The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive - Brendon Burchard

Partial Excerpts (antilibrary)

Praise for The Charge

the one thing we all want: more life in our lives

completely changes how you think about your life, igniting within you a new internal drive to be more

Copyright page

2012

Out There

The Charged Life, the truly lived life, is not a routine existence in some quaint, picturesque village of safety and certainty. No, the life worth living is out there, in the wooded wilds of the unknown

Introduction

This book is an unapologetic assault on boredom, distraction, mediocrity, withdrawal, and living a “normal” life

Face it: the emotional energy of the world has flatlined

you don’t feel as excited, productive, or fulfilled as you thought you would

You’re waiting for some kind of permission or right timing to live full out every single day. You feel a restless desire for something more. Well, I’m here to tell you that you deserve something more. But there’s a catch: to get it, you’re going to have to demand more of yourself.

I think you’ve tasted plenty of magically happy, engaged, and satisfying moments in your life and are willing to do what it takes to enjoy more of them.

If that’s true, then let me show you my cards: I don’t think the restlessness, boredom, anxiety, fear, or any other enduring negative emotion you may feel about yourself, others, or life in general has anything to do with the economy, the evermore chaotic world we live in, your childhood, bad luck, or any other easy excuse

No, any lack of charge in your life is only the result of a colossal failure in strategy. Only the failure to strategically control the contents of your consciousness keeps you from feeling the consistent internal charge of being fully alive

I want to show you an entirely new plane of possibility and emotional vibrancy that you never knew existed.

my world-renowned seminar, High Performance Academy, sets the standard in the personal growth and effectiveness business

I do this by building a strategic plan that allows you—no, that challenges you—to live your best life.

Modern Motivations

It’s time we all got more strategic and purposeful in how we live our lives.

Why is it that in our abundant world of choice and connectivity so many of us feel lacking and detached?

The answer introduces a controversial argument: We feel unsatisfied because the entire baseline of our human motivations has evolved

As our society becomes more abundant, people are no longer driven by just what they need.

Unfortunately, much of our basic understanding of pop psychology still comes from Abraham Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” developed in the 1940s

The reality is that in an abundant culture we simply no longer have to focus as much on what we need, so we focus on what we want

Today’s workers have a new and insatiable hunger for intrinsic motivations, especially the engagement and fulfillment that comes from projects involving creative control, social connectivity, design, story, and contributions that extend beyond the confines of the cubicle and the greater organization

We just aren’t as fooled by all the usual trappings of success anymore, because in an already abundant society, what drives us has changed. Our modern lives simply don’t function based solely on the same considerations of security and sustenance anymore, nor do we see our path to self-actualization the same way we saw it even a generation ago

Neuroscience is proving that indeed, when our brains are free from the basic animal needs of safety, what engages the most neural activity are those very things: novelty, challenge, connection, and expression

How can we think more strategically about ourselves and what motivates us today when meeting our basic human needs simply isn’t moving the happiness needle out of the blah zone? What’s going to lead us to exciting, fulfilling lives amid the sea change going on in our workplaces and our personal lives?

In The Charge, I’ll answer these questions by proposing a new framework for thinking about human motivation—one that moves us away from merely doing what we need to do to feel secure and comfortable and into the drives that make us feel truly alive

fully engaged in the moment and optimistic about the future

for now you should underline the operative phrase in its definition: a consciously designed existence

In section I of this book I’ll teach you to understand and leverage what I call your five “baseline drives,” which are the most automatic desires you have to develop control, competence, congruence, caring, and connections with others in your life. In section II, I’ll unveil the “forward drives,” which will help you use change, challenge, creative expression, contribution, and consciousness to radically advance your life

I won’t pretend the journey to knowing oneself is an easy one.

Our times are calling for you to master your mind and contribute more magic and positive energy to the world

When Willpower Trumps Brainpower

1 Out of the Darkness

Three Lives

Feeling charged means feeling engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic, and I’m pretty sure everybody wants that. Our charge levels have two properties: quality and intensity.

people tend to live one of three types of life

The Caged Life

caged either in the past or in the expectations of others

The Comfortable Life

And then one day, someone asks about your life, and you’re surprised to hear yourself reply, “Oh, things are . . . you know. . . fine.” Trouble begins to brew in the back of your mind: Is this what I really wanted? Is this all there is? Have I made too many trade-offs?

The caged self feels it has no potential; the comfortable self has actively sought to realize its potential but fears it has peaked.

Both long for the Charged Life.

The Charged Life

2 The Drive for CONTROL

My father, Mel Burchard, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on Mother’s Day, May 10, 2009

Dad was an extraordinary man: funny, supportive, strong, loving.

He would have only a few weeks to live. Dad chose to be at home, in hospice care, surrounded and cared for by his family.

In his short time at home, Dad left nothing unsaid and nothing undone

Until he lost his ability to speak in the final two days, he always asked that we take care of Mom. We will.

I hated that I couldn’t help it or control it. But Dad faced it with grace and strength

less than 20 percent of workers worldwide say they are actively engaged and enjoying their work

How is it that, with all we know about working smart and well, so many of us aren’t happier, more engaged, or more productive at work, whether as

I’ve come to believe that the answer lies in two relatively recent arrivals to the modern workforce: lack of ownership and distraction.

From the beginning of time the world was full of farmers and artisans, and they controlled the basic inputs and outputs of work, from beginning to end

one singular management philosophy that destroyed all that. It was an idea intended to make our organizational lives more productive, and there is no doubt that it worked. The only problem is, despite its success—and it still works today—no one noticed that it was the thief in the night that robbed us all of more enjoyment at work. The culprit? The project-based, cross-functional team

the organizational world swiftly moved from tasks to projects

It turns out that the project-based, cross-functional team life has robbed you of something you didn’t even know you valued as much as you do: ownership

Being more involved in a project from beginning to end is more satisfying than just popping into it for part of the time. Being fully invested in seeing your baby project grow up and come to fruition is one of the greatest joys of work. So build it in.

your level of engagement and enthusiasm will skyrocket when you decide to participate only in projects you can be fully invested in and be a part of from beginning to end

I’m suggesting that you control this area of your life, even if it means making sure you are in on at least two to five major projects a year that you are fully invested in. You can do that—either find those projects, ask for them, or create them

then the next part is controlling how you work throughout the day. This is the “flow” part of workflow, and we’ve got to get this right for you, starting tomorrow morning

If the thief of ownership in the work world is the project-based, cross-functional team, then the bad guy in terms of distraction is—yes, you guessed it—email and text/instant messaging. I’ve asked audiences from around the world what’s the number one thing they hate about work, and the answer is often their email. This makes a lot of sense, and it’s probably why I’m so often quoted for a quip I make onstage: “The in-box is nothing but a convenient organizing system for other people’s agendas.”

Email is just one piece of a larger problem: you’re not controlling your entire day well, and you’re not performing at the level where you deserve to be (and, these days, need to be).

simply lay out how you should tactically work through your day

I call it the 1-Page Productivity Sheet

You can download this resource at www.TheChargeBook.com/resources

Whenever you start your workday—and, ideally, before then you have walked or exercised, said your prayers or meditated, and eaten a healthy breakfast—I recommend you immediately go into strategy mode. (daily review)

In strategy mode, your job is to think big picture about what you are trying to achieve and the main projects you are working on. So the top row of the One-Page Productivity Planner gives you room to write out the big projects you’re working on and encourages you to brainstorm the three-to-five biggest moves you would need to take to bring each project to fruition

then it’s time to switch into operations mode in the next two rows on the planner. The middle row is to help you think of the people you need to reach out to today, because either (a) you’re waiting on a decision or information from them or (b) you need to share a decision or information

The bottom row is for setting priorities about what you absolutely will accomplish today, no matter what

its effectiveness stems from what you do next. You’re going to work the day in a very specific way