Brendon TEST BURCHARD explains how reading shaped his coaching and understanding of human nature. He shares his personal habits and philosophy on self-education through books as the foundation for personal development and gaining perspective.
If I want to figure out how to fundraise for a startup, I go read books on it right. No one's gonna teach me to do it right. And perfect. I'm gonna go read guys books and gals books who wrote about their fundraising process. And I'm gonna learn that my first move is to go read multiple books on any problem. How to build a business, how to be a good CEO, how to do marketing, doesn't matter. I'm. I'm the how to do it yourself guy. And I start with books. If I think of a habit that has changed my life more significantly than any tangible thing that we can all do, it's reading books. And specifically though it is reading books of inspiring people, teams, businesses and cultures looking for. It's reading about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Changed my life forever. Reading about Winston Churchill, a Mother Teresa, reading about, you know, St. Francis of Assisi, reading about history and its great leaders in war and peacetime. Getting that perspective from other people and reading inspirational texts like self help psychology philosophy has changed my life. If I have a question about why are people like this, I go read it. Why do people feel shame? That's weird. Go read a book on shame. How do people deal with grief? I don't know. I'll read that. I read a. I was reading books on grief when I was in my teenage years and I didn't have anything to grieve about yet other than my acne. You know what I'm saying? Come on, let's go. I thought that was funny, you know, what are you going to figure out? I was always curious about the human condition and inspiring people. I loved reading about Dale Carnegie's books on how to win friends and influence people, just like I am a result of the personal development, self help psychology, book industries. I mean, I would go to bookstores and I would stand in that self improvement or that psychology or philosophy aisle for hours reading those books and getting those books. I would go to libraries for hours. I spent so much time in my teens, 20s and 30s reading, it led to the ability to have the perspective to coach people. The way that I'm able to coach people, people from all walks of life, different cultures, different backgrounds, I can understand or at least in some way empathize with their history, their experiences, even if I haven't had their lived experiences. I've read enough about history or culture to understand the people that I'm trying to serve, and most importantly, human nature. Not just that culture, that background, that ethnicity, but rather human nature and it's given me the ability you can give me any topic in human nature and say, brendan, I want you to a five hour class on this. And like, when you want to start 20 minutes, I'm good to go, like. And some of you have seen it on stage before. I'll go nine hours without any notes at all. Because I've made this my life study. I have found the things that interest me and I decided to read, and I still do that. I've read a book a week since I was 19 or 20 years old, and I taught myself speed reading. I read like 20 books on speed reading, and I read them slower than any persons that have ever read a speed reading book. Speed reading was a big accomplishment for me. That was really hard. But I know some people can learn it faster. You know, they'll. They'll read a book on speed reading and they, by the end of the book, they, they've mastered that skill set of blocking words and seeing blocks of words versus single words and letting the brain take it in. That took me forever. It took me three years of conscientious, judicious, hard study. I listened to audio courses on it. I watched training on it. I read books. It was hard for me, but that was a big change. So to this day, everyone's like, well, why don't you just listen to an audiobook? I'm like, oh, my God, I can read a book, you know, infinitely faster. I can read on vacation. I read a book a day. And so, you know, I think it's some, you know, that's my vacation. By the way. It's not that sexy. It's like pool pina colada book, good to go. Got. That's the whole day right there. Need nothing else. Maybe if they have like those little, you know, sushi rolls. I'll get the sushi roll too. That'd be a pretty good vacation day, you know, but usually the pina colada has enough calories through the day for me. One big old pina colada, Puerto Rican style, and I'm good to go. That's it. Give me a book. Whole book reading is still a joy, and it's a habit of mine, and I know many of you, right? Would you all type in your favorite book on personal development or psychology or philosophy, like, your favorite ever, whatever book you just wrote down. I would love to ask you to read other books with that passion again. Often people's favorite books, they were in a moment in time where that book really mattered and they really got into it. Get into books. Again, I think I don't need to belabor this point, but I just want to make sure I give a shout out because that is a fundamental, life changing, most important habit in my life. And I also bring in that second point. I talked about the solution mindset and the do it yourself mindset. If I want to figure out how to fundraise for a startup, I go read books on it. Right? No one's going to teach me to do it right. Perfect. I'm gonna go read guys books and gals books who wrote about their fundraising process. And I'm gonna learn that my first move is to go read multiple books on any problem. How to build a business, how to be a good CEO, how to do marketing. Doesn't matter. I'm the how to do it yourself guy and I start with books sa.
