What Nobody Told You About Losing Drive

Are you protecting the lead—or playing to win? In this conversation, I sit down with my brother, Brendon Burchard, and we hit on something that every single one of us wrestles with at some point: how to reignite that competitive fire when it starts to flicker. Maybe you’ve achieved some success—you got that promotion, built a business, or hit a financial goal—and suddenly you realize, I’m playing not to lose instead of playing to win. That’s a dangerous place to be, and Brendon and I break down exactly why it happens and how to flip the switch back on. We get real about what it means to measure up—not against others, but against your own capacity. That’s what separates those who keep rising from those who stall out. We talk about how greats like LeBron James keep their edge and how you can apply that same mindset. It’s not about the external competition anymore—it’s about expanding who you are and setting your own standard. And that, my friends, is where true fulfillment lives. Brendon and I also share the practical steps that have kept us driven—like setting up new challenges on purpose, so you’re not just reacting to life but directing it. If you’re coasting right now, if you’ve been going through the motions, this episode will remind you to swing for the fences. Key takeaways from this episode: Why success can actually zap your drive—and how to get it back The danger of playing not to lose instead of playing to win How to shift from competing against others to competing against your own potential The secret power of setting your own challenges to fuel your momentum Why surrounding yourself with the right people can reignite your ambition Let’s stop settling. Let’s take that big swing. Let’s chase those God-sized dreams together. Max out. And hey—if you want to experience this energy in person, come join us in Napa this July or in Scottsdale this fall. Go to growthday.com/Ed and grab your spot while you still can. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM ➡️FACEBOOK ➡️ LINKEDIN ➡️ X ➡️ WEBSITE Get my exclusive Monday Motivation training in GrowthDay, the world’s #1 app for advanced mindset and personal development. Visit https://growthday.com/ed. This show is sponsored by GrowthDay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth-based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down, growthday.com/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free, tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com/ed. That's growthday.com/ed. I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too.

• 1:30Ed Mylett?

  And you definitely can't afford to waste it waiting weeks on a big bank for capital. Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason. Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  This is the Enmire Show.

• 2:12Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So honored again, as I do every single month, I have my dear friend Brendon Burchard. These are some of our most downloaded podcasts. When you guys get to hear he and I kind of go back and forth on topics you guys suggest we talk about. This week is one that I'm so glad, actually Brendan suggested this of all the submissions, this would be the one we cover this week. And so here's what we're going to talk about this week. I think you're going to love it. If you've lost your fighting spirit, or for lack of a better term, your competitive spirit, your drive. We're going to talk today about why maybe you've lost that little bit and how to get it back, how to access it, how to tap into it again. That competitive fighting spirit, that drive, that thing that moves you, that gets you up in the morning, that gets you after it in your life. Talk about why you lost it and how to get it back this week.

• 2:57Ed Mylett?

  With someone that's just, he's just my favorite dude to do this with, which is Brendon Burchard. So welcome back to the show, brother.

• 3:03Brendon Burchard?

  Thank you, brother. I'm so excited about this, especially as I propose this to you, I was excited because you actually work with real fighters. And you also work with people who, you know, everybody who struggles with that moment of why don't I want it as much anymore? Or why don't I want to fight? Or why did I used to want to get promoted, earn more? Reach out more, do more things, and all of a sudden I feel like pessimistic, I feel like I'm lost. I feel like I just, I don't want to be in the hunt anymore. And people don't know when they lose that drive, what's happening. And you know, sometimes we call that fighting spirit. And I think it's so relevant because everyone knows you're so good at actually working with athletes on this as well. That I thought the metaphors would be profound for all of us.

• 3:49Ed Mylett?

  Well, you know, I got to tell you, the first thing that I think of when I do that is like, you know, the hardest people to work with in, in fighting or in any sport are world champions. They're the hardest because it's, it's one thing to, and this is just true of life. So your championship could be you got married, your championship could be you got promoted at work and then what? Or you've got a certain amount of savings and then what? So it's metaphorical in terms of most people's lives. But in with fighters, it's, it's a literal championship.

• 4:16Brendon Burchard?

  Right.

• 4:17Ed Mylett?

  And one of the difficult things about it is they are competing like crazy to get to that championship belt. And almost with every single one of them, once they're there.

• 4:29Ed Mylett?

  A little bit of that edge is lost. It's rare to repeat as a champion. In fact, in the UFC, the heavyweight division, I'll get this wrong. I am wrong about this number, but I'm not off by much. I think the maximum repeat heavyweight champion in the UFC ever is like four or five repeat championships, meaning they they held the title four or five fights. It usually switches hands. Right now, John Jones is that guy. But prior to him, I was like, the belt would change hands with every two or three fights because guys couldn't repeat. And I think they lose that edge because they got somewhere. And I think one of the reasons is, is that, you know, you dreamed of getting to a place all of your life. And then whether you get there or not, there's two types of people. There's the people that get there. Okay, they win their metaphorical

• 5:14Ed Mylett?

  championship. And then they're like, I never really thought to look forward from here. Right?

• 5:18Brendon Burchard?

  Right.

• 5:18Ed Mylett?

  And or maybe it wasn't everything I thought it would be. I thought I'd arrive. I thought everything would be perfect. I thought I'd have no more problems anymore. And so there's this like, I don't think it's it's what it was cracked up to be. And then there's this large group of people that I think lose their drive, bro, over this. I think there are literally millions of people right now going, you know, I thought I'd be further ahead by now. I thought I'd be happier. I thought I'd have more money. I thought I'd have a better relationship. I thought I'd be promoted further. I thought I'd have already started my business. I thought I would have already written the book. And to me, oftentimes, comparison is the thief of joy. But you've talked a lot of times about why comparing is actually an okay thing, too. But what is unhealthy is to compare

• 6:02Ed Mylett?

  yourself to a previous time in your life or a place you thought you would be. And I think a lot of people that get to the championship level, like, I thought it would be better than this.

• 6:12Brendon Burchard?

  Right.

• 6:13Ed Mylett?

  And then the people that don't care, get there, they haven't made the promotion, they haven't made the money they thought, they're not as well known as they'd like to be. They go, I thought I'd be further ahead by now. Both of these thoughts don't serve us. Do you see that with people that you coach, that they're just sort of, they're telling themselves a story that doesn't serve their next level of drive? Maybe I'm off on that, but that's one of the things I've experienced in coaching people.

• 6:36Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I love, I want to listen to that like five more times because you really tapped into that. And there is a big difference between people, as you said, who are like world champions, and those who might be just starting. And that level of drive is different. You know, at the beginning, you're you're just fighting to survive. Like it's literally just survival. You're just you're just fighting to survive. Then in the middle, you're kind of fighting to dominate. Like you, you just kind of want to win and usually want to win over somebody. And then at the top, now you you've already done that. You've already dominating.

• 7:16Brendon Burchard?

  And now you're fighting yourself and you're fighting maybe what you mentioned, sometimes disappointment. Because you got there and it's not what you thought. Or you got there and your PRs aren't going up as high as they used to in the middle. You had a lot of progress at the beginning. You had a lot of progress in the middle. But now, you know, it's far between even world champions often, you know, in in in in different sports, they might be competing. You know, on a different rhythm. They might be in a place where, uh, you know, they're not experiencing those really quick fights. Cause now they're getting paid while your fights are further out, as an example.

• 8:00Brendon Burchard?

  Or maybe they're that, you know, the the the team that gets the buy because of the wins. And so you don't feel like you're in it as much. But I think that the thing I learned about the world champion versus the beginner. And when I say world champion, I want everyone to recognize Ed worked with way more world champions than I do. I I I work with high performers across lots of industries, but Ed's another level when it comes to sports and athleticism. Cause I mean, look at him versus me. Okay.

• 8:28Brendon Burchard?

  So

• 8:31Brendon Burchard?

  we we could when when I do work at that level, and especially with the high performers like the CEO, like, let's talk about those guys. Yep. The big thing that I see, Ed, that knocks them out of that fighting spirit, that knocks them out of that competitive edge. Is that they've never learned.

• 8:51Brendon Burchard?

  To try to measure up against themselves. It's a mind warp. You spend your whole life trying to measure up against the kids in school. Get better grades in. You try to measure up against your sister, your brother, your mother. You try to measure up to your parents, your professors' expectations. You try to measure up in that first hiring class against the other people who got the job. You try to measure up against your peers to get promoted above them. Or you try to measure up against this fighter, against this person in golf, against this person in chess. And then when you get to the top and you look around and you know you've out-measured them, you've outperformed them. Now, the only measurement is the one you give yourself.

• 9:37Brendon Burchard?

  Yep. And it short-circuits people. They're just like, they don't know how, people don't know how to measure up against themselves, against their future potential. They use other people as the barometer. And it's interesting because we know in happiness studies, using other people as the barometer makes you miserable. Comparing yourself to other people can make you very unhappy. Except in competition, where it's required to be attenuated to the skill gap to get better. But then when your skill is extreme, you're the number one, you're the top, you're the CEO. And no one's, you don't have to measure up against them. Now you're measuring up against yourself.

• 10:20Brendon Burchard?

  People freak out, they shut down, they get disappointed, they get self-judgmental, the criticism goes up. They feel lost, they don't have a singular aim anymore. They are successful, so now not only are they more self-critical because they don't know how to measure up for themselves. But now they don't even have a frame of reference, so now they start doing 50 other things at the same time. Now they're distracted, disappointed, and a little bit like frazzled because I don't know how to measure anything anymore. I don't know if that makes sense for you.

• 10:49Ed Mylett?

  Oh, big time. I, I, I think the difference is when you're, when you're starting or you're new and you're climbing, you're playing to win. So not only are you competing against these other people, you're also playing to win. For most people, this is why I admire you so much. Once they get a little bit of success, whether they win that championship belt, or they make a hundred thousand dollars a year, or now they've got some money saved, or they bought out, then they start to play a little bit not to lose. And there's no way to go through your life playing not to lose, to be in protection mode. You can't be great trying to protect the lead. There's, there, there's so many sports teams that have blown leads trying to protect the lead. And a lot of you, and to some extent, you're just not as hungry as you were because you're trying to protect the lead a little bit.

• 11:31Ed Mylett?

  That's part of it. The other part of it is, you're exactly right. At some point, if you're gonna be great, you have to accept you're competing against your own capacity, not that of other people. And so that's the little game. The little game is, I'm gonna beat Dan, I'm gonna beat Sparky, I'm gonna beat Sarah, I'm gonna beat them. And that's a healthy thing. But I was reading an article today about LeBron James. There's this great debate, who's the greatest basketball player ever? I'm a huge Michael Jordan fan. I don't even think it's close. But I have a lot of admiration for LeBron James. Well, last year, Luka Doncic got traded to the Lakers. He's one of the greatest players in basketball right now. It was a shocking trade. And one of the reasons the team that traded him, say they traded him, was he didn't train very hard.

• 12:14Ed Mylett?

  He comes in out of shape. He gets hurt a lot. He's overweight. Now, this is a great player, probably a better player than LeBron James currently is, because LeBron's 40 years old, but LeBron's still a great player. And so Doncic, at some point, got to the NBA and became a great player by trying to beat everybody else. Then when he became one of the top players, he didn't know what to do with himself. And I just read an article today, they are interviewing Luka Doncic, who's evidently already dropped like 30 pounds since the offseason started. And they're like, what's it like to play with LeBron James? So listen to what he said, Brendan. Now LeBron James is arguably the greatest player ever, or the second greatest player, whatever your list is, he's in the top 10, right? 40 years old, he's a billionaire.

• 12:55Ed Mylett?

  A billionaire with a B, very wealthy man, one of the most well-known people in the world, won a bunch of NBA championships, is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the league. And Doncic says, "The first day I get there, LeBron James got to the game 10 hours before the game." He goes, "I've never seen anything this like in my life. I've been in the NBA all these years." This guy's at the games 10 hours before the game. He goes, "He said, 'When I got to the game, LeBron was done with his workout and then was doing his mental prep for the game.'" At some point LeBron James stopped trying to beat the second-best player in the league, and he set his own standard. He's competing against his own capacity.

• 13:37Ed Mylett?

  That's why he's a historic all-time great. You want to get your drive back, start looking at what your capacity is. You know why you've lost some of your competitive drive? You don't even remember why you were doing it in the first place. And if you can tap back into why and say, "Listen, I'm competing against..." Like, why do I still work? People ask me that all the time. I'm 54 years old. It is currently, as we're recording this, 8:22 in the evening my time. I started the day at 6:00 a.m. with my first meeting. Why am I still doing this? I'm not competing against some other entrepreneur or some other influencer. I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. I'm fascinated to see who I can become in the process of challenging myself. So for me, it's more about the challenge of who I'm becoming,

• 14:22Ed Mylett?

  the man I'm capable of becoming, the insights I'll have, what I'll learn, how I'll expand my being as I continue to chase. And I think you have to have something to chase. I think, I think we're born to hunt. I do in life. I think you have something you're after. But like, let's look at you. Same thing. Extraordinarily, you're extraordinarily wealthy man. You're very well-known. You've got rich friendships. You're back from a dream trip with a bunch of buddy of yours. You have all...

• 14:49Ed Mylett?

  Why are you... You have massive drive. You're building multiple companies. Growth day right now is exploding, right? Like, you've been involved in other exits already. Like, why have you not lost your competitive edge, or have you before and had to get it back?

• 15:04Brendon Burchard?

  I think I lost it early in my life in such a great way. I know your audience knows, a lot of people listening know I had a car accident when I was a young kid.

• 15:13Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 15:15Brendon Burchard?

  And I had lost, I was in martial arts when I was a young kid. And then I got in the wrong relationship, ran with the wrong crew. Started doubting myself, became depressed, suicidal, lost all of it. And I had this car accident that hit me hard enough in the head to make me realize how life is extremely short, like extremely short. And in that time, I had my first spiritual experience of kind of feeling like God gave me a second chance. And I felt like when I got that second chance, oh, I'm going to earn this second chance. You and I have talked a lot about this and you give an amazing talk on this. I know people have seen it.

• 15:50Ed Mylett?

  Go to you.

• 15:51Brendon Burchard?

  It's like when you, when you, when you feel like life is a blessing, you want to do what Ed's talking about. You want to see yourself manifest and become into the fullest powers that you have. You want to unlock, you want to live this life. And to me, it's just about this idea that not only is life a blessing, but that you've actually been given way bigger powers than you're aware of. Push them. Follow that ascendant path in life of those challenges. Because see, the drive, it will go away mentally unless you make sure you set up the path to have challenges. I tell people all the time, Ed, if the only challenges you face in your life right now, currently,

• 16:36Brendon Burchard?

  are the challenges that life threw at you, then you are not yet living a conscious life. You are living a reactive life. But the conscious life would be the life that you set up that upgrade. You set up that next level, you set up that challenge. And what happens for a lot of people is you get affluent. As you get more comfortable. As you get in rhythm with the kids or the family or whatever, you kind of forget to set up challenges anymore. In sport, challenges are set up for you. That's the bracket, right? The bracket, like literally the system is set up for your challenges. That's the bracket. Yep.

• 17:19Brendon Burchard?

  In life, you'd better set up some type of step stair system that the circumstance or the challenge will keep lifting you up. Otherwise, you'll start playing the game of going through the motions. That's when you know you're about to lose your edge. When you go, you know, last couple of years, I've just been going through the motions. You'd better get in your personal development. You better set up some challenges. The second, oh, you've just been going through the motions. It's almost too easy. It's your job to set up that next challenge. And so that's what made the difference for me was one, appreciating life and realizing it's short. Yeah. Realizing I've been given like potentials I'd never manifested,

• 18:03Brendon Burchard?

  but also realizing, hey, kid, you're the only person who's going to set up this system in life to challenge yourself. Everyone else let me coast right into suicidal ideation, Ed. Wow. They all did. Most people don't care about us. And it's scary to say that to the humans. But very few people are ever in your life going to care about your growth. Very few people. I think God makes that call. I think you might be blessed. I'm blessed. I watch Ed, I learn from Ed and I'm like, man, that dude, he calls, you know, Ed gets me going. To have friendships that keep you challenged and aspiring is so important

• 18:47Brendon Burchard?

  because I really believe most people don't care about your growth. And it's awful to say that. It's awful to say that. I wish it wasn't true. But I surrounded myself with people who really care about growth. And I know that's one reason Ed and I are such close friends. Like, we're still in the game. We're still in the hunt. We still want to push. We want to see what we can do. And that's, that's a difference maker.

• 19:11Ed Mylett?

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• 19:55Ed Mylett?

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• 20:40Ed Mylett?

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• 21:12Speaker 01

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 21:15Ed Mylett?

  I'm gonna share a story with everybody and with you. I think you know this story maybe, but there's motivational people. These are people that play to your motives. Hey, if you do this, you're gonna get a carrot, you're gonna get an award, you're gonna get a trophy, you're gonna get a this. Motivation is very good and it's an awesome thing. You and I are both motivational type people. The next level is inspirational. Inspirational, they tap into something a little deeper. They tap into your spirit. Inspiration is to be in spirit. I know you know this.

• 21:40Ed Mylett?

  But then you gotta have people around you that are aspirational. And these are the people you aspire to be more like in a particular area. And one of the roles you play in my life is you motivate me. But you inspire me more often, like when I see you making the effort you make or performing on stage or our private conversations and how you've checked in on me. You know, during difficult times. Um, the way you care for your mom.

• 22:09Ed Mylett?

  You inspire me. How hard you work on yourself. But you are a level beyond that and I have other people too, not a lot. You're right, very few. That are aspirational in particular areas of their life, I want to be more like them. I can't help but be tapping into my competitive spirit when that takes place, my drive and my ambition, because it's infectious. It's contagious. If the people around you aren't inspired, aren't motivated, you're gonna catch it. It's contagious, it's a disease you'll catch. If they are inspirational, if they are motivational, and if you have a few that are aspirational, you will also catch that, that's contagious. And I'll give you an example, I, I think there's, here's the truth.

• 22:51Ed Mylett?

  To get, to move in your life, there's really two things that move us, and you know this, to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Now that you could call it tap into the light side or your dream, or tap into what Tim Grover calls the dark side and I'm gonna prove you wrong, you said I can't do this, both are good. I, I don't think tapping into the dark side all the time is a very healthy thing. Always trying to prove people wrong, always coming from a place of prove, prove it. But I do think it's great leverage and I'll give you an example of it. I have been in relatively good shape. Almost all of my adult life after age 30, I wasn't before. And people think is that because you wanna be strong or fast or have presence or whatever, is there some?

• 23:33Ed Mylett?

  You know, uh, material reason you do it, I'm sure there is. Ego reason, I'm sure there's a little, but here's the reason. My uncle died when he was 48 years old. And I was at his funeral. And I just had this premonition that I should get my heart checked. I was very young still. I I was late twenties. And um. So on the way back, I saw on a flight, there was literally this heart scan, new scan. They're common now. They're CT scans for plaque in your arteries. And I said, I'm gonna go get the scan done. So I went and got the scan. And the doctor, I think I'm here today, saved my life. Because he understood tapping into avoiding pain. It's a healthy thing. Listen to this, Brendan.

• 24:16Ed Mylett?

  You do the scan and then you go away for an hour or two. You come back and they give you, they tell you what's in the scan. That's how they used to do it. So I did the scan. I literally am not kidding you. I left there. I went and had a burrito at lunch. This is no joke. And I come back in, there's three people in the lobby. This doctor was brilliant. What do most doctors do? Hey, here's your scan. Here's the, here's the medication. Thanks for coming in. Great. And I would have gone on with my life. He knew I gotta get leverage on this dude. He needs to change quick. I'm gonna tap into the dark side. Right? And the light side to some extent. So he walks into the lobby, Brendan, and he looks at the chart. And he goes, I'm looking for Edward Mylett. And he knew my last name was Mylett. And he looks up from his glasses. There's three of us. There's two women and me in the room. I'm clearly the Edward in the room, right? But he's, he's already doing it to me. And he goes.

• 25:01Ed Mylett?

  I go, that's me, sir. I'm Ed Mylett. And he goes. Watch this. First thing he does, he goes. Wow. And he looks down at the chart and he looks at me and he looks at the chart. And I said, sir, he says. I can't believe these arteries are in that young a body.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 25:18Ed Mylett?

  I went, huh? He goes, follow me. And we walked in silence back into this little office and we sit down. And he, watch this. He goes, hey, Ed, are you married? I said, yes, sir. He said, okay. He said, kids? I said, yeah, I got a little boy, girl on the way. He says, that's awesome. He goes, let me ask you a question. Um.

• 25:40Ed Mylett?

  Do you want to be at your daughter's wedding and walk her down the aisle? Or are you okay if that's another man?

• 25:46Ed Mylett?

  He hasn't opened the file yet. I said, what, sir? He goes, and your son, like, do you want to be there when he graduates high school and be the father that hugs him? Or will that be another man? Because he goes, by the way, that same man will probably be living in that mansion I hear you have with that beautiful wife of yours, too.

• 26:01Ed Mylett?

  And he goes, um, because the road you're heading down, some other man is walking your daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. Just so you know, you won't be there. And I said, what's in there? And he goes, I want you to listen to me very closely, son. If you don't do what I'm going to tell you to do, another man's going to be in that house of yours with your family. And he's going to walk your daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. The one thing you don't do is tell a dad that, right? And he says, but if you do what I tell you in here, I believe we can get you to that day. Now, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Then he gave me the prescription. That's how you get leverage. That's actually how you sell also. But I have to tell you something. Here we are 30 years later. And when I'm on the road and it's, I get in at 2:30 because flights are delayed and

• 26:46Ed Mylett?

  I got to be up at 6:00 and I go, I'm not going to the gym in the morning. You know what happens? Bella's wedding. Bella's wedding. Day like today, had to get up extra early. Bella's wedding. What's got me in the gym and the reason I've stayed pretty fit all my life is that day and Bella's wedding. When I want to eat really bad, I've eaten bad in my life, but when I'm doing that, man, it's Bella's wedding. And so it has stuck with me. It's burned into me, just like Tom Brady, who was a six round draft pick. He would won four Super Bowls, didn't matter. He was a six round draft pick, five Super Bowls, six Super Bowls, seven Super Bowls. He wore that chip on his shoulder. That's leveraging the dark side. If you've lost your edge, you either need to do something to gain pleasure in the dream

• 27:28Ed Mylett?

  and the vision, or you need to tap into that pain that you want to avoid. And the greatest pain you could give me in my life would be not there for my little girl's wedding day. I'm going to be there. I know where it's going to be. I don't know who it's going to be with, but I know I'm going to be there and I want to be the guy on her arm, nobody else. That's why I've gotten in the gym. So guess what? I don't have to have motivation. I don't have to have motivation, right? I've got a big reason and I will never forget that reason. I think if you've lost your edge, you forgot your reasons or you need new ones. What, give me an example with you where it's the light or the dark side, the pain or the pleasure, and if you even agree with that.

• 28:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I think that

• 28:11Brendon Burchard?

  that story, um, you know, I feel like you've told me that maybe backstage or somewhere. And uh, it shuts me down like because I think of how hard I see you as a friend work. And it gets to me really emotionally because uh, I know how true that is for you. And how you do care for yourself because of your family and you do care for yourself because you want to help people. And you know, so in one way you're voiding this catastrophic thought. And in another, you're also like, you know, I want to be fit and capable and able

• 28:56Brendon Burchard?

  to not only be with my family, but to serve the world the way that you do, because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to do what you do. And I think a lot of people, when they think about pain and pleasure, you know, we're, we're, we're doing things for one of those reasons. I just like, I like to pull those into like energy. And it's like, oh, you're doing things for energy, whether how you tap in that energy, where it comes from, whether it's a push or it's a pull or it's a call up, there's some kind of energetic thing that you are accessing or activating for something that is important in your life. And the most important thing is what Ed is talking about is those reasons.

• 29:39Brendon Burchard?

  And I'm just calling it, what is important, what is really important? Whatever that is, fight for it, which most people have, but then when they lose the fight, they don't know why. Most often, for me personally, it's because there was so much success or pleasure at it.

• 29:59Brendon Burchard?

  That I stopped doing the one thing that really mattered, which was enduring the pain of organizing your life around a thing. Right? Brady organized his life around a thing. It was very painful, cost him probably a relationship. You may be right about it in news. It's like it, the pain of organizing your life around what is important is discipline.

• 30:26Brendon Burchard?

  That's what that is. The pain of organizing your life, activating yourself around something that is important, even when you don't want to. And I think that what happens is when people lose their drive, whether it's pain or pleasure, ultimately what happened is they stopped organizing their life around the thing. You used to run one business, you built that one business, you crushed that one business, and then you made some money. And now you look at your organization, well, actually you have seventeen prospecting calls over here of what to invest in. And now you're going to networking things with wealthy people. And now you're suddenly, there's thirty hours less a week on the thing. Before you had a thing, you were mastering it, you were building it, you were manifesting it, you were organizing life around the thing.

• 31:12Brendon Burchard?

  Now you're not organized around anything.

• 31:15Brendon Burchard?

  There's pleasures over here, there's pains over here, you took this on, you took it. And what we end up doing is we, we take on so much. We're organized around no unifying theme, no unifying aim. And now we've lost the ascendant path. We are instead dispersed. Our energy is dispersed. Now, listen, everyone, if your energy is dispersed, are you shocked that you now lacking the energy that we call drive? That's a great point. The more I am dissipated, lacking alignment or lacking organization or unify unification around just a few important things.

• 31:59Brendon Burchard?

  The more I don't have a drive. It's like when you go into a company and you're consulting them and they've got 60 goals. And everyone has lots of goals. They're very excited. Every time it's time to set their OKRs or their KPIs or their yearly goals, everyone's super excited. Two months later, two weeks later, no energy. Why? It's, it's too much stuff. Give me something singular to hunt, to fight for, and to organize my life around. And I'm just here to tell people, if you don't feel drive, I'm here to say you're probably not organizing your life around anything. You're dissipating your energy. So it doesn't feel like you're in any fight. It feels like you're in 17 different swimming pools at once.

• 32:38Ed Mylett?

  There's the other group here I just want to talk to as well. That's like, the, the group that I started with, which is, I thought I'd be further along. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm living in disappointment and I feel like that's zapping my drive. And one of the things I would say to those of you that are in that state is I really believe you're exactly where you're supposed to be right now. And the only place you can come from is where you are. And you need an obsession. You need to become obsessed with something and it's not unhealthy. If it's an obsession that gets you the things that you want in your life. We've talked a million times about how obsessions become our possessions. And if right now you have no obsessions, you're, you're not in possession of a dream, of somewhere you want to go,

• 33:22Ed Mylett?

  of something you want to accomplish, of somewhere you want to be, something you want to feel. You're growing or dying in your life. You're metaphorically and literally dying if you're just sitting around. You're, you are. And I would challenge you, if you're looking for, Ed, I just don't know what it is. I'll give you two places to look. Okay? Let me give you the first place. Other people. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I think you will do more because you're a giving person. See selfish people, they usually have real big inspiration level, by the way, and drive because they don't care what they have to do to get it. They'll violate rules. They'll violate norms. They don't care if they hurt someone else in getting there. They're going to get theirs and they don't believe in the law of reciprocity. Very rarely will you find an unmotivated selfish person.

• 34:07Ed Mylett?

  These are people that are, they're going to take. But many of you aren't that type of person. You're a giver. You're a giver. You care. And because of that, you won't do anything for yourself. And I could spend all day here telling you that you have to have self-confidence and you've got to move up and you've got to change your identity. These are all things we've covered on the show a million times. If we set all that aside, who would you be doing it for? Is it for God? Is it for your daughter? Is it for your family? Is it for your mom? Is it for an ancestor that sacrificed for you to be here? Is it somebody that immigrated to this country? So you even have a shot that you owe? Who is it for? And I think if you look for inspiration, it'll be who? Or what? And what is your dream? And both of those are the places to look. And for me,

• 34:52Ed Mylett?

  I have to be really honest with you. I've had so many of the whats that right now in my life, the things that move me are the whos. I want to do something for people and I'll pick groups of people or specific people. And I'll do anything to help those people. When I don't want to do this podcast, I honestly can tell you your messages to me, your DMs, your... When I meet you out in public and you tell me the difference is made and I see it on your face and it happens almost every time I go out, it just refuels me and reminds me as to why I do this. And a lot of you don't have that luxury of being reminded, so you've got to remind yourself. Who was it? Was it to retire your mom? Was it to make sure you could care for your dad? Was it to make your siblings proud of you? Was it someone that's passed away who believed in you and you want to prove them right?

• 35:36Ed Mylett?

  Or maybe it's that dark side where there's this person that's, oh, you're not going to amount to anything. You're not going to do it. People come from where we come from. Don't make those kind of dreams happen. Be realistic. It's who, either to prove wrong or right, and then it's what, and what is your dream?

• 35:52Ed Mylett?

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• 36:35Ed Mylett?

  So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash ed. But I want to tap into one last thing with you because I would say that you are this energy thing you just said, I would say you're, you have the, make sure I say what I believe. I think I can say clearly that you have the most beautiful energy consistently of anybody that I know. Like just your energy is just you, it is never that I see you

• 37:17Ed Mylett?

  without bringing big, beautiful energy, loving, kind, inspirational, but candid, he can be tough, by the way, you guys. He can be direct. This is not a pushover, right? His kindness is not weakness, but I think since I've known you, I've never caught you on a day, a moment where you're not bringing massively infectious, beautiful, big energy. And I'd like to know, like seriously, as your friend, like what is that? That's, that's, that's the ultimate of lacking, it's the antithesis of what we're talking about. You do have drive. You do have competitive spirit. You are a fighter. So just about you, don't be humble. Let's finish with that. Like what is it in you?

• 38:00Ed Mylett?

  Do you think? I know you had the car experience, but there's more to it than that. What is it?

• 38:05Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Uh, well, thank you for the compliment, brother. That means the world.

• 38:10Ed Mylett?

  True.

• 38:12Brendon Burchard?

  I mean, really, because we've been through so much as friends and on stages. And I know a lot of people listening, if you if you had that friend where you go through like life together, health, things, stage things, business things, like when you start mixing all things you go together as friends, and you get to experience that together, it means a lot. When you still respect and admire each other, I feel that for you, brother. So, thank you.

• 38:36Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. Yep. Thank you. By the way, we've been even into concerts. We even danced together at two concerts. There's more to it than we're willing to share. Go ahead.

• 38:46Brendon Burchard?

  Well, you know, we've been each other's homes and backstage and just family. And just like, it's a lot of stuff. Well, first, it is a spiritual connection for me. I feel like God left me here for a reason. And I grew up with a lot of violence. I grew up with a lot of people who were very harsh, very mean, very physical. And, you know, growing up in an old depressed Irish mining town, there was a lot of violence. And you have some point in your brain as adult, you kind of switch into, am I really going to guide things by a negative energy or positive energy? You start saying, am I aware of my impact on other people? Because it doesn't mean I don't have bad days. Ed's seen

• 39:30Brendon Burchard?

  me on bad days. I get down. I can get frustrated. I can have a lot of internal emotion. But we have to also be mature adults of like, my internal emotions don't have to project on to other people. I can have a really bad day and not have to throw it at somebody. I can feel really awful inside and still show that vulnerability without making somebody else have to empathize and feel bad for me. And so I think it's like, ownership of our own emotions is one of the great unlocks in life. So I'm just very intentional of like, okay, when Ed comes to see me backstage, you know, I got to make sure my energy is good for him. He's going to go on stage.

• 40:13Brendon Burchard?

  Even if all hell might have broke loose, the, the production team or with what's happening outside, or we had to kick somebody out, or some crazy thing happened to our event, like I still, I gotta meet the speaker and give the energy in which they need to serve, not the energy that I feel. And I think that's just being responsible to other people. I think it's a role model mindset of saying, I, I want to demonstrate a certain energy to the world because I don't like the energy that the world often lives in. I'm not going to perpetuate the negativity, the hate, the criticism, the judgment, the disparagement. And instead I'm going to choose the opposite. And I'm going to be very conscious that my feelings aren't going to pull me into how the world operates.

• 40:57Brendon Burchard?

  Instead, I'm going to ask intentionally, how do I want to make somebody feel? And Ed's, for everyone, it's a little unfair. Ed's met my mom. My mom is like that. She is. I get it from an appreciation of life in those ways. I don't want to feel negative and bad and perpetuate that. But also I have great role models. Man, when you're around awesome people, you just learn to bring joy. You learn to want to feel good as you work hard. I was around people who were having so much fun working hard. I wasn't around the people who are just like grit, grind, hate it, fight, you know? Everyone who kind of succeeded around me, we all feel stupid lucky.

• 41:39Brendon Burchard?

  We're all kind of like, wow, can you believe there were a bunch of kids from Montana? And we became this and we did this. So we're kind of, we're, we're in the awe part of life. It's like, I can't even believe, like, when you're in awe of what goodness has happened in your life, you want to perpetuate that. Um, I'll also say one other thing that, I, I really will need your help on bringing this metaphor out because I, I don't understand what I'm about to say in real life, but I know you will know the metaphor. If you have lost the hunt, if you've lost the drive, and I want you to hear what Ed said about obsession, like focus on something. I want to give one last parting thought on this.

• 42:21Brendon Burchard?

  I also want you to teach yourself and to challenge yourself to take big swings again.

• 42:30Brendon Burchard?

  I need a big swing. I need a big swing. In my world, if you've ever heard my coaching, we call this wax and whales. And I'll give you the example. When you're a salesperson, when you first start out in sales, you're competitive, you're driven, you just want to get that hundred dollar sale, that five hundred dollars, that thousand, that ten thousand. And it's exciting when you're getting these sales, right? Okay, you're getting the sales, but then what in your mind, you're like, someday I'm gonna get that ten thousand dollar sale, baby. And you get all fired up. I'm gonna get that ten thousand dollar sale. And you just get so excited, ten thousand dollar sale. And then you get that whale. Like, wow, you got the whale. It is like, it is, that is the drive,

• 43:14Brendon Burchard?

  the sense of achievement that you did that, you did that. That's the whale. Go for that bigger deal. Go for that bigger thing again. You need something on the dartboard, young man.

• 43:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Brendon Burchard?

  You lost, like, you're going after a hundred dollar things. No, you lost your drive because you're going after a hundred dollar things anymore. You gotta be the person to give yourself the ten thousand dollar challenge.

• 43:36Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 43:37Brendon Burchard?

  That's the whale. The wax side, this is the part I need your help on. You all know Ed played real baseball. So this, I'm gonna embarrass myself a little bit.

• 43:47Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 43:48Brendon Burchard?

  But if I'm a baseball player, and you know, I'm lining up and I'm just, you know, I'm trying to protect my scores. I'm trying to, you know, measure up to other people. I'm hitting, you know, base hits all day long. You know, I'm doing my thing. But once in a while, if I don't unleash, if I don't go for a big swing,

• 44:11Brendon Burchard?

  I'll lose the love of the sport. It'll be gone. If you don't, once in a while, just tell yourself to smack a homer.

• 44:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I love it. Look at you.

• 44:20Brendon Burchard?

  I'm telling you what. You'll lose the love of the game. Do you know how many CEOs I've worked with who haven't taken a swing in 17 quarters and everyone respects them and they're at the country club and they flew me over on their helicopter. I'm for real. Like I work with these guys and guess what? And like they haven't taken a swing. They haven't hit a homer. They haven't tried and they're miserable. They're dying in it. They have every reason to be happy. They lost the drive because they need a big swing, man. Uh, I don't know. You can round out that metaphor and you can close it with that because I don't know.

• 44:54Ed Mylett?

  It's so good. It's you're making me think of there's all these metaphors, but really it's just going deep. Every once in a while you gotta go deep and the fact of the matter is, you know what? There's this great saying in baseball, but it was, I think it was Bull Durham. You know, people love the long ball, man. And every once in a while you gotta have a god sized dream. You gotta, you gotta go deep. You gotta go big fly. You have to do that. You gotta take a big swing. You gotta, you know, some point you gotta take a big cut. You're gonna get up to bat. At some point you gotta do that. And I gotta tell you, you said something I just want to tap into because it's really great. I've never heard this before. But just because you're experiencing, you're experiencing an emotion doesn't mean you need to transfer that same emotion to another person. That's the height of emotional maturity to me. Typically

• 45:38Ed Mylett?

  speaking, when we're feeling angry, we transfer anger to somebody. If we're feeling anxiety or fear, we give it to somebody. It's almost like we think as humans, if I give it to another person, maybe I'll have less of it myself. And so when we feel slighted, right? Or put down, oftentimes what do we kind of do? We get a little bit short or angry with other people. That is one of your great traits is that it really, what you give other people isn't conditional on what you're experiencing yourself. And most people, the gift of energy or the emotion they give away is completely conditional on how they feel themselves. And that's not an emotionally mature person, nor is it a giving person. That's a selfish person. And

• 46:21Ed Mylett?

  I think to some extent, most of my life, when I'm feeling good, I'm gonna help you feel good. When I'm not feeling so good, you're probably not gonna feel so good. And that's the emotional immaturity. And so that is a huge thing. And that energy gives you the reserves to be able to see the pitches coming your way to hit that big shot. It really is like this energy that you're talking about gives you clarity. You could take that big swing, but you'll be able to see the ball clearly. And when you're in the right energetic state, as you said, you see more clearly. And, and what, what's happened for most of you is complexity is the enemy of execution. You're just not clear. As you said, pick one thing, make it a big thing and get after it. And all the little things start to fall into place.

• 47:02Ed Mylett?

  Last thing I'll say, everybody, momentum's a big deal. And if you could just start generating momentum, momentum is a force that can overcome most obstacles, even lack of ability. When you get momentum, you know, every year in the postseason, it's usually not the best team that wins the NHL Stanley Cup. You know who it is? It's the team with the hottest goaltender with momentum. In baseball, in the postseason, to win the World Series, very rarely is it the best team in the regular season. You know who it is? It's the team that's got the hottest pitching staff that has momentum or the hot bats. Momentum wins. Right now in the NBA, when we're recording this, this will come out probably afterwards, but the NBA Finals is the

• 47:44Ed Mylett?

  Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder was the best team in the league, but the Pacers weren't. The Pacers beat the Celtics who won the championship last year. And so it's not always the best or most talented that win. It's the people or the teams with momentum. And so what we've talked about today is a way of generating that momentum. And all of a sudden you get your swagger back. You get your groove back a little bit. You remember the rhythm of success. You're like, ah, I like this dance. I like how this feels. I like this sound. Right now you just add a rhythm. You gotta get back in rhythm and that momentum will give it to you. Anyway, what an extraordinary conversation, dude. I, I mean this every time we talk, I'm like, dude, like, I'd be better if we just did this daily.

• 48:27Brendon Burchard?

  Me too. I look, I look forward to it so much. I mean, it's like, I know everyone listening, you guys have checked out Growth Day and Ed's, Ed does a Monday motivation. Last Monday, yours reset my whole brain. I just was like, I was just in the wrong place. And I listen to it. So in some way I get you, you know, in the app once in a while to reset me. So

• 48:50Ed Mylett?

  Well, not only can you be in the app, you guys, if you go to growthday.com/Ed, not only can you be in the app, but you can get to an event with he and I. Like it's the craziest deal ever. Like if you'd like to see this happen in person and sit in a room with us, go to growthday.com/Ed. Go do that. It'd be great to meet those that are watching the podcast and these rooms are, you know, they get sold out really quickly. So if they're, you know, you get an opportunity to go, I would highly recommend it. We're doing one in July in Napa and we're going to do another one in the fall as well. Where are we in the fall?

• 49:20Brendon Burchard?

  Scottsdale.

• 49:21Ed Mylett?

  Scottsdale. And that's in when? Is that October?

• 49:23Brendon Burchard?

  That's November, I believe. And you're right. It might be October. I have to check the day.

• 49:28Ed Mylett?

  Go to growthday.com/Ed, you guys. Share today's episode and go chase your God-sized dreams. Let's go. Let's hit it. Let's hit a big fly. Let's go deep. All right. God bless you.