773. Replay - Brendon Burchard and the Power of Emotional Courage

The No Days Off Podcast is part of the Win Make Give podcast network.

Thank you for joining me today.

It's Brian Governik and welcome to the No Days Off Podcast, where we believe that every

single day brings a new opportunity to get better.

Those people think that courage is all about facing danger, running into a burning building

or standing up to opposition or taking a big risk.

However, I think that emotional courage is actually quite different.

I know that Brennan-Bershard, who we're going to talk about here in a moment, he thinks

that emotional courage is quite a bit different because it's not about danger, it's more about

discipline.

See Brennan, who is one of the best high performance coaches out there, and somebody that I've been

fortunate to develop a relationship with over time and recently just heard him speak

on this particular topic of emotional courage.

Brennan calls emotional courage, the ability to move forward even when your emotions, doubts,

and fears are screaming at you to stop.

Everyone of us has probably faced that moment, where you've set a big goal and you're chasing

something important, but then your brain starts to negotiate, it starts negotiating by saying

things like or thinking things like, maybe I'll start tomorrow, or I don't feel like

doing it today, or I've done enough.

See, that's not logic, that's emotion.

An emotional courage is what separates the people who make excuses from the ones who

actually make progress and take action.

See, there's this negotiation trap.

The hardest person that you're ever going to have to lead is probably yourself.

So when you start negotiating with yourself, you drift away from your focus, you drift

away from your values.

You know what matters, be it your health or your business or your family, but the emotional

part of your brain wants comfort right now.

It wants to be content, it wants to be complacent.

That's what your brain is craving and that negotiation that ends up happening, it's really

a silent killer, a silent killer of momentum.

It's how people with incredible, massive potential, how they stall out.

The Brendan says that emotional courage is about refusing to bargain with weakness, refusing

to bargain with weakness.

It's not about feeling brave per se, it's about acting brave, even when you don't feel

like it.

Brendan gave us, in the presentation I saw him giving, he gave us five powerful ways to

build that kind of emotional courage.

I want to run through him with you today.

First Brendan said, step one, just get going.

Just get going.

What did he mean?

What he meant was action has a tendency to destroy doubt.

Every time you move, even a small step, you take power away from fear, from what's paralyzing

you and momentum reads more motivation.

So you don't wait to feel ready, you move and that feeling starts to follow.

I think Brendan's point here was pretty simple, emotion follows motion, emotion follows

motion.

So if you're stressed or stuck or overthinking, then just act, just take action.

Send the email, start the run, make the phone call.

Small steps become confidence and confidence becomes courage.

So step one is just get going.

Step two, as Brendan explained, was commit before you begin.

Commit before you begin.

See, Brendan teaches what he calls pre-decision courage.

Before you start, ask yourself, am I truly committed to this?

Am I truly committed to this?

Because once you're in the thick of it, your emotions will want out.

They'll want to eject.

That's why you decide your commitment in advance.

You make your decisions in peace so you can execute them when chaos ensues.

If you wait, I think, until the pressure starts to hit, and if you wait to that pressure

hits to decide whether to keep going, you've probably already lost.

Because emotional courage means your commitment was made long before the resistance arrived.

Step three that Brendan gives us, fight emotion with emotion, fight emotion with emotion.

Logic rarely beats emotion.

If fear and fatigue are emotional, your counter punch has to be emotional too.

Let me explain.

When you dread that next workout, let's say, or you dread that next difficult conversation,

imagine how you'll feel after it's done.

You'll probably feel proud or relieved, maybe stronger.

And you've got to let that future emotion pull you through the current one.

As Brendan says, you can't think your way out of a feeling.

You have to feel something stronger.

So you fight fear with purpose.

You fight doubt with pride.

You fight hesitation with momentum.

Back for that Brendan gave us, don't go alone.

You want to build emotional courage, don't go alone.

Courage compounds when it's shared.

So Brendan oftentimes will emphasize the power of community when you're aiming to sustain

high performance.

When you do hard things alongside others, be it teammates or peers, accountability partners,

the weight becomes manageable.

Isolation amplifies fear, but connection begins to diffuse it.

That's why the best athletes, the best entrepreneurs, the best leaders, they surround themselves

with people who won't let them quit on their worst days.

If you're chasing something difficult, stop trying to do it solo, bring someone in.

Because that courage can be contagious.

So don't go at it alone.

And then step five, that Brendan shared, see who you'll become.

See who you'll become.

This final point, Brendan's final point was probably the most important.

When you hit resistance, stop thinking about the task.

And instead start thinking about the transformation.

Ask yourself, who will I be on the other side of this?

Will I be more disciplined, more focused, more confident?

Every time you act with this degree of emotional courage, you're building a new identity.

And that's how Brendan would explain high performers grow.

Not just by hitting their goals, but by becoming stronger people throughout the pursuit itself.

So let's pull all of this together now.

Emotional courage is not going to be about one grand act.

It's grand act.

It's going to be about thousands of little ones, small ones.

It's showing up when no one's watching.

It's doing what you said you do long after the excitement fades.

And when you master emotional courage in the way that Brendan describes it, you stop being

a victim of your feelings.

And you start negotiating with fear and start living by, I'm sorry, you stop negotiating

with fear and you start living by conviction.

As Brendan shared that day, courage is not the absence of fear.

It's the decision that something else matters more.

So as we close up today, I want to remind you that this no days off mindset isn't about

the grind 24-7.

It's about doing things like we described here today, building emotional courage.

The discipline to honor your commitments even when your feelings change and getting

better at that sort of thing each and every day.

So don't negotiate with yourself.

Don't wait for motivation.

You move because you said you'd move.

And so you just go do it and that's what separates the pros from the amateurs.

Emotional courage in motion.

So before your next challenge, I want you to ask variations of Brendan's five questions,

right?

Number one, what's a small action I could take right now?

Number two, have I committed to this goal in advance?

Number three, how will I feel after I finish this next step?

Number four, who could I bring alongside me so I'm not alone?

And then number five, who will I become when I push through?

Get those questions down, replay that segment right there, right?

Those questions down, review them daily.

Because as I mentioned, emotional courage isn't going to be built in a single moment.

It's going to be forged every time you refuse to negotiate with yourself.

That's all I have for you today.

The no days off podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and remember every single day brings a new opportunity

to get better.

So let's get after it.

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