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.)

What does congruence mean?

Congruence means you are living in alignment with what you know is the best of you.

Congruence is living in alignment with what you know is the best of you.

Write it down.

Congruence equals, living in alignment with what you know is the best of you, consistently. Okay, congruence living in alignment, meaning it’s consistently living into your best self, consistently coming from your best place, consistently showing up as the person you know you are. It means speaking your truth, it means living your values. It means being a person of integrity. That’s what congruence means. Living in alignment with the best of who you are. Living in alignment with your values. Being someone who represents what you really believe.

1. The Brain Keeps Score

And this one, I mean, imagine, if you feel like you’re a kind hearted person, but you’re consistently a jerk to your neighbor, your brain knows that and your brain logs it into a perception of self. And that’s the problem. Write this down. The brain keeps score. That’s the challenge with congruence. Your brain keeps score. You say you’re going to be a healthy person this year and you knocked down a couple of bottles of wine. Hopefully not in the same setting, you overdid it. You know, you took four weeks off of working out, just because. You’re not congruent with what you said. You said you’re going to do this thing, you didn’t.

And that incongruence, creates a greater log of reasons to not be confident, because guess what? When you are not congruent, your brain logs that and what it says in that log, that log entry, when you’re incongruent, your brain makes an entry in your confidence bank account or withdrawal. And what it says, not living your word, not living your truth, not doing what you said you would do. And too many of those negative withdrawals, sucks away your confidence.

2. Congruence Requires Clarity

Some people are bankrupt in confidence because they’re not consistent in congruence.

You follow? You got to go, “Oh okay,” but here’s what you need. To be congruent, what do you need? Clarity. You say, okay, these are my values. These are my beliefs. This is what I think is important as a human being, as a parent, as a caregiver or as a leader, okay. And then congruence is living up to that. Congruence is measuring this. Congruence measures whether or not you’re doing what you said you’re going to do. And that’s important. So here’s the simplest fix. If you’re been pulling too many withdrawals out of that bank account, it’s time to put some back in. And so today might be the day you go, “Where have I been incongruent? Where do I say something and I don’t do it? What if I treated people in a way that that’s not who I really am? Where am I doing things because I feel obligated to do them for others, but that’s not really me?” Where have you been faking it? Or even showing up as someone, that’s not authentic to you?

You know, so I have funny story, I’d like to keep it hopefully entertaining enough for you guys as we ask some tough questions. Personal development, the best personal development is tough questions, you know but some of it’s to just those epiphanes we get along the way. And I remember I was talking with a person about social media and you know, they had seen what, you know, what we had achieved in early days of Facebook. I was the first person in personal development to hit million people on Facebook, like a personal development teacher. And so we had a million, then it was two, then it was three, then it was four. It was just like, it was bananas, it was totally crazy. It was my quotes and my writing that was getting shared so much. And someone said, one time, you know, well, “All these other influencers, you know they’re showing their day more than you do, you know, you live on the beach, we’ve never seen a picture with you on your beach or we’ve never seen, you know, you do this and we don’t see that. We don’t see that, we don’t see that.” And I go, I don’t feel like I have to show every part of my life, I don’t need to take my shirt off for everybody just because other people take their shirt off.

That’s not congruent with how I feel like I show up in the world. I don’t have to show my butt. I just don’t feel like it’s a thing. That’s just not going to be me. No judgment, I just know that that’s not me. There’s a lot of things also I wish I was like this, or I wish I could do that but when I really think down I go, “You know what? That’s not for me.” And I’ve cleared it’s not for me. Think about every major pain you’ve had in your life. You went in the wrong direction or you went with the wrong person or you didn’t listen to that whisper that said, “No, that’s not us.” And so you fake it till you made it but you made it and you’re still faking it. And so what ends up happening is we got to know when we’re out of congruence.

3. Regain Congruence with an Apology

Where are you out of congruence and can you do the simple acts? Sometimes when you’re out of congruence first, you just apologize to yourself. You say, “You know what? Gosh, Brendon, I haven’t been honest with myself, let’s make a change.” Maybe even in congruent with someone who you love and just go, “Hey, you know what? I’m sorry about my behavior lately. That’s not the energy I want to bring to my marriage.” Maybe you’ve been in congruent with some friends, you know you said, you’d be there when they’re going through a hard time and you haven’t even called them. You call them up and say, “Hey, you know what? I’m sorry. I will let you know, I’d like to think of myself as a better friend than that. So I’m going to call you every Monday, 5:00 PM. I’m going to bother you, make sure you’re okay.”

I think the fastest path back into congruence is an apology.

An apology to yourself and apologize to other persons because you know apologies are hard, apologies are integrity. It takes a lot of guts to say you are wrong. It takes a lot of guts to acknowledge you can do better. And I think it’s a beautiful place. I think most people are scared of apologies. I think they open a big gate. They open the gate to communication. I think apologies open a gate to your spirit. I think an apology can go, “I’m better, I’m better.”

Where could you be more authentically you and where could you be more authentically you more consistently?

This is a critical one. Again, your brain is keeping the bank account. It’s logging your behavior. This one’s fundamental, but here’s the good news too.

4. We Choose What We’re Congruent With

You get to decide today what to be congruent with.

You get to decide who you are and you get to decide to show up and live into that.

Like many of you got to know my story when I was a depressed young man and suicidal. At some point I knew that wasn’t me. I wanted to live my life. And so I had to go, “Okay, I need to make sure each day, I give reverence to my creator that I’m still here. I need to make sure each day, I do something that has a passion. I bring some joy. Each day I sense a liveliness in my life. I’m going to live into that congruence because I’m not there yet but that’s who I really feel like.” So in other words, you can grow into your aspirational self.

You can learn to be more congruent with the better version of yourself than you are today.

That’s where personal growth comes from, a better vision of yourself and you live into that each day. You get to consistently show up for that new image, that new image of yourself. That’s what’s beautiful about life. You get it to recast like a mature adult gets to recast the vision of themselves, right? And unconscious animals don’t get to do that. We as a human species have this weird, bizarre ability to set a different vision for ourselves, you know? An alligator’s always going to think of itself as an alligator. It’s just an alligator. Humans can imagine a different self. How incredible is that?

So use that power, use that power, new vision for yourself.

Show up for it each day. New vision for yourself. Show up for it each day. New vision, show up. The more you do that the more the brain logs puts that cash money in that confidence bank account and says, “Yes, she’s walking the talk, people. Get out the way, here she comes. She’s in charge. She’s back, there she is.” Got it? It’s important, y’all.