805 How to Become a Full Time Influencer with Brendon Burchard, Part 1

THE TIME TO HAVE THE MAP IS BEFORE YOU ENTER THE WOODS. There’s more opportunity now than there ever has to make money as an influencer. There are so many platforms, avenues, and audiences. But a lot of people aren’t doing it right. Everything has to be intentional. Everything. If you’re going through the motions, you’re in trouble. One of the biggest things that lights our brains up is novelty. You have to focus on what’s working and also on things in the pipeline for the future. Use the momentum you currently have but continue to reach for new heights. It takes more than just showing up. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I explore what makes a successful career as an “influencer” with one of the most-watched speakers in history: Brendon Burchard. Brendon Burchard is a 3-time New York Times bestselling author and one of the most-watched, quoted, and followed personal development trainers in history. SUCCESS Magazine and O, The Oprah Magazine, have both named him one of the most influential leaders in personal growth and achievement. Forbes named him the world’s leading high-performance coach and Larry King named him the world’s top motivational trainer. Brendon says you need to get clear on you who are, get clear on your message, and get clear on how you are going to influence others. He gives us concrete tools to take our “brand” to the next level. So get ready to learn how to have a powerful message and create positive change on Episode 805. Some Questions I Ask: Who should be thinking about becoming an influencer? (17:00) How do you find your message if you’re trying to become an influencer? (21:00) What is a “market?” (29:00) What is your method and has it changed over the past 10 years? (43:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why you need to build a business, not just a platform (3:00) How our past can hold us back from big dreams (10:00) About the “role model” mindset (19:00) Why you should come up with three words that define who you are (24:00) The importance of having a “method” (35:00) The power of vulnerability (39:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes, and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/805 and follow at instagram.com/LewisHowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is episode number 805 with number one New York Times bestselling author, Brendan Burchard.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  "The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed." That was said by Michelangelo. Welcome to this episode. I'm super excited. This is a two-part mega series with the one and only Brendan Burchard, where we discuss what it really means to become an influencer by building through a traditional business model. The business model has not changed. People just call it influencer now. And we go through these five key themes by developing your message, your mission, your method, how to monetize and work through the mayhem.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  And I'm going to break this down into parts. We'll have the first one today and then in a couple of days, part two will come out. I'm so excited for this. For those who don't know who Brendan is, he is one of the world's leading high-performance coaches, three-time New York Times bestselling author, whose books include The Motivation Manifesto, The Charge, Life's Golden Ticket, and The Millionaire Messenger. Success Magazine and Oh, The Oprah Magazine have both named him one of the most influential leaders in personal growth and achievement. And Brendan is also one of the top 100 most followed public figures on Facebook with over 10 million fans across his page. His videos have been viewed more than 100 million times.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  He is one of the most requested motivational speakers in the world, shared stages with the Dalai Lama, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, and many other influencers of his era. And in this first part, we talk about what high performers need. To truly change the world, the role model mindset, how to adopt it, live it and get paid doing it. Why your audience wants you to be transparent about your development, the method of dialing in on the art of what you're doing every day and Brandon's bankruptcy and how it taught him how to fight for who you are. Very excited about this. Again, it's a two parter. Make sure to share this out with your friends. Stay tuned for part two

• 2:46Speaker 00

  coming in a couple of days. It's gonna be a big one. It's gonna help you if you want to really monetize your message and your influence or become more of a monetization messenger. Very excited about this. Share it with your friends. Tag me at Lewis Howes, at Brendan Burchard, LewisHowes.com/805. You can use that link and share it out with your friends or just copy this link if you're listening on Spotify or iTunes and post that on your stories or on Twitter and all over social media. This is gonna be a big one. All right, guys, I'm excited about this one. This is part one with the one and only Brendan Burchard.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my good friend Brendan Burchard.

• 3:33Brendon Burchard?

  Let's go.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Yes, baby.

• 3:34Brendon Burchard?

  Thank you, brother.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Excited. You were on here, was it two years ago? When was it last time?

• 3:39Brendon Burchard?

  It was two years ago.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Year and a half, two years ago, roughly.

• 3:41Brendon Burchard?

  It was two years ago.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Was that the first time I met you, like a month before then?

• 3:45Brendon Burchard?

  I think that was the first time we ever had like a real conversation.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Was it on the podcast? I think we met in person before, didn't we? At like Soho House for maybe a minute?

• 3:53Brendon Burchard?

  That was the day of.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 3:54Brendon Burchard?

  Like you took me to Soho House for some like, I had some like eggs and tea and we came over.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Here's what's funny. I feel like I've known you for, I don't know, like a decade, even though we've only been really hanging out for a couple of years.

• 4:03Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  I feel like I've known you for a decade because we've gone deep and done like intimate work together, collaborations together. We've done masterminds together, trips. Whenever you go on a trip with someone and a group of people and you share these unique experiences, you feel like you bond faster.

• 4:20Brendon Burchard?

  I took you fishing and you beat me at it.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  I beat you because I had a good partner, Dean, who was just catching everything. I couldn't catch a thing. I would catch it, but I couldn't reel it in. We went to Wyoming, Jackson Hole together. You invited a group of about...

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  10 to 15 high-level influencers. So, thanks for inviting me. We had an amazing time taking helicopters around the mountains, fly fishing, freaking hanging out, barbecue, campfire, all that stuff. Then we just went to your new home in Puerto Rico.

• 4:49Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  A week, was that a week ago?

• 4:50Brendon Burchard?

  That's a week ago.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Man, it's been...

• 4:52Brendon Burchard?

  It already feels like three weeks. So, much has happened, yeah.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  You went to Puerto Rico, you've got a new home there, right on the beach. It's incredible. Some new people joined, the influencer mastermind that you got put together.

• 5:01Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  You've had an incredible career. You know, you've been in this game for 15 years now.

• 5:06Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Lewis Howes?

  2006.

• 5:07Brendon Burchard?

  Crazy. 2000, yeah, 2006 is when I launched my first website. First book came out in 2001.

• 5:14Lewis Howes?

  Right. Life's Golden Ticket.

• 5:16Brendon Burchard?

  Student Leadership Guide.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, different.

• 5:17Brendon Burchard?

  A book for, yeah, I was still in college. I wrote a book for students and left it there called The Student Leadership Guide. And it became this big thing, which is what helped me realize, oh, I could do books?

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 5:27Brendon Burchard?

  I took a corporate job after that, you know, like for, working for Accenture. So, I did leadership development for about seven years. But that whole seven years, I wanted to write Life's Golden Ticket. And it was just kind of waiting and kind of maturing and getting ready and, and sometimes telling myself lies. You know, like, oh, I'm not ready, I'm too young. But Student Leadership Guide was kind of selling the background of colleges. And I'd get these checks every month. I'm like, wow, maybe I could do a real book. And maybe I will write Life's Golden Ticket, but I didn't have the hook or the angle yet. And so, that, 2007, Life's Golden came out. My first event was 2008, my first big seminar that I did. My first online course came out in 2008. And this is like, 2008 doesn't seem that long ago.

• 6:10Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 6:11Brendon Burchard?

  But our number one refund in 2008 was because people couldn't play a 45-minute online course because buffer speed.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:19Brendon Burchard?

  Like, no one even knows what that means. I remember like, the video wouldn't play. It would take like 20 minutes to watch.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  A load, yeah.

• 6:25Brendon Burchard?

  A two-minute clip. And we were doing online courses in 2008. So, it was like, we were, we were early. I didn't know we were early, but looking back, I was like, wow, we were like, oh geez, up in here.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Posting video on like Amazon S3, like uploading it, like it was all janky. There was no software systems then. You have multiple number one New York Times bestselling books. I think you've sold a couple million copies of books.

• 6:45Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, yeah, if you count digital.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Digital, how many millions of copies roughly do you think, range? Over 2 million of all your books at least?

• 6:53Brendon Burchard?

  If you count digital, 4 or 5.

• 6:55Lewis Howes?

  4 or 5 million?

• 6:56Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. And partially though, is because we also sell it on our own website.

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  You sell it, you do like-

• 7:00Brendon Burchard?

  One of the, one of the things we were really early on was taking the power back from the publishers. So even if we have a great deal with a publisher, I still might do a big promotion where I release the PDF. Or I might do a big promotion, you know, with, you know, Kindle that I don't have to worry about or-

• 7:15Lewis Howes?

  Audio or whatever.

• 7:16Brendon Burchard?

  We'll do a big promotion on Kindle for a dollar 99. So, you know, we kind of were changing up the model because my, my ambition was I want people reading my book. I don't, I don't want to have to worry about the gatekeepers.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  And you were looking to build a business through leads and-

• 7:29Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  And it wasn't just about the book, it was about the book and then what's next?

• 7:32Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Give me an email. I'll give you my book.

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:35Brendon Burchard?

  I mean, after, after the book's been out for seven or eight years, I'm like, hey, give me an email, I'll give you this whole PDF.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  I just want you to read it.

• 7:40Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Or buy it for $3 today from my website. Like whatever it's taken, like to get people to read the books.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  That's right.

• 7:45Brendon Burchard?

  The mission has always been change people's lives in whatever modality I can figure out or learn to do that.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:51Brendon Burchard?

  That's what I had to do.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  It's a key. And you've done, I think you said you did like 15 or 17 seven-figure launches in a row online?

• 7:58Brendon Burchard?

  28.

• 7:59Lewis Howes?

  28, my numbers are off here. 28.

• 8:01Brendon Burchard?

  The only reason I'd do that, because we had to make a presentation for the Influencer Magazine thing. We were trying to like talk about it. And it was 28 seven-figure online launches.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 8:10Brendon Burchard?

  19 of them were in a row.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  So that- 19 in a row, wow.

• 8:13Brendon Burchard?

  That 2009 to 2015, we kind of defined the game for launching, especially personal development online courses. There were a lot of people teaching marketing or, or launches or how to do a seminar or something like, but we were like, personal development's harder to sell.

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  It's harder to sell, man. It's harder to sell high ticket too. It's harder to sell. So you've been doing that. You've helped so many people launch their brands from their influence because there's a lot of influencers in the world who are really great at building, creating content that goes viral that are, that attracts an audience. And then growing an audience, they know, they have no clue to make money.

• 8:48Brendon Burchard?

  That's it.

• 8:49Lewis Howes?

  They're broke, but they're changing the world, right? It's like they're broke and they have millions of followers.

• 8:53Brendon Burchard?

  They think they're changing the world. It's like, you're gonna need a business and a movement to change the world.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 8:58Brendon Burchard?

  And that's what they, they're like, well, I'm changing the world. Like, no, you're popular.

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:03Brendon Burchard?

  But to actually change the world and change people, you need a curriculum. You need to be able to give them empowerment and tools to be able to help to do that. And if you're gonna actually make it, I always tell people, you can't sustain the mission if you don't make the money.

• 9:19Brendon Burchard?

  Which was a big thing for me because I came from nothing, you know, you know, my background a little bit. Growing up in Montana, we just had nothing.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:27Brendon Burchard?

  You know, we grew up in poverty. My parents working super hard between the, you know, two of them to raise us four kids. Literally till they say I have no idea how they did it.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Brendon Burchard?

  So my ambition was like, maybe someday I can make forty thousand dollars because the richest people in our town didn't make that kind of money. But that also can get in the way because sometimes people set their ambitions or their, their, their financial hopes based on where they grew up. And they let their past or their current circumstances dictate the dreams for the finances they want in the future.

• 9:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:56Brendon Burchard?

  And then what happens? They do something that becomes really popular. And they're like, oh, this is working. And the number account they're watching is the fans and the followers, which is great. But what I'm always saying is like, what, please make sure you build a business. Because if suddenly you're not as popular or you go broke or something happens, God forbid. If you haven't built the infrastructure to carry your message, then you're not being a responsible messenger.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:22Brendon Burchard?

  You know, an influencer without a business is a popular person who's busy.

• 10:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, all the time. And stressed because they're not making any money, they can't pay their rent.

• 10:32Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  I was having a conversation with Jay Shetty about this about a year and a half ago.

• 10:35Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Because he was, I was always trying to push him to earn more. He was like, you know, I'm happy with like, just making, I don't know, I think it was like a hundred grand or maybe a few hundred grand, right? I'm not sure the exact number, but he was like, I never felt like I needed to make more money. Because I felt like I just want to serve people. I want to give as much as I can.

• 10:55Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  And I said, well, you're really doing a disservice unless you start earning more because you can hire more people and transform those lives.

• 11:01Brendon Burchard?

  Right.

• 11:01Lewis Howes?

  You can use the resources to create bigger projects, bigger production of, of movies and videos that can then infect people in a positive way.

• 11:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, you have to, people have to get out of their way about money.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Brendon Burchard?

  And it's the hardest thing I, trust me, it was like, there were parts of, when we did our first seminar, afterwards I went broke. Because I know how to do it, didn't know, didn't know so much, just completely went broke. How to live with my girlfriend, who's now Denise, my wife. Um, and, you know, she was buying my groceries, she was supporting me. She was kind of the only person who knew what I wanted to do and, and really the only person believing and cheering it on. I like, I had that great support.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:37Brendon Burchard?

  You know, I, I always say, people say, you're so lucky, but I'm like, I am. I had a car accident that smacked me in the head and made me say, I want to live my life. Luck number one. Luck number two, great parents. Like number three, a girl that believed in me. When I didn't even quite believe in myself. Wow. You know. What year is this? Uh, I met Denise in 2003. Wow. So we were together five years and I proposed, so we've been together a long time. But I remember even sitting there when I was, you know, bankrupt. And she's, you know, sleeping in the bed and I'm on this little desk and next to the, next to the bed and I'm, I'm writing and all my bills and my paperwork and my vision boards were on the bed.

• 12:18Brendon Burchard?

  And as I'm typing, she comes over and crawls under the covers to go to bed and I look over and my woman, sleeping under my bills, like literally. And I would say, none of us want to be responsible for the pain in other people's lives because our own inaction. I just hadn't taken action, but I also didn't, I just didn't have any attachment to money my whole life, even now. I mean, you've seen what we do on our big trips. I'm like, let's go. I mean, I go crazy. Helicopters and this. Whatever. It's like, have a great time because I don't have an attachment to it. But what I do have an attachment to is the mission and I want to help people achieve their goals faster. I want to help people realize they have a second chance on this planet every day that they wake up. And if you have a second chance every day, that's, that's like evergreen.

• 13:02Brendon Burchard?

  Every day is your life's golden ticket. You get to choose when you woke up this morning, what's my attitude gonna be? How I'm gonna treat people? What I'm gonna focus on? What I'm gonna make happen? How I feel? Like, we get to choose these things to, like, an extraordinary extent. So my whole thing is like, hey, you have a second chance. Use that. And this time in your second chance, in your, in your next relationship, in the next job, in the next moment, be more intentional. Be more service driven. You know, lead with more heart. Make sure you're, you're doing things that bring you meaning. Yeah. And if you really, if, like, if I really believe that as I tell it to you, then I would have to build the infrastructure to sustain it. Yeah. That's where the business thing comes in. I had to go, alright. And there was nothing about this business I was attracted to. Like, literally. But you're very introverted.

• 13:47Brendon Burchard?

  Very introverted. Like, I'm still, you know, I'm awkward even right now. I'm awkward in a meeting. Like, I'm just, I'm, you, you've been with me on a deck by a pool. I'm different. I'm a little more relaxed a little bit. But I had to learn everything. I had to learn how to speak. I was terrified of public speaking. I had to learn how to do video, which was a super awkward, hard thing. Now we've had 250 million video views, but the number I'm really proud of is 15 million hours. Of my online training has been watched.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:16Brendon Burchard?

  Fifteen million hours. That's a lot of, Brendan, that's annoying. But, you know, that's instruction, not, no cat videos, no memes, no reposting other people's stuff. That's like online training content, fifteen million hours. So that's a lot of teaching. We have twenty-seven online courses. Twenty-seven I've done, and I was terrified of video. I had to learn podcasting, I had to learn how to write books. But all I had was after my car accident, I said, I want to inspire people to understand we all have life's golden ticket, we have a second chance. We can all live, love, and matter if we make that our intention. So let's start measuring ourselves and being more purposeful. And then I had to figure out how to do it. Well, you have to master your mindset. You have to master your habits. You have to be better in your relationships. You have to live for something.

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  Optimize your health.

• 14:59Brendon Burchard?

  Yes. So if I really believed in that, I had to step back at some point and not go, what are my strengths? Because my strengths were, you know, sitting on a couch and eating Cheetos. It's like, at some point you go, no, no, what, what is, I want to be of service to. High performers don't often ask, just what are my strengths, I'll just do that. They say, what is required to be of service here, and let me grow into that. I had to grow into a business owner. Like, I had to grow into a communicator, I had to grow into a writer and a podcaster. I didn't know how to do any of that. I just had something I wanted to share and teach the world. I had to learn how to be a researcher and conduct like original, full-scale psychological research, which was High Performance Habits. Like, I didn't know how to do any of that. But if you, if you believe you have a message in your heart,

• 15:42Brendon Burchard?

  you'll know that you have to build the infrastructure for it. Because if you don't make the money, you can't sustain the message.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  It's hard, yeah, it's hard.

• 15:48Brendon Burchard?

  Your advising to Jay was really great, because he's doing great now, because he's changed that approach.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  He has. And now he's, he still cares about impacting as many people as possible, but he knows that the business model needs to be there, and he's been crushing it on both sides. You know, he's been doing amazing.

• 16:02Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Lewis Howes?

  Now, this is all about becoming an influencer, and you've got an event coming up, and you've got to hold a magazine, Influencer Magazine Influencer Event in twenty nineteen coming up in October.

• 16:13Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  October.

• 16:14Brendon Burchard?

  October ten through twelve in San Diego is the first big influencer event for our industry.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  Who should be thinking about becoming an influencer? And? Who is it for and who is it not for? Because you're the introverted guy, so if you're introverted and you're scared and you've never spoken before, you've never written a book, should you even be thinking, ah, maybe this is for me or maybe it isn't?

• 16:36Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I'm just thinking in my head as you're saying that, how many of our friends and fans are like, Brendan's not introvert.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 16:41Brendon Burchard?

  But I always say this, you can't write six books and not be an introvert. You know, you can't, you can't sit and do the hundreds of hours of curriculum development without being introverted. But no, I think introverts can come, extroverts can come. It's somebody who says, you know what? I want to be a person of influence in the world where I'm affecting positive change. And you want to figure out how to have a career doing that. It's those two things. First is the heart and the soul of it is like, I want to create positive change. I want to be a role model. And I'll say, no one seeks to become an expert or a thought leader, which is what we used to call it, you know? Now we just call it influencer. But no one seeks to become an influencer unless in some way they have the role model mindset. That mindset that says, you know what? I want to do good and have other people see that and maybe inspire them.

• 17:26Brendon Burchard?

  You know, I want to, I want to lead my life in a way that's an example for other people. And as soon as you decide to adopt the role model mindset, where you say, I want to be an example for other people, it requires you to do the hard stuff.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 17:38Brendon Burchard?

  To work out.

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  Stuff you don't want to do.

• 17:39Brendon Burchard?

  You don't want to do. You don't want to work out. You, you, you don't want to push yourself. You don't want to, but to be a role model, you have to demonstrate integrity and discipline and service. And most people, they won't challenge themselves that much. So I think first is the role model mindset. So first, I have that. I want to affect positive change. I want to be a role model for other people. I want to inspire people. I want people to see the passions I have and maybe learn from those passions. And I want to give people, you know, empowerment. And then the other side of it is, oh, well, I wonder how I do that and get paid as, as a career? Because while influencer is like the popular word right now, this industry has been there for hundreds of years with publishing, right? It's just changed now.

• 18:23Brendon Burchard?

  Influencers sit on top of more publishing platforms than we used to have access to. But at the end of the day, we're still publishing content. We're still promoting and pushing work out in the world. But people go, how do you make money? Well, now you can earn money in so many ways.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  So many ways.

• 18:38Brendon Burchard?

  The problem is, most influencers come up today, think they're going to earn money just by doing brand deals. And I'm going to get popular and do brand deals. I'm like, oh, you're just, they're not, they don't understand the model. It's like, You know, we say in Montana where I'm from, the time to have the map is before you enter the woods.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Brendon Burchard?

  And I'm like, if you're trying to figure out the influencer space and you want to know all 12 major ways to monetize your voice, your content, your message, your brand, you should learn that as a menu before you pick one. And most people are earning like this much when they could be earning 10 or 12 times more if they just understood the model. But they think they're so clever and they're inventing this.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:15Brendon Burchard?

  So many, I mean, so many people think, oh, we're not, you know, I'm original, I'm doing this. I'm like, this was here before you started. You know what I mean? Just you and me too. Like, we rode in on giant shoulders. And so I think it's for people who really have those two things.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  There's more money to be made now as an influencer than there ever was before. There's more opportunities, there's more models for making money, different methods. And you've got a couple of key themes and a framework on becoming an influencer, figuring out your message, the model, the mechanisms, everything. And I want to kind of break them down. The first thing you talk about is the message. Just getting clear on your message is what I'm assuming, right?

• 19:53Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  As an influencer, is it important to know what your message is? And how do you find your message if you're trying to become an influencer?

• 19:59Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, because the death of most influencers, they don't realize is their randomness.

• 20:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:05Brendon Burchard?

  You know, they're just excited, I'm going to post everything, you know, and I'm going to talk about everything. But they've never created a cohesive message that their audience goes, I get her. I understand her. It's not like you have to say the same thing over and over and over. But there has to be something that means something to you. Like, one thing I admire about what you do, buddy, is how you talk about greatness. That theme and that messaging is so tight. And honestly, over the last three years, when I listened to your show, I'm like, he's just dialing this in. Right? You know your word choice now, you know your phrases, you know what you're saying. It's not just being repetitive on those, it's just, that's who you are. And that integrity of your message. Is being shown, so you better be intentional about the kind of person you're trying to become.

• 20:48Brendon Burchard?

  Because most people think about message, they go, oh, so I need to have a mission statement, Brandon. I'm like, no, no, no, you are the message. The integrity of who you are and how you show up energetically and how you treat other people, that's the message.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  The role model mentality.

• 21:01Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the role model of your message.

• 21:04Brendon Burchard?

  That's it.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, because that's what integrity is. It's like, people are gonna watch you and go, are you congruent here and there? And if you're not, it's like that message feels funny to them. But you and I both know a lot of influencers, they've never done any deep introspection.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Brendon Burchard?

  They've put on 50 different clothes and, you know, beautiful Instagram things, but they don't know who they are.

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or they got the mental health challenge, which is what we're gonna talk about later.

• 21:26Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  But the message, getting clear on your message and kind of the theme of your brand, the theme of your influence, I think is key.

• 21:32Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  And this cannot, listen, it doesn't mean you have to be a perfect human being. You're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna learn, you're gonna grow. But it's like, trying to be congruent with your message consistently. For you, you know, it's, it's high performance habits. For your book, you talk about it in your podcast, you talk about it in your events. You live that and you showcase that.

• 21:50Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  For me, with greatness, it's kind of like, what are the core themes of living a great life? And business, health, relationships and everything involved. And it's trying to do the best to live that all the time and talk about it consistently.

• 22:02Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Including the failures.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 22:04Brendon Burchard?

  Like, that's part of it.

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  Showcasing the failures. I think when influencers showcase their mistakes and failures, it's, it makes them more real, more likable.

• 22:11Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, that's why everyone likes me, because I'm a hot mess all the time.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So you gotta get clear on the message first. Do you have a mechanism for, it's like, oh, I kinda like everything. Like, how do you figure out what your message is? Is there, is there a process or just like some journaling that you could share?

• 22:26Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I mean, first sitting down and saying, what do you wanna be a role model on?

• 22:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:31Brendon Burchard?

  Like, if, if, if you wanna be a role model, what is it about? Is it, and how does that translate into a person's real life? Like, what would you say to an actual person to help them or inspire them? And you just have to start writing those words, like, what would I say? Like, what would I say? It's that old thing of like, well, what, if you could put a message on a billboard or if something was written on your tombstone, like, what, what are those things?

• 22:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Brendon Burchard?

  For me, like, a lot of people know, it's like, live, love and matter. Because when I faced my death as a 19-year-old kid, I was like, oh. I learned I really want to live life. I learned, because I was a heartbroken kid, I wanted to love again and feel my heart again. I learned that life is super short, so you better make your difference. So Live, Love and Matter became central to everything I did for 15 years. Like, every message revolved around that, because that was me, and that was a unique experience I had. I think a lot of people have to go and dig down deep into their experiences of their life and say, "What were some of the gifts of the lessons that I learned?" Some of the awful things that happened to us, or the challenging things, those struggles, there's a story there, and that story can reveal some lessons, or things that you might be a role model to for people.

• 23:38Brendon Burchard?

  And it doesn't have to be so finite that it's like, "This is it forever." Because you'll keep evolving, you'll keep learning, but there's hints there. And you can go dig in your past to find some of those hints. You can also just ask, "Well, what are the passions that I really feel in my heart that I just want to communicate right now?" Some people, it's like, "Well, that's fashion for them." Some people, it's health for them.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  Being a mom.

• 23:59Brendon Burchard?

  Some, being a mom, being an educator, just showing everyday life. That's fine, because ultimately, again, you are the message. So the most important thing isn't to figure out, like, "What am I gonna say?" It's, the most important thing is, "Who are you?"

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  Who are you is the key.

• 24:11Brendon Burchard?

  Dig deep, man.

• 24:12Lewis Howes?

  Asking that question.

• 24:13Brendon Burchard?

  Yes. Who are you? One of the things we do is, I ask people, you know, come up with three words that describe the best of who you are. Like, these are aspirational words. If you could think of, like, three words, when I'm at my best, these three words really define me. And then I say, "Okay, now figure out, what are three words that really describe the best of you when you're with other people? Like, how do you treat them?" And then what I have them do is, I literally have them programmed in their phone as an alarm.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I have that in my alarm, still 8:30.

• 24:41Brendon Burchard?

  You still do?

• 24:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to change that to like 6:30, but it's like an 8:30.

• 24:45Brendon Burchard?

  That's it. Mine's still in here, you know, I've been doing this for whatever. There was mine, I am, "Dynamic, Bold and Confident." And that was for today, because I was like, you know, I'm usually a little more reserved in Lewis's interviews, because he's the man, you know, be a little more bold and confident.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  I have "Loving, Giving, Achiever."

• 25:01Brendon Burchard?

  That's it.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  Loving, Giving, Achiever. So I could probably change that, too, yeah.

• 25:05Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, so I switch mine every week, but...

• 25:07Lewis Howes?

  So three words that you would describe as yourself, and then three words that you would want other people to describe you as, or that you would describe yourself as.

• 25:13Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, so three words you'd describe yourself as, like, the best of who you are?

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Brendon Burchard?

  And that's just you, like, your identity. And then the other one is more like relationships. Like, three words to describe how you are with other people. For example, my word there, bold. Like, that can describe me as a person, how I think. But I wouldn't want you to ever go, "Well, Brendan, when he's with me, he's real bold." Like, that's different. Like, how you are with other people should have a certain definition and description. And how you are by yourself should have a certain... And that's how you start to get to know yourself. Like, "Oh, I'm like this as a person, and with other people, I'm like this as a person." And...

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  It's like shaping your own internal identity of your qualities.

• 25:51Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  And reminding yourself of who you are.

• 25:53Brendon Burchard?

  Labeling yourself a little bit in a positive way.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Brendon Burchard?

  Because most people, they take the labels the world gave them. "Oh, you're just the athlete, Louis."

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 26:01Brendon Burchard?

  Right? If you just took that, and that was all you ever owned, and you never explored beyond that, we wouldn't be here.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 26:06Brendon Burchard?

  Right? We're here because you explored, "Who am I?", and you are still doing that. So am I. Like, it's not like it's a thing that stops, but people want to see you working that through.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. I think like 15, 20 years ago, like in my teens, I used to say like, "Man, you suck," to myself all the time.

• 26:21Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  Like, "You're a loser. You suck. I hate you." You know, I'd say these words to myself. Like, "You're never gonna do anything better than this person," or "You're never gonna be enough," whatever. I would say these things internally.

• 26:32Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  And those start to shape you as well.

• 26:35Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Lewis Howes?

  And they start to shape how you treat other people, your reactions, and how you treat yourself.

• 26:39Brendon Burchard?

  That's right.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  So I think this is a very powerful, simple exercise that we've been doing for so many years now that we kind of forget the power of this.

• 26:49Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  But I'm glad you made this reminder, because I never say those things to myself anymore. It's always like, you know, "You're kind, you're loving, you're passionate, you're wise, you're giving, you're caring." I say these things all the time. I never even say anything negative, ever.

• 27:02Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, and you give yourself patience on the days you're not.

• 27:04Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 27:04Brendon Burchard?

  And that's a hard thing for people, because they're supposed to be kind, and one day, they're a jerk. And then they're like, "I'm a jerk," and they go back to that old, bad label. But it's like, what your audience wants to see if you're an influencer is you working through the development of you. They want to be on that journey with you and see like, oh, I see him or her becoming. Because they're willing to ask the hard questions about themselves and explore who they are. Because if, you can't be an influencer and not explore who you are. I mean, even, even the great presidents of our time were always in motion of exploring who they are. The great business people, I mean, it's not like Elon Musk has been exactly Elon Musk exactly 10 years ago as he is today. It's like, you're seeing this evolution, this change, and sometimes it's a hot mess and other times you're like, oh.

• 27:49Brendon Burchard?

  This person's, you know, people want to be on the journey with you as you're exploring who you are. And if you're not exploring who you are, you're not growing. And if you're not growing, the audience is not growing.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  Starts to die.

• 27:57Brendon Burchard?

  They're not interested.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  So true. So get clear on your message, figure out your three words, and that's a great start there. Now, the next thing is figuring out your market.

• 28:05Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that? What is a market?

• 28:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Well, one, I don't like that term, especially for guys like you and me who we do like so many walks of life. Listen to your show and my show.

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Multiple industries and markets.

• 28:18Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I look at like, you know, how you look at the analytics of like, when I look at like the Brendan Show podcast, it's like, holy crap. All these countries, all these, like, you can't, if you come to our events, I've gone to your events too. You can't do a demographic run of that audience.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Not like all 32-year-old male sales executives in the car industry.

• 28:34Brendon Burchard?

  That's the old world of marketing. You had to speak to one specific person. What people don't understand if they've never studied the history of marketing is that the reason that niche marketing came out, that concept of just identifying one person to talk to. And some people now say, you know, identify your customer avatar. I'm like, no, you're identifying avatars. It's plural. Because the reason that came so popular in marketing back in the day was only for one reason. Because in the 20s, sort of the golden age of marketing and advertising, you only had so much budget to run a certain ad on one platform. So you really had to get super niche and narrow. Now, we're able to reach a couple billion people. Now, we're able to have broader conversations.

• 29:18Brendon Burchard?

  So what you want to do with your market is try to understand, what are the aspirations of the people I want to serve? Looking like. It's about the aspirations, not about the demographic.

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  It's the mindset.

• 29:31Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  And I always talk about that, like for me, still greatness is not about, you know, the thirty-two-year-old mom with two kids.

• 29:37Brendon Burchard?

  Right.

• 29:38Lewis Howes?

  It's more of a mindset and a mentality.

• 29:40Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  And that's what we look for, someone with a growth mindset.

• 29:44Brendon Burchard?

  There you go.

• 29:44Lewis Howes?

  I call them conscious achievers.

• 29:46Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  People who are looking to achieve in their life, but in a conscious way.

• 29:50Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Lewis Howes?

  They wanna grow personally and they wanna impact people around them.

• 29:53Brendon Burchard?

  I love that.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  If they have that mentality, then you're a part of the community.

• 29:56Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  And that's who I try to speak to.

• 29:58Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  But it could be a sixteen-year-old or a sixty-year-old.

• 30:00Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Could be people from all over the world, but it's like this conscious achieving mentality.

• 30:06Brendon Burchard?

  I love that.

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  And that's what I focus on.

• 30:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, I have to have that, and I wanna tell people all the time is like, if you're not out with your students, your fans, your followers, and you're not really getting to know them, at some point, you're gonna lose that audience because you just don't know them.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 30:21Brendon Burchard?

  You need to know what's in their heart, not their age. You know it in their heart, not every part of their background or where they were raised and everything else like that. That kind of market analysis is overdone, and corporations love to pay for that. And when they do deals with me, they're always like, "Tell me everything about your people." And I'm like, they have the aspiration to go to the next level.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 30:41Brendon Burchard?

  For me, that's it. That is my market. I have always, for the last fifteen years, marketed and talked to people who were in that transition moment of their life and ready to go to the next level. I didn't speak to those who were just starting, that wasn't my audience. You know, who didn't know what person. I always went high-end in the sense of like, I speak to people who are ready to go to the next level. They've already got one level of security or like sense of themselves or success, and now they're like, you know what? Next level time. So they're like in that phase where like gearing up, you know?

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Brendon Burchard?

  They're like, here we go. They're not kind of like, oh, I don't feel motivated, I don't, I don't get, that wasn't my audience. My market was an aspiration to go to the next level, and I always focused on that. And it's what made, for me, with our brands, it's like, how did you do all those seven-figure launches, twenty-eight of them? I spoke to that aspiration specifically. So people knew, this is for me.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  So if you're

• 31:32Brendon Burchard?

  This is for me.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  So in like a 20 seconds, say you're doing a video to attract the aspirational mindset or the heart set of this individual.

• 31:42Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  And it this, you have a video that spreads out to the world and you know it's going to attract a certain type of person to come into your offering.

• 31:50Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  What would you say in 15, 20 seconds, a few key words that would be leading people into kind of where you want them to go? So it was the right kind of mindset.

• 32:00Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 32:00Lewis Howes?

  What would you say?

• 32:01Brendon Burchard?

  You've already, you feel like you've tried everything. You know, you've been at this for years. You don't feel like you've gotten that breakthrough just yet. You're doing good, but there's too many days. You don't feel as motivated or as driven as you really want to, to go to the next level. And you feel like you need some more empowerment to really achieve that next level. Not kind of like just get inspired or motivated because that can come and go. But rather you're looking for real tactical solutions that will help you earn more, that will help you become more, that will show you like step by step. This is how you reach that next level. And not from my opinion, it's that I've spent 15 years researching the highest performing people on the planet.

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:38Brendon Burchard?

  What they do is very specific. And if you're honest, you haven't been very specific. You've been random.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 32:44Brendon Burchard?

  And because you're good, you already have some success. You're able to just go through the motions.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Brendon Burchard?

  But going through the motions is the killer of the high performer.

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  It's true.

• 32:53Brendon Burchard?

  Right? Because

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Good to great, yeah.

• 32:54Brendon Burchard?

  Yes. You can be good, but that's not going to take you to the next level. So I'm going to assume you're already good, but you sense inside that there's a restlessness and there's a struggle there that you don't know what that breakthrough feels like. But you also, you're very aware of this next level. You have a dream, you have something you want to achieve. So let's just dial in your motivation, let's dial in your habits, but let's give you the discipline and the willpower to make it happen.

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  And that's why you need to go to Influencer. 2019. He's got it just dialed in. He's got, he's got the message dialed in, the market, the message dialed in.

• 33:24Brendon Burchard?

  I'm fired up being around you all the time, brother, because we both really believe that we can help people do that because that's where our foots, you know, footsteps have been for 15 years to help people do this.

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 33:35Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  So get clear on your message to the market. Then there's a method. What does the method mean?

• 33:40Brendon Burchard?

  Uh, I always love to talk about method with people, especially

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Method acting?

• 33:43Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for real. It's like, like Picasso had a method. Van Gogh had a method, Beethoven had a method, like they were thoughtful about the art of what they did.

• 33:57Brendon Burchard?

  And influencers need to think about that. Like you thought about like, I want a podcast that's gonna be like this.

• 34:02Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 34:02Brendon Burchard?

  And as you hone that in over the years, the podcast got better.

• 34:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Brendon Burchard?

  Because you brought more intention to the method, right?

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 34:09Brendon Burchard?

  Actors who just show up and kind of read the words, not good. But the greats, they're so thoughtful about the turn of the phrase and how they're gonna do this. Right? The great musician, the great artist, they obsess about the actual art of the thing. Because again, just showing up, especially when you're good, it's gonna limit you. Now you wanna be more intentional and say, what is this? It's like I've shared with you before, you know, having the blessing of working with Oprah. She starts meetings by asking, what's our intention?

• 34:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:40Brendon Burchard?

  Here. Greatness requires a lot of intention.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  It does. It doesn't just have my showing up.

• 34:46Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  You gotta get clear on the results and the experience you wanna create.

• 34:50Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, you see a, you see a really high achieving influencer do a photo shoot? Way different than somebody who's not high achieving.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:58Brendon Burchard?

  The intention and the placement and the things of where this goes and how this works.

• 35:02Lewis Howes?

  Closing, everything.

• 35:02Brendon Burchard?

  That's method. That's like bringing art to the method. Like when I wrote Motivation Manifesto, I was like, okay, I'm gonna write a book that's never been written before in a tone that hasn't been seen in hundreds of years. I was like, how do I figure that? I'm like, it was an art project. If what you are doing as an influencer doesn't feel like an art project, you're just simply doing it wrong and you're gonna burn out and you're gonna quit.

• 35:23Lewis Howes?

  So give me examples of methods for someone like a Rachel Hollis and a Jay Shetty.

• 35:28Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  What's like their method from your point of view?

• 35:30Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, Jay's super intentional about his videos. Like I got to sit him down and we did Influencer Day with him and we sat him. I asked him like 40 questions. How do you do these videos? He's intentional from when the video is changing, to the tone of the music and when it's lifting, to when other people appear in the video versus just him. He's intentional about the length of the video. He's intentional about what day the video is posted. He's made it.

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  Time, everything.

• 35:53Brendon Burchard?

  Because what most people do, slop it together, throw it up. He's like really tried to dial it down to a very specific process that draws emotion from people. And so that's a method.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 36:06Brendon Burchard?

  You know.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  And his thing is viral video.

• 36:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 36:09Lewis Howes?

  It's artistic viral video that creates an emotional feeling for someone. It's not just like this scientific videos.

• 36:16Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Or how to videos necessarily. It's like an emotional feeling that people want to watch and share.

• 36:21Brendon Burchard?

  And you've thought they were that too as well. That's why you've got, you know, hundreds of millions of views. And it's just like, you know, versus guys like me who sometimes just put up a very inspiring video, but we didn't put the B roll in. We didn't put the musical up and down. We didn't clip it to the right, you know, so that.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  It's a different method.

• 36:36Brendon Burchard?

  Same, exactly. Different method, different results.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Brendon Burchard?

  And to those who put more into the method, they win. They're the better artists. Like an influencer has to understand you are in the art of impacting people. And if you're in the art of impacting people, you'd better focus on the art as much as the impact.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  That's really good.

• 36:54Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  What about someone like a Rachel Hollis? You know, someone who's skyrocketed over the last year and a half that seemed like came from nowhere.

• 37:01Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  Right? We know that she's been working for seven years, written five or six books and had a successful blog in a different space, but just boom, shot up. One of the biggest selling books of the year behind, I think, Michelle Obama.

• 37:13Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Kind of felt like overnight.

• 37:15Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  Like this influencer with millions of followers and huge business within a year, quickly documentary books now.

• 37:23Brendon Burchard?

  She's great.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  What would be the method for someone like that that you see? Or is it kind of more?

• 37:29Brendon Burchard?

  No, she is again, what it starts with being intentional about the art and what you're doing. You know.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  About your message.

• 37:34Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. I mean, she still sits down every single morning. She writes down, here's what my dreams, here's what my goal is, or here's what I'm going to do. You know, she came out to this before everything really, really took off. She came out to the house.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 37:44Brendon Burchard?

  And we sat down together and it was so clear. She was asking me questions about the, like where her career could go that were really thoughtful. And people don't see that all the time because she might just post, you know, here's what I'm wearing today or here, here's a picture of the kids. But she's really thoughtful about where her career is going. And she's super thoughtful about talking to the women in her market. From a place that she's been there. Like she gets it. She knows that woman. She knows that person's experience. And she's going to verbalize that. And she's very thoughtful about the words she uses to connect. Because the part of the biggest method in influencing is being very artful about your messaging.

• 38:23Lewis Howes?

  It's true.

• 38:24Brendon Burchard?

  She doesn't say a lot of things over here, but she says these things over here all the time.

• 38:29Lewis Howes?

  Over and over again. It's like a formula. It's like every six posts, you see this another kid photo that's talking about this something different.

• 38:37Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Yeah. So she's always in the audience's mind and using the words they use. And describing the feelings they have. She's also, part of her method, her real art is her vulnerability.

• 38:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Brendon Burchard?

  To say, you know, start a book, I peed my pants. Like literally, you know, she, you know, this person dumped me. You know, I hated myself because I was like this.

• 38:59Lewis Howes?

  I almost got divorced.

• 39:00Brendon Burchard?

  Yes. That takes a lot of intention to go, you know, I'm going to reveal some things here that I'm not comfortable with. Just like you did with Mask of Masculinity. That was guts. That took a lot of art. Versus just saying, hey, here's a, you know, let me tell you guys this. It's like, no, I'm going to reveal this story and this vulnerability. That's art. And what people don't realize is the greatest artists of all time were incredibly vulnerable.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Brendon Burchard?

  As much as they were telling you what to do. We love Bob Dylan, not just because he told us what to do and he made us want to throw our hands in the air and like march or get fired up. It was the vulnerability of the journey. That's why we love Kerouac. That's why we love Emerson. That's why we love some of the real greats is because they, they were thoughtful about sharing insight into their pain. Because people, the influencers who fail always are bright and shiny. And they don't realize a lot of art does come from pain. And a lot of the messages that actually does help people is acknowledging things. Like for years, I didn't want to tell people that at the beginning of my career, I went bankrupt.

• 40:05Brendon Burchard?

  I told him how much I struggled and it was hard and I had to get out of my own way and all these other things, but I didn't want to use the word bankrupt. I was like, oh God, you know, cause that was just like, here I am teaching people stuff, but I had this huge struggle. And I was like, no, and what I just said, that just happened. So let me describe what had happened and not be afraid of it. I wouldn't know from that moment, we would go on and build, you know, everything that we've built by any means, but I wanted to avoid that because it was so painful to me. And at some point, real artists connect to the pain and they give it voice, verbalization, or symbols.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. The greatest songs are not just like fairy tales. There might be a beautiful ending, but it's also like some darkness and struggle in there as well.

• 40:48Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  And that's what you can do in your business or as an influencer.

• 40:50Brendon Burchard?

  And you know what the greatest art there always comes down to being, almost always the method, is you learning to fight for who you are.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 40:57Brendon Burchard?

  Because right, right now, you think about the biggest memes that we see right now. It's always like, don't let them judge you, don't let them tell you down, don't let them tear you down, don't let them hate on you, don't let them stop you. And that whole, what's central to that, the architecture of that actual messaging is, live your life, show your truth, be who you really are, not what everyone else expects you to be. And that's what always comes back to the messaging, you are the message. And if you keep dampening yourself based on what other people tell you to be or how you're supposed to be, then all of a sudden, one day you wake up unfulfilled and you wake up unfulfilled, guess what? Not easy to be motivated. Not easy to be motivated, then guess what? You're not going to create the content, the curriculum, the products, the programs, the business. Cause you know, some people look at us sometimes and they're like, oh, well, he just does a podcast.

• 41:42Brendon Burchard?

  They have no idea you have this empire behind that.

• 41:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:44Brendon Burchard?

  Right? People, oh, Brendan does, what is he, he does some email, he's, he was big on Facebook with quotes. Uh, okay. And they have no idea of a huge, you know, we've 200 employees across my brands. You know, it's like the, the impact that we've had, let alone just what I do, it's all the other people we've mentored and, you know, inspired. That can't come from a place of me being unfulfilled. I have to work so hard to be a happy, fulfilled, motivated, disciplined man so that I can have that perpetuate across the brands and the business.

• 42:16Lewis Howes?

  That's it. What would you say is your method then? And has it changed over the last 10 years?

• 42:21Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  Is it okay to change your method?

• 42:23Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. I think it always does. I mean, no actor does a movie the same way. And if they do, you're tired of them.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:30Brendon Burchard?

  I think it's a tremendous amount of diligence in sitting down and asking, what is it I want to convey here? And how do I want to do it in a way that's unique to me and different than the market? So what do I want to convey? How is it unique to me? How is it different than the market? And so like my greatest art piece so far was Motivation Manifesto. You read that and you're like, I've never read a book like this my entire life. You know, it's written like it's, you know, from the founding fathers of our country kind of tone. You know, it reads a little like the 1700s, but it punches you in the face every page.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  To be or not to be.

• 43:00Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, it's like such a hard, like it's like you read it and you're like, whoa, I really got to focus on these words here. This guy, there's no fat in that entire book. There's not one word you could take out. It's just like, I worked so diligently on that. And I think what that was, was an evolution of me saying, I don't want to just create books to create books, to sell books, to make money and to inspire people in this specific way. I want to be challenged in my own artistic process.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Brendon Burchard?

  I want to push the boundaries of what my art can be. I don't know how to write a book like this. It's not even my tone. I'm going to figure it out.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Brendon Burchard?

  High performance habits. I've never done a full-scale psychological science research-based book. And I was like.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  You went deep in there, like two years of research.

• 43:42Brendon Burchard?

  Three.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  Three years of research.

• 43:43Brendon Burchard?

  Three years of pretty much every day of my life.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  You didn't talk to anyone. You were just like in the hole.

• 43:47Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, in the hole. The largest study ever done on high performers, even to this day, no one's beat it, right? Two million plus data points, people from 190 countries. We had all these academics looking at my research, trying to make sure that we got our correlations right and our variables right and all these other things like, I didn't know how to do that. But that was an evolution of me getting better and stronger and more nuanced at what I was doing. And I've told people, you know, you're in trouble if you keep going through the motions.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 44:14Brendon Burchard?

  The more you go through the motions, the more you get miserable about the work. The more you're intentional and you challenge yourself to push your boundaries, the more you'll stay alive.

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's the personal development quote by every famous personal development person, which is just like, everything great is on the other side of fear or your comfort zone?

• 44:31Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 44:32Lewis Howes?

  So you've got to constantly, it sucks because you're going to get, it's good and it's bad because you get in the groove, you build this momentum of something that you're good at.

• 44:39Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, okay, I've mastered this skill and look at all the growth I'm gaining from this. But over a certain period of time, you're like, this is getting easy now.

• 44:47Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Lewis Howes?

  And you have to constantly challenge yourself.

• 44:49Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  And force the challenge because well, you could just live off of this easy money, this easy success.

• 44:54Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 44:55Lewis Howes?

  And stay there for a couple of years. But guys like me and you and the people that we hang out with are constantly reinventing.

• 45:01Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, and pushing, pushing, pushing us.

• 45:03Lewis Howes?

  It's not easy.

• 45:04Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  It's not, and sometimes when you reinvent, this is the challenging thing that people don't realize. It's like you reinvent and put energy on something new. Then the thing that was doing really well and making money over here, it kind of goes down a little bit.

• 45:16Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  And you had something for years, you know, that was making lots of money. And now you're reinventing it to a new model.

• 45:24Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  With influencer event coming up.

• 45:26Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  And it's like, well, this thing's been working for, I don't know, six, seven, eight years, like.

• 45:30Brendon Burchard?

  Ten years.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Making millions of dollars a year, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of people every year.

• 45:36Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  Why change this?

• 45:38Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, this is Experts Academy.

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  It's not broke, why are you gonna fix it? You know what I mean? It's like, let's keep just doing the same thing forever.

• 45:42Brendon Burchard?

  People think we're crazy doing this a little bit, like.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 45:45Brendon Burchard?

  He's referencing Experts Academy. Experts Academy is the biggest to this day.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  People love it.

• 45:51Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. It's the marketing trainer for, it's the marketing trainer for all thought leaders. People. The biggest, the best.

• 45:56Lewis Howes?

  People build multimillion dollar businesses just off of coming there and implementing this information.

• 46:01Brendon Burchard?

  There were years where 65% of the New York Times Bestseller List in the nonfiction category were Experts Academy graduates. It was like, we taught the whole industry. How do you do books? How do you do seminars? How do you do online courses? How do you do subscriptions?

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  How do you build your following?

• 46:13Brendon Burchard?

  How do you build the following? And, but we really focused on the business model. But we were talking to people who were experts or who identified as thought leaders. These days, people don't really see themselves as experts in many areas. And many people don't think of themselves as a thought leader yet.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  They're like, I was just a writer.

• 46:28Brendon Burchard?

  Now I'm an influencer. It's like, great, okay, then I've got to change, like, we have to adapt. Like, okay, it's, it's a new phrase, it's new language, but they have to learn the same business models and skills. So, yeah, we're, we're changing it up. And I think that the willingness to change it up is so important in the method. Because I, I just tell you all the time, if you are miserable, you have to know that neuroscience. Neuroscience lets us know that one of the biggest things that lights our brain up is novelty.

• 46:53Lewis Howes?

  It's true.

• 46:54Brendon Burchard?

  Like difference.

• 46:55Lewis Howes?

  Mr. Novelty, something new.

• 46:57Brendon Burchard?

  And listen, everyone go through emotions for three or four years and be like, oh, phew. It's like, it's like, sometimes when you make it, it's like, ah, let's just do this for a couple of years. Let's take a breath. And I'm like, everybody goes through that. That's great.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Brendon Burchard?

  But if that goes on for too long, you become miserable. And then something has to break or challenge inside or in your market or in your business. And you go, we need to change, we need to grow, we need to transition. And that's when the next level stuff comes up.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 47:20Brendon Burchard?

  It's time to go to the next level.

• 47:21Lewis Howes?

  That's why I think it's always important to be focusing and doubling down on what's working. And also like working on things in the pipeline that are going to come out in a year, two years. You know, I've been working on this documentary for a couple of years.

• 47:31Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, which is awesome, by the way.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Did you see the whole thing yet?

• 47:34Brendon Burchard?

  Yes, I was gonna tell you that later.

• 47:35Lewis Howes?

  You're amazing at it, dude.

• 47:36Brendon Burchard?

  Thank you. No, I...

• 47:38Lewis Howes?

  You're great, innit, right?

• 47:38Brendon Burchard?

  I totally didn't realize even...

• 47:41Lewis Howes?

  But you're in it.

• 47:41Brendon Burchard?

  It was great. I appreciate it. I didn't, I was just there to compliment you and they asked me all these other questions. I thought I was doing a testimonial for you essentially because I just wanted to speak and share how much I admire who you are and what you do. And it turned into this wonderful interview they did.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  The story was powerful you shared.

• 47:59Brendon Burchard?

  Thank you.

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  It's really powerful in the movie too. I'm excited for people to watch it when it comes out. I'll let you guys know in the future.

• 48:04Brendon Burchard?

  You're stretching to do that. You're stretching to do documentaries.

• 48:06Lewis Howes?

  It's just like you, you never did this like manifesto book thing and you never did the high-performance research thing. I'd never done the movie thing.

• 48:12Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  No clue what I was doing. But you find the right people, you find the experts, you work on your struggles and you become better at it. And that's what we've been doing, man.

• 48:20Brendon Burchard?

  That's it.

• 48:21Lewis Howes?

  But I think it's important because it gives you something new to kind of reach for.

• 48:25Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Lewis Howes?

  Every couple of years.

• 48:27Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  But don't let go of everything right away and say, well, I'm just gonna switch everything. Like use the momentum you've been building, double down on certain things that are bringing in revenue. We're gonna talk about the model next. To make sure that you can have the resources to keep impacting people and keep creating and things like that. So what does the model mean? Is this the business model? Is this how you make money?

• 48:46Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah, well, yeah. How do you monetize?

• 48:48Lewis Howes?

  What is...

• 48:49Brendon Burchard?

  What's the model for monetization so that you can have the business that sustains the message and your brand?

• 48:53Lewis Howes?

  Because there's a lot of influencers that are, have expertise and they built this following and they're like, well, I'm still broke. I don't know how to make money.

• 49:00Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Eh, I don't wanna sell something to my audience. I just wanna like add value and be of service. I just wanna create cool content. Like, I don't wanna figure out this business stuff. It's too overwhelming for me. What should be thinking, people thinking about as influencers right now and over the next couple of years as a business model? Maybe you can give a couple of examples and then also talk about a little bit of your model.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  There you have it my friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode with the one and only Brendan Burchard. This is just getting started, this is only part one, we've got part two coming in a couple of days. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast if this is your first time here. Get in the action, get tuned into greatness. If you are looking to make an impact today in someone else's life, then share this. Take this link, copy it, text a friend, text a few friends. People that are entrepreneurial minded, people that want to grow their business or their influence, or they're thinking about a side hustle, send them this right now. It will start to transform the way they think about building their business online, becoming more influential and monetizing this. Part two, we've got a lot more coming in part two, I'm super excited.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Talking about how to build automated businesses, why you must honor the struggle in order to scale, the importance of finding reverence for life, and the unexpected ways it can show up, and the power of self doubt and what it signals. That and so much more in the next part, I'm so excited. Super excited about this next one guys, again, share with your friends. And as Michelangelo said, "The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed." Get ready for part two coming soon, and you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.