Survival is based on love and belonging. I know adults, I can look back to their last year. They weren't sure of who they were. So all they did is just try to fit in. And everything was just, I need to fit in. I need to be popular. That is childhood development, not conscious development. Some of the great breakthroughs in people's lives is when they realize it's time to develop their own life agenda again.
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Your personal development is worth a dollar a day. Your access to these people is worth a dollar a day. But you can start free right now when you go to growthday.com. When we're first born, that first life stage, the first life stage, it's really all about mimicry and belonging. That's what it's about. You know, you're a little baby and you're mimicking mom's face.
You know, as you grow up a little bit more, you're mimicking the people around you when they laugh, you laugh, when they coup, you cue, when they move, you move. You know, there's a lot of that copying to learn life. You're copying moves and eye patterns. You're copying voice and tonality. You're copying where to go, what to think. You're copying everything. You're just a little baby of mimicry as you are growing up. And of course, survival is based on love and belonging.
And more than anything, a child wants to belong in a family. When they feel like they're not a part of the family, that causes tremendous amounts of disruption in their development. It tends to cause like serious need for later reflection in life or therapy in life. When you're the odd kid out, when no one loves you, as you're growing up, you just feel like you don't even belong to the family you're in. Sometimes that's normal.
You got a weird family. You're just different than them. That's totally normal. Everybody is different. If there's one constant in the universe, it's actually difference.
Now, I know the true, like, you know, pantheist or panpsychist might not believe that because it's like, no, no, no, there's one universal consciousness, one universal energy and one universal God. But I'm here to say, even if all of those things are true, and I know we have lots of different faiths from around the world right now, even if all of that is true, that constant is difference.
Look at every single planet that we have ever been able to observe scientifically. Every single thing that we've ever studied is actually quite different. There might be common elements, but listen, Saturn looks a whole lot different than Mars.
are stars, look a whole lot different than other stars, even if the matter might be similar. So your matter of genetic matter from your family might be quite similar. You're different. Your composition, your mindset, your psychology, perhaps your goals and real ambitions, those will evolve beyond just mimicry and belonging. The challenge is for many people, it doesn't.
I know adults, I can look back to their last year. And all they did is copy everybody.
They saw what this person was doing on Instagram, so they started doing it. They saw what this person did at work, so they did it. They weren't sure of who they were, so they just started doing everything their boyfriend did. They weren't sure of who they were, so all they did is just try to fit in. And everything was just, I need to fit in, I need to be popular, I need to be accepted. And every effort is to become other people, to hopefully fit in with other people.
Even adults do this, but that is childhood development, not conscious development. When all you do is copy others and you become a replication of other people's will and preferences and their life agenda. And some of the great breakthroughs in people's lives is when they realize it's time to develop their own life agenda again.
to develop their own preferences, their own style, their own humanity, their own freedom, their own sense of the world, that all of a sudden it's like, wait, wait, I got a shift. I've been trying to fit in with everybody else and copying what they're doing. Even adults do that. That's sort of life stage one, but it can also be shift one for people, realizing how much mimicry and belonging are you after.
Now belonging is important and mimicry learning from others is also important. So in no way am I making those things bad. I'm just trying to set the frame for where we're going today. The second life stage that's really important is that we end up because of those things, we end up into rebellion and individualism.
So it's like, okay, we've copied everybody. We belong and done what they said. And then you're a teenager and that rebellion from, you know, usually like eight years old to like 25 is massive for some people. They are like, wait, I'm tired of belonging. I want my full independence. Screw you, mom and dad. I'm doing my own thing.
And you set out to architect yourself. You set out to find what you really feel like. This is where you rebel against the system, against the parents. There's rebellion in your life. You need a major reset and you know it. And you need to find your own way. And you must divide yourself from people, even people who you love. You just stop sharing as much with them. Even people you love. Because you're trying to go inside a little bit.
You're trying to find what's true in here now. Not what is copyable out there. And so a funny thing in rebellion, even though the word rebellion sounds like it's at war with people and it's highly active, a lot of people's rebellion is silence. They just stop sharing with other people. They don't want to go out with other people anymore. They don't want to be a part of it.
There's a reason your teenager locks themselves in the room by themselves. And yes, this even happened before the internet is because you go inside a little bit and you're like, what am I about? I don't want to be like that. I don't understand. It's a very scary place to be because a lot of people go inside. They lock the door. They go silent. That rebellion is stirring in them, but they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to share it.
They know how to shape it. They haven't studied personal development like you have. So there's no clarity there. They know there's independence in here, but they don't know how to find it. They struggle with personal freedom, that sense of, I know who I am, and I'm free to be who I am, unencumbered by other people's expectations.
And I know who I am and what I like to do unencumbered by my own doubts or other people's obligations. I can be free to be who I am and do what I want in life. And I take joy from that freedom. Not a lot of people ever find that freedom. And so even though they're rebellious and even though they're internal, that rebellion and that independence corrodes and becomes bitterness.
You ever met a teenager who stuck in the teenage mentality of bitterness against other people? Even when they're 40 years old, 50 years old, they're like, well, they're still stuck in some kind of bitterness against other people. It's because they've seen other people live their life. They don't want to mimic it. They're not sure they want to belong, but they don't know where they belong. They have no emotional or spiritual home and freedom.
And because they don't have it, and because they don't know how to connect with other people, there's a bitterness that forms. And that life stage sticks around for a lot of people. And when they have that, it's so hard to watch. And this is why it's important that we all make self-awareness a way of life. We need coaches, we need input, we need inspirational life strategies to listen to continually open up our mind to ourselves.
not just to understand what works. A lot of people, they listen to podcasts, they study books, they obsess about what other people have done, mimicry. They want to achieve things to belong and be accepted, belonging. And yet, they've never gone inside enough to find out what's true for them.
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The third life stage that shifts people and that is usually developmental to is just that rhythm and hustle stage of life. You know, at some point you get that job or you've had that kid and life becomes a little bit of a rhythm. It's wild at first. New job, new kid, new city, scary. But there's a settling in into adulthood at some point.
You know, you get the job, you know where the income's coming from. You've got the kid, you're going through the motions, you know what to buy at the grocery store each week. You kind of, you get a rhythm going. And with that rhythm, there's a busyness and the busyness becomes a little bit of hustle. You're always trying to keep up, right? You're always trying to keep up. You know what to do.
You know what to do. You know what your job is. You know your commute. You know which kid goes to which school and what to give him at lunch. Like there's a rhythm, but you're always trying to keep up. You always feel like you're a little bit behind. That's why I use the word hustle here a little bit. It feels like you're always just a little bit behind. Many of you have never felt ahead in your life. And this is not a correlation to your achievements.
You've never felt a head in your life because you've never been a head up here, because you've never taught yourself to feel fulfilled, because you've never taught yourself that the day was good and the day was enough, that you've not yet learned to strive, satisfied. Yes, work hard and be in harmony.
And so if you work hard and you're out of harmony, you're hustling. If you work hard and in your harmony, you're high performing.
It's a different level of experience. People always say, but how do you do? Like, if you looked at my schedule, a lot of people, they look at my schedule, it's like, you'll cry for me Argentina. You're like, oh my God, Brandon, how can you possibly do all this? You even ironed your sweater that's morning. I mean, it's like, wow, we do so many things. You also notice I blew up a pen on myself this morning. I cut myself shaving this morning. So if it looks pretty composed, you know what? I'm working hard too.
And yet I like to tell people all the time that maybe there's a better way for you at this next stage of your life that doesn't feel like you're always behind, that you're always hustling, or that there's a rhythm running in your life so much that you're also what a lot of Americans are really struggling with and all the abundance that we fortunately have. I would say more of the developed world is struggling with this. They're bored.
They're bored. They can have rhythm and hustle, but they're bored. I know this is hard for you to understand and you probably don't take any notes on this because that's probably not you. You're curious. You're a learner. You want to be generous and you want to grow. You want to live an exceptional life. You're in the greatness, but I know we all have different life stages. Sometimes we're just stuck and stuck feels like scary, but it also can be very boring. And sometimes you got to knock yourself out of the boring.
I always tell people, how do you know if you're living a boring life? It's because consumption and distraction eats most of your day. The average American is still watching four hours of television a day and scrolling two hours on the internet or on their phone every day. Six hours of blind consumption every day, six hours. I don't even, I'm almost like, where do they have the time? Don't they have a family? Don't they want to build something?
I mean, I can understand when we lose an hour or two to distraction each day. Most people have that experience, but that also means they're losing 30 to 60 hours a month. Whoa, losing 30 to 60 hours a month. That's a whole work week if you were really focused. So most people are losing an extraordinary amount of time. And the sad thing is a lot of that time we blame distraction, but the truth is it's boredom.
There's no internal guiding system anymore. There's no conviction anymore as we're gonna talk about. And this life stage for a lot of people, it goes for decades.
And if this just sounds like I'm describing these life stages as terrible, I'm not because guess what? When you were struggling before and all of a sudden you find some rhythm and you find your thing, you're hustling, it can feel very alive too. It can feel amazing time of your life where you got some like solidity underneath you. There's like a steadfastness now. You know what you're doing there. So this is not all negative. I'm just trying to tee up where we're gonna go. The fourth life stage now is about renewal.
and leadership. This is where many of you are in your life. Renewal, I know that sounds too soft for some of you, you can also use the word reinvention. So whether it's renewal or reinvention, I like the word renewal because it feels like it happens every week, which I believe it does.
Every week, there's a process of renewing our physical system and our mental systems and our spiritual systems. We have that opportunity every Sunday to reset spiritually, every Monday to reset with our priorities, every Friday to reflect where we've been. Now, renewal can mean like it's a spiritual renewal for you. It can be an energetic renewal. It's not like the rhythms of your life and the things you're hustling towards are, quote unquote, wrong.
It's that the way that you sought them didn't feel right. Let me say it again. It's not that the things that you're doing are wrong. It's the way that you're seeking those and striving towards them doesn't feel right. A lot of renewal I worked on with people in this last year especially. It's just about teaching them to feel the day.
like feel the vibrancy and the awe and the presence of the energy and the situations around you again to get in touch with an energy again. Because see, when life is so crazy and especially for those of us in the last couple of years, because of the political divisiveness or the scariness of the world, you rebelled against the world, you went inside and you don't feel anything out there anymore.
And it kind of shocks you. Like, why don't I feel things in my marriage, Brendan? I'm like, oh, because you're only feeling yourself. That's why you don't feel things in the marriage. A lot of people went inside. They're rebelling. You have a fight with your partner or your spouse. And what do you do? You go inside. You protect yourself. You're in protection mode, not presence mode. And a lot of people, they live in protection all the time. And they're shocked why they don't feel life.
See, part of coaching is helping people realize sometimes their blocks aren't the things they're doing. It's how they're experiencing them. And I think a lot of people need a renewal of their energy this year to feel beyond themselves. In a world that's so divisive, you rebel from the division and you go independent, internal. And what happens is you stop feeling anything.
And it's a very disconcerting reality. And so I want to encourage you to maybe, oh, maybe this is your right, open again. I know you went inside to protect yourself. I know you went inside because you hate the vitriol and the noise out there, but you have to open to the energy of your kids and your spouse and the people you are serving your mission with again. So we close ourselves off.
And as we close ourselves off, that makes sense. But it's like the teenager closing the door and refusing to go to school a little bit. We got to get you back out in the world open to learn and to develop again. That's the stuff of renewal.