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 Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

How do you find your purpose in 2020? I know you’ve set goals, I know you’re already moving towards them, I know that you’re excited about this new decade. But, how do you find purpose? So many people have ambition; they have goals. They even have a dream sometimes, but they’re like, “I don’t feel purpose and I’m losing that.”

It’s not like one day you’re going to walk out the door and the Piano of Purpose is going to fall on your face and you’re going to understand exactly what you’re supposed to do with every single part of your life until you’re dead. I don’t think that necessarily happens, but I do believe a lot of people are not living in their purpose now or into their destiny now because they’re living in their history, right?

They’re running old models or they’re living in a life of reaction, so they’re struggling to feel that connection and depth that we all really want. They’re struggling with purpose. Maybe that’s why you’re in my community, because you’re somebody who says, “I really want to live a life of self-mastery. I want to reach high performance and success and everything I want to do. I want to have great well-being and be proud of myself and contribute and make a difference and I really want to shape and influence the world in a positive way. But some days Brendon, I don’t feel good. I can’t stay on my A-game, I get knocked off because I get distracted, or people put more stuff on my plate and I get lost. And so I thought I’d talk with you guys about that. How do we reconnect to purpose? What is purpose and how do you find and tap into purpose for 2020?

Let me share with you four ideas to find your purpose in 2020 but not just find it, but to really shape, create, and tap into it, but also direct it and mold it because listen—life should be so extraordinary. Life should feel so connected for you, so how do you do that? I got four ideas for finding your purpose in 2020.

1. Realign with the Truth of Who You Are

You must realign with the truth of who you are. Don’t think that you’re going to trip on your purpose one day. Don’t think that one day you’re going to achieve something and you’ll feel purpose. There are all these externalities we hope will bring us a sense of purpose one day. We think, “One day I’ll reach many people, make this much money, do these things for my family, or achieve this outcome.”

We think that purpose will be felt one day, but I’ve also met and coached so many people who are some of the most extraordinary and influential people in the world, some of the wealthiest people who graced the covers of magazines, who were interviewed by celebrities all the time. And the truth is a lot of people have achieved objectives, but they still don’t feel purpose. Why?

I wrote in my book High Performance Habits about this extraordinary executive woman I was coaching and she discovered through our coaching that sometimes achievement is not the problem, alignment is. Let’s say you get a lot done, right? You’re busy, you have to-do lists, you’re knocking off checklists, but sometimes achieving and getting some things done is not the problem. It’s alignment. You’ve got to realign with the truth of who you are. What does that mean?

First you have to recognize where you’re not living your authentic life right now. If you want to feel a greater connection with purpose right now, let’s figure out what we got to stop doing. Well, we better stop trying to run an old model of what other people expected of us. We have to stop trying to live the life other people want us to live and reconnect with the truth of who we are; realign with our intentions, our interests, our passions, our desires to create and serve.

Listen, the hunt for purpose begins with the realignment to personal truth.

All purpose begins with the realignment to personal truth.

Dialing it back into who you really are. What is it that you want at this stage of your life? What are you interested in? What are you passionate about? What are you excited about?

Notice where you’re living your life in obligation or reaction.

Obligation because you think you have to fit somebody else’s mold. Reaction because you’re always just reacting to everybody else’s emergency. And so suddenly your life isn’t really your life and so no wonder you don’t feel purposeful.

You’ll never feel purposeful until you realign with your personal truths—the core of who you are—to notice what is authentic for you.

Some of you are in relationships that you know are not authentic to you. You know you’re there out of obligation. You know you’re there because you just kind of fell into it. But the truth of who you are is saying, “Please listen, this is not us.”

You know, so many people are faking it. They’re faking who they are, they’re faking to create some perception of themselves to position themselves some certain way. They’re not living as who they are and they know they’re lying. They don’t dress how they want to dress, they don’t speak how they want to speak, they can’t find an authentic flow throughout the day because they’re always trying to be somebody else or perform for somebody else versus being who they are.

If you want to connect to purpose, you’ve got to start being who you are again. You got to tap right back in and realign to your personal truths. Realign to the core of who you are and listen to your soul again. If your soul is screaming for change, you got to change. Otherwise, you’ll never feel purpose. You’ve got to reconnect to that part of you that’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is me. Where have I been?”

I know where you’ve been. You’ve been caged by other people’s expectations. You’ve been caged by false obligations, by thinking you have to be the savior of everybody, to think you have to do everything. You’ve been caged by doing work or things that are not even in alignment with your passions, but you’re doing it for a paycheck. We’ve all been there. If feels like I’m being accusatory, please recognize I’m a High Performance Coach. It’s my job to challenge and to set the frame some times. And in doing that, I want you to understand purpose will come back into your life and you feel a greater sense of it when you realign with your personal truth.

Primary Aspiration #1 – Being

Now when I talk about alignment, people say, “Well Brendon, what are you talking about?” Here’s what I mean about alignment: We all have three primary aspirations in our life. We have being aspirations; we all aspire to be a vibrant, healthy person who we are proud of. A person of character and energy that we are proud of. In other words, we want to be our most vibrant, alive self, who is also doing things that we’re proud of. That’s our being aspirations. So are you realigning with that? Are you doing things you’re proud of? Are you generating the energy you want to feel and experience? Your beingness, your aliveness each day? When we realign with that being aspiration (“I want to be vibrant and proud of who I am”) then we feel more purpose.

Primary Aspiration #2 – Relating

Our second aspiration is our relating aspirations. Those aspirations that say, “I want to be
like this, I want to treat people like that, I want to feel part of a community, I want to feel cared for, I want to connect with other people” because connection is a human desire. It’s an aspiration we have, it’s a relating aspiration. So start behaving more like who you really are. Be more authentic in your interactions with other people again and suddenly you’ll feel that sense of purpose like, “Oh, I’m on my path.”

Primary Aspiration #3 – Creating

The third primary aspiration that we have is creating aspirations. What does that mean? It means that that drive that you have for contribution, or to do your art, or to be creative, to create a mission, or to create a movement—all of that is under our creation aspirations. We want to create something in the world. We want to create a legacy, we want to create a mission, we want to create a difference, we want to create buildings, we want to create spaces we love, we want to create things social media. Listen, we all want to create things, so are you creating things that matter to you? Are you spending your day doing your life’s work, not just busy work? So when we realign with our being aspirations, our relating aspirations, and our creating aspirations, then we allow ourselves the ambition to grow in each area to be more, to relate better, to create more authentic things — we start to realign. So I’ll say it again, you will not find or feel purpose in your life until you realign to the truth of who you are.

2. Adopt the Role Model Mindset

Second big idea is that if you want to feel, sense, and create purpose in your life, you must adopt the role model mindset. You know why a lot of people don’t feel any purpose? They are not activating their potential. When you set your potential too high and your daily life so low, a divide is created. That distance between daily realities and activated potential is often called misery. The more you’re miserable or in pain, the more you can be detached from purpose. It’s not that the purpose only happens in the positive stuff, but listen, it’s a whole lot easier to sense it, feel it, and celebrate it when you know you are activating your potential.

Let me share this with you. The truth is that a lot of people, because they don’t recognize that and are not activating their potential, they don’t feel that in their heart, they don’t feel pride, and they don’t feel purpose. There has to be a realignment and a reactivation of your potential. Your daily actions are leading to a momentum and that momentum each day is leading you towards a particular kind of destiny, a particular direction, a particular endgame, a particular legacy, a particular style of life. So what is the momentum of your energies of who you are being, how you are relating, and what you are creating each day leading towards? If the answer is not much, it’s because you’re not activating your potential. You are more strong, more capable, more extraordinary than you could ever imagine. But that must be activated by your daily habits and actions. It can’t be a once in a while new year intention. So many people at New Years feel disconnected from purpose. They’re like, “I don’t understand! I’ve journaled, I’ve thought about my new years, I celebrated with my friends. How come I don’t feel potential?” It’s because this
is the first time you thought about it in a year.

You’ve got to activate your potential on a consistent basis.

When you start doing that, things change. When you activate potential more often, you feel differently.

I want to really talk about this idea of adopting a role model mindset. If you want to feel
purposeful, one way to do that is to recognize that the kids, your family, the community, the
neighborhood, and even the world is watching us right now. History is taking note. There is a
scorecard happening right now based on how we are all showing up. For some people, that terrifies them.

One of the greatest things I’ve ever noticed from the exceptional people I work with in coaching, like Oprah Winfrey and her team, is that they always reveal a desire to be a role model for others. When you desire to be a role model for others, it puts you into that pocket of service in life. It makes you go, “Oh my gosh, I want to not just live the best of who I am. I want to live the best of who I am because I want to give others permission to do that themselves. I want to share my authentic voice so others can share their authentic voice. I want people to see me volunteering because I want people to go volunteer. I want people seeing me be kind because I want people to be and live in a kind world.”

That is the role model mindset.

I so hope for you that you will adopt the role model mindset this year. I was saying to all my friends, you know, this is 2020, two zero, two zero, right? It’s a repetition, it’s double zero, and so I’m saying to everybody — double down on your goodness. You want to have an exceptional and incredible 2020? You want to find purpose this year? Double down on your goodness.

Adopt the role model mindset and say, “How can I be a role model, how can I serve, how can I do more good in the world? As I do more good in the world, I lift the world. As I do more good in the world, it challenges me to be a person of potential. As I challenge myself to be a person of potential and I inspire other people, I am serving a purpose.”

See, when we are role models to others, purpose is connected in that very moment. When you know you’re being a role model to you kids—boom! Purpose is connected. When you know you’re being a role model for your team—boom! Purpose is connected. When you’re standing on stage and you’re speaking your truth—boom! Purpose is connected. You don’t have to go hope to find it. It’s connected when you are being a role model, it’s connected when you are activating your full potential, it’s connected when you are in alignment with your truth.

You got it? You don’t have to go look for it, you need to connect to it and that brings me to my last point today.

3. Create Meaningful Moments

You’ve got to start creating meaningful moments in your life. What do I mean by that? Well listen. You and I both know, I mean, how many times do you get caught up in the day? You get caught up in the news, you get caught up in your swiping and looking and looking and consuming, you get caught up in your to-do list, you get caught up in all the emails, you get
caught up in all the work and all of the sudden, the whole day went by and you didn’t feel it.

And I’m here to tell you something really remarkable that I’ve learned this last year. You know,
last year was my first year where I, as a High Performance Coach, I was coaching two billionaires and I’d never done that before. I mean, many you guys know and you’ve been with me on my journey, you know for what, two decades I’ve been in personal development and in this last decade, it’s kind of where I made my mark. You know, I published six books, we grew our audience to five million on Facebook and you know 800,000 followers on Instagram now, 800,000 on YouTube, best-selling books, traveling—you’ve seen us fill the rooms and all the events that I do. But this last year was like a whole other level for me. It was so hard, so challenging. We moved, Denise and I, and I also started taking on these caliber of clients. I mean, holy cow! I didn’t know if I could handle it. I mean, I’m not a billionaire. I’ve got no problem telling anybody that. I’m not out there trying to pretend. You know, you can’t fake it with billionaires. They know.

So when I was coaching them, I kind of struggled for a while to figure out what they were unhappy about. Hope that doesn’t sound flippant but I was like, “Wow, they’ve got so much going for them. What’s up? Why aren’t you happier? If you have everything, right? Like the material things most people are seeking, why aren’t you happier?” And I’ll ask you guys that same thing. Why do you feel like you’re not happier? What’s going on? I mean, most people watching this, I mean, you’re doing okay. I mean, you might be unhappy here and there, you might struggle — especially, I mean, a tremendous amount of our audience and in personal development are strivers. They’re achievers, they’re working hard, they’re often the leaders in their community and everybody goes, “Wow!” They’re already impressed with you. They’re already happy that you’re chasing your dream. They’re already like—you’re living life on your own terms a little bit and so are these major people I was coaching.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on with them and then I finally — I tripped on and maybe — was it last year or the year before? I think it was the end of the prior year. I got it. They were doing amazing things. Guys, every single day they were living the dream. They had finances, they they had impact, people were impressed with them, they had love ones in their life, they were married or had good kids or whatever, but they still weren’t happy and they still did not feel connected. Here is what I discovered: they did not feel the day.

They didn’t feel the day. They went through the day, some of them very high achieving, accomplishing things, on their purpose, making a difference, a role model, earning, doing the whole thing, and yet when they laid their head on the pillow at night they hadn’t felt the day. Think about that for a moment. Think about how many days you go to bed and you didn’t really feel the moments of the day. And this is why too many days unfelt leads to a disconnect with purpose. Too many days unfelt leads to a disconnect with purpose. Does that make sense?

And so, what do we have to do? We have to create the habits, the routines, the patterns where we learn to create and feel meaningful moments. I talked about this in my book, The Motivation Manifesto or you guys hear me talk about it on The Brendon Show a lot—my podcast—where you have to take these moments in time and do what I call slow time. It’s like, yes you’re going to kiss your honey on the way out the door to work but you know what? When you plant that kiss, plant that kiss, baby. Make it a moment. Feel that moment. You know, when you hug the kids and they’re running off to school like, really give a real hug. Don’t do it and move on to the next thing. We’re always moving on to the next thing and not feeling this moment. We’re not present in the moment because we’re not thinking about, “Let me create something meaningful here, let me feel something here.”

Because we’re absent of presence and the sense of meaning in the moment, we are disconnected from purpose.

I know some of you think, “Well, Brendon, dude, tell me how to find my purpose as a vocation or tell me what my destiny or legacy is going to be.” Hey, I am no fortune-teller and I love you guys, but I am here to tell you, if you’ll think about these things, if you will realign to the core truth of who you are, stop faking it, stop forcing it, reconnect with what your authentic passions and desires are, reconnect to your soul, listen to the whispers of your heart, realign to the authentic style of living that you know is true for you, not doing it for other people. Make sure you fulfill those aspirations. Your being aspirations.

Be the best of who you are. Do things you’re proud of. Relate with other people in the ways that you intend to. Create things that you’re proud of. Make sure that you drop that role model mindset. When you’re adopting the role model mindset, you’re activating your full potential because you want other people to see that. You want to do things of integrity and value in the world because you want other people to role model that themselves. You’re creating the world that you want to be in by living that. You’re activating your potential, you’re being a role model. That will connect you with purpose. You don’t have to seek it, it will connect you.

When you are in potential and you are serving by being a role model and being of service to other people, not for yourself, but to be of service to other people, you are connected to purpose.

That last idea—make purpose felt by feeling the day to create those meaningful moments again. Create them. Just take a little moment, slow down time when you’re with your loved ones. Slow down time when you’re doing your art. One way to do that is stop being distracted and trying to multitask and do 50 things. Be in the moment. When you’re doing personal development, be in personal development. Man, be there with your journal. When you’re at dinner with your loved one, when you’re on date night, be there. When you’re with the kids playing, be there. When you’re with your team leading, be there. That idea of being fully present again reconnects you to purpose and suddenly it’s not about what you achieve externally, you just feel purposeful.

You feel a life of purpose because you are doing things that are meaningful, that are serving aspirations, that are serving as a role model, that are being of service to other people and you’re just like, “I’m there.” I feel purposeful even if it doesn’t matter how much you have in the bank or what the car is like, what the house is like. Those things are wonderful, but those things are also often a result of realigning to your truth.

I say it all the time—sometimes the universe or God or luck or whatever—the stars, what do you want to call it—doesn’t give you what you want because based on all of your distractions and lack of discipline and authenticity, it’s simply unsure what you’re asking for. If you are asking to feel more purpose, you must realign your life to a life that feels purposeful.