Brendon Burchard on How to Become a High Performer (Replay)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Brendon Burchard on How to Become a High Performer (Replay)

Date: February 29, 2024
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Brendon Burchard

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Episode Overview

This episode features Brendon Burchard, renowned as the world’s leading high-performance coach, bestselling author of High Performance Habits, and founder of the High Performance Institute. The conversation dives into what truly distinguishes high performers, challenging popular success narratives and outlining evidence-backed strategies for elevating yourself to higher levels of achievement and satisfaction. Brendon and Tom explore topics like energy management, the power of necessity, the importance of intention, sculpting identity, and the realities of overcoming adversity—both practical and deeply personal.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Origin of High Performance and Generating Energy

Timestamps: 05:45 – 09:03

• Brendon’s Core Metaphor: “A power plant doesn’t have energy; it generates energy.” (05:45)

  • Brendon elucidates that high performers don’t passively wait for energy, joy, or inspiration—they actively create these states through habits and choices.
  • “If you don’t reach another level of energy, you can’t serve at another level… People have to learn to bring the joy… I don’t think people have happiness, or sadness. We are generating the emotions and feelings we experience in life.” (05:45)

• Practical Example: Brendon describes preparing to take the stage after Pitbull, feeling anxious and stressed, and consciously shifting his state:

  • “I had to bring joy at a stage at level 10x.” (09:03)

2. Mechanisms for Shifting State and Energy

Timestamps: 09:03 – 14:31

• Breath and Movement: Brendon’s quick intervention for anxiety involves deep breathing (scaling up and down) and qigong-style tapping to activate and oxygenate his body.

  • “All of a sudden you feel an incredible amount of energy in your body. Your mind just goes super sharp… Lowering cortisol through breath.” (11:00)

• Intentionality: High performers consciously set intentions and release tension before entering a crucial situation.

  “Walk in as your highest self. That’s something you’ll never regret for sure.”
  —Brendon Burchard (14:18)

3. The Power and Risk of Obsession

Timestamps: 14:31 – 20:30

• Necessity vs Passion vs Obsession: Brendon outlines how elite performers make their pursuits a psychological necessity—not just a passion. This blend fuels what he calls “performance necessity.”

  • “When you’re passionate, everybody cheers you on. When you’re obsessed, they think you’re nuts. If no one thinks you’re crazy, you’re not operating to the outer limits of your potential.” (16:55)

• Obsession and Feedback: People avoid constructive obsessions (goals) because real feedback—especially negative—causes fear, unlike safe distractions (Netflix).

  • “Trying to make an impact… there’s a lot of disappointment and fear, and potential for rejection. So people don’t get obsessed about making a difference, because it can hurt.” (19:00)

4. Identity: Risk and Reward

Timestamps: 20:08 – 23:58

• Tying Identity to Outcomes: Brendon contrasts conventional psychology’s advice—don’t tie identity to outcomes—with how high performers actually operate.

  • “High performers flip that… I do get bothered if it fails. I am attached to the process here. I do care if it turns out well… if you want to win, your identity has to be tied into that thing in which you are trying to succeed.” (20:30)

• Potential Pitfall: Over-attachment can cause setbacks when failure happens, but detachment leads to mediocrity.

  “I wish more people would attach some identity to what they’re doing. They wouldn’t go through the motions as much…”
  —Brendon Burchard (21:49)

5. Transforming Weaknesses and Building Beyond Strengths

Timestamps: 31:14 – 37:02

• Beyond Strengths: High performers become exceptional by building skills beyond their natural aptitudes or existing strengths.

  • “Strengths are not highly correlated with long-term success… If you have a big dream, a huge goal, you gotta become something entirely above and beyond any strengths you even know about.” (33:00)

• Emphasis on Skill Acquisition and Clarity: Deliberately acquire new skills by first clarifying who you want to become, how you want to treat people, and what skills are needed to succeed.

  • “Learning is the ultimate lever to leveling up.” (36:49)

6. Motivation Equation and The Role of Expectancy

Timestamps: 37:02 – 39:53

• Tom’s Summary of Brendon:
  • “Passion + growth + contribution = personal satisfaction.” (37:14)
• Combining Ambition and Expectancy: Having ambition alone isn't enough; belief that success is possible is essential.
  • “If we don’t believe it’s possible for me… they don’t try. Expectancy is their problem. You gotta bust through the beliefs…” (38:19)

7. Rebuilding from Depression and Rock Bottom

Timestamps: 39:53 – 44:38

• Advice for Overcoming Depression: True intervention for suicidal ideation starts with getting help. Beyond that, gain momentum through tiny daily wins.
  • “Not like, win your dreams… just momentum, man. Most of the guys I’ve dealt with in that position… the most important thing you can do is win the morning.” (41:15)
• Honor the Struggle: Embracing life’s hardship with reverence builds resilience and self-esteem.
  • “The journey to greatness begins the moment that our deep desires for comfort and ease are overpowered by our desires to connect and contribute.” (44:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Energy Generation:

  “The power plant doesn’t have energy, it generates energy.”
  —Brendon Burchard (05:45)

• On Obsession and Excellence:

  “If no one thinks you’re crazy, you’re not yet operating to the outer limits of your potential.”
  —Brendon Burchard (16:55)

• On Identity and Grit:

  “If you want to win, your identity has to be tied into that thing in which you are trying to succeed at and give to. And that takes a lot of guts to put yourself all in for something.”
  —Brendon Burchard (21:33)

• Albert Einstein (Quoted):

  “Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.”
  —Quoted by Brendon Burchard (24:24)

• On Making Success a Necessity:

  “You don’t get what you want, you get what you need. Necessity—once you make it a burning, crushing need, the thing you must have happen, then it will happen.”
  —Tom Bilyeu, referring to Brendon’s method (49:12)

• On Life’s Fundamental Questions:

  “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?”
  —Brendon Burchard describes the ultimate life evaluation questions (46:15)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | Topics Covered | |--------------|----------------------------------------------|-----------------| | 05:45 – 09:03 | Generating Energy and Emotional State | Power plant metaphor, self-responsibility for energy, bringing joy | | 09:03 – 14:31 | Mechanisms for Shifting State | Breathwork, movement, setting intentions | | 14:31 – 20:30 | Necessity, Passion, and Obsession | Difference between passion/obsession, role of feedback | | 20:30 – 23:58 | Identity and High Performance Psychology | Risks and rewards of tying identity to outcomes | | 31:14 – 37:02 | Building Beyond Strengths | Limitations of strengths-based advice, deliberate skill-building | | 37:02 – 39:53 | Motivation Equation | Ambition and expectancy, importance of belief | | 39:53 – 44:38 | Overcoming Depression and Suicidal Thoughts | Seeking help, daily momentum, honoring the struggle | | 46:15 – 49:12 | Legacy Questions | “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?” and living intentionally |

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Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is candid, practical, and motivational—offering not just hype but actionable tactics, nuanced research findings, and personal stories of struggle and triumph. Brendon’s warmth, sincerity, and evidence-based advice resonate throughout, matched by Tom’s curiosity and own drive for clarity and results. Listeners leave with not only a new framework for high performance, but the moral courage and self-honesty to apply it.

Final Takeaway:

Know the questions by which you’ll judge your life,“live intentionally so that you’re happy with the answers at the end,” and realize that greatness is a choice you construct—habit by habit, day by day.

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Resources & Further Info

• Brendon Burchard: brendon.com, Instagram, YouTube
• Book: High Performance Habits

Recommended: Watch or read Brendon’s work for tools, tactics, and a living example of high performance in action.

Transcript

[Brendon Burchard]

I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeux, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory.

[Brendon Burchard]

Hey everybody.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Welcome to Impact Theory. You are here my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless. But you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is widely recognized as the world's leading high performance coach. His plethora of books have dominated pretty much every bestseller list there is. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, et cetera. And he has interviewed, coached or trained an absurd number of the most successful people on the planet. From Fortune 50 CEOs to athletes and celebrities like Usher and Oprah. He's the guy that people turn to when they need a science and heart based approach to breaking through a plateau or entirely redefining what they believe is possible. He's one of the top 100 most followed social influencers on Facebook with over 10 million followers. His podcast, the Charge Life debuted at number one on iTunes and stayed in the self help top 10 for like 100 weeks. More than 2 million students from over 190 countries have taken his online courses and his video series has been seen over 100,000 million times. But the numbers and accolades only tell part of the story. What the digits failed to capture is that at 19, he was not only depressed, he was actively planning his suicide. And ironically, it was a near fatal car crash. That ended up saving his life. Reborn to the possibilities, he spent his 20s formally researching psychology and leadership, a process that allowed him to begin to really dissect and truly understand the very building blocks of greatness. From that, his High Performance Institute was born. And today, through his obsession with understanding why some live unfulfilled lives and others go on to be extraordinary, he has conducted what is almost certainly the largest research project on high performance to date. So please help me in welcoming the man whose Experts Academy was ranked by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the five must attend events for all entrepreneurs, the author of High Performance Habits, the Human Energizer Bunny himself, Brendan Burchard.

[Brendon Burchard]

Energizer Bunny.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Thank you.

[Brendon Burchard]

That is amazing. You have more than that, I assure you. Man, that was awesome.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, man. Absolutely my favorite.

[Brendon Burchard]

I got intimidated just listening to that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's hilarious.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah, man.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you remember how we first met? Like, the very time we actually met

[Brendon Burchard]

in person, it was like Intercontinental, Dallas, Texas Success magazine, they're doing an event. They had like 2,000 people. You know, we're both speaking there, and. And I think I was going to work out or something, or I was

[Tom Bilyeu]

coming back one of the two.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. And then I run into you, which is like, if you're going to work out, it's like, you don't want to run into, like, you know, the Rock. Like, I'm going to work out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't want to run into this guy.

[Brendon Burchard]

I mean, he's got the pipes right now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The Rock is like. He is violently upset somewhere in this very moment.

[Brendon Burchard]

No, so. No. Yeah. So I'm. I was. I ran into you and I was like, man, this. It's cool, because I hadn't met you in person, but I'd watch the show. And so I'd seen you just slay it in your interview style.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Brendon Burchard]

Very kind. And just getting better and better and better. I mean. Cause you and I both watch for the same thing. We want to see excellence in our space. And when we see it, we watch and we watch and we watch. And what you've built here is incredible. But it was so cool to finally actually meet you in person because you never know what people's energy is like. Like off camera.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And that. That's why I was so surprised. And our first meeting left an indelible mark in me, so obviously I knew who you were. I'd watched a ton of your content, and we're probably no BS, like, 30 yards away from each other, minimum. You come around the corner and Tom.

[Brendon Burchard]

Hey, Tom Bilyeu.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And I was like, I didn't even know you knew who I was. And it was so warm and so enthusiastic. It is so infectious. And so as I'm reading the book High Performance Habits, which, by the way, you guys go out and yet this. This book is awesome. I'm going to stamp this one hard one because some of the surprises we're going to talk about, because you say a lot like it. I know if you read just the back at what the Six Habits are, you're going to be like, well, I get these. You really don't. As you get into it, some of the surprises and things you can put into your life are really, really interesting. But seeing, like, how gracious and warm and kind you were was really, really fascinating. And then reading the book, hearing your notion of you generate the energy. If you want joy, you create the joy. Talk to that. That was something that really, really struck me.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. That piece comes from probably the most powerful metaphor of my entire life, and that is the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates energy. And I've been teaching that for like 15 years on stage. And one guy stands up one time and he goes, actually, you're wrong. At my event, you know, there's 2,000 people in my event. He goes, well, you're actually wrong. I'm like, oh, how am I wrong? He says, well, a power plant doesn't generate energy. What it does is it takes energy from one source, upgrades it, so transforms the energy, then stores it and transmits it. So it's really transforming energy from one sort of location or one type of energy to another. And I love that metaphor because I felt like that's my job. You know, so much of my life is helping people reach another level of energy. Because if you don't reach another level of energy, you can't serve at another level. If you don't reach another level of energy, you can't feel better, be happier, be a better spouse. You know, it's like everyone says, I want that next level level, but they don't understand energy is the requirement to get there. And when we measured energy in our studies, we were talking about really mental energy, emotional energy, and physical energy. And it was a huge turning point in my life when I started realizing these things, because that whole thing that we, as entrepreneurs, we want to wait for, maybe one day I'll feel energized, or maybe one day I'll feel joy, or maybe one day I can have fun after all the money's in the bank. And, you know, you got the house or the cars or the money or the, you know, the stuff. And then people go, then I'm gonna be really a fun person. It's like, no, if you're not a fun person when you're broke, you're not gonna be that much more fun when you're rich. And I think that people have to learn to bring the joy. It's one of our little taglines on our shirts, right? Bring the joy. And that says, you know, you don't have joy. Just like I don't think people have happiness, I don't think people have sadness either. I think that we are generating the emotions and the feelings that we experience in life. And soon as we own that responsibility, life gets really fun. Because now we can choose it. And I'll give you an example. Last night I spoke to 12,000 people on stage here in LA at the convention center and it was terrifying because Pitbull was opening. I'm backstage and I feel the cortisol dropping. I feel myself getting tense. You know, Pitbull talks for me like 10 minutes and then he does a four song set.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Whoa.

[Brendon Burchard]

Okay, when he finishes four song set, I gotta come hit the stage and do 90 minutes and I'm backstage. And the emotion of my life at that moment is terror, is stress. Because do they have my video? They don't have the video. The keynote's not working. All this other stuff is going on. I mean, it was just like really intense. But when I hit that stage, I'm responsible for my emotion and my feelings. You know, feelings come up to people. So of course I have anxiety in that moment. I'm kind of freaked out. I have to in that moment determine the feeling that I'm after. And we talk about that in the book, is that we have to determine the feeling that we are after and live into that feeling, not hope it lands on us. And that's when someone starts getting real mastery in life. Because I knew I had hit that stage and there couldn't be the stress on me, there couldn't be the anxiety on me. I had to bring joy at a stage at level 10x.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Walk us through the mechanisms of that. And it's something that you cover very well in the book is there's a process. In fact, the book is High Performing Habits, right? And you really go into the habits, the mechanisms, the things that you can do, say orchestrate into your life, which I think is really the core of what makes the book so powerful. So in that moment you're backstage, what are you actually doing?

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. First I'm closing my eyes and say, where is this emotion coming from? And I realize in my mind it's like, oh, it's because I'm thinking I. I have to go follow Pitbull. And that's where people fail in life. Oh, well, my Instagram's not like hers or, you know, I'm not as famous as him. You know, we have all these comparisons that cause us cortisol or anxiety that shut us down and then we stop performing our best because we're trying to follow somebody versus just go do our thing. So I identified that's. Oh, that's where I'm at. Okay. What's that causing? That's causing that cortisol adrenal drip that I don't want right now. So what do I need to do? And the fastest ways to get yourself back is usually, you know, breath and movement. So we teach it at Hyper. I teach this program High Performance Academy. It's like one of the crowd favorites. On day three, we have 2,000 people there and about 40% of the audience is international. So day three, their jet lag is just whooping them, right? And I always just predictable. I know exactly about one in the afternoon day three, they start bonking. So I do this breath scaling thing where I teach them to breathe in through their nose. Like they're breathing in the ocean, like, and then breathe out. Okay. And that's kind of the top level. So we just start breathing normal and it gets more and more and more and more and more and more intense until you're at the top and it's literally like. And I sustained that for like 60 seconds. And what it is, it's like I hit a like oxygen, you know, like, like cocaine to the brain for oxygen. And when it's lightheaded or anything. No, because I've done it so much, right. I don't, I don't push myself to get lightheaded. I push myself to fully oxygenate the body. But what you do, as soon as you do that, and the most important thing is for those who are going to try this at home, you scale up to it, then you scale down to find your regular breath again. And you need to not be standing there with your knees locked. And if you ever feel dizzy, sit down. But I do that and all of a sudden you feel an incredible amount of energy in your body. Your mind just goes super sharp. And the added benefit of that much oxygen intake lowers cortisol. That's interesting.

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[Brendon Burchard]

right. We know for meditative practices when deep breathe, we tend to lower cortisol or lower that sense of anxiety, even if we don't get the full mechanism of the hormone release. Then all of a sudden it's like, ah, I'm in my zone, I'm ready to go. Then I do full body qigong, which is like a qigong. A cupping activity in qigong is basically like you are, you're padding up one inch at a time in different parts of your body, like this, all over. So you do arms, your legs, your back. What that's doing is opening the meridians in your body. And now my body, my mind's open, my body's fully ready to serve. And now it's like, let's get it. I'm excited because now it's just like I identified the source of the anxiety, got rid of it, took care of the mechanism of the body. That was also making me feel like crap. And then it's, then it's exciting. I mean, people see me on this big stage and they think, oh. Or they see you and they think, oh, well, he must always be in the perfect state or the perfect energy. And he's always going to be great. And that's not true. You know, great athletes, great performers, an executive walking into an important meeting, you got to go deal with your kid who's struggling with math. When we walk into those situations, we have to set intention for what we want to do in that situation and we have to release tension. And so the practices and high performance habits, that was the second big finding that we had, was high performers are generating the energy and that Means the mental, emotional, physical energy that they feel is necessary to serve with excellence in a certain situation. Like, they're so conscious of it. And I know that's common sense for people, but it's not always common practice.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Brendon Burchard]

You know, it's like a lot of people just wander into that situation and I'm. I'm. The guy says, you know what? Get more intentional. Release the tension you have. Walk in as your highest self, because that's something you'll never regret for sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, one thing I found in the book that really struck me, and I think this is where I really fell in love with the book, is the concept of necessity. Because this is something I talk to people about and specifically in the context of obsession versus passion. And you really went into it, not because you're probably going to get some flack and pushback on that one, but what you said, I was like, that is the absolute truth.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So explain people. What's the difference between the two? What is the role of obsession?

[Brendon Burchard]

Well, we found it so in high performance habits. What we did, like you mentioned, we did the world's largest study of high performers, data from over 190 countries from what essentially turns out to be like, people who are in that top 15% of whatever they do. And we found that there was basically the personal habits and social habits. And the personal habits was, you know, like, seek clarity, generate energy. And that third one was raise necessity, which was something I didn't even know really was a thing psychologically as important as it turned out to be. And necessity is kind of short for performance necessity, or what we call psychological necessity, which means there is a moment in which you are serving people or you're trying to achieve your goal or your dream, in which now it is not a preference, it's a must. Right. But to use better languaging, it's. It becomes necessary for us to excel in this. Like, it's not a hope anymore. It's not. I should do it. It becomes so necessary that it connects with our identity, that we feel it is necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because that is who I am. It's necessary for me to deliver with excellence here because somebody needs me to do well. It's necessary for me to do well here because this topic, this thing I'm doing, I'm passionate about this, I care about this, I want to master this. I'm obsessed with this. And it's necessary for me to do well because the time, it's a deadline or it's go Time. And when all those come together, so that personal side of this is my identity and obsessed about it. And that other side, where it's like, somebody needs me and there is a real deadline right in the middle, that's performance necessity. And when we hit that, game changer, Game changer. But it is uncomfortable because people don't want to exude that much passion, in which it becomes obsession, because they're fearful of their obsessions. Well, if I'm obsessed about this topic, it's going to take away from my family, from my time, it's going to introduce a lot of, you know, fear or unknown to me, so they back off. But I tell people all the time there is a difference between passion and obsession. And high performers have obsession about the topic, right? They are obsessed about the topic in which they're trying to learn, master, grow into. And so that obsession is real. And I tell people the difference. Here's how you know the difference between the two. When you're passionate, everybody cheers you on. They're stoked for you. Oh, you found your passion. Awesome. Follow your passion. Live with passion. Be passionate. Chase your passions. Everything like passion, passion, passion, passion. Passion's good. Like, the world's gonna be like, yay, passion. Right? When you're obsessed, they're like, why you gotta be so crazy? Why can't you be satisfied? Why do you always gotta get things so perfect? Why you spend so much time here? When you're obsessed, people think you're nuts. So it's different. And it's like I always tell people, if no one thinks you're crazy, you're not yet operating to the outer limits of your potential. You're not there yet because somebody in your life should say, man, you really care about this in, like, a crazy way. And when you get there, you know, you found your thing. And not every find, not everybody finds that. I think that's also why it's scary. Some people go, well, I'm passionate or I'm happy, but I don't really obsess about anything. You know, most people obsess about, you know, their shows on Netflix more than their life. I know people who obsess more about their, you know, thread count in their sheets at their house than they do about the impact they're making in the world.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why do you think people can slip into an obsession over Netflix or whatever or thread count, but they don't do that for something that could really change their life?

[Brendon Burchard]

Feedback.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's interesting. It's not what I expected you to say. What do you mean by that?

[Brendon Burchard]

Because, you know, buying something or getting pulled into Netflix, being obsessed about something that gives you no feedback is not scary. A real obsession, like trying to make an impact in the world. You're getting feedback. You're trying to make a difference in somebody's life. They're going to tell you, that doesn't resonate with me. Brendan, you try to make a difference in a nonprofit, you try to change the world. You try to start something like this, and the views come or they don't come, there's feedback, and people are terrified. It's one of the four central fears we all have, is rejection. Were terrified, like, to be rejected. And think about if you really want to make an impact, you're going to get a lot of judgment, you're going to get a lot of hate, and ultimately you're going to get rejection. People are going to, like, just dis on you. People are going to say, that's not good enough. People are going to say, who do you think you are? And people are so worried about that that they stop. And so it's easier. Things that don't give you feedback, watching Netflix don't give you no feedback. It's easy. There's no disappointment there. Even if you don't like the show, what do you do? You just go to the next show. There's no. There's no disappointment. There's, you know, I think, trying to make an impact. There's a lot of disappointment and fear and potential for rejection. So people don't get obsessed about making a difference and making an impact, because it can hurt.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Go deep on identity. So you've talked about how one of the scariest things about an obsession is the way that you tie it to your identity. High performers do that. They put themselves at risk. They say, like your own story. I am a writer. And the day that you decided you were going to own that, you said that that comes with a risk. 1 Explain to people what that risk is, and. And then how did you overcome it? And how can other people do that?

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. Well, imagine like last night, I'm going on the stage, right? If my identity says, I am a public speaker and it is important for me to be excellent at this, and then I go on stage and I bomb. What does that say about me as a person? So we've got about 50 years of work in psychology, the field of psychology, saying, do not tie your efforts to your identity, because that risk of disappointment or rejection, you know, if the task fails, you shouldn't take that as As a defining moment in which you say, I am a failure, right? So that's the risk. And that's what, you know, psychologists tell us to be wary of. Except it turns out that high performers flip that on its face and go, well, actually, no, I do get bothered if it fails. I really get upset about it. I am attached to the process here. I do care if it turns out well. I mean, that's why they obsess about the details. That's why they care about excellence is like no one obsesses about the details or cares about excellence unless it means something to them. And there is a risk. The risk is you over attach to the process of the outcome with your identity so that if the process or outcome goes bad, now you feel bad about yourself as a human and now you stop your progress. But I also tell people there's a balance there. I actually wish more people would attach some identity to what they're doing. They wouldn't go through the motions as much. I mean, I think what the world needs less of is half interested parents who don't have an identity that says, you know what? I'm going to be an excellent parent. I think we have a lot of CEOs or business people or entrepreneurs who they've never stepped in and said, you know what? I'm a CEO. I own this business. I am responsible for paying the bills. I am responsible for making the money. I'm responsible for all these people's mortgages who work for me. Like, I want them to own the identity of a CEO, because most of them, if you ask them about their identity and their business, they're kind of like, you come to find they're kind of approaching it like, not even hobbyists. And it's like, if you want to win, your identity has to be tied into that thing in which you are trying to succeed at and give to. And that takes a lot of guts to put yourself all in for something. But who's ever contributed something with tremendous impact without being all into it? I've never seen it. So I think the message of the book, you're right, I'll get some flak. A lot of psychologists say, don't tell people to tie more of their identity. Or my friends who are Buddhists who say, but attachment is the form of all suffering. Brendan, have you not read your spiritual texts? I'm like, look out. Calm down. I've hung out with the Dalai Lama. I'm totally cool. But what I'm trying to tell you is even the Dalai Lama has a connection with himself as a spiritual leader. His identity is still there. That people assume that we have to release ourselves from having any attachment to something. But I'm like, I think we all want to be present and engaged fully in the things that we are doing in our lives. And that's going to require us to say, psychologically, you know what? I am all in this. That's what I'm about to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What I loved in the book is you were open on the journey of writing. It took you about three years, if I'm not mistaken. So doing all the research, you've collected the however many millions of people that are in your ecosystem, and then you start systematically actually researching the data. And you can feel that in the book that you were open to being surprised. You were open to changing your thinking. You talk about going through and trying to find disconfirming evidence and not just wanting to be in a vacuum. And some of the surprises in the book were really, really great. And in that whole concept of obsession, I loved it because it felt so real. You tell your followers one, you have to take ownership, right? So you gave a great example about you're in a relationship with somebody. Whatever energy you guys are creating, you're creating that. Like, don't think that it's just objectively them. Like, you guys are doing it together. And I love that. Love that in the talk about how obsession can be useful, because so I'm like, that's really important to me. And I want people to understand, if you want to achieve at the highest level, you're going to have to tap into obsession, period. And you put a quote in the book that I think sums it up perfectly, which goes like this. And by the way, the quotes people choose for books reveal so much. And I just kept taking one after another after another out of your book. This is from Einstein. Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person. Yeah, I love that.

[Brendon Burchard]

All in. You have to be all in. And it's the hardest thing to do because if it fails, then you can feel like a failure. You know, I think of this idea of performance necessity. Two stories kind of come to mind. One is I was working with an Olympic gold medalist sprinter, and we're in the tunnel and we're going out, and he's talking about the competition, and we get out to the blocks. And I said, he was really worried about the competition. I said, well, how do you even gauge, like, who's Going to win. In his particular race, people are winning, but by 1/100 of a second, tenths of a second. I mean, these are really close sprints. And I said, well, how do you know? I said, who would you even bet on? And he says, I would bet on the guy who gets down at the blocks, gets himself settled, looks at the finish line, then says, I gotta do this for my mom. And I was like, ooh, that's good. His performance necessity in that is it's necessary for him to win that race for his mom. I think of, you know, when I started my career and I really decided to go all in with writing and online training. This is like 2,000, probably six. I'd gone broke, completely bankrupt, and failed. I left my corporate job. I had this cushy kind of corporate job as a consultant. Good job. Left it to write. And I didn't know how to make it as a writer. I want to do seminars, workshops. Didn't know how to do that. So I was pretty much a hot mess. Ran out of money. I got nothing in my name. Nothing. Kind of no positive prospects. No one's calling me except the guys who want the money. And one night, I'm writing, and the apartment was so small. On the bed, I had all my bills, my vision boards, all my research, all my journals. Like, the bed was basically the desk, the extended desk. And my lady comes in, Denise. And she walks past me, but she sees I'm trying to write, so she doesn't want to disturb me. She goes. She crawls under the covers of the bed, and I'm just typing, kind of casually typing away. And I look over and I see my woman sleeping under my bills. And it was just like, you know, because none of us want to see our, you know, our family suffer because we are not performing. Sure. And I was just like, I gotta figure this out. And I'm telling you, I wrote more that night than any night in my entire life. Next day, I wrote more than ever. That Bird Life golden ticket, which gave him a bestseller. And, you know, 18 months later, because I was like, I'm gonna figure out this online thing. I'm about marketing. I'm gonna figure out how to teach. I'm going to figure out how to train and get paid for it, because I'd never really been paid for those things. I said, I'm going to figure out this industry, and I'm going to make it. Eighteen months later, after her crawling under the bills, I made $4.6 million online. Total transformation. People like how did you do it? I'm like, she gave me. She was my necessity. I was not going to let my woman be in that situation. And she believed in me, she supported me, she married me. And, you know, but that was. She was my drive. And the second part was I went all in with my identity. I said, I am going to be a great writer and I am going to be one of the greatest online trainers there ever was. You know, as you said in the intro, now we've graduated. Over 2 million people have taken our online courses, video series. Now, I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't had the guts and maybe the no other choice to say, this is who I'm going to be and I'm going to build into that, and it is necessary for me to become that person. So let's go.

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[Brendon Burchard]

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[Brendon Burchard]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

That's amazing. Talk to me about that. Building into process. This is. So you did a video about how to come back from being dead broke. And it was so fundamental and real and true. I loved it. I was like, you're not trying to hype anybody up. In fact, you were telling them, you're gonna hate this video. I'm gonna tell you what to do. It's actually gonna work, but you're gonna hate it. And that's when I was like, all right, this guy's not fucking around. Like, your advice is really real. So the concept of building in, the concept of. And I love this. You can't imagine how much I agree with you on this that it's not just about doing what comes naturally.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So what is it about?

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm glad you relate with me because I'm getting a lot of flack on that. So the big huge finding that really scratches the surface of a lot of like cultural assumptions, especially in high performance, is this big cultural conversation you have about strengths. And you know, find your strengths, follow your strengths. The strengths are everything. And you know, take the strengths finder, figure out your top five strengths, follow those, don't do anything else or you know, at least know what they are. And really aim your career to that or aim your behavior towards that or you know, use that as a guide for recognizing pattern. And by the way, I'm all for. That's all great. I'm that guy who says, you know what, any self reflection you do, I'm cheering you on. Like any assessment, any tool that makes you look at with inside, I'm like all for it. It's just that strengths are not highly correlated with long term success. Right. There's not a lot of data and there is not a lot of research that has shown it leads to long term success with the positive outcomes associated with what we care about in psychology, which is we care about happiness, we care about health, and we care about your positive relationships. And this myth that, oh, we just follow our strengths to, you know, to the promised land is just not true when you actually talk with high performers. Because my favorite question, and if anyone's down this, just go up to anyone who's good and say, were you always good at that? And they'd be like, no. They'd be like, not at all. Well, did you always have an inclination to do every element of what you're doing really well? No. Like me, man, I sucked on stage this year I've talked to 60,000 people live. This is really important because this idea that we're just our strengths are going to give us everything, it's just not true. I sucked speaking on stage. Matter of fact, I was terrified of it. Terrified. But one reason I love your show is because I had that intention of I want to make an impact. And when someone actually asks and kind of owns that, like when they say, do I want to make an impact? And the answer is yes. And they own it. They realize they're going to have to develop. They can no longer leave their growth to randomness because if they do, they'll always be mediocre. And they realize I gotta become something entirely above both of those that's what most people don't see. They're like, we've made this binary, false conversation, right? It's not a true sort of choice here. It's a false dichotomy, we call it, Right? It's not strengths or weaknesses. Many of you, if you have a big dream, a huge goal, you gotta become something entirely above and beyond any strengths you even know about, feel or own, and go way beyond any weaknesses you've ever even addressed or even you know about. Because you're going to discover so many new strengths and so many new weaknesses on the path that it's almost irrelevant what they are now. It's what's the goal? And build into that. You know, I didn't know how to write. I get a lot of critics who are like, literary guys about my books, because every book is different, right? Six books, all of them different. And the reason they all read differently is I am challenging myself as a writer to develop, to get better. Every book I write, I go, I'm going to write this like nothing I've ever written before. And I go to work at building a new skill set to be able to write. Like manifesto, I researched for two and a half years just how to write it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Brendon Burchard]

Not what to write. How. How do I get that pentameter? How do I. What was the rhythm in which revolutionist rhetoric was spoken in or written in? Just to understand that took me two and a half years. So I had no conceptual understanding of it. It wasn't a strength. I didn't even. It wasn't. It wasn't on my radar.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And what does that process of skill acquisition look like?

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah, it first and foremost starts with identifying. I wouldn't even start with the skill. I would start with the self, you know? And in the chapter on seeking clarity, we say, it's like, what we found for high performers is they've identified these four things. They're. They're more intentional in these four areas. Number one is high performers are consistently seeking clarity in who do I want to be? And I know a lot of people do that when they turn 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70. And people do that at New Year's. But high performers are doing that, like, in every situation. Like, before, when I walked down the stairs here, I was like, who do I want to be in this interview right now with my friend Tom, Like, I want to do a good job for him. You know, I made that performance necessity on myself. Like, I want to do a good job. So I was like, well, I want to be present. I don't want to be enthusiastic. I want to be bold. Like, I want to be those things. High performers are constantly seeking clarity about how they want to interact with other people. And I think a big development, growth point for people is determining how do I really want to treat people when they don't agree with me or when they're hating on me or when they're discounting me or they're being mean to me or we're in a fight. Because I think some of those are the greatest growth areas of our life. And then high performers are very clear about the critical skills they must develop in order to succeed in their space. You know, they. They identify. Usually, we found they usually know three to five current skills they're working on. So another example for me was video. I was very awkward and uncomfortable in front of video. I know the feeling. Right? Yeah. Right. But you said, okay, if I'm gonna make an impact, I'd better figure that out. Yep, I'd better figure that out. And so you go to work, you put in the miles you try, because learning is the ultimate lever to leveling up. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You actually have a math equation, if I may, which I think is where you're headed. But I loved this equation so much. Passion plus growth plus contribution equals personal satisfaction.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like those all coming together. A lot of people have never experienced, and it's hard for you. And I'd say that as personal development guys, but it's true. There's a lot of people who've never had those three completely line up. So they're not satisfied even with their job or their career or their life, because the passion isn't there. Even if the passion's there, they don't feel like they're growing. But everybody I talk to. Do you remember that first personal development book you read? Do you remember that first time you wrote tons of notes about what you wanted your life to be about? Do you remember that first time you watched a movie, inspired you to go change? There was fire there, because that learning, it opened up your mind to a new level of existence for you. And soon as you saw it, you were like, ooh, ambition hits your heart. And now if you can match it with contribution and you can see how that passion or that fire or that learning or that growth all aligns to some type of impact. Now you're getting me fired up, because now I can see the outcome of all the work. A lot of people don't do the work because they don't believe the outcome.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's interesting.

[Brendon Burchard]

You know, if psychologists talk about the power of expectancy, when we talk about motivation, there's only two things that spark motivation. One is ambition. And that is I want more of. Or I want a greater depth of. Right? I want a greater depth of connection with my lady. That's ambition. Or I want a better meditative practice. That's ambition, right? I want to be better at my job. That's ambition. So it starts with ambition. But ambition, if it's not coupled with what they call expectancy in psychology, you're screwed. Expectancy says, I believe that I can figure that out. I believe that I can achieve that. I believe that that is possible for me. Because if we don't believe it's possible for me. You can show them all the results from a thousand people, right? How many people say, I want to get in great shape? You know, Tom, I'm a new ketosis. I'm doing the ketosis thing, man. And they hop on your Instagram and they see the cuts, they see the changes, they see the transformations, but they don't believe it's possible for them, so they don't try. Expectancy is their problem. You got to bust through the beliefs to get them to understand that it is possible for them, not for other people, for them. And if you can open that gate for somebody, and often that's only achieved through learning, then you get somebody who starts really moving ahead forward. I mean, really moving ahead. Like, the second they go, wait, that's possible for me, they'll try 50 stupid things, right? They'll try anything. But if they don't believe it's possible for them, they'll just quit.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you have. Within this context. So obviously seek help is first and foremost, but beyond that, what. What does that rebuilding process look like for somebody who's trapped in depression and suicidal thoughts?

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah, I've been there a lot in my life, especially before my car accident, my teenage years, then the first woman I ever loved, we had a big breakup. And that breakup sent me down in depression and suicidal planning. And it's tough to dispense advice to people other than get help. And I'll share why, because that time in my life, I had so many people coming up to me. You know, my friends would come into my dorm room, brennan, let's go do something. And you just. There's just. The hope is lost. And what people, I think make the mistake of trying to do is hype people up. Everything's gonna be okay. You're gonna be Great. And what people need who are suicidal is serious psychological intervention. They need to seek support and help. And outside of that, when they do get that support, the first thing a great therapist is going to do, outside of the emotional reflection work of why are you here? And what has caused this sort of pattern for you? They're going to get you starting to get some momentum. The most important thing is when you are super down outside of finding that emotional reasoning for where you are is to start getting momentum. Because with momentum comes hope, with momentum comes motivation, with momentum comes, you know, that feeling that there's a reason for tomorrow. And so it's as simple as just saying, okay, what are three things I'm going to do today? And I don't mean that like, a lot of personal development guys would say, like, what are your three big goals for the day? I'm like, dude, sometimes that first goal is, I'm going to shower today. I'm really in shower today. I'm going to walk to the library and come home. And that's all they got. Like, literally, that's all they got. And you got to honor that struggle when you're in that place. Like, know that where you're at, it is okay that you're there. And now you're going to need help. And now you're going to have to set up some daily practices. Just every day, win a little bit. Not like, win your dreams. Not like, crush through goals. Not like, be a badass. Not like, no, just momentum, man. You know, most of the guys I've dealt with in that position who were suicidal outside of their therapeutic work, I said, the most important thing you can do is win the morning. Just win the morning, man. I think that's true for all of us, even high performers. Like, I don't have my morning routine game. I feel, you know, out of sorts. So I think it's true for everybody. You gotta own your morning. You gotta win it, because that starts and sets up everything else. I know you believe that as well. Like, people need that discipline, those routines that will help the rest of their day go better. And I don't want to ever be flippant with the advice to people who are dealing with that situation outside of get some help, get some momentum and be okay if that momentum is really small, because it will build, trust that that momentum builds. And trust those gloomy and bad dark days, trust that those are going to be there. They'll get less and less and less as you learn how to cope, but they're going to be there. And so when they're there, it's one of my. I mean, outside of teaching people to bring the joy in my life, I teach people to honor the struggle, honor the difficulty. When we honor the struggle instead of hate the struggle, we can really achieve extraordinary things because our mindset's in the right place. It accepts, like, as soon as you honor the struggle, you accept that, oh, of course there should be struggle here. I should honor this process. When you go to the gym to work out, you, like, honor that this is going to be hard and honor that process of getting better. And the more that you bring honor to it, the more your psyche builds with strength and you get a little bit of that esteem back because you see yourself engaging something versus avoiding it and running away. You see yourself connecting with something and giving it reverence. Like I have reverence for the difficulties of life. They may be better. So I don't want a friction free life. I'm not interested in it. You know, I like to say sometimes that, you know, the journey to greatness begins the moment that our deep desires for comfort and ease are overpowered by our desires to connect and contribute.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love that, man. Where can these guys find you online? Before I ask my final question, just, you know what?

[Brendon Burchard]

Brendon.com B-R-E-N-O-N.com I remember seeing this is way back. Oprah had oprah.com and I thought, how cool would it be to have your name.com? now I sought this kid out. So I went to Brendan.com and this guy, he had his resume up there and that's all he had was a resume. So I emailed the guy and I'm like, hey, man, I really love to own this website. Could I buy it from you? He goes, no, it's my name. Dang it. And he says, no, you know, I got my mom, she's got, you know, an email. We have an email associated with the domain, right? All this stuff. I said, oh, man. All right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Every.

[Brendon Burchard]

So I set it. My calendar, every six months for six years, whoa. My calendar would go off and I'd email him again, email him again, email him again, email. It took six years. On a sixth year, he said, you know what? Yeah, you know, I'd be interested in that conversation. Sold it. So I got Brendan.com. i'm really happy about that. Really thrilled. That stupid story. But I was like, yes, determination. So, Brendan.com follow me on Instagram at Brendon Richard. Check out my YouTube channel, because I think anything you're going through in your life. You can hit my YouTube channel and there's, you know, over 100 plus videos of something nice.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. All right, last question. What is the impact that you want to have on the world?

[Brendon Burchard]

Oh, it is a hard one. You know, it's so simple. Like when you get the life is really short and you felt that before, either by you were threatened or you've had someone near, dear, near and dear die. But when you have that real essence in you that says life is short, have reverence for it, live it. That's a really big thing. I got that at 19. And I learned specifically that if we have a moment of cognition before the end of our life, we tend to ask questions to evaluate if we're happy. So if I have any impact in the world, it's going to come from that experience where I learned that the ultimate lesson is determine what the questions you're going to ask at the end of your life are going to be. Find out those questions. What will you ask at the end of your life to evaluate your life so that you would know if you were happy with your life. Like figure out those questions and then live each day intentionally so you're happy with the answers at the end. For me, the answers, the questions that I had were did I live? Which I hadn't. I hadn't been living my life. I'd been thinking about taking my life. Did I love? No. My heart was broken. And I put up all these walls to keep out other people. And I always say, you know, sometimes the walls we put up to keep out the bad guys prevent the good guys from getting in. And suddenly in our own self protection, we block out the very thing we want, which is connection. And I learned that I would ask, did I matter? You know, 22 years ago on a dark Caribbean night, I'm standing on the crumpled hood of a car, bleeding out. My friend and I just wrecked a car. He's screaming at top of his lungs, he's bleeding. We don't know if we're going to live. And I'm standing on the hood of this car looking down at all this blood and I'm in terror. And I just remember looking down at the hood and just thinking, did I even matter? You know, And I hated the answer at that time in my life because a 19 year old kid, I didn't know about impact theory for real. I didn't know to think about that. Young kids, sometimes they don't know to think about that. I didn't know to think about legacy, meaning, did I matter? I didn't think I did. But the good news is I'm a good learner. And I felt like I got a second chance from God that night. And I learned that it was really important for me to figure out how do I live and how do I love and how do I matter in such a way that if I face my death again, I'll know I've earned the second chance. And so what I want to tell people and the impact I want is I just want people to know. Know your questions, man. Live intentionally and earn the life that you've been given. Because this moment's a blessing. So earn this moment and live intentionally. I love it, man.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Thank you so much for coming.

[Brendon Burchard]

Thank you. I appreciate it. My pleasure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Guys, this is somebody you are going to want to read this book. What I love about it, it is literally an instruction manual on what to do. So he goes into the research. All stuff is backed up by what he's been studying for essentially 20 years. They go hardcore for three years compiling the data. It is insanely usable information, and it's real at times, counterintuitive at times, exactly what you expect, but backed up then with the following steps that you're going to want to take. Like you said, they use stories and things to really draw you in. I just, literally, from top to bottom, I was amazed. But the best part, when you see the way that this guy lives his life on camera and off camera, it's all an echo of the stu that you see in the book. So you have one shining, amazing, incredible example of what this looks like when it's taken to the extremes. And if you didn't hear that the man went from dead broke, in bankruptcy to multimillionaire in 18 months by making things a necessity. If you take nothing else out of this episode, necessity, you don't get what you want, you get what you need. Certainly smarter men than I have said that, but that is true. You're not going to get what you want in life. Once you make it a burning, crushing need, the thing that you must have happen, then it will happen. And he walks you through that, the steps that you follow and many, many other things, guys. So dive in. And like you said, check out his YouTube page. It is extraordinary. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.

[Brendon Burchard]

Yeah, dude, that was awesome.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Hey, everybody, thank you so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, you're gonna get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.

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