10 Aug 2022 · 10 min
In this episode of the Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard emphasizes reading as the most powerful habit for personal transformation. He shares how reading biographies of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, and works on psychology, philosophy, and self‑help has shaped his understanding of human nature and equipped him to coach diverse audiences. Burchard recounts his three‑year journey mastering speed reading, reading a book a week since his early twenties, and how this practice fuels his daily learning and vacation routine. He positions books as the primary tool for self‑directed problem solving—whether learning fundraising, leadership, or marketing—advocating a DIY mindset. Throughout, he promotes Growth Day, his online personal‑development platform, highlighting its coaching, community, mood‑tracking, and habit‑journal features, and repeatedly urges listeners to join, share the episode with three friends, post on social media with the #growthday hashtag, and leave reviews. The episode blends personal anecdotes, motivational calls to action, and promotion of the Growth Day ecosystem.
Questions this episode answers
August 10, 2022
A book a week (since he was about 19 or 20 years old)
Growth Day app (growthday.com)
Chapters
Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.
If I think of a habit that has changed my life more significantly than 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 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 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. 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. 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.
Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success.
Then you already know that you need.
To journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app.
It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community.
That you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day. We are here for you. And every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self improvement a way of life. Let's make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.
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. Cause I was so speed reading was a big accomplishment for me. That was really hard. I know some people can learn it faster. You know, they'll read a book on speed reading and by the end of the book they've mastered that skillset 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 on it. 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. 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 to get 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. 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. And perfect. I'm going to go read guys books and gals books who wrote about their fundraising process and I'm going to 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.
Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity.
Right?
So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and.
Education in your tribe.
So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of.
My company and we're always giving away.
Prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, Leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff.
Actually really does help.
And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.
Sam.