Career Advice for Thought Leaders

SUMMARY

• “You have a choice: You can continue the downward spiral that stops you from progressing or you can jump on the upward spiral that comes from trying and serving. You’ve got to demand more of yourself than what you’re comfortable with. Momentum only comes from action. That means that all things rest on forward movement even if it’s imperfect, uncomfortable, and ugly.”
• Changing direction in your career can be scary. Learn the power of pivoting for lasting growth and success in today’s marketplace for thought leaders!
• “You want richness in your life? Share what you are learning so it eases someone else’s pain or shortens their learning curve.”
• If you’re looking to pivot further into thought leadership, learn how to be an even more effective influencer with these powerful tips!
• Watch the video to get the full training.
• Already have the High Performance Planner and CRUSHING each and every day? Let’s celebrate you! Take a photo with your planner and use #HPXlife or #TeamHPX.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

1. Free Trial for Reignite Your Life course! Enjoy a free trial for my Reignite Your Life course where I help you break the pattern of negative thinking and bad habits so you can deeply reconnect with your purpose! Click here to gain access.
2. High Performance Planner!  This is the 2-in-1 planner and journal achievers use to win the day and accelerate long-term success. Get yours here (while supplies last)!

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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.)

Hi everybody, I’m Brendon. If you haven’t met me before on the internet somewhere, I am here today to talk to you about the power of pivot. But, I’m also here to talk to you about how I started my career. I’m here to talk to you about how you can start yours, I’m here to talk to you about how to deal with this craziness we have going on in the world right now in a service driven way. ‘Cause everyone wants to do something right now but they don’t know what to do, and it’s so hard when it’s stressful and you’re freaking out and you’re all already—everyone here—you’ve already been pivoting, you’ve already been trying new things. So, now it’s just a matter of what level do you want to go to in your life, right?

You’ve already been adjusting and adapting, now what level do you want to go to?

You’ve already taught yourself you could adapt, I mean some of you can see, I cut my hair today. Anyone else cut your own hair? Recently, anyone in quarantine? I’ve cut my hair in quarantine, and we’re learning some new things together, people.

You’re already adapting, so you might as well adapt into success.

You’re already thinking about the things that should change in the world, so you might as well change those things in your internal world that will open up your joy and your happiness, to do what I always talk about: bringing the joy, to bring some joy into this world, in these dark and crazy and chaotic times. That’s not just something you get to do, that’s a responsibility we have right now. That’s a responsibility we have right now. We have to turn this energy around.

So many of us have been stuck in coping and that’s very important. We’ve had to be empathetic with each other, empathetic with other people to realize how difficult this time is. As you got the kids in the house, you’re taking care of 50 different things, trying 20 different things, signing up for seven, like all this stuff is going on, plus the kids, plus you’re trying to figure out the food, plus you’re trying to figure out jobs and the future and security. As all that’s going on, that’s okay. But listen, I’m here today to share with you, if you have not yet made this shift, here’s the shift you have to make.

We must, at some point, go from having that internal space where we’re focused on just the coping, just trying to deal, just trying to figure it out, just trying to get back in balance, just trying to be empathetic with other people. And we’ve got to shift from that coping mechanism back into performance. We have to stop this, “how am I going to get through this” to “how am I going to rise? How am I going to be my best? How am I going to exude and express the truest, most beautiful, most vibrant and fulfilled part of my nature?”

Not just, “Oh God, how do I get through the day again?” And I know how easy it is to get stuck in that. Who’s been stuck in that cycle at some point in the last five months? Where you had several weeks where it sucked? And maybe it didn’t suck like everything was so terrible, but ’cause your friends will say, “Why can’t you just be happy?” Well, yeah, you can be happy.

I would say you can be extremely happy, grateful, appreciative of what you have right now in front of you and ambitious for a better tomorrow. That’s a false dichotomy that you can’t be happy and still striving.

No, I’m like if you ever meet me, I’m a happy guy. I’m grateful, and I still want things. Even the Dalai Lama, the most spiritual being supposedly on the planet—here’s this person who’s incredibly grateful, present connected with what is now, and still wants the world to be better and still challenges himself to give. It’s so often we get stuck in our own head and I’m here to tell you this, and I hope you’ll hear this with love, because I’ve sat in so many of your shoes before you don’t even know. But often the reason people don’t start their dreams—it’s not because of what everyone else tells you. Oh, they don’t start their dreams ’cause they’re fearfully can’t figure things out. Oh, they don’t start their dreams ’cause they’re just oblivious to the opportunities. Oh, they don’t start their dreams because of this stout or that down thing or this circumstance. You know why most people—I’ve found after coaching people one-on-one for 20 years of my life, every single week, 20 years—most people don’t start their dreams. They’re afraid to be seen starting small. They’re embarrassed to be seen starting small.

People don’t start their dreams ’cause they’re embarrassed to be seen starting small.

They’re embarrassed for their neighbor to see they only got 10 views. They’re embarrassed that their old coworkers are like, “she’s a coach, what’s she doing with herself? Who does she think she is? I work with her. She wasn’t that great.” You’re embarrassed that your family is going to be like, “Who are you? What are you trying to do? I had Thanksgiving with you. You ate all the food.” You know what I’m saying? You’re worried what other people are going to think about you. And that is blocking your own action from learning and giving and contributing and changing the world. And then you tell yourself, “Well, I’m embarrassed what they’re going to think. So I better get everything perfect.” And now your perfectionism stops. The very progress that would make you feel good. And so you’re getting in your own way because you’re worried so much about what other people think. And then you try to get so perfect, so buttoned up and so proper, that maybe they’ll take you seriously.

What are you going to tell yourself? You need a fancier background? What? I mean, I don’t even know if these plants behind me are real. I don’t even know, who cares? What else are you going to tell yourself? “Oh, it’s a video. I don’t know how to do the internet. I don’t know how to send emails. I don’t know how to make money. Who am I? Because this, this and this.”

You have to choose whether or not you continue the downward spiral trends that stop you from progressing, or you choose to realize that the only upward spiral always comes from trying, always comes from serving, always comes when you demand more of yourself than what you’re comfortable with. You got to demand more of yourself than what you’re comfortable with. You do. That’s that upward spiral, your upward spiral.

Listen, I don’t want you to just pivot a little bit. I want you to experience the upward spiral and momentum, but momentum only comes from the action.

Motivation only comes from momentum. That means all things rest on forward movement, even if it’s imperfect, even it’s uncomfortable, even it’s ugly.

Listen, I went to school, I had good experiences mostly until a girl cheated on me. And if you know my story, a girl cheated on me when I was 19 years old, she was my high school sweetheart. I wasn’t equipped with the emotional intelligence to deal with it. And when that relationship fell apart, I fell apart, and I really fell apart. I fell into the depths of depression and suicidal ideation and planning. And fortunately, unrelatedly I had a car accident that made me realize the preciousness of this life. You all, I realized I didn’t want to take my life. I wanted to live it. I realized I didn’t want to take my life. I wanted to live it. I realized my heart wasn’t broken forever. I wanted to love still. I realized I was a young man. I wasn’t done. I still had things I could do to make a difference, to matter, to change things.

And so I just kept at it and I believed things could be good. I went to college, finished college, got a good job. You know, even had benefits. You ever get a job with benefits, who remembers their first job with benefits? I got a paycheck every two weeks. It was the most unbelievable thing ever. I couldn’t even believe it. It was more than my parents had ever made working two full-time jobs between them. Couldn’t believe it. Great job. Unbelievable. And I had a great job, and nothing was wrong with the job. It was okay. It was finely paid. I mean, I could pay my rent. I was happy about that. But inside, I noticed that I wanted something different and something more.

1. Don’t be Oblivious to the Obvious

If I can give you three ideas today, I’d like to start with this first one, and this I’m not going to say the words right. And I think they’re both really hard to spell, but don’t be oblivious to the obvious. Don’t be so oblivious to the obvious. And that always starts within you.

The way you unleash your life and you open up and you enjoy things again and you find your passion, is you start following those interests, but not casually. You go, “Oh, let me, let me dive in there. Let me see what that’s about. Let me try that out. Let me notice the internal colleagues.”

See, what you’re missing is you’re mistaking often, the internal calling for having complete clarity.

See you don’t take action cause you don’t have the perfect complete step-by-step blueprint. Sometimes I go like, “Ah, I don’t know. The house is going to get figured out.” You have to recognize what’s inside saying, “This is good, but it’s not exactly right. This is good but I feel like I could do more. Be more, serve more, learn more, give more,” and honoring that. So it begins, don’t be oblivious to the obvious feelings inside that say, “I want to try something new.”

The second thing is, don’t be oblivious to the marketplace. I would say a good 90% of the world just discovered virtual coaching and going live in virtual groups. Let me share some numbers to you for those who are new to the industry. I was blessed to leave that corporate job in 2006 and write my first book called Life’s Golden Ticket. It was the first book I released to the public anyway. And, I was unhappy with how it did. I didn’t know marketing. The world of experts and thought leadership didn’t even have a name yet. You were an author or you were a speaker or you were a coach. We didn’t call ourselves thought leaders or influencers back then. And if anyone’s done a good job, I hope for especially the last decade of teaching the world about what thought leadership is and influencership really is, I hope that my name gets thrown in that bucket because for me, I figured it out in 2007.

So listen to some of the numbers that people don’t know. I’ll give an example, like Ustream, you started going live, live broadcasts. That was in 2008. Some of you might remember, now don’t worry about the politics here—but if you watched the Republican National Convention in 2008, it was broadcast live for the very first time. If you don’t like that side of the party, don’t worry. Barack Obama’s inauguration, January 2009, broadcast live on the internet. 2009 that same year, I made my first big launch, big money going live in 2009. So why am I saying this? YouTube live, it started being available for everyone 2011 to 2013, the whole world.

So, I share that because we’re 10 to 12 years into this. And some people are just finding it now, if that’s you, okay, good. You got what’s called a second chance. There’s some of us who’ve been doing this, who started their first videos, and they were like, weird and awkward, that’s me. I was so weird and awkward. My first videos, you don’t even know. I had a shirt that hung open and I was all like, “hello everybody.” It was scary. Anyone ever tried to do your first video? And you can’t even pronounce your name? I was like, “Hi, I’m Brendon Burchard. Hi, I’m Brendon Buchard. Hi.” I remember I hated my tone. I hated my voice. Oh my God. Yeah, that was me for my first a hundred videos. Okay. You get over it.

But because I wasn’t oblivious to what was happening, I was like, “Wait, things are going online. Things are going virtual. Things are going live.” And if you miss the first wave, here’s what I’m here to tell you: don’t miss the second one. You ever heard that metaphor? You heard me talk about Experts Academy before. They like the metaphor, the old world is like, everyone’s standing on the shore and they hop into boats and they go out into the world, and some of them come back and they go, “Oh my gosh, there’s treasures. There’s new lands. There’s gold out there. Oh my gosh.”

And some people, they just stand on the shores, whatever. “That’s crazy. That’s a new thing. That’s unsafe. You’re so crazy.” And the more people went the second time, fewer came back, ’cause it was better than the new world. But sales people came back. So you had two or three boats going, but finally someone came back and there was only like five people standing on the shore ’cause everybody else had already gone, or died. At some point you need—the new world has set sail. If this is your first time hearing about you being able to earn by sharing your voice, by teaching, by monetizing your learning, your passions, your interests, your ability to go find information, to solve problems, to talk with people, to coach with people, what I call thought leadership; if this is the first time you’re hearing it, I want you to hear me say it began in 2008, where it was worldwide available, popular and possible.

Now there was a whole real raft of us who got on, and what happened? Then when we got to this day, we were ready. And some of you are going to go, ”Well, that means I’m too late.” No, what that means is this is the second boat. Don’t miss it now. Don’t be oblivious to what’s happening in the world. The world just did this. What we are doing here, the world just did it. That means you have a first mover advantage because remember back then, that live broadcast was more outbound. This is more interactive. It’s interactive.

I’m from Montana. For those who don’t know, I grew up in a super small town. I had no idea what was possible. No idea. But you know what I loved? I mean, this is my second point for you today. I loved that I had to teach to learn. Somewhere along the line, It switched in my head. I loved it. I loved to learn, but you know when I learned the best? When I’m teaching, and hearing what people say about it, and I get feedback. You want to become an expert. You don’t become an expert then start monetizing. You start helping people and working problems through with them. You start figuring out what you know that could be helpful. What could you research that could be helpful? What could you say? How could you interact? How could you guide them?

And all of a sudden your expertise gains in the interaction and in the process of teaching. You don’t just go on the internet and suddenly you’re wealthy. No, you go on the internet, or you start interacting with the clients. And the wealth builds, as you stay consistent. ‘Cause as you stay consistent, you learn. As you learn, you notice those little things that work and don’t work. You know what to say? You get better at it. You get over yourself. And all of a sudden you become a better teacher. As you become a better teacher, you grow your wealth.

Everyone thinks I’m this amazing business person. I’m like, I’m a good teacher. I love teaching. The business comes along with it. So if number one is, don’t be oblivious to the obvious. The obvious is you have a calling. You brought you here today. And the obvious is what’s happening in the marketplace. And you’ve got to grab hold of it and take advantage of it right now. Cause there’s not going to be four or five more boats coming. This is your time.

2. Teach to Learn

The second idea is you’ve got to teach to learn. And the good thing is, you get to monetize your learning. Do you know what I did this morning? I spent three hours reading books I like. Taking notes on them, thinking about how that adds up into a framework or something that I can teach from that I can understand from my own perspective and share. And I’ll go live with that at the top of the month. And I go live with tens of thousands of people, and I just teach. How cool is that? And I get paid for that? Look how big this thing looks on the internet. Wow, it’s 20 ounces. I fill this up with some green tea in the morning. I sit there with my books. I read and I take my notes and I think about life. That’s my career. Anyone else dig this? I get paid to learn and share.

That’s the hardest thing is to find people who want to learn and share. That’s literally the hardest thing. ‘Cause you think it’s hard turning on a camera or joining Zoom? No. But you’re telling yourself this story. “Oh, emails sure sounds hard. The internet sure sounds hard.” You can figure it out because guess what? If it’s true you’re a learner, you’re going to take the step to sign up to keep learning more so you can master it.

Think of everything I do now that you all see me do, right? My first time on stage, mortified, threw up backstage. In the last decade, I would say the only person who earned more from stages was Tony Robbins than us, right? He’s a great friend and mentor. I love the guy. Learned so much from him. I presented Experts Academy, all this stuff on thought leadership, at Tony’s seminar in 2009 to his people. I was shouting from his stage in 2009. There’s this whole new world called the experts industry, the thought leadership industry, where you take what you learn and you share it, and you do that on the internet. And that can be a career. I taught that 11 years ago on Tony’s stage. Please think about that. Don’t miss this time. Don’t miss it, for those of you who are here that love learning, I’m just here to say might as well monetize learning. I think it’s important.

3. Know the 3 Things You Need to Succeed

Then the third thing, this is just tactical and practical for those of you, who are like super overdoing how hard this is. You think you have to do everything. You have to do webinars, you have to do online videos and Facebook groups and you have to write books and do membership areas and masterminds. You have to do live events. You have to have a team for digital media, digital marketing, social media tools, you have to do online chat… You’re like, “Oh my God.”

You need three things. You need three things. That’s it. Three things.

A) Integrated Product Suite

Number one, and this is where it all begins, number one, what I call the integrated product suite. It’s a fancy frigging word. The integrated product suite. What does that mean? You need three offers. Three offers. You can start with one, but you can also scale to millions with three offers. What does it mean? A low tier offer? Meaning a low-priced offer. Then a mid tier offer, mid-priced offer. Then a high tier offer, high-priced offer.

Now I know that’s too simple, but for a Montana kid, I was like, “Oh, okay. So if I had a book, low-priced, and I had an online course, mid-priced, and then they could work with me on the internet as a coach, high-priced, that would be like a business?” Now, you got to decide that the whole model can be that for you. Integrate. We call it integrated proxy. Why? Because if they want the low price, they’ll buy the mid to get the high. Right?

Think about Apple users. You remember that. You bought the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad. That’s called escalation. That’s called an integrated product suite. I became famous in business strategy for teaching. Oh, there’s a name for that. It’s called an integrated product suite. So you got it. But you don’t need five. Listen, I always remind people. Steve Jobs came back to Apple. What did he do after he got booted out? He came back in. He said, “Why do we have 28 things here? We’re selling. We should be selling five or six.” So a billion dollar company only sold five or six things. And you, in your living room, think you’re going to start 15? A billion dollar company sells five or six things? No, the beauty is you need to sell one, two or three tops, tops. So stop freaking out.

B) Consistency on Social Media

The second thing, what do you need? Consistency on social media. If you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to be consistent on social media.” Fine. Hire someone to make you consistent on social media. Like, I’m not live every day on social media. Why? ‘Cause I’m a dork. I like to read books and stuff. You get to pick where you play. You don’t have to do everything.

People are getting work life balance wrong right now. Work life balance is not about equal number of hours going to equal things. “Well, I better give four hours to the kids today and four hours to work and four hours to husband.” No work life balance. It’s not about hours of balance.

Work life balance is about harmony. Harmony, not hours.

There’s some days, man, it was the kids all day for you. There’s some days the pipe broke in the basement. That was what got the attention. You need to build the business that runs, regardless of those days. The business earns just as much tomorrow online if I show up and do anything on social media or not. That’s what we all want. That’s the freedom we’re after. So number one is the integrated product suite, number two, social media consistency, you have to set that up so that people can see like, who is this? What is this person doing? What’s this about?

C) Awesome Value

And number three, absolute awesome value in number one and number two. Just awesome value. Good energy value, share your learning. Just give awesome value. And don’t think you have to be so different than everyone else in the world. You have to be you and share what you’re learning. If you just shared everyday what you’re learning, and you kept learning every day, I always say, listen, people would be profoundly wealthy if they stopped focusing so much on money and they focused on service.

You want richness in your life? Share what you are learning so it eases someone else’s pain or shortens their learning curve.