SUMMARY

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Brendon Show. Please note that this episode, like all TBS episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Brendon Show 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 the Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

You have to learn to practice presence. Practice presence: being here fully in the moment, alive, vibrant, or at least attentive, right? Snapping your brain of that reactive, go-with-the-flow mode to knowing and being here. All of this advice, really all of personal development, is about presence and awareness — about being with the flow, about being in the moment. Every spiritual tradition has taught it as being central to human happiness and connection. 

This has been stolen from us because of this (holds up phone) — I really believe it. I’m stunned when I hang out with people who can’t be present for three minutes without one scroll through something. I mean, they can’t even for five minutes, they can’t do it anymore because they have trained themselves with millions of swipes to not be present. And I believe that meaning and fulfillment, become too fleeting when we haven’t learned to be really present. And I think that’s important — learning to be really fully present and pulling that from ourselves.

1. Train Your Focus

There are plenty of times where if you saw my schedule you’d be like, “How do you stay present?” I’ve trained myself. Otherwise, I can just be pulled in the next thing. There are always a million things going on around me, and I have to learn to zoom right in and be here with you. You have to teach yourself to do that, too, because the more days that blur by the less sense of meaning or fulfillment you have. You can be busy, but the days don’t blur by, right? 

I’m incredibly busy. The last two years, I can’t believe how busy we got. But during that time I force myself each day to be present so I can recognize and appreciate those little moments so I can create a connection with other people. So that I can sense that spiritual aliveness of being here now versus hoping one day to arrive at something.

2. Demand Yourself To Be Present

That practice of cultivating presence, of demanding presence — I demand myself to be present. Because I know when I’m not, I’m like, “Brendon, be present.” So I might bounce in place. Take ten deep breaths just to reset my brain and my body. 

Maybe you do it right now with me. Just stand up wherever you’re at. Bounce in place a little bit. Take ten deep breaths. Recenter yourself to the moment and keep going, and that way you can observe life.

Many people, they’ll work their whole career, then they’ll retire, and they’ll finally be like, “Oh wow, look at the color of the trees. This is amazing. Well, life looks pretty good.” and they didn’t even see it for five or six years. They missed all of it, even though they were amidst all of it. They just missed it. You have to teach yourself to be with it, to be here.

3. Stay Conscious Of The Great Moments

Meaning and fulfillment, we can define it and have a destiny mindset. We can feel it. I do it for like if I have a great dinner with Denise like things go great, we have a nice conversation. I walk away and I might be like putting things away and just really think in my mind, “What a blessing. Thank you so much for this blessing to be here with my wife. What a great day. What an amazing moment we just had.” You know what, years later, I’m going to cherish that dinner. Simple as that. 

So what we say to ourselves in the minute and after the minute is what really defines how we feel over the long-term, isn’t that true? I mean, the little moments, if you can celebrate them, be there for them, give thanks for them.

I believe the more you give thanks for the moments in your life, the more meaning you find. The more you give, thanks for the moments in your life, the more you feel fulfilled.

Even if you feel years away, if the next big thing is out there, it’s OK. Right now you’re feeling it.

4. Feel The Day More

That’s what presence is. It’s about feeling the day more. You hear me teach this now for what, 20 years like, you have to learn to feel life. If we don’t feel it, then what’s it about? And you’re not just going to suddenly one day feel it, you know, because you drank a bunch of coffee? Maybe you are. But you’re going to imagine me on coffee one day. You’re just going to teach yourself to feel the day and feel the moments more. You’re going to observe more, you’re going to breathe, the more you have more intention. And as you learn to feel the day when someone says, “Hey, you feel fulfilled by your act like I do because you’re filling life.”

When you fill your life with presence, you feel fulfilled. It takes active participation on your part. You’re not just going to show up one day and feel fulfilled. You have to fill the day with those senses of gratitude and meaning.

And really, I would say connection. If you don’t do that, I promise the day, just Blair, bye. And the more they blur by, the more you just stack on everybody else’s reactions, needs, desires, drives, distractions, their meaning, and one day you show up and you’re just you’re really just a bag of everyone else’s intentions and needs and drives and labels and meetings. And in that place. You’re not autonomous. In that place, you don’t get to experience that individual sense of meaning and fulfillment we’ve talked about from the very beginning because you didn’t take the time to define it consistently enough.