distracted a lot. I looked at a lot. I even worked hard, but I'm not feeling this life. And I'm like, you have to make yourself feel this life. You need to learn mindfulness or awareness practices or try meditations or learn how to breathe, but have that intention, like, I really want feel it because after the most successful people in the world who have been blessed to work with a coach, they just want to feel it more, man. They are so tired of going through the motions. They're so exhausted doing everything else everyone else wants and they just want, I mean, I was with this person about four weeks ago, you know, incredibly, you know, cover magazine person. And I took the, I was visiting the person's house and I'm coached this person and we went for a walk. And I saw this sign that said something about some park. And I said, oh, let's go over there. And this person had not been in that park. Now they lived in this neighborhood, really fancy neighborhood for like five years, had never been in the park. I said, well, let's go over the park. And first thing, well, you know, we don't have time. And I said, you know what? Let me eat into my time today and give you this gift. Let me eat in my time. All right, so all we did is we walked and I said, why don't we just walk around the park? And I know this sounds very Zen Master-ish, but I'm from Montana.

We're outdoor people, okay?

Let's just let's take a stroll. And literally last night I get this text and the person's like, you, know what? I've gone to that park every day now. And the conversation that I know is having this head is just like, I'm taking a moment of peace for the day. to experience the day and to feel the day a little bit. I tell people all the time, get outside a little bit, breathe a little bit without your phone. We're living in such a distracted age, the number one problem we really have is people don't feel the day, they don't feel their relationships, so they're looking for this or feeling and they're lacking life.

If you want more greatness in your life, then you gotta check out this video right here. He had a great quote that said, rest at the end, not in the middle. And that's something I always live by. I'm not gonna rest, I'm gonna keep on pushing now. There are a lot of answers that I don't have, even questions that I don't have. But I'm just gonna keep going.