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December 7, 2019 - January 11, 2024
Perhaps the three best findings of contemporary research tell us that you can get better at practically anything if you keep a growth mindset (the belief that you can improve with effort), focus on your goals with passion and perseverance, and practice with excellence.39
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
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“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” —Pablo Picasso
John Wooden said: ‘You handle things. You collaborate with people.’”
“What if our real ability to be truly influential is our ability to be influenced?”
If I were going to approach my relationships and career as an even better role model, the first things I would start doing are . . . Someone who really needs me to lead and be a strong role model right now is . . . Some ideas on how I can be a role model for that person are . . . If, ten years from now, the five closest people to me in my life were to describe me as a role model, I would hope they said things like . .
I’m sure older generations could tell us about a time when struggle wasn’t something to be avoided. They knew that living a comfortable life free of all difficulty and all passion was never the goal. They didn’t expect to have a smooth ride. They would tell us that toil and struggle are the fire in which we forge character. They championed the ideals of getting dirt under your fingernails, working harder than anyone else would expect, striving for a dream with a fierce tenacity even in the face of hardship because those efforts made you a better, more capable human. Meeting struggle with poise
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Just because the sky is cloudy doesn’t mean there’s no sun.
“As far as I can judge, not much good can be done without disturbing something or somebody.” —Edward Blake
After talking with so many high performers, I have to confess that I hope you meet with judgment and friction. It’s a sign you’re on your own path and aiming for great things. Indeed, if no one has looked at you sideways lately or, better yet, said, “Who do you think you are? What, are you crazy? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” then maybe you’re not living boldly enough.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one will go.” —T. S. Eliot
One thing I didn’t expect from readers of The Motivation Manifesto was a different kind of fear in sharing their truth. Many people wrote in and said they weren’t worried that others would judge them as insufficient; they were worried that by being their best, they would make others feel insufficient. They were fearful of expressing their true ambitions, joy, and powers, because the people around them could feel bad about themselves. They felt they had to minimize their dreams, keep their big ideas bottled up, dumb themselves down, tone it down, look down—all so others could feel good about
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No one can quiet you without your permission. No one can minimize your self-image but you. And no one can open you up and release your full power but you.
Recently, I worked with an Olympic gold medalist. I asked, “When did the biggest gains come in your career?” She said, “When I finally started voicing my dreams to do this. Suddenly, people started pointing me in the right direction. They told me what to do, what skills I would need, who I should talk to, what equipment the pros used, who the best coaches were. I learned that if you open your mouth and shout from the rooftops what you want to do with your life, sure, some village idiots will show up and shout back all the reasons why you can’t. But all the village leaders come over and want to
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“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” —Albert Schweitzer
“Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.” —John Quincy Adams
All isolation is ultimately self-imposed.
“Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.” —Marcus Aurelius
The solution is to 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 it useful to organize life into ten distinct categories: health, family, friends, intimate relationship, mission/work, finances, adventure, hobby, spirituality, and emotion. When I’m working with clients, I often have them rate their happiness on a scale of 1 through 10 and also write their goals in each of these ten arenas every Sunday night.
“Sometimes, we’re so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up.” —James Dobson
The idea here is that the more competence you get at any given task, the more confident you’ll become in trying it more often—and the more you’ll stretch yourself. That repetition and stretching leads to more learning, which gives you more competence. More competence, then, begets more confidence, and round and round it goes.
Clarity Chart
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” —Dale Carnegie
A recent study of over nine hundred CEOs found that just over half of the highest performing were introverts.7 With near fifty-fifty odds, it’s not personality that’s giving an edge.
Confidence comes less from projection than from connection.
ease is not the objective in personal development; growth is.
So what now? Keep the checklist of the six habits by you at all times. You can find the Summary Guide at the end of this book, and you can also get a separate daily planner at HighPerformanceHabits .com/tools. From now on, before every meeting you go into, before every phone call, before you start any new project or pursue any new goal, revisit the six habits. Then, every sixty days, retake the High Performance Indicator to track your progress and identify the habits you need to continue focusing on. If you’ve already taken the HPI, you’ll get a reminder to take it again in sixty days. If you
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Brendon is a #1 New York Times, #1 USA TODAY, and #1 Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and his books include The Motivation Manifesto, The Charge, The Millionaire Messenger, Life’s Golden Ticket, and The Student Leadership Guide.
