What Is Your Underlying “Burn”?

The fire that ignites your why and purpose

Ben Newman is one of the top performance coaches in the world.

He works with some of the most well-known college football programs in addition to high-level business executives. His primary focus as a coach is getting his clients to connect with their “burn,” the underlying motivator that fuels their fire. His personal story of how he connects to his burn every morning has been an inspiration for high performers across industries and domains.

As a member of his uncommon coaching program, I have spent the last few weeks fine-tuning and connecting to my burn.

I write it down every morning in addition to my top 10 goals. This practice has kept me laser-focused on what drives me internally and the things I am working towards every single day. Although I preach process goals as the foundation for high performance, the ability to complete them every day requires more than just discipline. The process of finding your “burn” and building your burn statement is a transformative exercise because it provides the fuel to keep going in the face of adversity, setbacks, or simply the monotony of excellence.

Use these steps to help find your “burn” and watch your performance skyrocket to the next level.

“In our work with some of the top athletes and business professionals in the world, we’ve uncovered that building unshakeable self-belief begins by connecting to what we call the BURN.” — Ben Newman

Define The “Burn”

The first step is to fully understand what exactly a “burn” is and how it differs from things like a mission or vision statement.

Ben’s burn is consistent — his mother. She was diagnosed with a life-ending disease at a young age and despite her condition, she made the attempt to get up every night to have dinner with Ben and his brother. He recalls her unshakeable attitude despite an unrelenting series of setbacks that would ultimately lead her to face a poorly known condition.

The way she chose to respond to the situation is what makes her story so powerful. She wrote in a notebook every day and filled it with positive affirmations to pass on lessons to her sons after her death. Her burn was to continue to lead her boys despite the circumstances. The lesson that Ben preaches, why it’s important to connect to your burn every day, is based on this observation of his mom: it's not how long you live it's how you choose to live your life that matters. In this way, your burn is not your why and purpose. It ignites your why and purpose.

Ben’s why and purpose is to lead and coach other high-performing individuals.

His burn is his mother and how she fought and led him to the very end.

“The underlying fire that ignites your why and purpose that causes you to take the necessary action to create the discipline to reach the next level.” — Ben Newman

How To Find Your “Burn”

Finding your burn is a combination of looking inward and outward. If you don’t take the time to define the things that are important to you, both intrinsic and extrinsic, you’ll confuse your burn with something else.

“This is not rocket science. There is no equation to finding the perfect Burn, and it’s not something you are glued to from here on out. All that matters is you understand your Burn and connect to it daily. With that you will create an environment that drives accountability and causes you to do what it takes.” — Ben Newman in Your Mental Toughness Playbook

1. What are your core values?

I found that defining your core values helps uncover a burn that is meaningful in a way that impacts your core beliefs.

When I talk about goals, I usually start with core values. The idea is that you should use your core values to help set goals on every tier of the goal-setting pyramid. Everything from your driving passion that sets the course of your personal and professional life to the daily action steps you’ll use to get there. If you need help defining your core values, I wrote this article that can help you do that.

2. What is your mission or Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP)?

Your MTP is the overarching guiding light for your personal and professional life.

Steven Kotler, the flow guru and author who penned the book where I first learned about MTPs, provides an outline for choosing your MTP (overall, a mission statement or MTP is easier to identify than your burn):

• Massive: it’s large and audacious
• Transformative: it brings significant change to an industry or even the planet.
• Purpose-driven: it sets a vision that gives your life meaning (where you direct your burn and daily actions)

My MTP is a simple statement: break generational curses and build generational wealth. It’s audacious because it spans the generations that have come before me and those that will follow. Building generational wealth is an undefinable number, meaning I set high, hard goals that are 10, 15, and 20 years out.

It’s an infinite game, and I love playing.

Note: I will be using these ideas for my ultimate goal-setting guide for 2024 and beyond. Subscribe here to get a notice when it becomes available.

3. What are your high, hard goals (outcome goals)?

High, hard goals, according to Kotler, are bigger goals that act as substeps to reaching your MTP.

They also direct your process goals and daily action steps for months and years at a time. Getting a degree of any type is a high, hard goal. Writing a book. Starting a podcast. Getting an industry-leading certification are high, hard goals. If your MTP is to end world hunger, a high, hard goal would be to get a Master's degree in nutrition and spend time overseas learning about governmental organizations that are doing that very thing. They take years to accomplish and are generally pretty hard to do. Most people confuse high, hard goals with an MTP, but the difference is that when you achieve it, you move on to another high, hard goal.

You can only end world hunger once. You can get several degrees that will help you do it.

4. What is something that motivates you the instant you think about it?

Is there a dream, thought, or passion that wakes you in the morning?

Sometimes I wake up feeling like I haven’t done enough. I’m sure the same feeling has befallen many other would-be shakers and movers, but I’ve decided that it is connected to my burn. This driving desire to do more has me up as early as 4 a.m. trying to figure out why I can’t just “think normally.”

I’ve since learned to accept this curse as a blessing and find a way to weave it into my burn statement. After all, my personal brand is built on the premise of outworking the competition.

5. What connects all of these things? Is there fabric woven throughout?

Take some time to review your answers and reflect on how they are connected.

This is a powerful exercise and should be treated as such. Don’t think this is another “assessment” that is mostly surface level. Remember, I paid thousands of dollars to receive coaching from Ben. Finding a burn and connecting with it daily to create an environment that promotes action is that important. After working through the exercise in The Mental Toughness Playbook and reviewing Uncommon Leadership, I finally settled on my burn. It is the one thing that connects all of the others and something I think about often in my pursuit of becoming the greatest version of myself.

“My “Burn” is to learn and grow everyday, inching closer to my true potential while simultaneously pushing the boundary on what exactly that is.”

I write it down every day in addition to my top 10 goals. They help me to establish process and clear goals for the day. I know how to spend every waking hour in pursuit of my MTP — To break generational curses and build generational wealth.

What’s your “burn” and how can you connect to it every day?

If you want to build a High-Performance Life subscribe to The High-Performance Daily for a story in your inbox every single day.

Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads (@outworkchief) for updates, or visit my coaching website at trainoutwork.com. I also give FREE fitness and nutrition advice if you tag me on Twitter. This story contains affiliate links which means I get a portion of what you pay.