Comfort Is Killing Your Purpose

If you're struggling in life, it's not about the thing, it's not about the circumstance, it's the way you show up for it or not. And most people, the way they show up for the next challenge is not. They avoid the flight to safety and comfort. They're not in the fight, they're not in the hunt. Because you know what, why risk it? Things are comfortable, things are good, people will judge me. All these passions, all these hopes, all these dreams, we're just going to try to align. Notice I'm not asking for one path, I'm asking for alignment. You ever been sad and lonely or in a bad state and you're walking down the street and you see a couple in love and they're just like that gooey, gross teenage kind of love. They're like all hanging on over and like they're demonstrating love for the world. You're like, and you're like swearing at them. Like you walk by and like you, you like you're mad you just saw a demonstration of love, but you feel mad. Why? Because sometimes if we don't fully have an energy we see expressed, we get mad at it, we consider it fake, we don't like it. A lot of people survive in the wrong marriage. A lot of people survive in terrible health. There's a higher aspiration. We want to feel alive. We want that presence, that awareness, that pop, that energy, that joy, that confidence, that enthusiasm, that faith that whatever it is, there's an energy you are after. And that is a sense of aliveness or consciousness that's very unique to you. But sometimes, see, we think it's supposed to look like this, this upward path and hopefully you're having the pitfalls and the come ups and you're aiming higher each time so we can make this more straight. That would be a nice way to think about it. I'd rather you just take all these interests, all these passions, all these hopes, all these dreams, all your family, all your work, everything you've been after? And we're just going to try to align, that's all we're going to try to do. Notice I'm not asking for one path, I'm asking for alignment. So this idea that you have one purpose list many. Your purpose changed when you had kids. Your purpose changed when you had that new job. We actually know from psychology that your personality, yes, your global personality actually shifts on every between five and nine times throughout your life. It shifts when you go to school, it shifts when you leave home, it shifts at your first job. It shifts in your first relationships, it shifts in your marriage. It shifts when you choose your career. It shifts when you get divorce. It shifts when you move cities. Major moves in life actually have significant shifts in personality. So we can change. So it's like we're not going to have this one purpose and we're going to completely. Everything's perfect. It's going to be like no things are going to happen. Like, there's a lot that happened here. But what we got to do to get you into a new level with more precision, more like a spear of purpose, is we got to get you aligned. Some of you, you carry way too many tools, way too much baggage, too much unused stuff, and you just. There's no alignment there. I can't, I can't sit with you and understand any sense of purpose. It doesn't mean one purpose. Just some people have none. They've lost what we, in my world, more. We'll talk about less than purpose. We talk about motive. Why, why do we play so small? Why are we so scared of change when the doors are opening for us? I'm an affable kid. Like, I just really have an absurd sense of optimism. Absurd. And it's not because of my life turned out so perfect or grand. It's that I've worked with you guys 25 years working with humans. I've seen change like you can't believe. I've seen the person coming out of disease and struggle and hunger and poverty become the billionaire. I've seen people come out of the worst of health conditions to become the Olympian. I've seen people who literally lack or lost limbs, who had brain injuries, who had everything taken from them. Felons, criminals. I've had people in my audiences through the worst of it, and I saw them come through. You need more growth oriented people who you see come through, they come through another level of liveness. They come into alignment. They get their S stuff together. You know what I'm saying? They like to. They turn it around. The more turnaround stories you see, the less excuses you have. The more turnaround stories you see, the less excuses you have. You go, she did it. See, God gave us other people to be inspired by them, to connect with them, to love them, to lift up together, not to hate, not to run away. And when you let other people inspire you again, that's where I'm selling hope. We've gotten a world where everyone we think is, you know, a bad guy or trying to be a prophet or, you know, has these weird motives. It's like, actually, most people really want to do well in their life, and they want to do well for their family. They're really trying hard. We're striving for something. We're not perfect. We're not always achievers, but we're always striving that upward forward force towards something. This is the thing I would like you to do, is, you know, try to find alignment. There's a lot of lines in your life that have not been strung to make what you're supposed to make and to feel the way that you're supposed to be. It's kind of like if you got all those strings on a guitar and they're all out of whack. So sometimes you gotta look at all these strings of life that have been happening, and you just gotta go, okay, let me. Let me tune them now. You know, what's the sound I want in the future? What is this instrument supposed to be doing? Not in one direction, as one solitary job or career, North Americans, but rather a way of playing. You think you're looking for your task, you're looking for a way. Soon as that clicks through, now we got you living. You're not looking for your next task. You're looking for a way, a way of being, a way of serving, a way of loving, a way of feeling, a way of generating, a way of creating. I work with some of the best authors in the world. I've been blessed. I wrote six books. They've all done pretty good. And I work with all these authors all the time. Brendan, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. And they get frustrated. I don't know what I'm supposed to write. I don't know. The next thing, I'm like, oh, you just haven't found your way of writing yet. You're worried about the next three lines. You don't even have a way. See, when we lack a philosophy, when we lack a way, that means we're in reaction. And in reaction, you almost fight always to comfort. I also work with some MMA fighters right now. I can't let them be in reaction. Because when you're in reaction, you fight to safety, you fight to comfort. So I gotta make sure they're never in reaction. They're in assertiveness. And our culture in America, we don't like the word assertiveness. So let me just qualify that. It means you assert yourself into the scenes of life. It means you're not standing in the back of the scene. When all the things are going, but you're a player in the scenes, you're part of it. What do they call that in gaming? The player that's not a player, that npc. What does that stand for? Non Playable character. Thank you, brother. Non Playable character. Yeah, see, you're not, you're not, you're not supposed to be that guy. You, you, you got the controls, right? Right. Now you might not have architected the game, that's his job, but he gave you some controls. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviors, aims. Okay, now we're in the game. Hey guys, it's Brandon.

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To get you to assert yourself into the game. I got you as a character, we got to get you, we got to get you moving. But your flight to safety over and over and over again. What that leads to is a rut. What it leads to is avoidance. And avoidance feels good, right? Avoidance. I've always thought this avoidance is the best short term strategy because it feels good, right? But it's a worst long term strategy if you're struggling in life. It's not about the thing, it's not about the circumstance, it's the way you show up for it or not. And most people, the way they show up for the next challenge is, is not they avoid the flight to safety and comfort. They're not in the fight, they're not in the hunt, they're not in the ideal chase. Because you know what? Why risk it? Things are comfortable, things are good. People will judge me. Why? And that's the problem we have mostly in North America. People are pretty comfortable. So why does that happen, though? Okay, here's why it happens. Because when you start out here as a kid, as a youth, there's these norms that are happening. There's alignment of norms that are happening all around you. Okay? Now again, I want to preface this, I'm saying if, if, if your path right now or the way that you are being right now doesn't feel alive, doesn't feel aligned, doesn't feel powerful, enthusiastic, hopeful, future building, then there's some simple reasons, often for most people, because, you know, when you're a kid, you just want acceptance, you want love, you want belonging, you want to be cared for, you want affection. We all get that. And if you don't get what you want at each of these stages, you start doing weird stuff. For example, many of you, your whole life, we can just kind of look at and we can go, oh, maybe there are some struggles here that you're still caring and you're frustrated about. And you chose one of two paths. This is, again, if the aliveness isn't where you want it to be, the first path is your path actually isn't even yours. Your path is one of rebellion. I'm the rebellious one, Brendan. I'm the maverick. I'm the one, right? And what rebellion usually means is you're fighting against something that you grew up in. And by the way, it can be extremely healthy. So stick with me for a minute, right? You might be rebelling against a sense of control or tyranny or rules. That sucked for you as a kid. You, you, like, you are operating your life in flight away from something that sucks, that you said, no more, never again. Not like that, right? You're building a different future than you grew up in. You think that one sucked. So you, like, you've actively rebelled against it. Like if you had super controlling parents, you were that maverick out on Friday nights, right? If you had people who had no values, you want to establish order. If you were in chaos the whole time, excellence really now matters to you, right? So what you had didn't fit you. And so you fought against, like a lot of people, Their life is not a chosen path. Their life is a path they ended up on because they ran from another one. Say it again. A lot of people, the path they're on in their life isn't a path they chose. It's a path they ended up on because they ran from another one. People do this even in careers, right? I worked in it. I'm never working computers again. I had that boss, he was such a jerk. And now I'm gonna go sell insurance. Why are you selling insurance? Because that IT industry sucks. And I'll never work with a boss like that again. I'm going to be a man of my own. Selling insurance. I go, why you Pick insurance. I'm my neighbor today. Oh, interesting. So you didn't choose, kind of like you ran from this, you knew someone doing this and you're on your neighbor's path. Some of you have been on your neighbor's path. That kid who went to school, who was popular, want to be like them? That person you follow on social media, you want to be like them. That person you admire, you want to be like them. You're on your neighbor's path, not your path. If you're only against something, life will never have its magic. You will never feel vitality, you will never sense consciousness. You will never have a real positive range of extraordinary happiness if all you do is keep fighting against them, fighting against your parents, fighting against your peers, fighting against everybody else. Because here's what happens. It's just poisonous. You might rebel and fight against something and ultimately a lot of people get stuck here. Resentment. Resentment jumps out of your body non verbally. Resentment is so obvious in your third date. That's why she didn't come back for four. Dude, bitterness is corrosive. But sooner you start resenting anybody. I'm telling you, you've given away power too. So not only does it eat you up inside, you just handed your power to something and you probably handed. I want you to tell you something. You handed your power to something that's not even real. There is no such thing as resentment. You made it up and you put it on something like that's you. There is nothing people can do bad things, but you don't have to resent them. I've had a lot of people in my life do really bad things. I do not resent them. Holding that resentment, it is eating you inside, but it's diminishing your power in any way you think about it. Whatever your parents did, whatever that first person did, whoever hurt you, whoever abused you, whoever, you got to work through that stuff with a therapist. And you got to go into that therapist and go, hey, therapist, I know you're not supposed to have goals. I'm giving you a goal. Therapist, I got 12 weeks. You need to help me drop this resentment. And they're like, I can't do it in 12 weeks. And like, okay, no problem. Do you believe it's possible if they say no, then leave, go find somebody else. Because at some point you better put some time bound on your development. At some point you better go, you know what? I'm old enough. I got to get over this. At some point, this idea that we're going to drag out trauma, for 12 years of conversation has been poisonous to our society. Read a book called Bad Therapy. It's killing the kids. It's killing the kids. Trauma is real. Trauma sucks. And it is not your destiny. It is not your future. It is not a forever thing. Bad stuff happened. We have to learn to process. We have to learn. We have to grow. We have to survive, and we have to thrive. And that cannot be a forever process. Some of you are in a forever regressive process, regressive conversation. And someone's got to go, hey, you need that forward conversation, and you need that at least 80%. I'm telling you, it is sucking your power out, and you just gotta let it go. No one's gonna help you do that. You're gonna one day decide. You can talk through a lot of things, but ultimately it's a decision. You're like, you know what? Why was I hanging onto that? It literally doesn't matter now. It doesn't mean it's not uncomfortable. It doesn't mean it doesn't cause problems. It doesn't mean it didn't exist. It just means you got stuff to do. Do whatever you gotta do. Drop the resentment. Say it with me. Drop the resentment. Got to get rid of it. You got to get rid of it. It's so hard to get you new levels of wealth and health and success in life. And it's very hard for every single one of you to repair your marriage if you keep Karen resentment.