Feel Alive - How to Get Charged with Brendon Burchard

Marie Forleo: Hey. It’s Marie Forleo, and you are watching Marie TV, the place to be, if you want a business and life you love. And today, we are going to be interviewing an amazing author, multiple New York Times bestselling author, Brendon Burchard. He’s got a new book out called The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive. This is an amazing book. It’s really a cure for many of us if we feel restless and stressed out and just really like we don’t have the energy and the drive for life, the enthusiasm for life that we know we could have. So let’s talk to the author, and let’s learn a few things about how we can activate our natural human drives.

Marie Forleo: Hey, everybody. It is Marie Forleo, and you just saw me dancing with his book. And I’m going to show it to you again. This is called The Charge. And I am so honored today to have the incredible author, Brendon Burchard. Thank you so much for being with us on Marie TV.

Brendon Burchard: Hey, Marie. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Love all your stuff.

Marie Forleo: Love all your stuff. So we’ve been on a little bit of a crash course for a while. I have so many people in my audience that just adore your work. They adore The Millionaire Messenger. And I’m recommending that book all the time. But today we’re going to talk about your new book, which is called The Charge. And I know it’s your fourth book. So many people in the audience, is a little bit of an aside, have dreams of writing just their first book and you’re on your fourth. Is that a little surreal, or?

Brendon Burchard: It is. It is. It’s happened over the last four books in eight years. So it’s been a period of time in which has happened. But the last two are the ones that really took off. And both of those happened so fast. I mean, two New York Times bestsellers in the last two years. And so super fast, super surprising. But I tell you fun. I love it. As we’ll talk about today, it’s an act of creative expression, which is what really drives us anyway.

Marie Forleo: Yeah. And you know, one of the things I want to mention, what you said there is so key. You wrote two books, but the second two were the ones that took off.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: And I think for many people, whether they’re starting a business or, again, they’re writing a book, if they do something their first time out of the gate, if it’s not a blockbuster, sometimes they can get down on themselves rather than looking at the long-term or the long-term game, or, “Hey, this is just the beginning of my journey.” Did you experience any of that disappointment with your first book?

Brendon Burchard: No, because I always know the journey to “success” it’s different than what most people think it is. Because especially when they change genres or industries or jobs, they expect to start at the same level they were at. So right? Let’s say, for me, I was a consultant before I started doing all of this. In corporate America I built change management and leadership programs. Well, I spent seven years doing that and I achieved this level of success.

Brendon Burchard: And then when I came into the writing, and the speaking, and the teaching world, I wanted to start there. I said, “No, no, no. Actually, I’m going to start here again.” But what here’s the difference is that first time that might take 7 to 10 years to build something significant and fix some but. The second time when you start to doing something, that learning curve and that growth curve is going to be shorter because all the knowledge, skills, and abilities you developed over here, they’re going to come over here.

Brendon Burchard: So the key is that we always have to remind ourselves as like, “Hey, you know what? Let’s take a little edge off. Maybe it took seven to 10 years here. Now this one, it might take two, three, four, five. That’ll be faster because I have all that experience and that knowledge and that passion now, and I’m just more worldly.”

Brendon Burchard: So it will happen, but we have to give ourselves time to climb the second mountain. We climb that first mountain. If you’re going to go climb something new, you got to realize you got to come down the first one and build yourself up. All my life, I’ve been a person, hopefully, who’s present. If you have a lot of presence, you’re also willing to be pretty patient.

Marie Forleo: I heard your little iPhone I was like, “Oh, is that my iPhone or your iPhone?”

Brendon Burchard: Sorry about that.

Marie Forleo: No, don’t worry. Please, don’t worry. My iPhone is always going off. I don’t know if you see my face frozen like it was before.

Brendon Burchard: It just did.

Marie Forleo: It just did?

Brendon Burchard: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: Well, let me freeze and I’m sure if we have the audio, which I can hear the audio on my end, we’re just going to keep rocking and rolling.

Brendon Burchard: Okay.

Marie Forleo: So I love what you shared about the whole mountain idea, and taking your skills and your abilities and your experience from one arena, and knowing that they are going to transfer over, and just that idea of having patients. And I think also being in it for the long-term, I think one of the things that some people can get caught up, and one of the things that may actually have people feel less charged in their life, which we’ll get into the charge in a moment, that is those unrealistic expectations of instant success, or overnight fame, or all of that stuff where you have to really have that vision of why are you doing this in the first place? One of the things I admire so much about you, Brendon, is it’s so clear how devoted you are to serving-

Brendon Burchard: Thank you.

Marie Forleo: … and making a difference. And you can feel that in every video that I’ve ever watched from you and the words that you put on the page. And I think that for all of us, it’s really important to remember whether we’re writing a book, or starting a business, or going on any journey in our life, creating a great relationship that we love. You got to look at the long-term and what do you really want out of this? Why are you really doing this?

Brendon Burchard: Yeah, it’s key. I mean, everyone who’s watching this or listening to this knows for sure that they’ve got passions, and they’ve got dreams. I always say it’s fine to be unrealistic in your expectations for things, as long as you’re also giving yourself time to complete them. It’s like no one would ever think that you and I could be doing what we’re doing right now. But we did have a set of that, an unrealistic desire, a hunger and a passion and drive in us.

Brendon Burchard: I mean, ambition is always unrealistic, because ambition requires us to look beyond where we’re at today. And ambition should be unrealistic. It should allow us to stretch and grow and challenge ourselves. The difference is, are you willing to love yourself along that process? Are you willing to give yourself a break when you fall? Are you willing to know that there’s a reason that you’re doing all of this insanity and keep reminding yourself of those things? And are you willing to, along the way, not get frustrated, but keep your mental, I call it your conscious dashboard, clean and clear and directed? And if you can do that, then the journey is going to be fantastic.

Marie Forleo: I love that. I love that. I love what you shared. And the unrealistic ambition I’ve found that to be true always. Some of my biggest dreams, they even sometimes scare myself, but that’s what makes it exciting to go out to.

Brendon Burchard: That’s right. Yeah, the drive for challenge, right? And without that, what are we doing every day? We’re waking up and we’re browsing on the internet. It’s like you become very undirected if you don’t have ambitious drives, if you don’t have the things that are not only … It’s like most people they feel like they have to sometimes like push themselves out of bed, and they have to push each day. And it’s a struggle because they don’t have anything that’s pulling them.

Brendon Burchard: And when you have that bigger desire, that bigger dream, that bigger challenge, And if that thing is compelling to you and you love it’s going to pull you forward. And so it’s important to get connected to that and excited about that. And that thing will always seem unrealistic. It was unrealistic for us to go to the moon, but Kennedy said it anyway. But it did take to the end of the decade to do it. He understood that, and I think we all have to give ourselves a little bit of breathing room right now. Because a lot of people are being so hard on themselves right now because of the economy and where they might be at in their business, or where they’re starting. And if you’re down on yourself, you’re never going to be able to pick your business up.

Marie Forleo: Love that. That could be a tweetable. We might have that be a tweetable. So what motivated you to write The Charge? Again, which is an amazing book. And everyone watching this right now, you guys need to get it. We’ll tell you where to do that below. But what motivated you to write this particular book?

Brendon Burchard: You know, the journey began for me 16 years ago. A lot of people see it as a short-term thing with my books, but it began 16 years ago. As you know, I was in a pretty dramatic car accident.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Brendon Burchard: And it taught me at the end of our life, we’re going to ask three basic questions. And those questions are going to be, did I live? As in did I live my life vibrantly and fully? We’ll ask, did I love? Did I love openly, honestly, and completely? And did I matter? Did I make a difference? And I knew those were the questions that we’re going to ask at the end. So I wanted to live my life so that I was really living and loving and mattering.

Brendon Burchard: But like, anyone else, I get blocked some days. It’s like, “No, I didn’t really live my life today. I bowed out. I didn’t really love today because I was scared, because I got hurt one time.” Or I didn’t make a difference because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.

Brendon Burchard: So I started getting really serious in the areas of psychology, neuroscience, and high-performance studies. So it’s been 16 years reading a book a week in one of those areas. So I did a lot of research. I’m always just been fascinated like, what is it that drives us? And then last year, I lost my own charge. Last year I was in accident. Apparently, I shouldn’t leave the country because [inaudible 00:08:58]. I think Denise, my wife, is going to pull away my passport at some point.

Brendon Burchard: But I left the country. I was in an ATV accident and I got a brain injury. And it really rattled my life. Long story short, I had post-concussive syndrome where I was having a lot of trouble because damage to my prefrontal cortex, my cerebellum, my hippocampus, I was having a lot of trouble with executive control and seeing what I was supposed to be doing. I was having a lot of trouble with my attention span, and connecting with other people. My memory was down. My ability to make judgements was down.

Brendon Burchard: It took about eight months to really overcome that concussion. And in that process, I had to learn. I felt so bad. I had to figure out how do I activate things that will make me feel alive? And I think a lot of people can relate because there’s always something in our lives that feels like … For me, it was an injury. For other people, it’s the status of their life, or the state of their business. And they get really trapped down.

Brendon Burchard: And at some point, we have to say, “Okay, this is an external reality. Maybe I can’t fully control it. But what is it that I could find in my life, or create more importantly? What can I generate in my life that would make me feel alive despite all this?” And what’s fascinating about this, Marie, I think as you read in the book is that if you, in my situation, if you injure your brain, they tell you to use your mind to fix it.

Marie Forleo: Interesting.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. The neuroscientist says, “Oh wow, your prefrontal cortex is firing really low. That’s why you can’t really see the future. You’re not being able to have a good attention span, make good decisions to connect with other people.” So that part of the brain, we know how to activate that. So think of these types of things. Challenge your mind in these types of ways. Do these types of experiences that will light that part up is. Because as we light it up and it fires up, the neurons reconnect, or they restrengthen, and it’s like rehab for your brain, but you use your mind and your life experiences to do that.

Brendon Burchard: And I had so much fun rebuilding my brain, literally, that I thought, “Everyone needs to know about this.” These 10 human drives if we activate them, and we’re strategic about it and we’re consistent about it, we can feel more alive than we’ve ever felt. And that’s not just self-help hype. That’s brain science. We can actually see those parts of your brain coming back to life again. We can release the parts of the hormones in your body like dopamine, vasopressor, and oxytocin in a way that you feel alive and alert and engaged and connected with other people at levels most people never experienced. But all of that, we can self-generate by the way we use our mind and live our experiences.

Marie Forleo: And that’s one of the things I love about the book is your focus. And I know you, just as a person, love to focus on neuroscience and the research, and you read so much. And that’s why I think this book is so important. And one of the things I love about it too is how actionable you make all of the drives. At the end of each chapter, it’s like there are simple questions that you prompt us to answer. And I’m like, “God, I love these because it’s making my brain think in new ways. And they’re simple actions to take.”

Marie Forleo: So out of the 10 drives, we know that there’s five baseline drives, and then five forward-moving drives. I’m curious just to know from you personally, is there one drive that you either find the most, I don’t want to say challenging in a bad way, but one that you find that you have to bring more attention or consciousness to? Or one that you find challenges you the most?

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. That’s a good one. For me, at this point in my life, and it’s funny because I think they change. Oh, hi, you’re back.

Marie Forleo: Yay.

Brendon Burchard: So to give context, can I give context to [inaudible 00:12:38]-

Marie Forleo: Yeah, of course.

Brendon Burchard: … drives are for your viewers? So the baseline human drives are the drives in our lives that really they’re the baseline. They’re the ones we have to hit to feel fully driven and alive. And these are the ones that are usually based around self-knowledge and social belonging. So they’re things like our ability and our drive to have control in our life, and competence, and congruence and who we are. But then they’re also the drives for us to connect with other people. So our drives for caring and connection. And those really make us know ourselves and connect with other people.

Brendon Burchard: And then the four drives where all the bang for the buck is, which is we’ll frame my answer, is the four drives are the ones that really … They’re the great amplification. They’re the home runs in terms of making us feel more fully alive and expressed. So these are the drives that are really about self-actualization and social contribution. Instead of social belonging now it’s about contributing.

Brendon Burchard: So the four drives are things like change, and challenge, and our drive for creative expression and contributions, or higher drives or consciousness and reaching another state of living and being. And so for me, right now, the one that I’m working on and every one of these chapters breaks down, as you said, each of these drives and says, “Here’s three things you can do.” For me, that’s on creative expression right now. Because I think that today, the better that we are creatively expressing ourselves, we just feel more fully alive because that’s our unique voice being shared in the world.

Brendon Burchard: And most people, I realized this, even when I was writing the book, Marie, that there’s parts of my life that I’m not fully creative expressed in. You walk into my office and it’s like, “Well,” it’s like, “Who designed this office? Is this really Brendon’s office?” I’ve been in a lot of people’s houses. When you look around the houses, there’s no fingerprints of them around the house. It doesn’t scream their space.

Brendon Burchard: And so for me, right now, I’m creating spaces both in my real life and spaces online that really, I think, represent me more fully. And it’s in that challenge, challenge is one of the other drives. The challenge of more creatively expressing ourselves. For some people, creative expression is really just teaching them to use their voice again, to share with the world what are your ambitions and your dreams, and your hopes and your desires? What is it you’re trying to do? Are you sharing that enough with people?

Brendon Burchard: If you’re not expressing that, then the world can’t hear that call. And so for some people, creative expression isn’t just how you decorate your house or what you wear today. It’s how consistent are you in truly expressing who you are and your desires to the world? And the more that you are able to do that, the more you do feel more engaged with the world. And certainly, the more the world engages with you.

Marie Forleo: I love it. You know, one of the things that we’ve been doing, and I know I’m probably frozen right now. And that’s really okay because as long as you guys can hear me. Y’all see me every week so you don’t need to see my mug moving all the time. One of the things we’ve been doing in my house and with my friends is like last night we had a dinner party and we had some friends over. And I always try and come up with a fun question later and asking them, what are they creating? Or what do they feel is holding them back? Or what’s, we talked about, what’s the one thing you’re so embarrassed about that you wouldn’t want anyone else to know?

Marie Forleo: And it’s things like that where you find people rather than just talking about Hollywood gossip, or latest movies. You start to really dig deep inside and connect more and become more vulnerable, and create deeper relationships. So I love hearing that for you. I think creative expression is one of the things that I’m doing in my life as well. We’re looking around where I live in both out here in [San Cardo 00:16:10], which is where I’m semi recording this from. Because, again, you’re seeing me with a silly look on my face, which is totally fine. And in New York, where we’re remodeling and renovating and doing some things so our space feels more creative, and allows for more creation to happen, building a studio, building all kinds of things like that. So I love hearing that from you.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. I think out of all the funny thing about all the four drives, this would be the one that people don’t give enough weight to because they’re like, “Oh no.” Because the other drives are so compelling, right? The drive for change and the book teaches people, if you’re not changing, it’s because of these three reasons. If you are scared of change, is because of these three reasons. And it talks about challenge, this big drive to go out and connect to our ambitions, and challenge ourselves every single day to be bolder and be the best of who you are, but also set real strong intentions for going.

Brendon Burchard: The drive for contribution, of giving, and the driver consciousness of better mastering our own mind and our being to reach our highest levels of self. All of those things are really compelling. Creative expression people are like, “Ah.” But here’s what I tell people, right now in this economy, creative expression is currency.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Brendon Burchard: That’s like the people who were poo-pooing they’re like, “Oh, well, yeah, yeah, this is fucked up.” I’m like, “No, no, no.” Today, creative expression is the economy. It’s the generation of content. It’s the generating of unique ideas that is driving the economy. You read Richard Florida’s work, a great book called The Creative Class. Or Dan Pink’s book called A Whole New Mind. And both of those detail, this term that we’ve had in the economy by facts that illustrate in indeed we’ve come to a time and place in which the right brain. And activating the right brain will be the secret and the differentiator in all of the working world.

Brendon Burchard: And so some people say, “Well, yeah.” And as you can see in the book, there’s some people who I’m coaching in the book who really needed to reactivate the right brain again to feel more alive and more expressed and more successful. So that chapter is a critical turning point, I think, for a lot of people in the book.

Marie Forleo: Yeah. It’s huge. And I love just to tag off of what you just said there. Seth Godin has an amazing book called Linchpin. And one of my favorite quotes from that book is about how now more than ever, what he calls artists are being paid more than in any time in history. And that word artists, he uses it in such a context where people bring that level of creativity to their work.

Marie Forleo: I mean, something you and I were talking about just before we started recording we were having fun, is just how much enjoyment for me I’m particularly getting out of bringing a sense of design to the world of personal development and business advice, and how we can use our creativity and really channel it through our businesses. I think it’s so exciting and it can be such a differentiating point that really sets you apart. And sets you apart not in a way that puts anyone else down, but really just creates this beautiful Mecca of what you were talking about, like your own fingerprint.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. If your work is miserable, then creative expression is not there.

Marie Forleo: Yes.

Brendon Burchard: It’s one of the easiest ones when I coach people, I’m like, and they share with me, “Well, I’m unhappy here.” It’s like, “Boom, I know we put creative expression back and they’re more fully engaged.” We just have to teach them about how to manage projects even differently in their lives so that they can be in “more creative control”, or beginning … Just the act of seeing a project from beginning to end is a needle mover for most people.

Marie Forleo: Can I tell you? I’m going to interrupt you for a second.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah.

Marie Forleo: When I read that in your book, I realized the people on my team, like some of the folks, because my team has grown dramatically over the past year. And it’s been amazing. And I realized one of the differentiating points, and you highlighted in the book, was seeing a project from beginning, middle to end.

Marie Forleo: And I saw two different projects, one where a key creative person on my team had to come in in the middle. And she was less satisfied. She was frustrated, not at me or at us as a company. But I couldn’t articulate it and she couldn’t fully articulate it. But then when she came in on a project where it’s right from the beginning, we all brainstormed, you know what I mean? And she saw it through to completion. And when I read that chapter in your book, I was like, “OMG, this is huge.” It was so awesome.

Brendon Burchard: It’s huge. You know what’s funny? That’s the number one part about the book that companies have been asking me to come and speak to them about. It’s like what? Two pages, two, three pages.

Marie Forleo: Yeah. Yeah.

Brendon Burchard: But it’s just a game changer in how we think about it because we all got trapped into thinking, “Oh, having all these teams and these outsource teams and having me master skill and handed off to everybody else, that’s the most efficient way to work.” It is and it’s the less fulfilling. And so it’s like, we’ve got to … Part of the reasons when I work with a major team to help them figure out what’s going on with them. I’ll just say, “Hey, look, I see you in sense here that no one is really satisfied with this because they haven’t had their hands on it.”

Brendon Burchard: I mean, no artist wants to come in when the painting is half done. And so we’ve got to teach each other to give our own paintings and finish our projects. And then you know, I know you and I are both right now talking to a lot of entrepreneurs. And I can tell you entrepreneurs, one of the reasons that you’re not absolutely satisfied with your business and where it is at a success level, a huge part of that comes from you’re not completing the projects you know you need to complete.

Marie Forleo: Amen.

Brendon Burchard: You’ve got a bunch of low frigging, low-hanging fruit. These projects could be completed if you just sat down and gave it another day, another two days, and you worked it, and you blocked off time, and you protected your time. You just did that, you’d crush it. But right now, what people do is they’ve got five or six or seven open projects that are never going to be complete, or be close to being complete. And that creates misery our lives because there’s a part of us, the human drive for control, and the human drive for congruence.

Brendon Burchard: Those two combining in a way that says, “Hey, this is something that’s on your plate. It’s not done. You said you were going to do it. Why not?” And we have this internal conflict now that makes us miserable in our business. And so, I tell people all the time, one of the reasons to master your productivity is not just so that you get stuff done. It’s so you actually get the benefit of feeling fulfilled and satisfied again.

Marie Forleo: Yes. So let me ask you this, because you’re amazing at getting things done and you crank out so much incredible work that changes so many millions of lives. Let me just ask you a little bit in the inside of Brendon. Is your work style to go, block out a bunch of time and just go hard and get it done versus chipping away at something over a long period of time? Do you get those?

Brendon Burchard: Depends on the project. The more important the project, the bigger the project, the more I’ll block time for that.

Marie Forleo: Cool.

Brendon Burchard: That’s definitely a big piece of it. But the chipping, if I am chipping, chipping happens for me in months. So meaning if I’m chipping away at something, it will be done in 30 days. There’s no question. A lot of people have been chipping.

Marie Forleo: For years.

Brendon Burchard: Or two. I’m chipping away at that book. I go, “You’re never going to write the book.” Block time is the most important thing we teach at High Performance Academy. This idea of when and where to block segments of time to get things done. And it sounds so basic. Even I can stroll in anyone’s life and look at how it’s organized. And if there’s no block time for creative expression, or creating the things that drives commerce for them, whether it’s products or programs or new services, that’s why they’re not advancing as much. They’re just not blocking the time. They’re getting stuck in, I call it browser blackout. They open the browser and four hours later, they’re like, “I fed a roofie or something.” They’re looking around, “What happened here?”

Marie Forleo: I always say, something we talk about in B-School and if it’s not scheduled, it’s not real. It’s like something we drive in where it’s like, “Dude, if you’re going to talk about it, it needs time in your calendar. It needs a chunk of time. It needs to be respected.” And just like little mantras like that, just knowing if it’s not scheduled, it’s not real. It can really change someone’s game.

Marie Forleo: One of the things that I remember from my days dancing and doing a lot with Nike is I discovered how I like to work best. And we used to have three or four days where we would create choreography then we would train the choreography meeting. We would teach it to ourselves. We teach it to others. And then we would record it and create these training DVDs that would then go out to hundreds of Nike athletes around the world.

Marie Forleo: And what I loved about that time was just like, I loved waking up early, and digging in. And knowing that within four to five, sometimes six, days we would knock it all out. And there was a such that level of satisfaction where yes, was I exhausted? My body was tired. Yes, I was sore. But the deep level of satisfaction knowing we created something excellent, we shipped it, so it’s out the door. And then there was a little level of rest a couple of days of just chilling out before we go into that next high intensity mode. It’s one of the ways I like to work. Yeah.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah, yeah. It’s a huge part. I mean, it’s another thing, and we’re trying to give a lot of tips here and this thing here for entrepreneurs it’s to realize is that if someone’s in a place where they’re not succeeding at the level they really want, it rarely has to do, is are they smart? Are they competent? Are they capable? It rarely has to do with, are the resources around for them to leverage? Or could they network better? It comes out with distraction.

Brendon Burchard: And because their energies are distracted in so many different ways that aren’t being complete, and in so many useless things that they end up losing literally millions of dollars. We did this study at High Performance Academy where we found out the average American watches four hours of television a day. Four hours of television today. Well, over the adult lifespan, that ends up being 13 years in front of the TV non-stop 24/7. 24/7 non-stop for over a decade of your life.

Marie Forleo: Oh my gosh.

Brendon Burchard: If that is horrifying, check this out. You take that same amount of time. And we say a person’s salary could be 20 bucks an hour. And you pull that through the lifespan as well over those 13 years. That was a million dollars in lost salary. A million. If you invest that at like a tiny percentage, just 3%, 5%, that ends up being over $2 million of lost opportunity four hours in front of TV. But here’s the deal. Everyone goes, “Well, I don’t watch four hours of television a day.” It’s like, “Yeah, but I bet you’re distracted four hours a day,” unless you’re managing your life really well.

Brendon Burchard: And so, a lot of people that distraction of four hours a day, whether it’s distraction because of browser blackout, or they don’t know how to use their inbox, or … And another section, they don’t know how to use their inbox because the inbox is a tool to be used. It’s my favorite saying of all my stuff is, in High Performance Academy, which is, and in the book, The Charge too we said this too is, the inbox is nothing but a convenient organizing system for other people’s agendas.

Marie Forleo: Yes. Oh, I love that line.

Brendon Burchard: Oh, you should get that. [inaudible 00:27:06] my inbox? I totally know my inbox is other people’s stuff. So I manage my day. But by the time I hit my inbox, I know exactly who I need to reach out to. I know exactly who I’m waiting a decision for. So when I open up, I look. Have I heard from these people? Nope. Send an email to them. Reach out to these people, boom, send it out to these people. Close. I’m done with the inbox until it’s time to come back and do it later on into the day. The rest of the day, block time, creating things.

Brendon Burchard: I mean, a very humbling statement from someone in our industry recently said that my brand we’ve created more content and more training programs with more hours of training in the last five years than almost anyone in the industry in their entire career. And I would put that up against anyone. I’m like, “Yeah, four books in that amount of time.” But more importantly, we’ve got five brands that do a million dollar plus. Those in five years, maybe in different genres. There’s not a lot of people who could do that. And I don’t do it to brag. I do it to go. The only reason I’ve been able to do that is by removing distraction and getting more strategic about the day.

Marie Forleo: Yep, which I love. I absolutely love. In fact, that brings us perfectly to one of my other favorite parts of the book, which is on page 226, a little curiosity. That’s why you have to go get the books so you can know 226. It’s the chapter about the drive for consciousness. And you talk about a really powerful question that we can all ask ourselves, which is, where shall I focus my thoughts right now?

Marie Forleo: And I love the distinction there. You said how it’s way more powerful than asking yourself, “What am I currently focusing on and thinking about?” And I wanted you to talk maybe a little bit about the distinction between self-awareness and self-direction. Because I feel like this book, The Charge, is really about giving us the tools to be self-directed and to take control of our lives.

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. Oh, I’m glad you picked up on that. Obviously, that’s a huge theme of being … Part of the reason people don’t feel fully charged and alive and fulfilled in their life is because in so many ways they’ve checked out. And they’re letting life happen to them. And they are not directing it anymore. And when we’re not in direction of our life, we do feel a sense of misery over a period of time. You can’t avoid it.

Brendon Burchard: And so, what we’re really charge is self-direction. The difference here is what happened, especially in our personal development industry, we started taking a lot from psychology, which is great. And I study psychology, as you know, like crazy. I’m very passionate about that work. If I wasn’t doing what I was doing, I’d be a therapist. Yet therapy is a very different thing than what we have to advise people to advance their life in our genre.

Brendon Burchard: So the difference is, in therapy, one of the question, main question is the therapist will say, “What I want you to do is I want you to focus on what thoughts are coming to your mind throughout the day and being very attentive to what those thoughts are, and where they’re coming from, and why they’re coming from this place, and whether or not those are supporting you or not.” And that’s really great self-awareness.

Brendon Burchard: But a lot of people in our culture right now. They’re stuck at self-awareness. But they’re fully aware of the crap. I hate when people say, “Oh, Brendon, everyone’s zombies and they’re checked out and they’re unconscious.” No, no, people, if you would talk to them, they’re very conscious of what their problems are, what their challenges are, where their frustrations are.

Brendon Burchard: People are very conscious of what’s going on in their lives and they’re not happy about it. They’re self-aware, but they’re stuck there. And so I say, “Look, there’s a better quality of question, which is instead of, ‘well, what am I feeling?'” It’s almost at a victim level question. I hate that I just said that. But it kind of is like, “Well, what am I feeling? Because naturally these feelings are just boiling up or what am I thinking? Because he stopped just hitting me on the head and that’s how I feel.”

Brendon Burchard: And I go, “No, no, no.” Look, here’s a better more impact question. What shall I be thinking right now? What shall I be focused on? What shall I be feeling? If I was backstage and I focused on what I was feeling at my events, then that would never serve the audience. Because half the time at my events, I mean, I’ve been speaking for four days, standing up for 12 hours a day without any breaks.

Brendon Burchard: My physical body might be saying, “Man, I’m really feeling I’m tired.” But I have to say, “No, what should I be feeling right now in order to serve?” If you’re going to go in and talk to your kid about math, you can’t be like, “Oh, what am I feeling right now?” We have to be more direct and say, “You know what? What do I need to feel? What shall I feel right now? What shall I be thinking about so that in this situation I can serve my child?”

Brendon Burchard: And this is a quality of life that says, it comes from this metaphor. It’s my favorite thing to tell people about their energy and their mind. And that is the power plant doesn’t have energy. It generates energy. And in our own lives, we don’t have energy. It doesn’t just sit here. We generate it. And as soon as we go from that, “Oh, I’m supposed to have it, but I don’t.” To, “I generate it,” that’s the moment when you know people’s lives change forever. Because it’s like, “Oh, I don’t have happiness. I’m not happy.”

Brendon Burchard: No, you don’t have happiness. You generate it. You don’t have confidence, you generate confidence. And when you know that, suddenly everything shifts. And I think it’s really important for people. So we tell them, and that was actually what was going off by the way on my phone [inaudible 00:32:19].

Marie Forleo: Yeah, yeah.

Brendon Burchard: I have this buzzer that goes off on my phone every three hours and says, “What shall I be focusing on right now?” And a lot of times I’ll be doing that I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I just spent 20 minutes focusing on something that’s totally irrelevant.” Knock that off. That’s distraction. Focus again. Choose where my focus goes. And that’s how I’ve been able to grow so fast.

Marie Forleo: I love it. So Brendon, first of all, you’ve shared so much today. First of all, I feel so inspired. I always feel inspired whenever I read your stuff, or I get an email, or I look at a video. But this has been incredible. And one of the things that we love to do on Marie TV is we love to challenge our readers, right? Because we want everyone to take action.

Marie Forleo: So I think a really cool way to wrap up this incredible interview, why don’t we challenge everyone in the audience, everyone who’s listening and watching right now, to take on this challenge. What do we say? What do you think about seven days? Do you think the seven-day timeframe is enough to see some awareness and shifts?

Brendon Burchard: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think people if they integrate what we’ve talked here, they can have this shift. I mean, people have a shift. It’s not about the number of days. It’s about how intense they get into the feeling and the emotion.

Marie Forleo: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. We’ll give them some specifics just so they can have a container. So we’re going to challenge you guys for the next seven days to set an alarm on your phone with every three hours with a note that pops up, where shall I focus my thoughts right now? And just take a look at how that dramatically shifts your life. I’m actually going to do it the moment we get off the phone and I’m so excited.

Brendon Burchard: You’re going to be so surprised. You’ll be like, “Oh my God, why do I have a bag of potato chips [inaudible 00:33:48]?” You’ll be totally surprised where your mind goes if you just let it go there without directing it to important and meaningful ends in your life.

Marie Forleo: Awesome. Awesome. I love this. So I know below this video we’re going to put some links. So Brendon is amazing. Obviously, if you Google him, you’ll find them all over the place. But we’ll tell you exactly where you can get the book and other cool things. Brendon is one of the best, most generous people I’ve ever met in the world at giving away incredible free training. Obviously, he has incredible paid trainings, all of which I highly, highly recommend. He’s just fantastic. Brendon, is there anything that you want to share before we officially wrap up?

Brendon Burchard: Yeah. One more challenge that they can engage in and share beneath the video as well that I like to do with this book specifically.

Marie Forleo: Yeah.

Brendon Burchard: It’s that our drive for challenge is so important in our lives. And a lot of folks right now they don’t have a significant challenge out there. They might have daily goals, and those are important. But goals are like a stepping ladder towards a bigger challenge. And so I’d say, if you want to relight your life right now, give yourself a meaningful challenge that does stretch you. It’s not a smart goal. Smart goal being specific and measurable and attainable and realistic. I think those stuff have done more harm than good for people.

Brendon Burchard: You know what it’s done, Marie? It’s taught the world to play small. It’s not the world to be more realistic. And I don’t think that right now we need the dreamers and the activators and the people are going to challenge themselves and push themselves so hard to contribute and make a difference. It’s going to inspire everybody. And I say, I have a big is I go off in the book a little bit about smart goals because it’s inspired an entire culture of spreadsheets and vision statements that inspire no heart and no drive and no courage.

Brendon Burchard: And so, I challenge people watching this, what is a significant challenge you’re going to set for? That is a little bold. That is a little scary, that is an ambition that’s meaningful to you? Not just about, “Well, today I’m going to do this.” But where are you going? What’s a challenge that’s going to drive you to do something inspiring?

Brendon Burchard: Like right now Marie is building Marie TV and it’s engaging. It’s a hard challenge. She’s not sure exactly how to do it, right? It’s like, it’s this creative, amazing thing. And she’s so smart with all this, but she knows she’s engaged by it because it’s a challenge. It’s bigger, and it’s meaningful to her. And she knows she can make a major difference with millions of people’s lives. That’s a challenge. So what’s your challenge? Post that below and I hope you all interact with that. Because just setting that challenge for yourself again will light your life on fire.

Marie Forleo: I love it. I love this so much. And I know you guys can’t see me because I’m frozen in a weird place. But if you could see me, you know I would be dancing my little buns off because I absolutely adore Brendon. Everything you shared, everything that you shared today it’s that gold and that wisdom for life that I know people are going to love.

Marie Forleo: And so, as always, the best stuff, no matter where you’re seeing this episode, the best things always happen after the episode at marieforleo.com under the comments. So make sure you tell us. Tell us about your challenge, where you’re going to stretch yourself, how you’re going to make an impact. And make it big. Make it scary. Make it so exciting that you want to go after it and dig into it with your heart and soul because you want to make a difference in the world. If you like this episode of Marie TV, like it and share it with your friends. Brendon, thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you everyone for watching us, and we’ll see you next time on Marie TV. Bye everybody.

Brendon Burchard: Bye everybody.

Marie Forleo: Hey, RHH Live is coming up. Are you coming? Go to rhhlive.com to reach us.

Marie Forleo: You’re watching Marie TV, the place to be if you want a business and life you love. Any questions? Just kidding.