The Simple Secrets of High Performance Achievers

The Not So Magic Habits of Success & High Performance Achievers-

Over the years, students, colleagues and peers have asked me what the secret is in living a successful life based on my experience as a trainer, executive, personal coach, leader and consultant. Though I’m certainly not of the status of a Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos - I believe those that ask me, ask because I’ve achieved success at multiple levels of personal growth and business success in my own right. They also see that I’m confident in the way I communicate and make decisions and achieve the goals I’ve set as a business owner, executive leader, investor and change-agent. Though some perceive world-class leaders and successful entrepreneurs as cocky, arrogant, aloof or any number of definitions, those who achieve success see it differently. To succeed in any endeavor, confidence is a critical ingredient to develop the Habits, Behaviors, Beliefs, Patterns and consistent Actions that move you toward the success and achievements that you desire in life. Moreover, the most successful achievers do so without allowing themselves the luxury of excuses, explaining away failures -- and using others lack of success as comfort or validation for their own absence of success.

The advice I always share with those that have hired me as a trainer, life coach or ask for mentorship is  -- ‘you don’t need a life-coach (me); you need a life-change (you)! You see, there is no secret or magic; and we are all as capable as anyone else to succeed - if we first believe that it’s possible. In fact, most aren’t aware but the majority of self-made-millionaires didn’t attend college – and though we’re conditioned to believe that it is required to spend anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000 on a college education ‘to get ahead in life’ this is a cultural belief that is now questioned more than ever as it has become evident that drive, focus, hard work and belief can outperform the best degree from any Ivy league school. That said however, having both education and the internal drive to achieve increases your odds of success significantly!

In either case however, the essential ingredients of success is to first understand the what & why of your life mission - and what your true passion is before your vision will crystalize into clear steps and actions! This is key, as if you don’t know what you want and you don’t know why you want it, how will you understand how to pursue it? It’s the simplest point of clarity in anyone’s life that the vast majority of us never asks or answers! To be clear, the what & why isn’t ‘I want to be to be a millionaire’ or ‘I want to retire early’ – that is literally meaningless to your emotion and subconscious mind and it won’t inspire you to change or drive a higher level of performance. The what & why could however be; I want to accumulate a net-worth of ten million dollars in order to invest my time & efforts in a foundation for gifted children. It could also be as simple as I want start a foundation and charity to travel abroad to build schools for underprivileged children and make a difference as a humanitarian. Whatever it is for you, the what & why as your focus - will drive your ultimate success no matter what your passion and desire for achievement!

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work." —Colin Powell

So what do the most successful do that most don’t to achieve all that they desire?

1.    They wake up early and begin the day with affirmations, meditation and a reading - and envision what they plan to achieve that day. Start with small goals like exercise, healthy eating habits, a commitment (and discipline) to drive your daily schedule rather than allowing circumstances to dictate your Actions and Behaviors! An early start gives you a mental and emotional jump on the day and allows you to achieve more by mid-day than many will achieve all-day. This one step will transform you especially if you combine them as an accelerant of up early, exercise immediately - and write your daily goals and schedule before 8am - as this disciplined focus on early achieving through small measurable steps will create a path to success and big future wins!

2.    They have a clear vision of where they’re going (the What & Why) and this spirit of clarity is baked into their daily life plan. As very achievement is then attached to these short, mid and long-term daily Thoughts, Habits and Beliefs – it ultimately transforms Thoughts into Behaviors and Actions that move them toward their success! You must be crystal clear however, in writing and reviewed religiously every day, no excuses, distractions or delays. If your not disciplined, it’s not a priority and just not that important to you! Be honest with yourself and be prepared and mentally tough enough to stick to your plan, and then measure and journal your success!

*Study how the most successful in their field harness their Thoughts, Habits, Behaviors, Beliefs and consistent Actions through mentorships? Find your mentors on Masterclass!

3.    They are voracious readers and make it a goal to adapt one new idea, point of view or approach/context that someone else has leveraged for success. I can hear the little voice in your head “I don’t have time to read, my day is packed…the job, kids, errands” – bullshit – turn the television off, stop watching football, get your rear end off the barstool or golf course and commit to reading (or as I do listen to audible books) at least one book per month. The successful elite read one book per week – so you can surely read/listen to one per-month! Mark Cuban reads three-hours per-day, Bill Gates, one book per-week. As Warren Buffet was quoted as saying - “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

4.    They practice healthy living in everything they do. From eating fresh organic vegetables, shedding processed foods and focusing on a balanced meal plan of health fats, eliminating simple-carbs and plenty of fresh fruits, veggies and top quality natural supplements. The most successful are that way in large part because of a successful mindset in how they take care of their mind and body. This includes daily exercise, meditation and expressing appreciation, to burning more calories than they ingest and snacking on healthy and all-natural wholesome snacks, not chips, candy and processed foods. Intermittent fasting, hot yoga, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and time under tension training are just a few of the more innovative approaches to mental and physical fitness. In the end, if you don’t care enough to take care of mind and body, they won’t take care of you. So get off of the couch and move in whatever way inspires and satisfies you.

*Reach the pinnacle of health - discover your health & wellness roadmap here!

5.    They compound lessons learned to create powerful future Thoughts, Behaviors, Habits, Beliefs, Patterns & Actions. So you got a great idea from a seminar or book on organizing your finances, investing, or how to inspire and influence others! What did you do with the ideas? Unsuccessful people just allow these great ideas to fade away and they slip through their fingers through poor Habits & Behaviors. Successful people on the other hand write their ideas down immediately and decide instantly how they will implement them into their daily Thoughts, Habits & Behaviors! Taking ACTION on great ideas that you pick up from books, training, education and modeling others success are essential to changing your results. Stop kidding yourself if you’re not going to put in the hard work as no one is going to do it for you. You have to write it down as a critical goal or action – then MOVE, ACT and get fired up to practice what you’ve learned or you’re wasting your time and kidding yourself.

6.    They have a furious appetite for life achievement and working toward progress in everything that’s truly important to them! Want to know the simple difference between the successful and wannabe’s? Life Champions work even when they don’t want to. They see ‘work’ as progress, evolution, advancement of self and progress that makes them better than they were yesterday. As the quote so eloquently states. – “When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.” Are you not letting someone else hold the pen when you willingly give them your time rather than investing it in yourself? Is watching TV, drinking at a bar, going to parties, playing video games serving you or those that want you to do what they want you to? I’m by no means saying you shouldn’t have fun after you’ve put in the work….but you’ve got to ask yourself what your real priorities are. Don’t be fooled by your reasoning or excuses when you answer this question as your Habits, Behaviors, Beliefs, Patterns & Actions will clearly provide the answer. So when you feel the urge to slack off, make an instant decision to accomplish something small to begin changing your Habits and perspective.

7.    They create mastermind partnerships and practice collaboration and inclusion with like-minded friends and professionals. None of us will ever be as smart as a collective group of peers and team members. We’ll always achieve more when collaborating with others with valuable experiences, skills, creative sense, expertise and the desire to create success through a mastermind community! One of the greatest strengths of those who achieve Life Success is that they openly and energetically collaborate (and invest) as much in others ideas and inspiration as they do their own. The most legendary achievers in history have achieved greatness through harnessing the talents, skills and creativity of those they hired or created partnerships with. This one Habit allowed them to focus on their own strengths while enlisting the strengths of others required to succeed in their business and industry.

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8.    They manage their daily schedule, activities and output rather than allowing technology to manage them! To the degree that we can manage technology as the modern input (email, texts, social media, voicemails…) determine how effective the degree to which any of will ultimately perform. The most successful achievers are exceptional at using these interfaces to their advantage rather than a behavioral distraction to explain away their effectiveness. The “I’m very busy” for the Class B, C, D, E & F performers is another way of saying; I’ve allowed email, social media, texts and constant unscheduled intrusions to control my progress and output, rather than controlling it. We’ve all had experiences in which we simply didn’t have access to email for hours or days and somehow it wasn’t the disaster we thought it might be.  So create your own rules of engagement for personal tech-management to reinvent your daily Habits, Behaviors, Patterns and Actions that directly impact your progress and success!

Suggested Habits-

a.    Check email twice per day and create folder rules to auto-respond and file incoming mail by level of importance.

b.    Turn social media notifications off and set a calendar reminder to check SM twice per-day.

c.    Create auto-response solutions for texts (‘I’m driving’ – I’m only available between 3 & 8pm for text response’…. To eliminate these distractions.)

d.    Create a voice mail response message to reduce messaging. “Please leave a short message and I will return your call within 24-hours. In an emergency, you can call my office and leave a message at….”) as a means to wean others off of long-winded and unnecessary voice mail messages.

9.    They invest time in their community to give back by working with charities, volunteering their time and donating to causes that make a difference in the lives of others. Recent research by Tom Corley, who wrote ‘Wealthy Habits – The Daily Success Habits of the Wealthy’ states that of the 233 wealthy and successful people he studied, 73% volunteer five hours or more per month. Those people include the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg & Bill Gates to name a few. So invest time at your local children’s hospital, read or play music at a local nursing home, teach kids to read. Giving back, and expressing your appreciation for what you have now while working in the spirit of reciprocity pays back in mysterious way over time.

*Get involved and make a difference in others lives today!

10. They put in the hard work before they expected to see the results. The most successful achievers put in the work for months and years before they expect to see the real payoff – and they believe in the core of their being that they will be rewarded for their investment in time and effort! Serena Williams has woken up at six o’clock in the morning to practice tennis since she was a kid - and well before she became ‘an overnight success’ in professional tennis. In making the hard work of tennis excellence a priority in her life, she received the rewards for her commitment years later. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn’t vacation for seven years when he launched his first company, as he was hyper-focused on putting in the work before expecting the rewards. Are you prepared to commit to that level of dedication to become successful? Though you can work smarter rather than harder, you can’t avoid the hard work required to build the foundation of your success.

“Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.” -Henry Ford

As you think about your life, current reality and ability to commit to the level of effort, belief, mental toughness, grit and focus required to achieve your personal version of success – you must first be honest and self aware enough to understand if you’re truly ready to achieve it. There are millions who ‘want success’ but they’re simply not prepared to do what is essential to accomplish that which they want. Success by most people’s standards isn’t for everyone (wealth, fame, financial independence, power…) - it’s only for those willing to sacrifice the time, effort and put in the hard work required to get there. In the end, ‘the magic’ required to achieve success is in our daily Thoughts, Habits, Behaviors, Beliefs, Patterns and Actions! At the Team Builder Leader Institute, we teach the art and science of living a lifestyle of leadership through self awareness, personal and professional skills and through the intention of improving the lives of others while improving your own - based on developing the essential ‘Thought-Action’ principles of todays most successful people.

Are you ready to get started then? Then tomorrow morning, wake up early and meditate and express sincere appreciation and gratitude for what you have today as step-one. Then create and review your life vision and the sequential steps required to achieve success in your mind; and play these thoughts over and over in pictures in your head to script each day and bring your full focus to what is required to make daily progress as step two. Then become a voracious reader and make healthy choices in all that you do while remaining positive and putting those great ideas and lessons you’ve learned to work each day to improve results as step three! Put these three levels of success training together through consistent thoughts and actions over 30-days and refuse to be distracted or derailed from this new routine and it will transform into permanent behaviors. The most fundamental truth in life is that you are a product of the Thoughts that you think each and every day – and those thoughts create your Beliefs, which in turn subconsciously create and define your Habits, Behaviors, Patterns and then your Actions –which ultimately creates your future fate and destiny!

When you learn to intentionally guide and navigate thoughts, your beliefs, habits, behaviors, patterns and actions will naturally align. Only then will you realize that the magic that you’ve always thought elusive to you, and the luck you thought you always needed has been within you all along! You can learn this process through our new storybook of Ethereal Leadership & living a life of happiness through simplicity – it’s called ‘The Architect of Excellence’

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

                                                                                   - Carl Jung

To your Eternal Success & Happiness!

Steven Roberts