Brendon Burchard: ON The Habits Of High Performers & How to Operate At Your Optimal Level

On this episode of On Purpose, I sat down with writer and public speaker Brendon Burchard, who was named by Oprah.com 'one of the most successful online trainers in history.' At 19 Brendon was in a horrific car accident and it taught him that at the end of life, we all ask: Did I really live my life? Did I love? Did I matter? You must know the questions you ask at the end of your life to evaluate whether or not you lived to your full-potential. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:43Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop.

• 1:26Jay Shetty?

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• 2:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised to yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 2:45Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Did I live? Did I love? And did I matter?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  And it really hit me, I thought, that's a gift right there. Those are the questions I'm going to ask if I'm ever going to die. Did I really live my life? Did I love others? And did I make a difference? Did I matter? Tonight, I'll go home and I'll ask that same question 23 years, every night. People, how do you do so much? I go, when you live your life with intention and purpose, you could get a lot done.

• 3:43Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you. Thank you so much for coming back every single week to listen, to learn, and to grow. I value your time so much that you take out time while you're walking your dog, when you're driving in your car to work, when you're commuting, or maybe even while you're cooking. Thank you. Even if you're at the gym, thank you so much for taking out this time to listen, learn, and grow. And today's guest is none other than Brendon Burchard. Now, I know a lot of you are going to be excited for this episode. Brendon is one of the top coaches in the world, an incredible speaker, an incredible author. But most importantly, I want to share something with you. I was just telling him literally two seconds ago, when I joined social media in 2014,

• 4:28Jay Shetty?

  not as a creator, but as a user, I was always looking for people who are doing good on social media because I wanted to follow people that were empowering. And I could pretty much, on Facebook memories, on this day, you know, you can type it in, I could pretty much find at least one Brendon quote per day that I used to share with whoever used to follow me at that time. And I think my posts at that time used to get two to four likes. So Brendon, I'll take credit for the two to four people. But honestly, it was just such a, his work was so refreshing to me. And the posts that he was writing were so sincere and so genuine. And when I had the opportunity to meet Brendon, I think it was late last year or earlier this year, when we had the opportunity to connect, I waited around after a keynote I was giving because I really wanted to meet him

• 5:11Jay Shetty?

  because I was just so impressed by what he had done. But more importantly, the way in which he did it. And he's just not disappointed. He's been really kind, really supportive, and someone who's really been there for me in this journey as well. So I want you to open up your minds, but also open up your hearts to a very, very special human being. Brendon, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Man, I love it. I mean it, every single word that I've just said. Thank you. And I wanted you to hear it from my, from my mouth. And for this, I'm just going to go for the audio. Brendon Burchard is a highly recognized as the world's leading high-performance coach. He's a magnificent writer, public speaker, and his books have been on plenty bestseller lists, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more. He's coached and worked with everyone, ranging from CEOs of massive companies to celebrities.

• 5:55Jay Shetty?

  Brendon's personal development trainings have more than 300 million views. Over 2 million students have completed his online courses and video series. Oprah.com named him one of the most successful online trainers in history. And he's also had 28 seven-figure online launches. His list of accomplishments goes on and on and on. But the most important thing is he's a true man of service and living an incredible life trying to help others. Brendon, thank you. Thank you, brother. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, I mean it. You're truly, you know, I think we always have this feeling of you want to meet people. And I'm sure you had them too. And you're always hoping that when you meet someone. They don't let you down.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:37Jay Shetty?

  Right? And I'm an optimistic person. So when I meet someone that I've been aspiring to meet, I'm always hoping that they're gonna blow me away even more. That's my hope. And when I met you, it felt that way. So I just wanna say thank you.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Thank you. You too. You too. It was so funny, because we were running so many similar circles and our friends were like, you guys don't know each other? You should meet up. And thank you, shout out to Louis for introducing us and making sure that connection happened. And same thing, I was hoping, I'm like, he's a monk. I hope he's like calm. I hope he's centered. I hope he's got good vibrancy and joy in his heart and his eyes. And you did, even though you and I both were kind of road warrior a little bit that moment.

• 7:15Jay Shetty?

  We were.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  We were out on the road.

• 7:16Jay Shetty?

  We were.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  And that was late at night. And we just were chatting and just, you know, when you meet people and just your vibrant and enthusiastic part of you that comes out, right? Because you and I already do that for life and a job. But then when you meet somebody who it draws you out more, I was energized that night. So yeah.

• 7:34Jay Shetty?

  Really? I thought you were just always like that. I think you are always like that. You have great energy.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm happy, you know, I'm living my second chance at life.

• 7:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  So for me, you know, after a big car accident when I was younger, every day is like bonus day. So I'm already reverence for life. I'm happy go lucky. But there are people who have an aura and a vibrancy. And everyone listening, they know that. There's those times, there's just some people who you're around, it kind of makes you pop and come alive. And you smile a little more. And you were that. And I was like, oh, that's what I wanted from meeting Jay Shetty. I wanted to be like that. And you were. So.

• 8:06Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, man. Let's actually start there. I wasn't going to start there. But now that you've mentioned it, I want to start there. I want my audience to hear that story from you. Because I think that everyone's either had one of those moments, or they're going to have one of those moments. And I want everyone who's listening and watching right now to either be prepared if they're about to have one, or maybe not even wait for that to happen.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:27Jay Shetty?

  And for those who've had it, to really use it to the advantage. So let's start with that accident that changed your mindset, that changed the urgency of life for you.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll give the takeaway, because it's a little bit of a long story.

• 8:39Jay Shetty?

  I know it is.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  You know, the takeaway is, at the end of our lives, if we have a moment of cognition, we're gonna lay there in bed. And we're gonna ask questions about our life to evaluate whether or not we were happy with it. And what I've always suggested to people is,

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Maybe don't pretend you're living your purpose unless you know the questions you're gonna ask at the end of your life. How do you evaluate it? Because otherwise you're just kind of living randomly. But when you know, oh, I'm gonna evaluate my life this way at the very end. Now every day you can wake up with intention. Now every day you get to wake up with purpose, which is why I love the name of your show. Because that's my thing too. It's like this, this deep connection to some type of purpose. So that at the end of our life, we're happy. There's no regrets. There, there's no sadness. There's no, oh, my gosh, why was I this way? Or why did I wait to do that? And I, my unique story is that I got that gift at 19 years old.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  The story is my, my girlfriend and I from high school, we were high school sweethearts. And like the super annoying kind. Like we were the, we became like high school sweethearts and we were the make out at the locker. And you know, stop it. You ever have that couple who stops hanging out with their friends? Because they get so much love. That was us. We just so fell in love with each other. We stopped hanging out with friends, stopped doing anything else, fell in love. She wanted to go to college. I was just gonna do like landscaping. I mean, I was gonna do like art projects on this. I had no, I didn't have a real ambition to go to college yet. We went to college together, shared a U-Haul on the way over, lived in the same dorms, signed up for the same classes, had the same friends, like the whole nine yards. Like literally, our life was completely intertwined.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  And then at the end of that, or in that first semester of school, she discovered beer and other men and cheated on me. And I don't know if you've ever been this way, but if, when your whole identity is wrapped up in a relationship and then the relationship falls apart, you fall apart.

• 10:44Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  So I felt, I fell apart. I fell mentally, emotionally, spiritually, completely apart. Couldn't get out of bed. You stopped going to classes. Friends deeply concerned about me coming over, trying to motivate, let's go out, let's go out. And I was like, I can't. I just would lay there and like cry, basically. And I, like, two things really changed my life, which I didn't realize till later. One was I was always a reader. I'm really happy about all the accolades I've gotten, everything else. But the thing that has driven my life is I love books. When I meet with people, I want to talk about books. I love books. And so I was still reading. So here I am depressed in bed. And I remember this is like several days after I had planned suicide.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Full on, not like thinking about it, wrote the letter, made a couple of calls and had planned to end my life. Laying in bed, super sad, opened the school newspaper and there is an ad in the school newspaper. So I'm reading. Second thing to change my life is marketing. Here's this ad, full page ad, white sandy beach, turquoise water, blue sky, green palm tree. And across the top, like the best headline ever for a young man in pain. The headline across the top said, escape. And I was like, yeah. You know, summertime job, students needed, Dominican Republic. Wow. Now, I'm in Montana at the time, at the University of Montana.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I've been to Montana. Oh, yeah. I don't even know where Dominican Republic is, but I know she's not there. So I'm like, so I'm like, I go, so take the job. We basically become glorified tour guides for an entrepreneur who works down there who we knew. And my friend Kevin and I, we hop in the car one night and we go to return where we were staying. And we're going down the shore at 85 miles an hour and Kevin is driving. And we came upon in the corner that, you know, here in the US, especially LA, would, you know, U-turn shaped, yellow sign, slow down 15 miles an hour, but developing country, new road, no sign. So we go around the corner and Kevin immediately like grabs me up and, hold on. And he cranks it.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  And I just, I mean, I didn't know then was it, you know, what happened was emotional, spiritual, mental, you know, make believe, who knows in my mind of what happened in the next couple of minutes. But when you're sliding in death's doorway, you have questions about life. It comes through as a feeling like, cause at first like that brace, that terror in a car accident, there's a piece of that. If you ever think of it like, you know, you don't want to die. And if you've ever been in a car accident, that weird slow motion thing happens. So that's why I said, I don't know where it was, cause like the super slow motion and I felt this brace and I really felt and sensed this like, did I live? Did I live my life?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  You know, later I can think about like, you know, because of course we want to know, did we live vibrant and free and, and a lot, you know, our life. But at that point, you know, I'd lived her life. I'd lived my parents' and professors' lives. And I really hadn't been living, I'd been thinking about taking my life.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  We went to, the, the, the car slid sideways off the road. And we hit this little retainer wall and it popped us up into the air. And I hit the side of my head. And I started seeing all these images of these times in my life when I was surrounded by people that I loved. And it was like these scenes, these just beautiful, just beautiful. It wasn't omniscient, it wasn't like a near death experience per se. It was just these beautiful scenes when I could see family members and everybody else. Because at the end of your life, you think about who you're going to miss and who's going to miss you, which triggers this other question of, did I love?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  And, you know, you talk about it too. And like, we want to know that we really love fully and completely and free, not, not from terror or fear or need. I hadn't loved, my heart had been shut down. And I always say to people, it's like, you have to be careful you've been hurt. Because we build up these walls to protect ourselves, we put on the mask or we get, you know, serious and stiff. But when you build up that wall to give out the bad guys, you also block out the good guys. And in our own self-protection, we block out the very things we really desperately desire, which is connection.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Car hit the ground, rolled several times, I got knocked out completely. When I came to, Kevin is next to me in driver's seat screaming at the top of his, just terrified. His eyes are wild like an animal and a huge chunk of his head is open. And there's just blood everywhere and this fear is like, what's going on? But I'm like in shock. He crawls outside the driver's side window. I go to get outside mine, but I can't, the car smashed on me. And all I have is this hole that used to be the windshield. I push myself through and I stand up on the hood of the car. He's screaming, screaming, screaming, but I'm in this thud, hollow. I don't know how to describe the shock. And I looked down and I saw in my body, I'm, I'm covered in blood.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  And this just terror hits me, remember at 19? And I feel life draining, literally physically, out of me. And I just remember life feeling like it's draining away. And I just remember looking at my feet, which was covered in blood. And I just thought, did I even matter? You know, did I even make a difference? Was there a reason I was here? And, oh, man. It was the worst because I didn't feel like I did. And then I looked down and the blood was going off the hood of the car. And there was a glint, there was a sparkle in the blood. And I didn't know what it was, it was a reflection. So it made me look up.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  And there was this bright, big, beautiful moon that night that I didn't even see earlier. And it was like this arresting connection. I just felt this connection and I felt like, you know, it was almost an immediate sense of grace. I was like, I'm gonna be okay. I almost felt like I was told I was gonna be okay. And so I call that like my life's golden ticket moment. Because I felt like the big guy upstairs, because I believe in God, reached down and handed me like life's golden ticket. Here you go, kid. You're still alive. You can still love. You can still matter. But now, you know, the clock is ticking. You're a lucky young man, you're still alive.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  And my whole life, I was just like, in that moment, I remembered literally looking up at this moon and I didn't know it was so, I didn't know what the feelings were at the time. Because I've had a lot of time to think about this, obviously, 23 years ago. And I just remember thinking, I will earn this. And I felt that next breath is like, I'm gonna be okay. Kevin and I, and I don't mean to ruin the story for everybody, but I survived. It's like, I'm okay, I'm alive. Kevin survived, lots of cuts, bruising, broken bones, terrified kids.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  But for me, what I took away with it was both the reverence for life, the appreciation for life, the timing of life, that the clock is ticking on all of us, but also this desire to, I want to earn it. Like, I felt so blessed. I felt like I got away with it. You know what I mean? Like, how did I skirt death? I want to earn this. So in the hospital later, I was thinking about those feelings and I was like, oh, wow. I kind of asked myself, did I live? Did I love? And did I matter?

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And it really hit me. I thought, that's a gift right there. Those are the questions I'm going to ask if I'm ever going to die. Did I really live my life? Did I love others? And did I make a difference? Did I matter? And so I decided, remember, I'm 19. I decided at 19, I said, every night, I'm going to go to bed, I'm going to ask those three questions about my day. So I've asked those for 23, tonight, I'll go home and I'll ask that same question. 23 years, every night. And people, how do you do so much? I go, when you live your life with intention and purpose, you can get a lot done. Because the nights that I can't say yes to those questions, it's not like I hate myself

• 19:15Speaker 01

  or I'm sad, but the nights I can say yes, I sleep well. And so I had just, I've had the simple mission, like, I love your mission, make wisdom go viral. Mine has been maybe more depressive to tell people, to tell people, you're going to die. So how about this? Figure out the questions you're going to ask to evaluate your life. Mine were, did I live, did I love, did I matter? Yours might be, was I a great brother? Was I a great mom? Did I build a movement? Did I... Everyone's going to evaluate it differently. I don't have the answer for anybody. I don't know their purpose. But I say, just think, if you're 90 on the rocking chair, or you're 105 on the rocking chair, or you're 200 in the hospice, you know, however old you are, if you have a

• 19:58Speaker 01

  moment of cognition, you're evaluating life, how do you know if you lived a good one? Now, wake up every day with the intention to do that. Live good, so you're happy with the answers at the end.

• 20:11Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 20:46Jay Shetty?

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• 21:30Jay Shetty?

  Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980.

• 22:03Jay Shetty?

  That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that in such a profound and moving way as well. And what I love about that and how you've translated that into what you do now is that I think a lot of us are gifted, like you said, the golden ticket, are gifted with golden ticket moments.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:41Jay Shetty?

  Some are more extreme or less extreme than what you described. And it doesn't really matter where on the spectrum it is. We all have those moments. And I think what's fascinating is that so many of us have that glimpse. But then we struggle to translate that glimpse into real transformation.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:58Jay Shetty?

  Or we struggle to translate this emotive, inspiring, deep, personal moment into something very practical, active and tangible. And I think anyone who's watched a motivational video or been through a life-changing accident will say they've felt that, where they've had a moment where like, oh, I felt yeah, in my body that I was meant to do this. But then the next day, I just didn't feel like getting up. Tell me how you started to form the habits that were needed for you to live this everyday. And you've already taught us one beautiful one, just like the one you just said. But how were you able to really take that through and start developing a world and a life to live up to those questions?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, stage one was I was honest that I was a hot mess. Like, I came back from the accident and I'm like, I'm a mess. I've been depressed. I was gonna kill myself. I'm sad. My grades suck. My friends are kind of like losers. You know, not in a judgmental way to them, but in how I wanted to feel, they made me feel bad about myself. And that's why I think a loser isn't what they've accomplished, it's how they make other people feel. Two different things. They made me feel bad. And I thought, I don't have it together. And that began my great and long-term committed search to studying psychology, because I'm like, why do I think so dumb?

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Why do I feel so bad about myself? How do you overcome depression? How do I deal with this sadness? Why do I still have so much hatred in my heart about something that happened so long ago? Just all this, like people say forgiveness, how do you do that? So I started reading everything in psychology first. Then I came into personal development. And then I got into spirituality. Then I got into leadership development. Then I got into business. It was every single thing of like, how do I change myself? So much so, you and I have this shared history. We both worked at a consulting company. Absolutely. I was a change management consultant because I spent literally from that moment for the next six years studying change in some way or another.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Studying psychology, studying political science, studying organizational communications and management to see, how do people change? And so I became infatuated. So in personal development, I studied like Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale and Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn and Marianne Wimson, Debbie Ford and Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins and just Brian Tracy and anyone who could get my hands on there. In psychology, I got into Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and Alfred Adler. In political science, I was studying this person in philosophy. I was going down the rabbit hole and I was just eating and absorbing it and asking the questions every day and trying to live it.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  And the most important thing at my time, I said, you know what? I want to learn to be confident. I want to learn how to communicate well. And I want to learn to have great relationships. So I studied those things really intensely and I just tried them. I tried them and I just, I literally, I was so good about making little goal sheets and trying it. And that was the year I also began my monthly goals. So on the first day of every month, to this day, I write a personal goal and a professional goal. That is, outside of all the things I'm trying to achieve, the personal goal is something like be more patient this month.

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• 27:05Speaker 01

  And every day, I look out on the way out. I put on the door. I'd walk out and be patient. No matter what my other goals or objectives were, that was like the defining personal theme. So I created monthly challenge themes for 23 years. You know, patience have come up a lot of times. It's like joy has come up a lot of times.

• 27:24Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  You know, staying centered has come up a lot of times. It's not like I have ever achieved. No one achieves personal development.

• 27:31Jay Shetty?

  Agreed.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Or a purpose. It is like an intention and a dedication. And so that's where it started. And by studying all that, it gave me the edge. I really believe when you are a student of life, especially in psychology and philosophy, you get the edge. Because when people are having problems, you can see perspective around it. And once you have perspective, you got superpowers. Because most people are trapped in their problems. And if you have perspective of how people have solved or managed these things in the past, you have superpowers to people. They can't believe, like, how did you know to say that or that? I'm like, oh, I read that in a personal development book 10 years ago. And that made the big difference for me.

• 28:12Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  It made a big difference. So it's just reading. I mean, I read a book a week for 23 years.

• 28:18Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Never missed. That's not true. Four times in my life, I missed. Two of them were in the hospital. So that's it. I'm a reader. And then I try to apply it.

• 28:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Try to apply. And then, the ultimate challenge? Is I made my career about it that forced me to develop skill. When I was a consultant first, then became a coach, then decided to become a researcher and a writer in this field. I had to prove my chops. There was no, just talk about it. It wasn't posting on Instagram because I didn't have that. It was, can I sit in a room with an executive and change?

• 28:54Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Can I get the change? Can I sit with a high profile athlete who's in trouble with their behavior? Can I get the change? Can I sit down with a person who wants to start a business and give them that confidence they need? Like whatever it was, it was real time challenges for so long that fortunately that experience helped me.

• 29:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you're talking about because I think we have such an answer obsession today. Like we're all looking for the answers. We're all trying to find the answers. And actually what you're saying is the emphasis should be on the questions, finding the right questions to ask.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 29:28Jay Shetty?

  And then finding where to find the answers to those questions, which led you into psychology and led you into political science and led you into philosophy and led you to all these places. Because you were answering, asking the right questions.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:39Jay Shetty?

  And I think there's such an answer obsession today with, we want the answer. We want to know how this works and why it works. But we've just got to go deeper into asking that question more sincerely, more genuinely. And so much more comes from that because you just feel inspired by that question. I feel, and what you mean by student of life, like when you're a student of life, it means you're questioning.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 30:00Jay Shetty?

  Right? That's what it means. Like what else does it mean?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Talk about questioning, like I'd, I'd been doing seminars and coaching for six, seven years at a really high level. But I was wondering, I'm like, is my stuff right? Is it true? Am I one of these guys who just talk like, let me super test it. So we did the research. I teamed up with a researcher from University of Pennsylvania's positive psychology department and researcher at UC Santa Barbara. We conducted the world's largest study of high performers of all time. Like no other study has been this big, this comprehensive, this deep dive.

• 30:30Jay Shetty?

  Hundred and ninety countries?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Hundred and ninety countries. I mean, millions of data points. And, and the reason, because no one would spend the money on it. I was like, oh, oh, I'll kick this. Let's figure this out because I want to know that what I'm doing is precise and academically validated. But I only bring that up because the first habit that we discovered of high performers worldwide, and high performers tend to be the top 15% of successful people in whatever field that is. And usually, you know, and that's the broad 190 countries. In the US, it's the top 3%. Hands down, the habit that really changed their trajectory was this habit called "seek clarity." Notice, it doesn't say "get clarity." High performers seek clarity. I'll give an example.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Like with Oprah. I've had the blessing of working with Oprah. If you have a meeting with Oprah, when she walks to that meeting, her first thing she asks is, "What's our intention for this meeting?" Now, lots of executives walk in meetings, they just start the meetings. She's seeking clarity of "What is this about?" And you take an underperformer in the work world, or at your job, they just bumble in, and they're like, "Okay, let's just do it." High performers go, "What is this about? Where does it fit in? What's the priority?" They're asking themselves questions constantly, and not questions of self-doubt, questions of clarity. Like, "Who could I be? What's my best self look in this situation?" You know, that's a question high performers ask.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  They want to know, "How can I be of most service in this situation?" A lot of people just go through the motions. High performers seek clarity, they ask the questions, and because they get clarity and seek clarity throughout the process, they get ahead faster. Because a lot of people just, and they're good, but a lot of people are just brunt force workers. They'll just go and do it. They'll just apply force, and will, and hope, and fire, and hours at something. But often, they're running in the wrong direction.

• 32:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  High performers, you know, it's like in directions. Some people will drive for 50 minutes. Other people will pull aside in five and go, "Hey, where do I go?" That's the high performer, and they're going to get there faster and succeed in life. That's seeking clarity.

• 32:42Jay Shetty?

  And that sometimes feels scarier to do, because you have to open up yourself to vulnerability, not knowing, you feel like you're not intelligent now, or the other person may perceive you as different. Like, how do you break that, that barrier of like, being okay with saying, "You know, I don't know, and I want to find out." How do you break that? Because I think for so many people, even raising their hand at an event... Or going up and really asking your question. I used to, I used to say to people all the time, I was like, when you see someone you admire, stop asking for a picture, ask for a question, you know, it's like,

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Ooh, I love that.

• 33:11Jay Shetty?

  You know what I mean? Like, because you get asked for pictures all the time. And I'm like, why? If, if you had a moment, like, let's just imagine, let's take Oprah. You have a moment with Oprah, are you gonna ask a picture or are you gonna ask for a question?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:21Jay Shetty?

  You know, it's like, it's that there. And if I meet you, it's like, can I ask for a picture? Or am I gonna ask Brendan for a question?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:27Jay Shetty?

  You've studied 190 countries and the top performers.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:30Jay Shetty?

  I'm hoping I would ask you a question.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:31Jay Shetty?

  And, and I think, so how do you get there? How do you get to a point where you, you wire your brain in such a way that you're, you break the fear of, I'm scared of looking silly. I'm scared of looking stupid. I'm scared of looking like I don't know. And actually recognizing that's a strength.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, maybe not the most popular answer, I go to the fear. How are you gonna look silly or stupid? You're not gonna ask questions. And you're gonna end up in the wrong place. And people are like, why didn't you just ask? Like, follow the fear. If the fear says, I'm scared I'm look stupid by asking questions, like, well, let's flip that. Because if you don't ask questions, you're definitely gonna look stupid. You're definitely gonna end up in the wrong place.

• 34:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  You're definitely, I mean, you're, you're manifesting the very thing you fear by not doing the thing that you're scared and being, you know, you don't wanna be vulnerable about.

• 34:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  So I think, one, first, I'm always a guy, I'm like, pay attention to the research. If the research clearly says, like, I'm, I'm a little bit scientific in my mind that way. I'm like, if the research says clearly across 190 countries and some of the most successful people on the planet, they ask more questions and they're intentional and thoughtful about that, then start monitoring your questions. Because what most people will do, and you know this, a lot of their questions are horrible. Why do I suck? Why don't I fit in? Why don't I have what she has? You know, what's wrong with me? This is what people do ask. If people listen to their thoughts, a lot of their thoughts are negative questions. What's wrong with me?

• 34:58Jay Shetty?

  Ah, yeah, wow.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  You're already asking questions. It's just the quality of your questions are probably pretty low, great. So now we need to first more actively seek and ask questions, be vulnerable about it, pay attention to the quality of questions you're already asking. And what we found in the research was it was really easy for people if they want to draw the circle out.

• 35:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Or draw these circles out. It's specifically, we wanted the research and I interviewed 300 of the top high performers in the world. Not for podcasts, but like in real, like structured academic style. And here's what they tend to be more clear about. They are more clear about self, social, skill, and service. And here's the breakdown of that. Self is, they have an intention of who they want to be. And they're clear about that. Like, if you could describe your ideal self, we did this in the research, it's actually on video, it's interesting. If you ask an underperformer or a high performer on video, could you describe your ideal self? Drop three or four words to describe your ideal self. High performers, bop, bop, bop, the answers like fall right out of their mouth.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Underperformers like, it's almost like they never thought about it.

• 36:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  So they didn't have the intention about who they wanted to be. So what I have people do is in their phone, I have them program their alarm to describe their best self in three words and make that alarm pop up throughout the day. So you're walking, because you always look at your phone when it buzzes. It buzzes the alarm and it says, bold, dynamic, confident. Great, says that over and over. Or kind, loving, thoughtful, you know, or generous, empathetic, you know, whatever. When that pops up over and over and over, it starts to set the intention in the mind a little bit. That's why people should use affirmations too. On the social side, they were incredibly intentional about how they wanted other people to feel.

• 36:41Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  You and I just talked about this out there about, what I love about you is you want people to feel like they are your friend. And you want to feel like a friend to them. That's a social intention. You're clear about that. And you even said, when you got clear about that, something changed for you.

• 36:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, massive. It was huge. And I think what I love about what you're sharing right now is this. We always get lost in the confusion of who we are, even at the most basic things.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:10Jay Shetty?

  So what I say to people, like, how many times have you ever stayed up and struggled to find something to watch on Netflix? Now, it sounds like a stupid example, but my point is, I'm guessing a high performer knows exactly what type of movies they like.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 37:21Jay Shetty?

  They know what type of food they like in the morning, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And when you ask people, they'll say, oh, no, no, but I like being spontaneous. And often I think that that's answer means I don't know or I don't really think about these things.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:33Jay Shetty?

  And so if you ask a high performer, what kind of movies do you like? They'll be able to say, these are my favorite movies.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Jay Shetty?

  I found that when I could have more self-awareness about what movies I like.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Jay Shetty?

  I had more self-awareness about how I wanted to be in social situation.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:43Jay Shetty?

  And self.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:44Jay Shetty?

  And I think it starts with the small things and the big things.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 37:48Jay Shetty?

  Everything from what you want to eat for breakfast, all the way through to how are you going to serve and impact the world?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  It's the superpower you have because you meditate, because you journal, you write, you reflect. That reflective process of our lives has gotten kind of stolen away by the distractions. So people don't know. And you could see, you could see in video, they're like, ah, they don't know. The other element is skill. So they, like, a high performer, you say, what's two or three skills you're working on in your life right now that you're actively learning or training on? They're like, bop, bop, bop. Underperformers, like, I don't know. Like, they're almost hoping to get better? And you're like, oh, no, you, you, you need to decide. These are skills, like, for me, I sucked on video. Sucked.

• 38:32Jay Shetty?

  It's hard to believe it now.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  No, I got my video guy Travis here, right here. He could tell you, 10 years ago, I was kind of horrible.

• 38:38Jay Shetty?

  Really, Travis?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:39Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow. It was a nod, everyone. It was a nod. I couldn't believe it.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  It was awful. I mean, even before him, I had the, you remember flip video cameras? No one knows what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah.

• 38:50Jay Shetty?

  No, I remember.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  The flip video camera, it was like just a stick and it had a button on it. And I would, I was broke, living in an apartment at the time, and I duct taped it around this box and pressed the button. And I had my shirt was all open and my hair was like all over it. And I was like, I'm Brendan. Because I didn't know how to talk to camera. I didn't know how to be myself yet. I was, video was really awkward for me.

• 39:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I, like, in all the personality tests, believe it or not, I'm half introvert, half, I'm right down the line between introvert and expert. So I need my personal time. So camera was super awkward for me. And I was like, okay, but if I want to change the world, guess what is necessary? Communication skills. I'm going to have to learn that. I was not, I didn't, I wasn't raised in a place, I was raised in Montana where men didn't really communicate. Except with looks, glances and fists, you know? So it was like, if a guy lifted, it wasn't like we, like we're gesturing.

• 39:43Jay Shetty?

  Right, right, yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Where I'm from, if their hand came up, you were getting punched in the face, man. That was it.

• 39:47Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  So I had to learn emotional intelligence. That's a skill. So communication, emotional intelligence. When I got into our business, I had to learn copywriting. I know what that was. Email marketing? I didn't know that. I had to learn coding. I don't, none of that, I knew what it was, but I was always confident. And I think real confidence is your belief in your ability to figure things out. I believe in my ability to figure things out. Give me enough time, energy, resources, study, books, mentors. I will figure it out. And you want me to go to the moon? I'll figure it out. Even though I have no idea today, I can learn and get mentors. So that's a deep part of my life. High performers have that. They just believe they'll figure things out. That confidence is what ties a lot of their habits and their abilities together. So, skill set. Oh, I better learn copywriting and video?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  So I practiced video a bajillion times. I forced myself to do it a bajillion times. And now I have 28 online courses and Travis has been there. I shoot all of them mixed temp.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Literally, I'll do a two hour video with the flip chart. Five words on a page and I don't, I don't need a script or anything. Going from a kid who was like, but, you know, couldn't get it out to just flowing. Do four day seminars by myself for 10 hours a day on stage speaking. Like, you know, artists lose their voice sometimes singing for three hours. I go 10 hours a day for four days. I had to learn vocal control. I had no idea how to do that. That was a skill. But that's the important thing. Everyone listening, please write down, what are the top skills you would need to master to succeed in your purpose, in your life, in your career? And the last element there was service.

• 41:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  High performers, they kind of know the service they want to bring to the world. That's why I was like, Jay's gonna smash this. Because, I mean, you were so humble, you were like, I've only been doing this X amount of time, Brendan. But you already knew you want to make wisdom go viral and you knew what was true to you. You knew the type of purpose you wanted to make and you're still seeking that out and clarifying like we all are. But high performers know the service they want to give to the world. And they don't know it exactly or perfectly, but they're intentionally moving towards that. And so for those who are like, I don't know if I have clarity, I'm like, okay, get clarity about yourself a little more, about how you want to treat people and be with people, about what you need to develop and how you want to give or serve.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  And if you focus on that, like every day, every week, you're conscious of those four things, one day, you're just so much more confident and clear.

• 42:18Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, yeah. And what I love about that is just this, sometimes it's just what you're fascinated with right now.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 42:25Jay Shetty?

  Because I think sometimes we make it too big and we're like, oh, well, what's my big purpose or what's my big service to the world? And it's like, well, what moves you right now? Like, what are you interested in right now? When, I mean, mine was totally the opposite way. I grew up as a really shy kid. I'm right down the middle of introvert and extrovert too. And my parents forced me to go to public speaking drama school when I was 14 years old.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 42:46Jay Shetty?

  Because they were scared that I was too shy and I was too much of an introvert and I didn't know how to communicate. So my parents forced me to go from my school, it's an extracurricular activity. I went three times a week, three hours every week from ages 14 to 18.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:00Jay Shetty?

  The practice, the exams, like we were examined on reading a paragraph from a book with tonality and being able to bring a story to life just through words and visuals and then being able to, there was this thing called impromptu presentations where you got a subject five minutes before you had to go in and talk about it.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 43:19Jay Shetty?

  And you'd be able to talk about it and you couldn't say anything that wasn't true. So you had to make sure that it was all factual and whatever you did resets in those five to 10, 15 minutes was right. And, and I remember doing that and I get to the end of that and I was like, oh, well, I've got this skill now, but I don't know what to use it for, because that's basically what I was like at 18.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:36Jay Shetty?

  Oh, so I've learned how to do public speaking. I'm now four years into my London Academy of Music, Drama and Arts and I've got, you know, gold medal in this, this, this. But I was like, what do I do with this? Because I had nothing to talk about. And then when I started studying philosophy from the eastern perspective of the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita, I was like, oh. This is what I was meant to learn it for. Like it almost like was I had a skill with no service.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:59Jay Shetty?

  And, and I don't want, and that's what I'm saying that if you're listening to this right now and you have a skill with no service, don't worry. Or if you have a service with no skill, don't worry.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 44:06Jay Shetty?

  You know, just go and find the missing piece of the jigsaw you just gave us.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:09Jay Shetty?

  This four piece jigsaw you just gave us. Chances are you probably have one of them.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:14Jay Shetty?

  And then you can go and build the other three, but don't worry about having all of them now.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:18Jay Shetty?

  Right?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that.

• 44:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  I love that. And you, you followed those interests and developed them or developed skills without even knowing. So many people want the path to be completely clear now. And you and I were just talking about this, like you, you, you, you have to have faith in the timing of the path. You have to believe that serendipity will appear when it's supposed to appear. That purpose will reveal itself sometimes in one battle and sometimes in another battle. Sometimes in this game or that game or this thought or that activity. And, you know, I think people stress way too much about getting clarity. And that's why I love the phrase seeking clarity, which came from research. No, they're just, they're actively seeking.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  It's not like a 60 year old high performer has everything figured out more than a 30 year old high performer. By definition, what's making them high performers, they're both still seeking to dial it in. Like you and I are going to be dialing it in our whole lives. Sometimes it'll be a shift, sometimes it'll be a total break, sometimes it, but that doesn't stop for anybody.

• 45:24Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Just doesn't.

• 45:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. I love that differentiation between getting and seeking clarity. The other thing that fascinates me that you've written about high performers is this strive for perfection. Where high performers can often be hard on themselves.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:37Jay Shetty?

  And, and I'd love to hear your perspective on this. It's this difference between the pressure that we place on ourselves versus complacency.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:47Jay Shetty?

  Because I think right now we're hearing a bit of both out there on social media and everywhere. A lot of people are confused. It's like, do I really go hard on myself and am I really disciplined and am I really harsh to myself? Or actually, do I just let it go and just let it flow and let it happen? And, you know, I want to hear what your research on the high performance is. And it came to perfection versus progress.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's no question they're more into progress than perfection. There's no question, there's like zero question that they are working on the things that move the needle in their life. So they're focused on the, the, the, the things that matter most. So they're good at wheeling out distractions, but you know what I always tell people is like, if you think you're a perfectionist, you're probably lying. And, and the reason that is, and that people hate when I say that, but if you look it up in the book, in the dictionary, it's like perfection, like if you actually look up perfection or to perfect, it comes from that root word, to perfect. To perfect does not mean it's done.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  To perfect means like, and two things happen in, in that connotation of to perfect. First, it has to be an iteration or a start, or it has to be done in like first draft. To perfect, it means take it from being done, being released, being out there, being come, you know, where you feel like it's a start and then to perfect it, to keep working on it, to keep iterating on it. And what perfection, what perfectionists always say, here's what they really say. Well, I haven't started yet because I'm a perfectionist and I'm only going to do it if I can get it completely right. No, you're lying. There's a difference between want, there's a difference between perfecting and being fearful.

• 47:28Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  And what most perfectionists are is they're scared. They're scared to start and scared not to get it right. So they don't even begin.

• 47:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  A real perfectionist is so in frigging motion. They are, they're perfecting, they're beating it up, they're iterating there, they're dialing it in and they are active at it. To perfect requires an active improvement. And most people who say they're perfectionists are actually dead stop fear.

• 47:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  And so I'm just like, be clear about where you're at.

• 47:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's great advice. I love that advice because I've always had a rule since I started that all my videos are 70% complete. So that's my rule.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:07Jay Shetty?

  It's 70%. That's all you're getting.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:09Jay Shetty?

  There's words that I say wrong, there's fumbles, there may be a few mistakes here and there, the editing may be slight, but it's like my rule was 70% because that journey from 70 or 75 to 99 could take.

• 48:22Jay Shetty?

  Decades, you can never, I would never release something. And I remember in 2016, after my first ever video, one of my first videos that went viral, I actually got so scared because it was almost like, oh, I have to live up to that now. So I remember not creating.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Jay Shetty?

  And so I went from creating one video a week to creating one video a month. And guess what? I learned less. I was engaging less to connect with my audience, to understand what they needed and what I was giving.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:49Jay Shetty?

  And I was trying less ideas, which meant that I wasn't learning.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  You weren't learning as much.

• 48:53Jay Shetty?

  I wasn't growing at all. I wasn't progressing.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  And the world was being taken from getting more beauty from.

• 48:58Jay Shetty?

  Which came from a place of not thinking like that, which came from a place of not trying to be perfect. Exactly. The original video that did well came from a genuine place of just wanting to serve and trying to figure it out. And then all of a sudden, we're not serving anymore.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  So good.

• 49:10Jay Shetty?

  And so I was like, okay, this doesn't make any sense. And I was like, actually, and then last year, when we started making more videos, I can honestly hand on my heart say that when we started doing three videos a week, I started to learn so much more.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Jay Shetty?

  I was like, oh, I really like it when I write like this and I really like it when I create like this. And the audience really responds when I share it this way. And I was learning so much more.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:30Jay Shetty?

  And I was feeling more fulfilled by making more mistakes, but learning more. And so my mistakes increased.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:36Jay Shetty?

  But your learning increased too, which was a much more fulfilling place to be, even though it was tough at times, but it was fulfilling.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 49:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  I love that. And if you guys are listening, you're thinking, oh, this is just two podcast guys jamming about how it's so easy to get started. Let me, let me share with this, one of the higher performers in the world, Jeff Bezos, who started a little company called Amazon.

• 49:55Jay Shetty?

  Tiny.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  He talks about this idea that he and executive team makes decisions when they have about 60% of the information.

• 50:06Jay Shetty?

  So I'm 10% above Jeff Bezos.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:08Jay Shetty?

  I should.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you think about that for a minute, like, wait a minute. A person and a team that could get all the information in the world, they, what they do is they're moving forward, even when they don't have everything. And what perfectionists do, what they don't realize is there's a difference between perfection. Remember perfection is to perfect, in motion, iterative, moving, it's active. What they also can't admit sometimes is the real struggle is they're indecisive.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Most perfectionists, they actually know the next moves. And I'm like, go, SWAT team, make it happen. Release it, drop it, do it, go. And I'm cheering them on. I'm like, go. Like, for everyone listening, you need to know high performers are decisive. Not because they are like, I know everything and I've got clarity. I know, they know if they don't drop it, if they don't release it, if they don't do it, they can't iterate it and make it better. They can't learn, just like you said. And worse, they can't be of service. Because when you're in silence in your life, and you're in silence because of fear in your life, not silence like the way you and I talk about in a positive way, being still in silence inside, that's a positive thing. But when you are in silence in a way in which you are suffering because of fear, you are not going to be able to serve.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  You have to be in motion to serve. You have to release things to perfect it. You've got to be decisive. Almost everybody listening, I did this course with Oprah Winfrey Network called Your Next Bold Move. And that language of being bolder, everybody listening probably should do that. And not because I'm saying, you know, carte blanche, everyone should be bolder. I'm just saying carte blanche, everyone should be bolder.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Like, they should. Like, be bold. Like, for me, bold is, we just did the influencer event.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  I think you were sitting there and I was, Travis was sitting there and they were like, why don't you just ask your friends? You have all these people who, they've learned their careers from, they'll help, they're just ask them to come and speak. And being bold is asking sometimes, not just taking some huge action, it's asking for help. I wish as a 19-year-old kid, I could look back and say, hey, kid, man, you're going to kill yourself. Ask someone for help. Tell someone what's going on in your head. Raise your hand, like, admit it, be vulnerable. And I didn't, I didn't know that. That would have been bold. That would have been bold, been vulnerable. And so, bold doesn't have to be SWAT team, take down the world.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Sometimes, ask for help, put yourself out there and know you'll figure out, you'll catch that clip, you'll figure it out, you'll get it going on, you'll improve, but move. Like, the world needs action takers right now. It desperately needs it. We have a lot of sideline, you know, conversationalists. A lot of sideline judgment. We have a lot of people not in the arena. And we need more people in the arena, in play. We can't keep pointing and blaming and saying, this is wrong, that sucks and everything. But we're not moving our feet forward. And demanding change, creating change, fighting for the change that we want. Because we think, well, I don't have the perfect plan, so I don't have anything to fight for. Oh, no, you have values. You have passion.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  You have interests. Fight for those. You have a project you believe in at work? Talk about it. Stop waiting for the perfect time to bring it up. There's not gonna be a perfect time. Bring it up. You believe in someone and you wanna help lift them up? Do it now. Don't wait for the perfect time. It's like, we've gotten too sedentary. In not just in our physiology, but in our actual actions. A tweet is not an action. Like, you gotta move. You gotta make things happen. And I think that's what high performers really inspired in me. Because if it sounds like, if it sounds at all like I'm being preachy, I'm literally just sharing what I learned from these high performers. Because the truth is, they were more bold than me. Doing the research, I was like, oh, okay, I got up.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  They were more clear than me. They were more energized than me. They were more productive. Everyone thinks, well, Brendan's got it all figured out, or whatever. I'm like, no, I'm a student. And I'm just reporting what I heard from the field, y'all. And I want you to take some of this stuff in. They had habits that allowed them to succeed beyond normal people. But here's what's beautiful about high performance, and this is really important. Their success, but in the way we measured high performance. High performance means you succeed beyond standard norms over the long term, while maintaining well-being and positive relationships.

• 54:42Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, that's the hardest part.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  That's the hardest part. That's why I love your podcast. Because so much of what you come back to is relationships. But high performers don't burn out relationships. They don't take people for granted. In fact, you know, it's like Booker T. Washington taught us. You know, there's two ways to exert strength. One is pushing down, the other is pulling up. And high performers, they're the pulling up kind. That's why high performers also don't report being lonely at the top. One of my mentors, Brian Tracy, said, if you're lonely at the top, you did it wrong. But high performance is because you're lifting people up. It's almost like you have a chorus of people, right? You got a tribe. You lifted people up along. You were generous with people as you rose. And that's what that our research, what became so famous about high performance habits was

• 55:27Speaker 01

  we could measurably prove long-term success and say, wait, you can have long-term success and maintain your health and your relationships? That's possible? Because most people think you have to compromise. You gotta become a jerk or you can't work out.

• 55:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  That's not true.

• 55:42Jay Shetty?

  Or you can't be married or you can't have a long-term relationship.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Or you can't have kids. Or you tell all this stuff, these stupid stories. Or you have to come from a certain thing. The other thing that was really pioneering the goddess and a lot of academics and corporate is we measurably showed high performance is not strongly correlated with age, gender, nationality.

• 56:02Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Personality, competency, years on the job, or compensation. And every time someone wants to argue with me, I just go to basic common sense. I'm like, okay. They're like, well, of course, rich people or highly compensated people work harder. I'm like, oh, no. Have you ever worked for a lazy butt boss? They were getting paid more, but they were lazy?

• 56:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Like, payment doesn't mean high performance.

• 56:23Jay Shetty?

  No, 100%.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Either more does age. You know, we got like, we got old people outperforming young people and young people outperforming old people. Where you're from, there's high performers in every given culture. And it's not because their personality, because you have introverts and extroverts. People who are open, people who are neurotic, people who have no anxiety, people who have tons of anxiety. But it's the habits that they are following, the road about in high performance habits. That is, that's what it was. Because we measured 100 different performance variables and it came down to these six high performance habits. And, and I loved it too, because I was wrong.

• 56:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  About, if you ask me what I thought that list.

• 57:02Jay Shetty?

  I was gonna ask you.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 57:03Jay Shetty?

  I'm literally just about to ask.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Oh, you were?

• 57:05Jay Shetty?

  What was one that surprised you? I was literally just about to ask you that. That's crazy.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  One of them that didn't make?

• 57:10Jay Shetty?

  Or like something that, yeah, tell me about the one that surprised you.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Because me personally, you know, I identify as, as, you know, an author, speaker, coach, creator, online trainer, thought leader, hopefully social media guy, whatever. Creator, creativity.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Was not in the top six.

• 57:28Jay Shetty?

  Wasn't?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 57:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And it floored me because that's me. But I interviewed this guy. He was a chief technology officer for, you know, a Fortune, probably 10, Fortune 10 company. He's got tens of thousands of employees. And he said, well, Brendan, I'm not particularly creative. I don't think my team is particularly creative, but we are incredibly intentional and disciplined. And we are incredibly collaborative. And those things, which for him was his style of productivity, made him a high performer, even though they really weren't that creative. But so for those who don't feel like that's really important, because in this modern social media world, if you don't identify as a creative person, which a lot of people

• 58:11Speaker 01

  do not, they don't feel like they have that gift, even though they do, that's okay. And what's interesting with the research, it doesn't say creativity is not important. It says that these six habits and high performance habits are more important. Because in, you know, research, you do correlations. And so it's like clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, and courage are all just more important in this particular research than some of these other things.

• 58:41Jay Shetty?

  And these are all things anyone can have.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Anybody can do that.

• 58:43Jay Shetty?

  That's what's so amazing about the research.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  That's what, yes.

• 58:45Jay Shetty?

  I'm hearing those and I'm going, there is, there's no excuses. Basically, your research tells us there's no excuses.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the dorks who are listening, like me, the geeks and the data hounds, the way that you do that is we, all the 100 performance variables that we codified, and we also took from academic research and my own experience in training people for a decade, was we put it through a filter. Are these habits something that are observable, learnable, malleable, which means you can change it, improve it, and can happen across domains? So I mean, the CEO can do it, but so can the person at the front desk.

• 59:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  So can the mom at home. So can the student. So can the athlete. Meaning these, that's how we had identified them. Otherwise, what they were, were that person's personality, or it was, you know, that person had a natural strength or skill there. But also, for those who are interesting, and you're so worried about your strengths, because a lot of people listening, like me, maybe, when the whole strengths movement started, I was like, I'm screwed. I ain't got none. The good news is, high performers don't report working on their strengths anymore. Than underperformers or anybody else. Because high performers less often ask, what am I good at? What are my unique strengths? Then they tend to ask, what is needed here?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And how can I be of service? So for example, if I had said, is my strength video? I would have never done video. Instead, I said, how do I be of service to more people? I'm gonna have to reach more people. I had to use video.

• 1:00:19Jay Shetty?

  Same.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Right? So people don't get trapped in thinking if you don't have a strength right now, that A, you can't develop it. And B, that that's necessary. We need less people kind of gazing at their navels and being like, what am I like? And I love the self-awareness and the deep introspection. But we also need people who just show up and provide service, even if they're not comfortable with that. Even if they're not good at that. Like, most of the things that we do, we weren't good at. But we said, oh, that would help me be of more service? Let me do it. Let me figure it out.

• 1:00:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, there's a difference between inexperience and weakness.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Jay Shetty?

  There's a difference, right?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:01:00Jay Shetty?

  Like, you've not really explored something. It's just inexperience.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:01:05Jay Shetty?

  Right? If you never started a podcast, like, I didn't know how to interview before I did my first ever podcast. Like, you just don't know, right? You don't, you don't practice interviews at home. Or your parents have never interviewed you. And you do your first interview and you're, oh, okay, I like that. I learned that. I got that wrong. We maybe should have put the mic closer to him. And maybe the camera is in the wrong angle. And then, and then you change it, right? And I think you're spot on that. Don't, yeah, do not accept inexperience for weakness. Do not, do not just sit there and go, I don't have that. It's a natural gift.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:35Jay Shetty?

  And this is one of the reasons why I'm going into a soccer analogy here. Sorry, but it was why I admire so many, a player named Cristiano Ronaldo, a great soccer player. Because he's worked on things. And often people say to him, oh, it's not God given for him. Or it's not a gift he was given. But it's like, for me, that's what makes it more incredible.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:52Jay Shetty?

  That he's worked on every single part of his game to become this complete player.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:01:57Jay Shetty?

  And, and to demonstrate that, that the work ethic and the, not just the work ethic, but the seeking clarity and that. Tell me about the energy piece. I'm fascinated by that.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Jay Shetty?

  Because I feel like, I, I wanna hear the definition of energy that you explored.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:02:10Jay Shetty?

  And also just how people were able to bring energy even when they didn't feel like it too.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Jay Shetty?

  Because that seems like a big thing for a high performer to be able to do is bring it when they don't feel.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  I'm so glad I did this, cause I, you know, energy to me is just like a feeling or sense, but in, in the research, we had to codify three separate kinds of energy. One is mental energy, which is straight up your mental focus and stamina.

• 1:02:32Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  To do activities.

• 1:02:35Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Right? Without just like tuning off.

• 1:02:38Jay Shetty?

  Hey.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Right? Cause that's hard.

• 1:02:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm sure some people have started writing a paper and you got to page one and a half and your land, your brain went somewhere else.

• 1:02:45Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Um, you were just tired. The other one is emotional energy, which is the quality of positive versus negative emotion. And the last one was a spiritual energy, a sensation that I were in flow or not. Um, and what we found out is high performers have incredibly intentional habits to protect that energy.

• 1:03:07Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Um, you know, when we were on tour for Oprah, she, uh, when Oprah was on tour, she tells this great story about how she was so moved by someone who's on her show, who went into a green room and was telling Oprah the story of, she saw this sign that said, "Please be responsible for the energy you bring into this space."

• 1:03:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  And I'm always saying, "Please be responsible for the energy you project into the world."

• 1:03:29Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  High performers are so critically aware of what their energy is, their feeling, and how they're treating other people. It's profound. And the way that they do that is they have a lot of habits that protect their well-being. So they're truly seeking to optimize health. They care about nutrition. Um, the world's largest study on productivity that's ever been done, found out that on average, the world's most productive 1% of people take a break every 52 minutes.

• 1:04:02Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Every 52 minutes, they take a break. Now, if you ask them, "Did you need the break?" They're like, "No." That they could power through all day. They have the mental energy and stamina to do that. They could go, but they take the break like a pit stop. Like in NASCAR, right? The cars actually don't need to stop right then. They stop to change things out and optimize things so they can keep going faster.

• 1:04:24Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  We have to do that in our own lives. So some of them, that's meditation. One that's incredibly important for everybody here, especially in the United States. Right now, in the United States of America, 72% of Americans are overweight or obese. And that has incredible health repercussions. That is, you're sicker longer, you die earlier. You report less happiness throughout the majority of your life. You pass some of that behavior on to children. Like, it's a very big deal. And it's not a judgment of a body shaming thing. It is a, your quality of life in every measurable way that they have in science shows, it's not as good. And we want you to feel okay. Well, high performers, they work out five times per week.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  40% more likely than an underperformer. Now, that workout might be literally like you take a 45-minute walk after dinner.

• 1:05:18Jay Shetty?

  Sure.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean you're climbing a run of the mound.

• 1:05:21Jay Shetty?

  It doesn't mean you have to have a sick back or anything.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  You move every day. And so they're protecting that. You know, I think that's what's really important. They have active lifestyles, not because it's easy, because they know the alternative of burnout and fatigue will hurt their performance.

• 1:05:40Jay Shetty?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Every new NBA guy I've ever worked with, they want to party. They want to rip it up. They just got that check. They're a superstar now. They're on the phone with me, Brendan, and I'm like, "Don't. You got a game in three days, dude." This is an easy thing. If you care about how you show up in three days. And that's what I always tell people. How you feel right now is going to ripple into three days. Like, we know that from research. Like, your nutrition today actually affects three days of behavior. That's profound. We don't get that.

• 1:06:15Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  And then when you measure it out over longevity studies, no, it affects your whole lifespan. So it's wildly important. And the most research, and you're even more familiar than that research than I am, is the absolute importance of having a mental game in which you meditate.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Pray, nap, or just close your eyes for a few minutes every day to re-center a little bit. A lot of fatigue and headaches are actually visual. And so what I tell people to do, and what we teach in our seminars, High Performance Academy, is I teach the audience all these things to do at the 52-minute mark. One of them, stand up from your desk, or stand up no matter where you're at every 52 minutes. Even if you're driving, pull over every 52 minutes. And what I tell people, stand in place, bounce in place, not jumping up and down, just kind of bouncing lightly from the knees. Close your eyes, because visual fatigue is a real thing. They've shown visual fatigue also hurts creativity. So, close your eyes, bounce, and take 10 deep breaths. In through the nose is one,

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  out through the mouth, 10 times, while bouncing in place. The bounce is moving the lymph around your body, circulating the blood, refreshing your brain. Most, brain fatigue is also tied to blood flow. So we just got to move, dancing in place. Breath is tied to all chi, all energy, all life force. Closing the eyes lets the brain literally reset. It's profound. That's why meditators don't do it with their eyes open. It's like, there's a whole other level that happens. And I mean, you're way more familiar with the research. No, no, no, it's beautiful. It is. What I'm telling people is it is necessary. Yes.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  If meditation is your thing, pray. Praying is your thing, close your eyes. Close your eyes, anything, take the afternoon nap. Because why? In the Blue Zones, they tend to take a nap after lunch. They live longer. That is a reset. And what I'm here to tell people is, high performers reset every hour. It's crazy, every hour. So I had to learn, every hour, two things happen. My butt, outside of this meeting right here, if my butt hits a chair, my timer on my iPhone hits 50 minutes, I start 50 minutes. It doesn't matter if I'm in the middle of the most beautiful sentence of my life. Let's do it right now. Writing, bing, I stand up, I bounce, I take a big swig of water, bounce in place, take 10 deep breaths, I go refill the water, come back, and I call it, for me, it's like,

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  I release the tension, I close my eyes, I'm just trying, to me, meditation, for me, the benefits that I receive, it releases the tension in my mind, it releases the tension in my body. And then when I sit back down, I go, what's my intention, and what is the absolute best use of my time by the end of the day?

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Reset, go back to work.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  I do that every hour. It's why I'm so annoyingly productive.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  I love that. We should do it right now. You want to do it? Yeah, let's do it. You need some water? So first way to start with it, reset, which we're, this is what I mean by bouncing. We're just gonna do this. We're gonna sway our arms forward and back, close our eyes, ten deep breaths. Go.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Notice this breath is getting longer because that's what happens.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  One more.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  Okay, now shake it out. That's just the breathing. I love it. Already you're coming back. That's great. Now we're gonna do qigong. Okay. Which is a cupping activity, they call it, cupping for casual. And all we're gonna do is we're gonna activate the meridians of our body. For those who don't believe in meridians of your body, all science shows that there's nerve endings on your skin, right? So if you don't believe in, oh, this is qi, then you believe in nerves. And we're just gonna open up our bodies. It's like if you tap your arm, you feel that energy? Hundred percent. Right? And we're gonna do this for our whole body. Amazing. Okay, so qigong? Yeah. So we're gonna start with our fingertips. So cupping means you take positive intent and energy. A lot of the masters will teach, like, put a color, like, blue or green, a vibrant color for you here.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  And we're gonna cup, what it means is we're gonna lightly tap, and we're gonna go from here all the way up, okay? And then, we're gonna do, we're gonna do here, and we're gonna do here. We'll do here, we'll do here. And then we're just gonna do one right here, which is a huge meridian in the back, right here. Yep, so we're just gonna start here.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  And the intention is to take a nice deep breath in. Nice without. This is where everyone outside your studio is going, "What are they doing?" Rashar shows up, "What's happening?" So do this. I do this every 15 minutes in a plane.

• 1:11:23Jay Shetty?

  I love it.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  You release your shoulder, release all the tension in your shoulder and really strong. Okay, now from your waist. We're gonna move up, you're just moving up one inch at a time. Take a nice deep breath in, right when you get below. Your armpit.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Next hand. We're going up.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  And just breathing.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Just putting energy, positivity, joy into your arms. Most people have really strong, should drop your shoulder. Most people carry so much tension in their shoulders, just releases the tension in the shoulder. Right here. Now we're gonna bend slightly at the waist. And right on your lower back. And you're gonna take five breaths here.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Stand, close your eyes, bounce, five more breaths.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Sway your arms.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Open your eyes, jump in place.

• 1:12:34Jay Shetty?

  I feel great.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  And now just release.

• 1:12:36Jay Shetty?

  I feel great, that was awesome.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  And you're alive.

• 1:12:38Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  We can show in brain scans that decreases blood flow. You decrease blood flow, you decrease oxygenation, which your body and your brain needs for activity. Like your mitochondria, everything in your body counts on, "Do we get some blood flow?" Are we, are we like, and so what people don't know is their brain is off half the day. And they think because they're tired. And breath is the way back in. This activation, which people are like, think it's so weird. It's like, oh no, just like, if you're like, I'm, if you're watching this and you didn't try it or you're listening, like literally, just tap your forearm five times and you're like. You're like, and then notice the energy. You're like, oh, the energy just changed right there. Like, it really changed. Well, when you do that, your whole body. Chagong actually goes ankle up,

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  ankle around here, and the whole body. And then they'll also often put tapping in.

• 1:13:28Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, you're like,

• 1:13:31Jay Shetty?

  Amazing.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Now, now I'm gonna bang out like 10 chapters in my book. Now I'm gonna finish the presentation. Now I feel good to call my coaching client.

• 1:13:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Because sometimes I'll, you know, I'll, you know, I'm, I'm extremely lucky to coach some of the top performers in the world in athletics and business. Right before I came over here, I had a blessing of coaching a billionaire, literally on the way over

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  this meeting this morning. And what I have found is, if you want to be a high performer, you gotta learn to turn yourself on, right? Don't take that weird, but

• 1:14:02Jay Shetty?

  No, no, no.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  How do you turn your brain on? How do you turn your spirit on? How do you turn your heart on? Like, you've had that too, where you're, you, all of a sudden, you gotta sit down. You had a long day. We both had long days before we did this. If you can't turn your heart, your mind, your spirit, your body on, there is no chance for you to sustain long-term performance.

• 1:14:21Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent. I love that. That was amazing.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Is that cool?

• 1:14:23Jay Shetty?

  I love that. That was awesome. No, the reason why I love it so much is because what you just said about turning yourself on, it's just like, when you're living for, so for me, it was, when I spent my time as a monk, I focused so much on the mind, and we really pushed our bodies to extreme lengths. And then when I came back and I was having to live in this body, I was like, I want to serve, and that's why I want to take care of my body and mind.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:44Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, that became the intention. I was like, I'm gonna have incredible habits for what I eat, and how much I work out, and what I do with my body, because I want to serve for the rest of my life.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 1:14:53Jay Shetty?

  I don't want to die early because I was neglectful. I don't want to die early because I was neglectful and not caring and complacent, because I felt I was still 22, when, when you still feel all of this naturally.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  You can have the pizza and the beer.

• 1:15:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And, and so the soul is, the soul is motivated by service. Like, the soul gets energy from service, but the body needs activity like this, movement.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:15:14Jay Shetty?

  To feel energized.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Every measurable outcome

• 1:15:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  in your life improves with more quality of exercise.

• 1:15:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  And I always tell people, even at a spiritual level, you know, I ask people, you know, would you go to the house next door and spray paint it, and break all the windows, and throw a bunch of garbage in it?

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  And yet, you're so willing to vandalize the temple that God has given to house your soul. That's your house. So if you wouldn't go vandalize your neighbor's house, why are you vandalizing your house, your gift? It's very important, garbage in, garbage out, pay attention. And I'm not here to say everyone has to eat perfectly and work out a million percent. I'm here to share the research that is unequivocal. Mental health and exercise and protecting both of those. Diet, nutrition, meditation, all of these things, sleep, all of these impact

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  how good of a job you do tomorrow, how long you live, how good you feel. And I'm like, everyone wants to be happy. So that's what I was happy about. I was so happy that made it into the research that like generate energy. That's the chapter, generating energy. How do high performers generate energy and sustain it? And all these things we talk about in our industry, it came up in the research. I was like, yes, I'm so happy about that.

• 1:16:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's amazing. I love it. And again, it's accessible to anyone. We didn't pay for gym membership just now. We didn't have to have fancy clothes on for the gym membership. I feel great.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  I'm ready for round two podcast.

• 1:16:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, literally.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  I'm fired up.

• 1:16:54Jay Shetty?

  I feel like I've, and I'm not, and I'm not saying this just to the cameras. Like I mean this, I actually feel how I felt when we first started. It's got that, you know, it's, yeah, it's great. And so a hundred percent works. I love it.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Recharge.

• 1:17:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Every 50 minutes. And he's been with, Travis has been backstage with me for 10 years. Or he's, he's been setting up video in the other room and he hears that like, I always do it. And it's like, because when you watch the volume of online video I've done, whether it's YouTube or our online courses where most of my video is, it's like so, I mean, it's literally, I don't even know how many hundreds of hours are there. And he's never seen me in the middle of a video like, you know, because of these practices. And it wasn't natural to me. Because I, listen, Netflix and chill, let's go, brother. I can chill like the best of them. I got no problem. But I want to make an impact.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  I want to help people. You know what the worst thing is when you're trying to help someone? And your mind is kind of blinking out.

• 1:17:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Because you didn't take care of yourself. You didn't eat good. You didn't care about your sleep. You know, I work with athletes, high performers, business people who, they regret those moments in those days where they allowed themselves to burn out. Or they didn't care for themselves because it shows up on the scoreboard. It shows up in your bank account. But mostly it shows up in how you treat people. I always tell people, if you won't take care of yourself for yourself, take care of yourself so you're less rude to other people. Because guess what? When you're tired, science shows you're more irritable. You're more short and you're faster to conflict.

• 1:18:32Jay Shetty?

  Tolerance is low.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:18:35Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  And so it's like, if you won't take care of yourself for yourself, do it for the poor people around you who probably get some of that irritability.

• 1:18:43Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Brendan, you're amazing. This is so much fun. Honestly, this has been so much fun.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is great. I'm glad you had us do that activity.

• 1:18:51Jay Shetty?

  I wanted to.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. I feel better.

• 1:18:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I feel better, but also I just, I want everyone listening and watching to know that, you know, you can pick up such simple, beautiful tips and insights. Just by watching. Now you can play that part of the video over again and again and again. We'll turn it into a little Instagram video, which is, that'll be fun. But it's just such an easy thing that anyone can pick up. And literally refocus, get back in the zone. And like you said, it's like, when you want to serve, you want to be at your best. You don't want to be at your worst and you're trying to push yourself. And I genuinely hear this from so many people who I know are genuinely trying to give their best and serve. But they feel drained at the end of the day.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:31Jay Shetty?

  Because they're just giving and outpouring and serving and loving and caring and supporting. And they're just going for it. And at the end of their day, and I've been in that place before, where you just feel drained.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:43Jay Shetty?

  And I started to realize I didn't want to feel that way anymore because that wasn't the badge of honor of service.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:19:49Jay Shetty?

  That wasn't the badge of honor that I've really given today.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  And if you believe in associations.

• 1:19:54Jay Shetty?

  I do, yeah.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  If, if, if, if you. Drain yourself every day in service, which a lot of people do. At the end of the day, you're burned out and you're tired. At some point, your body and your brain, your spirit and your soul, you don't mean to, starts associating your purpose with that feeling.

• 1:20:12Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  And one day, you go, maybe your psychology goes, maybe the purpose is wrong. And it forgets, no, it's the behavior that's leading to a feeling doesn't feel good. But your brain doesn't know sometimes and it puts them together. And now you question your purpose when really you're tired.

• 1:20:32Jay Shetty?

  So it's a burden.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yes, and now you do the math. Okay, because we've all done that. Everyone listening has done that brunt force. Because the human body is unbelievable. We can go years of burnout. It's unbelievable. Other animals would not put up with this nonsense. But we convince ourselves that it's okay. No other animal does that. Which is, I mean, I mean, well, salmon, they do it. They swim till they die. Okay, I'm sorry. Some animals do it. But, but humans, we're super unique that we psych ourselves into this. But here is the issue. A, you will probably burn out your service because you won't feel good about it. But think about high performers. They go so much longer providing great service. But here's the trick, if you do the math on what I talked about. Break every hour, take an eight hour workday.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  High performers, they're not smarter than you. They're not better than you. They aren't more lucky than you. It's not their age, their nationality. But one of the things they did during an eight hour workday? They took eight more breaks than you did. They took eight more breaks than you did today. That's why tomorrow, they show up more clear. That's why next week, when you're in the meeting and it's time to brainstorm and you're fried, you come up with nothing. It's that gallop on the whiteboard who wrote down 20 ideas because she's still fresh. That's not because her disposition. She's probably a high performer who took more breaks than you. We think breaking and pausing and refreshing is failure.

• 1:21:57Jay Shetty?

  Sharpening, yeah.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  It's the own, oh, I love that sharpening. I've never used that. I love that sharpening. It is sharpening. It is the NASCAR at the pit stop to make it go faster, to make it win the race. And so it's, it's, it's, it's so funny when you say high performance. Everyone goes, well, they must, they just outwork, out hustle, outwork. Actually, I'm like, oh, no. They actually seek harmony more than everybody else. They look for that. They're trying to optimize their time, their harmony, to manage their energy so they can perform longer. I want to do this until I'm dead.

• 1:22:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  I'm one of those guys. Like, I found my purpose.

• 1:22:33Jay Shetty?

  Me too.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  I want to help people live, love and matter. To get there, they got to achieve their goals faster. They got to use their voice. They got to help other people. They got to live an authentic, vibrant life. And that's what I want to help people do. I'll do that till I'm done. I'll do that till I'm done. So I got to manage myself.

• 1:22:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  You know, I do those four day seminars by myself on stage for 10 hours. I was like, how? They just think, well, Brendan's an Energizer Bunny. If you saw me backstage, I'm doing that chagong. I'm protein shaking it, you know, I'm stretching out every night. I'm doing the ice baths.

• 1:23:03Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  I'm changing my behavior from heavy lifting to more cardio to get the lung capacity two weeks in advance. I'm diligent about exactly what I eat at the four day events. I sleep at the same schedule. Like, everything is literally set up for me to perform 10 hours a day on stage for four days by myself. That's not luck. That is because I care.

• 1:23:26Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Brendan, we end every interview with a final five, quick, five rapid fire rounds. So this is five questions, one word answers, maximum one sentence.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 1:23:38Jay Shetty?

  Maximum one sentence.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Okay, that's good.

• 1:23:40Jay Shetty?

  So the first question is, what was the last kind thing you did for a stranger?

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  One word. Oh, gosh.

• 1:23:47Jay Shetty?

  Or one sentence.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  No, it just came into my mind because a dear friend had somebody, a big loss in their life. And I just sent them a voice text and said, if you need me on a plane, if you need an hour or two to have a conversation, you're the type of person who's always the giver and always striving. And caretakers very rarely ask for care.

• 1:24:14Jay Shetty?

  100%.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  So I'm here.

• 1:24:16Jay Shetty?

  Love it. Okay, question number two.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sorry. The answer was, sent a voice text, but I sent it one seven days in a row.

• 1:24:24Jay Shetty?

  Okay, same one.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  No, different one. New voice text for seven days in a row. A lot of people say, I'm here for you. I was like, I hound them.

• 1:24:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. I love that. Okay, question number two. What's a lesson you find hard to teach others?

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Patience.

• 1:24:38Jay Shetty?

  Ah, nice. Okay, question number three. What's the one question you ask yourself the most? You've told us a bit about this.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Outside of did I live, did I love, did I matter? I ask, what level of presence and energy am I holding and creating right now? It's a, we call it line trigger. In high performance, like anytime I wait in line, like Starbucks or meeting line, I always, what level of presence and energy am I right now? It makes me queue in.

• 1:25:04Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, I love that. Okay, question number four, the one belief that took you the longest to really put into practice? The one belief that took you the longest to put into practice?

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Trust in others.

• 1:25:15Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, wow, powerful. We'll have to unpack that next time.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Jay Shetty?

  Question, final five, your fifth one is, and I, and I kind of know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, because you can, you can change it up, is, how do you know if you've lived a good life?

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  The answer is to did I live, did I love, did I matter?

• 1:25:32Jay Shetty?

  I know, I love that.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  But most importantly, did I earn this?

• 1:25:36Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  You know, did I, did I earn that second chance? That's the one.

• 1:25:42Jay Shetty?

  I love it. Brendon Burchard, everyone. You're the man, you're amazing, Brendan. This is amazing.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  It's been an honor.

• 1:25:47Jay Shetty?

  You are awesome.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:25:48Jay Shetty?

  You are so incredible. I can't wait to have you back on.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  I can't wait.

• 1:25:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you're gonna come back and do a part two and a part three.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Anytime. You invite me, if the audience asks, I'm here.

• 1:25:56Jay Shetty?

  We need to do this again for sure, man. This is so fun.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  We have so much to unpack, we have so much in common.

• 1:26:00Jay Shetty?

  Oh, so much more, so much.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  I love your purpose and your mission.

• 1:26:03Jay Shetty?

  Thank you.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  And how you are learning and adjusting and giving and serving. And I wish, anyone listening, I wish you knew how hard this guy works for you.

• 1:26:12Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, man. It's, yeah, it's just the beginning. It's, you know, that's how I feel every day. It's just the beginning. Start from scratch again.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  I still feel the same way.

• 1:26:18Jay Shetty?

  Every single day.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Look, we're just getting warmed up.

• 1:26:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely, man.

• 1:26:54Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.