5 Tactics For Handling Yourself in a Crisis

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SUMMARY

  • “Give yourself some credit. If you don’t give yourself credit then your self-esteem bank account goes bankrupt and you won’t be able to handle the next crisis. You need to journal and learn to capture the little moments each day where you win.”
  • Crises occur in our businesses and personal lives all the time, but that doesn’t mean they have to consume us and take over our lives. Just like any other skill set, learning how to anticipate and work through a crisis well beforehand is the key to building the resilience and know-how to work through any difficult situation. In this episode, Brendon shares some tips and insights on tangible things you can focus on today in order to navigate a future crisis in your business or personal life.
  • “I will work myself through and be successful. I will work myself through the situation. Whether the situation ends well or not. I will work myself through. I will act with integrity. I will handle this the best that I can from the best place that I can. I believe that I am capable of figuring this out.”
  • If you’re looking for help on how to prepare yourself to handle a crisis with ease in the future, this episode is for you!
  • Watch the video to get the full teaching!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Motivation With Brendon Burchard. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, Motivation With Brendon Burchard 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.)

Because of the situation we’re facing today in the banking sector, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share some ideas of how you can deal with a crisis in your life. You know, maybe this is only going to be relevant to your week. Maybe you don’t even know what I’m talking about. And that’s okay. I tend to teach personal development in a way that is evergreen. You know, you can watch any of my YouTube videos or any of my teaching in the GrowthDay app, and you’ll see that, you know, 100 years from now it will apply five years from now will apply ten years ago it applied because I like to teach universal foundational principles in personal growth and high performance. 

However, today I’m going pretty specific to what’s happening in the world because I think it’s an important time to really consider how to deal with chaos and crisis in your own life. So let’s talk about that. I don’t know if you’ve been at the news dials this last weekend, and I rarely teach timely topics, but it’s so severe today that I thought I’d take it on. And that is, you know, on Thursday and Friday, there was a bank run on Silicon Valley Bank. And this is a huge regional bank, you know, one of the top 20 banks in the world, or at least in North America, I should say. And it is a stunning bank fail. I mean, stunning. This is something, you know, no one could have anticipated something with a bank with like $200 billion or so of assets in 72 hours being shut down and taken over by the FDIC. So I started getting calls Thursday night. Brendon, they’re going to shut down SRB, which is Silicon Valley Bank. 

Now, I have a lot of friends and investments in Silicon Valley Bank — a lot of founders, startup founders, a lot of investors, honestly, a lot of pension funds, a lot of nonprofits, a lot of small businesses are in Silicon Valley. 60,000 plus startups had their deposits, meaning their checking accounts in, their savings accounts in there. And imagine if you got a notification. Imagine if you got a notification this morning on your phone that said you could not access your checking account or savings account. That’s what happened to 60,000 plus startups on Friday. Think about that for a minute. It’s been politicized. Oh, banks suck. Investors suck. Silicon Valley sucks. But I’m like, “These are real people, most of them with a small team of, you know, 1 to 10 employees.” And all of a sudden they can’t get their checking or savings account. In fact, many of them, their mortgages are through the same bank. Their personal credit cards are through the same bank. So imagine if you woke up today and you literally can’t get to your checking account, your savings account, your credit cards or your mortgage. That happened for over 60,000 accounts on Friday alone. And the bank run that happened on Thursday, Friday and even over the weekend as people were, you know, removing deposits from banks all around the country was stemmed by fear. Most of the financial metrics were okay for the long term, but it created fear. So as a short-term liquidity problem where people go, I need my money. And they pulled it all out of banks at the same time. And because there was fear, the stock prices dropped. And that’s the contagion that happens in bank runs. And that’s real. And that’s happening now. Like now. 

So I thought I would talk about this not from a financial analyst perspective. That’s the background. That’s the generic version of it. When we try to turn it into how would you deal with chaos? What do you do in crises in your life when it’s getting hard? I’m going to go into five things to do when you hit crisis mode — this would be my playbook. All right. This is my playbook. 

1. Have Faith In Yourself

Number one. Number one, it’s a mindset move. And that is to remind myself that I have a rock solid faith in myself. Rock solid. It’s a reminder, no matter what’s going through. Brendon. You got this. You’ve handled way more difficult situations in your life. This is something I don’t like. I can acknowledge it, but this is something I trust. I will work myself through and be successful. I will work myself through the situation. Whether the situation ends well or not. I will work myself through. I will act with integrity. I will handle this the best that I can from the best place that I can. I believe that I am capable of figuring this out. That’s that confidence I’m always teaching you here in GrowthDay. Confidence is the belief in one’s ability to figure things out. Now, I don’t know the banking situation. I don’t know the financial situation. But you know what? I’ll work it through. 

And I know it sounds silly, but literally over the weekend I had to help founders, startup people, entrepreneurs find their confidence again. Like, “Hey, listen, I know that’s chaotic, but you’ve got to step back into your center. You have to step back into your strength. You have to step back into your knowing into your own centeredness.” Because if you’re not centered and you jump into the frenzy, you’re just amplifying the frenzy. Your people, the people around you, your own sanity need you to find that belief, that understanding, that readiness, that you got this and you have to give yourself that self-talk. No one else is going to remind you that you know these people. They have me as an investor or as a high-performance coach. So I spent all weekend with them. They have the blessing of someone else going, “Hey, let me let me remind you of the times that you have won before. Let me remind you of the difficulties you have been through before and survived, but in chaos.” If you don’t have someone to do that for you or with you, you don’t have a coach, then you have to do that for yourself. You got to take back your self-talk. I can’t handle it. I know what’s going on. I’m so scared. And you got to say, okay, wait a minute. I’ve been through a lot in my life. I reminded a lot of these founders. I said, Don’t you forget that you survived trauma before. Don’t you forget your survivor. Don’t you forget how far you’ve already come. Don’t you forget what you’ve already surmounted. But people forget that all the time because they haven’t done the personal development work that we talk about here in growth. They all have the necessity of integrating the wins in your life. What do you mean by that? 

Integrating the wins, it means that you’ve had success in your life. It means that you’ve come far in your life. It means that there are moments throughout the day that you’ve done a good job. There are days that you had, you know, goodness, that you won, that you succeeded, excuse me, that you made a difference. But if at the end of the day, you didn’t sit down and meditate a little bit on that or Journal of gratitude on that, you didn’t capture the good thing that you did or the good thing that happened to you. You didn’t integrate it into your identity. Then what happens is you go through life, always feeling the same low level of comfort and happiness with yourself. You never add to the bank account of your own strength. You never add to the bank account of your own character, of your own belief in self. What you do is you randomly go through the day, you randomly go through life, but you never gave yourself credit for all the times that you won. So your confidence level is the same as it was when you were a 17 year old girl in high school, and yet you’re 44 and your confidence level is the same as when you were a teenager. And that’s actually true for an incredible number of people. Really? I’ve been teaching personal development for full time, I guess, 17 years. You know, I’ve been coaching for 17 years, multiple people every single week, one on one. And I’m always to this day, shocked when I meet people who are successful or even have reason to feel successful, who still feel a level of self-esteem or capability from their teenage years or their twenties. And I’m here to encourage you. That’s why you do personal growth work, because a lot of personal growth work is reminding you of your real strengths and your real capabilities and your real self. And your real self is more expensive than this problem in front of you. 

Your personhood is bigger than the problem in front of you. You just forgot because you got wrapped up in the problem and you forgot you. You forgot what you have been through. You forgot the decades of survival. You forgot the decades of effort. You forgot the decades of progress. You forgot that. That you’ve already won millions of times. You just forgot those moments. You doubt yourself as a mom. But the kids, You know what? They’re still alive, right now. You know, they like you. Even. You know what? You even got to eat food yesterday. And you know what? You’re making some progress. You’ve done a good job, Mom. Allow yourself to feel it. Well, same thing in entrepreneurship. You know what? You formed the company. You got a bank account, You hired an employee. You got some customers. Give yourself some credit for this. If you don’t give yourself credit, your self esteem bank account is bankrupt. How are you going to handle the next crisis? You have to teach yourself to journal and to capture the little moments of each day where you win. The little moments of each day where you made progress. The little moments in each day where you were blessed by something you were given, something that you’re grateful for. This is the power of journaling. I’m going to say it a million times in your life if you study and follow me. If you don’t journal, there’s no way you are integrating the strength and the winds into your identity. So you still feel like that insecure 20 year old? But as you learn to journal and capture the wins and capture your progress and capture your good choices and capture the good decision and capture the blessings from God, all of a sudden you feel strengthened. You integrate those wins and you integrate the wins by reflecting on your day and being grateful for it. That’s journaling and reflecting on what happened today. The good, the bad, the ugly, the blessings. Feel good about it? I feel blessed by it. I feel strengthened by it. I feel emboldened by it. Okay. I’m confident I’m capable. Look at all the times I handled this. Oh, I handled this well today. Okay, good. Good job. Nice work, Brendan. All right. You can handle the next one. If you’ve never given yourself credit for handling all the days gone by, you’ll never enter the days upcoming confidently. You need to have that confidence. You deserve to have that confidence. But you have to integrate it. It’s a whole new way of being.

 

So let’s go back to what my point was. If you don’t have certainty in your life, things are going crazy. There’s chaos. There’s a crisis. You’ve got to begin with the self-talk that reminds you to have rock solid faith in yourself, to survive this, to get through this, and to do it well. Even if you can’t control the outcome, you can control how you are being in it. Even if you can’t control what’s happening in the world, you can control your sense of self, your faith in yourself, and your next right action of integrity. I know no matter what you throw at me, I’m going to take the next right action of integrity. I’m going to work through it. I don’t need to understand everything. I don’t need to be perfect. I don’t need to be an expert. I’m going to work through it the best that I can. And I know that of myself. So every time a crisis hits and let me tell you what all the entrepreneurs out there, you know, crisis hits every week. I mean, anyone who out there, you have a team or you manage a large team, you know, crisis hits every week. Do you trust yourself to show up and work through that? Do you give yourself that self-talk that says, I got this, I’ll handle it? Maybe I don’t like it. Maybe I didn’t want to deal with it. But okay, here we go. And that’s what I do. If I’ve got to deal with it, I won’t avoid it. 

See, avoidance is a short-term strategy to feel more comfort, to feel better, so we avoid things. It’s too hard. I don’t want to do it. And it feels good in the short term. But avoidance is also a terrible long term strategy. The longer you avoid what you must deal with, the more it grows into a monster in your mind. The more you avoid what you must deal with, the more you neglect the people around that problem too. The more you avoid, the less you’re able to actually progress in life. So you got to say, okay, I got to deal with this. Let me acknowledge it as real. Let me acknowledge that I’m going to deal with what’s real. The best that I absolutely can. If we can start there, that place, if we can learn it, be in that centeredness, in that place of I got this, I will handle this. Well, I’ll take the next ride. Axiom Integrity. Let me pay attention to it, not avoid it. I’m going to pay attention. I’m going to engage. And I have a rock solid faith in myself to handle it, even if it’s a hot mess, even if it’s not pretty. I’m going to engage. I’m going to do my best. Let’s go. I’m going to engage. I’m going to do my best. Let’s go. You must enter it from that position, not from the position of. I don’t know. I’ve failed before. I suck. People don’t like me. That one time I wore that sweater, everyone made fun of me in high school. No, no, listen, that’s not how it works. You’ve got to engage, come from a place of confidence. You’ve got to come from a place of willingness to deal with it because you have trust in yourself that you’re going to do your best. People say, What if I don’t have trust? Well, I already gave you the answer. 

You need to start journaling and capturing all the things that you have done well and integrate those wins into your identity. Fill up that bank account. Give yourself credit of all those times that you’ve done well, that you have survived, that you’ve helped other people, that you were kind, that you worked hard, all those little things, plus all the blessings that you’ve had that happen randomly or serendipitously or coincidentally or by faith or destiny, whatever you believe in, that these beautiful things that have happened to you. You’re blessed. You’re walking in faith. If you can remember that good things, good doors have opened for you. Maybe you met a great partner or spouse or you were lucky to have a child. Or are you lucky to have that business break? You can say, Man, why am I so lucky? Why am I so blessed? I must have some kind of favor or something above must believe in me. Or maybe the chaos just, you know, gets order for me in the universe. Or, you know what? Dumb luck, whatever you want to call it. Listen, I just believe things are going to turn out well. Why? Because the alternative sucks. Doesn’t mean I don’t engage and prepare and work through. It just means I trust in the long game. I trust in myself now. And I trust in the long game that there’s a higher plan for me. A higher destiny for me. I know not everyone believes in that, but that gives me the ability to have a rock solid faith in myself and my creator and my future and imagine any problem now in front of me. I have a rock solid faith in myself, my creator, and the future. Am I going to gauge? Yes, I’m going to gauge because I can trust now. This makes sense. So I had to talk with these founders. I’d get them right back into their own strength. I’m like, Hey, listen, you started this company. Even if you have to wind down this company, you will do it well, even if you can’t access your money this weekend and these next days, you’re going to reach out, you’re going to talk, you get into initiative mode, you’re going to communicate with your team. You got this first thing, rock solid faith in self. You must summon that. You must connect with it. You must find that centeredness. 

2. The Role Model Mindset

Second thing, you must adopt the role model mindset. You’re a leader, my friend. The team is watching how you deal with this. Your spouse is watching how you deal with this. The kids are watching how you deal with this. Every single crisis. The number one thing I always tell people right after we get them back connected to, they’ve been through a lot and worked through it before. And there is a role model mindset soon, as you said. How would I handle this if I was a role model? It summons a different level of integrity in dealing with the thing you know, as soon as you go, Oh, I’m a leader. How do leaders deal with this? Oh, people are watching. Let me do well through this. It gets us out of our own internal world, which is step one and reminds us, oh, we’re a social player here. Others are watching and I have the opportunity to inspire or serve them through this process. 

So these founders, even if they’re not going to get access to their money, which they have, but even if they had not, it was like, okay, I’m going to let my team know the reality of the situation and the way that I’m going to hold myself and speak to them is in a way that will inspire them, is still in a way that will serve them. I will meet their emotional needs. I will meet their communication needs. I will rise up and I will be a role model in situations that other people might say, you know what? That’s a case study of how to be in a tough time. We’ve got to summon that part of ourselves, and I think we have a responsibility to do that. We forget so often in this selfish world, I’ll just take care of myself and that I’ll take care of myself here is not how you make an impact in this world. That is not your legacy. That is not your destiny. That is not how you were built. You were built as a social animal to serve. You are built as a social animal to connect, to create, belonging, to have influence. Don’t forget that just because it’s hard, it’s vital. It’s vital there are other people around you, Right? So I want to ask you, when you were in that role model mindset, you’re going to ask, how would my highest, best self deal with this situation and treat others? That’s the role model mindset. 

Okay, you know what? I feel like crap. My immediate, impulsive, childish action would be this, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to rise up to my highs of how would my highest self deal with this and treat other people. Let me act from that because they’re watching. I want to be a role model in my life. I want to do well. I want to leave a legacy where people go, you know what, Brendon handled that well. I want you to do that. I want your kids to see you handle life well, even if it’s hard, it doesn’t mean they can’t see you. Sad, upset, scared, fearful. It’s okay to show the range of real emotions and what others need to see as you show vulnerability and real range of emotions and even concern, even fear. Say, “Okay, I’m feeling this. This is scary. I don’t like this and we’re going to handle this together.” We’re all going to take care of each other through this process. We’re all going to work through. We’re all going to take the next right action of Integrity’s through this. And even if we all do everything right, we work through it. We put out our best and it doesn’t turn out the best. Guess what? We can sleep at night knowing we showed up and gave each other our best. Let’s do that for each other. That’s the role model mindset at work you’ll follow. This is this powerful type and powerful. If you’re getting what I’m talking about, this is a choice. It’s a different way of showing up. It’s powerful. We’re going to work through this the best that we can. If it doesn’t turn out the best, we get to go to bed knowing we did the best we could for each other. This is powerful. This changes your life. This is when you and your spouse are in crisis with the kids, with the finances. It’s you together. We’re in this together. I’m going to support you, your support. We’re going to have each other’s back. We’re going to do our best. And if we fall on our face, at least we tried together. At least we gave our best. 

Let’s do that now. I had to get these investors and these entrepreneurs and these teams in this mindset over the weekend as they’re dealing with their banking imploding. They’re scared. And it was like, Hey, listen, I know you have to figure out your individual concerns, but don’t forget the team concerns. Don’t forget one another. You guys have built this together. You’re going to make this thing survive together. And if you can’t make this thing survive together, guess what? You’ll wind it down together and you’ll do a good job. You’ll take care of each other. You’ll take care of your customers no matter what Monday reveals meaning, no matter what the future reveals, you know, you’re going to show up and do your best. You know you’re going to show up and stay centered, treat other people well. That’s a role model mindset. And when you can step in, Yeah, you know, that’s right. No matter what the FDIC or the government, no matter what is announced on Monday, we’re going to show up and we’re going to be ready and we’re going to take care of each other and we’re gonna do this thing right. No matter what the outcome is. We’re going to take care of each other. We’re gonna do this thing right. Solid belief, solid, strong mindset going into the future. That’s why it was like that. And Brendon, doesn’t it bother you that, you know, in your industry the technology changes or there’s some new social media platform or now there’s artificial intelligence or now there’s this new gizmo and there’s this new thing you have to figure out, doesn’t it stress you out? All of the changes. I’m like, “No”, because change has been a constant in my life. And I decided as a teenager, you know what? I needed to learn how to deal with change because I sucked at it. So I started studying human behavior change. I started studying psychology, I started studying sociology, I started studying behavioral economics. I started studying everything I could to understand how people make decisions, how do I make decisions, and how do I handle change? Well, because change is a constant. It’s always there. And I’m not going to wait until I’m 50 years old to learn how to deal with change. So I decided literally in my twenties, I’m going to learn how to approach change. And these ideas started coming to me and I started teaching people on and this week and I saw it saved so many people’s mindset and really helped their teams really help their team. 

So I hope it’s resonating for you too. Again, I’m not trying to be a financial analyst about the situation. I’m trying to share that this chaos and any change requires us to find a rock solid belief in ourselves, maybe something higher, belief in our future, and the readiness to show up and work through the problem together, treating each other well, leading well, coming to the perspective from our highest self, not our lowest impulsive fear. 

3. Know Your Position

Third big idea: In any crisis, you need to know your position. Like know where you’re at, know your position. So for example, with all these investors and these entrepreneurs and founders I talked to this weekend, as we got through these two psychological pieces, the first two pieces, then it was about, okay, what’s your position like literally, where is your money? How much money is there? What other assets do you have? What is your financial position personally as well as the company? Like? Walk me through your actual position. Where are you compromised? Where do you have opportunity? Where are you compromised? Where you have opportunity? Right. It’s that old SWOT analysis. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your opportunities and threats? I just understood standing. Okay. What’s your real position right now? What’s real for you right now? Especially focusing, I focus on where’s the compromise, where’s the challenge, the struggle, the threat, and what’s the opportunity If there is one, what could it be? It’s hard to see it sometimes. It’s hard to see it, sometimes. So it’s like, okay. And for some of these founders, their only opportunity was to demonstrate great leadership. This weekend. That’s all they could do because they couldn’t predict the outcome. So their opportunity was, well, if anything, it’s an opportunity to lead. Maybe I can’t earn through it, maybe I can’t build through it. But it’s an opportunity to lead. It’s an opportunity to show myself what I’m capable of. And you figure that out. 

But what’s your position? Same thing in your personal life. Let’s say this crisis is a crisis in your relationship. You and your partner, your spouse, You’re fighting and fighting and fighting. You think the relationship is going to end. What’s your position in that relationship right now? Do you feel secure, honored, respected? Do you feel like you can handle the situation? Do you feel like you’ve explained your real thoughts, feelings, needs, desires? What do you want right now? What’s your genuine and real authentic request to your partner as you’re dealing with this conflict? Same thing. What’s their position? What does your partner or spouse, what are their thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, struggles, dreams? What? What’s their position in this argument? What are they trying to get or receive? Communicate, make it happen? Because they want something to do. They have a position. They are in that position. They have interests and needs and requests. And you need to understand those instead of just arguing from your position. Right. So people in a crisis or an argument or a conflict know your position first. What are my real thoughts, needs, desires, dreams? What are my requests? What do I want to see happen here? Getting clarity, right? Seeking clarity is the number one habit of high performers. 

If you’ve gone through the high performance course here in growth, which you all have for free under the core section, literally, if you haven’t watched that course, it’s a free $300 course you all got when you join Growth Day. And let me tell you what, if you haven’t watched it in the last two years or last year, watch it. Because right now the world needs you to be high performing and that first habit is seeking clarity. That’s what I mean by knowing your position. You have to ask some questions. You have got some clarity on what is your position and what’s their position. So I had to help these founders like, okay, hey, let’s just talk through what’s your position, What are the compromises, what are the opportunities? What’s your position as a leader? What’s the position of your company? What’s the position of your finances? What’s the mission of your investors? Have you heard from them? What’s the position of this bank run like? Let’s understand and assess the situation and know all the players on the field and know what’s happening with those players on the field. Right? You can’t always control the players on the field. They’re all running around. But here you are with the bat. And so you’ve got to make an assessment and an understanding so that when you take your next action, when you take the swing, you’ve got some clarity about where everybody’s at and what you want. That’s knowing your position, right? Same thing in all sports, right? If you’re a center and you’re on the field and your hands in the dirt and they’re about to call the play, you’ve got to kind of know what the position of the team is, who’s got the strengths, where are they? If you’re in basketball, you’ve got to know who’s on the court. If you’re a football soccer player in America, you got to know where everybody is. The greatest players in history just know the position of themselves and everybody else. And they’re being a little strategic and thoughtful about it. That’s your job, right? Think about the greatest football or soccer player in the world. It’s that there’s videos of them just positioning themselves on the field. They’re not even running as fast as everybody else. They’re just watching. They’re putting themselves in prime positions. This is knowing your position, knowing where you’re at in that crisis or that conflict is helpful. 

Is this helping you guys? I know it wasn’t the plan for today, but this is the power of being in growth day. This is why you stay with us. This is why you tell people about Growth Day. This is why you use the tool. This is happening, people. We’re doing this together. This is happening right now. I hope this is firing you up for your week. It’s like, whoa, okay, we’re all right. Let me know my position. You’re going into the week. What are your goals for the week? Where are those projects? You started ten projects in the last three months. Where are they? What’s the position of those projects started? Not started preceding that proceeding. Red light, yellow light, green light. Where are we at? People, we got to know where we’re at every Monday as we go into the week. I know you hear what I’m saying. Okay. We said, number one, get a rock solid in faith in yourself or your creator or the future center yourself. Integrate those wins. Come at it from a place of confidence. Number two, adopt the role model mindset. I’m going to do well and lead in this situation. I’m going to approach this from my highest self because other people are impacted. They’re watching and I have an opportunity to care for them and lift them up and serve. Number three, know your position. What are your thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, dreams, outcomes that you’re after? Where are your projects? Where are your points of strength or compromise? What are the other players on the field? Where are they at? What’s their position on this? 

4. Ask For Help Fast

 

 

Number four: Ask for help fast in a crisis. Ask for help fast. If you don’t know what to do, start reaching out to people who might know what to do fast. Don’t wait seven days. You know, I was really proud. A little bit overwhelmed, to be honest with you. My phone lit up this weekend. But these founders, because I’ve coached them or trained them or invested in them and taught them this, it’s like if you’re in crisis and you don’t know, call people like literally my texters. I mean, I’m not kidding you. By Thursday night, maybe 100 texts, you know, by the end of day Friday, it was completely I mean, almost everybody I knew who was in the community of technology who were founders, investors, major players, they were like, what is going on? Have you heard of it? How would you deal with this? And they don’t come for me from a financial perspective. They’re coming from like, Holy crap, this is scary. And it was just so many. It was unbelievable and I was proud of them. 

The first text back, if you got one from me, it was, “Thank you for reaching out.” Good for you. I might not know what the answer needs to be, but I always celebrate someone for reaching out. If you’re struggling in your marriage, talk to some of your friends who seem to have a good one or get a counselor. You know, if you’re struggling in your finances, call a financial advisor. If you’re struggling with your health, talk to your doctor. Follow that biohacker that you like. You know, reach out, ask for help. If you’re struggling with your children, talk to a parenting expert or somebody in your neighborhood who knows you and your family who seem to be doing okay. You know, it’s about asking for help sooner than later. So many people suffer in silence for days, weeks and years. And when you suffer in silence, not only is that torturous of your own mind because you’ve either fooled yourself that you’re alone, but more importantly, there’s no progress. There’s no breakthroughs like reaching out and asking for help is so important. And I think it’s really relevant. You know, I brought up many of the founders this weekend when I was beginning my career as a writer and teacher. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I promptly went broke and there were probably not kidding four or five months there that I was so ashamed and so embarrassed that I was going broke. I didn’t ask for help. And so by not asking for help, writing any new strategies, my financial position got worse and worse and worse and worse. And finally it got so desperate I had to reach out for help. And everyone I reached out to have said the same thing. Why didn’t you reach out earlier? May not even know that was going on. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, I made that fatal mistake. I suffered in silence. I didn’t raise my hand. I didn’t reach out and I know what you’re going to say. Well, I don’t want to reach out because I’ll be embarrassed. Well, you’ll be less embarrassed by reaching out sooner because the problem only gets worse the longer you wait to deal with it and get some assistance or some perspective. I promise you, it’s always better to reach out to help sooner than later, Sooner than later. It’s just like if you’re not calling for help when it’s needed and I know you say, well, someone might not reply or they might not like it, stop making up the future in your brain when you’re in crisis and things aren’t going well and you don’t know how to solve it, don’t make up the future in which you’re catastrophizing. Well, everyone’s going to make fun of me. No one will get my back. You don’t know. You don’t know. That’s why you’re in this position. Have enough humility. Go. I’m in this position. I actually don’t know. I have to ask for help. You don’t know how they’re going to react. That’s why you’re in this position. 

So it’s important to reach out and ask for help. And I know you can make a million excuses about this and this is what the human mind does. You’re going to make a million excuses not to reach out to help because you’re human. Evolution wants belonging so much that you fear that you’ll look weak or dumb. And because you feel that you look weak or dumb or inadequate or incapable, you won’t reach out to help because you don’t want others to see that, because you think they’ll ostracize you. And I always go, Man, if you’re letting that old school DNA biology drive you as a conscious adult, welcome. I’m glad you’re into personal development. Now we need to break through that. That’s some old school teenage stuff you got to get over. It’s like, No, you’re an adult. You’re capable of asking for help. You got to raise your hand. You got to reach out fast. That is a priority in a crisis. To understand the position of the lay of the land, you often have to reach out. Hey, what are you seeing? What should I do? Have you been through this before? I’m in trouble. Do you know anyone else who can help me with this? Even if you know the person’s not an expert, but they’re a trusted confidant, You can ask them. Hey, do you know anyone? I know this is in your area. And I got, like, I don’t know, five or seven of those calls this weekend. They’re like, Hey, Brian, I know this is not your area, but do you know anyone? I trust you. Is there anyone you know? And it was just literally a text away. It’s like, oh, let me connect you. Let’s talk about first. And if they didn’t ask, they wouldn’t get that. So always ask for help sooner than later. Totally important. 

5. Center Yourself With Breathing

Last idea, number five: Work through the situation centered in breathing. I know it kind of sounds like the first point, but I have to really land it for you. You’re going to work through this. You’re going to work through this. And you have two choices. As you work through it. You can work through it as a scared child or you can work through it as a capable adult who can manage their own emotions, who can breathe through it, even if there’s fear, even if they’re stressed, even if there’s anxiety, you can do everything. You can manage your physical, emotional, mental, spiritual being. As you work through it. You’re going to work through it like the thing is happening in either you’re working with the thing and working through the thing or just happening to you and you’re a victim. And if you’re a victim to everything, life feels terrible. But you say, You know what? All right, I’m going to engage it. I’m going to work it through. But here’s what the point of this one is. I need you to work through it centered in breathing. You know, if something really triggers, you can get you up, freaked out. Then you know what? You need to take control of your body in that situation.

Through this weekend, I’d be on calls and I was so stressed for some friends that during the call I would just put my hand on my belly and I would start breathing in deeply like really breathing and deeply. I would walk around because sitting at your computer talking to people stressed is terrifying. So I would literally get up and I walked around my property on phone calls with people walking and breathing. They could hear me. They’re like, You’re walking. I’m like, I’m walking, you know, just because I have to take that emotional stress and I have the physical visit to release it. So I would walk around. I’d focus on my breath, even as I’m dealing with the difficult situation in between calls, I would literally hit the ground and do like 10 minutes of Vinyasa flows like downward dogs, you know, cat cows and stuff like that. I would do air squats just opening up and activating my brain and my body with some air and some movement to move around my body, my blood, my lymph to activate it just so I was like, okay, right. To deal with that stress and anxiety, releasing it a little bit through some movement was important as I was doing it. And I don’t mean like once or twice. I mean, I probably did it like I was doing this type of activity probably every 30 minutes to every hour. 

And so as you’re dealing with a crisis, be highly attentive to how you are releasing the stress as you go through your physical body in your breath, like literally doing that. Also, I was telling the founders, do the hardest thing. I was like, make sure you sleep tonight. Like, I can’t sleep like sleep because if you aren’t and you’re dealing with a crisis, it just amplifies that emotional anxiety. Get some rest, wake up, and do meditation. I’m telling all my friends right now, I want you to meditate two or three times a day. Even if it’s just five, 10 minutes, you’ve got 15 minutes to meditate throughout the day. So I taught him the release meditation technique. If you don’t know what that is, you can literally just YouTube it. Brennan, Burchard, release meditation technique. You know, 2 million plus people have watched that video and a couple of million do it every single day now. And so I want you to do the release meditation technique. Just release the tension in your body, release the discouraging, the fearful thoughts, and just repeat that mantra of release over and over and over. Do that. Five, ten, 15, 20 minutes, multiple times a day, and all of a sudden you have a more clear mind. And as you do all these things, you start to realize, Whoa, I can have a clear and centered mind, even if there’s so much noise around and you fall back into your center and into your strength and you will handle the crisis better. All right. I’m going to do this. I want to cheer you all on as you’re dealing with any crisis in your life, whether it’s in your relationship or it’s in your finances, whether it’s in a project or your business, whether it’s your team or something, you’re just feeling internally. I want to let you know we’re cheering you on here. You know, you’re part of Growth Day because we just know that personal development has to be a way of life because life throws stuff at you. It’s why we’re here every single day for you. If you didn’t know, I leave a daily life coaching audio for you in GrowthDay, where I’m just trying to take everybody in our community to a level of higher performance right now when it’s really hard. If you didn’t know every single Wednesday, we are here live for you with another 50,000 or 100,000 keynote speaker training on a topic in person from every Wednesday. And even if you can’t access it live every Wednesday, watch the replay once a week. You know, if you listen to mine daily or you watch that live teacher once a week and you can pick from nine, We’ve got diverse teachers from all walks of life. Watch them once a week just to bust some of this goodness in your ears. I promise it will help you deal with things because what you’re doing today and what you’re always doing in GrowthDay is you are conditioning a stronger mind. That’s what we’re all doing. The personal development journey is really about conditioning a stronger, more authentic, more joyful, more engaged, more confident mind so we can deal with the difficulties of life as they come up. We’re growing in our knowledge, skill, ability and capabilities in life. That’s personal development. That’s the beauty of what we do on GrowthDay. That’s the beauty of you being here. 

So if you haven’t used the tools for a while, if you heard anything today, please start journaling on a daily basis. Like just coming into growth and journaling. If you don’t know what to journal about, press any of the buttons and we’ll give you props, we’ll give you questions, we’ll give you a sentence starters to consider. Just get in the habit of journaling and especially capturing the things you’re grateful for. The decisions that you made, the tough things that you overcame because you have to integrate those wins and you have to build up that bank account of strength, those bank accounts of reminders of the times you handled things well and things went well. If you don’t capture them, like literally capture them, you forget them and you don’t get stronger as you go throughout your life. The reason you journal is you’re getting stronger throughout life. You’re reflecting and integrating what’s happening in your life. You’re creating a more cohesive story which allows you to be more cohesive and centered in difficult times. So if anything captures this practice of starting a journal and GrowthDay, let us prompt you and guide you through the process or just capture it by yourself, capture and join our Wednesday Wisdoms, or watch the replay in the replay area under the Learn section. Just engage in this content. We’re building new grooves in your mind to help you grow. I love that we say here every day is a great day to grow. And we honestly all did it together during a real crisis. So I hope these steps help you invite somebody into growth day to day. We do this kind of work all the time and I’m honored to do it with you together. Thanks, everybody. Go win this week.