Interview: Brendon Burchard | Live, Love, Matter

Brendon Burchard

Live, Love, Matter

Interview by Kristen Noel

October 15, 2018, Portland, Oregon

Photographs by Bill Miles

I think we all want to touch the rim of our greatness, but we’re going to need taller ladders.

Brendon Burchard

Kristen:          Brendon Burchard is referred to as one of the most influential leaders in the field of personal growth and the top marketing trainer in the world. He is a #1 New York Times best-selling author of 6 books: High Performance Habits, The Motivation Manifesto, The Millionaire Messenger, and Life’s Golden Ticket, to name a few.

He is the star and executive producer of the #1 self-help series on YouTube — where his videos have been viewed over 250 million times. His podcast, The Charged Life (now The Brendon Show), debuted at #1 on iTunes and remained in the Top 10 in its category for over 100 weeks. Brendon’s live webcasts continue to set records and as a pioneer of online education — 2,000,000+ graduates have gone through his online courses or video series.

Brendon! Thanks for bringing the joy! [referring to his t-shirt]

Brendon:        Thanks for letting me wear it.

Kristen:          Thank you for sitting down with Best Self Magazine today and for welcoming us into your motivational workshop here in Portland.

Brendon:        We’re really thrilled to have you here!

Kristen:          This beautiful space is like a dream manifested, right?

Brendon:        It is. Most of my career is like that: I dreamt of the studio, dreamt of the books, dreamt of the workshops, dreamt of doing these types of things…

Kristen:          …dreamt of going to work in a t-shirt? [laughing]

Brendon:        You know, I never did that. I think this is actually the first interview I’ve ever done in a t-shirt. I think part of it is because when I started in the industry I was way younger than most people. I was kind of corporate — very buttoned up, very dressed — so that I’d have more credibility, or so I thought. Now, no one cares. Half the time if you dress professionally, people take you less credibly in our space, because they say, you’re not being authentic. But I felt like the whole ‘best self’ industry needed a little bit of professionalism.

When I started in 2006, seminars were kind of shady. These people didn’t really have businesses. They had a name, or they had a book, but I recognized that they could be building empires in this space.

At the end of the day, what we are doing is really just very enlightened customer service. We’re trying to figure out what does the customer really need, where are they stuck, where are their hopes and aspirations, what would really drive them to deeper motivation or help them achieve higher performance.

I felt like somebody could really build something if they approached it like a business, not just, “I’m an author,” which was what I did at the very beginning — and I was failing. All I could see was the book and when the book came out and it didn’t do as well as I thought it would, I was crushed. Also, I had no Plan B. I didn’t have a business. I just had a book.

So, a lot of what manifested over these last 10 years happened because I just kept going and asking, Okay, well what’s next? I also never get bored with it because I feel like everything is always new, like this interview.

Kristen:          When I see you sitting here with this t-shirt, it feels like you’re settling into this version of yourself. We’re big fans. Your work and everything that you’ve created has planted seeds in our business.

What I’m most interested in, aside from these tremendous accomplishments and staggering statistics and benchmarks, is the thread that runs through Best Self Magazine, the golden thread: the story.

I want to have a soul chat with the man behind the message.

Brendon:        Who is he? [laughing]

Kristen:          I think his name is Brendon something? [laughing] You’re the ‘maestro of motivation with mission’.

Brendon:        Thank you.

Kristen:          There are a lot of people out there who are driven. There are a lot of people who want to make a lot of money, but there aren’t as many who get the formula — that you can be driven, you can make money, and you can also have impact. So, I’d love for you to talk to us about where this all came together for you.

Brendon:        For those who don’t know my story, I had a car accident when I was a 19-year- old kid. I rarely talk about it in these words, but for me it was like mortality motivation. It was that moment when you realize that life is precious — and I got that at 19. I think that was my greatest blessing. Most people don’t get that until they’re much older.

Mine was very hard