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.)

Passion. Passion. That, you know, when we’re thinking about meaningful pursuits, most people only think about passionate pursuits. Well, I’m here to say all of this requires a sense of passion, of positive or heightened emotions and feelings and experiences that we want to create in our lives, not because we want to be buzzed out by them, but because we recognize the potential and the magic that comes from when we allow ourselves to be emotive. And when we allow ourselves to pursue things that we actually care about.

1. Fill Your Life With Love

What you find meaningful and fulfilling tends to come from things that you are doing, meaningful pursuits, that you find intrinsically and deeply interesting or passionate or even obsessive in that you were like, “I just love this thing so much!”. And the more that you love something, the more that you tend to find it to be fulfilling. And so, we’ve got to allow ourselves to pursue our interests and our passions to the place of love. That when you have love in your life, you are more in connection with what will make you feel fulfilled, and it will be in more connection with what you will, later on, ascribe as a meaningful life.

I never met a person in all my years of researching personal development, reading all the great biographies, being with psychologists and sociologists and psychiatrists, and being with people in hospice at the end of their life, never met a single person to talk about, think about, write about, research or experience a meaningful life absent of love. Not a single. Never done it. I then read a spiritual text, that love was in the center of what humankind’s meaning is. I’ve never read any research that has found a happy person who didn’t have deep, meaningful, connected, and loving relationships. I’ve never met someone who attained, you know, the remarkable status of a billionaire or a multimillionaire or the CEO, the most successful person or expert in their field who didn’t love what they were doing, maybe they didn’t love it every day, and that’s a mistake that every day is supposed to be perfect and joyous and abundant. And oh my gosh. Perfect. Now, there are lots of days that aren’t, but they’re on what I would call a loving path. They’re on a loving path. They love what they’re doing. They might not even know what the career is, but every time they do that one thing, they feel a connection to it that’s different than other things. There’s more interest, more passion, more depth, more excitement, more something there.

2. Find Time For Things You Enjoy

And we haven’t been taught to pursue those things. Especially when we’re young, we’re taught to pursue avenues that lead to a specific result that society says is good. You know, we’ll do this job because it leads to that salary instead of asking: what do you like doing? What are you interested in? What draws your passion? What do you love actually spending your time on? Finding those things and exploring and spending time with them, regardless of the external rewards, the extrinsic rewards, no, you do them because you inherently find them to be interesting, passionate, good. You love doing it. The more time you spend doing things that you love, I promise you will watch your sense of meaning and fulfillment go through the roof. But most people think, “Well, I’ve got to quit my job then”. No, what you gotta do is give yourself two more hours of that thing that you love a week. Maybe that happens on Saturday morning before the kids get up. Maybe that happens after hours at work.

3. Not Every Day Needs To Be Perfect

 

For me, I believe that everyone has different life contexts. You know, I remember being a young man, I said, “I want to write books”, and everyone said quit your job, and that wasn’t realistic for me at that moment. I wouldn’t be able to afford to eat. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t write a few hours a day, and I found that the more that I found time to write, even having to be 20 minutes that day, even happened to be one hour on that Saturday, that dopey little coffee shop I like to go to, well, guess what? I sense more meaning and fulfillment in life. And I say this because not every day, not every moment has to have, oh, meaning and fulfillment, Brendon, no, but we all have choices to label things, to name things, to define things, to cultivate the emotions, the feelings, the thoughts, the self-talk that we all want. Build better relationships. Live more healthfully. Add in a little exploration or adventure.

We can do all of that, but if we think somehow that every day is supposed to be perfect and we’re always going to be in this perfect sense of bliss and meaning and fulfillment, we’re cheating ourselves, and we’re probably not being realistic. 

But I think what is real is that every person watching this right now can make that decision to spend a little bit more time being and doing and giving love in this world. That the more that we are aligned with love, whatever that is for you, maybe for you at this stage of life, well, that means Brendon I’m going to do what I love and for you, love is doing a career, right? For you, maybe love is exploring a topic. For you, maybe doing what you love is starting your business. Maybe for you, love means I must spend quality time with my family. Love is I’m going to be a great parent right now at this stage of my life. Maybe love right now means you’re going to build something new. Maybe love is just that one thing you do out in the garage that you just love doing. 

4. Do Things That Give You Meaning

My dad loved building bird boxes. He just loved it. Man, he would just, he would work so hard all week. He’d be so busy with the family. But man, if he could find an hour or two out there to build a bird box, a bird feeder, he’d be so happy. He’d be so happy. If he could go, he would love to go to the golf courses, and on the outside of the golf course, beyond the perimeter, he’d go and take like a pillowcase and he’d just go pick up all the golf balls that were way shot out. And I never understood it until years later. I’d say “why is he out there?”. I’d be embarrassed. My dad is out there picking up these stray golf balls. Why is he doing that? And then I realized that was his form of meditation, got him out in nature, away from everybody else. He’s picking up one ball at a time. Nothing else to do. Just breathing out in nature. He was happy. He just loved doing that. And when he came back home after doing that, he was in like this Zen Buddha mode. He just loved doing that. He found a lot of meaning in that.

What do you find meaning in? Is there something you love you could give a few more hours to? Is there someone you love you could give a few more hours to? Is there an interest or hobby, a passion you just love doing, and maybe you know what, it doesn’t add up to the bank account, it doesn’t get you on the cover of the magazines, but it makes life worthwhile? You feel better. You feel a greater sense of fulfillment from life because you’re living life doing things and being a person that you love. I think ultimately, all meaning and fulfillment, all roads somehow lead back to this topic of love, might not have all the answers on that one. There might be something for you to journal about today. How does love connect to your sense of meaning and fulfillment in life? That might mean you live with love, meaning you are loving-hearted towards other people. It might mean how you treat other people. It might be the things that you do. It might be your life philosophy. However you define it, I promise you my friends, love, that’s the answer somewhere.