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BetMDM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is the end of my own show. Okay everybody, welcome back to the Maxout program. I've got a dear friend here today who is a treasure chest of both inspiration and information.
And most all of you have to know who he is and if you don't, you're gonna fall in love like I have after today. I think he's sort of a mentor of mentors and the personal development, self-help, think better, peak performance space. He's a remarkable man. His accolades don't do him justice.
Anything I tell you about him doesn't really explain to you the depth of the impact he's made in millions of people's lives. But he's a New York Times bestseller. He's written a ton of books, most of which I've been consuming most of my life, even though he's a young man. He's really probably the world's leading high performance coach.
His last book, his latest book, High Performance Habits, is unflipping, believable. Like, you don't need a highlighter because in most books, when you have a highlighter, you know, the 10% of the book is so good. The problem with this book is there'll be very few blank spaces. So you should actually highlight the things you don't want to go back and read.
It's one of those books in my opinion. Two million, some odd people he's coaching come through his programs. I first saw him many years ago on stage and then I watched him with Oprah Winfrey and he's, you know, Forbes magazine's giving him all these accolades. But the biggest accolade is he's my good friend and many of the people you've seen on my program go to him for advice and counsel.
So I don't know if I could get a better introduction than that. So please welcome Brendan Bouchard. Brendan, thanks for being here. Brendan, thanks for being here.
Yeah, man. Thanks so much, man. I love your show so much. We've been trying to do this for a while.
So I'm pumped we get to. I wish you were in person as I told you off camera, but the timing couldn't be more perfect to share. You I told you off camera I had to go to list of two people I wanted to get on during this time. I wanted you, I wanted Gary Vee.
I wanted his perspective. And I wanted you one. And they're different perspectives, but both have impacted millions of people's lives. So we're doing this guys.
If you're here this a year from now, we're recording this during time of the COVID-19 dilemma, if you will. And I think the things we're going to talk about will find you at any time in your life. At any time in your life, there's stress, there's chaos, there's anxiety, there's dreams, there's obstacles. And Brendan's so good at the habits that are required.
But if you could just start out, brother, you talk a lot about during this time, striving to win, maybe not always thriving. We'll be some of the things you'd share with someone at any point in their life, but especially now going through uncertainty, so to speak. Yeah, I think right now the ultimate question is can you still strive in chaos and uncertainty? And what's showing up for people right now isn't chaos or uncertainty.
What's showing up for them is the patterns that they developed in previous periods of difficulty in their lives. This is a very new thing they say, but I say also uncertainty and fear. Those aren't new things. Hardship, that's not new.
And I call on people to call on their own strength and the resilience that they've developed previously before and put in great mindsets and great habits now going into this that will make them proud. When this started for me, March 5, I sent a note out to my audience and I said, listen, we don't know what's going to happen with this. And a lot of the closed downs and shutdowns hadn't happened, certainly not in the US. What is happening here?
And I said, listen, what leaders do is they set their intentions going into that one. They don't get halfway through and go, hey, what are we going to do here? Instead, they determine what will their character be in that chaos. And so, way early, I said, here's my three things to all my audience.
Number one, adopt the role model mindset. When you adopt the role model mindset, that's the domino that knocks down every other strength you'll be required to call upon. What's that mindset, bro? What does that mean?
Role model mindset means I realize that as I'm going to endure difficulty in life, the kids are watching, my friends, my family, others are observing and being influenced by me. There's a contagion out there, there's also an emotional contagion out there. Let me be that role model in showing people how to deal with things with perspective, with being centered amid the storm, with the strength of intention to say, you know what, I know this is going to be hard, so let me take care of myself and let me be kind to other people. When we determine ourselves to be a role model, we literally change our behavior.
We say, you know what, two things happen. One, I want to be a role model because three months from now, six months from a year, when we look back, I want to be proud of my character and my behavior during this time. Please let me be proud of how I endured difficulty in my life. Please let me be proud of how I endured difficulty in my life.
That requires intention for how you want to endure difficulty. And second, remembering relational reality, relational animals that others are observing and seeing and experiencing what we are. And so let's do a good job for them. Let's show the kids how our values are demonstrated in times of uncertainty.
Let's show our team how we deal with scary, fearful business environments. Let's show our friends how much we will be for them when they go and get stuff. That's the role model mindset. It demands a lot of us and it's easy to say, well, so much easier just to, you know, go along and see how it turns out and put our lives on pause.
But if everybody did that society wouldn't continue on. When I have people on it's interesting, brother, it's why I love the conversation about prodigity too. You have a way of, I kind of put things through my truth meter and my experience meter. If this makes me sense.
I don't know. I don't articulate. That's exactly what I've been thinking. My kids are watching me.
My colleagues in the business world are watching me. People on social media are watching me. And I sort of consciously chosen to create an example that I'd be proud of. Even though maybe not in every single second, I'm feeling that.
I find that as I begin to want to model that behavior, it transforms my state. And I now feel that there's also a gift to give yourself. I interrupt you. You said there were a few things, but I wanted to make sure that everyone understood what you meant when you said that.
But also you brought something really important. You said sometimes you feel it and you might not show that. One part of the role model mindset in this difficulty too is showing the uncomfortable feelings to our kids. To let them know or our team know, I'm tired.
I'm a little too. Being vulnerable is not separate than the role model mindset. In fact, real emotional strength comes down two things. Emotional strength comes down from that part of us that's self-reliance.
I'm strong enough to bear difficulties in my life. But also psychologically we talk about resourcefulness and that idea that resourcefulness is our relation to the world. It means our ability to ask for help and search things out when we ourselves don't have the capacity or the capability or the competency to do something. So part of the role model mindset is going, you know what?
When I'm really going to struggle, I'm going to tell the truth. And I'm going to tell people. I'm going to struggle. But then what I'm going to do instead of backing off, I'm going to enroll.
I'm going to say, you know what? I'm struggling. I bet you are too. How are you doing?
How can we do this together better? It's not withdrawing or holding back or putting on a fake face just to placate or please people because I know a lot of parents have to do. Sometimes to keep the kids saying, but you also have to say, hey, how can I? How can I find that balance between leading and being strong and making sure I don't discount the part of me that is insecure or vulnerable or unsure?
Because in times of difficult, you want to demonstrate that you're willing to ask for help because then the kids don't ask for help. By the way, and I, right before we did the call, I made a post saying, guys, one of those things, right? And I think also the impact you make if you're not vulnerable is minimized tremendously. Because also how you have this arm or you're superhuman.
And I have done this one, it's funny, it's interesting to say that Max is 18, Bella 16, and I've always worked hard, but lately harder. And they know, you know, and there's been a couple moments, like everyone here, if I'm being real, there's been some stressful moments in the house. I mean, we're all in the house, I'm working 18 hours a day. Yeah.
Do watching Netflix with mom. Sometimes it's loud. You know, I'm like, hey, quiet down. I'm in here working.
You know, there's a guy's talking wound up. And I did do what you just said. If everyone's just a lesson between the two of us, I said, hey guys, this is a difficult time. Dad's got some concerns.
And I said, I want you to watch how I behave under this sort of, you know, stress. And one of the things I know how to do, I told my guys, one of the things Daddy does is that when I have something, my anxiety goes up, my activity goes up. It's one of the ways I deal with it is I just pour myself into work. It doesn't mean it's exclusive, but I wonder, remember that a lot of people, when anxiety goes up, they freeze Bella.
And I don't want, you're in a volleyball game and you're, it's game point or you're down five points to freeze. I want you to say, this is when I rise up. This is who we are. And so I did this.
I run, I used my vulnerability as an opportunity to teach a lesson. Daddy's not superhuman. Daddy's not different than you. I'm making a choice, a conscious choice, which we're going to talk about later.
I made a conscious choice during this time that I am a little scared. I do have anxiety. I don't worry for other people in us. So I just want to second that big time.
I love that you went in intentionally with that. Like communicating to your team or your family or people before you go into a situation to let know this might be awkward. This might be difficult. This might be intense.
We don't know how it's going to go. But listen, we're in this together. Let's be patient with each other. Follow my lead.
That's the job. That's the job. No matter what you lead, whether it's yourself or your family or others, like casting out that intention in advance and having that explicit communication advance. Those are really hard to do.
Listen, towards intention and explicit communication. You get those right going into chaos or as you're in it, people gel together and they feel stronger together. And if you don't do those things, things fall apart real fast. It's so interesting.
I can share with everyone. I'm so much to see how we were on a similar consciousness right now. The call before this year was a business deal I'm trying to put together. And the person on the other end asked me, are you certain?
Are you sure that this is right? That I should do this with you? And I leaned in kind of like the same camera, same scene. I said, no, I'm not certain.
I'm not completely certain. What I am certain of is my intentions. And I believe there's a power of intention. I'm certain of your intentions.
I think our combined good intent, good will, us not wanting to do any harm, our intention to do something great together overrides any necessity for complete certainty right now. And that's the thing in life, everybody, that I want to talk a little bit more about, I'll burn into the points. But if everything in your life is predicated on you being totally certain, you're going to do very little in life because there's very little complete certainty. But if you give yourself credit for intention, if you understand the power, both you and I have been mentored by everybody, but Wayne Dye, Wayne's great books, the power of intention.
And my self confidence oftentimes in good and bad times does not come from my incredible ability, but in my belief in my good intent, my belief in my intentions. So I want to quite droop, I'll agree with what you just said right there. Absolutely right. I was in that formula of thriving and striving during this time that you wanted to add a little bit.
Yeah, everyone was first one is adopted role model mindset because you're proud of how you dealt with this. Even if you struggled through, you want to know you did intentionally and with tenderness and compassion and caring for people around you. And you set an example. Number two is optimize your health and wellness.
Because if we're all out there fighting, whether it's this particular pandemic or it's future things, we all got optimize our health and wellness, which I know you and I deeply, deeply care about with our people because there's no separation between physiology and performance. There's no separation between mind, body, it's all the health of the santé. And so if you want to have bone santé, which means positive spirit, it's going to come from health. And I think most people don't realize the major components of that all have to really activate together.
Right now you're going to be on your A-game in those things. When we did the study for high-fought intabets at the time, and still it's to my knowledge, the world's largest academic study of high performers. So we evaluated people in 190 countries around the world. And over two million data points, we had an epic, epic, epic team from University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology department, UC Santa Barbara's Positive Psychology department.
We had a lot of smart people on this thing. And one of those habits was the ability for high performers to generate energy. We have energy to generate energy. And it's a lot easier to generate energy when you've been building it up and storing it up.
I was talking about the power plant doesn't have energy, it generates energy. A power plant takes energy from one source, transforms it into another, stores and transmits it. And so right now we've all got to take energy from this low-grade source, negativity, fear, upset, outrage, terror. We've got to take that low-grade energy and we've got to be able to transform that and transmit something different.
Another level of energy that's been blessed with Oberon, when her big hauser in her life was to say, this idea that you have to be responsible for the energy you bring into a space. And we've got to be responsible for our energy but also our health and wellness. We've got to practice meditation, exercise, diet, sleep. We've got to deepen our relationships.
We've got to take the supplements. We've got to take to feel great. Whatever we have to do, we've got to line it up. And the good news is we're recording this right now.
And people have either figured that out or not. Yeah. And my message to people listening right now is if you don't feel like you found your footing in this yet emotionally, take a little bit of a time gauge when you're listening to this because right now we're two plus months in. And, you know, if you haven't found that yet, it's time to ask for help because maybe the tools you have or the knowledge you have or the wheel of discipline or the training.
Isn't there yet? It would give you that solid energy to perform from. Because performing from fatigue and exhaustion, you're never going to get your best. You're going to be shorter with people.
Your mind is going to bonk right when you needed to be kind of smart. And in our study we found high performers were, forgive me if I don't get exact right, high performers were something like 42% more likely to work out five times per week than under performers. Wow. That idea, bro, you know, you and I both have worked out people, obviously, you know, everyone I think knows they should, but sometimes why?
I've never said that way. I know you're quoting Oprah, but that idea of bringing conscious of the, conscious of the energy bring to an environment. Like, that's a hundred, you know, right when we got, you clicked into this and what did I say? I just completely changed my state.
My energy just changed. My energy just changed. I literally said that. And I do believe that's true.
High performance people are extremely conscious of the energy they bring to an environment at any given time. And you can't be bringing that energy if you're not filling your cup. Yes. You're not doing it yourself.
So, wow, very good. Very good. What's the, what's the, you know, just on this energy part two. I want to clarify something real fast on high performance and then on this energy piece high performers.
What is high performance? It actually academically means something in our study. It means people achieve long term success while also still maintaining well being, which is usually based on happiness and fulfillment and health and positive relationships. Because as a man, I can't achieve high performance without burning myself out without the grind without, you know, wiping myself out 24 seven while working everybody else on all these other things.
And for some people, that's true. However, high performance for long, it's based on long term success measures in any field. And you can't have long term given success if you wipe out your health or your positive relationships. And so on the health aspect of things, one thing that people do is they think, you know, we're saying just work out 24 seven do all these things.
The world's largest study on productivity. That's ever been done. One of my favorite sites. It's ever been done.
I found that high performers, the people who achieve the most produce the most and feel the most to fill. They take breaks every 52 minutes. Wow. So every 52 minutes, they break from whatever they're doing.
So in my life, that kind of shows up. When my mic hits the chair, I literally set my iPhone for 15 minutes. 50 minutes starts. When it goes off, I stand up if I'm sitting down.
I might bounce in place and close my eyes because visual fatigue is very, very, very intense with people on screens. I'm going to bounce in place with my eyes, take 10 deep breaths, get some water, might hit the ground and do a few push ups and vignassar flows, come back up, set my intention and go. Because those pit stops throughout the day, this and y'all pit stops throughout the day is how the race car wins the race. The high performance machine actually doesn't need the pit stop.
It takes the pit stop so it can go faster longer. The high performance machine doesn't need the pit stop. It actually takes the pit stop so it can go faster and longer. So you have to have breaks on the hour.
So people always get fusible, but you're saying go, go, go, go. Actually, I'm saying go, pit stop, go, pit stop, go, pit stop. And that way, when I hit 6, 7, 8, 9 o'clock at night, people were going, oh, how are you still going? Because I've been recharging every hour while you've been burning the candle every hour at both ends.
It's that recharge that really helped performers go longer at what they do. So I really practice that. Very good. Okay, can we finish that?
Can we get to everything on that? Yeah, so role model lines, that health and wellness and the last piece which I think is so important, scale up. Okay. You have to keep vision of the future, unconnected per se to your current circumstances or your past story.
Right. What is it you really desire and want and see that vision? It's almost like you wake up in the morning and you pick up a new spear of purpose every day and you get cast that spear of purpose as far and why you can see that day and march faithfully back that purpose, pick it up and throw it again. Right.
And in doing that, we have to realize a lot of times we don't know how to climb that mountain. We might have to throw that spear of purpose up. And right now, people have to scale up more than ever. This digital divide just became real for people.
Big time. You know, you and I have been telling people probably, you know, for me, it's been 15 years I've been helping people get online and earn or grow their business or amplify their sales, whatever it is online. And I can tell you in that whole process, so many people, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do that. Right now, yoga instructors who knew they needed to do it online course or figure out a virtual way to earn money, guess what they're having to do.
They're needing to do it. And that's a good thing. The third habit we found psychologically to high performers is they do something called a raise performance necessity. Necessity means I make it necessary for me to figure out the things for me to be able to grow.
I make it necessary for me to do work today. I make it necessary for me to show up. Even if other people don't see that necessity, high performers make it necessary in our minds. It's our hunger.
It's our drive. It's our must. We have to. We feel that compelling thing.
It's necessary. And right now, people are likely being given that gift on a silver platter. It is necessary for you to get better right now. Yes.
Big time. My main business. Well, one of my main business is my financial business. It's forced innovation now.
That's right. And we're going to be so much better than we got to been before because of this. And I think sometimes in some cases, a Scotia success is sometimes a preventative measure from innovation. And so when you do hit stress like this, it sort of can be a catalyst for true greatness.
So guys, if you haven't figured it out yet, you need to get high performance habits. It's one of the books I would say to you, everybody that you're behind if you don't have, like there's books that sort of repeat themselves on success and this is different stuff. And so if you don't have these habits and you're not aware of them, you're behind the people that understand this information. You're going to get, you're getting flavors of it today.
But chapter one, okay, I think it's amazing when you write something that's profound. It stands the test of time. But then when you write something that's, I think, a bit revolutionary, it's importance and value is magnified during times like these. Yeah.
I think your book and the things you and I do, even today show you said, you know, go see, I'm hoping that's what today's show is doing for so many people. But chapter one's all about clarity. And I think when it gets noisy and all these things are flashing at you real or imagined, it becomes more incumbent upon us to get clear during that time when most people don't. So talk about that for a second.
I think there's got to be a reason why it's number one in the book. Yeah. And I think during this time, I blow this interview if I didn't ask you about that fact for everybody. So give them a gift of some of your wisdom about that.
Yeah. Well, we conducted this study, 190 countries. I said, I mean, just true, they're about three years, a million dollars to conduct this study. So this is not Brendan's opinion.
And I've always had this like, this is real unbelievable data that we found, conclusive stories of people and what made the difference. And what we found was high performers didn't like have habits they weren't aware of. Their habits were very deliberate. We call them deliberate habits.
Some people have unconscious habits that make them lucky. Other people have deliberate habits, which for real skill. And one of them was this concept that they seek clarity. Oh, no, I did 300 plus interviews with these folks, not for a podcast or my YouTube show or even my own stuff.
It was for the study. And they had this ability to seek clarity more often than other people. It could show up as simple as two people going to a meeting. One person just kind of shows up at the meeting like, I guess, what are we doing here today?
And the other person's not clarity in advance. What's the purpose of this meeting? What do we want to achieve? Who's going to be there?
What are their, what are their intents? What do we need to provide service to them? Again, going back to Oprah, if anyone ever has a blessing to have meetings with her and I've had a blessing of training her and her exactly team on some of these concepts and high-form habits. She starts having a meeting with what is our intention meeting today?
She did that. I thought, I perform her. They don't begin without getting clarity. And so she's asking, what are we doing here today?
And high-formers specifically, though, we broke it down. It's a framework for this. They seek clarity for general areas constantly. And it's not that they ever get perfect clarity, but they are constantly asking questions.
High-formers ask more questions than under-performers. Under-performers sit there and they don't engage. High-performers constantly ask questions. And so here's what they ask.
They seek clarity on four categories. Number one, on self. That means who am I and how do I want to behave and be perceived in this situation? Imagine that asking that right now.
A lot of people have to redefine themselves, recalibrate their behavior. Who am I without a job? Who am I without commuting? Who am I without a team around me?
Who am I in isolation? The stuff of identity. They are constantly checking in, high-performers. That's why they journal more than the average population.
They're going inside. They're introspective about self. Second area they're constantly seeking clarity on is social interaction, which is, who is this person with me? What are their needs?
What is it that they're trying to achieve or have or feel? And how do I want to treat them and be treated in this relationship? Why do high-performers have more positive quality relationships than the average populace? Because they're constantly setting that boundary and expectation and conversation explicitly with others just like you do with your kids.
Hey, this is going to be hard. That's going to be a little, you know, that's going to be a little anxious right here, but he's going to do this. That conversation, that explicit conversation, you are setting sort of ground rules in relationship. High-performers do that.
They don't just fumble in and out of relationships. They set boundaries, set expectations. Very good. A third one is skills coming right back to scaling up.
They're always intentional. Here's a great test for everybody listening. If I came up, if I parachute in your life right now, and I opened up your calendar, this is what I do with my private client's ed. I'll parachute in over to their calendar.
They don't get to talk to me. They don't get to show me their house or their team. Talk about their purpose. No mission statements.
Open up your calendar. And I'll sit in front of their calendar for an hour. It's going day by day or the past three months. I'm going day by day in the front.
And if I can't tell what skills they are working to develop in their lives, I know they're not. They are the other question in our interviews here. Listen, listen, listen, you love this one. It took me about 150 interviews and these are structured academic interviews, not entertainment interviews for me to figure this one out.
When I asked high-performers and under-performers, we were interviewing a lot of people. I said, tell me, what are the most important skills you're working on in your life right now? High-performers could answer that. Listen, listen, listen, could answer that question on average 11 seconds faster than under-performers, meaning it was top of mind.
And their list, usually on average, was five. They can knock out five things I'm working on and under-performers struggled to figure out one or two. Listen, that doesn't have to do with your background. Doesn't have to do with your ethnicity.
Doesn't have to do with your income. Doesn't have to do with your education level. In fact, high performance we found is not very strongly correlated with where you came from, how much you earn, your education level, all the demographics up we assumed to be successful, because we all know somebody who came from nothing and succeeded. And we all know lots of successful people who are tyrants and have no friends and crap help.
So I thought that was fascinating. And the last piece which unites you and me in brotherhood is they were always seeking clarity on what their service should be. They were servant leaders. They were curious about whether you call it purpose or mission, generically in the study we called it service.
They wanted to know what is the service they needed to provide. They wanted to be excellent at that service and intentional about that service. And it was important for them to do a good job because that service meant for them whether you call it pride or fulfillment or satisfaction. They just like jump into things.
They want to know what's the value of what am I doing here and how can I do it well. And that was important. Brother, so this topic everyone has so good. I don't write a lot during my interviews.
I usually listen to go back. I'm writing as we're talking. You guys, this is the hardest thing to teach people. I think one of the hardest things is why I attacked it with the guys who are best at teaching it.
Unclarity. Because people are unclear. I don't think, note to the extent that they are. In other words, the high performers that you and I know, to the extent that they are.
To the extent that they're specific, the specificity to their clarity as such a different level. That when you say it to somebody that's listening right now or watching, I got some goals. You're like, I wish I could put you both together. So you can see how unclear you are.
The fact that you just have a few things written down does not make you have specific laser focused clarity. Everyone's ever been on it. What is your outcome for this meeting? What is our outcome for today?
Nice. And to the specifics. So it leads to where I want to go because more than anybody that I know, you have a system and a process you go through. I love what you call it.
It's like conscious design. Right? Like you're the best at this. So just give a little bit of a flavor of how you seek clarity and how you sort of design your life.
And by the way, incredibly simple process. And I would say within a variation of 20%, the same as mine. There's differences. But extremely simple, extremely similar, easy to duplicate if you chose to.
So now that we've talked about clarity, how do you begin to seek accountability, clarity, vision, structure, improvement. Watch this everybody. Here we go. Give them a little bit of a flavor of that.
What you do to get it. And then you go first, understand it's a practice. It's not a one time acquisition. That's why we found it.
I actually learned this. I didn't know it. I used to always say you need to get clarity and the reality is no, they seek clarity. Get means you got and you're done.
Seek means this is an active practice. Like I'm still holding my craft. This is your on stage. How many stages have you been on?
I mean, the biggest arenas in the world have been there, right? We're still trying to get better at speakers. I remember our last conversation. We were just jamming about our love for public communication.
It's like, you know, you're not done. Just so you guys know, I was also telling him my admiration for his ability to do it because there's a very small group on one hand on planet Earth that I revere when I watch them communicate. And I just told him how much I want to see it in person more than I just keep watching that video. So I just wanted to say that.
Now go ahead. We'll get to do it again. I know it. I know it.
You know, I think it's having that clarity in those areas first, like really sitting down and drilling about self. So who do you want to be? How do you want to be with other people? What skills do you develop and then what's the service one drive?
And once you have that intention, now it's about going out and absorbing and asking questions. So things you teach, find a great mentor, read great books, take online training. But you know what the truth is about education. Tons of people consume.
The difference between somebody who has clarity and people who've just consumed comes down to concentration time, challenges and coaching. Okay. Let's go through that. Concentration time.
I mean, lots of people think about life. Other people think deeply about life. Lots of leaders do leadership and think about it once in a while. They think about that interaction they just had with the team.
They think about that presentation. They just get their contemplation time. They're not smarter than people. They're giving more contemplation time.
There's an obsessiveness to that. They're really zeroing in and wanting to improve that thing. So whatever they do consume, like they're taking notes. They're assessing themselves.
They're journaling. So concentration time. Next challenge. You have set challenges for yourself.
You want to learn the skill of, you know, swimming. You don't just jump into pool and start like flapping around and said, okay, how do I learn to swim well? Can I get a coach or a mentor on it? And then you say, okay, swim down that lap, come back.
Clock clock clock. Okay, that was good. Now do it faster without drowning. Go ahead.
Right. Right. Good job. Now do it again.
This time, try this clock clock that it's coaching. It's getting an expert. It's getting somebody who has that perspective to say, hey, kid, try this. Have you tried that?
Have you tried this just to get that outside perspective? And then you and I also are entire lives, I believe have grown at maxed out capacities because of when you acquire that, when you learn that the way to develop mastery is then to teach and share what you have learned. There you go. That's right.
Yeah. And I tell them really quick because I just wanted to get to this kind of your Sunday routine and sort of the area you measure because I think it helps you seek clarity. I think it's a process that I mean, I have to go through the entire thing because give them a little flavor of that because I think the practical application of the way you describe it is just it's, it's, it's a, it can be done by anybody. What do you know about that you don't mind?
Yeah. Well, I have this, my thing on where it's my house. My high performance planner, which now helps me do that. So I have a weekly review in here and on that weekly review, it asks questions about your life and has questions from, you know, the basics of what did you learn last week, but things in that most people don't want to do that.
Like, name two things you learned about the most important people you interacted with this last week. Because most people think about how was my week last week? Yeah. What did you learn about other people last week specifically because that's going to really develop mastery in life.
Then I asked people to think about, well, what if you could think about the last week in terms of what emotions did you have? Where the emotions you wanted to have? How did you deal with those emotions? How did you deal with your health last week?
How were your relationships last week? How was your purpose and your progress last week? And just evaluating, like, we need to evaluate categories or our lives. So I do that every Sunday, I just sit down and I have all these categories that I go through.
The score myself on the high performance habits after that. And my average habits are, I'll go through briefly. You have personal habits, you have social habits that were academically found to correlate the strongest with long-term success. And those were C clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productive quality output, develop influence, demonstrate courage.
So I rate myself on those. It's not like every week I'm like, I was like, wait, just last week. No, it's like, at least I'm keeping my mind on the radar. What's important?
Everyone should have a written thing of what you are measuring yourself on in life and what you are trying to improve. And that should be something you look at every Sunday. And then I forecast. I sit there and I look at what's upcoming this next week.
And a lot of it is pivoting, deleting, changing, shifting based on what happened in the last couple weeks, especially now at this time. It's like, you know what? That means not as important anymore. We got to move that around.
You know what? This crisis happened for my friend. I got to shift this thing over here. You know what?
This challenge is going on over here. Let me make sure I give two hours to that. And I look at the blocks of time I'm scheduled for the week ahead. And I just reorganized a little bit, recalibrate.
And those simple things always help. And then of course, for me, Sunday's family time. So it's a lot of calls and a lot of face sounds with my family, my, my, my four nephews who are like our lives, you know, just just touch them base and have an emotional connection to the boy. I think one of the differences guys that maybe not heard of for us, sorry yourself.
So I think a lot of people kind of have some goals. Maybe they do review. How many years roughly have you been doing that on Sunday? 24 years.
24 years. Everybody. So it's a long term plan to become one of the most influential people on the planet in the career you've chosen. Okay.
And but what is different that is not talked a lot about. So there's all these things you teach, right? You're so used to them that that some of the uniqueness and how special it is is even lost on you because you do them, right? And one of them is ranking yourself, having an honest, not as you would have liked it to event, but as it really was and then project forward as to what you would like it to be that ranking, scoring yourself, everybody having your own scoreboard.
Every person listening should have a category of things that are important to them. Yep. And the oddest score themselves on a score of one to 10 every week and just look at it and be honest about it. And not trying to be perfect as I be tens across the board.
It's just honest self evaluation. Right. Some people say, Oh my gosh, self evaluation feels terrible brain. I'm getting these bad scores in my high performance planner.
I'm like, Okay, listen, self evaluation is different than self judgment. You can score yourself in a way. Would you observe it? You accept it?
You take the lessons from it? You said intentions to do better without self hatred without bemoaning yourself without making yourself bad or the victim or the martyr. That's part of maturity is being able to observe our own behavior and gauge it. And so there's not many things in my life that I don't have a scale of one to 10 on when I go and stand in line anywhere, which I can't, you know, someday will happen again.
When I go stand in line, I always sit there and I meditate myself privately and I just think, Okay, on a scale of one to 10 right now. How present and joyful am I. And I'll just stand there and I know, I'm asking myself, I'm like, Well, you know, I'm kind of feeling like a six and I'll go, Okay, do you want to live with six Brendan? Or would you like to be an eight right now?
I'd like to be an eight. Okay. I want to take to be an eight. Well, I've never stand up a little bit here.
I'm taking a few deep breaths. I'm going to shake my leg on the ground a little bit. I'm going to talk to this person in front of me and make them laugh. Let's go.
Let's on again. You know that requirement of when you know you're at a lower level here, everyone runs from guilt and I think Gil can be utilized just like any other emotion. Emotions are signals, not realities. And Gil can be a signal to say, Oh, I pay attention here.
Do a better job here. I only want to hire guilty people. I want to hire people go. You know what?
I feel bad if I don't do a job of excellence and service. I feel bad if I don't feel kind to people. Great. I'm glad you feel bad about it.
No, don't let it stop or discourage or disparage you use it as a signal thing about it. I'm going to leave it. I got to say something everybody. So I get asked that question a lot.
There's a fine line between self assessment and self judgment. And you need to learn that line. And I drive my friends crazy, but it's so funny. I was so similar.
And guys, I'll let you all know I was a driver. I drive my family and friends crazy because I'm constantly ranking everything. How was the day? How was your day today?
Dad? Good. No, one to 10. How was it?
How was that movie? One to 10, right? How was that? I was at my truck.
One to 10. I was at me at one to 10. I'm like, I know, because you have me. Here's the fundamental observation of that.
Because you have been in charge of coaching people's human behavior before. People who have never had to, who's never been responsible for the development of other people's potential. That's such a foreign concept to them. They're like, Oh, how can I ask them to rate themselves?
How can I do that? But every great leader or manager listening right now, they're like, Oh, yeah, no, that is necessary. Because if you don't calibrate people to something, if you don't anchor them to a number of a state, a value ethic, then what ends up happening is they're all over the place with that number or that value or that standard or whatever it is. That gives us a baseline to improve from.
Yes. Coaches are always helping find that baseline to improve from and numbers are the most simple and elegant way to do it. So even therapists do that work over and over having people rate or score things because, you know, after a century of this industry, both, you know, both psychological around and more of our more popular around the week function in coaches, that's been proven effective with the other thing that he does on Sundays that I do guys, I just want to just acknowledge really quick is taking an inventory of the emotions you experienced in that week as well. And what are the emotions you'd like to get the next week?
That was a big breakthrough for me in my life. I'm an achiever and it wasn't until maybe a decade ago that I started asking myself, I had an experience where we were building a house and I walked in out with this stuff about a bunch of stuff and the guys working on my home that had immigrated to the country that were just working to send money back home to their family. They've got mariachi music on their party and then laughing and have a great time working in 120 degrees. I'm the builder of the house and I walk in in this great stress.
And I remember thinking one to 10 ranking this moment on bliss and happiness. Those guys are smoking me right now. And it wasn't, it wasn't a comparison thing. It was a reflection on myself.
And at the game of life, this happiness and bliss, I'm losing right now. And it wasn't one of these things where I judged myself like I'm a loser. It was a wake up call as a catalyst to change. So be asking yourself, ranking some of the emotions you want and don't want how much are you getting about two questions left for you, bro?
Let me jump in on that real fast because everybody, it's like I started earlier, like the power plant doesn't have energy, generates energy. We also don't have happiness or joy. We generate those things. And when we realize that, that's when my, you know, I'd be up shirts and hats and say bring the joy on it.
When I, if you ever come over my house, which I hope you will sometime come visit us down here, everyone else, I wish I bring my show. Bring the joy. Yeah, that's all I can bring joy into other people's lives because you will feel so much better about that. And I'll also talk to your audience is real fast.
About one misidentification people often have who are high performers. When they evaluate their emotions for the past week, they often get upset with themselves throughout the week. They were too intense or too anxious. And when I talk about them, oh, no, no, no, for a lot of people, intensity is deep caring.
And when they're in intensity or what feels like anxiety to other people, that's their readiness state. That's like you and I are intense dudes. You see us backstage? We're intense.
Watch out. Because that intensity isn't against anybody. That's revving up the engines. And so don't misjudge the times that you were anxious or you had a lot of energy because sometimes that what that appeared to be in reflection as a negative was something that was turning you on, getting you ready to go.
You have to be careful about how it outlets, but an intense Ford assertive energy. While that scares a lot of people and when they reflect on my, oh, I was too intense. Know what you were doing was you were that's called performance edge and performance edge is different than anxiousness over aggressiveness. It is something that high performers uniquely do and it's an energy they all described like fighting and having people to explain to people.
So if those of you who are listening, you think, well, my emotions have been way too intense on people, just gauge, realize that might be your performance edge coming up and now it's your job to take that edge that's coming up. And how can you translate that into a positive thing? Not something to fight, not something to push down, not something to explode on people, but rather to go, oh, you know what? This is my readiness state.
Oh, instead of having that feel like this, let me get those things information a little bit and let me turn that into joy. So that you're bringing joy from that experience and it's not freaking people out. It's the same energy. Just they'll feel more positive than you will do.
That's a brilliant distinction. Brilliant distinction. I'm really glad you added that. Very good.
Very good. Yeah, I talk. If you go watch a talk, I had no anxiousness or intensity prior. You would watch a really bad talk of mine.
So, right, two things. And this is for me personally to ask you, but everyone gets to listen in on. As a guy who's trained millions of people on high performance habits, I would just say better living. Living better.
What did you used to believe about winning in life that you no longer believe? In other words, as a younger man, there was a belief you had that said, this is required or this is a must or I have to sacrifice X or Y to get Z. What did you used to believe that you no longer believe with all the years of wisdom? I know it's a difficult question, but I get a little reflection.
What do you think is a fundamental belief you had? That's not what I believe anymore. Is there something? Yeah, I would.
I don't know how to phrase it right, but it would probably be something towards comparison. It would be to, there's industry standards in every industry. And so if someone's doing something in this industry, I want to be able to do that or replicate that or model that. That must be the way.
And so that, just that comparison thing. Oh, people are doing videos like that. People doing courses on this or they're framing these things that way or I see them taking investors here or doing that. I guess that's the way and not following, I would say, my art as much as I want to follow it.
Yes. I have six books out. I probably should have 10, but a lot of times I would compromise my time to, oh, I guess I need to go do this here because that's what people are doing. I'm just not finding my own thing early enough.
Yeah, I agree. As I got older, I've learned to trust my own voice and intuition or the spirit then I did when I was younger and I anxiety if I wasn't keeping up or doing what other people were doing. And I think I would share that. That's a very, I have other ones, but that's a biggie for me.
Removable from comparison. Yeah. I still have a bunch of motivation manifesto. When you read the motivation manifesto, you're like, oh, this guy took his life back.
And it's a book of like real intensity about reclaiming your personal life agenda from the about distraction, comparison, fear. And it's a book about reclaiming personal power. That's the, that's the, the one thing I admire about you is that you do kind of do it on your terms and it's okay with you. If every day you don't get 64,000 comments on a post, it's okay with your, your, your, and then you'll turn around and pack out an arena that the guys in 64,000 posts can't feel right.
It's just, it's a different thing. But it's because you are true to your own thoughts and your own mission. The last thing is privately everyone shares something with you all and I'd like to run into share it with you and I'd like the lessons from it just for a few minutes. And I hope everyone stuck around to the end because this is going to be awesome.
You know, I have a lot of private conversations with people I've known for 30 or 40 years. And, but I had one with you and even in each other's life for a few years. That was one of the most impactful of my entire life. I think you know what it was going to be about.
But my dad's been sick for a long time. And your dad was. And you did something brilliant with your dad during that time. I'd like you to share with him what you shared with me about what you did with your dad and what those lessons were you learned that you carry with you this day.
And you don't have to give them all. But if you mind since we talk about vulnerability or I know it's a personal story, but if you share with them, this will be something, anyone who listens to this or is watching it. I'll venture to say you will never forget the next couple minutes here. So please share that with them.
Yeah, like you had an amazing father and my dad was a big hero of mine. And a very simple guy, but he thought three tours in Vietnam, worked for the state of Montana for another 20 plus years after doing 20 plus years in the Marines. You know, it was amazing dad. Dad, father, husband.
And one day he woke up, it was Mother's Day in fact, woke up on Mother's Day and walked down the hallway. Side kind of hurt, felt funny. Mom said what's wrong with you? They go to the hospital.
And the week before he'd been golfing and bowling and racquetballing and fine. Good health. Happy dude. Just retired.
And they do a couple of examinations at the hospital and they diagnosed him with acute myeloid leukemia. And they gave him seven days to live. The leukemia had already just completely started taking his body out of nowhere. He had no idea.