Summary
Have you noticed all the negativity in the world right now?
“Well what are you going to do about it? Will you drown in other’s pools of pessimism? Or will you take responsibility for the energy you are experiencing in life?
You have an opportunity (and responsibility) to bring positivity and good energy into the world. Here’s how to do it with intention:
1. Learn to Cue Happiness
2. Find the Humor
3. Be Helpful
4. Honor People
Watch the video above for the full lesson so that you can continue living #TheChargedLife!
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Charged Life with Brendon Burchard. Please note that this episode, like all TCL episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Charged Life has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of Youtube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)
Bring the joy. This is my favorite advice to give to people who say, “I want to change my life.”
I’m like, “Great. Bring the joy.”
You know, people always say, “Brendon, what should I bring to your seminars.”
I go, “Bring the joy.”
You know what I…”I’m going to come to your house on Friday for the party, what should I bring?” Bring the joy.
I feel that it might be one of the greatest pieces of advice ever that if you’re going to show up somewhere, bring the joy. Intentionally decide to make that situation or that place you’re going better. And so many people don’t do that. They walk into environments and they say, “Oh well, you know; the energy is what the energy is.”
And they just accept the energy that is in the space. And I go, “Actually, why not try and challenge yourself to be responsible to bring good energy into that space to charge it up, if you will.” I know you guys love the charge. Charge it up.
- Why not be that person who leaves an energy better than you found it?
- What would happen if we all started doing that?
Doing it in a real, authentic way but I think if you go out with your friends, you have an opportunity to bring some joy there, to sort of enrich their life with some positivity because don’t you feel like right now we’re surrounded by an incredible amount of negativity, an incredible amount of people being personally offended, angry about lots of different things. The complaining is unbelievable in the culture right now.
And talk about a weak level of energy. Complaining. Personification of anger. Like just this perpetuation of negativity. It’s like the world is drowning in its own pools of pessimism and the only people who are going to save these people are those who are going to come out and say, “You know what? Chill out. Calm down.” And the people who bring positive energy back into the world.
So I say, “Bring the joy”.
Look, as I’ve always taught, the power plant doesn’t have energy, it generates energy. You don’t have joy; you choose intentionally to generate it. Just like you don’t have happiness, you generate happiness by the way that you think, the way that you behave, the life that you construct. You don’t have sadness, you are constructing it. You are generating sadness.
We are consciously, ultimately responsible for our emotions. Yes, everyone will rally against me and say, “Well Brendon, you don’t understand. Some people have mental disorders, mental illness, emotional inability to control themselves.”
I’m like, “Yes, some do. A small percentage.”
And to those in those situations, it’s difficult and they need professional help. For the vast majority of people what we need to do is ask the simple question: “Am I going to allow random emotions to sweep through my life or am I going to choose to consciously generate positive emotions, experiences in my life?” It’s a choice.
Run around being automatic and impulsive or choosing to be intentional. I’ve been talking about it a lot on The Charged Life recently because we get all these questions about it. People say, “Oh it’s so bad right now, Brendon.”
And I go, “Is it really?”
I mean, is it really that bad right now or has it always kind of been the way it is that we make it?
People who’ve had, who always think it’s bad, they always think it’s bad. I think right now we have an incredible opportunity in our lives. There’s incredible abundance available to us right now. And I believe that the energy we want to experience in our life, we can choose just like the power plant. We can generate it.
- So, how do you generate joy?
- How do you bring the joy in your life?
Thought about this a lot and I think there is four simple secrets here that we probably already know.
The first one is we have to learn to cue happiness. We have to trigger it. Let’s say you go out with your friends and everybody around the table is just complaining and crappy and in a bad mood. You can join and you can add to fuel to that pessimistic fire or you could change the tone of the conversation. Change the direction of where it’s going. Shift the energy and you can do that by cueing happiness.
You can simply say things like, “Hey, I know there is a lot of negativity going on around in the world right now and obviously we’re all talking about. I’m just wondering, is there anything really beautiful going on in your family right now? Have your kids…did you kids do anything to surprise you, make you smile recently? Hey, is there anything that’s been going on that you just feel really grateful for?”
And just by now going around to each person, “Yeah you know what? I know there’s lots of negativity. Share something that you’re happy about right now.”
Cue the conversation of happiness and the energy of happiness starts showing up more often. Don’t do it by accident. I make it a challenge for myself of every group that I walk into, it’s my immediate cue. If I walk into a group, I go, I am going to lift the energy a little bit. I don’t always get it right. Sometimes, I’m annoying. But I’m going to try because I want to have positive energy in my life. So why not take responsibility and cue the happiness?
Number two: Humor. You could break the negativity by bringing in a little humor. I’d tell you what? A lot of people don’t know how to do this so here’s another example. Here you are with your friends at lunch. Everyone’s complaining. People say, “Well Brendon, humor is hard. If I use, if I make fun of them, they will get mad. If I poke fun at somebody or poke fun at myself, it doesn’t feel authentic.”
I go, “You know what? Find humor in the space that you’re in.” You don’t have to make fun of anybody there or even of yourself thought I personally like to do those things. But if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, find the humor. There is always something funny to look at and you can even say, “You know what guys? I’m sorry, have you noticed that funny picture over there. Looks like it’s looking at me.”
Or, “Hey, have you noticed that there’s a bunch of really weird looking people around here?”
Tell me you got something. I don’t know what it’s going to be for you but find something to point out that’s funny and even use the word funny. And people start changing their emotional energy. So, use it. Find humor. And you know what? I don’t care what you got to do. Think of, before you sit down in that table go, “What has happened that’s funny in the last couple of days?”
Kids say the darnest things. My son said this. Gosh, this funny thing I saw happen while I was driving to work. Or, Oh my boss said this. It was really hilarious to us.
Think of something. Before you sit down at the table with them, think. What’s happened funny? And then when you’re sitting down, everyone’s complaining and going, “Hey, you know what? I know, I appreciate everything you guys … I just, I couldn’t wait to see it because I want to tell you about this funny thing that just happened. This funny thing my kid said. This funny thing that I observed.” And you share your story of funny and it’s likely someone else at the table who share their story of funny and you just brought the joy to that table.
Last two big ideas. This one, bringing the joy can sometimes feel like being helpful. A lot of people feel alone in the world. And these people are complaining there. You can take a moment. Joy doesn’t have to be happy, happy, joy, joy, jump out of here. You don’t have to be a clown like me all the time. But sometimes, someone’s having a bad day and you know how to solve it, and usually, you wouldn’t. You just let them complain. But you interject.
And this time you say, “Hey you know what? I know you’re going through that. Here’s some advice I heard that’s helpful. Or here is something you could do that could help you.”
And bring helpfulness into the situation. Literally saying, the word help can make people feel better. It’s like, “Hey you know, I know that’s difficult. You know what might help is if you try this or you did that or you went to bed earlier or you said this thing next time that happens.”
Being helpful can change the direction of negativity towards joy. So, don’t forget to be a helpful human. Have what I call the helpful bias anytime you’re around someone. Because you know what? If you help then as soon as you help, it lifts the mood up a little bit. Then you can put on that happiness cue or that humor cue and things start to change.
Last one. I will tell you, bringing the joy, it’s so easy today is because most people don’t feel appreciated. They don’t feel seen or heard or validated. One of the easiest way is to bring joy to situation is to honor people. To honor them. To say thank you. To give a compliment that’s specific and sincere.
You know what? When you compliment somebody, they feel better. The joy starts arising within them. They feel good about themselves. They feel good about what they’re doing. But most people, they don’t give many compliments at all. Their compliments are very short. ‘Thank you’ and that’s it.
Take a moment to notice something about your waiter or waitress. The people who are serving and taking care of you and comment specifically. Comment with joy. Thank them from a real place and really have a conversation about it. “Hey, I noticed you did this for us. I really appreciate that. Do you do that for everybody or are we special today?”
Have a little fun with it but honor people. There’s nothing more that people need in their lives than to feel appreciated and validated. The reason most people quit jobs isn’t because they don’t like the job, they don’t feel appreciated with what they’re doing. The reason people leave marriages, they don’t feel appreciated anymore. The person just took it for granted that they were there and stopped sharing all the reasons they are appreciative for the other person. And so, you want to bring joy, honor people.
I hope that these ideas helped you today experience more of the charged life. I hope they found something inside that said, “You know what? I need to be more responsible for the energy around me that if I notice things to be happy about or I brought the humor or I honored people or I was more helpful, then suddenly people around me, they might feel better.”
And even if I could make them feel better, I would make myself feel better being intentional about bringing positivity in the world. Because you know what? You would regret at the end of your life, just being a curmudgeon, always bringing negativity into the world. But if you could bring some positivity in the world, if you can bring the joy, then you will know life would have been worthwhile. You will have felt connected and just vibrant about it. You will have felt what we call, The Charged Life.
