SUMMARY

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Brendon Show. Please note that this episode, like all TBS episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Brendon Show has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of YouTube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in the Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

I really believe one reason many people lack that sense of meaning is that they don’t have what I would call a destiny mindset. A destiny mindset, I know it’s a weird word, and a lot of people don’t like when I use the word “destiny” — they get all worked up about it — but let me try to work it backward for you. 

A destiny mindset means that you see your life as consequential. That you believe that you matter because you are fulfilling a certain type of destiny that there’s a future for you, whether that’s a legacy or destiny or life vision — or you just believe that maybe there’s a higher power that’s calling you. You sense that there’s this future space for you in which you get to have a meaningful life.

1. Believe That Humanity Matters

I know that might sound very broad, but the truth is if we don’t have that future pull if we don’t sense that what we are doing matters in the future, that something is pulling us along to a greater future, that our lives themselves are meaningful as humans, right? Not that we do it at an individual level where we have to say, “Well, I’m Brendon and my life can be super consequential.” It’s like, no, as human beings, it’s a life philosophy, isn’t it? It’s how you think of humanity. Does humanity matter or not?

I mean, that’s the entire question at the end of a day of philosophy is what is the meaning of human life and how do we live it? Well, when you read philosophy, that’s what the central premise of all of it is — does it matter? What should we think about life? How should we think about living it? And that that philosophy of how we think about it is philosophy itself. What do we think about this important topic of the meaning of life?

2. Keep A “Big Picture” Perspective

Well, so many people have never just decided that you know what? We matter. Your life matters. My life matters. Those people you hate out on the internet, their life matters. What happens is we get so myopic into our own world of, “OK, is that little thing I’m doing today, does that matter? It is my, you know this one thing I did, does that make me feel fulfilled and complete as a person?” We lack an overall life philosophy that we have defined our lives and the context of humanity as meaningful.

I know this might be too academic for some people. And that’s why I use the word or the phrase a destiny mindset. If you have lost that feeling that says, “I have an opportunity to make a difference while I am here”, you’ve lost that connection with what I am calling a destiny mindset. And I know some people will take a destiny mindset that’s like, “Oh, you know, I’ve got to see myself on the cover of a magazine.” I know lots of people on the covers of magazines who don’t feel a sense of meaning or fulfillment in their life. It’s not an external thing, it’s an internal or intrinsic thing that you just feel called to.

I feel that my life is leading to something important. I feel honored or privileged or grateful that I can make a difference in the future.

Making a difference in the future is an overall life philosophy that is connected to destiny.

3. Be Mindful Of Mental Distractions

And I hope you start thinking about that because you know what? Sometimes you wake up in the friggin morning and you pull this thing out, don’t you? You pull out your phone in the morning. And what do you do? You start scrolling through everybody else’s stuff, everybody else’s agenda, everybody else’s life, and you get trapped into the myopic looking at that comment and getting sad or upset about it. You’re trapped in the small things of life, the tasks, the e-mails, the responses, and all of a sudden you’ve been pulled into this tiny, little myopic to-do list part of your life, and you forgot that “being” part of your life.

Do you want to feel more meaning in your life? Start your day with that destiny mindset.

Can you show me somewhere something you look at every day that opens up your mind and reminds you to get out of that little myopic brain that we all have that’s just focused right here? Because if you never look to the bigger vision of life, it’s hard to ever feel a deep sense of meaning or fulfillment. That’s a larger life philosophy, isn’t it? It’s a very different approach to mindset, where most people in the morning, they’re giving away their mindset to their phone and not thinking about life.

4. Expand Your Vision

Do you want to feel more meaning and fulfillment in your life? Think about life more. Read some philosophy. Read some great biographies of people who did great things. Expand your vision. And soon as you expand your vision, there’s a different sense of, I would say, emotion and motion in life. Expand that vision again, open up that ambition again.

Now, most people don’t do that because, “Well, you don’t understand, Brendon. I was disappointed. I failed.” They don’t believe in me. If you let every disappointment or failure or discourage or out there pull at your life philosophy and where you’re going in the future, if you forget that you are destined for greatness by God or you are destined for goodness by a higher power, or if you don’t believe any of that., if you forgot the connection to your own future in which you want abundance and joy and amazing things for your family — well, then we got pulled into the mud, didn’t we?

5. Don’t Get Pulled Into The Mud

You know, a lot of people are miserable right now and don’t feel fulfilled even though they’re doing good work. They got pulled into the mud. The last two years, that’s what happened. They were feeling good, they’re doing good works, but they got pulled into the mud in the vitriol, into the negativity, into the pessimism, into the tribalism in the US versus them. And they lost the connection with that higher humanity. That is destiny. And I hope you’ll think about that. All right. OK, so what if I lost that, Brendan? Well, let’s begin with a simple mental habit and practice every day. Start your day by thinking of bigger ambition. A bigger dream, a bigger goal, something beyond yourself. A destiny that could serve other people and make a difference, even if you don’t know what it is right now. I didn’t know what it was for 20 years of my life, I had no clue, but I knew it was there. As in I’ll find it, I’ll create, I’ll work myself into it.

So I’m not asking anyone to hurry. I’m just asking you to set your intention in the morning to remind yourself of your building something great, even if you’re just starting. Even if you feel piled into the ground from the last two years. It’s time to reconnect with a greater future and a destiny for yourself. And until that happens, it’s hard to find meaning in the small things if we can’t find meaning in our life. That’s something beautiful that will happen for you in your future. I think that is number one.