You Can’t Level Up Because You Keep Doing This

Lots of successful people feel stuck, but they'll say, I'm plateauing. We're not growing. Not growing is the same as stuck. Your distractions are creating levels in your performance. Don't get on the sidelines. The play is still in motion. You can still determine the outcome of this game. As I introduce this concept of being stuck, I will say you might be stuck at a certain level, and that is not to diminish you. Lots of successful people feel stuck, but they'll say, I'm plateauing. Lots of people are stuck, and they'll say, we're not growing. Not growing is the same as stuck. It's okay to ask, is the way that you are performing, showing up, and activating life sufficient for the level of whatever that you want to enjoy is? This is gonna be a big question we're gonna ask today. In other words, I need you to identify what is the level you want to play at? And when I say level, I mean level of being. Being, meaning feeling, joy, commitment, conviction, confidence, aliveness, enthusiasm, adventure. But also what level of relating, what level of marriage, what level of business, what level of generosity, what level of experience in life? Because we're always leveling up our levels of being and relating. Okay? So the issue that you're struggling with is you kind of feel like you're going along, and then something happens, and there's a fall, and you fight like hell to get back, and you're doing good, and then there's a fall, you fade, you fight like hell to get back. Forgive my language. And you keep fighting back. And your mode of being, your mode of living, and maybe your examples in life was that to always, like, get back to something. You know, when you're unhealthy and you're sick, you want to get back to health, right? You want to get back to comfort, you want to get back to homeostasis. You want to maintain, right? You want to survive the fall and rise to back normalcy, right? That's the journey so many people on. The issue is, this is called driving your life on the void. You're scanning the world, and what you're trying to do is get to something that maybe you've been there before or maybe even someone you know has been there, and you're trying to get there. But then just as it's going good, it feels like everything falls apart. And then you go and it's like, boom and bust. It's boom, it's bust. It's. I'm on my diet for 12 weeks, and then it's three weeks of pizza and pad thai. Love the pizza and pad thai. Nothing against the pizza and pad Thai. Just try not to do three weeks of it. So what ends up happening is it's just like, man, where's the breakthrough? What's happening? And I'm like, oh, the issue is you're not even thinking breakthrough. You're just trying to fill a void. A lot of people, they're just trying to fill a void. This is called the deficiency drive. The deficiency drive is I didn't have enough or I need or I gotta fix or I just have to survive these next X number of days. And so the reality is your aim. Aim. Your aim. Aim. What you're aiming at is actually the level you're playing at. The aim that you have, the level of aim you have is the level of performance you tend to have. Does that make sense? My performance has a lot to do with my ambition. But if my ambition is just to get homeostasis or to return to normal or to get something that I didn't have before, here's a weird thing. You'll get it. That's the weird thing. You'll feel the void. I wasn't loved by my father when I grew up. Okay, how are you going to fill that void? Well, if it's just I just need love because I didn't have love. I'm trying to fill the void, right? He didn't love me. Void, I need it. Well, now, that strategy to get that need to fill the void dictates a lot, doesn't it? Because it's like, I didn't have that. I need to fill it. How am I going to go fill it? Now you have a strategy to fill the void. And you know what? You'll probably get some love, right? Some people, their strategy is really bad. I need love. So now they're going to blaze through 13 partners in two years trying to find somebody who makes them feel what's already within. They just have an activated self love. So they're craving it from somewhere they didn't have it. So they'll do anything to fill the void. Same thing happens to high performers too. There's a sense of, like, inadequacy, you know? Well, this CEO has this. I don't. So I'm going to drive to fill the void. The gap between what they have and I don't. And so over and over, we're just playing this game. And what happens in this game is usually the same thing. We just keep fading. We go. We fade. We go we fade. We go. We fade. Here's the crazy thing. This can feel like a life of unbelievable progress. This can feel amazing. Filling the void and surviving can feel amazing. This like, it can feel amazing because you know what it's like. Oh, my. This is an adventure, isn't it? What an adventure. Anyone know a hot mess in your life? I mean, their life is pretty adventurous because look at, look at. Fill in the void. Look. What does it look like? V. Victory. Victory. Victory. Victory. They're a hot mess of victories, but they keep getting victories at the same level because they're just filling a void. There's levels of being. You ascend or you do not. Like you didn't get any different enduring quality of self over that time. That's why we have to do the work. That's why I tell them, personal development. You never stop doing it. And for those who I'm a hot mess a lot. And then I realized, I'm fading here. Even if it feels like victory, I'm fading. You're fading. What does this stand for? I'm going to give you a quick acronym, and then we're going to go into the difference of that picture versus another picture. Let's just do a quick acronym, unfading. What happens when we kind of fade? We fall into the pit. Okay, we're going to use an acronym for those who are notetaking geeks like I am. F, A, D, E. Here's why. It keeps happening and it's not terrible, so stick with me. The fade, usually in people's lives. Where is it happening? Number one, fatigue. You didn't level up because you're tired at this level, your body and your mind. If you are not understanding right now how to optimize yourself and maintain some kind of equilibrium, balance or harmony. Use whatever word you want. But the truth is, most people don't go for another level because they're tired at this one. And fatigue is both biological and mental. For those who believe in spirituality, it's biological, mental, and spiritual. You gotta identify, where is that fatigue? Because I'm here to tell you the weirdest thing. The more fatigued you are, the more bitter you become. The more bitter you become, the more like bitterness, like cracks you. The more bitter you become. The less you want to work with other people, the less you want to work with more other people, the less you can scale whatever your dream is. Because now everyone's an opponent. When you're tired, everyone's an opponent. So you have to identify, where am I tired? Is it. Am I Fatigued spiritually? Am I fatigued mentally? Am I fatigued physically? We have. I always start with fatigue with people. I want to know where their rhythm is in life, how they eat, how they move. Most of your actual energy that you feel right now has nothing to do with anything I've done. Said lights, sound. Most of your energy in this room at any given time in your entire life. Most of your energy at any given moment in your entire life is a biological foundation of your last 72 hours. It's how much did you sleep the last three days, what did you eat? And what are your recovery patterns? It doesn't mean that all those years of eating crap also don't sneak up on us as such a surprise. Oh, my gosh, I'm overweight. Yes. It didn't suddenly happen, and we can acknowledge that, right? So you have to go, where is the fatigue? If I can help you work through your fatigue mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, now we're going another level. What else happens? Well, same thing happens. There's a little dip. And the second thing that happens is we have aimlessness. Aimlessness means you're just kind of wandering with no aim. Just making sure we're all in the same. How many of you wander through too many of your days distracted? Distraction today is the way they are ripping your power. See, they used to be, as you'll hear today. You know, prisons were like real things. Now, the brilliance of our modern era and our modern engineers, they took the prison, they put it in your hand. You know, when you're aimless, you have projects, you have dreams. But you pick up the phone and you scrolled for 20 minutes. Why? It's entertaining, it's engaging. It's a dopamine hit. It's easier than going over there. But notice, it drops you into the pit. It drops you at levels. Your distractions are creating, levels in your performance, levels in your being, levels in relating. Your distractions drop you into the pit. Soon as you get that, you're like, okay, now I don't need you fully focused 24 7. We're going to talk about productivity later. I just need you to get the power of this. If we can drop a little less in distraction, we have at least a chance of staying at a level of success. Distraction is stealing your destiny. And until that hits, and I don't know how else to say it, if it doesn't hit you, I promise you a life below your levels of potential. You're going to experience a life below your potential. If distraction keeps ripping your day alive. If you keep starting. You got to start the day with intention. You have to live an intentional life. You already know that. You got to do the work, though. Look at the goals, look at the task. Visualize, think through. Work through them in your mind. Move. Look at the goals, think about it. Visualize it, internalize it, move. This has to be the days of life. It doesn't mean you get every day right. It has to be an aspiration. Has to be what an aspiration mean. It's on your radar. You're trying. I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking for progress. I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking you to be in the game. I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking you not to fall deeper into the pit. Hey, guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra. Ultra. And we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com fatigue, aimlessness. This one is, I think, the worst feeling of them all for me personally. Discouragement. You got discouraged, Brendan. I tried your best. Biohacks and creatine. Brendan. I am taking care of myself. Brendan. I am a good leader, Brendan. I am succeeding. Like, everything's going good. And then something happened and I lost hope. I tried to make an approach. They rejected me. I got discouraged. When you get discouraged, you detach from motion. You ever seen a quarterback watching a game day and a quarterback just, man, it's like five misses in a row, and you just see them, like, they slouch. They walk back to the huddle, and you can just see it. The discouragement is embodied. Like, it's literally. You can see it on there, and they're just like, ugh. And all of a sudden you just see everybody in the huddle and you see the guys wander back and discouragement absolutely destroys performance. Discouragement destroys performance. You've got to learn to let go of that discouragement back in motion. Right? That's what you would tell a quarterback, hey, don't get so discouraged. You missed a few shoulders back, stand tall, activate. Make the next play. Make the next play. You wouldn't say, oh, stay there. Let's talk about it more. Let's. Let's just come. Come over here on the side. Forget the game of life is even playing. Let's just ruminate together. Let's just really talk about that discouragement. As long as the job, no matter what it is and what your process is, you have to release the discouragement. Get back into hope, back into faith, back into resilience, back into motivation, back into drive, back into progress. That's the job. It doesn't mean you'll do the job all the time. It just means the more time that you do, the higher level of being, the longer stuck in discouragement, the lower level of being. Just like we talked about with aimless distraction. The lower in the pit, the longer the low level. I don't care and judge you for falling in the pit. That's normal. We fall in the pits. What I need to talk about is how long you decide to stay there. That's what we have to talk about. That's the levels. It's normal to be broken, sad, disheartened stuff happens. You did something really wrong. You hate yourself for it. You feel bad for it. We have guilt, we have shame. We need healing. That's all normal stuff. The duration of time stuck in discouragement, not being in the huddle, not being in motion. That level of time is what puts people down for a long time. It's okay to feel it, an acknowledgment, but part of life is going resilience. How fast is my speed to resilience? My in football speed in motion. Right, guys, I need to get back into the motion, back into play. The time is clicking. I need to come out of this discouraged huddle and come back and be back in passing motion. So we know it's sports. We forget it in our life. I always tell people, hey, hey, the play's still in motion. Hey, I know you're discouraged, but listen. I know you're discouraged, but listen. The kids still in the house, the play's still in motion. You can still determine the outcome of this game. Don't get on the sidelines. I know you got in the fight with that teenager, but they're still in the house with you. You still got time. If you get discouraged and detached from them and you step back, mom, you step back dad, you step back out of the Motion of good parenting. The longer you're out of the motion of good parenting, the deeper the pit in that relationship, the longer it takes to get back into the game in relationship with the child. This is everything. You can look back at your life and you can realize how long was it until resilience happened. The longer that span of time, the more your levels were depressed. I don't mean psychological depression. I mean, you have other levels you could be at, but you're lower. And there's no judgment. You just have to be now aware. I want you to know when you're in the pit and I just want you to go up. I'm there. I got to optimize. As we'll talk about last big piece. And this is. I don't know how to deal with this one. You guys can coach me. It's super hard. I don't think any human has yet beaten it. That is ego. Ego is separation. And there's lots of words that go behind ego. Ego is separation. It's separation from the moment. It's usually separation from other people. It's separation from better strategies even though you know it. That's called stubbornness. Separation from better strategies even though you know it. Stubbornness is ego. Right. Because I am in self protection mode. I don't want to look silly. I don't want to be embarrassed. I don't want to try and look embarrassed or it's that poker dilemma. Brennan. I got so much in. I can't change. I've been like this my whole life. How could I change? Well, the ego's need for that certainty, the ego's need for stubbornness, and the ego's needs to judge to blame. Here's what ego really means. I'm special, and in my specialness, I'm not getting the respect I deserve. And so I'm going to pull away. I'm going to go internally and detach from her, from them, from the better idea. I just don't believe it. That's not who I am. And what is? That's not who I am. They believe I am is a very special thing to them. That's what ego is. Your ego says, you're so special, they shouldn't treat you like that. Fight back. Your ego says, hey, I'm the important one. Ego will keep you in the battles, blind of the bigger game. Ego will keep you in the battles blind of the bigger game, blind of the bigger war, blind of the bigger opportunity. A lot of people, especially successful people, it's hard. When I got down you're really successful. How'd you do that? They tell me everything and I'll listen, but if I hear a lot of ego in it, I'll just go, have you been growing? And they're like, no, that's why you're here. I'm like, that's not why I'm here. But you haven't been growing. Because, see, in ego, it's like, I'm just going to keep doing this thing because it always worked. It worked last year, it works every year. And these stupid team that I have, they don't understand. They don't have the same heart and conviction because they're not the founder. I'm the founder. I'm the founder. I'm the founder. I'm the founder. I'm the founder. They don't understand. Why don't they work as hard? I'm a high performer. They all suck. Look at all these normies. They don't do anything. They don't even try. What's up with these guys? And all of a sudden you're judging everybody as below you. That's the ego. The ego likes to sit on high. Everyone else is below. You're special. Even special in your own hurt, Even special in your own need for healing. Even in your own special need for your voids. Your ego wants to celebrate that, make you special, detach you from the moment, detach you from better ideas, detach you from people. And all of a sudden you're fighting battles all the time. That's how you know ego's taken over. You're always in battle. You're in battle with yourself. Self criticism, ego. Higher your ego. The more you criticize yourself. People don't understand this. When you hate yourself, you have high ego. Man, that's a hard one, isn't it? The more you hate yourself, the more ego's taken over. Think about your motivation when you're like, I'm tired, I don't know what I really want. You know what? Nothing's going really well. I'm bummed out about it. No one really understands me anyway. Think about, that's the pit. That's the pit. Your job, job one is to activate. What do we mean in this context? We need to flip these things when you're here. Oh, what do I need to do? I need to level up your energy. Everyone say it with me. Level up your. That's why I'm telling you, you gotta learn that your energy is not something that you have. It is something you are generating. You've got to generate Energy again. And I'm for me, that's mental, physical, spiritual. You have to activate your energy. It's why I always tell my audience like, you don't have happiness. Feelings are not something you have. Feelings are interpretations and decisions. Emotions you have, they're automatic, impulsive, physical. You don't. An emotion hits you, a feeling you determine over a period of time. You've put meaning and interpretation to the feeling. I tell people this because your energy is not something you have. We have a physical, biological sense, that's energy. But emotions come and go. But feelings, we have more power of that. You can cultivate feelings. And so I don't say have happiness, I say generate happiness. See, fatigue over a period of time is also generated and energy is generated. That's why I tell you, if you come over to my house, I don't want you to bring anything to my house. I want you to bring the joy. See, you get to deter. I'm going to bring joy, I'm going to generate love, I'm going to generate care, I'm going to generate compassion, I'm going to generate excitement. I'm going to generate, going to literally outbound energy onto people. You understand? You take back, you become the generator again. Fatigue you have to battle, you have to struggle with. We all do. But there's another level. There's a gen. I'm going to generate it, not just have it. Woo. I'm not just going to have money, I'm going to generate wealth. Oh, we talking levels now? I want some money versus I'm going to generate wealth. Aimlessness. What do we got to do? Focus. What's the intention? What's the goal? What's the objective? Even if that means to chill, to relax. I'm an amazing chiller. If you guys ever want to chill with a guy who knows how to chill, let me tell you about spas, pina coladas, golf and long walks. I got it down, got it down. Everyone thinks he's a high performance guy. He must not relax. I'm like, if you followed me, you'd be pretty surprised by the relaxed nature of my life. I'm enthusiastic, but I'm at peace. I'm at peace. And when you meet somebody like that, you want to generate that. I want you to generate that in your life. We got to generate more focus. That has to be a discipline for you. Next up, discouragement. If you are discouraged, just speed up the time back into hope in motion. Just speed it up, don't avoid it, don't pretend discouragement. Didn't happen. I get discouraged all the time. I'm like, ugh. I had this expectation. It wasn't met. And what's my aim? Let me return to motion, that's all. Let me return to the director. I'm not going to direct the kid to sit there and mope with the Doritos. I'm going to direct the kid to get up, apologize, and move on. You got to direct the kid. You gotta direct yourself again. And then ego. Whenever you feel, please listen to the word. I know. Not special, but special apart from that's ego. Another way of saying it. If you feel like they don't understand me or they are below me, you're trapped in ego. You will forever live in a dire state of emotion. You'll just be parked right there. The more you feel, they don't understand me. That's bitterness. It will block you from others. Now, when specialness is unity, oneness, humanity, like we are special, then I can see you and I can love you and I can have compassion for you. Now that's generating energy. That's generating oneness, not ego. It's stopping edging God out, and it's connecting to a whole. That's a different level of being, isn't it?