Your Mind Is Programmed To Keep You Stuck (Here's How To Rewrite It) | Brendon Burchard

Our preferences are our ceiling. Everybody listening right now, you have a preference and you've had it your entire life of how much problem complexity you wanted to take on. I prefer hard problems, complex multivariate problems. Other people to go, you know what? I like no problems. No problem people never become great.

Number one New York Times bestselling author and the author of High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way.

We have the inspiring Brendon Burchard in the house, We read all these like little books on habits, like do this little habit, do this little habit, this, you know, tiny habit, incremental habit, atomic habit, all these. They're great, except they sold the story to the world that like, oh, make it easy for yourself. The way to have a great habit is to make it easy. I'm like, go talk to high performers. Is it easy? Did you set it up to try to be easy? They're like, no, actually, I kind of did it the hard way and bumbled in.

We've been around people at the highest level of what they do. And there's certain non-negotiables that they seem to have. What is underneath the non-negotiables that support them to actually accomplishing their wildest dreams?

This is a huge insight I didn't get until maybe 4 years ago.

You have coached some of the biggest influencers, business leaders, sports athletes, spiritual leaders on the planet. For over a decade, almost two decades now. And we both have— you've coached them, I've interviewed a lot of them. We've been around people at the highest level of what they do. And there's certain non-negotiables that they seem to have, whether it be around their health, around their relationships, around business. There's certain non-negotiables. And I'm curious, is there a few key non-negotiables that the greatest leaders have And everyone's got different personalities and styles on how they've gotten there. Right. But what is underneath the non-negotiables that support them to actually accomplishing their wildest dreams?

I love this. This is a huge insight I didn't get until maybe 4 years ago. The non-negotiable doesn't sound like non-negotiable, but it is. It is that their preferences do not win over their performance. Or their aspirational vision.

What does that mean? Like, I prefer to have sugar all day.

Totally.

But I'm not going to eat sugar all day.

Yeah. And in performance, what I found out is like our preferences are our ceiling. Most people have a way they prefer their life to be. And more importantly, there's some very specific things we'll talk about preferences that prevent them from even trying. So for example, everybody listening right now, you have a preference and you've had your entire life whether you were conscious or unconscious, you had a preference of how much problem complexity you wanted to take on.

Mm.

Right? Elon Musk goes, I'm willing to take on the problem of going to Mars.

And running a car company and doing this. Exactly. And it's all good.

Yes. I will take on this much problem complexity. I prefer hard problems. I prefer complex multivariate problems. Other people that go, you know what, I like no problems. No problem people never become great. Other people, they go, you know, I just want this one problem or this two problem, but they're not going to go very far. I'll give you an example. You know, when I was learning math in elementary school, I was great. I was getting A's. When we got into like algebra trig 2 and 3, I didn't like the complexity of using the calculator to figure this out. And this multi-step problem solving, it freaked me out. It had nothing to do with my childhood, had nothing to do with my spirituality, had nothing to do with my values. It was just like people have a preference of problem complexity, and that is most people's ceiling.

Interesting. Is there a way to break through the preference? —of your, what did you call it, the what ceiling?

The complexity ceiling, really.

Is there a way to break through the preference or to expand the palate, expand the plate of complexity or problem solving and make it seem like it's actually easy? Yeah, that's the non-negotiable.

They don't care if it seems easy. They do it anyway. We read all these like little books on habits, like do this little habit, do this little habit, this, you know, tiny habit, incremental habit, atomic habit, all these things, they're great. Except they sold this story to the world that like, oh, you know, make it easy for yourself. The way to have a great habit is to make it easy. I'm like, go talk to high performers. Is it easy? Did you set it up to try to be easy? They're like, no, actually I kind of did it the hard way and bumbled in. The non-negotiable is they don't tell themselves it should be easy. They don't expect it to be easy. They honor the struggle. They go, I know what I'm going after is impossible, is hard. No one's done it before. When you read Jeff Bezos' investors' letters, when you listen to Elon Musk, when you listen to Jensen, uh, you know, at NVIDIA, it's like NVIDIA is like, it's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be brutal. That's why you're achieving greatness. You're taking on problems that most people were like, I don't wanna solve that. Detroit did not wanna solve electric vehicles. It was too hard of a problem in their system. It was not elegant. So Detroit said, "I guess we're not going to do that." And Tesla rolled in. And so you can really look back at your life and go, where did I really struggle? Where did I really fail? Where did it not go well? And I promise you, you had a preference. I don't want to take on problems that hard. Second thing they did in terms of preferences, we all have people preferences. We have people preferences in depth and frequency and volume. Let me give you an example, 'cause this, I know this is being very specific, but this is the high performance stuff. This is like the differentiator in what makes somebody great. Those who don't achieve greatness, they don't like people. They don't wanna deal with people. They wanna be solo. They don't have relationship depth. Mm. Because guess what? To go deep with somebody, that introduces problems. Right? When you wanna make a massive impact in the world, guess what? You have to deal with more people. You want a major, major difference in the world, you have to deal with more people more often. Team. Uh-huh. But a lot of people, and by the way, I was this way at some point, and I wanna really emphasize this to everyone listening, 'cause it's not like, you know, I didn't have these preferences too. For me, I'm like the Nutty Professor in the morning. I want to be by myself. I want to be solo. I'm really great. I mean, if I was in pluribus, if I was the last person alive, I think I could make it a year or two without worrying about people. I'm really good solo. Yeah, yeah. And that took me to, you know, just under 8 figures in revenue. And somebody like, I want to reach more people, make a bigger difference. I need a bigger team. Now, that is not my preference. Having a team is not my preference. If you said, well, Brendon, have a team, maybe my preference could go up to 5 people, right? Could I ever imagine over 100? No way. 100 employees is against my preference. But the question is, does my preference win or does the vision win? Interesting.

So who do you have to become to overcome the preference of the ceiling that you currently have in order to get to the next level? —of accomplishing the vision. Yeah.

You must—

Who do you have to become?

You have to become the person who's willing to set a priority of your aspirational self or the concrete vision that is more important than your natural style. Gosh. This is why I tell people, everyone thinks that their life ceiling is based on circumstance or their psychology. Well, Brendon, I'm an introvert or I'm an extrovert or I'm open. I'm like, actually, your preferences correlate more to your success than your quote unquote, psychology. Really? Yeah, 'cause guess what? Think about an introvert expert and whether they succeed or not. Well, we could say, well, it's just, you know, it's some kind of false dichotomy there that only one or the other can succeed. But no, the layering effect that actually happens on top of those things is, do you take on complex problems or not? Can you stay with the hard problem for a long time? That we might, maybe we can call that some element of conscientiousness in the, you know, the Big Five personality traits, but it's not necessarily. Extroverts, as an example, I'm an extrovert, like halfway. I'm like half extrovert, half introvert. But I have a very strong preference about the volume of people and how long I'm with people. Yes. Then I freak out. So it's not about necessarily the trait. It's about these preferences. So if a person is not willing to overcome their preferences, their natural style, their, you know, their natural preference for problems or people depth complexity, they won't achieve more than their natural style. My natural style is be home, be alone, not work that hard, piña colada time. Relax. Sleep in. Relax. Like what makes me comfortable and natural. For example, you and I have talked about this and you've coached me so well. About like this. I'm— it being the subject of an interview is very hard for me. It is not natural. It's why you can look for, you know, 20 years now, my career was direct to camera or on stage teaching. Yeah. Solo curriculum.

Yeah. No one's there. By myself. You to a camera. No one's watching you. No one's there. Yeah. Or live on stage too. But yeah, it's you teaching, but not someone questioning you. Right. Or asking you questions.

Yeah. But that preference only allowed me to reach so many people. If I want to get my message out, I had to learn to talk. I had to learn public speaking. I had to learn video. I had to learn to do interviews. None of that is my preference. So you must understand, high performers override their preferences. They choose a priority that is bigger than preference. And that priority is a future vision, a concrete vision, or an aspirational self. That's the difference maker. That's really the difference maker.

If someone wants to be successful, but they have a ceiling of success or a belief of success or how much they could actually achieve. If their success goes greater than the ceiling that they have in their minds, yeah, they earn more than they think they're supposed to earn. If they get more followers than they ever imagined was possible, if they get an award that they didn't even know was possible, whatever it is, they get some type of success their mind didn't even think it was possible, it went beyond their success preference. What happens if they don't believe they're meant to accomplish that?

Two big things that everyone knows commonly. Number one, imposter syndrome. You know, yeah, I'm in this room with these stars, but I don't really belong here, you know. Or number two, which is the real insidious thing, is lack of fulfillment. Really?

Even when you succeed and achieve and accomplish beyond your wildest dreams?

So many people who have so much money, so much fame, so much success, so much external achievement and also inner peace are not fulfilled. And here's the crazy thing is, think about this. You and I have talked a lot about belief. You have this amazing work on your, on your Greatness Mindset book. Belief is such a primary thing for us. But what is belief? Okay. I believe that something is possible. I have faith in this motion, right? I believe this thing will turn out. I believe in myself. I believe it will turn out. Mm-hmm. When you achieve— if you believed it and you achieved it, you fulfilled the belief. Yes. So fulfillment is I saw it, I believed it, I manifested it, it happened. Wow. So now I feel fulfilled. I fulfilled the belief. I fulfilled the faith. If something just amazing happens, it might happen. You might appreciate it. You might be happy for it. You might be grateful to God for it, but you won't sense fulfillment because you never believed for it in the first place. So the belief was never fulfilled. You just have the result. Interesting. And that's why people who are handed you know, a bag from their parents, people who win a lottery, people who succeed in their first thing, but they didn't really try. You follow them up years later, they've lost the money. They don't feel like they belong. They have all this, like, sense of inadequacy because they got something they didn't earn or believe for. It's very dangerous to just give people tons of stuff because they could become entitled. Right. And I know that's a controversial word. I'm not using that socially. I'm just using that in terms of our own belief systems. If we just get stuff, we tend to— we didn't do the work, we didn't believe for it, labor for it, desire for it. And so when it happened, it was kind of like, wow, that's amazing. But there's no fulfillment and there's no identity there, which is the aspect of imposter syndrome.

So if someone's struggling right now or they're just kind of going through the motions and they're not clear on what they want in their life, and they start to gain clarity and they say, okay, I know I don't want to be in this current situation that I'm in. I want to get out of this stuck feeling and I want to create something more powerful, more empowering, bigger for my life. I want to accomplish something. I want to break through a certain financial limit, whatever it might be. What do they need to do first? Is it get clear on what they want exactly? Is it start to reinforce new beliefs of what is possible, even if they've never actually accomplished those things before? That it is possible, or is it just about taking action and then allowing for things to unfold through the action? What would you say is the first step there?

Yeah, I think first step is always job one. Job one is no matter what your goal is, what your dream is, where you're at in your life, you have one job. Job one is teaching yourself to summon the best of who you are. That's where it begins. Like, you don't have to have a distant clarity. It's like, okay, how do I pull the best outta myself today to deal with my difficulties, my challenges, the awful things in my life? You know, let's start there. So I love clarity as a concept, and a lot of people like me use that as a concept of a future aspirational self.

Here's where I'm going, here's what I want in the future.

Yeah. I'm gonna give people an acronym right now, and the acronym is FREE, F-R-E-E. And it'll just, simple framework for people to remember. Like what you want, the clarity that you want, the thing that will take you to the next level is F-R-E-E. Number 1, the F is about feeling. You're after an aspirational feeling in life and you need to clarify what that is. Like how do I really wanna feel each day? For example, like I know I wanna feel centered, I wanna feel mentally strong, and I wanna be bold. Like, I wanna feel that. Like, that's an example. Some of the people go, oh, I just wanna feel loved, cared for, and relaxed. Whatever it is for you, that's a preference right now. It will probably change later. It's just a current preference. Let's just identify what's the feeling you want. And your job, one each day, is to live into that feeling, to generate the feelings you want.

You've gotta create it. It's not just gonna— You have to create it. It's not gonna magically, I wanna feel this way and I'm waiting for the feeling to happen. When's someone to make me feel this way? Yeah. You need to bring the feeling, right? That's it.

You need to be generative. Yeah, exactly. So it's not, you don't have a feeling, you generate a feeling. And so I have to, okay, what is the feeling I want to generate? For example, centeredness is a big one for me. And so I don't necessarily feel it. Like before we began this today, I was a little nervous. Like, oh, my buddy Lewis Howes, I wanna do a good job for him. I was like, okay, Brendon, sit down in the chair, get yourself centered. Yeah. Look at your friend. Let's have a good time. Yeah. So I have to, I have to do the self-talk to have the feeling that I desire. So if we're trying to get clarity for people, number one, what is the feeling you're after? And you have to start generating that more consistently each day. That's why I say job one is to summon that.

And I have a lot of strategies I use for myself to create those feelings. Yeah. For example, one of my feelings I want to create every day is connection, right? So it's like my preference would be to kind of daydream and wander, right? Or kind of do my own thing. But in order to create connection, I have to connect with someone's eyes, right? I have to— the more I look someone in the eyes, yeah, you're creating a connection. Just being in the room and looking around you and not looking at you, you're not going to feel connected, right? And I'm not going to feel— we might be close to each other, but that's not a true connection, right? So it's— I start the morning with my wife, okay? You know, maybe I don't feel like looking her in the eyes and really connecting for 2 minutes every morning, but I'm tired, I'm a little sluggish, I'm waking up, but it's This is an important feeling to have. I want her to feel connected to me. I want to feel connected to her. Yeah. And that's one, I guess, strategy that I would use to, like, put myself in generating the feeling that I want to experience. Not what's she going to do for me or what someone else is going to bring to me to feel this way. Like you say, you've got to bring the joy, bring the joy. You got to bring the feeling you want to create in your life. Another thing I have is I used to be so scared of going to these kind of networking events and business meetings early on in my kind of mid-20s when I was just getting to the business world. And I just said, how can I smile every time I enter a room where there's people I'm intimidated by? Like, if I'm going to an event or if I'm going to a party or networking thing or a conference, how can I smile and just look around the room and just smile at everyone? I love that. And 'Even though I'm nervous, let me just smile. Even though I don't know what I'm gonna say, why don't I just smile?' You know, it's like creating this way of like an engaging energy to hopefully allow other people to feel comfortable to talk to me, right? As opposed to being, I don't know, this tall, intimidating figure, athletic guy or whatever. It's like, smile, put my arms open. You know, when I see you, it's like I put my arms out to bring in a hug. It's true. And I hold you a little longer. I pick you up. It's like I'm generating the feeling that I wanna create. And you have to do it based on, you know, I can't do that with just some random stranger, but it's like doing it in context the best way possible. But I think I love this as a framework to start. The F being feeling. Yeah. How do I want to feel? And you have to bring that energy. Yes. And bring the feeling. Yes. So that's your life.

Doesn't change until you learn to generate that which you want to feel. That is the moment life changes when you can generate your experience versus just taking what hits you, because that's where you're in stimulus response forever. Instead, it's like, oh, regardless of what's happening around me, what can I generate? Yes. And I always give people that metaphor because it was— it's still— I, I know I talked to you before on, on a previous podcast. The, the changing metaphor of my life was the power plant does not have energy. No power plant has energy. A power plant is taking energy from one lower level of utilization It is transforming it into a higher level of utilization and transmitting it. That's what we do in our personal or spiritual lives. It's like we're able to tune into the world and instead of like getting— let the negative things ruin us, we're not like, I can, I can take all this energy about me and I can transform it into a higher level.

This message is brought to you by Apple and Verizon. And if you scroll enough online, you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, crazes like celery juice and cold plunges, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source—your body. Because the information you get should reflect the body you're in. With Apple Watch, you can track things like your sleep quality, your cycle, your cardio fitness, and more. You can then unpack all the information on Apple iPhone on the Health app, which allows you to track and view your data over time. And all these health insights are developed with experts from start to finish. Find out more at apple.com/health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. I'm saying, listen, I feel just exhausted, drained, burnt out. I don't feel like I have the energy to generate energy. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah, I don't have the energy to create it because it's got so much going on my plate. What would you say to someone like that who's not maybe at peak performance right now, but more in a state of like a lower energetic state? And I'm sure you've heard this all the time of like, well, I've got responsibilities, I've got my kids, I've got 2, 3 jobs. It's— Yeah, I'm behind on bills. How do I generate energy when I'm exhausted?

Yeah, the only way out is to shift your priorities. And at that stage, when you're there, the priority might have to shift to taking care of yourself again. You might be wiped out because you're taking care of everybody else. Yes. You might be wiped out because you're running the business and not leaning enough on the team. You might be in a terrible state financially because you've prioritized things that were big risks or you prioritize things that weren't needed or you, you know, didn't prioritize getting help. You try to do it by yourself. So there you have to shift a priority to have a different result. And so we've all been there. But once we know that's the lever, oh, the lever is the priority or the lever is— so the lever is either I generate something differently inside or I change a priority so I can get a tactical result. Yes. And that's why I like that metaphor of the power plant. Power plant doesn't have energy. It's generating, it's transforming it. We can sometimes do that from within. That's what changes our life. We do something new from within, but sometimes at a tactical level, we got to shift a priority and you have to be bold about that. You can't wait on it. You can't wait 7 more years on it. Shifting a priority means like now.

Yes. So step number 1, the F is how do I want to feel and generating that feeling on a consistent basis or as frequently as possible? What is the R.

R is less sexy. R is responsibility. And what this means is when we have clarity or aspirational self, the F meant, well, you have a feeling your aspirational self wants to feel. Start learning to generate that now. Responsibility is your aspirational future self handles responsibilities a specific way. Your current self with your obligation, your responsibilities, you might complain, you might blame. You might not, you know, get— you might get angry, impatient, insecure, you know, beat yourself up. The way that you handle current responsibilities and obligations is probably not the way your future best self would. Yes. So clarity is going, okay, future best self, aspirational Brendan, how are you going to deal with this argument with your spouse? How are you going to deal with the insecurity at the event? How are you going to deal with So again, intention is acting from the aspirational self versus just the preference. Now, my preference is I'm not even going to open up the bills because guess what? I know what's in them. So I'm going to stack the bills over in the corner and I'm going to avoid them. That's my preference. A lot of people's preference in life is avoidance, not assertiveness. Yes. And so they've avoided and avoided, avoided. They've avoided themselves into deeper holes. Priority have to shift into an assertive lean into the future and say, how do I want to handle problems? You know, when my competitor lines up next to me on the block, that's a responsibility. How do I want to handle that? When I gotta pay the bills, when I gotta turn on the camera and I don't feel like it. I mean, I, I would love to hear how you feel about this cuz I'm sure a million times you've turned on one of the cameras and you just, you know, you're on day 5 of filming, your 17th guest, and your eyes are bugging out a little bit, like, but they traveled to see you. You got millions of people watching you. You have a responsibility to get on. Yeah. Even though you might want to turn off.

So how do you do it? It's funny. I was just telling Caroline before you came in here, I was like, you know, this will be in less than 2 weeks. It'll be 13 years of doing the podcast every single week. Cheers, brother.

Come on, man, you're such a—

13 years every single week, 3 times a week for the last 10 or 11. Wow. It was once a week for the first year, then twice a week, then 3 times a week for the last 10 or 11 years. And I was just telling her, I was like, sometimes in the afternoon, if I've got multiple interviews, I've got to recalibrate, shift the energy, because I'm training for my Olympic dream in the morning, hard with a trainer. And so I'm getting up and I'm pushing my body. Then I'm with my twins and my wife, you know, then I got to be on the whole rest of the day. I was telling her, I was like, pro athletes, they train really hard, but then they're kind of like, they have a lot of downtime too, right? You can only train for so many hours and then like you're recovering, you're resting, you're playing video games, you're just hanging out with your friends, whatever it is, your family, but you're not on all the time unless you're playing a game or a practice. Yeah. I'm training for an Olympic sport and then I'm on the rest of the day. I've got to shave every day. I've got to do my hair. I've got to put myself together. I've got to be presentable. Yeah. To then deliver value to the audience and to my guests and be present. And Matt always jokes about me. He goes, "It's not hard sitting there and asking someone questions." You know, he always says this as a joke. I'm like, but when you're giving your full time and attention— intellectually, it is so hard. It's like, man, it's like, like, and you do it 2 or 3 times a day after you've trained, you know, in the morning.

And I've seen you, I mean, I've watched you this whole time and you know these little things about them. So you've done your homework, you've done your research and you're bringing that. So intellectually you're so engaged. That's tiring. Yeah, it can be.

But I have to constantly stay focused on the vision. And this is why every week we talk about, guys, our mission is to reach and serve 100 million lives weekly. Why? Because this is meaningful work for us. And if we're going to do something to make money, why don't we make it meaningful? Why don't we change lives? Why don't we impact people's lives and, and better people? Why don't we do something where we get to learn also and help other people? Like, yeah, what a gift, you know? At least that's how I see it. And I'm like, even if I had all the money in the world, I'd still want to do some type of format of this, helping others. Yeah, what a gift. And so it's, um, it's a constant reminder and it's, it's shifting priorities. Like you said, I have had to cut back on— like, I don't go out at night, I don't go to parties or dinners or these things. Like, I come home, I see my kids now, I see my wife, I recover and recharge and relax. Because I know I got to prepare for the next day and I got to show up again the next day, early morning training hard and have the energy to do what I'm doing next day, which is being on camera most of the time. And so it's, it's making sure my priorities have to shift in order to reach new levels of performance. And whereas I used to say yes to meetings all the time and do lunch meetings and dinner meetings and, you know, networking. It's like, I don't do that anymore. Right. Once in a blue moon, if there's like something special, like, okay, I really plan it, but it's not, yeah, let's go hang out tonight or this and that. It's like my priorities change to serve the goals that I want to create. Right. And it's, it's not my nature. You know, I wish I could just kind of show up and not shave and not do my hair and wear sweatpants. But I have to shift my preferences based on the priorities.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got— I want to acknowledge Lewis Howes and everyone hear this because when we talk about responsibilities, people often think that those are things that people don't want. Yeah. High performers want responsibilities. Yes. And the difference is they choose their responsibilities and they choose how to show up for them. Yes. So they prioritize things that shouldn't be responsibilities. Like, yeah, hey, let me delegate this. Let me not go out to those dinners. Yes. So part of the responsibility set, like when your aspirational self— I always tell people, it's like, it's not just how does your aspirational self handle difficult responsibilities? It's what responsibilities did the great you in the future choose and how do they show up for them? You chose kids. Yes. You chose. Uh-huh. That's amazing.

I chose it. Yeah. Yeah.

So how do you show up for them, right? That's—

it's interesting you say this because as you're saying this, I'm 42 and I just went back to my 20 years ago, 22 in my mind, and I can remember where I'm at. And, you know, I'm finishing college, dreaming of playing professional football, and also dreaming of like, how am I going to make money in this world? You know, what's my future going to look like? And I don't want to be living off my parents or living on my sister's couch, which I ended up doing. And I don't want to be struggling in my life. I want to have this future where I have a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family, a mission that I love. I want to have this dream life. And I am living the dreams of my 22-year-old self, right? I'm living it every single day. And I think it's a responsibility to continue to show up for that 22 version of me that had that dream. I get chills thinking about it because it's like, I love this. And we have to remind ourselves that this pressure is a privilege at this season of life when we have been creating the life of our dreams that our younger self couldn't even imagine. Or maybe we imagined it, but we had no clue when or how it was going to happen. I had no clue when or how this life would happen today. And I'm freaking living it. Yeah, it's incredible. It's so incredible. And it's, it's something to have a responsibility of appreciation for what we've been given. And then also to reprioritize, like you said, like, okay, maybe if you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed, you got to delegate things differently and you have to think about what are only the things that you should be doing. Don't take on everything. Take on less, but do it better. You know what I mean? So we were talking about this off camera too, is like, you know, I'm trying to go more all in on building my personal brand, but that means I got to let go of these other things I've been doing that's not going to help me with my time and energy. Right. So it's is constantly shifting priorities based on the season of life we're in.

Yes. I think it's so important people hear us talking this way about responsibilities because I love— I love what you just shared. It's like a lot of your responsibilities are a privilege. Yeah, you got to take the kids to school. Yeah, you used to dream of having the kids. Exactly. You know, I work with this guy, uh, you know, big financial guy, and the other— maybe this is like 2 weeks ago, he's complaining so much about having to do all this, you know, basically financial diligence. And I was like, do you remember when it was just a checkbook?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you were just trying to round out a few zeros to make an extra $10, $20, $30, $50. Like, bro, this responsibility to do this diligence for your investors, what a privilege. Reset to that, man.

Yeah, look at the life you have now. Yes. Because of this responsibility.

And I would just say, and this is very controversial, But I don't care. I believe that high performers and people of greatness and people of excellence, they view responsibility as a positive thing. Yeah. And when you are underperforming and when you are selfish and when you just have not done as much personal empowerment, every frustration, inconvenience, obligation, and responsibility looks negative. Where other people go, I can't wait to do that well and show the kids that it can be done well. I can't wait to do that well and show my teammate I can do it well. I can't wait to take on the challenges and responsibilities of life as a mature, competent, capable adult who's doing job one, managing me. I can't wait to see how I perform at the Olympics. Yes. I can't wait to see how I perform when they're faster. I can't wait to see how I show up when I'm 30 points down, bro. Yeah, yeah. Those guys, they they eat it up. The great people eat that responsibility of greatness up. They like it.

It's interesting. Something else is coming up for me. There's been two moments in the last six years. Can you believe it's been six years since COVID Oh yeah. In two months, by the time of us recording this, it'll be six years since COVID hit. But when COVID hit, because I got into, I guess, the the working world around 2008, 2009, right like in the middle of the, the housing crash. And so I was sleeping on my sister's couch, 2007 to 2009, and they weren't hiring at that time. And the economy was crashing, and it was like, you know, they weren't hiring some, you know, college football bum who played arena football and broke his arm. And I had no skills, I had no education really. They weren't hiring people with master's degrees, let alone someone who barely graduated college. And I remember feeling so helpless and so, like, powerless because I was like, I don't have any control. It doesn't feel like I have any control on how to get off my sister's couch, how to make a living, and how to get out of debt. It just felt powerless. I was like, what do I do? And I remember I was like, I never want to have this feeling again. So as I started finally learning how to earn money through having mentors and working hard and all the stuff I've talked about, I remember saying, I never— when there's another crisis, I want to be ready. Like, I want to be ready, whether that's having the right investment strategy, the right savings, the right whatever. So if something— when something happens, I'm ready. Yes. When COVID hit, like you said, I wasn't excited, but I was like, I have been staying ready, so I don't need to get ready for this moment. And this is a nightmare. For the world, obviously, and it's not fun. And there's a lot of sadness happening and loss of life. But I am ready for this moment. Like, I'm ready to take on the challenge of what's being thrown my way. I love it. And I felt like we, myself and my team, we thrived in that season. In other— my personal relationship struggled and another relationship, you know, other stuff struggled. But I was ready for the business moment. Like I'd prepared for it. And the second moment that's coming up for me was in the last 3 months. You know, I felt like last year I got married, Martha got pregnant, and then we had twins within, you know, 10 months essentially. And, and you reengage the Olympic and I reengage to really hard and all these different things, right? So it's taking on a lot. And I remember thinking to myself, for the last 5 years, I'd been doing my own healing journey in intimacy and relationships. To get me ready to get married. Like, I felt like I've been doing the inner healing journey to create a new preference in relationships. That's right. New priorities to have different results and a different feeling that generated from the relationship. And I remember just thinking like, I need to be emotionally ready for marriage, for kids, because I have no clue what's coming. And it's been a beautiful journey. And at the same time, when Martha, you know, gave birth to our twins, she had about 6 to 8 weeks of extreme complications. She went to the ER twice after coming back from the hospital. She was in the hospital 3 times within a month, and there were some scary moments. But I remember just thinking, thank God I invested 4, 5, 6 years ago in emotional healing to be ready for this. It was extremely uncomfortable. It was challenging emotionally, spiritually, physically, all these things. And it was scary. But I was like, had I not trained myself to prepare for these moments of my future self stepping into marriage and kids while having to run a business, while having to do this, while training, while— and keep everything going right, there's no way I'd have been able to handle it well. I would have been reactive. I would have been I can't handle this. I would have been broken down emotionally and spiritually and probably crumbled had I not invested years ago— love that— in staying ready so I didn't need to get ready. And I think when we are able to have a vision of our future self that we want, it starts now in doing the actions and creating the habits and creating new preferences like you talked about, which is owning responsibility. We don't like being responsible sometimes, but owning it allows us to be ready for when shit hits the fan. You know, it's like when crap happens, you may not handle it perfectly, but you handle a lot better than if you didn't prepare for this. You know? So responsibility is a huge one.

I've seen that arc for you too. Yeah. If I can just say it, like as a friend, I can share, like as a friend, watching you grow into the man for Marta has been amazing. And there's no way if you and Marta intersected 5 years earlier, it would have been a mess.

And she always tells me that. She goes, God, why didn't we meet each other 10 years ago? No. Why don't we? And I go, because I wouldn't have been ready. No, I would have blown it. Totally. I would have ruined this. And yeah, like, you didn't want to be with me.

You had to do the work I needed. And so everyone listening, I have a phrase. It's hard to hear, but I want you to think about the last 3 months. Okay. And just tell you, again, I just wanna refer to everyone. I'm a high performance coach. This is what I do for a career. In high performance coaching, we have this phrase, you're paid to push. So sometimes I say things that it sounds flippant when someone clips it. Yeah. They're like, oh, he is a jerk. And I'm like, I'm, I just say things cuz I think that this is true. If you look at your last 3 months, I wanna tell everybody listening You have been training to be able to handle your future dreams' responsibilities or not.

Yeah. And how you've been training is either going to prepare you for it or you're not going to be prepared.

You're in training.

You're doing it now. You are training.

How you are trying to overeat. Are you training to be mean? Are you training to disengage? Are you emotional? Yeah, exactly. You're training. And so I also think that's a really compelling thought for many people. It took me a long time to realize you don't have future dreams. You have future dreams and responsibilities that come with them. Yes. And so, for example, I knew in my business, you know, we have Growth Day and we serve people all around the world. And I said, you know, one day I'm going to have the software platform, we're going to serve people around the world. Well, I had that, that dream, and I thought, actually, how How does taxes work around the world? Yeah. If I'm selling into Europe or Africa or Asia, how does that work? So I literally went and watched videos. Yeah. Hired a coach, an expert, uh, went and studied a bunch of books and had to learn like, wow, how does that scale? Because I wanted to be earning tens and tens of millions. And you know, this was, this was long before, you know, one of our companies, you know, became a unicorn company. It was like, I, How does all that work? I was looking at that 10 years ago. It wouldn't— it would be years until I sold, you know, millions and millions in all these other countries. So I had to figure that out. And because the dream is reach millions of people, but there's also taxes, team, blah, blah, blah. So responsibilities. The question I'll go back to the— of the point is you have to have clarity and aspirations for future self. And part of that is the feelings you want, start generating them now. Part of that is responsibilities. How would your future self handle your current responsibilities? Yes, that's FR.

Then before you go on there, I have a couple more examples that I have. Just throw in, please.

I love this, by the way.

One is early on, my mentor Chris Hawker— I was broke on my sister's couch and I was like, I wonder if I'm gonna make some money. But I'd been working for maybe 6 to 8 months, I wasn't really getting a breakthrough financially, I was just kind of struggling, barely getting by. And I was like, gosh, I just want to figure out how to make more money. Because when you are poor and broke and in debt and living off credit cards, it feels like you're suffocating. It feels like you can't breathe. I don't know if anyone can relate to that, but for me, that's how it felt for me. I was just like— and if you don't know the solution on how to get financially out of that suffering, you're just like grasping for anything. And I was like, gosh, I really want to make some money. I just don't know how to do it. And he said something that stuck with me for the last 18 years. He was like, money comes to you when you're ready for it. And I was like, I feel pretty ready. I'm so ready. I'm ready. I'm ready for this. But then, you know, maybe a year and a half, 2 years later, the reason it stuck with me is because I started to earn more money and it started to come pretty quick after about a year and a half later, like it started to accelerate once I kind of figured it out. And I remember reflecting back on that conversation. I go, gosh, just like if I'd met Martha 10 years prior, I wouldn't have been ready for it. I wasn't internally ready for it. If I started making all this money that I was making 2 years later, I probably would have blown it. I would have spent it on stupid stuff. I'd still feel scarce around it. I'd feel anxious around it. I wouldn't have the right energy and responsibility to it as when the time when I started to make it based on the things I shifted inside of me around it. And so that was one of them. And one of the things I'm doing now is something my therapist a few years ago— once I felt like I was— got really resolved with certain things I needed to heal, and I felt like I integrated a lot of the lessons and I was taking the actions, and I felt like, man, I really feel peaceful. Doesn't mean I'm perfect or I still have challenges, but I felt like internally peaceful. She'd be like, what do you want to talk about this week? And I was like, gosh, I just feel so good. I feel good all the time. You know, but I was like, what are the problems that your 60, 70-year-old successful male clients have? She's like, a lot of the problems are they like make mistakes in their marriages or they work so hard for 40 years that they weren't there for their kids and they don't have a relationship with their kids. And they're kind of just like, you know, they've messed up their life, their family, their marriage, their kids. I was like, oh, I don't want that. You know, and I've heard so many great, wise older men say that success in their 50s, 60s, and 70s is their adult children wanting to hang out with them. Love that. Not because they have money, but want to spend time with them just because. And I was like, yeah, that would be a beautiful future self, right? And this was before I had kids. I was like, who do I need to be? Yes. To emotionally handle and navigate the emotions and ups and downs of children in the world and what they need and how can I best prepare myself? So I'm training now for my daughters to be teenagers. Uh-huh. You know, it's like they're a couple months old, but I'm training like, what am I going to learn so that when they're 2 years old, 6 years old, 10 years old, what are the things that happen around those ages? How do I navigate those things now emotionally so that I'm ready for it? 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I can see that's one reason we're huge friends. Yeah. And, you know, for those listening, many of you guys know Lewis and I run a mastermind called Ultra. Yes. And I can tell you, because I've run that several years now, that the differentiator, the people in that room, you can tell that they want the responsibilities of life that demand more of them. Yes. And I would urge everyone to really think about it. The group of people you hang out with or your team or your family or the friends you've chosen, when they talk about responsibilities, is it a negative conversation or is it I'm leveling up conversation? Yes. If it's a leveling up conversation, you're probably in the right group. It's a group that can see past problems and see a potential future and believe in something for you beyond what maybe you even believe or beyond where you're at circumstantially now. If you're around people who only complain about responsibilities and obligations, you probably need a new peer group, need a coach, need a mastermind, need the better company culture, need to move on next job. I don't know what it is for you, but yes, you have to be really attuned to that because there is that level in which there's a— speaking of COVID there's a viral nature of human energy about responsibilities. And I've been there. I grew up in a very difficult place, you know, economically depressed mining town. You know, parents— my dad did 3 tours in Vietnam, came back to the United States, didn't like soldiers anymore. My mom's from Vietnam. And—

who else from Vietnam? I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. French Vietnamese. You can't see the Vietnamese on me. I know, I never can, but, um, Yeah. So Dad grew up in Montana, uh, wanted to see the world, joined the US Marine Corps. Uh-huh. Ended up going to Vietnam in 3 tours, got all shot up. Wow. Came back to the US, um, ended up recruiting in the South right during and right after Vietnam when no one wanted that. So he'd be spit on, things thrown at him, just awful.

Recruiting people to join the military? Yeah.

Wow. Wow. My mom, uh, she had grown up in Vietnam under the first war, what used to be called the Indochina War, which was a French-Vietnamese conflict, which is before the American conflict. So the French-Vietnamese conflict, her father was a French soldier with her mother who's Vietnamese. He got killed when she was, oh gosh, 8, 9, 10. Yeah. So she got shipped to France for the Child of War program. She speaks French. She speaks French. Yeah. Grew up in, you know, convents basically. So she grows up, has a terrible time there, abused, treated really terribly, separated from her family in France, separated from her mother who was still in Saigon. And so mom has terrible— she turns 18, 19. She's like, I'm out of here. Goes back to Vietnam, meets another American, marries him, comes to the U.S. He's terrible. Terrible to her. They get divorced. She ends up meeting my dad. Wow. So my dad had to go to Vietnam, come back to the US. My mom, Vietnam, France, Vietnam, US, and they meet in Washington, DC. Wow. And, uh, love at first sight. Just amazing. Bam. Love at first sight. And, uh, just had nothing. Neither of them had anything, you know, left the East Coast to Montana to raise us kids because dad wanted to raise us kids in Montana. And, you know, grew up in Butte, Montana, and a tiny little town called Conrad, and then Great Falls. Tiny little towns. Um, and Butte had been economically depressed for a long time. It used to be a mining town. And, uh, it's a tough place to grow up. Brutal. Mom and dad working as many jobs as they could get, trying to raise for us. And there was a lot of alcoholism in that town. It was a very physical town. Lots of bullying, lots of fighting, just an awful town. And I can look back at that kid as me being raised through those towns and thinking about the times that we had. And I can— my dad kept getting better jobs as we moved throughout. Nothing ever wild or crazy. Ended up managing the DMVs of the state. Wow. And, you know, from one little one to many of them. And hopefully the lines were faster there. Yeah, I wouldn't bring that up to my dad. But, you know, he, um, he got better and better jobs. And I noticed that while they're not the jobs we all talk about in the media world, multimillion-dollar jobs, what I did notice was the people were getting around, when they talked about problems, you know, they had some ownership to them. It wasn't the government's fault. It wasn't, you know, this town's fault. It wasn't the economy's fault. They kind like, yeah, this is hard, but here's all the things I'm doing about it. And I started noticing a change in the culture. Then I went to college, I started noticing a change in the kids who succeeded and the kids who didn't. Then I went to San Francisco and I worked for Accenture, this global consulting company. And then, you know, now I've been a high-performance coach for 20+ years and work with the world's best teams, athletes, and everything. And one thing is the way they talk about responsibility. One complains, blames, hates it. Another goes, I wonder who I have to be to handle that next level of complexity and difficulty. Like who, like what skill set, what competency, what I need to deal with. And they want the challenge. It is the tell of the high performer. They want the challenge. It's the tell of positive psychology called flow, right? Flow state is you are, you're like going just beyond your current skill set or competency in a challenge you're engaged in and it's timely and you need to be quote unquote engaged. And I think it's just interesting. Are you a person who is fully engaged, taking on hard things that are responsibilities maybe you didn't want, or you did? But we all know somebody who's a deadbeat dad. We all know somebody who just refuses to own up to the lie. We all know somebody who refuses to give back even though they were given to so generously. We, we know people who don't take life's responsibilities And you just, you can't change your life until you get that self-reliant responsibility ethic.

And you can't, I don't know, it's hard to say that you can't achieve something great being a victim either. Yeah. So that's like taking responsibility versus, you know, reacting and being a victim to the circumstance that you have. And so we're talking about becoming free with your acronym, and that's creating the feeling. How do I want to feel? Taking responsibility as well for where you're at and where you want to be. What would the ease be? And free.

The next E, which is related again to your clarity and your aspiration self is expression. The future you has a way that he or she expresses yourself in a way— another way to say this, people, is like the future you deals with people in a specific way. You treat people in a specific way. You're generous with people in a specific way. You're patient with people in a specific way. If you think about the absolute best self, it's not just that you express yourself in the way you look in terms of status, you know, money, power, fame, or even clothing and stuff. It's that you're aware. I express myself confidently. It's like you talked about earlier. I walk in a room and I smile. Yes. It's like you talked about early. I, I'm there and present for my kids. It's like they're really conscientious about how they treat other people and you become more aware of your expression. For example, my natural preference isn't that charismatic when I teach, because I kind of like to go way deep in the— and talk about the research and the key points and the curriculum. I'm the guy who gets lost in the content, and I have to pull myself out and go, oh, Brendon, project, dude, entertain a little bit. Yeah, you know, move your hands a little bit. You know, I, I have to— now it's natural for me because I've been doing it for 20 years, but the very beginning, everyone I grew up around was like this all the time, or they were like, you know, gonna hit you. It was like, there was not a lot of free-flowing, especially masculine expression where I was from. Sure. And so I had to learn that. I thought my future self, wow, I see him differently. I would imagine, like, for example, at the time being on stage, I would grip the side of the podium. I would have 3 or 4 or 5 pages of notes and I would grip it and I would be terrified. But when I thought about a future speaking, I would see this kid like walking across stage, laughing with people, calling up people, like dancing and jumping to music, having a good time up there. And like, I could just see him so joy, so free in expression. And that seemed like light years away from where I was, where I'm gripping the podium, flipping the paper, sweating. I mean, I was like in an awful state. But the idea that I could become that— when you realize expression is not about your natural ability, but expression, like all communication, is actual competency. I was like, I can get better. Like, you've been coaching me how to be better interviewing. I'm asking you all these detailed questions. I'm like, Lewis, this is so amazing how you just do this. I'm awkward and weird. I don't, I don't know how to do this. And it's just fun to see you, you do it. But I know you developed that over 13 years of the show. Yeah.

And I didn't know how to do it originally. I had to learn over years. You know, it's like, just like you learned public speaking and I learned interviewing, it's like I didn't know what I was doing. You know, you just figure it out and you build that competency, which again, in High Performance Habits, you talk about competency creates more confidence. The more competent you become, the more confident you are on stage. Now, now you can be on stage and deliver what that kid on the podium dreamed of doing, dancing and singing and jumping around and getting knocked over by me in the air. That's right. When I introduce you, boom.

I don't know if you guys know that story, but Lewis and nearly knocked me off my own stage. He hit me with like this, like jump elbow shot.

Yeah. Yeah.

And they can't, I don't know if they could tell on camera now, but he's like significantly taller and bigger than me. Nearly knocked me off. But yeah, you, you, you have an expression. Now I wanna really qualify this for people. Yes. 'Cause they're watching this and like, yeah, yeah. I don't wanna do the stage stuff, Brendan. I'm, I'm more quiet. I'm like, I want you to know expression. When I say you have an aspirational vision of expression, it doesn't need to mean like, you're a clown like me. What it means— what it might mean is you find the fullest expression of your authentic self. You find comfort in being who you naturally are around people of the best of who you are. Yes. You, you, you become intentional in relating with other humans where you're generous, caring, giving, you know, affirming of them. And, and you have to teach that because most people, your natural thing is you're judgmental of them. Your natural thing is you're judgmental of self. Like, I'm insecure of self, I'm judgmental of other people, so I'm gripping life by the podium. Your natural, incredible, great aspirational self is not that. So you need to identify like, oh, the fullest expression. I remember a family member one time came to the holidays and he was telling us, you know, older, older member of the family said, I'm redoing my closet. I was redoing. Okay. He's like, yeah, because the way I see myself now is more like James Bond. I'm going to express myself like that at this stage of my life. I was like, it's cool. All right, bro. You know, it was like, all right. He was— he saw and he was going to build and live into that. So I just want to encourage people, your future self can start right now. How would your future self express yourself? Yes. Like my future self asks more questions. My future self gets centered. My future self is so excited to see people. You know, I smile at people. All these things we've talked about here, I think is so important.

Yeah, that's great. So that's the expression. And what would be the final E be?

Or was there an E before that? Yeah, the final E. So it's F.R.E.E. So it's your future self. You have a vision and a clarity of the feeling you want. Start generating it. The responsibilities and how you handle them, handle them that way now. The expression of how you express yourself and treat other people, do that now. And the last E is expansion. Mm-hmm. You've expanded your wealth, you've expanded your network, you've expanded your skillset, you've expanded your impact. Every single person has that expansive desire, even if it's been covered up, because the universe is expanding and we are multidimensionally expanding as human beings at all times, all stages of maturity. And so how have you expanded in the future? How are you a bigger person? How are you having more impact? How are you earning more? Where is the growth of where you're going to go? So you have to see and imagine and think about expansion. And I want to talk about Lewis Howes real fast, everybody, on this, because this is a real example in real time we were talking about today. He like, there's a stage in where Lewis sees himself expressing himself as a handball player. Mm-hmm. Right. But I don't know if everyone knows, but Lewis just bought a handball team. Yes. An organization. Yes. He expanded from I'm an individual player. To now owning. Yes. To I own a team. Yes. Dude, tell us about that because that's like, people don't usually think that way, but it's really aspirational. This is the interesting thing.

You know, I'm glad you said that because I was thinking about this when you were going over the expression. My natural expression in high school and college as I started playing, you know, sports at a higher level, um, was I was the receiver. I was never the quarterback. I was a role player. I was never the star player. I never wanted to be like this vocal leader. It wasn't my natural preference or like my comfort zone, but I could train really hard. You tell me what to do and I could master that one role. On the team, you know, 11 players on football or 5 guys on the basketball team. I was like, just give me the ball, let me score and do my job. But I don't want to be communicating and I want to be like leading. I was like, just let me do my thing. It was very uncomfortable to get outside of that comfort zone. And my normal preference was to do the best I can do as a role player, but not be a leader communicating. I have had to train myself over the last 20 years to get out of this preference of just let me be in my role and do well as a part of the team to let me lead the team as well. And it doesn't mean I have to take over and control the team, but how can I be a leader? And still today, it's like not a— it's not a natural state of mind to lead the team. But I know my future self needs me to continue to do that and show up that way to practice it. If I want to create this desired result, I have to develop the competence and the confidence of leadership in a different way than only playing well, but also playing well, managing a team well, connecting with every player individually, connecting with the team as a group. There's different skills you need to develop as a leader that's different than just playing by itself. Yes. And so how do I play well? And lead well and, you know, navigate the finances of the team and navigate— it's like so much more. But I'm like, I feel this will help me be more prepared for the Olympics by having the skill sets, by overcoming the challenges over the next couple of years. Like, this is only going to support my future self accomplish the dreams and be ready, you know. So I'm, I'm staying ready so I don't need to get ready. It's like I'm preparing and being ready now. So when the time happens, Man, I've just spent— now it's easy, you know, in 2 and a half years. Now it's natural because I've put in the last 4 years of reps to prepare for this. Just like it's natural for you to be on stage. Sure, maybe there's little nerves right before, like you want to make sure it's a good job, but spent 20 years behind the podium now getting reps to be able to dance and sing and do breakouts and coach and come back and remember what you're saying and have Joe— all these different things. And make it a beautiful experience over 5 days, right? It's easy now because you put in 20 years. So for me, that's been— it's still not a natural state of being, but it's something I show up to every single time I have the opportunity to lead, even though it's not something I would normally do. But it's what my future self demands of me. I love this. You know, it's like the future goal demands I get out of my comfort zone every time.

Yeah. Are you hearing the call of your future and heeding it by showing up into that expansion? Yes. You're like, you're showing up into team expansion, you know, where you show up in expansion of this media empire. You show up in expansion of the team here and the handball team there. Yes. Your family's expanding.

Same thing with the family stuff, too. I was very comfortable for 15 years. I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment and I would just kind of bounce around from apartment to apartment. Maybe spend a little bit more on a nicer apartment. But it was like, my preference is minimal, 2-bedroom apartment, nice. Okay, maybe I have a doorman now, but it's like, I don't need bigger, right? I was like, I liked my comfort zone. I knew everything was— I could manage it all. There was not— no one's coming over here. It's like I got my space. But my future self, you know, 10 years in the future, was like, gosh, but I have a dream of having children. And walking around a house with laughter in the halls and hearing laughter and play in different rooms and having fam— I was like, I really want family to be and visit me more. I need more space. They can't visit, right? I want her family, her extended family, to be able to come as well and have different, like, families coming together and activities and holidays. And I was like, and I want to have a sanctuary where I could also have my podcast set up if I need it. If there's another COVID, I could do it at home. I have a backyard where I can have friends over and play pickleball, and I have a gym, and I can do everything I need to do. And that was expensive to think of that, of like investing in a home. And I remember I was going back and forth. I live in this beautiful home. Me and Martha have a beautiful home for the last 3 years. It's my first home that I got at 40, and I'll be 43 here in a couple months. And as I was going through, by buying the pro— the buying process. I remember feeling like this resistance in my chest. I go, man, it's a lot of money. It's like, man, I'm going to have like $0 in the bank after I put all this down, and then the expense every month. It's just a new zone that I'm not comfortable with. And I remember I was talking to a coach that I had at the time, because I really believe in investing in coaches and masterminds in communities that support you in seeing a greater version of you. Yes. Right. This is why we have our mastermind with Ultra. We have hundreds of members in there who are investing and getting closer to their future selves. And I have that personally as well. Right. It's like I'm investing in support and coaches and mentorships. And I had this call with her and I was like, Clara, It's like, help me get through this. Like, is this worth spending all my money that I have right now in this down payment for a home? And she was like, what would your future self— you're turning 40 soon— what would you at 50 say to you right now? And I literally went into the future and time traveled, and I was just like, I had future hindsight. I was thinking in the future as I was looking back on my life, and I was like, my 50-year-old self would say this was the best investment you ever made. This is the— sure, it's going to be uncomfortable for 6 months or maybe a year because your bank account is going to be zero and you're going to feel this pain, but you're going to look back and say that was like the easiest investment, that was the greatest investment. You had a decade or plus of joy, love, laughter, play, family connection, games. It provided this sanctuary for all your dreams to come true. Oof, right? And so I had this conversation with my current self from my future self, and I was like, that was the decision. Now, it doesn't mean it's comfortable. It doesn't mean there's not some, you know, risk there. There's a new way of being when I'm used to living in a 2-bedroom apartment for 15 years. But man, it's been the greatest decision over the last 3 years. It's been like every day I wake up like, God, I'm so grateful for this space. This is a dream every day. And I think that, um, what's the fifth thing you're talking about?

Expansion. Expansion. You expand.

It's like, it doesn't mean it's going to be comfortable. It's not comfortable to lead when you've never had the training on how to lead. It's not comfortable to invest when you're not sure if it's going to pay off. But that commitment, that action is going to create expansion. And that's the only way you can really create the abundance you're looking for in your life.

Yes. Yeah. And you did it and you allowed that communication to happen with the future from an optimistic, yes, you know, believing place versus shutting yourself down with negative self-talk or catastrophizing. You allowed that dialogue to happen with the future and you played with it. Yes. You asked a coach, you got around people. I'm sure you ask your friends like, okay, how does this work? And you were like, you have to allow the dialogue of the future to happen. That is how you connect with destiny, is through dialogue with your future self. Yeah, we always think destiny is so much about hardcore action. Like, it's a dialogue first. It's a, it's a dialogue you're having in your mind. It's decisions you're making along the way. It's how you're showing up each day. And all of a sudden now it manifests a reality and you have this beautiful house. I've been there. I've seen the pickleball court. It's like you have this stunning, stunning, beautiful compound. You know, it's unbelievable.

It was scary at first because I was like, this is something I've never done. I'm not comfortable with. I don't know how to do it. I don't know what I'm going to do to generate more money quickly so I'm not at zero in my bank account. Like all the unknowns. But as you're talking about having a dialog with your future, something that Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about, he says, remember the future. I've heard him say this when I've interviewed him a bunch. He's like, we need to learn how to remember the future, not emphasizing the pain of the past. When we hold on to the fear of, well, I did this thing in the past and It hurt when this happened. I took a risk on love and I got screwed over. I did this thing in this business and I lost my money. If we stay in the past and create from the past pains, we're not going to create some beautiful future. We need to remember a future of the result we're looking to create and going back to the feeling you want to have in the future, the responsibilities it takes, the expression and the expansion. It's like if you have to— if you want to remember the future of like you have this dream home, this dream career, this dream business, this dream relationship, this dream health. You have to have the feeling now, which is what I'm hearing you say. You have to take on the responsibility of doing the actions of the future now. Yes. And you may not have the payoff for years. You may not see this result overnight. And expressing yourself from the future as well, and then stepping into that expansion. And I think when people can start to use this framework of 3 that you've shared, and I knew you have more in the book High Performance Habits. When you make that investment in this, your life is completely going to change, right?

Because you're showing up now. Yes. For that future dream and all the responsibilities and the joys with it. Now it just— it— otherwise what people do is you just go through the day. Yeah. And you're in stimulus and response throughout the day. There's no higher intention or higher aspiration. And if you actually talk with people about how they want to change their life, it is that they want to feel the day differently. Even if the same circumstances suck, they want to go through it and sense it in a different way. But you won't do that if all you do is connect with the problems in the way today. You have to connect with something in the future. It's so hard to get people— I love that. Remember the future. To me, it really is about knowing I'm either operating from stimulus and response and my minimal homeostasis baseline Brendan. Yep. Minimal self or aspirational self. Who showed up and won the day? I, it doesn't mean I don't have hours where I don't fall into comfort or impatience, or I'm not my best during an interview or whatever. The minimal self shows up. It's a ratio. Does the aspirational show up? And win the day more often than the minimal self. And once you— I promise everyone listening, once you're in the aspirational self more often, you find yourself higher performing. Your results get better. Better people are attracted to you. You're in better groups. You're leveling up the peer set, the success around you. You're attracting different things. And the weird thing is, by making those hard choices, things start getting easier. Yes. And you're like, oh, this feels good now. Not 5 years from now. It's like, It's starting to feel good now because I'm being responsible. I'm handling these things. And you handling life better and experiencing and generating into life better makes you better. And it makes today better, not some distant decade or, you know, 50 years. You'll get there. You'll— your compound actions will lead into that. Yes. But you might as well get to enjoy it today with that intention.

100%. And again, every day, today is all we have in this moment. And do you want to live a crappy day or a beautiful day? You know, you talked about the, the minimal self and the aspirational self. There's a great story or analogy about the two wolves that each one of us has, the good wolf and the bad wolf inside of you, and whichever one wins is the one you feed, the wolf you feed that day inside of you. And I, you know, I could have all the self-doubt and insecurity and anger and frustration in the world if I chose to feed those parts of me. Yes. And I can also have all the joy and beauty and gratitude and appreciation and generosity and possibility thinking as well if I choose to feed that part, those parts of me daily. Yes. And if you want to live in a minimal part of your life, feed those doubts and insecurities and speak about them and own them and take and just let them take over your life. Or say, I'm going to create a new life. And I'm going to feed possibilities more. I'm going to feed joy more, beauty more. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to feed forgiveness more. I'm going to feed these things so I have more peace inside of me and therefore I can create the freedom in my life, which again, going back to your FREE acronym, I think a lot of people want to feel love. They want to feel free. If you're not willing to take on life and new possibilities, then you're going to always get what you've always had. And again, I invest in coaching, mentorship, in deep personal relationships as well, and masterminds. And you have your book, High Performance Habits, that helps people become extraordinary in their lives if they're willing to take on new things in their lives. And I want this conversation— I hope people go back and listen to this and watch this over and over again. Because I want you, everyone watching, listening, to assess your life and just say, on a scale of 1 to 10, where am I at in my life? Do I feel like my life's at a 10 in my health, my relationships, my finances, my purpose? Am I at a 10 or close to it, or am I down in the 2, 3, 4, 5 in certain areas? And just take a simple internal assessment and ask yourself, where am I at? And do I want to live a life at a 2, 3, 4, or 5 8, 9, or 10? Mm-hmm. How do I want to live my life? Do I want to be below a 5 or above an 8? Not saying you'd have a perfect day, a 10 every day in every area, but ask yourself that question. And if you're not living above a 7 right now, it's time to start seeing where you can make changes, right? And where you can take responsibility in your life to start feeling different daily to draw on the future you want for yourself. And we have a coaching program and a mastermind. If, if people want coaching and mentorship in a group mastermind setting with us, they can go and check it out. We'll have it linked up in the podcast or on the YouTube description, or you can go right to lewishowes.com/ultra to learn more. This is where you get to meet us in person multiple times throughout the year, in-person live events, but also on an ongoing monthly basis virtually. We'll share more about exactly what's involved and what it's— we just started it a few months ago. It's been an amazing launch. The people are so fired up.

It's incredible.

Taking action. They're getting results.

The best teaching I've ever seen you do in Ultra.

Thank you. Wow. That was one of my—

I shared in a previous podcast, I was like, that was the— it was for me expansive watching you do that on stage for a day with our people. It was just incredible. I think fun. Yeah, I'm excited to put you back in that mentorship teaching role, which is so powerful because you have— you've come so far and you have so much to share with these people. So I'm glad you're doing that in Ultra, and it's an honor to do it with you.

I'm excited. And so if people are interested in really having accountability and responsibility and ownership of their future results, now is the time to take action and start shifting these things. And if you want that support, if you want that investment in your life for your future self, then go to lewishowes.com/ultra. All the information will be there. But this has been powerful, man. I'm sure we could go on for another few hours on this. But again, if you want to have a transformational life, it starts here with high performance habits and really assessing your life and seeing what it takes to get there. This has been powerful. Brendan Burchard, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. I love you, brother.

So good.

You either use stress or stress uses you. Yes. And the way you use stress is, you know, the whole phrase they'd say, you know, when you're going through hell, keep going. Yeah. If you keep going, 3 things happen. Number 1, you discover how strong you really are. It's the only way you're going to find it is to push through it. And then each time you do it, by the way, you get stronger, stronger.