A Foundation For Motivation: The 'Motivation Manifesto,' By Brendon Burchard

“Everything boils down to motivation,” says Brendon Burchard, the popular personal development expert and author who’s being compared at times to Tony Robbins. (Yes, they are friends.)

As one of the most followed personas in recent history, Burchard is releasing his newest book this week, The Motivation Manifesto, which will premier at #12 on next Sunday’s NYT Bestseller List and at #31 on USA Today, the author learned in the moments before this article posted. More than 65,000 books have been pre-purchased within the past 10 days, with 20,000 orders from overseas (the NYT rank counts only U.S.-based orders, I learned.)

“For an entrepreneur, motivation is the core of all things,” he maintains. Here’s the biggest new discovery at the core of his book: “Our challenge isn’t that we can’t be motivated. It’s not that we aren’t smart, excitable or that we lack passion—what we don’t have is the ability to sustain motivation over time.”

Motivation coach and best selling author, Brendon Burchard (image courtesy of BrendonBurchard.com)

Burchard had to demonstrate a great deal of sustained motivation to get his book onto shelves. The book is atypical – it opens with a version of The Declaration of Independence that is adapted to the principles of motivation Burchard is admittedly passionate about creating. He worked on the book for two years, studying the lives, the voices, the rhetoric and the style of the ultimate “voice of personal freedom” – the U.S. founding fathers, who penned the original declaration during a time that was ripe with a spirit of revolution around the world. Franklin, Washington, Madison and Adams and even Lincoln. How did these historic figures talk about freedom without offending people?

“I brought back the pentameter,” he says. “A true declaration of power, in the original voice.”

But even as a multiple bestseller author, when Burchard took the book to his major NY publisher, they declined. “The publisher didn’t get it. They said they wanted a modern voice and more stories. Something that would appeal to the typical ‘yoga mom.’”

“I said, ‘No,’” he said in our interview. “I wanted to create an original contribution—right down to the font, the color, the lettering and the art within it—that will stand the test of time. They said either change it or give back the advance.”

So he stood his ground and gave the money back, while most likely swallowing hard (reports peg the deal at about $1 million for Burchard, within an overall $2 million deal). Then he published the book himself, with the help of a distribution deal with HayHouse publishing. The bet paid off, with the book debuting at #1 on Barnes and Noble (a position it has held for every day since

“Everything boils down to motivation,” says Brendon Burchard, the popular personal development expert and author who’s being compared at times to Tony Robbins. (Yes, they are friends.)

As one of the most followed personas in recent history, Burchard is releasing his newest book this week, The Motivation Manifesto, which will premier at #12 on next Sunday’s NYT Bestseller List and at #31 on USA Today, the author learned in the moments before this article posted. More than 65,000 books have been pre-purchased within the past 10 days, with 20,000 orders from overseas (the NYT rank counts only U.S.-based orders, I learned.)

“For an entrepreneur, motivation is the core of all things,” he maintains. Here’s the biggest new discovery at the core of his book: “Our challenge isn’t that we can’t be motivated. It’s not that we aren’t smart, excitable or that we lack passion—what we don’t have is the ability to sustain motivation over time.”

Motivation coach and best selling author, Brendon Burchard (image courtesy of BrendonBurchard.com)

Burchard had to demonstrate a great deal of sustained motivation to get his book onto shelves. The book is atypical – it opens with a version of The Declaration of Independence that is adapted to the principles of motivation Burchard is admittedly passionate about creating. He worked on the book for two years, studying the lives, the voices, the rhetoric and the style of the ultimate “voice of personal freedom” – the U.S. founding fathers, who penned the original declaration during a time that was ripe with a spirit of revolution around the world. Franklin, Washington, Madison and Adams and even Lincoln. How did these historic figures talk about freedom without offending people?

“I brought back the pentameter,” he says. “A true declaration of power, in the original voice.”

But even as a multiple bestseller author, when Burchard took the book to his major NY publisher, they declined. “The publisher didn’t get it. They said they wanted a modern voice and more stories. Something that would appeal to the typical ‘yoga mom.’”

“I said, ‘No,’” he said in our interview. “I wanted to create an original contribution—right down to the font, the color, the lettering and the art within it—that will stand the test of time. They said either change it or give back the advance.”

So he stood his ground and gave the money back, while most likely swallowing hard (reports peg the deal at about $1 million for Burchard, within an overall $2 million deal). Then he published the book himself, with the help of a distribution deal with HayHouse publishing. The bet paid off, with the book debuting at #1 on Barnes and Noble (a position it has held for every day since

Down to the foundation of motivation—most people have the equation backwards, Buchard maintains. “People think if I could only get motivated, then I’ll act,” he observes. “Nope. In actuality it’s the opposite.”

We must learn to stop reacting to the phones, the texts, the inbox and the Internet as opposed to focusing our ambitions and actions. Yes, we have ambitions but we don’t believe they can really happen. We encounter fear. “We say to ourselves, ‘That would be nice, but I don’t believe I can have that or do that or be that,’” Burchard says. “So we stop. We wake up with motivation on Monday and by Wednesday it’s gone.”

As an interesting side note–in my interview a year ago with Noah Glass, the founder of the OLO app for online ordering he noted that restaurant orders follow this trending pattern as well: “The healthiest food choices are popular on Monday and Tuesdays. Flavorful food dominates Wednesdays and Thursdays. By Friday and Saturday, it’s burgers, fries, pizza—the restraint is over and anything goes.”

So what’s the answer? According to Burchard, ambition and expectancy are the spark that begins motivation. Then attention and effort sustain it. Together, these are the primary drivers of the personal and professional nirvana for executives and entrepreneurs: Sustained motivation.

Finally, we need to achieve the amplification of motivation: the attitude and environment that keeps motivation from slipping away. We need to avoid the pools of pessimism—the negative people and environments that surround us. By mastering these arenas we regain our sense of freedom, individuality and spontenaity. We take back our control.

“Amplification is the way we generate and command motivation every day,” Burchard says. “That’s when we have self mastery. We have the ability to call any emotion into play, at will, as opposed to waking up and observing passively, ‘I haven’t got any motivation today.’”

And how do you accomplish that as an entrepreneur? Perhaps I will cover the nine declarations Burchard espouses in another article. Or you could download or order the Manifesto