High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

by Brendon Burchard

High performers’ dreams of living extraordinary lives aren’t mere wishes and hopes. They make their dream a necessity

we have been conditioned to believe the opposite of these things—that bold action or swift progress is somehow dangerous or reckless. But a certain degree of insanity and recklessness is necessary to advance or innovate anything, to make any new or remarkable or meaningful contributions.

What great thing was ever accomplished without a little recklessness? So-called recklessness was required for the extraordinary to happen: crossing the oceans, ending slavery, rocketing man into space, building skyscrapers, decoding the genome, starting new businesses, and innovating entire industries.

the bold know that to win, one must first begin.

I encourage people to keep experimenting in life until they find something that sparks unusual interest. Then, if it aligns with your personal values and identity, jump in. Get curious. Let yourself geek out on something and go deep. Let that part of you that wants to obsess about and master something come alive again.

if you ever feel that you are not performing well, start asking, “Who needs me more right now?”

when you have the opportunity to serve, you don’t complain about the effort involved.

when you choose to care for others and make a big difference in the world, the number of deadlines coming at you will increase.

“Who needs me on my A game the most right now?” Butt hits chair; then you ask and answer the question. That’s the practice.

Being on your A game means that you are giving your best effort with full focus on the singular task at hand.

high performers are confident about their why but open about how.

HIGH PERFORMANCE HABIT #4 INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” —Andy Warhol INCREASE THE OUTPUTS THAT MATTER CHART YOUR FIVE MOVES GET INSANELY GOOD AT KEY SKILLS

Instead of trying to balance hours, try to balance happiness or progress in your major life arenas.

keep perspective in life by keeping an eye on the quality or progress of the major life arenas. A simple weekly review of what we’re after in the major areas of our life helps us rebalance or at least plan for more balance. I’ve found that it is useful to organize life into ten distinct categories: health, family, friends, intimate relationship (partner or marriage), mission/work, finances, adventure, hobby, spirituality, and emotion.

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If you want to become extraordinary, you need to figure out the productive outputs that matter in your field or industry.

High performers have mastered the art of prolific quality output (PQO).

Figuring out what you are supposed to produce, and learning the priorities in the creation, quality, and frequency of that output, is one of the greatest breakthroughs you can have in your career.

“If you’re honest with yourself, you want to create things that matter. You want to know that a good day’s work produces something worthwhile, something that will be part of your important contributions to others and the world, something that shows you care about your craft.”

No matter what topic or type of deliverables they decide to get productive toward, I have them reorient their entire work schedule toward that endeavor. As quickly as possible, I want them spending 60 percent or more of their workweek oriented to PQO.

Think of the most ambitious dream you’d like to take on, identify what you really want, then ask yourself: “If there were only five major moves to make that goal happen, what would they be?”

if I show up at your house and say, “Show me your calendar,” I should readily see the major projects you are working toward. If I can’t discern from your weekly and monthly calendar what major moves you are working toward, then you’re not optimizing your time and you’re at risk of getting sucked into a life of reaction and distraction.

Know the big five moves that will take you to your goal, break those moves down into tasks and deadlines, then put them in a calendar. If that’s all you did, and you made sure these moves aligned with your PQO, you’d be ahead of the game.

to get the result of number one bestseller, all that really mattered were these five basic moves: Finish writing a good book. Until that’s done, nothing else matters. If you want a major publishing deal, get an agent. Or just self-publish. Start blogging and posting to social media, and use these to get an e-mail list of subscribers. E-mail is everything. Create a book promotion web page and offer some awesome bonuses to get people to buy the book. Bonuses are crucial. Get five to ten people who have big e-mail lists to promote your book. You’ll owe them a reciprocal e-mail—meaning you agree to promote for them later, too—and a portion of any sales they might make for you on other products you may be offering during your book promotion.

It’s a simple process that my clients have used over and over again to achieve equally impressive results: Decide what you want. Determine the Five Major Moves that will help you leap toward that goal. Do deep work on each of the major five moves—at least 60 percent of your workweek going to these efforts—until they are complete. Designate all else as distraction, tasks to delegate, or things to do in blocks of time you’ve allocated in the remaining 40 percent of your time.

“What are the five major projects you are working on, in sequential order, to achieve what you want?”

Don’t spend years on what could be done in months with better planning and more focused execution.

These are the steps to progressive mastery: Determine a skill that you want to master. Set specific stretch goals on your path to developing that skill. Attach high levels of emotion and meaning to your journey and your results. Identify the factors critical to success, and develop your strengths in those areas (and fix your weaknesses with equal fervor). Develop visualizations that clearly imagine what success and failure look like. Schedule challenging practices developed by experts or through careful thought. Measure your progress and get outside feedback. Socialize your learning and efforts by practicing or competing with others. Continue setting higher-level goals so that you keep improving. Teach others what you are learning.

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“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” —Pablo Picasso

Determine what outputs really matter to you at this stage in your life, chart your five moves to accomplish your big dreams, and go make it happen while getting insanely good at what you do. From there, the world is yours.

HIGH PERFORMANCE HABIT #5 DEVELOP INFLUENCE “Power is of two kinds: One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.” —Mahatma Gandhi TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO THINK CHALLENGE PEOPLE TO GROW ROLE MODEL THE WAY

The only way to influence another person is to first relate with them and then help raise their ambition to think better, do better, or give more. The first part happens when you ask rather than accuse. The second happens when you work to shape their thoughts and challenge them to rise.

One reason people struggle to gain influence in their personal and professional lives is that they simply don’t ask for what they want.

even when you put yourself in front of them to make a request and they say no, within minutes they’re right back to not thinking about you. They’re not sitting there judging you; they’re too busy dealing with their own life.

The more you ask and share your ideas, the more people become familiar and comfortable with your requests, and the more they start to like the idea.

people support what they create. When people get to contribute ideas, they have mental skin in the game. They want to back the ideas they helped shape.

leaders who ask questions and get those around them to brainstorm the path ahead are more effective than “dictator” leaders who just push their demands and requests on others.10

when you show up and give genuine praise, respect, and appreciation, you stand out. Be grateful for people. Just by offering gratitude, you can more than double the likelihood that those receiving your appreciation will help you again in the future.15

Find out what your people are passionate about, and cheer on their good ideas. Be excited for people when they do a good job, and publicly praise them.

To gain influence with others, (1) teach them how to think about themselves, others, and the world; (2) challenge them to develop their character, connections, and contributions; and (3) role model the values you wish to see them embody.

“Think of it this way . . .” “What do you think about . . .” “What would happen if we tried . . .” “How should we approach . . .” “What should we be paying attention to . . .”

Begin by identifying how you want to influence them. What do you want them to do? Then know your responses to these questions before you meet with that person: How do you want them to think about themselves? How do you want them to think about other people? How do you want them to think about the world at large?

there are three things you want your people thinking about: themselves, other people, and the greater world (meaning, how the world works, what it needs, where it’s headed, and how certain actions might affect it).

follow them around as they lead their lives, you would see that they consistently challenge others to raise the bar. They push people to get better, and they don’t apologize for it.

It’s about issuing subtle or direct positively framed challenges to motivate others to excel.

challenging someone to develop more character can happen in subtler ways, through indirect challenge. Asking someone, “How would your best self approach this situation?” challenges that person to be more intentional in how they behave.

“Looking back, do you feel you gave it your all?” “Are you bringing the best of you to this situation?” “What values were you trying to embody when you did that?”

“What kind of person do you want to be remembered as? What would life look like if you gave your all? Where are you making excuses, and how might life turn out differently if you showed up stronger?”

“Listen to one another more.” “Show each other more respect.” “Support each other more.” “Spend more time with each other.” “Give each other more feedback.”

“What if our real ability to be truly influential is our ability to be influenced?”

HIGH PERFORMANCE HABIT #6 DEMONSTRATE COURAGE “There are two ways of meeting difficulties: You alter the difficulties or you alter yourself to meet them.” —Phyllis Bottome HONOR THE STRUGGLE SHARE YOUR TRUTH AND AMBITIONS FIND SOMEONE TO FIGHT FOR