6 Personal Health Habits

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SUMMARY

  • “If this has not been the year that you have made the decision as an adult to get in the best health of your life ever, make that this year.”
  • Are you ready to step into a healthier life but not sure what steps to take? In this episode, learn how you can implement shifts in your mindset and daily routine to better your overall health and wellness. 
  • “At some point, we have to take dramatic personal responsibility for our health.”
  • We all know that health is the foundation of our lives. In this episode, learn 6 habits you can adopt to improve and sustain the healthiest version you can be.
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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.)

1. Health is Luck … and Self-Respect

Today, I get to share some ideas with you on health that I’ve learned in my own personal journey, but also as a High Performance Coach for 16 years. You know, one of the fundamental, most important things that we all want in our life is a sense of vitality and that vitality is we want to feel, you know, mentally engaged, alert, focused, enthusiastic. We want to feel energetically, like physically energized. Right? Physically, we want to feel a sense of that health. And it’s one of really the only four things that we all deeply desire. We talk a lot about it here in GrowthDay that you can give anybody anything, but what we all really truly want is:

  • Aliveness – that’s what I mean by vibrancy. 
  • Connection with others and with ourselves. 
  • Meaningful pursuits – things that we’re doing, that we enjoy or see as important or contributing.
  • And growth – like growing as persons.

So all of that is really important. But that sense of aliveness, I always put that on the top of that little diagram because it’s so important to us. When we don’t have a sense of aliveness, even if we have amazing relationships, when we are fatigued and wiped out, we can have the greatest marriage or partner spouse or intimate relationship, but the zest isn’t there. We can have a great job. We can have incredible opportunities to serve. We can love our passions and our hobbies. But if we’re wiped out, it doesn’t feel as good. I know you all know this, and that is why it’s so important that we focus on our health.

Now, I want to do full disclaimers with you. I am not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a neuroscientist. I am not a health advisor or coach or medical professional in any capacity. I’m a High Performance Coach. This means I work with people primarily on their mindset and their habits and their relationships. And today, what I’d like to share is a couple of ideas and I’ll remind you, as a High Performance Coach, one of my fundamental jobs is to challenge my clients to a higher level. So in doing that, I will of course, share my own journey and my own struggles, but mostly focus on what we’ve learned in the science. I will also share with you the idea that I’ll be empathetic about it, but also I want to be that person who challenges you in this area of your life. For 15 years, every audience I have stood in front of in my life, I have said, “if this has not been the year that you have made the decision as an adult to get in the best health of your life ever, make that this year”.

I’ve said this for 16 years in front of every audience I can get in front of because I believe most of us, we look back: well, I was healthier when I was a kid or maybe I was healthier when I was in my 20s or whatever. And we just don’t say: you know what? This is going to be that year! But I know some of you have. You said: maybe this is the year I’m going to eat healthier. I’m going to sleep better. I’m going to work out more. I’m going to pay attention to, you know, my nutrition or my supplementation. I’m going to run a marathon. I’m going to, I mean, what you all do as strivers and achievers always blows my mind and it raises my aspiration. But I want to do the same thing for you today.

I want you to raise your aspiration and your vision in your health, even if you’re struggling right now, which you can hear we all do. Even if it’s been a challenge in the past, OK, but at some point we have to take dramatic personal responsibility for our health. If it’s true that we all want a sense of aliveness, mental energy, physical vitality, that pop and zest in our lives, and if that’s true, then accept the challenge today. And please be aware, I’m offering this today in that context, knowing, as you know, we can have the empathetic conversation, but we also must have the personal accountability and personal vision conversation in personal growth. And that’s my job for you today. My job is to raise that level up. That’s what I do as a High Performance Coach. Those are my disclaimers for you today, because as I jump into my points, some of them will feel like I’m pushing. And I know sometimes people say: oh, you know what, he doesn’t understand or he thinks everybody. And I’m like, no, no, no, I understand. But it’s still my job. It’s my job as a High Performance Coach to lift that higher level, to be that kind but demanding force in our lives. In my life. In your lives.

If I didn’t demand more from myself than now, how I naturally felt all the time, trust me, there would be no GrowthDay. There would be no half billion views of my videos or 100 million downloads of my podcasts. There would be no impact. We would have never met because it’s very easy for me not to do my daily job or my health routines just like you. It’s an easy choice, not to do the things we know that are good for us. How do we get us there? We’ve got to set a higher standard. We’ve got to demand it of ourselves. So forgive me, that will be my framing today. It’s not always popular, especially in the health category, to say these things, especially in the mental health category to say these things. So please understand my framing. Not a doctor. High Performance Coach – going to challenge you and you’ll know that with this very first point. So here we go.

My first point today is health is luck. Dot, dot, dot AND self-respect. Whew! The first time I ever said that, it was by accident on stage. And I heard myself say – Oh! And the audience kind of hushed out a little bit. Uh oh, I’m in trouble. But here’s what I mean by that: health, we have to understand, there is a evolutionary and a biological reason that you feel the way that you do. Right? There is – it’s very important to understand in both, I really believe, mental health and physical health, it is that kind of 50/50 kind of thing. And when we blend it together, by the way. But there is no question that some people biologically feel more fatigued or more depressed or more anxious. We have to understand that you and me are not the same biologically in how our energy might be. And I hope that that always introduces empathy and compassion, that there is a big luck card that we get. I have friends literally who are born without limbs. I have friends who are born with conditions in which their brain functions in very unhealthy ways. I have friends who’ve died so early of cancer. I have friends who, um,  have struggled with mental health. I have friends who’ve committed suicide. I have friends and family who struggle constantly with all sorts of biological health issues that is quote unquote not their fault. And it’s important to realize that.

Some of you, you feel terrible biologically, even though you’re drinking all your water, you’re eating all your greens, you do move and you do exercise. And so, I’m here to say there is no preaching. We all have to take the cards we’ve been dealt and figure out:

  • How to care for ourselves
  • How to optimize the best that we can
  • How to improve, even if it’s little bit, incremental by incremental

But it starts with a biological understanding of wherever you’re at. And this is why, again, as a person who’s not a medical professional, I’m like, listen, if you don’t understand closely how you feel and why you feel the way that you do. Please, please, please. If you’ve never done it, go get a full workup of every frigging health test you can. As an adult, as somebody who’s accountable for your health, go get the blood tests, go see the nutritionists or the dietitians, go work out with the trainer, go literally do all the genetic testing that you can do to understand what’s up with you.

I always tell the story of a friend of mine who’s one of my partners in one of my businesses. One of my best friends in the world who discovered at the age of 40 that – you know, every morning he always had the sniffles and his nose was running and he’s clearing his throat and everything, and found at the age of 40 that he was allergic to eggs. At the age of 40! Didn’t know he spent 40 years having these reactions that made him fatigued and blowing his nose and everything because he was allergic to eggs. And I think that’s a sad thing about our society is that we’re not taught or trained or honestly empowered or equipped or served with some simple health support when we’re young that says: hey, look, it seems like you’re allergic to this thing. Don’t eat it! I mean, how is that not part of our educational process, right? Or our health care system that of course, we would all find out very early on and be tested multiple stages of our life including every new decade. What are we allergic to? What preconditions might we have? What’s our genetic – what’s our genetic makeup leading us towards? So this is where I say health is luck, right?

Health might be luck, but it’s your job to be aware. Your job. No one else’s. No one’s going to come and save you here. You’ve got to do the testing and see the medical professionals, professionals and dietitians and people who can help you optimize and care for your body. I believe that has to be something we demand of ourselves. It’s not served to us, at least not in the society I live in, so we have to take accountability for that. So health is luck! Dot, dot, dot. 

But here’s the thing. It’s also self-respect and self-love. It’s a hard thing I’ve had to deliver to a lot of clients. I’ve had to deliver to teams and employees all around the world. It’s a very tough thing to say to people, and I get why people don’t like when I do. And when I say it’s self-respect, what I mean, like this is … I’ll give you an example, maybe a metaphor. Would you go to, you know, one of your random neighbor’s house – would you go there and, you know, pull up in a big – with a big dump truck of garbage and shovels and and just go start shoveling in and breaking their windows and vandalizing their house? Of course everyone says: well, no, I wouldn’t. Unless you hate your neighbor! But most people are likem what are you talking about, Brendon? Would I vandalize my neighbor’s house and throw garbage in? Of course I wouldn’t. And yet, we vandalize the very temple that we have been given. We throw garbage in the very temple that we have been given.

And what I found through years of studying psychology, but also actually doing the academic research and also doing the field testing with all our millions of High Performance clients over the years, is as one’s self-respect and self-worth go up, their health habits improve. In fact, often when their health habits improve, their self-respect goes up. I really believe it is a perpetual evergreen loop. Someone with greater self-respect and self-love, of course, they want to care for their temple because they care for their life. They care … they care for their energetic force. They see themselves as stewards of the temple or stewards of the energy or the spark inside. They care for their energy levels because they care for themselves. And I’ve been there.

So if you think I’m preaching here, for those who don’t know my story, when I was 19 years old, I had suicidal ideation and planning. I’d had a huge break up in my life. I did not have the emotional tools needed to deal with that situation in my life. And so I fell into a deep pattern of self-hatred and stopped taking care of myself entirely. I mean, entirely. Not eating, not showering, not, ya know, doing anything. And so I understand that path. I’ve been down that path. I’ve coached through that path. And I have to share with you that we have to be attentive to the deep correlation between how we care about ourselves and think of ourselves and our self-worth and our health practices. It’s really vital. It’s very important. If you’re not taking care of yourself, there is an emotional reason and an identity reason, something about yourself that you are blocked by, upset about, angry about, sometimes disgusted about, or there’s that self-hatred. And so I’m telling you here, I’m telling, I’m here to tell you that is one reason, especially in the world of mental health. I’m always like, see a therapist. If your health practices have sucked for two decades, if your health practice has sucked for a decade, don’t blame it on your sweet tooth. Go see a therapist. Get some emotional support to understand what’s the underlying thing happening here that I’m not taking care of myself? So I begin our health conversation by recommending therapy if you have not been practicing health habits well, especially over a period of time.

There’s sometimes trauma there. There’s sometimes negative self-talk there. There’s sometimes patterns that are hard to break without a professional assisting you. And so I’m always that person who’s like, hey, I’m going to tell you to optimize. I’m going to challenge you. I’m also going to say, if you really struggle with this for a long time, get some help, babe. Sometimes you need that. And so please hear that respectfully from me because I care about your health.

What do I mean by this: other than that with health is self-respect? Well, you know what? Sometimes when we keep ourselves accountable, when we say we’re going to do something like work out. When we say we’re going to do something like eat better. When we say we’re going to do something, take a walk after dinner. When we say we’re going to do something, good morning routine. When we say we’re going to do something, work out with friends. When we say we’re going to do something, sleep at a regular time. And we actually follow through on what we said we’re going to do, we become healthy mentally and obviously physically because we follow the practices. Self-respect is earned by following through on what we say to ourselves in a positive light. If we say, I’m going to practice this positive thing and we do it, even if it’s just get up, put the shoes on, go for the walk, you said you’re going to do it and you did it. Your brain: bing! Hits with dopamine of self respect that says: good job! I followed through. Follow through is self respect.

If we want more health, we need more esteem, self-esteem, the respect of one’s self, the belief in oneself. Because we have a track record, we say: I am a person who follows through. Maybe I haven’t done it before, but I’m a person from this day forward, there’s a demarcation line. There was the old me who made a commitment, who didn’t follow through. There’s the new me who’s going to get the help, support, plans of action, routines in place, recalibration so I can reset and I’m going to go. There’s the new me that progresses because I said I was going to do it. I’m going to do it, babe. Self-respect. Our health is a reflection of self-respect, respect of the temple, respect of the spark inside, respect of our values and our dreams, to have a sense of aliveness and energy and mental stamina in our life. I’ve never met someone who said: I just want to be tired all the time. We know we have the biological impulse to want to feel good and have energy and to live life. It’s upon ourselves to respect that impulse, to show up for that impulse, to work for that impulse, to respect ourselves by following through. I know you already know that, but the day you commit to that understanding of following through on what you said you’re going to do, I’m telling you what, as your esteem goes up, of course you’ll take care of yourself better.

2. Routines and Recalibrations

Second big idea. I told you, I go at you today. I told you there would be some challenge here. Second, simple idea. This will be the most simplistic thing I share today. Health requires two things, OK? Health requires two things:

  • Number one, routines. 
  • And number two, recalibrations.

OK, let’s talk about that. Health requires two things: routines and recalibration. So routine or we could call it a habit or what I like to call in our high performance research, we talk about the phrase of a deliberate practice or a deliberate habit. I personally, deeply believe that people who want to be healthy, who think their habits are going to carry them over the line, don’t know how work, how life actually works. Right? We fall falling in love with these simple, gimmicky habits that we’re supposed to do and the way of thinking about habits. That’s not how it works when you grow. Growth requires deliberate habits, not automated habits. It just happened – they’re so easy – no, deliver habits. OK, I’m going to do this today. I’m going to implement this thing. I’m going to choose to do that as a routine, as a practice, as a deliberate habit that I have to like conscientiously decide to go to even if it’s hard. Routines, you know, those might be eating well, working out well, sleeping well, finding out what works for you, which we’ll talk about in a moment. But here’s the deal. If you don’t know your routines, if you don’t have patterns, practices or plans for your health, how are you supposed to ever feel your best or even feel better? You got to have a plan in place.

One of my favorite things to do is when I work with a client and some of you know, when I work with, like one on one with the client, it’s a big deal. I rarely do that anymore. You’re talking about like seven figure levels of work. Very rare that I’ll do that. But one of my favorite things to do with an actual paying client is ask them to take a picture for me of their list of health habits. And you know what they usually say,

“Gosh, Brendon I don’t have one”. I go, “Nowhere written down in your house is a list of your health habits or your health goals? It’s not written down?” Well, no. Did you ever journal about it? Well, yeah, I guess one time, you know, on New Year’s four years ago. They don’t even.. it’s not even written down… there’s no plan. They’ll tell you. I’ll ask what’s your health plan well, you know, I like this routine or, you know, I like kale. They’ll tell you  something. You know, I had to drop a kale joke up in here.  It’ll be like, they’ll have an idea. They’ll have a list of things that they’ll pontificate on that works for them once in a while. It’s nowhere written down you know.  I love my friends, when for the first time, they go to run a marathon, and often they’ll get a coach or they’ll start reading books on it or, you know, they’ll look something up on the Internet and realize, “Oh, to run a marathon, there’s a plan.”

And listen, if you just go in and try to run a marathon yourself, I guess a small percentage of the planet could figure it out and actually pull it off. The rest of us humans, we follow the plan. That plan is starting small, getting a little bit better, focusing on these things, running a little bit longer and a little bit longer and a little bit better. And then all of a sudden you ran a marathon. It’s an incremental approach. But guess what? There is a plan. No plan, no gains. No plan, no change. No goals, no growth. And so, if you want health to be something important in your life, where’s the list? Where is the plan? Even, as simple, we need the routine, we need the plan, we need the goals. Write it down, do it today. Put it in your journal in GrowthDay. Go make a plan in GrowthDay. I’m going to start doing these things. Put it in there. Set reminders in GrowthDay. Literally, you can pop up, you can write reminders in GrowthDay,drink water, have it pop up a couple of times a day as a notification,you know.  Eat healthy tonight, have a pop up as a reminder, you can set up reminders in Growth Day if you didn’t know which are a hugely popular thing for people’s health. So go set up reminders. Just go to the “Plan” section of your GrowthDay app after this broadcast today and set up your plan. We need a plan. We need a routine. We need those goals.

Also, I said it requires routines and it requires recalibration because guess what? You’re going to fall off the wagon. You’re going to have a suck day. You’re going to be unmotivated, you’re going to eat that pizza. You’re going to do something that you know you shouldn’t do because your current mood or the choice of passion or joy or spontaneity or the thing that you like is there. And the most important thing in health isn’t just knowing what to do or having that plan, it’s recalibrating when you fall off.  You know, in the mental health space, in the personal coaching space, we both use the same term for this. It’s called resilience. It’s OK, a challenge problem. Something didn’t go the way I planned. Can I find my strength again, find my focus again and keep progressing? Today, we’re just gonna call that health recalibration. Recalibration. Ok, so what you didn’t work out yesterday and you planned to?  Do it today. OK, you ate the terrible food. Make the better choice for the next four meals. It..what people do is instead they made a bad choice. They did something bad. Self-hatred increased, and so they stop. They stop trying. You know, you’re down on yourself when you stop trying. You know you’re down on yourself when you don’t recalibrate after a fail. You know you’re down on yourself when something doesn’t go right, you fail. You feel bad about yourself and you stop. The idea that we talk about here in GrowthDay all the time, is  just making self-improvement a way of life. Tomorrow, improve.  Get better. Try again. Ok, you had a huge outburst. Guess what? I have a huge outburst. Do I keep outbursting for hours and hours and hours? No. Huge outburst. Whoa, that was off. Let me go recalibrate over here. Let me go on a walk. Let me bounce in place. Take ten deep breaths. Let me lay on the floor, do a release meditation. Let me stand back up, write out my intentions and go.

 I don’t get down on myself or angry about myself. What I do is go, Wow, that’s not what I wanted. That wasn’t my intention. That wasn’t good. Ok, recalibrate. So I reset my body, I reset my mind, I reset my intentions, and I go. “You got it.” That’s recalibrating. You don’t stop and beat yourself up.  You go, “Ok, let me recalibrate. Reset,right? That is so important. The reset or what I’m calling a recalibration is everything. And here’s what happens. The longer between incident and recalibration the worse your health, right? People say “Well, I missed three weeks of working out. Screw it. Guess it doesn’t matter.” No recalibration. So now those three weeks turn into six, turn into nine turn into years. But if instead of getting down on yourself or stopping, you said, OK, I missed it for three weeks in a row. Let me reset. What do I really want here? How can I do better? Let me try again. It’s just keep going.

I know it’s so simplistic, but we have to keep progressing. If we stop, not only do we stop the forward momentum, we increase or should I say we decrease our self esteem. Our self respect goes down because we know we should be doing something for ourselves, but we don’t. And so this is really important to understand and hear. Recalibrate and make it fast. Like resiliency doesn’t take five years. You know what? Recalibrations can happen in moments. Maybe you had a bad morning, but you’re here, you’re working on yourself. You’re here on GrowthDay saying, you know what? I just sometimes… the instruction, the positivity, the perspective even or just the reminders, it’s helpful. Every time I listen to a GrowthDay teacher, I feel better. Not because everything changed in an instant because it just… it resets me to right. Ok. Good mindset, good habits. I can do that. Here I go.

So is this a recalibration? It’s a recalibration. I can’t tell you how many bad days I have or bad hours, I should say, emotionally that I have that I choose by the end of the day to recalibrate. OK, I had a terrible morning. Whew, let me go for a walk. Let me get a bunch of water, let me get some food in my stomach so I’m not hangry. Let me come back, do a ten minute release meditation,some seven or eight vinyasa flows on the floor. Get back up, look at my goals on the wall. Write out my intentions, make my action plan and get two things done. End of day I feel better. You follow? I’m not perfect, and neither are you. But we are perfecting ourselves, we are in motion of progress when we recalibrate more quickly. So have it in mind. Ok, bad morning recalibrate. Bad hour, recalibrate. Bad conflict, recalibrate.  Missed the workout, recalibrate. Eat the bad thing, recalibrate. I hope that serves you, ok. I can’t believe I’m only like two points into this whole presentation here, but I’m worked up today, ok?

3. Align Your Practices With Your Energy Vision

Number one: health is luck and self respect. Number two: health requires two things —routines and recalibration. Third big idea today is our actual practices and how we feel about ourselves are, today outside of luck or poor luck, in alignment to the energy- vision we have for ourselves. Could you write this down or type it down or capture it in your GrowthDay app notes right here. Just type in capital letters or write capital letters, if you’re writing down. Energy Vision.  energy, vision. People always ask like, Brendan, I have seen you show up for 20 years energetic, positive, confident, ready to serve. I’ve seen you on stage, Brendan, for literally 9 hours a day for five days in a row, and I’m the only speaker. Could you imagine sometimes you do a zoom for an hour and you’re tired.  I’m on a stage that’s 30 feet long for 9 hours that day, doing a marathon, a day of output, having to eat 4000- 6000 calories just to get through the day, like it’s a marathon. It’s brutal. It’s in front of thousands of people. I have to be mentally on all day because I’m teaching all day with barely any notes, having major interactions with the customers and the clients in the audience. You know the pressure of Olympians there and billionaires there in the audience in a suit, in dress shoes for 9 hours a day for five days straight and you’re still jumping and clapping on day five. 

Brendon, how is that possible? I’m like, it ain’t luck. That part, right there was an energetic vision I had in my life. I said, and it’s not because I’m, you know, aspirational, its because one time I did a presentation and I was friggin wiped out. Anyone understand what I’m saying? Like, I was wiped out and I said, I don’t want that for my life. I don’t want to be wiped out after doing something for 30 minutes or an hour. I’m like, no, no, no. I want to be able to give a speech for an hour or two. I want to be able to teach an audience for two or 3 hours. I don’t want to go up on stage and only sit because I am lucky and I am blessed that I’ve got two legs and two arms. I’ve got the health ability to take care of myself. I was like, OK, that’s, that’s a blessing. I have friends who don’t have that. I have friends who are keynote speakers in wheelchairs. How dare I not care for myself and physically utilize the gifts I’ve been given. OK, Brendon, you don’t want to feel exhausted. You want to have the energy to serve, and you want to have the energy to serve and be awesome for your family, and your friends and your peers. You have to demand something of yourself to get there, kid. What’s my energy vision? How do I really want to feel? How do I want to feel mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? That is an energy vision.

That’s an energy vision. And I had to set that in my life. Most of that came from pain. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, depressed, suicidal, and I knew I didn’t want that. The car accident I had at 19 years old, at a time when I was suicidal, helped me realize I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t know how to live. It helped me realize I didn’t want to feel like that anymore. I just know how to feel better. And that’s why I’m here today. That’s what got me into personal development, was I was a young, dumb kid from Montana who had no idea how to feel better. And I said, You know what? I want to feel better. So I started reading books in health. I started reading books in psychology. I started buying the audiotapes and the motivational courses. I started listening to the coaches. I started reading the health magazines. I started going “I want to feel amazing, not terrible, an energy vision. I want to be able to serve on stage for hours at a time. I want to be able to show up on a moment and get myself in an emotionally good place to serve. I want to be able to, you know, endure not one or two years of this industry that is so challenging to be an entrepreneur, to be a leader, to be a business owner, to be literally called upon by like the biggest influencers and, you know, state leaders and companies.”

Like,I got to be able to get on and listen. I even remember during the pandemic I was like, man, I guess I can let out a little bit off here because, you know, I’m not on that stage anymore where I got to be Brendon on the stage for all this time. And then I had a call with a CEO who was paying an extraordinary sum to work one on one. I was really tired going into the call, really tired. And I could tell I wasn’t as mentally sharp as I needed to be for that person. And right after the call, that is not the vision for the energy I want to serve my clients with. Brendon, get back on your health routine. Recalibrate, kid. You got to recalibrate, kid. This person deserves more of you. And I know that sounds so hard to say, but I’ve had to say it to clients who were parents. I said, your kids deserve more energy from you. And that was me reflecting their values, not something I’m judging them for. It was, I know their vision. I know how they want to feel, act, and behave around other people. Not because they feel like they have to because they want to. Look. Who are we as human beings if we don’t have aspirational images of who we can be? And to grow into that, even if it’s hard. We got to have the aspirational image of who we can be as parents or we’d all just default to the immediate ease and comfort of treating someone the way we’d want to treat them in the moment. Screaming, hollering, yelling, hitting, smacking. These things happen when we don’t demand more of ourselves or have a better vision of ourselves. And in no other area of life have I ever worked with more clients where I realized they lacked the vision than an energetic vision.

They’ll think about it. But you know what? Most people, you know, think “I want to make $1,000,000.” They’re so unattuned to having any energetic vision. How do you actually want to feel? What emotions do you want to feel and experience every day? How do you want your body to feel and move through space? What kind of stamina do you want to have mentally and physically? What kind of endurance do you want in your soul and your spirit to be able to show up day after day, even when it’s hard and difficult and awful. Even when they betrayed you, stole from you, hurt you, so you can still show up and give the energy of love. how is that for an energetic vision? Where is love in your vision? Where is the vibrancy behind that love? Where is the ability to project, demonstrate or envelop others in a spiritual kindness, compassion, love, empathy? This is part of your energetic vision, isn’t it? Energy, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. And if you have no vision for that, you’ll just show up. That’s it. You just show up. And if you just show up by default in this world today, what that means, is you’ll be surrounded by 50 bags of potato chips and all the comforts and ease that the world affords us. And your health will go to hell. And I really, truly believe it is by having an energetic vision and then living in alignment to that, demanding of ourselves to live in alignment to that. 

I’ll give an example. I’m somebody who obviously my energy is really important to me and it’s super hard. There’s days and stresses and difficulties that it’s so hard to “be me”, right? With the expectations the world has is so intense and some days I deal with it well, some days I don’t, but if you follow me around for a month, you’re like, Look at all these things this guy does to care for his health, mental health, emotional health, physical health. From all the notes in the journals and the plans of everywhere I have around to how I literally lay on the floor multiple times a day to realign my back and my hips, to my breathing patterns, to how I choose to work out, to what I eat. Thank you to my wife, Denise, compared to what I would probably eat. Like, we’ll talk about that social support a minute. All of these things are trying to live in alignment to the aspirational person I want to be and to the best of who I know I can be. I know this is a different way of thinking of health, but I would say isn’t it stunning how many people want health and have no vision for the energy they want to experience mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. 

This is why journaling and planning in GrowthDay is so key. Self-awareness happens through the act of creation of our own intentions and goals. Like, we had to write it down, we got to think it through. No one just wakes up in, you know, 15 years old and goes, “I have a vision for my energy”. It’s like, no, you got to recalibrate that vision for your energy at different times of life. I’ve also, as many of you know, had tremendous times of my life where I was in very poor health. Some of you know, I had a major brain injury. I, you know, snap my wrists, pretty much clean off, threw out my hips, broke my ribs like I’ve been in hospital beds three times in my life where I thought I was going to die. I have gone through enough of the health journey. I’ve been with thousands and thousands of people in real experiences as tremendous poor health had befall them. And I hear the stories literally every day from so many of you it’s not a surprise and it’s not fair and it is a lot of luck. And that is why we must also take control of our lives, have a vision, and live in alignment to it. And as we live in alignment to it, self-respect, baby. Self respect, better health. It becomes a beautiful loop. 

4. Find What Feels Good For You

Fourth Big idea today. You have to find what feels good for you. You have to figure it out. My friend Adrianne, who teaches, you know that teaches Yoga with Adrianne, someone I just love. I just one of the great original, you know, big online yoga teachers, just an amazing, amazing person. I think her whole brand was like “find what feels good”. I love that. And it’s a very common saying in health circles, but I feel like a lot of people don’t run in health circles. And so what feels good for you, like what feels good for you? Like, genuinely feels good mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. You need to journal about that. What feels good to me in my health practices. So I’ll give you some of mine because I want to make these tactical as well. For me. What feels good for me personally and it’s not the same for everyone. What feels good for me as an example, a calm, slow morning. I’m pretty dumb in the morning. I’m slow to rouse in the morning. I like to, you know, kind of shuffle around the house, you know, get a tea or coffee. Yeah, I know you’re like you drink coffee now. I’m like, I do usually half caf, maybe mostly decaf. But once in a while, I went on a trip to France and they had that espresso and I just, oh my gosh, it ruined me. I think I went 36, 37 years of my life without any coffee. Anyway, just now it’s the flavor and it’ll sit down with my book, a little piece of paper in my journal and just like a slow morning. A slow morning is great for my mental health. That’s for me, right? My wife is the opposite. She’s incredible by like, 10 a.m. she has done more than most humans in a decade. I don’t know how she does it. Shoutout out to Denise, like one of the most amazing, like she can she wakes up and a list of things download into her brain and she just starts going at them. It’s unbelievable. Talk about a morning person. Me, my mom, the opposite.  My dad , boy he could…he was ready, up and go to work because he’s in the military all his life. Biologically, we all have different rhythms, don’t we? Right, some of those are conditioned and we create, some of that that’s how we are. I think I conditioned my slow morning because I like it. What feels good to me is a slow morning. How simple is that? How controllable is that? Even if there’s chaos and there’s a lot going on, I can find my moments, which we’ll talk about. I can find my moments to recalibrate and reset, even if it’s hectic and crazy because there’s people around the house or something is going on. Still, I got to make sure that that morning finds those moments of calm and peace and intention for myself. Otherwise it can really frazzle out a lot of the day. So that feels good to me. 

Also, what feels good for me is sleep. We can’t have a conversation without this. If you have never done hard work to figure out exactly how you can have your best night of sleep on a recurring basis, there’s almost nothing more we would need to talk about than you doing that alone. Sleeping seven to 8 hours a night for all humans all around the world is vital. People always say, no, no, no, Brendon, you don’t understand. I can do 6 hours a night. I’m like, yes, you can. And you have no idea how much more effective and happy you would be with more. But I can get away with this or you don’t understand this or this thing’s going on, or I just have the kids.  Trust me, I understand. I’ve been doing this and teaching this for 20 years. I’ve had all the conversations. There’s no surprise you’re going to throw at me about sleep. What happens, though, is people use the excuses versus making the plans. I need you to make the plans. I need you to make the plans… very key.  Because you make the plans so what is your plan for having great sleep? And sometimes it sucks. I get it. It’s like you feel like you just can’t even get a break. You know, there’s life, there’s intensity, there’s things, there’s people, there’s family, there’s all of that. You know, I get it. And you got to figure that peace out for you. I love sleep. It feels good to me. So I try to protect it. 

What else? Find what feels good. You know it feels good for me. Planning, planning. If you look at my GrowthDay, my plan, it’s full. It’s filled out with plans and deadlines and reminders. If you look next to my computer, there’s all these checklists written down. And by the way, I don’t naturally do that. I actually don’t like planning. I love the mental and emotional effect of planning. Anyone follow that one. You guys see, right? That’s the difference maker for me. I don’t like the act of sitting down and doing it. It’s not like I find tons of joy in organizing my life. I just don’t. I love the mental clarity, the peace, the progress that comes from making plans. Write down your goals. Write down your deadlines, identify your projects, know you need to reach out to know who you’re waiting on, know what your priorities are of the day. If you need any advice on this in GrowthDay, remember, you can go to the”Learn” section. You can smash the “Watch Past Events”, and you can watch an entire month of training on productivity.  You can go to your courses and watch an entire training on the habit of productivity from the world’s number one…You know, I’m sorry, the world’s largest research study on high performance habits. That high performance habit builder course that you have unlocked in the course section of your app. Just go to the learn section, go to courses and you can see high performance, habit builder. There’s a whole section just on productivity, and that productivity isn’t done just to get ahead and succeed. It’s because you feel better when you organize your life better. When you lead life and live life with more intention, when you have a little bit more clarity, you feel better. Strip away someone’s clarity, their intention, their connection with what they need to do today; and misery sets in over time. We just know it. With no connection to our intention in our future, we feel less motivated and good today. That’s why the plan is so important for me.

What else feels good to me? Less carbs, you know, I love to eat them. I don’t like the feeling afterwards. I love to eat them. The feeling afterwards does not align with my energetic vision, right? So I would be a person, who, my natural tendency would like, give me all the potato chips, give me all the pizza, give me all the bad food 24/7. But the effect of it doesn’t align with my energetic vision, and I know when I do those things and I feel terrible the next day, it’s so out of alignment for what I want energetically in my life. My self-respect goes down, I get down, and I’m less productive, happy. Does it make sense? Very key to understand. Very key to understand. That’s for me. Again, I’m sharing my things. Another thing I know feels good for me because people always ask. I’m like massive amounts of water and electrolytes every day. Like, I really believe most people are so dehydrated they have no idea that most headaches, as an example, are tied to dehydration. Most people have no idea that their physical stiffness and inflammation happens because they don’t have enough water to go through their body. A lot of people are so dehydrated and they’re shocked when you’re just like drink some more water, like, really? And they start doing it like this changed my life. Oh, my God. And now they have the fancy little bottles all around the house, and they carry them along with them. You know, I think it’s important that most people realize how critical hydration is to their lives. So I had to learn that.

I also know that what feels good to me is a body that’s not inflamed by terrible diet or things that I drink or consume that increases inflammation. As inflammation goes up, fatigue goes up. As inflammation goes up, weight goes up. As inflammation goes up, life expectancy goes down. Like you want to find one or two main culprits of dis-ease in our health physically, inflammation. A high inflammation diet kills you sooner. So we had to figure out like, OK, we have to study, like what are the things that inflamed my body? That’s partially knowing what you might be allergic to, right? Your food allergies as an example, but also just the basics of understanding certain things that you eat or consume tends to elevate your level of inflammation. And if you don’t know what those are, see a dietitian or a nutritionist go read some books, watch some videos on YouTube about anti inflammation diets. And you’ll see it completely changes your life, did for me. Another thing that works for me is supplementation. I take supplements every day that help me with focus and energy. And I do that, as many of you know, for my condition. I had a brain injury and with a traumatic brain injury took a long time to heal from it. And I use supplementation to increase oxygenation, blood flow, and help me maintain a focus, maintain my energy mentally. And so that was important to me. You have to find out what’s important to you. I had medical expertise supporting me in finding that I didn’t want to take a bunch of, you know, prescriptions. I just want to find out natural supplementation that could help me. And I did that. So I have a lot of adaptogenic herbs as an example, to help me stay a little more focused and deal with stress that supports me. So find out what supports you. I always tell people, like, if you haven’t optimized  your supplementation yet,  you haven’t even started your health journey. I’ll say it again, if you haven’t even figured out how to optimize your supplementation, you haven’t even started your health journey because you wouldn’t know what to supplement with unless you explored your own diet, your nutrition and your energetic goals. 

5. Social Accountability

Ok, I’m going to move on from…those are mine. Those are the key ones that really helped me. I’ll move on to a couple of other big ideas that we know from research. You want a healthy life? Point number five here today —social accountability. Social Accountability. Having other people around you who are healthy is as important as, quote unquote, biological luck. It’s true. The people around you really do shape your expectations and how you show up in the world, and in this category, more than anything else, if the people around you tend to be healthy, whether that is emotionally healthy, mentally healthy, physically healthy, your odds go way up, especially the odds of conscientious discipline and design. Your ability to surround yourself with people who are in a good place is one of the great gifts of our life. We are social animals. A lot of what we do in life is memetic, meaning we kind of copy what we see of others. We set expectations on ourselves, of what we see of others. A lot of our behaviors are habits. Our mental models are really a fact of sociology. And when you understand that the people you surround yourself with, you talk with, you look at you work out with your around, you’re healthier. I am a greatly healthier person in my life because of my wife. And for most men out there or those who are partners in couples where one other partner is healthier and the other, that’s one of the greatest gifts of all time. You know, I’m a way healthier person. I don’t think I knew what kale was until I met Denise. What’s kale? What are you talking about ? I  had no idea. No idea. Broccoli. What? Why why? Well, that’s broccoli? How come it’s dark like that? I mean, there’s no cheese on it. I had no idea. 

So that was important for me to learn a lot about. And all of my friends in the health and wellness category, I like being around them all the time and seeing their posts and their Instagrams or being at conferences and studying their work or going to conferences that are about health. Surrounding myself in an ecosystem has made me healthier. It really has. If you look at where I grew up to where I am now, I mean, it’s totally different peer set, and that was by design. You might not get to choose your biology or all your family, but you get to choose your peers and your friends and the inspirations who you follow or learn from, especially in this category of health. Once you have that energetic vision, I promise you’ll surround yourself with better people, social accountability, work out with friends, get a trainer. They expect you to show up, so you show up. Social accountability. Surround yourself with people who expect you to do well, who expect you to take care of yourself, who are empathetic when you’re struggling because they themselves are empathetic people who struggle too.  Having vulnerable, honest, open, truthful, transparent humans around us who enable us and allow us to be vulnerable, to share our hurts, our pains, our shames, our sadness increases our mental health. When you’re around people who push down emotion, who push down thinking, who push down your ability to be vulnerable, we tend to be in less health mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of it. When you are pushed down all the time, don’t talk about that. Ooh, don’t admit that. Oh, don’t let anyone know that. When you’re around that, that is poisonous to your health. And we as a society still do it. It’s it’s tragic how often we try to silence people who are struggling and how often we silence ourselves when we’re struggling, when the very healing was gifted to us by sociology, by other people. Just like you heard earlier in a conversation of Mel Robbins reaching out to talk to her mom or to a therapist or to a peer group when she’s struggling. That impulse to reach out and talk to somebody needs to be honored. And it is really often the jet fuel of personal development, right? We can do so much personal development, but I always say self-development is often social development. As we develop ourselves, we are better to others. As we work with others, we become better ourselves. So that social accountability in our health is important.

6. Challenge Yourself

Another big idea, and I’ll end with this one today, and I talked about it at the very top, but I hope it’s honoring and I hope it’s straightforward to you. Just challenge yourself. Just challenge yourself. Challenge yourself at the gym next time. Challenge yourself when you’re on the road next time to go a little bit further. Challenge yourself to get a little faster. Challenge yourself to be a little more mobile or flexible. Challenge yourself to stay a little longer in that yoga pose. Challenge yourself to reset your mindset after you get angry or hurt or down. If you’re not challenging yourself, who is? I know people say, but Brendan, isn’t perfectionism such a problematic thing in mental health? I’m like, totally, totally that is the super thin slice. The reality is perfectionism isn’t the problem. The problem is people think they should be perfect, but perfecting ourselves, growing into our full potential, expecting a lot of ourselves that can be done in healthy ways, especially when you consider all the things we’ve talked about today. It’s ok to challenge yourself again. Last time you might have challenged yourself, maybe you got down on yourself. This time as you challenge yourself, allow the grace, do it with social accountability, have an energetic vision, recalibrate, find what feels good for you, and stick to that. You can figure out a way to feel better. You can figure out a way to get healthier. It’s going to be on your own path in your own way. No one can tell you all the right ways to do that. You’ll probably need support. You’ll probably take months and months and months and years and years and years to figure it out. And often you’ll fall off the wagon. You’ll do the terrible thing. You’ll make a bad choice, but you’ll recalibrate and you’ll keep getting better. Because you and I both know that every day is a great day to grow.

I want to thank you all for this incredible session today on Health. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you’ll share it with family and friends. If it’s supported you,  just go tell people what we’re doing here at GrowthDay. Like “Holy, they  have an entire month of conversations about health. About mental health, emotional, physical health right here in GrowthDay. They will be live every single week with you guys.”

As always, on our Wednesday Wisdoms, so tune back in, watch the replays, make a commitment. Journal today about your energy vision. Please do that. Please stay… please stay on path. Please take care of yourself. Please be kind to yourself. Please practice self respect and self love. You deserve a vibrant and energetic life. Do your work to move towards that, to align with that, to honor that impulse and know that you don’t have to do it alone. We’re all doing it together. We’re all figuring it out together. We’re all on this journey together. That’s why we always say every day is a great day to grow together. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you next time.