How to Become a High Performer | Brendon Burchard on Impact Theory

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. Everything like passion, passion, passion, passion, right? When you're obsessed, they're like, "Why you got to be so crazy? Why can't you be satisfied? Why do you always got to get things so perfect? Why do you spend so much time here? When you're obsessed, people think you're nuts. I always tell people, if no one thinks you're crazy, you're not yet operating to the outer limits of your potential. Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. You are here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless, that you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So, our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right. Today's guest is widely recognized as the world's leading high-performance coach. His plethora of books have dominated pretty much every bestseller list there is, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, etc. And he has interviewed, coached, or trained an absurd number of the most successful people on the planet. From Fortune 50 CEOs to athletes and celebrities like Usher and Oprah, he's the guy that people turn to when they need a science and heart-based approach to breaking through a plateau or entirely redefining what they believe is possible. He's one of the top 100 most followed social influencers on Facebook with over 10 million followers. His podcast, The Charged Life, debuted at number one in iTunes and stayed in the self-help top 10 for like 100 weeks. More than 2 million students from over 190 countries have taken his online courses, and his video series has been seen over 100 million times. But the numbers and accolades only tell part of the story. What the digits fail to capture is that at 19, he was not only depressed, he was actively planning his suicide. And ironically, it was a near-fatal car crash that ended up saving his life. Reborn to the possibilities, he spent his 20s formally researching psychology and leadership, a process that allowed him to begin to really dissect and truly understand the very building blocks of greatness. From that, his High Performance Institute was born, and today, through his obsession with understanding why some live unfulfilled lives and others go on to be extraordinary, he has conducted what is almost certainly the largest research project on high performance to date. So, please, help me in welcoming the man whose Experts Academy was ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the five must-attend events for all entrepreneurs, the author of High Performance Habits, the human energizer bunny himself, Brendon Burchard. I love that. I love that. I love that. I take it. That was amazing. worth that. I assure you. That was awesome. Oh, man. Absolutely my brother. got intimidated just listening to that. That's hilarious. Yeah, man. remember how we first met? Like, the very time we actually met in person? It It was like InterContinental, Dallas, Texas, Success Magazine. They're doing an event. They had like 2,000 people, you know, we were both speaking there. And uh I think I was going to work out or something, or I was coming back. of the two. 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. Uh like, I'm going to work out. I don't want to run into this guy. Right right right now, the Rock is like he is violently upset somewhere at this very moment. No, yeah. So, I'm I was I ran into you, and I was like, man, this you just it's cool, cuz I hadn't met you in person, but I'd watched the show. Yes. And so, um I'd seen you just slay it in your interview style. Wow. Very kind. And just getting better and better and better. I mean, cuz you and I both watch for the same thing. We 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 cuz you never know what people's energy is like like off camera. And that That's why I was so surprised and our first meeting left an indelible mark on me. So, obviously I knew who you were. I'd watched a ton of your content. And we're probably no BS like 30 yd away from each other minimum. You come around the corner and Tom! Hey! Tom Bilyeu! And I was like, I didn't even know you knew who I was. And it was so warm and so enthusiastic. It 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. Sure. 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. Um 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. Yeah, uh 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 at my event. He goes, "Well, you're actually wrong." I'm like, "Oh, but how am I wrong?" He says, "Well, a power plant doesn't generate energy. What it does is it um 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 uh sort of location or one type of energy to another. Right. 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 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 a requirement to get there. And when we measured energy in our studies, it's we're we're 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. 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 going to be really a fun person." It's like, "No, if you're not a fun person when you're broke, you're not going to 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 taglines 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 as soon as we own that responsibility, life gets really fun cuz now we can choose it. And I'll give you an example. Last night I spoke to 12,000 people on stage here in LA at the Convention Center. And it was terrifying because Pitbull was opening. I'm backstage and I feel the cortisol dropping. I feel myself getting tense, you know, um Pitbull talks for me for like 10 minutes and then he does a four-song set. Woah. Okay? When he finishes four-song set, I got to come 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 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. 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 lot of stage at level, you know, 10x. Walk us through the mechanisms of that. So, and then 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 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? Yeah. Um 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 cuz 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? And the fastest way is to get yourself back is usually, you know, breath and movement. So, we teach at Hyper I teach this program, High Performance Academy, and it's like one of the crowd favorites. On day three, uh usually 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 they start bonking. So, I do this um breath scaling thing where I teach them to breathe in through their nose like the breathing 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 I sustain that for like 60 seconds. And what it is, it's like a hit of like oxygen, you know, like like cocaine to the brain for oxygen. Mhm. And what it also light-headed or anything? No, cuz I've done it so much, right? I don't I don't push myself to get light-headed. I push myself to fully oxygenate the body. But what you do, soon as you do that, and the most important thing is uh for those who are going to try this at home, you scale up to it, then you 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 oxygen intake lowers cortisol. That's interesting. Right? We know from meditative practices when you 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 chi gong, which like a chi gong a cupping activity in chi gong is basically like you are you're patting up 1 in 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 cuz 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, 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 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 walk 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 for what we want to do in that situation, and we have to release tension. And so, the practices in High Performance Habits that 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 be served 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. Yeah. You know, it's like a lot of people just wander into that situation, and I'm I'm I'm I'm the guy that 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. For sure. Now, one thing I 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. Cuz this is something I talk to people about, um, and specifically in the context of obsession versus passion. Yeah. And you really went into it not cuz I you're probably going to get some flak and pushback on that one. But what you said I was like, that is the absolute truth. Yeah. Yeah. So, explain 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, we did the world's largest study of high performers, um data from over 190 countries, um 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 the personal habits was, you know, 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, um as important as it turned out to be. And necessity is kind of short for performance necessity. Um 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 a hope anymore, it's not I I I I it should do it. It becomes so necessary that it connects with our identity, 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 it's a deadline or it's go time. Or And when all those come together, that So, 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 we when we hit that, game changer. Game changer, but it is uncomfortable because people don't want to exude that much passion in which it becomes obsession cuz 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. Um it's going to introduce a lot of, you know, fear or unknown 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 the difference 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. Everything Like passion, passion, passion, passion. Passion's good. Like The world's going to be like, "Yay, passion!" Right? When you're obsessed, they're like, "Why you got to be so crazy? Why can't you be satisfied? Why do you always got to get things so perfect? Why do you spend so much time here?" When you're obsessed, people think you're nuts. So, it's different. And it's like I used to 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 a like a crazy way." And when you get there, you know you found your thing. And not every find Not every finds that. I think that's also why it's scary. Some people go, "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 their, you know, thread count in their sheets at their house than they do about the impact they're making in the world. 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? Feedback. That's interesting. Not what I expected you to say. What do you mean by that? 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 going to get feedback. You you try to make a difference in somebody's life, they're going to tell you, "That doesn't resonate with me, Brendan." You try to make a difference in a 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 going to get a lot of hate, and ultimately you're going to get rejection. People are going to like just diss on you, people are going to say, "That's not good enough." People are going to 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. Watch a 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 to the next show. There's no 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. Go deep on identity. So you've talked about how one of the scariest things about an obsession, um 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'm I am a writer." And the day that you decided you were going to 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? Yeah. Well, imagine like last night, I'm going on the stage, right? If I If my identity says, "I am a public speaker, and it's 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 as a defining moment in which you say, "I am a failure." Right? So, that's the risk and that's what, you know, psychologists tell us to be wary of. Except, it turns out that high performers flip that on its face and go, "Well, actually, um no, I do get bothered if it fails. I really get upset about it. I am attached to the process here. I 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. It's like, 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 over attach 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. 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 the 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 going to 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, they I want them to own the identity of a CEO cuz most of them, if you ask about identity in 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 from some some lot of psychologists say, "Don't 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. But have you not read your spiritual texts?" 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." It's what I'm about. What I loved in the book is your You were open on the journey of writing. It took you about 3 years, if I'm not mistaken. So, doing all the research, you've collected the 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 and some of the surprises in the book were really, really great. And in that whole concept of obsession, I loved it cuz 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. 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 going to have to happen to obsession. Period. And you put a quote in the book that I think sums it up perfectly, which goes like this. And by the way, the 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. Yeah. I love that. All in. You 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. Um you know, I I think of this idea of performance necessity. Um 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 uh he was really worried about the competition. I said, "Well, how do you even gauge like who who Who's going to win?" Mhm. You know, in in his particular race, people are winning but by you know, 1/100 of a second, 10ths 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?" 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 then says I got to do this for my mom." 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. Um I think of, you know, when I started my career and I I really decided to go all in with writing and online training. Um this is like 2000, probably 6. Uh I'd gone broke, completely bankrupt, and failed. I I left my corporate job. I had this cushy kind of corporate job as a consultant. Good job. Um left it to write. And I didn't know how to make it as a writer. I want to do seminars, workshops, didn't know how to do that. So, I was pretty much a hot mess, ran out of money. Um I got nothing to my name, nothing kind of no positive prospects, no one's calling me except the guys who want the money. And um one night I'm writing and the apartment was so small, on the bed I had uh all you know what, my bills, my vision boards, all my research, all my journals, like the bed was basically the desk, an extended desk. And my lady comes in, Denise, and she walks past me, but she sees I'm like trying to write. So, doesn't want to disturb me, she goes crawls under um 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. Wow. And it was just like phew. You know? Because none of us want to see our, you know, our family suffer because we are not performing. Sure. And um I was just like I got to 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 bird's life school ticket which became a best seller 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 never really got 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. Jesus. online. Total transformation. People like how did you do it? I'm like she gave me this she was my necessity. I was not going to let my woman be in that situation. Um 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 2 million people have taken our online courses video series now. I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't had the guts and maybe the no other choice Right. 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. That's amazing. 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 you're going to hate this video. I'm going to tell you what to do. It's actually going to work. You're going to hate it. And that's when I was like all right, this guy's not [ __ ] around. Like your advice is really real. So the concept of building in, the concept of and 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. Yeah. So what is it about? Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm glad you relate with me cuz I'm getting a lot of flak on that. So, uh the big huge finding that really scratches the surface of a lot of like cultural assumptions uh especially in high performance is this big cultural conversation we have about strengths. And, you know, find your strengths, follow your strengths, the strengths are everything, and uh 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. Mhm. 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 it. That's all great. I I'm that guy who says, you know what, any self-reflection you do, I'm cheering you on. Like any assessment, any tool that makes you look at within side, I'm like all for it. 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 uh 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'll just follow our strengths to, you know, to the promised land is just not true when you actually talk with high performers. Cuz my favorite question is if anyone's down this, 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." They're like, "Well, did you always have an inclination to do every element of do what you're doing really well?" "No." Like me? Man, I sucked on stage. This year I've talked to 60,000 people live. This is really important because this idea that we're just our strengths are going to give us everything, it's just it's just not true. I sucked speaking on stage. Uh matter of fact, I was terrified of it. Terrified. But, one reason I love your show is because I had that intention of I want to make an impact. And when someone actually asks and and kind of owns that, like when they say, "Do I want to make an impact?" And the answer is yes, and they own it, they realize they're going to have to develop. They can no longer leave their growth to medi- you know, to to to randomness, because if they do, they'll always be mediocre. And they realize, I got to become something entirely above both of those. That's what most people don't see. They're like, it it's we've made this binary false conversation, right? It it's a it's 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 got to 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, cuz you're going to discover so many new strengths and so many new weaknesses on the path 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. Um I get a lot of uh 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 going to write 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 2 and 1/2 years just how to write it. Wow. 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 2 and 1/2 years. So, I had no conceptual understanding of it. It wasn't a strength. I didn't even It wasn't even It wasn't on my radar. And what is that process of skill acquisition look like? Yeah. Uh it first and foremost starts with identifying um I wouldn't even start with the skill. I would start with the self. You know, in 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 They're more intentional 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 I when I walked down the stairs yesterday 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 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, I want to be enthusiastic, I want to be bold, like I want to be those things. Um high performers are constantly seeking clarity about how they want to interact with other people. And I think a big development 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 they identify Usually we found they usually know three to five current skills they're working on. So another example for me was video. I was very awkward and uncomfortable in front of video. I know the feeling. Right? Yeah. Right? But you said, okay, if I'm going to make an impact, I'd better figure that out. Yep. I'd better figure that out. And so you go to work. You you put in the miles. You you try. Because learning is the ultimate lever to leveling up. We actually have math equation, if I may, which I I think is where you're headed. But I loved this equation so much. Passion plus growth plus contribution equals personal satisfaction. 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's personal development, guys, but it's true. There's a lot of people who have never had those three completely line up, so they're not satisfied even with their job or their career or their life, cuz the passion isn't there. Even if the passion's there, 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 it opened up your mind to a new level of existence for you. And soon as you saw it, you were like, "Ooh." Ambition hit your heart. 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. That's interesting. You know, if uh and psychologists talk about the power of expectancy. Um 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 of connection with my lady, that's ambition. Or I want a a better meditative practice, that's ambition. All right, I'm going I'm going 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 I that I can achieve that. I believe that that is possible for me. 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 I want to get in great shape." You know, I'm I'm Tom, I'm in ketosis. I'm doing the ketosis thing, man. And they they hop on your Instagram and 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 got to 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, 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 50 stupid things, right? They'll they'll try anything. But if they don't believe it's possible for them, they'll just quit. Do you have within this context, so obviously seek help is first and foremost, but beyond that, um what what does that rebuilding process look like for somebody who's trapped in depression and suicidal thoughts? Yeah. Um I've been there a lot in my life. Uh especially before my car accident, my teenage years. Uh then the first woman I ever loved, we had a big breakup. And that breakup sent me down in depression and suicidal planning. And uh 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, and they're like, "Brendon, let's go do something." And you just they're just the the hope is lost. And what people I think make the mistake of trying to do is hype people up. "Everything's going to be okay. You're going to 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, 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. Cuz 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 going to do today?" 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?" I'M LIKE, "DUDE, sometimes that first goal is I'm going to shower today. I'm really going to shower today. Uh I'm going to walk to the library. I'm come home. And that's all they got. Like literally, that's all they got. And you got to 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 going to need help. And now you're going to 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, I most of the guys I've dealt with in that position who were suicidal, um 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 I I I don't have my morning routine game, I I feel, you know, out of sorts. Um so, I think it's true for everybody. You got to own your morning, you got to win it because that starts and sets up everything else. I know you you believe that as well. Like people need that discipline, those routines that will help the rest of their day go better. Um, and I don't want to 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 going to be there. And so when they're there, it's when the my I mean outside of teaching people to bring the joy in my life, I teach people 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. It accept like as soon as you honor the struggle, you accept it 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 going to be hard and it 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 like I have reverence for the difficulties of life. They may be better. So I I don't want a friction-free life. I'm not interested in it. You know, the the the I I like to say sometimes that you know 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. I love that, man. Where can these guys find you online before I ask my final question? Just, You know what? brendon.com. It's b r e n d o n dot com. I saw I remember seeing This is way back. Oprah had oprah.com. And I thought, how cool it'd 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 would really love to own this website. Um could I buy it from you?" He goes, "No, it's my name." I'm like, "Dang it." And he says, um "No, you know, I got my mom. She's got, you know, uh an email We have an email associated with the domain." Right. All this stuff. I said, "Oh, man." All right. Every So, I set it in my calendar. Every 6 months for 6 years. Whoa. My calendar would go off and I'd email him again. Email him again. Email him again. Email him It took 6 years. On the 6th 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 about it. Stupid story, but I was like, "Yes." Determination. Um So, brendon.com, uh follow me on Instagram at BrendonBurchard. Um 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. Nice. Yeah. All right, last question. What is the impact that you want to have on the world? Oh. That is a hard one. Uh 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 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 19 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 going to 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. 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 will 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, 22 years ago, on a dark Caribbean night, I'm standing on the crumpled hood of a car, bleeding out. My friend and I just wrecked a car. He's screaming at top of his lungs. He's bleeding. We don't know if we're going to live. And I'm standing on the hood of this car, looking down at all this blood, and I'm in terror. And I just remember looking down at the hood and just thinking, did I even matter? You know? And I hated the answer at that time in life. Cuz a 19-year-old kid, I didn't know about impact theory. For real. I didn't know to think about that. You some 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. Live intentionally, and earn the life that you've been given, cuz this moment's a blessing. So, earn this moment, and live intentionally. I love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much. Thank you, I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Guys, this is somebody you are going to want to read this book. What I love about it, it is literally an instruction manual on what to do. So, he goes into the research. All of this stuff is backed up by what he's been studying for essentially 20 years. They go hardcore for 3 years compiling the data. It is insanely usable information, and it's real, at times counter-intuitive, at times exactly what you expect, but backed up then with the following steps that you're going to want to take. Like you said, they use stories and things to really draw you in. I just literally from top to bottom, I was amazed. But, the best part, when you see the way that this guy lives his life on camera and off camera, it's all an echo of the stuff that you see in the book. So, you have one shining, amazing, incredible example of what this looks like when it's taken to the extremes. And if you didn't hear that, the man went from dead broke in bankruptcy to multi-millionaire in 18 months by making things a necessity. If you take nothing else out of this episode, necessity. You don't get what you want, you get what you need. Certainly smarter men than I have said that, but that is true. You're not going to get what you want in life. Once you make it a burning, crushing need, the thing that you must have happen, then it will happen. And he walks you through that, the steps that you follow, and many, many other things, guys. So, dive in, and like he said, check out his YouTube page. It is extraordinary. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. YEAH, DUDE, THAT WAS AWESOME. HEY, EVERYBODY, THANK YOU so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.