← Progress Mode with Brendon Burchard
Progress Mode with Brendon Burchard
4. No one knows
00:56:21
In life, you’re in passive mode or PROGRESS MODE. Brendon Burchard, three-time New York Times bestselling author and the world’s #1 high-performance coach, helps toggle your brain to progress, excellence, and resilience as you make bold moves and chase your dreams.
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
No one knows the pain that you are going through. They don't know how hurt you are, how sad you are, how challenged you are. They don't know your story of drama or trauma. So they expect the same from you not knowing or you expect a lot of yourself trying to avoid those pains. And the reality is Progress Mode can be really hard when no one knows the struggle you're really going through. Hey, it's Ben Richard, and welcome to Progress Mode, baby. Today we are talking about what happens when you want progress and success in your life. And you know, things are going pretty good and then the stuff hits the fan, something really bad happens. You fall apart. You felt like quitting now because something didn't go right. And while you have all the reason in the world to keep going, you just don't want to. You're not feeling it anymore. In fact, people thought you were crazy to start your dream or to start your journey or to do your art or to speak up for yourself or start posting or whatever you've done in your life. They thought you were crazy. Over a period of time, they stop really thinking about it. They're back into their own world. But there's days where you sometimes now go, am I crazy to keep going? Do I still want this? You know, you're in that stage where sometimes you go, do I still want this relationship? Do I still want this career? Do I still want this business? Do I want to carry on with this project when it could be going well, but I just don't feel it anymore? Where did the aliveness go in my life? Where did the aliveness go in this pursuit that once made me feel so excited and like the novelty was there, the dopamine was there. I was getting rewarded. It seemed like I should do this forever and people want me to keep doing this, but what happens if I don't want to? And that is going to be the conversation for today's episode of Progress Mode. Hey, I'd just like to take a second to thank you for listening to Progress Mode. This new episode from me and this new season. This is exciting. This is season one of Progress Mode. And I bring this up because I've just started this too, and after having a podcast for the last, whatever, 10, 15 years. But the podcast was always just recordings of my teachings. So the teams were grabbing clips of my long form teachings that I do online, on the Internet, or at keynotes or at my workshops. So the podcast has really been a passive thing for me. This is the first time I'm direct To camera talking with you with like full episodes in a brand new season, a brand new show called Progress Mode. And some people go, why? Why broke what? You know, why fix what wasn't broken? And it's the same thing we're talking about. We're really talking about aliveness today. The sense of aliveness that you get and you feel. And sometimes progress means you need to change how you do things so you feel it again. You need to change how you do your marriage so you feel that passion and that intimacy again. Sometimes you need to change how you do parenting so you feel the fun and the playfulness that used to be with your child that feels like it's been lost and now all you do is fight. Sometimes you have to change how you show up at work because you still have to do the same process as last month and you're going to have to same process next month. So you have to teach yourself how to find the enjoyment, how to bring the joy, how to generate the aliveness when it seems like it's dissipated. One of the great strengths you will ever learn in Progress Mode is to generate the energy and the aliveness into things that you wish were there, but they might not be there. You just don't feel it, but you still have to generate it. Trust me, you know, after last episode, if you listen to it, I shared how the Millionaire messenger took off to number one New York Times bestseller, but more importantly, spawn in an entire new industry. All of my seminars, ba boom took off. All of my private coaching, ba boom took off. I was charging, you know, thousands of dollars more an hour and then ultimately got up to seven figures to work one on one with a coaching client. It was like all this stuff was like ba boom, ba boom, ba boom. We were filling eight seminar events a year. A year. And remember, if you know anything about my career, I was doing four and five day seminar events. So I was doing eight four or five day seminar events a year. And it was just me on stage. There were no other speakers. So I was speaking between 30 and 45 hours on stage eight times a year for four or five days in a row. I mean, it was intense to say the least. But you know what? I did it because I felt alive when I did. Felt so alive, like doing seminars and conferences and events. There was something about having all of you in a room and us taking on a topic and just workshopping it. And I taught. I'm a trainer more than I'm a podcaster or whatever you call this that we're Doing here in progress mode. I'm really good about taking a psychological concept or a performance concept and then breaking it down into five parts and working through the five parts or working through a framework with you more than I am maybe a sit down storyteller guy. In fact, if you've seen any of my career, I'm almost never sitting down. I'm always standing on stage. I'm always standing on my trainings, whether on YouTube or on growth day in our app. I'm not really a sit and talk person, but I'm reflecting with you some of the big changes in my life and where I found those moments of decision to make progress because maybe that's what you really need, that things are going well in your life, but you need to make a decision to progress in such a way that now you feel more alive. And I share all that story of how things were ramping up, not because I'm like, look at me. But because I was doing something because I was so alive at it. It felt so good. And then crisis and it didn't feel good anymore. I remember a series of months where I was, you know, speaking and keynoting major arenas. So I'd go speak to 10, 15, 20,000 people and I'd walk off that stage and I wouldn't feel energized by it. I'd feel depleted, I was tired. I remember my own seminars, four or five days events. I used to be so fired up and easily finished them. I'm on day two and three, I'm wiped out. Feeling like I was burned out for some reason. I remember one time I got off stage and I came back and I talked to my friend Mel Abraham, who he and I had done dozens and dozens and dozens of events. He was always kind of backstage and I would brainstorm and he was kind of like half part producer, half part consigliere. He was like my, my. My go to friend and advisor, shout out to Mel. And I was doing, you know, I came backstage and I was, I just told him, I go, I'm just not feeling anymore. And I was thinking about actually quitting. I had had so much success from the program, prior books and coaching that Denise and I were able to buy multiple dream homes like things are. It's like that roaring time in life. And I was at this home of ours in the woods writing my next book. And it was about neuroscience and how our brain makes us feel alive and what specific human drives activate us. I'm writing a book about how to feel fully alive and Activated. And I'm out in the woods and I'm just in this home by myself and I'm writing one night and I'm just not feeling it. I mean, how do you write a motivational book when you don't feel motivated? How do you write a book about dopamine when you feel like there's none? How do you talk about having made choices that make you feel alive but sometimes things are burning out? But here's the thing. It wasn't that I was being incongruent or not walking my talk. I mean, that was my entire life. At that stage. Something else was going on that no one knew about. And at that moment, including me. I'll share what happened one night. I'm writing in some kind of like caffeine fueled energy. I'm writing this book called the activating the 10 human drives that make you feel alive. And man, I'm writing, I'm feeling the pressure. Deadline is coming up and this book was a big swing, a big bet because what had happened? Millionaire messenger took off. But that was a book about the expert industry, the thought leader industry. It was a book really about what you and I would call today the creator economy and marketing. That book took off. Self published hits number one New York Times. We go out on like a victory tour out to New York. We talk with 10 major publishers who want my next book. Whatever, it's going to be okay. And we go to publisher after publisher and they're telling me that the book I'm proposing to them called the charge, activating the 10 human drives that make you feel alive. They're saying, wrong book for you. You just had a number one New York Times on a marketing book. Your next book that we want to buy from you is marketing. I'm going, no. I only taught marketing because a lot of people were asking me how to do it. I applied marketing to my career in personal development and performance psychology. What later we called high performance. I was like, no, I just, I'm a high performance writer, coach and trainer. I don't want to be a marketing guy. That book took off because I was trying to teach people how to do what I did. But they can go do that in tons of genres. But these publishers wanted me to write a marketing book or a sales book or even a leadership book. And they were offering millions of dollars to do it. And in meeting after meeting, I'm starting to feel swayed. I'm like, oh, maybe I'm making a wrong career choice here. You know, maybe if I go into Writing marketing books that would be more lucrative or be better received. Maybe I'm wrong, but my passion and my aliveness has always been around performance psychology, around how do we find that clarity and that personal power and that ability to be high agency people, that we can perform, we can be at our best, we can grow. I'm the personal growth guy, not the marketing guy. I kept telling myself, I'm like, that's my passion. So we turn down a lot of publisher conversations and we don't progress towards deal stage with them. And I finally find a publisher who says, no, I believe you're right. I think people need to know how to come back alive. You know, people want to feel life again. And I think if you break this down, especially neuroscience is becoming more popular, I should say more pop in terms of culture and you know how to break that down. Break it down. I'd already been interviewing and networking and meeting with and working with a lot of people in more of like the biosciences. And so I understood how to do this book and they gave a huge contract for this book. So there I am sitting in the woods in this dream house by myself, writing this, exhausted and tired, drinking tons of caffeine to try to write this book and feeling major stress because the deadline is now coming up. Because I'm behind. I'm behind because I'm so tired, I'm not feeling good. I feel like I'm losing my energy or my edge. And now money is on the line, a deadline is on the line. But for me, my career is kind of on the line because if I don't make this book go well, of course the publishing industry go well. We were right. You really should just keep teaching marketing and business because you're good at that, not pursuing this, this approach of your self improvement, personal development, self help, high performance. I feel like I got to prove them. You ever feel like you got to prove people? It's not like you want to prove people wrong. You just want to prove to people that you know what's right. Is there something you're working on right now that you feel like, hey, this is the right thing. They don't get it. I, I'm gonna keep doing this right thing cause it's right for me. But I'd sure like to show em. Maybe I chip on the shoulder, maybe there's a little edge to you, like you just want to complete the thing and do the thing, at least to show it to yourself for your own self respect, your own sense of progress in life. You're just gonna do the thing. Even though other people go, that's. I don't get it. You want to do it for you, but boy, there's added points if you can prove somebody wrong. I think that's where I was in my career a little bit. But I wasn't proving anybody wrong. I felt like I was losing. I felt like nobody knew that. I was so tired. I don't feel like people understood how hard it was to do four and five day events on stage. You know, eight a year now I made the choice. I was doing all the sales and marketing to do them. I don't think I knew how hard it was. I look back, I go, how did I do that? You know, I did over a hundred four day plus events, teaching it by myself over, you know, a ten, fifteen year phase. You know, in terms of duration and consistency, I think only Tony has done more events over that period of time. The difference was I did all the marketing, I did all the sales, I did all the videos and the web pages and the ticketing and, and everything to fill those events over those years. And I was the only trainer. I didn't hire other trainers to come and dance. And I was just me by myself. In other words, I was a moron. You know, I was pushing so hard. But why would I do that? I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. If you listen to the last episode, you have to fall in love with something and pursue it. If it gives you that aliveness, pursue it. That's progress mode, baby. Pursue the things that you love. So I was, and I was winning and I was in this house writing this book and not feeling it, man. When you fought for something, when you want to prove somebody wrong, when you've had some success at any level and now you're not feeling it, that can bring a lot of discouragement. Like, gosh, you fought so hard, but you don't feel it anymore. You used to love painting, but now you don't even like it. You used to love taking photos, now you don't even like it. You used to love, you know, taking the kids to the park. Now it feels like an annoyance, you know, when it's something you used to love and now you don't like it. In one part of our psyche. That's kind of devastating, isn't it? So I'm sitting up at night working on this book called the Charge, having no energy. For those who can see on YouTube, if you're watching the video somewhere else, I'm holding up the COVID of the Charge and it says the Charge. The sub headline says, activating the 10 human drives that make you feel alive. And the icon on the book is a little battery and is fully charged. Right? And, you know, it's like, oh, I wasn't feeling this. And of course, if you listened to the last episode, you know that I had made this cover myself in PowerPoint. I had printed it out and wrapped it around another book, and it was sitting there on a shelf staring at me. So I had this visual motivation to do the book. So I'm looking up at the thing late at night, caffeine fueled, and like, ugh, I don't feel it. And it was the first time in my life I felt out of integrity of something I'm writing and teaching versus what I'm feeling, right? Every area of my life, I've built upon character and integrity, inspired by my dad. You know, that was just how my dad lived his life. And so I, you know, always. What I would always do is I would learn, study, get a degree or certification, do the thing, get the result, become successful at it, then teach it, then, you know, coach it, then train on it. And then I'd work on a concept in my life, improve it, master it a little bit, master it better, start teaching it. And so I was never like the exploratory teacher. I was always like the results teacher. I'm like, here's what I've done. Here's. Here's what I've learned. Here's how I've coached people. Let me tell you that story, that framework. Here's how to do it. But now the pain is stacking because I don't feel congruent with what I'm writing. And one of the chapters in this book, activating 10 human drives that make you feel alive. One of the baseline human drives for you to feel good about life is called congruence. Are you living in congruence with the direction you want to head in your life, who you want to become, who you say you are? Are you being congruent with what you tell people and what you do? Are you being congruent with your behaviors and your values? If you lose a sense of congruence, you break your internal psyche of integrity, and you stop trusting yourself as much because you're breaking congruence. When you break that integrity, you trust yourself less. Your confidence goes down. Your energy, your vitality, it goes down. Well, now I'm struggling to write this book. I don't feel congruent. With it. And I'm telling you this story not because I want you to hear some woe is me story. Gee, Brennan, sorry you're up in the woods writing your dream book. Sounds like a tough life. No, I'm telling you the story because I didn't know what was wrong. Have you ever just not known what's wrong? You know, it's like you did what they said you should do. You got a job, you're trying, you're giving, you're serving, you love your kids or you're working your job, you're, you know, you're dedicated. But something just feels off, something feels wrong. If you don't know what it is, that is wrong, that feels painful. At that stage of my life I was like maybe the second or third highest paid coach in the world. So who am I going to call? Where am I going to get my coaching? I'm doing my events and we have therapists coming from all around the world who they also want to learn how to do coaching so they can do a different modality, obviously very different. I'm not a therapist, by the way, but they're coming to learn about this new thing called coaching. So they can scale their own practice, but also be outside and maybe a little bit more different in their approach, more framework driven, more focused towards outcomes on a different timeline than their practice. And not everybody in the therapeutic field wanted a deal with, with what that psychological industry and that complex became. And so a lot of people want to move into more of positive psychology and they wanted to move beyond positive psychology into actual coaching. And so who am I going to call a therapist on this topic? I didn't know where I could go. Maybe you've been there before. You don't know what's wrong, you don't know who to call, you don't know where to go. You just know it's off. And that's where I'm at. I am sitting in this big dream home on this huge cliff overlooking the Columbia river gorge. For those who know, you know the Portland, Oregon area and I mean it's a magnificent view. I even had my mom's three legged little fold out table, the same table I wrote Life's golden ticket on the same table where I went from start leaving my corporate job writing Life's golden ticket. I had kept that little fold out table. I'm using it as inspiration to write. I am set up to win, right at that point. I'm set up to win. I have a good deal. I have agents, editors, publishers. I'VE got a growing team. I'm experiencing something that no one had really experienced before online, at least in my industry, as the industry was starting, you know, I was one of the very first people on Facebook, in my industry to hit a million and then 2 million and then 3 million and then 4 and 5 million fans and followers on Facebook. And this is back when Facebook was the show in town, right? Like Instagram. I don't remember. Was Instagram out yet at that moment? I don't even remember. TikTok was definitely not there. So it's like, you understand, like this was early to have millions of people on Facebook back then when Facebook really mattered, that was a big deal. And so I'm like, I'm supported, like I did, all going for multimillion dollar deals. I'm just telling you this because there's a lot of stakes too, though. There's a lot of expectations. If you've started a business before, everyone here who started a business, when you grow your team, you got more salaries to pay, more obligations, more meetings. I'm taking on more clients and they're now starting to move up. These are clients earning hundreds of millions of dollars. It's getting like there's some stakes, you know, I mean, it's getting big. It's getting real big. And I am feeling that pressure. If you feel pressure and you know where you're going and you feel alive and you're in love with the thing, the pressure doesn't bother you as much. But if you feel pressure and something feels off, it feels like it could explode at any minute. It's like you have an anxiousness hanging about you at all times because you don't know what's wrong, even if it seems like it's right. So now you have a paranoia now. I didn't get to that level of real anxiety, at least a therapeutic type of anxiety, like a disorder. I did not have that level of pressure where I felt like things were going to blow up, but something was off. Why wasn't I fulfilled anymore? That night I wrote and I thought I had a good night of writing. You know, I was making notes on my notepad, then I type it in. I felt pretty good. I went to bed way late in the morning because I'd had caffeine, didn't sleep particularly well. So I got up and I got in the shower to wake myself up. Taking a cold shower in the morning, wake myself up, and I was waking myself up, had an idea about what to add in the book, went and sat back down my mom's little table, opened up the laptop, grabbed the notes where I was, went back to read where I was in the chapter and started reading a few pages before that I'd written the night, that night before. So I'm reading the prior pages and I was terrified because as I read those pages I saw sentence after sentence of incomplete sentences, weird paragraphs, incomplete thoughts. It was like, you know, a kid had just been typing on the keyboard or something. It was like, like jumbled mess. And I was like, what the hell is this? And I thought maybe I didn't say, I was like, oh, this must have been a draft. I literally was like opening up other documents looking for where I had written last night. And I realized no, this is the document. I go back and I read more, I go back and I read more and I read more and I read more and what I see is the several months I've been working on this book. It's really bad. It's not looking right, it's sounding weird. There's. I'm just skipping all over the place. I'm like, what the hell is going on? And I want you to remind if you haven't listened to episode one, two or three and you're here, I want you to know my dream was to make a living as a writer and a coach. That was the original dream trainer came later. I just wanted to write books as a full time. My identity was as a writer and now I'm looking at crap. Literally it's just like everything I've written for months that I've been sneaking away to write this book, it's bad and it was terrifying. I kept looking at it and I literally thought, am I going crazy? What is going on? And I'll tell you one thing that has saved me throughout my life is that I'm a reader. I read so much. I read a book a week since I was a 19 year old kid and I've never stopped. And I can share something with you that really not only informed my books and my research and my teaching and my coaching, but in this case it saved my life. Because remember I told you the charge, this book was based on a lot of neuroscience. I was reading and I remember reading this just obscure thing that happened to mention that a lot of people who have a brain injury or something is wrong. They're having a, like something in their body is not working, their mind is like disordered. Something is seriously wrong. One of the tells of that is that language starts getting wrong. Like if you've Ever. If you ever had a family member who had dementia or Alzheimer's as an example, One of the first tells of dementia and Alzheimer's happens to be language. We always think it's just memory, but it's actually their language. They start missing words or they start trailing off. Language is impaired when your brain gets impaired. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private green group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com click on private group to apply to See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progress mode.com. the other thing I remember reading about was that people who have brain injuries, often their energy really gets low and they just don't find satisfaction in anything anymore. I was like, wait a minute, I'm writing this book. I'm not feeling satisfaction. I got off that stage the other day. I told Mel, I don't even feel it anymore. Wait a minute, I'm having to have all this caffeine just to feel energized to write this thing. The language is bad. And I just thought, something's wrong with me. And I did not know what was wrong with me. I was like, this is scary. And at that time, because of Millionaire Messenger, I was doing all these events called Experts Academy, where I was teaching other authors and writers how to sell a ton of books without doing the traditional route and how to use online marketing, how to do courses and how to do speaking and seminars and coaching and retreats. And at one of these events, I remember this guy came and he was one of the VIP members and he'd signed up and his name was Dr. Daniel Amen. And he was really the most, the most public, foremost authority on brain health at the time. And I mean, he had these PBS specials that were being seen by tens or hundreds of millions of people. He was raising money on PBS in the tens of millions of dollars. He was, you know, bestselling New York Times bestselling book after book after book after book on brain health. He's, you know, a double board certified kind of guy. I mean, he. He knew what he was doing, and he had come to my events, and I just. His. His name, like, escaped me. But I called my team. I said there was a guy. He was at this event. He was so nice, and he was like a brain guy. He did brain scans. What's his name? Oh, Dr. Daniel. Amen. All right. So I messaged him, and I asked if I could give him a call. He said, yeah, give me a call. I just want to pause here real fast. If you're struggling and you don't know why, I want you to call somebody today. Maybe you call your doctor. Maybe you call a friend. Maybe you finally call your mom or your dad. Maybe you call your spouse. Tell them the truth. If you're struggling and you don't know why, just something is up, I want you to call somebody. Not because. I'm saying it might be your brain. I'm saying because sometimes you are in your own head and you don't know, and you need to talk it through or at least feel some semblance of support. I was actually calling for support, not a solution. Does that make sense? Sometimes progress is getting social support not a solution. You just need somebody to lean on, somebody to tell somebody, sound it out to. That's okay. Reach out to people for help more often in whatever you're doing in life. That is a good precept for success. That's a good precept for. For growth and learning. So I didn't call him with some exact expectations. I just called. I said, hey, man, I have this weird thing happening with my writing, and I have not been feeling good. And he goes, oh, okay. And over the next 30 minutes or so, he just asked me dozens of questions, and he ended up ending the call. He says, well, where are you? I said, I'm up in the woods. He says, well, are you near an airport? I said, yeah. He says, I'd like you to fly down here. I want to scan your brain as soon as possible. Your brain might be swelling. I was like, what? He said, yeah, something's wrong. You need to come down and see me. And, man, if you've ever got a suggestion or diagnosis in any way that scared you, you know that feeling, it's terrifying. I was scared. And he said, come down here. He said, have you been hurt recently? I'm like, no. He says, you're in that house alone. Have you fallen down, hit your head? I said, not that I know. He says, have you ever had a brain injury? I'm like, nope. He's Ever hit your head? I'm like, yeah, when I had this car accident, but that was when I was 19. At this stage, I was mid-30s, so there had been no effect. I'm like, no. He's like, okay, nothing. No surgeries lately? I'm like, no. I said, well, no, that's not true. I had wrist surgery a couple months back, but nothing really in my brain. He goes, well, what do you mean you had wrist surgery? I said, oh, well, I wrecked an atv. He goes, a four wheeler? I said, yeah. He says, you wrecked a four wheeler? I said, yeah. He said, what happened? I said, well, I snapped my wrist off, so they had to have surgery to put it back together and put this big steel thing in there. And I had, you know, thrown out my hip and broken some ribs and dislocated a shoulder and had a, you know, pretty. I was. I was hurt. And he says, okay, well, we're. You wearing a helmet? I go, oh, yeah. He goes, did any of the doctors ask you about your brain? I'm like, well, you know, they held up the pen and they run it back and forth in front of your eyes. He's like, did you get. Did anyone. Did, like, anyone in neurology look at you and talk with you? I'm like, I don't think so. I don't know. He says, did you get knocked unconscious? I said, did I get knocked? Yeah, I think I. Yeah, I think I blacked out for a second or two there. He says, you think you did or he did? I'm like, yeah, I think so. He goes, okay, yeah, come down. You might have, like, post concussive syndrome. You might have something else. I don't know. Let me scan you. And I said, okay, well, you know, I've got this tour coming up. You know, I'm going to go be on this major show. I've got this celebrity client. I've got, you know, I'm coaching a team that's going to go to the Super Bowl. Like, I'm doing all these things. And he's like, yeah, no, you need to come down here. And within, I don't know, 48 hours, I was down there and we did the brain scans. Denise came down with me, and he had me do a bunch of tests, more like psychiatry type tests, and then some memory learning tests and some computer tests and a scan. And then he said, okay, it's gonna take some time to get the results from the scan. So, you know, there's a restaurant over there. Go over there. And I went over there and, you know, I'm thinking, I'm fine, honestly. I think I'm like, this is stupid. Why am I doing this? And when he called me back to the office, he sat me down, he opened up this big book. He says, do you see this book? And this brain scan on this book? I said, yeah. He says, you. You see this one, this printout? This is your brain. Looks a lot like this brain, right? And I go, yeah. He flips the page, and on the other side of the book, there's a page, and it has all these symptoms. He goes, are any of these in your life right now? And I look down, and that was my life. It was like a story of my last year of my life where I was being more impatient or, you know, I'd be argumentative with people, or I wasn't feeling fulfillment or. Or I was struggling with length. It was all right there. And I was like, oh, my God. He's like, it's going to take some time for you to heal. And he was able to identify a pretty good through line of damage, if you will, from my cerebellum to my hippocampus to my prefrontal left cortex. I was hurt. I had post concussive syndrome. You know, I had a traumatic brain injury. And he's like, it's gonna take some time for you to feel normal and come back. And of course, I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm fine. I got too many things to do. He's like, no, you're gonna have to adjust your patterns. You're gonna have to do some things to bring back your brain. You're gonna have to do some things to take care of your body more. You're gonna have to do some things to handle the emotions. You're gonna have to take some supplements and work out in new ways and try these new things and redevelop your brain. And I'm like, what are we talking about here? And luckily, as you heard from other episodes, I had Denise in my life, and she supported me through that time. It was incredibly hard. It was incredibly hard. I don't know if you've ever been to a place where you just don't feel mentally sharp, you know, but when you don't feel it and the aliveness goes away, life can feel like trudgery, drudgery, trudgery. I don't even know the word. It's bad. For the next two years, everything I did felt really hard. Really hard. Not just because physically I was in pain from all the injuries. I told you about. But even as those went away, my brain didn't feel as sharp. I couldn't think as far out as I used to. I didn't feel the energy I used to. But I had to have faith in the forward position. I had to have faith that in the future I will be healed. In the future, I'll get it back. If I stay in progress mode, if I keep doing the things that are good for me in life, things will get better. What good things do you need to do for your health? Let's talk about it. What good things do you need to do more consistently in your life for better health so you can feel in the future more alive, more energized? Obviously, not everyone I'm talking to has had a brain injury, but if you've ever had one, you know, that time period, it's really hard. It's really scary. You have to see professionals and you have to do the work to get better. And God help us, it's really difficult. And it took two, two and a half years for me to feel like back. Like Brendan back. Writing this book. The Charge was one of the hardest books I've ever written because I had to work every day to summon the charge. But you know what? What I just shared with you, that was the turning point for me. A lot of my life, I had always had good practices and I felt good. But I had to learn. When you don't feel good, can you summon presence? Can you step into the power of now, as they say, right? Can you step into here, into this moment? Can you be so present here that you're absent of all that struggle, pain, difficulty over there, not avoiding it, but just being more vitally here. And most importantly, choosing an intention now, choosing aliveness now, like making your brain turn on, like, telling your brain, like, okay, let's rev it up. Like, taking control of your own biology and your own state and your own mood and doing everything you can to optimize that? Long before, like, I think biohacking became really popular, you know, in 2003-2007, I was already teaching this concept of high performance. And I've always said, since back then, I said, please listen, if you've never chosen a year in your life to get as healthy as you've ever been in your life, make that this year. Because sometimes progress mode is get your health right and. And everything else lines up with it. Because when you have greater aliveness and energy and mental acuity, you're more sharp, you make better decisions for yourself. It's easier to say no to what is wrong because you feel vital and focused on what matters. And I want you to give yourself that gift. Get in the best health of your life, period. This year. If you've never done it before, hey, maybe you're like, hey, Brent, I was in great shape in high school. I'm like, great, you're 50. How about since the age of 20? Have you ever picked a year to be that was going to be the best year of your life? That year, no alcohol that year, work out every morning that year, sleep eight hours that year, learn what you're allergic to in terms of your diet that year, optimize your diet that year, find your sport, find your play, find your way out into nature. And that year, learn your supplementation that year, get your macros right. If you've never done it for at least one year of your life, make that this year. I've been teaching that since 2003. Taught millions of people to make that decision. I'm not Mr. Six Pack Abs over here. I'm here to say, I want you to feel how extraordinary it is when you choose health as progress mode when you wake up. I make progress in my health because there is no other area of your life that that vitality compounds for you to feel better. I know it because I've lost it several times because of accidents. I told you the story of the ATV accident. But, you know, I've been in hospital beds myself three times in my life. I thought I was going to die. And I was blessed to have what I call life's golden ticket, second chance at life. All three times, been very, very lucky. I'm an adventurous moron, so I've damaged my body a lot throughout life. You know, just a couple weeks ago, I was learning free diving to see how deep I could go in the ocean without breathing. This is the kind of dumb stuff I do. And so I've lost the charge many times. I had to get back. And if you could prioritize your health, it could make just an absolute huge difference. You don't have to suffer in silence or alone. And if you're suffering in your health, mental health, physical health, make a call, get help. There's more resources and tools than there's ever been ever before. It's so easy to look up somebody to call or get assistance with online. But I want to share with you something about this, and that is part of getting the charge back. If it's not physical for you, if it's not a health thing, Though I do believe everyone can progress in their health, including myself. I want you to hear an earlier story I shared about making a decision in life. A lot of people wanted me to write a different kind of book, and I chose to write the kind of books that I've liked. And you'll hear about that in other episodes too, that were major decisions in my life. This was one of those. I didn't write a marketing and sales book. I wrote a psychology book about literally the charge about the human drives that make us feel alive. And because I chose to write that, I uncovered some research that later on helped me diagnose the problem I was having changed my life. And so I'm still here with you guys today. So if you want to feel alive, make choices that are right for you. Let me say it again. If you want to feel alive, make choices that are right for you. Live in congruence with the best of who you are. Stay consistent on the path that is uniquely yours, no matter what they tell you. Because remember, two enemies. Social pressure to do something that is not you or below your standards or below your aims. And the self limitation is that we impose on ourselves with our own doubt or fear or insecurities. It's about, no, no, no, I'm gonna keep progressing in the right direction for myself. You wanna feel alive? Those are some of the core components I talk about in this book. The charge that there's five baseline drives that we all feel as human beings. We want a sense of control, competence, congruence, caring, and connection. What took me through this time in my life was that I'd always cared for other people. And because I cared for other people, when I got hurt, when I was down, when I was damaged, I had a community of people who cared for me and connected with me and checked in on me over those two years of recovery with my brain injury. No person more than Denise, she was the one person who knew what I was really going through and has always been that one person who really knows what my life is like. And so I hope you find that level of connection and love in your life and you get to share your life with somebody who really understands the ups and downs of a life of progress Mode, because you're probably that person in your family or your team, you're probably that leader. You listening to progress mode says something about you. Not a lot of people work on themselves the way that you do. You like self awareness. It's why you're still listening. You like self mastery. It's why you're still listening. You love self study. It's why you're still listening. So sometimes when you're that person who's the big learner, or you're the earner, or you're the leader, you don't have people who know, no one knows your struggles. And that can feel very isolating. So don't forget that one of your human drives that will make you feel alive again is when you reach out and care for other people. You also let people care for you. You connect with people who care about you. I talk about the five forward drives, the drives that really change life. The drive, the human drive for change, challenge, creative expression, contribution and consciousness. If you're interested in those, read this charge. But I want to draw your attention for those who are on the video. And you can see here that ultimately when this version, final version did come out, Dr. Daniel Amen, who treated me, gave me this cover quote, the charge will change your life. Our brains are hardwired to meet specific human drives. And learning to harness and activate those drives is the secret to success and happiness. This is a smart and beautifully written book and it will electrify your life. Get this book. Dr. Daniel Amen, new York Times bestselling author of Change youe Brain, Change youe Life. Thank you, doc. By fixing my brain, I was able to change a lot of people's lives. I'm happy in that two and a half year period, I didn't stop, I didn't go into victim mode. I went into progress mode. I went into solution mode. I went into keep going mode. I want you to all hear this. If your sense of aliveness has been down, then please keep studying. Keep learning. But do the habits that really matter. Get the book. Learn the mental conditioning tricks. Learn how to take care of yourself. This is a time in your life the progress mode really matters. You're entering a new era. You're entering the next stage. It really does matter. And there's something about life that is supposed to be felt and magical and exciting and we can lose that when our health is away or something bad happens during the same period of time I've been describing to you. I lost my dad. And my dad was the most important person in my life. He was my hero. You know, he was a Marine. He had fought in Vietnam. He was always teaching some kind of lesson. He loved to read and teach as well. And he worked for the dmv. He was a regional manager of the DMV where you get your driver's license. He was a kind and simple guy. And he just always was teaching us, you know, no matter what you do, just be honest. Just do your best. Be yourself. It was, take care of your family, treat people with respect, be a good citizen, follow your dreams. So the guy who told me to follow my dreams was gone. Sometimes no one knows what you're going through. I remember being on stage, motivating thousands of people at my event, and then I got to go up to the hotel room and call my dad as he's going through a second round of chemo. Lost all this weight, losing hope, them telling him he's going to be gone in a couple days. And he made it. He's a Marine, so he made it much longer than I thought. He made it 59 days with acute myeloid leukemia. And then it took him from us. And that was part of the time of. Which I shared with you in the last episode as things were taking off in my career and this little span of time, just a few years, you know, losing my mind, losing my mentor, struggling with all this, no one knew but the closest people in my life. But I never felt alone because I told the closest people in my life and I sought out experts. It doesn't mean I didn't feel like loneliness sometimes. It meant that I forced myself to stay connected and to stay in progress mode. Not to retreat, not to claim victims, not to quit. Even though I felt like it. It was like I was always active in my healing, always active in my healing. Always like, okay, not being. Not having unfair expectations of myself, not expecting things to be perfect, not hoping to be over the night, healed. I was just like, I'm going to stay in progress mode in these areas of my life. And no area more important in your life can you stay in progress mode than your sense of aliveness. You have to cultivate that by the way that you live. The charge doesn't just happen. You have to learn to summon it. I teach people. Job one in your life is to learn on a daily basis how to summon the best of who you are that day. Sometimes the best of who I was during this period of time was, get out of bed, get a shower, be nice to your wife, eat the food they told you in the hospital, get better. That was it. Sometimes the moment in your life, you can't do much, but you can always do something. You might not be able to do all of it, but you can do something. That's progress mode. Whatever it takes. Something, something, something in the right direction of my life. Not because the end result of Progress is the promise or perfect, or you'll get it, but because by doing that, you keep the Charge alive inside. Does that make sense? You stay in progress mode. Not because of the achievement, because alignment with life. To close out this episode, I want to read to you the opening of the Charge. I dedicated this one to my dad and I really believe you keeping the Charge alive is so important. The Charged Life, the truly lived life is not a routine existence in some quaint, picturesque village of perfection, safety and certainty. No, the life living is out there in the wooded wilds of the unknown, on the craggy battlefields that test our wits and wills in the daily fights with our own demons. It is found during the long onward slog, through the storms and strife when we hear only the whispers and taunts of foes and opponents stronger than we, on the ground where we are knocked sprawling and forced to face our own weaknesses, and on the mountaintops that we reach only because we pitted our every ounce of virtue, strength, character and courage to keep climbing, no matter the slings and arrows flung at our backs or the barriers thrown up before us. It is out there that we come face to face with the best in ourselves and with our destiny. It is out there, in a new world of uncertainty and adventure that we push ourselves better ourselves, realize ourselves. It is only in the Herculean quest for something more that life fills us with the wisdom and meaning, but only after we have paid with our sweat and at times, our tears. It is in the marching on, when we are tired and weak and fearful, and in the camaraderie of those fellow warriors we have striven with, our brothers and sisters and family and friends who cheered us on and toiled with us despite the messiness and apparent madness of it all. It is out there on the path less traveled, an uncharted path chosen by each of us alone, an often meandering, overgrown path that leads only to another unpaved road or open field of possibility or opportunity where we must strike out once more with the same hope for victory and transcendence. It is out there when we have the guts to stand naked before the world is who we truly are, when we peer into the souls of those around us and finally see them, see in them the image of the divine that we plunge ourselves bravely and unconditionally into love that has no bottom or boundary. It is out there, outside the confines of our comforts and pleasures of accumulation, beyond our architecture of the routine, that we slip the bonds of our limiting beliefs soar magnificently above our own shortcomings and express our highest selves. It is out there in a world rich with choice and and challenge and fear and freedom that your greatest gifts and adventures await you. Listen. It is out there that destiny calls. Be bold and ready yourself. It is time to charge once again. If you've enjoyed this episode of Progress Mode, go to progressmode.com I have a ton of gifts related to this book and to every book I've mentioned in the Progress Mode season Number one. If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with somebody who needs a little bit of charge, a little bit of uplift in their life today. Share with somebody who you know is struggling in their own progress, is struggling to find that clarity. They're struggling to be congruent. They're struggling to break through. We all are. At some season, at some phase. What's important is that you don't click into Victim Mode. What is important is you wake up each day with that sun and you switch on Progress Mode, baby.