The 4 Core Elements Of SUCCESS You May Be Missing

Seeking Higher Levels of Aliveness

We are seeking higher levels of aliveness. What are my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines to ensure I have aliveness? Most of your dissatisfaction with life actually has nothing to do with you. Most of our dissatisfaction with life is the quality of our relationships. Most of the suffering we have in our life is related to our relationships, not just ourselves. We want to grow in our aliveness in our relationships and what we do. We want to grow in our liveness, our relationships, and what we do. And if you’re feeling unfulfilled, it’s because, again, you’re leaving growth to randomness. This is a subject of my next book, which I’m excited about finally to give to. We all struggle with knowing what we want, but we must align to the four desires. When we don’t have these, we really struggle. What are the four desires? Okay, we’re going to start at the base. I know that no matter what, one of the most important human desires and the cause of so much of what we do is we are seeking higher levels of aliveness. Now, we’ve got a worldwide audience online, so let me use some different synonyms in the way I’m talking about it today. This aliveness, you might have written down passion, that’s aliveness. You might have written down higher spiritual energy, that’s aliveness. You might have written down more enthusiasm or purpose for your job, that’s aliveness. You might have said, “I just want to be physically fit,” that’s aliveness. You said, “No, you know what, in my relationship, I want us to have way more intimacy,” that’s aliveness, baby. So, we want more aliveness, and the question is, have you set up routines this year? And let me just come back to routines.

Establishing Routines

Routines: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. That’s what a routine is. Notice I didn’t call it a habit yet. There is a difference between a habit and a routine. Routines you kind of got to force. You got to do them. They’re on the schedule until they become more.

Establishing Habits and Simplifying Routines

Automatic, more easy, more simplified. You just do them. Like a lot of morning routines become a habit, right? It started out as a morning routine, but now it’s just a habit. You just, you don’t even think about it. Bam, down coffee. Bam, sit, book, journal. Bam, walk into Studio, look at the Battle Bo inspiration, got it, work out. God like you might have it just happens every day. If you followed me around the house in the morning, I’d just look super dumb. I’m just, I’m wandering around to my habit, right? It’s just happening. I don’t have to, it’s not something I have to schedule or think about and do. That’s a routine. So your routines, the fundamental question that you could really ask yourself to shift this year into a higher level is going, “What are my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines to ensure I have aliveness?” I referenced one of my clients and her routine. One of her routines was with her friends. They go on an adventure trip every year. That’s a yearly routine that they do so she feels this. My main man Adam, who’s running this whole show, it’s from proxy AV, ladies and gentlemen, let’s go. We’ve done 100 plus events, I think by now or something like that. He just did a silent Retreat because sometimes those of you in this room, you know that mindfulness and peace feels like aliveness. When you read Buddhism, you realize that what the Buddha found in Nirvana was that freedom from suffering, but there was a higher energy there, a higher Consciousness if you will, that’s aliveness too, right? That mental state or that spiritual state where you feel free from the suffering and the pain and the frustration and the self-hate, that’s aliveness too. A lot of people have energy but no aliveness of Soul. How many understand I use the word quite liberally, if you will, of aliveness because I believe your aliveness at this stage in your life might mean something different than me, does that make sense? The one thing, even downstairs, I was with the choir downstairs meeting them for the first time. We did rehearsals this morning, it was so fun, oh my gosh, we’re out here, were they amazing, right? Raise La, thank you guys. I mean, wow, and just there, you felt it from them, right? There’s an aliveness there of spirit when you go to a great church or you go to a great concert or you hang out with your friends and it gets in that moment of flow and you’re all just vibing. More of that in 2024, can I get an amen on a Monday? So I know I’m laboring a little bit, but what’s your aliveness for 2024? ‘Cause I promise you if you don’t have it, you cause havoc. If you don’t have it, you cause havoc. When you don’t have aliveness in your life, you start gritting your.

Aliveness and Bitterness

Teeth, when you don’t have aliveness in your life, the funniest thing happens. I’ve never seen something so odd. This has been a big breakthrough with my clients this last year. She did not realize that because she didn’t have aliveness and some people in her life and family did, in the absence of aliveness, bitterness grew. Well, why does he get to be so happy? Why does she get to have so much fun? Why is she just prancing around church so happy? Some people have another level of spiritual aliveness or energetic aliveness, and it’s important.

Importance of Aliveness

As we’ll talk about today, I know most goals written today were health goals around the world. Most of them were a fitness type of goal, and that’s important. That’s aliveness too. Like everyone’s always asked me, like, “How do you do this for so many hours every day for 18 years?” I’m like, “I take care of myself. I make sure– I mean, if you’re backstage with me, you see me giving my prayers before I come out. I’m opening up my body. I’m doing all the things energetically so that I’m in a state of aliveness to serve.” Because if I just woke up and hit this stage not in a place of aliveness, I know I wouldn’t serve as well.

Well, when you meet your kids in the morning, it’s the same thing. When you come home at night and talk with your spouse, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. Are you meeting life at the level of aliveness?

Presence and Aliveness

You know, one of my favorite words, you all know, and I hope you’ve done the activity of– you all know you should write down like three words that you want to define your year. Have some people done that yet? Okay. So you’ve written down the three words. Every year, “presence” is on mine because to me, presence is a type of aliveness. I want to be present. Everyone go, “I’m here. I’m here.” That’s what I mean, aliveness. Okay, I know some of you know this, so I’m going to work through it. My question to you though is, what makes you feel alive in 202 for what is it for you, that breakthrough or that thing?

Establishing Routines and Goals

But remember, then in each of these areas, we would just say, “Okay, that’s the desire. Great. What’s the routine? Is it a workout routine? Is it a taking a break routine? Is it faith routine? What’s the routine that’s going to draw this out of you daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly?” Because this does not happen automatically. Birth happens, then there’s decay for a lot of people, unless they conscientiously strive to get into this state, strive to feel alive. And so aliveness, okay, cool, aliveness. What are my routines for that?

Goals vs. Routines

Then as you have your routines daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, what’s the goal? So you can have routines to get you there, but what’s the goal? And what’s the difference between a goal and a routine? Well, a routine is just something you’re setting up, and you’re doing something to get a result. You’re doing something to get a result, which is to touch the desire. We’re trying to live in the desire. We’re trying to live in the desire. The routine is to live into the desire. It’s not the same as a goal. A goal might say, “I want to lose 15 pounds by the end of February and be able to run three miles with my best friend.” Wow, that’s very ambitious and specific in timing. Great goal.

Ambitious Goals and Outcomes

Ambitious outcome, please write that down. Goal equals ambitious outcome. That’s the difference between a goal and a task. A task is just something you have to do. A goal is there’s an outcome, and you gotta stretch for it. So what could be a goal in your sense of aliveness? For example, in my sense of aliveness for me energetically, I want to feel alive on stage. I want to be able to do a 9-hour seminar feeling fully alive, fully alive.

Vocal Preservation and Specific Goals

And not lose my voice, that’s hard. Most people lose their voice after an hour. I often have to go nine hours for four days straight. That’s a specific goal. It’s pretty ambitious. So I want to feel alive, not wipe myself out, and not lose the voice. Okay, that might be specific. I might want to do that five times a year, eight times a year, whatever it is, it’s a goal.

Now you have a task underneath the goal. And tasks are just something that you do that day. It doesn’t have to be a routine. It just means, “Okay, this day, what do I have to do? What do I have to get done to advance my life today?” That’s a task. What do I have to do this day to advance my life? Simple task, right? You can ask that every single day. That might change every day. That’s your to-do list. Right? A to-do list is a task list. It is not your goals. Many people, they buy journals every year worldwide, tens of millions of journals, and it says, “Write down your five goals every day.” And people are like, “Ah, I don’t know my five goals.” So they just write to-dos, right? It’s different. Goal, ambitious outcome for the day or for the week. It’s stretch, going to be hard. Task, just you have to do. Going to the grocery store is not a goal. Can we all agree? Maybe going to the grocery store and, you know, not leaving the kids there forever, that’s a goal. You know, like going to dinner is not on the goal list. Going to the five best restaurants, they’re going to require us to save and have an incredible night at each of those date nights without lacking an understanding and ending in intimacy. See, go to dinner, task. And an intimacy go, you see? You see, there’s levels to this.

Deep Connection and Human Desire

Okay, what else do we want? Well, we all want deep connection. It is a human desire for every single person, minus sociopaths, and there are way fewer than you think. Deep human connection. Most of your dissatisfaction with life actually has nothing to do with you. Most of our dissatisfaction with life is the quality of our relationships. Most of the suffering we have in our life is related to our relationships, not just ourselves. All the geeks in the world about longevity, the longest running longevity study in the history of the world, the number one correlative factor is the quality of good relationships and the frequency of contact with those good relationships over time. That’s the secret to the centurions. That’s the secret to the blue zones. That’s the secret to that ageless way of vibrancy in life. Better relationships, deeper connections. And you don’t just want deeper connections with other people. You want deeper connections with yourself. You want deeper connections with a higher power or the.

Universe Connection and Relationships

Universe, you want to feel it again, you want to feel that connect. You ever feel that connection with somebody? You’re on a date, and you just both, you kind of like lock in, and they’re just like, it’s almost effortless. You’re like in sports, you’re in the zone. Yeah, that’s not you doing that, it’s you getting the same frequency as something else happening. It’s you getting the frequency with that person, it’s you getting the frequency with the universe, it’s you getting the frequency with God. There’s an alignment that happens that creates the deeper connection.

And how many of you, on your goals for this year, you wrote something about your relationship or relationships? Yeah, I hope everybody is thinking in this way. But what are your routines to deepen those relationships? Most people write the goal down, “I want a better marriage.” Okay, don’t write tasks to make a better marriage, write routines to make a better marriage. Routines, what are the two of you going to do daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly that will allow you to feel that deeper connection? What are you going to do with the kids?

The thing about this architecture is it says to you, stop leaving it to chance. Too much of what we want for our New Year’s, you write a list down, but you don’t create a routine. So you’re not living into the desire, you’re kind of hoping the outcome of the goal happens, so you struggle and hopefully the goal happens. I want you to live the desire, right? It’s not live, work hard, then feel passion. It’s live with passion, right? That’s the routine. It’s like manifesting it each day.

I think if anything in your life that you do when you crack this one, you marry that right person, you repair that relationship, you forgive that person, you find a new level of adventure or intimacy or fun or understanding with somebody, this one lights up. This one, the nice thing is you don’t have to always force this one to get this one. Sometimes this can help. This same is true on this other side.

Meaningful Pursuits

Meaningful pursuits, I know a lot of people write this as their New Year’s goal. They go, “Well, Brendan, I want to find my purpose. I want to feel more fulfilled.” That’s what we mean by meaningful pursuits. Here’s the challenge: most people feel detached from their purpose because they think about it but they don’t do it.

Notice it doesn’t say “meaning.” I don’t teach meaning. I know a lot of people have meaningful lives and they’re bored stiff. I know a lot of people have every reason to be happy, fulfilling careers, maybe really serve people, help people, but so much of that is intellectual and the pursuit is gone. We’ve got to get the pursuit. Humans.

Commitment to Pursuit

Hunters and gatherers, as they used to call, misnomer by the way, but we got to hunt, and in life, you got to commit to the hunt. I’m from Montana. When you’re up the mountains, you commit to the hunt. You ever heard that phrase? “Oh, you commit to the hunt.” Especially if you’re going to El Hunton, you’re committing to the hunt. There’s a commitment level. We’re going in. You’re going to the war zone. There’s a commitment there that’s higher. We’re going to pursue this thing. It’s a different level of connection to the pursuit.

And what happened is many people are living a meaningful life, but they’re not pursuing it deeply, right? They are parents. They want to be good parents, but they don’t want to be extraordinary parents. The decision that leads to the pursuit, right? If you’re feeling like you’re languishing, I promise you’re not working hard enough. And people hate when I say that. And it’s like, well, the thing is you’re not working hard enough to meaningful pursuits. You’re working hard, but there’s a difference between putting in hours and meaningful pursuits.

This year, when you set up a project, hunt that thing. Commit to that thing. Pursue that with real meaning. Choose the one that will be intrinsically fulfilling. It brings you aliveness, and it brings you closer to other people. Aliveness closer to other people. Aliveness closer to other people. Alive is close to other people. Now you’ll feel meaningful pursuits. Some of you have the meaningful pursuits, and when you have that, it makes these happen.

People are like, “Most of my aliveness doesn’t come from how much I squat. Most of my aliveness comes from I do this all day. I chose this full-time as a career 18 years ago. Can you imagine? It’s like a whole different, like, this brought me these. I would say I was average at these, committed here, these came alive.” But it works the other way around too. This is correlated with that. This is correlated with this. This is correlated with this and this. We all know this. Okay, great.

Growth and Fulfillment

Last big piece here is the middle growth. We want to grow in our aliveness, in our relationships, in what we do. We want to grow in our aliveness, our relationships, and what we do. And if you’re feeling unfulfilled, it’s because, again, you’re leaving growth to randomness. All of these pieces can’t be left to random. All these pieces, as human desires, we want them so bad. We really want them.

So, my question is, as I’ve been talking, how many been writing? As I’ve been talking, I’m watching this group. I’m so proud of this group. You guys are doing the work. Let’s go. Let’s go. GR [Applause].

So, as you looked at this year, see, many people wrote down a goal but no growth. Let me give an example. “I want to lose 15 pounds by the end of February and be able to run a 5k with my neighbor and enjoy the process.” Goal. But that’s why their life didn’t improve. They stopped at the goal. What’s the growth afterwards? Do you know how many Olympians I’ve worked with who are miserable? They have the gold medal literally in their hand, well now framed at their house, and they’re unhappy because they

Continued Growth Beyond Goals

Had this one goal, they achieved this outstanding goal, and no growth beyond it. What’s the growth beyond the goal? We have to keep, as humans, we have to keep growing. So, okay, you ran, you enjoyed it, you lost the weight, what next? And some people say, “Well, Brendan, that’s just, you know, you’re telling them climb mountains and look for other mountains.” I’m like, yes, exactly. Because if you don’t feel like you’re growing spiritually, you don’t feel like you’re growing financially, you don’t feel like you’re growing in what you do, in your relationships, in your sense of aliveness… How many of you, you ever hit your 40s or 50s and you felt like your aliveness was going down? Oh, wow, that was a very, for those on the internet, there was an interesting reaction in the room. On the internet, it feels different in here than it does at home, I promise. But, you know, it’s like you hit 40 or 50, like, what happened to my… And you didn’t feel like your aliveness was growing.

I want you to grow in your spiritual connection to God, if you believe. I want you to grow in your presence. I want you to grow in your aliveness and in your relationships. If your relationship is just a series of tasks and routines but you’re not growing in the connection, somebody’s going to wreak havoc. Because if you don’t have it, you cause havoc. Somebody’s going to leave it, cheat it, walk it out. Somebody’s going to do something irresponsible because they don’t sense the growth is there.

Your team is the same way. If they don’t feel like they’re growing, they’ll leave at some point. That’s always inopportune for you. And so, we gotta say, “Oh, everyone needs a growth plan. Everybody needs a growth plan.” This is why we start a growth day. The tools are all there. Here you go, get going.