Pod Insights The Impact Theory Podcast You’re Still Losing Because You Haven’t Built These Habits | Brendon Burchard (Fan Fav) About this episode This is a fan fav episode. On Today's Episode: It’s easy to admire people that have reached extraordinary levels of success, it’s hard to imagine what it takes to get there. Passing off someone’s excellence and success as unattainable for ourselves is a b.s. and it’s not what we’re about at Impact Theory.
Your beliefs are malleable and what you believe about yourself matters. How you decide to live your life and show today matters also and if you’re not happy with the way you show up or how you’re living your life then do something about it.
Brendon Burchard is one of the world’s leading high performance coaches that has impacted and trained millions of people globally. His online personal growth platform is dedicated to teaching people how to bring the joy, live with intention, love the life you live, and matter to yourself and others everyday because you show up to go all-in on whatever you decide.
You’ve heard what it takes to be successful, but very few people share how to get beyond passion and shoot for obsession to attain insane levels of success, but today we are, so let’s go.
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 8-30-22
SHOW NOTES:
0:00 | Introduction to Brendon Burchard
2:22 | Generate the Energy You Want
10:15 | Raise Necessity with Obsession
15:51 | These 2 Things BUILD Your Identity
26:33 | Build These Skills Achieve More
35:47 | Honor the Struggle to Win
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Website: https://brendon.com/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brendonburchardfan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrendonBurchard
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BrendonBurchard
What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here:
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Tom Bilyeu? Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now, I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby, and then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University, and the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing.
0:45 Tom Bilyeu? Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. What is up, everybody? I am super excited for today's episode with the world's leading high-performance coach, himself Brendon Burchard. Now, I know Brendon personally, and he is amazing. Not only has he coached everyone from Usher to Olympians to Oprah Winfrey, he's the world's leading high-performance expert that's helped millions of people
1:26 Tom Bilyeu? become high performers by sharing what it takes to achieve excellence with more than just passion. Today, we're talking all about passion, obsession, and next-level performance for success. I hope you guys love this episode as much as I did recording it. And if you do, please leave a review on our podcast. That really is the best way to support the podcast so we can get the show out there to more high performers around the globe. I'm Tom Bilyeu, and welcome to Impact Theory. Do you remember how we first met? Like, the very time we actually met in person?
1:58 Speaker 01 It was like intercontinental, Dallas, Texas, Success Magazine. They're doing an event. They had like 2,000 people, you know, we're both speaking there. And I think I was going to work out or something? Or I was coming back?
2:08 Tom Bilyeu? One of the two.
2:09 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then I run into you, which is like, if you're going to work out, it's like you don't want to run into like, you know, The Rock. Like, I'm going to work out. I don't want to run into this guy. I mean, he's got the pipes, you know?
2:20 Speaker 02 Right now, The Rock is violently upset somewhere at this very moment.
2:25 Speaker 01 No, yeah, so I ran into you and I was like, man, it's cool because I hadn't met you in person, but I'd watched the show.
2:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:32 Speaker 01 And so I'd seen you just slay it in your interview style.
2:39 Speaker 02 Wow, very kind.
2:40 Speaker 01 And just getting better and better and better. I mean, because you and I both watch for the same thing. We want to see excellence in our space. And when we see it, we watch, and we watch, and we watch. And what you've built here is incredible, but it was so cool to finally actually meet you in person because you never know what people's energy is like, like off camera.
2:59 Speaker 02 And that's why I was so surprised. And our first meeting left an indelible mark in me. So obviously, I knew who you were. I'd watched a ton of your content. And we're probably no BS, like 30 yards away from each other, minimum. You come around the corner and Tom, Tom Bill you. And I was like, I didn't even know you knew who I was. And it was so warm and so enthusiastic. It is so infectious. And so as I'm reading the book, High Performance Habits, which by the way, you guys, go out and get this, this book is awesome. I'm going to stamp this one hard. One, because some of the surprises we're going to talk about, because you say a lot, like, I know if you read just the back at what the six habits are, you're going to be like, well, I get these.
3:41 Speaker 01 Sure.
3:42 Speaker 02 You really don't. As you get into it, some of the surprises and things you can put into your life are really, really interesting. But seeing like how gracious and warm and kind you were was really, really fascinating. And then reading the book, hearing your notion of you generate the energy. If you want joy, you create the joy. Talk to us about that. That was something that really, really struck me.
4:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, that piece comes from probably the most powerful metaphor of my entire life, and that is the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates energy. And I've been teaching that for like 15 years on stage. And one guy stands up one time and he goes, actually, you're wrong. At my event, you know, there's 2,000 people in my event. He goes, well, you're actually wrong. I'm like, oh, how am I wrong? He says, well, a power plant doesn't generate energy. What it does is it
4:28 Speaker 01 Takes energy from one source, upgrades it, so transforms the energy, then stores it and transmits it. So it's really transforming energy from one sort of location or one type of energy to another.
4:41 Speaker 02 Right.
4:42 Speaker 01 And I love that metaphor because I felt like that's my job. You know, so much of my life is helping people reach another level of energy. Because if you don't reach another level of energy, you can't serve at another level. If you don't reach another level of energy, you can't feel better, be happier, be a better spouse. You know, it's like, everyone says, "I want that next level." But they don't understand, energy is the requirement to get there. And when we measured energy in our studies, it's, we were talking about really mental energy, emotional energy, and physical energy. And it was a huge turning point in my life when I started realizing these things because, you know, that whole thing that we, as entrepreneurs, we want to wait for maybe one day I'll feel energized, or maybe one day I'll feel joy, or maybe one day I can have fun after, you know, all the money's in the bank.
5:27 Speaker 01 And you know, you got, you got the house or the cars or the money or the, you know, the stuff. And then people go, "Oh, then I'm gonna be really a fun person." It's like, no, if you're not a fun person when you're broke, you're not gonna be that much more fun when you're rich. And I think that people have to learn to bring the joy. It's one of our little tag lines on our shirts, right? Bring the joy. And that says, you know, you don't have joy. Just like I don't think people have happiness. I don't think people have sadness either. I think that we are generating the emotions and the feelings that we experience in life. And soon as we own that responsibility, life gets really fun. Because now we can choose it. And I'll give you an example. Last night, I spoke to 12,000 people onstage here in L.A. at the Convention Center.
6:10 Speaker 01 And it was terrifying because Pitbull was opening. I'm backstage, and I feel the cortisol dropping. I feel myself getting tense, you know. Pitbull talks for me like 10 minutes, and then he does a four-song set.
6:24 Speaker 02 Whoa.
6:25 Speaker 01 Okay? When he finishes his four-song set, I gotta come and hit the stage and do 90 minutes. And I'm backstage, and the emotion of my life at that moment is terror, is, is, is stress. Because do they have my video? They don't have the video? The keynote's not working? All this other stuff is going on? I mean, it was just like, really intense. But when I hit that stage, I'm responsible for my emotion and my feelings. You know, feelings come up to people. So of course I'm, I'm, I have anxiety in that moment. I'm kind of freaked out. I have to, in that moment, determine the feeling that I'm after. And we talk about that in the book. Is that we have to determine the feeling that we are after and live into that feeling, not hope it lands on us.
7:09 Speaker 01 And that's when someone starts getting real mastery in life. Because I knew I had hit that stage and there couldn't be the stress on me. There couldn't be the anxiety on me. I had to bring joy at a stage at level, you know, 10x.
7:22 Speaker 02 Walk us through the mechanisms of that. So, and something that you cover very well in the book is there's a process. In fact, the book is high-performing habits, right? And you really go into the habits, the mechanisms, the things that you can do, say, orchestrate into your life, which I think is really the core of what makes the book so powerful. So, in that moment, you're backstage, what are you actually doing?
7:42 Speaker 01 Yeah. First, I'm closing my eyes and say, where is this emotion coming from? And I realize in my mind, it's like, oh, it's because I'm thinking, I have to go follow Pitbull. And that's where people fail in life. Oh, well, my Instagram's not like hers, or, you know, I'm not as famous as him. You know, we have all these comparisons that cause us cortisol or anxiety that shut us down. And then we stop performing our best. Because we're trying to follow somebody versus just go do our thing. So I identified, that's, oh, that's where I'm at, okay. What's that causing? That's causing that cortisol-adrenal drip that I don't want right now. So what do I need to do?
8:24 Speaker 01 And the fastest ways to get yourself back is usually, you know, breath and movement. So we teach, I teach this program, High Performance Academy. It's like one of the crowd favorites. On day three, we have 2,000 people there and about 40% of the audience is international. So day three, their jet lag is just whooping them, right? And I always, it's predictable, I know exactly about, about 1:00 in the afternoon, day three, they start bonking. So I do this breath scaling thing where I teach them to breathe in through their nose, like they're breathing in the ocean, like, and then breathe out. Okay? And that's kind of the top level. So we just start breathing normal and it gets more and more and more and more and more and more intense until you're at the top and it's literally like.
9:12 Speaker 01 I sustain that for like 60 seconds. And what it is, it's like I hit like oxygen, you know, like cocaine to the brain for oxygen.
9:21 Speaker 02 Is it getting lightheaded or anything?
9:23 Speaker 01 No, because I've done it so much, right? I don't, I don't push myself to get lightheaded. I push myself to fully oxygenate the body. But what you do, soon as you do that, and the most important thing is, for those who are going to try this at home, you scale up to it, then you scale down to find your regular breath again. And you need to not be standing there with your knees locked. And if you ever feel dizzy, sit down. So, but I do that and all of a sudden you feel an incredible amount of energy in your body. Your mind just goes super sharp. And the added benefit of that much oxygen intake lowers cortisol.
9:59 Speaker 02 That's interesting.
10:00 Speaker 01 Right? We know from meditative practices, when we deep breathe, we tend to lower cortisol or lower that sense of anxiety, even if we don't get the full mechanism of the hormone release. Then all of a sudden it's like, ah, I'm in my zone, I'm ready to go. Then I do full body qigong, which is like a qigong. A cupping activity in qigong is basically like you are, you're padding up one inch at a time on different parts of your body like this, all over. So you do arms, your legs, your back. What that's doing is opening the meridians in your body. And now my body, my mind's open, my body's fully ready to serve. And now it's like, let's get it. I'm excited because now it's just like, I identified the source of the anxiety, got rid of it, took care of the mechanism in the body that was also making me feel like crap.
10:45 Speaker 01 And then it's, then it's exciting. I mean, people see me on this big stage and they think, oh, or they see you and they think, oh, well, he must always be in the perfect state or the perfect energy and he's always going to be great. And that's not true. You know, great athletes, great performers, an executive walking into an important meeting, you got to go deal with your kid who's struggling with math. When we walk into those situations, we have to set intention.
11:11 Speaker 01 For what we want to do in that situation, and we have to release tension. And so the practices and high performance habits, that was the second big finding that we had was high performers are generating the energy, and that means the mental, emotional, physical energy that they feel is necessary to serve with excellence in a certain situation. Like, they're so conscious of it. And I know that's common sense for people, but it's not always common practice. You know? It's like a lot of people just wander into that situation. And I'm the guy who says, you know what? Get more intentional. Release the tension you have. Walk in as your highest self, because that's something you'll never regret.
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14:10 Speaker 01 For sure. Now, one thing I found in the book that really struck me, and I think this is where I really fell in love with the book, is the concept of necessity. Because this is something I talked to people about. And specifically in the context of obsession versus passion.
14:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:27 Speaker 01 And you really went into it not because you're probably going to get some flack and pushback on that one. But what you said, I was like, that is the absolute truth.
14:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:36 Speaker 01 So explain to people, what's the difference between the two? What is the role of obsession? Well, we found it. So in High Performance Habits, what we did, like you mentioned, that we do the world's largest study of high performers, data from over 190 countries, from what essentially turns out to be like people who are in that top 15% of whatever they do. And we found that there was basically the personal habits and social habits. And the personal habits was like seek clarity, generate energy. And that third one was raise necessity, which was something I didn't even know really was a thing psychologically. As important as it turned out to be. And necessity is kind of short for performance necessity.
15:16 Speaker 01 Or what we call psychological necessity, which means there is a moment in which you are serving people or you're trying to achieve your goal or your dream in which now it is not a preference. It's a must, right? But to use better languaging, it's it becomes necessary for us to excel in this. Like, it's not a hope anymore. It's not, I should do it. It becomes so necessary that it connects with our identity.
15:45 Speaker 01 That we feel it is necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because that is who I am. It's necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because somebody needs me to do well. It's necessary for me to do well here because this topic, this thing I'm doing, I'm passionate about this, I care about this, I want to master this. I'm obsessed with this. And it's necessary for me to do well because of the time, it's a deadline, or it's go time. And when all those come together, for that personal side of this is my identity and I'm obsessed about it, and that other side where it's like, somebody needs me and there is a real deadline, right in the middle, that's performance necessity. And when we hit that, game changer.
16:30 Speaker 01 Game changer, but it is uncomfortable because people don't want to
16:35 Speaker 01 exude that much passion in which it becomes obsession because they're fearful of their obsessions. Well, if I'm obsessed about this topic, it's going to take away from my family, from my time, it's going to introduce a lot of fear or unknowns to me, so they back off. But I tell people all the time, there is a difference between passion and obsession. And high performers have obsession about the topic. Right? They are obsessed about the topic in which they're trying to learn, master, grow into. And so that obsession is real. And I tell people, here's how you know the difference between the two. When you're passionate, everybody cheers you on. They're stoked for you. "Oh, you found your passion? Awesome. Follow your passion. Live with passion. Be passionate. Chase your passions."
17:18 Speaker 01 Everything, like passion, passion, passion, passion. Passion's good. The world's gonna be like, "Yay, passion!" Right? When you're obsessed, they're like, "Why you gotta be so crazy? Why can't you be satisfied? Why do you always gotta get things so perfect? Why you spend so much time here?" When you're obsessed, people think you're nuts. So it's different. And it's like, I always tell people, if no one thinks you're crazy... You're not yet operating to the outer limits of your potential. You're not there yet. Because somebody in your life should say, "Man, you really care about this in like a crazy way." And when you get there, you know you've found your thing. And not everybody finds that. I think that's also why it's scary. Some people go,
18:00 Speaker 01 "Well, I'm passionate or I'm happy, but I don't really obsess about anything." You know, most people obsess about, you know, their shows on Netflix more than their life. I know people who obsess more about their, you know, thread count in their sheets at their house than they do about the impact they're making in the world.
18:16 Speaker 02 Why do you think people can slip into an obsession over Netflix or whatever, or thread count? But they don't do that for something that could really change their life?
18:25 Speaker 01 Feedback.
18:26 Speaker 02 That's interesting. It's not what I expected you to say. What do you mean by that?
18:29 Speaker 01 Because, you know, buying something or getting pulled into Netflix, being obsessed about something that gives you no feedback is not scary. A real obsession, like trying to make an impact in the world, you're gonna get feedback. You try and make a difference in somebody's life, they're gonna tell you, "That doesn't resonate with me, Brendon." You try to make a difference in a nonprofit, you try to change the world, you try to start something like this, and the views come or they don't come, there's feedback. And people are terrified. It's one of the four central fears we all have, is rejection. We're terrified, like to be rejected. And think about, if you really want to make an impact, you're going to get a lot of judgment, you're gonna get a lot of hate, and ultimately you're gonna get rejection.
19:13 Speaker 01 People are gonna like just diss on you, people are gonna say, "That's not good enough." People are gonna say, "Who do you think you are?" And people are so worried about that, that they stop. And so it's easier, things that don't give you feedback. Watches Netflix don't give you no feedback. It's easy. There's no disappointment there. Even if you don't like the show, what do you do? You just go on to the next show. There's no disappointment there. You know, I think trying to make an impact, there's a lot of disappointment and fear and potential for rejection. So people don't get obsessed about making a difference and making an impact because it can hurt.
19:47 Speaker 02 Go deep on identity. So you've talked about how one of the scariest things about an obsession is the way that you tie it to your identity. High performers do that. They put themselves at risk. They say, like your own story, I am a writer. And the day that you decided you were gonna own that, you said that that comes with a risk. One, explain to people what that risk is. And then how did you overcome it? And how can other people do that?
20:09 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, imagine like last night, I'm going on the stage, right? If my identity says, I am a public speaker, and it is important for me to be excellent at this. And then I go on stage and I bomb. What does that say about me as a person? So we've got about 50 years of work in psychology, the field of psychology, saying, do not tie your efforts to your identity. Because that risk of disappointment or rejection, you know, if the task fails, you shouldn't take that as a defining moment in which you say, I am a failure. Right? So that's a risk. And that's what psychologists tell us to be wary of.
20:50 Speaker 01 Except, it turns out that high performers flip that on its face and go, well, actually, no, I do get bothered if it fails. I really get upset about it. I am attached to the process here. I do care if it turns out well. I mean, that's why they obsess about the details. That's why they care about excellence. No one obsesses about the details or cares about excellence unless it means something to them. And there is a risk. The risk is you overattach to the process or the outcome with your identity, so that if the process or outcome goes bad, now you feel bad about yourself as a human, and now you stop your progress.
21:34 Speaker 01 But I also tell people, there's a balance there. I actually wish more people would attach some identity to what they're doing. They wouldn't go through their motions as much. I mean, I think what the world needs less of is half-interested parents who don't have an identity that says, you know what? I'm gonna be an excellent parent. I think we have a lot of CEOs or business people or entrepreneurs who they've never stepped in and said, "You know what? I'm a CEO. I own this business. I am responsible for paying the bills. I am responsible for making the money. I'm responsible for all these people's mortgages who work for me." Like, I want them to own the identity of a CEO.
22:17 Speaker 01 Because most of them, if you ask them about their identity and their business, they're kind of like, you come to find, they're kind of approaching it like, not even hobbyists. It's like, if you want to win, your identity has to be tied into that thing in which you are trying to succeed at and give to. And that takes a lot of guts to put yourself all in for something, but who's ever contributed something with tremendous impact without being all into it? I've never seen it. So, I think the message of the book, you're right, I'll get some flack, a lot of psychologists say, "Don't tell people to tie more of their identity." Or my friends who are Buddhists will say, "But attachment is the form of all suffering, Brendon. Have you not read your spiritual text?"
22:58 Speaker 01 I'm like, "Look out, calm down, I've hung out with the Dalai Lama, I'm totally cool." But what I'm trying to tell you is, even the Dalai Lama has a connection with himself as a spiritual leader. His identity is still there, that people, you know, assume that, you know, we have to release ourselves from having any attachment to something, but I'm like, I think we all want to be present and engaged fully in the things that we are doing in our lives. And that's going to require us to say psychologically, "You know what? I, I am all in this." That's what I'm about.
23:37 Speaker 02 What I loved in the book is, you were open on the journey of writing, it took you about three years if I'm not mistaken. So, doing all the research, you've collected however many millions of people that are in your ecosystem, and then you start systematically actually researching the data, and you can feel that in the book, that you were open to being surprised, you were open to changing your thinking. You talk about going through and trying to find disconfirming evidence and not just wanting to be in a vacuum, and some of the surprises in The book were really, really great. And in that whole concept of obsession, I loved it because it felt so real. You tell your followers, one, you have to take ownership, right? So you give a great example about you're in a relationship with somebody.
24:21 Speaker 02 Whatever energy you guys are creating, you're creating that. Like, don't think that it's just objectively them. Like, you guys are doing it together. And I love that, love that. In the talk about how obsession can be useful because. So I'm like, that's really important to me. And I want people to understand if you want to achieve at the highest level, you're gonna have to tap into obsession, period.
24:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:42 Speaker 02 And you put a quote in the book that I think sums it up perfectly, which goes like this. And by the way, the quotes people choose for books reveal so much. And I just kept taking one after another, after another out of your book. This is from Einstein. Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.
25:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:07 Speaker 02 I love that.
25:08 Speaker 01 All in. You have to be all in and it's the hardest thing to do because if it fails, then you can feel like a failure. You know, I think of this idea of performance necessity. Two stories kind of come to mind. One is I was working with an Olympic gold medalist sprinter. And we're in the tunnel and we're going out. And he's talking about the competition and we get out to the blocks. And I said, he was really worried about the competition. I said, well, how do you even gauge like who, who's gonna win? You know, in, in his particular race, people are winning, but by, you know, one one hundredths of a second, tenths of a seconds. I mean, these are really close sprints. And I said, well, how, how do you know? I said, who would you even bet on?
25:52 Speaker 01 And he says, you know, I would bet on the guy who gets down at the blocks, gets himself settled, looks at the finish line and says, I gotta do this for my mom.
26:06 Speaker 01 And I was like, ooh, that's good. His performance necessity in that is it's necessary for him to win that race for his mom. I think of, you know, when I started my career and I really decided to go all in with writing and online training. This is like 2000, probably six. I'd gone broke, completely bankrupt and failed. I left my corporate job. I had this cushy kind of corporate job as a consultant. Good job. Left it to write and I didn't know how to make it as a writer. I wanted to do seminars, workshops, didn't know how to do that. So I was pretty much a hot mess, ran out of money. I got nothing than my name, nothing, kind of no positive prospects.
26:51 Speaker 01 No one's calling me except the guys who want the money. And one night I'm writing and the apartment was so small, on the bed I had all, you know, my bills, my vision boards, all my research, all my journals, like the bed was basically the desk, the extended desk. And my lady comes in, Denise, and she walks past me, but she sees I'm like trying to write, so she doesn't want to disturb me. She goes, she crawls under the covers of the bed and I'm just typing, kind of casually typing away and I look over and I see my woman sleeping under my bills.
27:36 Speaker 01 And it was just like, you know, because none of us want to see our, you know, our family suffer because we are not performing.
27:49 Speaker 01 And I was just like, I gotta figure this out. And I'm telling you, I wrote more that night than any night in my entire life. Next day I wrote more than ever. That Burris Life's Golden Ticket, which came a bestseller and in, you know, 18 months later, because I was like, I'm going to figure out this online thing, I'm going to figure out marketing, I'm going to figure out how to teach, I'm going to figure out how to train and get paid for it, because I'd never really been paid for those things. I said, I'm going to figure out this industry and I'm going to make it. 18 months later, after her crawling under the bills, I made 4.6 million dollars.
28:26 Speaker 01 Online. Total transformation. People like, how did you do it? I'm like, she gave me, she was my necessity. I was not going to let my woman be in that situation. And she believed in me. She supported me. She, she married me. And, uh, you know, but that was, she was my drive. And the second part was, I went all in with my identity. I said, I am going to be a great writer. And I am going to be one of the greatest online trainers there ever was. You know, as you said in the intro now, we've graduated over two million people have taken our online courses and video series now. I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't had the guts and maybe the, no other choice.
29:11 Speaker 01 To say, this is who I'm going to be. And I'm going to build into that. And it is necessary for me to become that person. So let's go.
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30:23 Speaker 02 Talk to me about that building into process. This is so you did a video about how to come back from being dead broke. And it was so fundamental and real and true. I loved it. I was like, you're not trying to hype anybody up. In fact, you were telling them you're going to hate this video. I'm going to tell you what to do. It's actually going to work, but you're going to hate it. And that's when I was like, all right, this guy's not fucking around. Like your advice is really real. So the concept of building in the concept of, and I love this. You can't imagine how much I agree with you on this. That it's not just about doing what comes naturally.
30:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:56 Speaker 02 So what is it about?
30:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm glad you relate with me because I'm getting a lot of flack on that. So the big, huge finding that really scratches the surface of a lot of like cultural assumptions, especially in high performance is this big cultural conversation you have about strengths. And you know, find your strengths, follow your strengths. The strengths are everything and you know, take the strengths finder, figure out your top five strengths, follow those, don't do anything else, or you know, at least know what they are and really aim your career to that. Or aim your behavior towards that, or you know, use that as a guide for recognizing pattern. And by the way, I'm all for that. That's all great. I'm that guy who says, you know, any self-reflection you do, I'm cheering you on. Like any assessment, any tool that makes you look at with inside, I'm like all for it.
31:43 Speaker 01 It's just that strengths are not highly correlated with long-term success. Right? There's not a lot of data and there is not a lot of research that has shown it leads to long-term success with the positive outcomes associated with what we care about in psychology, which is we care about happiness. We care about health and we care about your positive relationships. And this myth that, oh, we just follow our strengths to, you know, to the promised land is just not true when you actually talk with high performers. Cause my favorite question, and if it was down, they said, just go up to anyone who's good and say, were you always good at that? And they'll be like, "No." They'll be like, "Not at all."
32:26 Speaker 01 "Well, did you always have an inclination to do every element of what you're doing really well?" "No." "Like me?" "Man, I sucked onstage." "This year, I've talked to 60,000 people live." "This is really important because this idea that we're just... "Our strengths are gonna give us everything, it's just not true." "I sucked speaking onstage." "Matter of fact, I was terrified of it." "Terrified." "But one of the reasons I love your show is because I had that intention of, 'I wanna make an impact.'" "And when someone actually asks..." "...and kinda owns that, like, when they say, 'Do I wanna make an impact?'" "And the answer is yes, and they own it." "They realize they're gonna have to develop."
33:08 Speaker 01 "They can no longer leave their growth to, you know, to randomness." "Because if they do, they'll always be mediocre." "And they realize, 'I gotta become something entirely above both of those.'" "That's what most people don't see." "They're like, 'It's... "We've made this binary, false conversation, right?" "It's a... "It's not a true sort of choice here." "It's a false dichotomy, we call it, right?" "It's not strengths or weaknesses." "Many of you, if you have a big dream, a huge goal, "You gotta become something entirely above and beyond any strengths you even know about, "Feel or own, and go way beyond any weaknesses you've ever even addressed "Or even you know about, because you're gonna discover so many new strengths "And so many new weaknesses on the path,
33:52 Speaker 01 "That it's almost irrelevant what they are now." "It's, 'What's the goal?'" And build into that. "You know, I didn't know how to write." "I get a lot of critics who are like literary guys about my books, "Because every book is different, right?" "Six books, all of them different." "And the reason they all read differently is I am challenging myself as a writer." To develop, to get better. Every book I write, I'm gonna write this like nothing I've ever written before. And I go to work at building a new skill set to be able to write. Like Manifesto, I researched for two and a half years just how to write it.
34:29 Speaker 02 Wow.
34:30 Speaker 01 Not what to write, how. How do I get that pentameter? How do I, what was the rhythm in which revolutionist rhetoric was spoken in or written in? Just to understand that took me two and a half years. So I had no conceptual understanding of it. It wasn't a strength. I didn't even, it wasn't on my radar.
34:49 Speaker 02 And what does that process of skill acquisition look like?
34:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. It first and foremost starts with identifying. I wouldn't even start with the skill. I would start with the self. You know, in the chapter on seeking clarity, we say it's like what we found for high performers is they've identified these four things. They're more intentional in these four areas. Number one is high performers are consistently seeking clarity in who do I want to be? And I know a lot of people do that when they turn 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70. And people do that at New Year's. But high performers are doing that like in every situation. Like before, when I walked down the stairs here, I was like, who do I want to be in this interview right now with my friend Tom? Like, I want to do a good job for him, you know? I made that performance necessity on myself. Like, I want to do a good job. So I was like, well, I want to be present.
35:35 Speaker 01 I don't want to be enthusiastic. I want to be bold. I want to be those things. High performers are constantly seeking clarity about how they want to interact with other people. And I think a big development and growth point for people is determining, how do I really want to treat people when they don't agree with me? Or when they're hating on me? Or when they're discounting me? Or they're being mean to me? Or we're in a fight? Because I think some of those are the greatest growth areas of our life. And then high performers are very clear about the critical skills they must develop in order to succeed in their space. You know, they identify, usually, we found, they usually know three to five current skills they're working on.
36:19 Speaker 01 So another example for me was video. I was very awkward and uncomfortable in front of video.
36:25 Speaker 02 I know the feeling.
36:26 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. Right? But you said, okay, if I'm gonna make an impact, I'd better figure that out.
36:32 Speaker 02 Yep.
36:33 Speaker 01 I'd better figure that out. And so you go to work. You put in the miles. You try because learning is the ultimate lever to leveling up.
36:44 Speaker 02 You actually have a math equation, if I may, which I think is where you're headed. But I loved this equation so much. Passion plus growth plus contribution equals personal satisfaction.
36:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. It's like, those all coming together, a lot of people have never experienced. And it's hard for you and I to say that as personal development, guys. But it's true, there's a lot of people who've never had those three completely line up. So they're not satisfied even with their job or their career or their life. Because if the passion isn't there, even if the passions are, they don't feel like they're growing. But everybody who I talk to, do you remember that first personal development book you read? Do you remember that first time you wrote tons of notes about what you wanted your life to be about? Do you remember that first time you watched a movie inspired you to go change? There was fire there because that learning, it opened up your mind to a new level of existence for you. And soon as you saw it, you were like, ooh, ambition hits your heart.
37:41 Speaker 01 And now if you can match it with contribution and you can see how that passion or that fire or that learning or that growth all aligns to some type of impact, now you're getting me fired up because now I can see the outcome of all the work. A lot of people don't do the work because they don't believe the outcome.
38:00 Speaker 02 That's interesting.
38:01 Speaker 01 You know, psychologists talk about the power of expectancy. When we talk about motivation, there's only two things that spark motivation. One is ambition, and that is I want more of or I want a greater depth of, right? I want a greater depth of connection with my lady, that's ambition. Or I want a better meditative practice, that's ambition, right? I want to be better at my job, that's ambition. So it starts with ambition. But ambition, if it's not coupled with what they call expectancy in psychology, you're screwed. Expectancy says, I believe that I can figure that out. I believe that I can achieve that. I believe that that is possible for me.
38:42 Speaker 01 Because if we don't believe it's possible for me, you can show them all the results from a thousand people. Right? How many people say, I want to get in great shape? You know, I'm, I'm, Tom, I'm on dude ketosis, I'm doing the ketosis thing, man. And they hop on your Instagram and they see, they see the cuts, they see the changes, they see the transformations, but they don't believe it's possible for them. So they don't try. Expectancy is their problem. You gotta bust through the beliefs to get them to understand that it is possible for them, not for other people, for them. And if you can open that gate for somebody, and often that's only achieved through learning,
39:21 Speaker 01 then you get somebody who starts really moving ahead forward. I mean, really moving ahead. Like, the second they go, "Wait, that's possible for me", they'll try fifty stupid things, right? They'll try anything. But if they don't believe it's possible for them, they'll just quit.
39:35 Speaker 02 Do you have, within this context, so obviously, seek help is first and foremost, but beyond that, what does that rebuilding process look like for somebody who's trapped in depression and suicidal thoughts?
39:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:50 Speaker 01 I've been there a lot in my life. Especially before my car accident, in my teenage years. Then, the first woman I ever loved, we had a big breakup. And that breakup sent me down in depression and suicidal planning. And
40:08 Speaker 01 it's tough to dispense advice to people other than get help. And I'll share why. Because that time in my life, I had so many people coming up to me. You know, my friends would come into my dorm room, "Rudy, let's go do something", and you just, there's just, the hope is lost. And what people, I think, make the mistake of trying to do is hype people up. "Everything's gonna be okay, you're gonna be great", and what people need who are suicidal is serious psychological intervention. They need to seek support and help. And outside of that, when they do get that support, the first thing a great therapist is going to do, outside of the emotional reflection work of, "Why are you here and what has caused this sort of pattern for you",
40:52 Speaker 01 they're going to get you starting to get some momentum. The most important thing is when you are super down, outside of finding that emotional reasoning for where you are, is to start getting momentum. Because with momentum comes hope. With momentum comes motivation. With momentum comes, you know, that feeling that there's a reason for tomorrow. And so, it's as simple as just saying, "Okay, what are three things I'm gonna do today?"
41:21 Speaker 01 And I don't mean that like a lot of personal development guys would say like, "What are your three big goals for the day? Argh!" I'm like, dude, sometimes that first goal is, "I'm gonna shower today."
41:32 Speaker 01 I'm really in shower today. I'm gonna walk to the library.
41:39 Speaker 01 And come home.
41:42 Speaker 01 And that's all they got. Like, literally, that's all they got. And you gotta honor that struggle when you're in that place. Like, know that where you're at, it is okay that you're there. And now you're gonna need help. And now you're gonna have to set up some daily practices, just every day, win a little bit. Not like win your dreams, not like crush through goals, not like be badass, not like, no. Just momentum, man. You know, most of the guys I've dealt with in that position who were suicidal, outside of their therapeutic work, I said, "The most important thing you can do is win the morning." Just win the morning, man. I think that's true for all of us, even high performers. Like, if I don't have my morning routine game, I feel, you know, out of sorts.
42:28 Speaker 01 So I think it's true for everybody. You gotta own your morning, you gotta win it. Because that starts and sets up everything else. I know you believe that as well. Like, people need that discipline, those routines, that will help the rest of their day go better.
42:41 Speaker 01 And I don't wanna ever be flippant with the advice to people who are dealing with that situation outside of, "Get some help, get some momentum, and be okay if that momentum is really small." Because it will build, trust that. That momentum builds, and trust that those gloomy and bad, dark days, trust that those are going to be there. They'll get less and less and less as you learn how to cope, but they're gonna be there. And so when they're there, it's one of the, my, I mean, outside of teaching people to bring the joy in my life, I teach people to honor the struggle. Honor the difficulty. When we honor the struggle instead of hate the struggle, we can really achieve extraordinary things because our mindset's in the right place.
43:24 Speaker 01 It accept, like, as soon as you honor the struggle, you accept that, "Oh, of course, there should be struggle here. I should, I should honor this process." When you go to the gym to work out, you, like, honor that this is gonna be hard, and honor that process of getting better. And the more that you bring honor to it, the more your psyche builds with strength, and you get a little bit of that esteem back. Because you see yourself engaging something versus avoiding it and running away. You see yourself connecting with something and giving it reverence. You're like, "I have reverence for the difficulties of life. They may be better." So I don't want a friction-free life. I'm not interested in it. You know, the, the, I like to say sometimes that, you know,
44:07 Speaker 01 the journey to greatness begins the moment that our, you know, deep desires for comfort and ease are overpowered by our desires to connect and contribute.
44:20 Speaker 02 I love that, man. Where can these guys find you online before I ask my final question?
44:24 Speaker 01 Just, you know what? brendon.com. B-R-E-N-D-O-N dot com. I saw, I remember seeing this way back, Oprah had Oprah.com. And I thought, how cool would it be to have your name dot com? Now, I sought this kid out. So I went to brendon.com and this guy, he had his resume up there. And that's all he had was a resume. So I emailed the guy and I'm like, hey, man, I'd really love to own this website. Could I buy it from you? He goes, no, it's my name. Dang it. And he says, no, you know, I got my mom, she's got, you know, an email. We have an email associated with the domain.
45:05 Speaker 02 Right.
45:05 Speaker 01 All this stuff. I said, oh, man. All right. Every, so I set it in my calendar. Every six months for six years.
45:14 Speaker 02 Whoa.
45:16 Speaker 01 My calendar would go off and I'd email him again. Email him again. Email him again. Email. It took six years. And my sixth year, he said, you know what? Yeah, you know, I'd be interested in that conversation. Sold it. So I got brendon.com. I'm really happy about that. Really thrilled. That stupid story, but I was like, yes! Determination! So brendon.com. Follow me on Instagram at Brendon Burchard. Check out my YouTube channel because I think anything you're going through in your life, you can hit my YouTube channel and there's, you know, over 100-plus videos of something.
45:52 Speaker 02 Nice.
45:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:53 Speaker 02 All right, last question. What is the impact that you want to have on the world?
45:57 Speaker 01 Oh! It is a hard one.
46:02 Speaker 01 You know, it's so simple. Like, when you get that life is really short and you felt that before, either by you were threatened, or you've had someone near and dear die. But when you have that real essence in you that says, "Life is short, have reverence for it, live it", that's a really big thing. I got that at nineteen, and I learned specifically that if we have a moment of cognition before the end of our life, we tend to ask questions to evaluate if we're happy. So if I have any impact in the world, it's gonna come from that experience where I learned that the ultimate lesson is determine what the questions you're going to ask at the end of your life are going to be.
46:47 Speaker 01 Find out those questions. What will you ask at the end of your life to evaluate your life? So that you would know if you were happy with your life. Like, figure out those questions, and then live each day intentionally, so you're happy with the answers at the end. For me, the answers, the questions I had were, "Did I live?", which I hadn't. I hadn't been living my life, I'd been thinking about taking my life. "Did I love?", no, my heart was broken. And I put up all these walls to keep out other people. And I always say, you know, sometimes the walls we put up to keep out the bad guys prevent the good guys from getting in. And suddenly, in our own self-protection, we block out the very thing we want, which is connection. And I learned that I would ask, "Did I matter?", you know?
47:32 Speaker 01 Twenty-two years ago, on a dark Caribbean night, I'm standing on the crumpled hood of a car, bleeding out. My friend, I just wrecked a car. He's screaming at the top of his lungs, he's bleeding, we don't know if we're gonna live. And I'm standing on the hood of this car, looking down at all this blood, and I'm in terror.
47:54 Speaker 01 And I just remember looking down at the hood and just thinking, "Did I even matter?", you know?
48:02 Speaker 01 And I hated the answer at that time in life. Because a nineteen year old kid, I didn't know about impact theory. For real, I didn't know to think about that. You know, young kids sometimes, they don't know to think about that. I didn't know to think about legacy, meaning, did I matter? I didn't think I did. But the good news is, I'm a good learner. And I felt like I got a second chance from God that night. And I learned that it was really important for me to figure out, how do I live? And how do I love? And how do I matter in such a way that if I face my death again, I'll know I've earned the second chance. And so what I want to tell people, and the impact I want is, I just want people to know, know your questions, man.
48:46 Speaker 01 Live intentionally and earn the life that you've been given, because this moment's a blessing. So earn this moment and live intentionally.
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