You probably already heard how “mindset” is the key to success.
And after studying some of the most successful people in the world known for their exceptional mindset, including the late Koby Bryant, Bruce Lee, Elon Musk and many others, I’ve compiled a list of attitudes they have in common.
In this post, we’re diving deep into the secrets of a High Performing Mindset.
Going as High as They Can
The first and most noticeable mindset shift is that High performers are always hungry for “more”.
Some confuse it as a source of insecurity, like trying to fill a void within themselves by constantly achieving. While that can be true sometimes, with truly high performers that isn’t the case.
Having real hunger and drive, even when you have “achieved” everything, is very rare – and is especially hard to try to artificially reproduce.
When most people achieve a level where they feel they are doing “ok”, they often lose the drive. The engines shut off, they get comfortable, complacent and start thinking about what their “purpose” is.
Performers don’t need purpose to perform. They perform without purpose. They perform because that’s what they do.
How high will a tree grow? As high as it can.
It doesn’t need a strong reason why to grow, it just does.
Be it the late Kobe Bryant, Bruce Lee, or any other high achiever, they all have a strong need and desire to keep growing, achieving and progressing.
Constant and Never Ending Improvement
Similarly to a strong drive, High Performers are thirsty for more knowledge, improvement and are in constant search for a next thing that will give them that slight edge.
They’re like a sponge, constantly soaking in new information from their environment, from other people, from things they happen to hear or see.
They are dedicated to a constant and never ending improvement.
Running Towards the Fire
High performers run TOWARDS the fire, towards the uncomfortable, towards the difficult. You won’t catch them on their heels, they’ll stare the problem or a challenge straight in the eyes, and face it.
Rejecting Comfort
I know what you’re thinking – they’re masochists, who like to torture themselves.
Well not quite.
Most people crave comfort – and work hard to get to a position of it. But what happens once they get it? They usually feel miserable and reminisce of the “old” times when they really went for it.
A couple of years ago there was a show on the Discovery Channel about some families living in these distant, freezing, middle-of-nowhere villages somewhere north in Canada.
And I remember this one guy saying: “We are happy because it’s so difficult to survive out here. If it wasn’t, we probably wouldn’t be so happy.“
That stuck with me – at first as something that bothered me, but years later I started to understand the truth behind that statement.
High performers understand that living in comfort ultimately leads to misery, and that the only time they feel truly good about themselves is when they are giving their best, each and every day.
So they don’t crave comfort – they crave doing something that’s challenging. They enjoy being in the effort, in the doing, in the “suck” – and if they catch themselves being too comfortable – they’ll quickly snap out of it by doing something uncomfortable.
Attack Mindset
I got this idea watching David Goggins when he was running in the rain and kept screaming “I wish it was raining even harder!”.
He told the story about how when he was in the SEAL training, they would do these very long runs, and as they were approaching the finish line, he would hear guys get excited about it and cheer.
But some instructors would decide to punish that by running straight past the finish line, now extending the run and making the finish line unknown.
He then said how most guys heads would go down, they’d get really quiet and unsure of themselves.
So he decided to go against that attitude, and would defy the instructors and their attempt at breaking them.
He would repeat this mantra: “I hope they keep on running!”
With that, he put himself in the “attack mode”, instead of being caught in the defense mode, and became virtually unbreakable.
Optimism
"Nobody is knowledgable enough to be a pessimist."
Martin Seligman, a world renowned psychologist wrote a book called “Learned Optimism” which dealt with how optimism affects our lives and performance.
He found that he could successfully predict future presidents, world champions or how successful a company will be just by assessing their “optimism score”.
Optimism isn’t about seeing the glass half full (when we all know it’s half empty) but it’s about seeing the situation AS IS while understanding that every situation is eventually solved.
High performers have a lot of optimism. If they fail, they’ll catch it next time. If they lose, they’ll win next time. If they make a mistake, they aren’t so hard on themselves.
Situations don’t bring them down which means they get to swing the bat far more often, and eventually succeed.
Rejecting Victimhood
High performing people have a visceral aversion to feeling like a victim and to feeling sorry for themselves. As a matter of fact, they dislike it so much that they’ll be put off by someone doing it.
Reason being is because they inherently see themselves as creators of their own destiny. And how could creators of their own destiny ever feel sorry for themselves?
They know they have the power to change things, so feeling like a victim feels completely foreign to them.
Actively Seeking out Feedback & Criticism
Walt Disney made it his point to surround himself with people who would actively try to find fault in his ideas, and despised “yes men”.
He intuitively understood that very little progress happens when ideas are not challenged, given appropriate critique and assessed.
When I worked in sales, we would have these company meetings, where we could volunteer and have our presentation critiqued by the rest.
While everyone avoided them, I always made it my point to be the first in line, because the feedback – although often painful and unpleasant – was the most valuable and fastest way to actually improve.
Most people want to avoid criticism, but high performers understand that criticism is actually the only way to get any honest feedback on how you are really doing.
It guards against delusion and ensures your head stays firmly suited in reality.
Infinite Game Thinking
As Simon Sinek beautifully described in his book, Infinite Game, we can either play a finite game – a game with a specific goal and a timeline in mind, or an infinite game, which is a game that we play FOREVER.
If you play a game forever, you technically can’t lose.
As Alex Hormozi says, the point of being in business is to stay in business. The point of being married is not to win at marriage, but to stay married. The point of fitness is not to get in shape, but to stay in shape.
Average people almost always play finite games – they go on 30 day diets and then gain the weight back, never thinking of creating a way of eating and exercise that would make them stay fit forever.
Open Mind
- It can’t be done!
- It’s impossible!
- It would never work!
Growth Mindset
The term Growth Mindset, first coined by psychologist Carol Dweck, emphasizes the belief that our abilities are not fixed but can be developed through dedication and work.
Fixed mindset means that when you fail, you inherently ascribe the quality of a “failure” to yourself.
But with a growth mindset, failure is just another step in the process to success.
One of my favorite stories to demonstrate this comes from the life of Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb.
After some 5000 unsuccessful attempts of creating one, because the bulb kept burning out or exploding, he was interviewed about it and asked when was he finally give up on trying to create one, as it was obviously not working.
He responded by saying that he successfully discovered 5000 ways on how not to create a lightbulb, which put him 5000 steps closer to actually succeeding.
What a great mindset to have.
Responsiveness
There are 3 ways to respond to reality:
1. You can argue with it and resist it, trying to deny the fact that reality is happening
2. You can resent that it’s happening and victimize yourself, get angry at others and the world for what is happening
3. Or, you can respond to what’s happening by choosing your best possible response. Or at least, some response that is available in that moment.
Most average people usually either resist reality or resent it – but High performers respond to it.
Reality does not care, it is completely neutral.
Love of Work
When I say this, it’s not like they are workaholics, where they only think about work and neglect everything else.
It is more that they get enjoyment in work, and they don’t see it as something they would rather be without.
“Work is a blessing” is something you’ll often hear them say. They see work as a gift that gives them the opportunity to mean something, to contribute, to be useful.
Heck, Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote a whole book called “Be Useful”.
Conclusion
So out of all these mindsets, which ones do you feel most drawn to? Pay attention to that, because that is probably something you may want to consider developing within yourself.
Share in the comments below – which mindset do you feel you’d need most work in?