Best Of: How to Learn Faster

Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendan show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking.

On some stages across the world.

Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students.

So I know you're going to really.

Enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts and in these special episodes here, these are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please know that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategies that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendan.com monthly, that's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings.

How do you learn faster? This is so fundamental to your ability to achieve things, to fall in love with learning. And I know that's preaching to the choir because you're here. You raised your hand and said, I want to learn some principles of achievement to get ahead faster in my life. So I honor you for that. So let's talk about what you could do to actually start learning faster. And some of these things are so basic, and I'm stunned that people don't do them more often. First and foremost, one, begin any learning journey with an objective. You know, if you began this course, I hope you said, you know, I want to learn some productivity things that will make me go faster. Or I want to learn some frameworks for dealing with people so I can learn faster. Or, you know, I want to learn how to do x, y or z something. Have an intention when you go into a learning environment. If I go to a seminar, I go, I just want to learn this one idea. If I get that, everything else was a bonus. When I turn on a program, I go, one idea. For me, I always have at least one outcome in my mind that's so razor clear. I'm going to get that. If I got to hound dog it down, if I got to call somebody or raise my hand and ask them questions and go, I'm sorry, I'm going through your program or I'm dealing with this, I got this one objective. I didn't get it. Can I ask you, is it part of what you do, or could I learn it somewhere else? It's just fundamental to everything. I don't go to a tennis lesson without an objective. To do something better. There, you have to have a goal. It has to be clear. And the more that goal or those set of goals are clear, when you walk into a learning environment, the better you're going to develop mastery. But most people never even considered it. And if they do, it's so casual, they're like, yeah, I'd like to learn this. No, no, write it down. Before I go to seminar, I write down what I want to learn based on what they said I was going to learn at the seminar. If I'm going to meet with somebody huge, like interview somebody famous. And many of you guys know I've interviewed billionaires. I've interviewed titans of industries, I've interviewed a list celebrities. I've interviewed almost everybody I ever wanted to really get to at this point in my career. And this next year, I'm interviewing people who, you know, I never thought would even have a conversation with me. When I go in there, I have something I want to learn from them because I Take every conversation as a learning journey. So if I'm gonna go and sit down with anybody in business, I go, what do I wanna learn from this? What's my outcome here? What do I absolutely wanna learn before I leave that dinner table? What do I absolutely wanna learn before I leave that interview? And having that clarity, you know what it does, it makes you think about that experience more. The more you think about it before you enter it, the faster you're gonna learn once you're in it. Most people just jump into a learning journey. Here I go. And the problem with that, even though it sound. The problem with that is we end up often just at the whim of the world. And I think it's vital to have an objective towards what we're doing now. People always say to me, well, Brendan, but wait a second, what about this thing you talk about just being present and enjoying it and experiencing it in full? How do I balance that? Well, like I said, you begin the journey with an objective. Once you're in it, make sure you hit that objective, but also just see what else is there, because you'll grow your objectives in the learning journey. But you have to begin with a learning objective. If you've never studied adult learning theory, you know how vital it is before you tell anybody they're going to learn something to sort of set the frame of what they're going to learn today and why it's important, right? So that's vital to help people. Start with the context and objective. If you don't, they're kind of fishing for sort of a solid place to stand on, at least mentally, if you will. They don't know what to do. So begin with your objective. Second, very, very simple. Start with a summary. Only go beyond the summary if you find relevance and impact. This is a strategy for consuming information and it has changed my life. I won't read a book ever without first reading a summary of the book by somebody else. Let me say that again. I'll never read a book ever. Unless, my friend, maybe. Maybe somebody said, brennan, you should read this book. But even before that, even if they give me the book and they're like, this book changed my life. I'm like, great, I'll get the book. First thing I do, I'll hop online and I'll buy a summary of the book from somebody else. Or. Or I'll hop online and I'll find a PDF where they gave away the first chapter and I'll read that first and I'll determine based on the summary or the Preview whether or not I continue. And what does this do? It stops your learning journey before it begins, if it's unnecessary. I know this sounds so crazy, but a lot of people keep learning, so they think down the wrong alleyway and it wasn't relevant to what was necessary for them, their objective or it didn't make any impact. Right. They read a whole book and they're like, well, didn't get anything from that. No either. They didn't get anything from that because they had no outcome. They weren't observant, looking for the fundamentals, they just were looking for new, which is always dangerous. But also they didn't. They just kept. They should have stopped. I mean, have you ever watched a movie and you said, gosh, I wish I stopped at hour one instead of spent the last two hours with it? Right? A two hour movie. You knew at hour one you should have bailed and got that hour of your life back, but you kept going. So what I do is before I'm going to learn anything, and before, I mean literally before anything I do, I want a summary before I invest deeply into it. And here's what I mean by that. I apply this to everything. Brendan, I'd like to have a live meeting with you. I say, great, please send me a summary of what we would be covering there, what you think you would teach me, what you would like to learn from me and what the overall opportunity is before I'll agree to it. Literally. That could save your life from so many unnecessary meetings. And now you have that time to apply to things that will advance you. Right? They will give you so much time to get rid of, say, not read books that you don't need to read. It will help you not consume courses you don't need to consume. It will help you not attend meetings you don't need to attend. It will help you in a million ways. I never do anything without first studying the summary and say, is this relevant to what my lifestyle, my dreams, my achievement map is oriented towards? Does it have anything to do with my purpose, the people in my life, the major projects that I have going on, the major priorities? If not, then I'm not interested and I pass. The fastest way sometimes to learn more things is to stop learning the things that don't move the needle. Get a summary. Start with a summary. It will change your life completely. Trust me. Third, only learn from experts unless you're brainstorming, right? Always interview five experts minimum. If you're going to learn something and you're committed to it, remember this is about how to learn faster. Model the experts. Somebody already figured it out. Learn from them. It's got to be part of your learning plan, part of your schedule about mastering what knowledge, skills and abilities or meeting who before marching on. And I can tell you over and over and over again what most people do. The reason they never learn faster is because one, they don't start. Why don't they start? They don't feel confident or competent enough to start. Why don't they feel competent or confident enough to start? They haven't asked anybody, they have no information. So they're scared of uncertainty and the unknown. Without any knowledge in advance, they don't begin. So if they just gather some knowledge from experts who've already been there, bam. They'll have more confidence. They'll have more confidence, like, great, now I have the path, here we go. But most people don't do that. And so they struggle or they stop. And so it is vital for you, vital. If you really care about something, just study the experts. Now people always say, well, that's stupid because you can learn so much from novices too. And I say, yes, the best time to have conversation with novices is when you're brainstorming. Not necessarily what to do, but maybe how to improve something, right? Sometimes experts, they're just going to have their way. They're not always good at improving the way. They just say, this is the way. But once you're in it and you're actually working at something, you can look around and ask other people, what would you do to improve the situation. And a lot of time, novices or newbies, they're great because they have no context. So they just say, well, I tried this and it could be a million dollar idea. So I say, you know, non experts are great for brainstorming. Once you're in something and you've mastered the game, the rules, they're not great to work with before. If I have a goal, I don't go to a bunch of random people and say, how would I go about this? I find five people who've already been there, I interview them and ask them. Then I begin with confidence and total competence on my way towards that thing. And again, if I get stuck or if I've already mastered it, I and I'm curious about how to improve it or break it. Then I ask new people and novices, but all I can share, even if that seems complex to you, next time you really want to learn something faster and you want to master it faster, get around the experts I've spent my 18 years studying achievement, success, personal development, high performance, neuroscience, positive psychology. Trust me, everything you've learned here, if you master these principles and practices in your life, you'll achieve more than you ever have in the next year. Even if it seems like, oh, wait, I've heard that before. Don't be the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, person. I'm telling you from the position of expertise in this topic area that if you will just follow these things, your course will advance. Now, bringing it right back to interviewing experts. Who do you need to get to or learn from in order to advance faster? I want you to think about that. Who would you need to meet? And your job is to start figuring out how to get to them. Right? Most of the interview folks who I've interviewed, the five experts, you know what I do, I pay them, I do. I say that people are like, what? How can you tell people to do that? I'm like, sure, I value experts time. I call them and say, hey. Or I text them, or I direct message them, I tweet them, I Facebook them, I LinkedIn them. And I say, hey, could I get you on the phone for 30 minutes? Here's where I'd like to learn from you. Here's some of the questions I'd like to ask. I don't know what your fee is. Please let me know what it would cost to talk to you for 30 minutes. Now, some people say, you know, geez, Brennan, I'll just hop on the phone with you, no problem. Just because they're nice and they might not even know who I am. Other people, they don't have that schedule. They don't have the ability to do it. So they say, oh, sure, I'll do it for X amount of money, and I'd pay that all day long. Other people, I can't pay them or they're not payable. They just say, I don't have the bandwidth. So what do I do? I start interviewing or understanding other people in their network. Once I know other people in their network, then I reach out to them again. I say, hey, I just interviewed these four other people who you might know. And tell you what, if you hop on the phone with me for that 30 minutes, I'll spend 30 minutes with you. After you tell me, I'll share with you what these other experts have said, too. So now we have group mindshare. You know what the other experts in your area are talking about. I've got a lot of people that way. Here's another thing you can do to get to the influencers to meet them. Add value to the immediate people around them. Find out who their promotional partners are, add value to them, Find out who they know, like and trust and add value to them. And value can come from information you supply to them, to services you apply to them, to products you give to them, to conversations you have with them to help them do something that they're not good at. I just want you to understand this whole idea that you can't get to people becomes obliterated when you understand your job is simply to ask or to add value and ask. That's it. Ask. Add value and ask. And look, will you be able to get to everybody every single time? No, it just depends on who they are and what they're doing. But might they refer you to somebody else who could also assist you with that? Boom. Once I realized the people I was trying to meet was not the goal, but what the real goal was, was what I could learn from that person, everything shifted my mindset. I realized if I couldn't get to this one person, I could ask them questions like, I understand I can't get to you. Is there somebody else you know who also is informed about this topic that you might refer me to, recommend me to, or have me read their book? Do you know of any books, resources, videos, sources or tools that I might be able to study to understand that it is not the person you are trying to get to, it is the knowledge you are trying to glean from them? Everything else is ego. I want a picture with the president. That's just ego, right? We don't need that. What we need is what do I feel like I can learn from that person? And there is no one singular person who has the lock on any piece of information that you want. Meaning no matter what you think or what you believe based on your in exposure, there is always somebody else who knows the same type of information. Always. No one is the world's expert on anything, right? They're often among the top, but very few people are the world. And everyone says that can't be true. Brendan, I'm like, well, let me tell you what. I have trained millions of thought leaders around the world. I know some of the best people in every category. You name it. However, let me share with you. I always meet another person who's as equally influential or. Or who has another subset of knowledge that's just as relevant or impactful. Let's never get to the place where we believe only one person has a lock on what we need. To know that will open up the ability to meet more people, add more value. And I stick on this point because that's why I gave you this number. Five experts. Now, five is really an arbitrary number. Could you interview two and advance confidently with the competence they gave you? Of course you could. A lot of times if I try to get five and I only can get to one, but what they told me is just enough that I need, I go and I still try to get the interviews later. So I'm not saying if you don't get five, you have to stop. Five is an arbitrary number. It is an anchor number to remind you to talk to more than one person because your life does not hinge on you meeting or knowing any single person. The world is full of really smart people. Find those who are among the top and learn from them. Got it? That will make everything go faster.

All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor, go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. Just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag thebrendon show because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. Sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag, T shirts. All expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like you just heard. But we do that every single month and there's some live Q and A there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little bit more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B r e n d o n show.