EP#31- The Power of Perseverance: Embrace Pain to Avoid Suffering with Brian Bogert, Human Behavior & Performance Coach

(gentle music) Like we are guaranteed pain in this world. How we choose to respond to that pain is what makes the difference between people who get stuck, who end up suffering and those that become free and ultimately reach to levels of success that they differ. Not just based on external definitions of success, but create the highest level of performance, the highest level of fulfillment, the highest level of freedom and right, and exists in their life. Is this idea that you have to understand the proper pains between where you are today, where you want to be and learn to embrace those and as stepping stones in our path to success. - Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. This is probably one of the most motivational episodes I've released thus far, and I'm so happy to have Brian Bogart as a guest on the podcast. Before I share some information about Brian, I just think it's important to acknowledge that a lot of what we talk about, this concept around pain and suffering and bad things happening in life really exemplifies or just speaks to the nature of the Everyday Endorphins podcast. No matter your genetic predisposition or life circumstance, bad things can happen to anyone. We all go through challenges. Life is hard. So this podcast and essence is really about strengthening your psychological immune system and having the tools in your toolkit to be resilient in the face of adversity. Being positive and cultivating happiness and the pursuit of happiness is not just about being happy all the time. We all suffer from life's challenges, no matter if you are clinically diagnosed with a mental health disorder or not. So again, I just wanted to make the connection between what we talk about in this episode and the overarching aim and goal of the topics that I talk about on Everyday Endorphins. We could all use a bit more endorphins every day. So with that, I'm going to tell you a bit more about Brian and his story. Brian is a human behavior and performance coach who teaches clients to leverage self-awareness and intentionality to become the most authentic versions of themselves. He's also a member of the Forbes Coaches Council where he contributes articles around grit, resilience, and leadership. As you guys will hear early on in the episode, Brian suffered a very traumatic accident when he was young and that was kind of the catalyst where he learned the wisdom of resiliency through his own early experiences with pain. During the interview, we talked a lot about the differences between pain and suffering, how to embrace pain to avoid suffering, and the power of perseverance when facing adversity. We also talked a lot about how to set goals, the importance of acting with intention, and how to demonstrate leadership in our day to day lives. I am so honored to have him as a guest. I'm very excited for you all to listen, but before we get into the interview, I have a brief message for my sponsor, Anchor. Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I am really excited to talk about resiliency and intentional mindsets and how we can achieve our goals. Everything that you do in your work is very much up my alley and in alignment with my podcast. And especially for my listeners who are young adults, college-aged students, kind of trying to figure it out right now. So I'm really excited to have your wisdom be imparted amongst myself and my community. So thank you again. Oh, yeah, no, it's going to be great. And I think anytime I've got an opportunity to pour my soul and add impact into people's lives, like I show up. So that's what it's all about. I'm excited to be here. And I think it's going to be a fun discussion. When I first met you and we started chatting and I got to learn more about you, you spoke about how when you were a child, you had suffered from a very traumatic accident. I love for you to talk a little bit more about that and how it really ties into this larger theme of perseverance and being resilient and some lessons that you've taken away from that experience. Yeah, awesome. So I'm going to ask you and anybody who's listening unless they're driving, of course, to close their eyes for just a second. I'll tell you when to reopen them. I want you to imagine going to a store, having a successful shopping trip, getting everything you need and breathing through the checkout line. It's like the easiest checkout. You walk outside, you feel the sun hits you on the face, the warmth of the sky. You're walking back to your car, thinking you're heading on with your life. And just it's going to be a great day. As you're unlocking your car door, getting ready to, you turn your head and you see a truck barreling 40 miles an hour right at you with no time to react. Go ahead and open your eyes. That's where this portion of my story begins. My mom, my brother and I went to our local Walmart to get a one-inch paintbrush. And as we were headed back to the car, I was the first one to the car. I wanted to get home and put that paintbrush to use. And I was three, four feet in front of my mom. And this was back in the days when they didn't have key fobs, right? So I had to wait for her to catch up, take her key in the door, turn it so I could get in and get on with our way. And as we were standing there, our truck pulls up in front of the store. Driver, middle passenger get out. And the passenger all the way to the right feels the truck moving backwards. So he did win. Any one of us would do so. Any scoot over to put his foot on the brake, but he said it to the gas. Combination of shock and force to him up on the steering wheel up on the dashboard. And before you know it, he's catapulting 40 miles an hour across the parking lot right on us with no time to react. Now we're in the end spot. So he goes up over the median, goes up over the tree in the median, hits our car, knocks me over, runs over me diagonally, tears my spleen, leaves a tire track scar on my stomach, and then continues on to completely sever my left arm from my body. So there I am laying on the parking lot on a 115 degree day in Phoenix, Arizona. My mom and brother just watched this whole thing happen. They see me on the ground, they look up and they see my arm 10 feet away in the parking lot. Fortunately for me, my guardian angel also saw the whole thing happen. There was a nurse that walked out of the store right when this took place. So she saw the literal life and limb scenario that was in front of her. And I'm forever indebted to her for making the choice in that moment, going to action versus decided to get in her car and go home. She rushed immediately into action, stopped bleeding on the main wound, and instructed some innocent bystanders to go inside, grab a cooler, fill it with ice and get my arm on ice within minutes. So had she not done one or both of those things, I either wouldn't be here with you today, or I'd be here with you today with a cleaned up stump. That's just the reality. - How do you move through such a traumatic experience like that? How have you been able to not only process that, but not let it stop you from achieving all that you want for yourself in life and moving forward from that painful experience? - That's a great question. You know, I realized that the listeners probably weren't expecting it to go there today, right? So I'll start with that. - Yeah, that's kind of like 180. - Yeah, I know I have a very, very unique story, but what I've realized is that we all have unique stories. So what's important is that we pause and become aware of the lessons that we can extract from those stories and then become intentional with how do we apply them in our lives? And we all have the ability to do that and we all have the ability to tap into collective wisdom of other people's stories to shorten our own curve to learning. So to answer your question specifically, there are two primary lessons that I extracted early on that allowed me to move through this. Now, there's a whole lot involved in all of this. So by no means is it just these two lessons, but these certainly were major guiding principles and a whole lot of ups and downs throughout the process, some of which we might get to today, some of which we want. The first is I learned not to get stuck by what had happened to me, but instead get moved by what I could do with it. People say, well, how did you learn that so early? Well, at seven years old, I remember laying in the hospital bed and feeling sorry for myself. I remember waking up and at first thinking it was a dream and then once I realized it wasn't a dream, and it was reality, I started asking the why me question. Why me, poor me, oh my gosh, like, I'm so unlucky what's the rest of my life gonna look like, but perspective points us at what's important. Then we're being showered with love and support from all the other families in the ICU. They're all coming up to us and saying, we're so sorry for what happened, we're so sorry for what happened, so traumatic. What can we do to help? We're so sorry. And then come to find out that their kids laying in the hospital bed next to me and the ICU, not knowing if they're gonna live another 30 days because of the terminal illness that they're battling. Other than the immediate threat to my life and arm, and knowing that once my life was saved, and at that moment, not knowing whether or not my arm would successfully be reattached or if I'd ever have use of it to be able to be here today and have function to stand and talk to you, I knew my life was gonna be safe. I wasn't battling a terminal illness. And so it was in those moments that I really quickly started to move through that and I stopped feeling sorry for myself and instead started to realize, I'm not gonna get stuck by this but instead get moved by what I can do with it. The second lesson that I extracted was not one that was totally obvious. You see, it's 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, although I was the one that had numerous surgeries, years of physical and occupational therapy, I was also being guided through the process so I was a little bit in a fog, but my parents were not. My parents were intimately aware of the unceasing medical treatments, years of physical therapy, and the idea of seeing their son grow up with the use of his left arm was a source of great potential suffering for them. So they willed themselves day in and day out to do what was necessary, what was tough, to embrace the pains required to ultimately strengthen and heal me. So whether it was intentional or not, what they did was ingrain in me a philosophy and a way of living, which was to embrace pain to avoid suffering. - Yeah, I mean, you're wearing the embrace pain shirt. So you've really lived by this mantra and this life motto. - I do, yeah, and what you might not be able to see, which is what I was about to say last is when you embrace pain to avoid suffering and this is done, right, that's also where we gain freedom. And so it's these two concepts that I used [BLANK_AUDIO] I only have become this unique injury, right? But how my business partners and I scaled our last business to over 15 million within the span of a decade. And now how is a human behavior and performance coach I'm flipping that onto the Ted and working with individuals and organizations just like you, just like the people listening to become more aware, more intentional, and who they already are their most authentic selves. You see, I believe that's when magic happens. That's where you start to gain freedom. That's where the door starts to crack to perspective, motivation, and direction. And that's where people have the chance to have joy, freedom, and fulfillment and their lives holistically, which is why we are committing over the next 25 years to impact a billion lives by 2045 'cause if we can reduce the level of suffering on this planet, allow people to experience joy, freedom, and fulfillment, right? That also brings vulnerability and authenticity, which are the glue that binds human connection to the forefront and allows people to not only stand on their own two feet confident and convicted in who they are, but knowing that the world's not going to just accept them for who they are, but embrace them and encourage them for exactly who they are. Because that's what we need. And that's what's going to lead this world a more beautiful place for my kids and my grandkids. - There is so much to unpack there. And one place I want to begin is this concept of embracing pain to avoid suffering. One of my favorite books is Mancer's For Meaning by Victor Frankl. - It's amazing. - Right, and I think, I haven't read it in a while. I haven't read it since high school, but something that really stood out to me from that book was the concept around, the meaning of life is suffering. Like life is suffering. And my question to you is, with your philosophy around embracing pain to avoid suffering, do you believe there's a difference between what Victor Frankl is saying with life being, you know, the, a byproduct of suffering. Like suffering is inevitable in life. Or how do you see, you know, that difference between actual pain and then suffering? - Yeah, so I think it's really important to start with the definition. And then I think that'll lead us towards the answer to the question, right? The world tells us to reduce the limitate or avoid pain, okay? So we need to understand what that is, 'cause I'm telling you the world is wrong, okay? So we need to understand what pain is, we need to understand what suffering is. And although I believe the intent behind his comment, it is slightly different in the way all-defined suffering, and I think that what we're actually saying is similar to the same thing. Not exact, but similar. Pain is defined as short-term, intermittent, and a direct cause from something that alleviated once that direct cause is removed. Then we screwed up by putting adjectives in front of it like acute and chronic, okay? Now acute maintains the definition, but chronic inherently changes it, because it implies that it's no longer short-term and it persists even after that direct cause is removed. So let's stop calling that chronic pain and let's call that suffering. - That's an interesting distinction. This idea around acute pain versus chronic pain, but equating chronic pain with the concept of suffering. - Exactly. I think that it makes a lot of sense, and so pain gets a ton of attention, right? We feel it, it's real, we tend to avoid it. And by the way, this is a natural evolutionary response for survival. Suffering, we don't want to admit even exists, particularly when it's a direct result of our choices. And often, suffering creeps in on us until the fact that we adapt to it so much that sometimes its impact is irreversible. So we can embrace the pain of hitting the gym for 30 minutes a day to avoid the suffering of aches and pains of the sedentary lifestyle. We can embrace the pain of a difficult conversation with a loved one or spouse to avoid the suffering of a loveless marriage that's gonna end in divorce or being stuck in a marriage when we want divorce. We can embrace the pain of the fit our kids are sure to throw by having them put down their mobile devices at the niretable to avoid the suffering of years of loss, meaningful connection and conversation that we'll never get back. As business owners, we can embrace the pain of firing our top salesperson to avoid the suffering of stagnant growth and losing all our other top talent because they were the greatest cancer in our culture. The reality is this exists in every aspect of our life. And so I believe that we almost choose our pain or our suffering will choose us. - I think that's a really nice perspective to have because especially in college during a time where you're transitioning out of high school and being more childlike and then coming into your own and going through young adulthood and then when you're graduating, college is a series of many learning opportunities and within those learning opportunities, you're sometimes forced to make really hard choices. And the hard choices are oftentimes the ones that are good for you. And sometimes it feels like you have to not put yourself through that pain but rather like you're saying, like embrace the pain and that experience of knowing that you're making the right decision but making the right decision is really hard. And it is the right decision because for the next point that you have is it's going to the byproduct is that it's going to reduce suffering in the long term. And that leads to ultimately happiness in the end. - Yeah, that's what I believe. To Frankl's comment, I think what's expanded on that since he wrote that book and what's kind of come out is this idea that pain is guaranteed but suffering is optional. Like we are guaranteed pain in this world. How we choose to respond to that pain is what makes the difference between people who get stuck who end up suffering and those that become free and ultimately reach the levels of success that they define, not just based on external definitions of success but create the highest level of performance, the highest level of fulfillment, the highest level of freedom and right and exists in their life. - I think this is also a really great transition into the concept of intentionality and how we create certain mindsets and the importance of mindset shifts in order to adopt a broader perspective. So when we say, you know, acting with intention and being intentional with the choices that we make, what does that really mean? Like how can we actually try to become more intentional with the choices that we make? - Yeah, so I think intentionality starts with awareness. So we have to start there and then we can unpack too intentional because we can't be intentional with things that we're unaware of, right? So our minds process 11 million bits of information per second but we're only consciously aware of about 40. Think about that. Like we're largely led by the unconscious which means we're largely unintentional which is no wonder that people wake up and they feel like they're a victim and like life is fake and they have no influence or control over their destiny. So until we go through a systematic process of moving the unconscious to the conscious, the unaware to the aware, it's going to feel like life is victim and like you're a victim and like life is fake. And there is a single person on this planet that I've asked the question, do you desire to have a greater amount of influence or control in your life that's answered no? Like everybody does, right? This is where it starts because once you can move something into a place of awareness, you can be intentional with that pattern. Now, I'm to the level that everything I do in my life has intentionality behind it. Because if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it intentionally, right? If you look at my backdrop here, this studio was built with intentionality. Every item on that shelf represents something of meaning that represents a part of who I am, the way I enter into the world and the way I interact with people. We recently did something, and by the way, this isn't self-promotion. This is just to say like we are aware, I look at customer experiences as a very high thing that we need to put as a priority in any business. So the level of intentionality is we created a box with a leather-bound top that's got custom stitching all the way around the sides of it with our no limits for the coaching individuals that we work with. And all the way down to the details inside the box of the partnership that we have working with a nonprofit to support lower income individuals having opportunities to have impact in the world through the way they put meaningful work. We create high-level leather branded coasters and a journal for all of our one-to-one clients that's even down to the level of the color of the stitching intentional with our brand colors. The reason I say that is when you are aware, you can start to become intentional with everything in your life, your relationships, your intent, your energy, your emotions, your reactions, your mentality. All of these things start to become into a place where we can have influencing control over them. - I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind just how awareness comes first. And I also really liked your point about how we're largely driven by the unconscious. Like we're not, there's so much happening around us, but what we attend to is where we're putting our energy to. And I think a lot of times we move through life or we move through our day to day, not really appreciating what's around us or understanding even what's happening around us because we can be so caught up in our own head and our own thoughts. And that's why I love the practice of mindfulness because learning to become more mindful is really in essence cultivating attention and awareness. And by doing so, then you're able to become more intentional with your actions. It's much easier said than done. And I think, again, college is really this opportunity where you're learning that. And there's no other way to learn it until you go through it until you have that experience. But I also really, I wanted to bring it back to the point that you made earlier when you were seven years old in the hospital and you were putting yourself, you were saying, why me? Why is this happening to me? But then you make this really great point about how, at that point in your life, like when that was happening, you weren't cultivating that sort of awareness and you weren't able to become intentional with understanding that it's not, you know, this horrible event happening specifically to you. Horrible events, traumatic events could happen to anyone. one. And again, it's what you do to move forward from that. And so you've adopted this broader perspective. And it's also just so challenging and so admirable that you've been able to really grow from that experience because I can only imagine how dangerous of a rabbit hole it can be to go down of negative thought patterns in that kind of experience and to be really stuck in that. And so it's it requires so much resilience and strength and perseverance. You know, I'm actually in the middle of reading Angela Duckworth's book The Power of Grit, like a Bout Grit. And she has a whole, it's amazing. She has this whole framework around what is, what Grit is constituted of. So it's like perseverance. And do you, and you want to talk a little bit more about it and kind of how it relates to your outlook on life and all the work that you're doing? Because I think it's very much aligned with everything we've been talking about. It is. And I probably am not going to reference specifics from the book, but I'm going to talk around the concept of grit as I understand it because it's been a minute since I read the book, but I love it. My understanding of grit, right, is it is a combination of your life experiences, your tough times, the times you've had to, you know, pick yourself back up after getting knocked down. It's how you've responded to challenging situations. Did you turn into it? Did you embrace the pain, right? Or did you retract from it and allow it to just impact you versus you starting to kind of grow through it? Right? A complimentary book, by the way, to grit is mindset by Carol Dweck. It's actually one of the ones that I have up on my shelf here. And it's the idea between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Right? A growth mindset actually contributes to grit score, whereas a fixed mindset does not. Right? So grit has actually been demonstrated to be one of the greatest predictors of success. Right? And so even over, you know, background, socioeconomic class, intelligence, capability, like a grit score is typically going to have a higher class. So if you look at, for example, the Navy Seals, next to professional athletes, next to a highly calibrated executive team in some corporate America, those types of people and the combination of the groups of those types of people often are going to have a significantly higher grit score than the normative population. And so it's one of the greatest predictors of success, ironically talking about our concept and our conversation as well. One of the other greater predictors of success is if leaders of an organization have a high level of self awareness. So it goes hand in hand. And I know you said you haven't read the book in a while, but that is, I remember reading that about the Navy Seals and just understanding that these certain figures in the world have high levels of grit. And I'm so glad that you brought in Carol Dweck's book. I do want to read that, but I recently learned about her through my positive psychology class. When we are talking about fixed mindset versus growth mindset, what's really exciting to me is how interrelated all of these topics. Oh yeah, yeah. Because when you have a growth mindset, you are also at the same time gaining more self awareness through the choices that you make and through learning to lean into the pain and embracing the pain. I think it really boils down into decision making at the end of the day. And so we talk about these concepts in terms of building a better life for yourself and being stronger and more resilient and more capable. But it also has such an intrinsic connection towards our own wellbeing, towards our physical, mental wellbeing, and just understanding health from a very holistic perspective rather than one specific action that you can take or another one. I also really loved the point that you brought up about leadership in an organization. Life moves on. We graduate from high school, we graduate from college, and then we're in the working world. We are either going to become doctors or lawyers or go into business or start a nonprofit, whatever. Like there's so many opportunities. And at the end of the day, a key factor of success is the strength of one's leadership. And so I would love to hear some of your insights around what constitutes a successful leader and a strong leader. Yeah, so I think, and again, this is going to be through my lens, right? This is my opinion. It doesn't necessarily mean that this is documented and written out in 50 books. I do think that self-awareness is one of the greatest predictors of a strong leader. And not always, but it is a great predictor of it. I think that two other really important factors is vulnerability and authenticity. Right? I think that the world is starving for authentic leadership right now, particularly in a world that's so polarized and politicized. So many people don't even know who to trust. And so having like a genuine and authentic leader be able to show up that's clear and convicted and compassionate and has empathy for their workforce and has the ability to be vulnerable to demonstrate that authenticity through vulnerability and connecting with their folks as a result of it. I also think that, you know, there's a lot of things that are connected to shame within organizations and leadership. And there's a lot of toxic shame or shame-based leadership styles that we don't necessarily see as being as damaging as they are. Right? So micro-managing, perfectionism and leadership, like leaderboards, all these things that like stack people against each other in some ways feed a competitive environment, but they often can also feed a shame-based environment, which actually can be very, very damaging and will not manifest most times as shame. Right? And so for a leader to be very self-aware, I think they need to also understand what is their leadership style? What are the tactics? How do they interact with people? What are the types of reinforcements and incentives that they're offering to associates to perform at a higher level? Because all of those things, again, just like we talked about, they're all interconnected. You have to be a thoughtful leader. And all these things require thoughtfulness and a level of awareness. Yeah, and not to be cliche, but I think there's something to be said for being a leader outside of an organization, just being a leader for yourself and for the people that you care for, your loved ones, your family, your friends, your partners, showing up as a leader, I think is so important. Which by the way, all those same points apply in every area for leadership. I was speaking specifically to organizations, but that's a leader as a person. Exactly. And I think that's a really unique perspective to take as well, understanding leadership more as a character of a person, rather than when we think about leadership, maybe it's like an executive at a company, by flipping the narrative and thinking, understanding the qualities of leadership for your own personal growth and well-being. And that's a really, I really like that actually, because I don't think we're taught to think that. We're not taught to think that, but you just said something really profound and I want to expand on it for a second. You can have leaders by title and not all leaders by title are actually leaders or demonstrate leadership and you can have leaders who have no title. It expands and supports the point that you just made, but I will tell you that that was a decision I made early in my career. Because when I graduated college, had you asked me then, I was bright out in Bushytale, then I was going to take over the world, right? And I was going to climb the corporate ladder, not even having a clue what that meant at the time. And the initial strategy and approach that I got was to literally climb the corporate ladder based on title, role and position, versus improving my leadership ability. I think that also really ties into the fixed and growth mindset as well, because we can also look at that from those who are outcome oriented versus process oriented. And process oriented is so much more important because when you're actually, and you know, it ties again into this concept of mindfulness, aware of each moment and the present and what's going on day to day, being more focused and invested in that rather than like, I need this flashy job and I need this flashy new iPhone or I need this thing and that thing and we have all these expectations about where we're supposed to end up or how our life is supposed to unfold and what it's supposed to look like. But by focusing so much on things that are so far out in the future, you're missing the actual ability to get there. And that's something really hard to think about, especially in college when we're bred in this culture of get a good job once you graduate. Maybe go back to, you know, get higher education. Like there's just all these things that are, you know, weighing on us and it's pressure and it's expectations. That makes it harder to focus on the process. So I'm going to riff on this hard for a second because this is something that I did wrong and it's shaped a lot of my beliefs to where I'm at and knowing that a lot of your listeners are in that, you know, recent post college area or still in college, I really want everybody to like listen to this and write this down. There's two concepts here that I want to really help us understand. One is what you talked about in terms of external expectations and what the world is told us we should do. Okay. And these two concepts tie together. But the first is around that. So we're born as our most bright, burning light that we will ever be. Think about it. If you ever been around toddlers or kids up until the age of five, they're just raw. Like who they are is who they are. And then what happens? Parents, teachers, coaches, employers start layering on all these things. You should be this. You shouldn't be that. You should do this. You shouldn't do that. You should follow this career path. You shouldn't follow this career path. You should make this amount of money. You shouldn't follow this amount of money. You should chase this house and this car, right? Because that's what success looks like to the world, but you shouldn't you shouldn't chase these. Should in and of itself as a shame-based word because it implies that whatever you're doing isn't good enough. Okay. So what happens as a result of that is people end up chasing the what? What house what car what amount of money what external limit of success based on the way the world is defined the path that we all need to follow Regardless of the individual authentic path that we desire for ourselves, right? We chase that I chase that I Chase the crime climb the corporate ladder. I chase the titles. I chase the money I chase the success and by the way, I want to be very clear There's nothing wrong with having and making a lot of money It's around like what is the narrative that's behind it because one day I woke up and I'm running in circles of people making multiple six figures Seven figures eight figures in a lot of cases and myself and so many of the people around me were miserable We chased the what we got the what? But we lost the who in the process And so then to get back to the who if you don't start out earlier in life doing this It's about shedding those layers of what the world is told you you should be who you should be what you should do and Realign with the who and when you realign with who you are you define success in your terms You understand the path that you want to take who you are what makes you happy? What makes your hard happy what gives you energy what impact you can make in your world and you align with the who and The who's that you're doing it for and the who's that you're going to be impacting? Then the what's become a manifestation of the who and they're way more powerful and oh by the way You don't have to chase happiness joy freedom and fulfillment when you start with the who but when you start with the what You got to find those things. I love that. I mean that whole concept also of like chasing these external things that we place on ourselves this this pressure and the expectations I feel like when you're chasing something you're bound to not get it and so that's why it's so important to focus more inward and Focus more on the things that you're doing day to day and identifying larger Themes or goals rather that bring you happiness rather than that specific what like what car what house whatever you know 100% and I know by the way I am a big believer just to kind of go down this path I am a big believer with beginning with the end in mind and dying empty. I am a believer of choosing a destination and Working towards where you ultimately want to be that said though We protect ourselves often in the way that we do that in our own goal setting and so we set our bar too low and then secondarily The other thing that we do is we don't give ourselves the ability to show up always Really authentically understanding what the process versus the outcome looks like because the outcome can be a moving target But the process has to be a byproduct of where you want to head So it's important to know the direction so that you understand the proper process But then you've got to live in the process and refine based on where your trajectory starts heading as an outcome perspective You have to calibrate between the two you can't just focus on the process, but that's where you need to live most days Right, so it's like finding this balance between having a very strong sense of direction and a larger vision for yourself And where you'd like to end up but also being agile Throughout the process and knowing where to recalibrate so that you can get yourself back right on track I think this is also you know a great Segway into just talking about goal setting at large and how to Break down a big goal into smaller goals like you know some strategies some tactics to Achieving the things that you know we set out to do in our lives Yeah, so I love that you just said strategy and tactics because I'm gonna give you some strategy and tactics But I'm gonna give one caveat before I do that Many people get stuck and they think they're stuck in life because they think they have the wrong strategy or tactics in their life Strategy and tactics will only get you so far. So what I'm about to give you will get you far But what keeps most people stuck truthfully is a combination of emotional triggers behavioral patterns and environmental conditioning So let's start with that understanding because I'm gonna give you strategy and tactics to help you use this planning process as a tool But that's all it is because until you start to get clarity on those things emotional triggers behavioral patterns and environmental conditioning Which realign with who you are and how you show up in the world? Strategy and tactics will only get you so far. So I have to say that before I give you strategy and tactics, okay? Disclaimer, so this is this is our belief system. This is how we work through it We've got a note what we call our no-limits process that we guide people through and our thought process on this is we have to really begin with the end of mind and Di empty so a lot of that starts with purpose and legacy and who are you right a lot of it also is involved in I am statements Which are an answer to who are you question? So you can base you can base those answers based on who you are today and the things you've already done or who you want to become The things you want to accomplish both have been proven to rewire the brain and are both effective Okay, then we break it down to no limits goals I said a second ago right that we ultimately set goals that we protect ourselves Okay, so if we know we need to lose 20 pounds we tell ourselves we're going to lose ourselves 10 because it's like Oh, well, I'll just set a little incremental goal But we're going to fall to the lowest common denominator and so we have to set big hairy audacious goals When I said we're going to impact a billion people. I don't know every single way and every single process It's going to lead towards that because it's a 25 year horizon But I know very clearly I'm not protecting myself when I say a billion if I said I'm going to impact a million people in the next 25 years Wow, that's like mailing it in right but how often do we do that in life? It's like well, I'm going to seek out to do this and we don't actually go after what we really desire what we really want So some people will be like oh, I'm going to become a best-selling author and they're going to go through the process of getting it done in Amazon Which by the way, there's no nothing wrong with that but what they really want is they want to be on the New York Times best-selling list Start out by saying that because otherwise you're going to fall to your lowest common denominator Once you've got that understood and you understand purpose and legacy and what is the remaining part of your life look like now We have to start segmenting it into different sections of time We go through a process of creating a three to five year vision Which is very succinct over the next three to five years How do we want to move forward based on where we say we want to be over the remaining period of our life? We have to define strategic objectives one of the big bucket items and strategies that we're going to deploy in that period of time And what is it imperative for me to be or do in order to accomplish that? We have to get really clear on that but again, we're still somewhat broad because it's a three to five year vision Then we break it down into an annual theme which is literally the next 12 months and we define the theme and then we define the top five to eight Priorities that we need to accomplish the next 12 months to move forward on our three to five year vision Ultimately on our legacy and where we want to be in our knowledge goals Then we have to incrementally make it a little bit smaller now we start getting to more granular actions. We look at a quarterly emphasis Over the next 90 days what has to happen for me to move my year forward It's mean to move my vision forward over the next three to five years for me to move my no limits goals further And then in each output for the quarter we actually break it down to the very next granular action you have to take to move it forward Right, so literally it might be I've got to get myself ready for my certification for yoga teaching in Bali What is the next thing I have to do to move that forward you might have to book a flight you might have to like go by a new yoga mat Literally what is the next thing so that we can keep action constantly in motion so that we're moving forward on the things We define our most important to us and then we break these down into daily disciplines So if we can identify two to three things personally professionally and in service to others every single day that we can focus on Without fail and those are the things that we accomplish every day no matter what Regardless how chaotic it is then we know that we're moving the needle towards where we want to go in our lives Because we're focusing on the process daily So I have a number of them personally professionally and in service to others that I do every single day and I know that no matter what I can consider each day a victory because regardless of what has happened I'm moving the needle forward because I've brought all of that down into a daily action I can take to consistently move forward It's always in the small steps and this also reminds me of thrives entire philosophy around micro steps And I think what you just provided was a very detailed account of how you can actually make these micro steps and how it fits into the larger goal and the larger vision that you have for yourself So thank you for sharing that because that's incredible advice and I think through this process It also promotes feelings of self-efficacy You know feeling competent and having the ability to accomplish these tasks Increases your confidence and then makes you feel like you can just do more and then you are doing more and you're able to accomplish more So I think you know it goes go go go go go Exactly exactly So again just shows how interconnected and enmeshed really everything is and I'm very inspired by your story and everything you had to share this afternoon It was so wonderful to get to chat with you One question that I have for all of my guests that come onto the podcast is what is something that brings you some endorphins every day My kids every day Yeah every day my daughter is just like a pure ray of sunshine and it doesn't matter how glue me the day may seem in some cases she has a way to brighten it all up and that just Immediately shoves endorphins through my world my son's no different right. He's it's a totally different interaction but My kids are are fuel for me they give me endorphins every day That's so wonderful to hear I It's crazy because I feel like parenting as a whole other It's a whole not even understand yet and that's exciting I guess to you know hopefully in the future have that opportunity to Understand what it's like to be a parent because I feel like Through that you're constantly learning from your children and every day After yeah, I can't even do imagine Parenting is easily the most meaningful thing I've ever done with my life It's also easily the most difficult thing I've ever done with my life And it only further supports my belief that nothing worthwhile in this world comes easy. I wish it did Nothing worthwhile comes easy, right? So it's going to require work intention awareness and effort consistently for you to have the most meaningful things in your life That's a really beautiful point to end on Brian, where can my followers find you and follow you on social media? Yep. So on social media at Bogart, Brian on pretty much every channel. Brian Bogart.com is a whole bunch of free stuff. What we told you is we're trying to impact a billion lives. And that means that 99.99999% will never pay us a dollar. And we're very okay with that. Those that choose to lean in and invest in themselves, invest in our processes, also will more than substantiate everything we need. But I have a free gift for everybody who's listening. I walked through a little bit of a process on goal planning, go to no limits praylude.com. And there's a download of a very succinct format of a lot of our coaching philosophies that will give you some of the framework of the vision, theme, quarterly emphasis that we walked through and is going to help you start your own intrinsic journey to get really clear on who you are. So whether you know exactly who you are, you have no idea where to begin or you're somewhere in between. This will be a value to you. And if it's all you need, take it and run. The only thing I'm going to ask is that you pay it forward and give it to somebody else if it can add value into their world. And if there's something we can do to help you further, just let us know. Amazing. Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for listening. If you liked what you heard, please follow rate review every day and orphans on whichever listening platform that you use to stream my episodes. Thanks again. And I'll see you next time. (upbeat music)