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.)

How you honor the struggle of the last two years directly correlates to your life satisfaction, to your stress levels, to your wealth and income, to your career advancement, to your own self-reported quality of your own work. In doing the research in the High Performance Institute, we have found over and over and over again this mindset of how you perceive, struggle, and the challenge is the critical linchpin in whether or not you change. 

1. Don’t Think in Terms of ‘Worthiness’

Honor the struggle. I teach it every year to honor the struggle, to know that struggle is part of the human narrative. You have it, I have it, everyone you meet has it. We all must experience challenge and conflict and awfulness in our lives. We all will. How we meet, greet, adapt, and grow from that struggle is the difference-maker. And what I have studied, seeing people come out of complete poverty to wealth, studying people who had no skill in athletic endeavors to literally me being on the Olympic track with them, the difference at some point came to how in those times of hardship, when they felt discouraged, when they failed, when they were judged, when they were struggling, how did they experience it, adapt from it and grow from it? And to me, those who made it, honored that process as a learning journey and a chance to improve. They honored the process as a learning journey, a chance to improve. They didn’t feel the struggle, listen, write this down for all you self-haters out there. I love you because I’ve been there.

They didn’t take struggle as a verdict on their worthiness. They didn’t take struggle as a verdict on their capabilities. They didn’t sense struggle and quit and bemoan and hate themselves.

They sense struggle and they go: this is hard. Of course, it’s hard. I’ve not done this before. I’ve not trained for this. I don’t have the capabilities or skills yet. I don’t have the peer group yet. I don’t have a mentor yet. I guess it’s my job to go get those things.

2. See Struggle as a Chance to Learn

 

They didn’t take struggle, listen, please, this is like, this will change everything for you. They didn’t take struggle as a knock to their identity or their worthiness. Instead, they took struggle as an indication to learn. To get better. They didn’t hate themselves in it. Instead, they engaged themselves with the process to get better. And that was the difference-maker.

One you hate yourself, the other one you engage to get better. And honoring struggle as an opportunity to grow is the mindset. That’s the mindset: honoring struggle as an opportunity to grow.

3. Be Ready to Challenge Yourself

I always love this time of year. I meet so many people who tell me one of their intentions in help is to run a marathon, which I think is amazing, you know? Now, why would anyone want to struggle through a friggin’ marathon?

Because they honor that process is something that will demand of them to get better.

How cool is that? How cool is that? Think about it, it’s cool. It’s the difference between stopping progress and getting progress, whether or not we choose to honor the struggle, meaning we take the struggle as a reason for challenging ourselves. The struggle becomes a rationale, an indicator light to challenge ourselves, to learn, to get better. Or we take struggle as a stoplight to sit in our car on the side of the road and cry and bemoan ourselves and speak negatively about ourselves and diminish ourselves and minimize ourselves. And if we do that, watch out because guess what that intention can become? Well, intention. I’m not worthy. I’m not capable. Why should I even try?

4. Take the Initiative

A lot of people’s intention, the way they actually show up, week over week and month over month, is their actual intention. Consciously and unconsciously, why should I even try? That is the thought, that is the belief, that is the behavior, and it becomes an intention in life. Because, see, from intention, initiative flows or doesn’t. We only take initiative because we have the intention to.

If you’re not taking initiative in life, it’s because your intention has been hijacked by negative thinking.

Let me say it again if you are not taking initiative, taking action in life, it’s because your intentions have been hijacked by negative thinking. And so what we have to do is recognize, observe, be mindful that like, wow, every time I’m struggling or discouraged or feel fear, I shut down. I quit. I stop. I speak badly of myself. We have to recognize those. We have to see that. We have to honor that and understand that.

5. Honor Yourself as Capable

And

honoring the struggle often begins with honoring ourselves as capable.

I honor myself as capable. I recognize I am able. I recognize I have worth and I recognize that I am deserving of improving my life, so this struggle right here, this struggle might actually be well beyond my capabilities. This struggle might be the scariest, hardest, most difficult thing I have ever faced in my life. This struggle might scare the crap out of me, and this struggle might really make my life hard. But this struggle will not destroy me. This problem is not bigger than my personhood, or my potential. And so we keep going. How you honor the struggle of the last two years directly correlates to your life satisfaction, to your stress levels, to your wealth and income, to your career advancement, to your own self-reported quality of your own work. In doing the research in the High Performance Institute, we have found over and over and over again this mindset of how you perceive, struggle, and the challenge is the critical linchpin in whether or not you change.