Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy & The Charge – Part 1 of 2 (Free Evaluation Spreadsheet Download)

Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy & The Charge – Part 1 of 2 (Free Evaluation Spreadsheet Download)

You’re probably wondering why there’s a UFO on a post about Brendon Burchard.  Well, read on and it’ll make more sense.

I had the HUGE privilege to attend Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy Seminar on June 21-24, 2012.  It was one of the most AMAZING events that I’ve ever been to.  A portion of the seminar was based on Brendon Burchard’s book The Charge.  The Charge is hands down the best book on productivity that I’ve ever read.  I highly HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend picking up a copy!  

In his book he covers the 10 Human Drives that – when consciously directed – bring our lives to the next level.  I liken it to upgrading your life to HIGH DEFINITION – it will help you re-ignite your “internal charge,” and will help you take on life’s challenges with GREATER joy and courage.  He breaks down each drive into 3 activators – providing a total of 30 activators on which you should evaluate yourself on a weekly basis.

Before we start, I’ve created a spreadsheet that breaks down each activator, with its definition.  It allows you to rate yourself on each activator on a weekly basis, which ultimately will help you implement what’s taught in the book in a practical way.  If you woud like a copy of this spreadsheet, visit my blog at http://www.cezargarcia.com and go to my post on Brendon Burchard.  

In this article, I’m going to be covering the first 5 Activators.  I’ll cover the last 5, “Higher Order Drives” in my next post.  Okay, now on to the first 5 Human Drives…  These first 5 represent the “Baseline Drives” – the FOUNDATION to creating a “Charged Life.”

CONTROL

Ultimately, you control your outlook and character.  Control isn’t just about positive thinking, although that is part of it.  It’s also about looking into the future and being ENTHUSIASTIC about it – AND CONTROLLING your perspective on things that happen in your life.  Brendon provided a breakthrough acronym for us at the High Performance seminar.  Check it out: “RWID.”  This stands for Relative Weight of Importance and Duration.

• • RWID: When things come up that spur UNIMPORTANT or UNPRODUCTIVE thoughts, remember the acronym RWID.  In other words, will you remain IN CONTROL of your thoughts, or will you let the bull$shit thought win?  You see, you need to ask yourself, “How important is this silly thought to my life’s purpose RIGHT NOW?” (Relative Weight of Importance) – and “If it’s not important – or completely IRRELEVANT, how long will I draw my attention to it?” (Duration).  If you determine that it’s BULL$HIT, then stop thinking about it IMMEDIATELY – exercise CONTROL over your THOUGHTS.
  • Duration is everything.  The longer USELESS thoughts stay on your mind, the more real they become – and if it’s relatively unimportant, the more trouble you’re in.

COMPETENCE
This is the single drive that keeps most people from achieving success.  When faced with a challenge, many people say, “I’m not smart enough.. or, I can’t figure this out… or, I don’t have that or know that.”  What we need to realize is that it’s not about what we have, or don’t have –it’s about what we need to GENERATE.  It’s about what new knowledge, skills and abilities we need to learn in order to deal with life’s new challenges.  The below illustrations should help explain:

But, what if life throws COMPLETELY NEW AND UNFAMILIAR CHALLENGES into our lives?  Challenges that lie BEYOND the current boundaries of our “Concept Cage?”

Okay, so some of the imagery that I chose to represent the bigger challenges were a bit obnoxious, but I hope you get the point.  When challenges lie outside your concept cage, you have to EXPAND your concept of yourself by re-imagining WHO YOU ARE.  You do this by expanding your competencies.

CONGRUENCE
Always ask yourself, “Am I living MY TRUTH?  As you can see in the illustration above, your “Truth” can be formed, not only by you, but by other people – teachers, peers, experiences, parents, mentors…  When you’re living too many Truths, your congruence goes out of wack.  In order to remedy this, you need to be explicit with those around you about who you are.  Further, it’s important to be VERY EXPLICIT in your relationships with regard to your Truth.  The only way to open the door to the cage that they’ve created for you, you need to share with everyone your true identity.  This can be a HUGE breakthrough in terms of how you feel – it can truly SET YOU FREE.
CARING

The well for caring and love is NEVER FULL.  We’re all driven to care for other people and feel cared for by other people.  When you demonstrate care at a new, heightened level, it improves the quality of your life.  Being explicit in your caring, through words and actions in your relationships, will RADICALLY improve the quality and meaning of those relationships.

-       Tell the people that you love that you care about them

-       Tell people WHY you love and care about them

-       The more you GIVE it, the more you FEEL it

CONNECTION

Brendon unapologetically encourages us to assess our friendships and categorize them into 3 types of friends:

1. Old Friends
2. Maintenance Friends
3. Growth Friends

In our assessment of our friends, Brendon says that we should realize that it’s OKAY to categorize our friends – that it’s healthy and it helps us strengthen the relationships that matter most to us.
Old Friends generally include Grade School friends or High School friends.  They are relationships that were in the past, but no longer are relevant to our present identities.  They are good, but you shouldn’t feel bad for not maintaining them.

Maintenance Friends are the people that you LOVE, but don’t communicate with on a regular basis.  You talk to these people 2 or 3 times a year, but LOVE getting back in touch with them.

Growth Friends are the people that:

• You’re excited to speak with every week or every month
• You feel are an important part of your exciting future
• Would drop everything to support you in a crisis (and vice versa)
• You are excited to have know your family and friends now and in the future
• Expose you to new ideas and adventures
• Are good for your long-term health
• Make you laugh
• Care about your emotions
• You can trust
• Introduce you to other quality people

During the High Performance Seminar, Brendon made it a point to mention that at the end of your life (he had been in a near fatal car accident, so he experienced this first-hand), you will see a series of moments that were spent with the people that you loved the most. Knowing this, we should strive to live our lives so that when we’re going to pass on, we will see an EPIC series of moments created by us.  He encourages us to be the directors of our own movies by creating meaningful moments with those that we love as much as possible. 

How do we go about doing this?  By stopping the clock and being present with those that we love.  Slow down the precious moments and soak them up by acknowledging the moment and taking the time to TELL those that you’re with, that you’re glad to be sharing that moment with them.

…Stay tuned for Brendon’s next 5 Human Drives…

To Your Success!

CEZAR