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We all have moments in our lives when we experience a breakdown — an occurrence that brings us to our knees. These breakdowns tap out our emotional and physical energy to the point where we have nothing left to give. They leave us feeling overwhelmed and, as a result, unable to focus on our work and the other important components of life.

If you are a high performer, you are out there doing a lot every single day, striving to be great at something. You want to give more to the world. Maybe you’re a student, an athlete or a professional. You might be in your 20s and developing your next path for your career. Or you could be running a company with 150 employees all over the country or world, and every day, you restore order to chaos.

Regardless of our age, profession or stage in life, we all experience the feeling of being overwhelmed, whether it’s emotionally, physically and/or mentally.

My breakdown at the airport

On a recent business trip, I got picked up a little late to get to the airport. We hit a traffic slowdown, and it took us 55 minutes to make the 15-minute drive to the airport. At this point, my boarding time and arrival time were the same. I’m a little bit of a control freak when it comes to traveling, so that upset me a little. I was on the tail end of a long travel schedule and just wanted to get home. That morning, I had gotten up at 5:30 a.m. and then had a 6:00 a.m. meeting. By the time I got into that car later in the morning, I had already lived a full day.

The driver acknowledged that we picked the wrong time to head to the airport, and he began driving like Mario Andretti or Jeff Gordon through the streets of Chicago — speeding, coming to an abrupt stop and speeding up again. My car sickness was leveling up, and my heart was racing. I just wanted to get to the airport. I actually felt calm mentally, but physically, I didn’t feel great.

Once I got to the airport, I got through TSA. Right then, I got a text from someone very close to me about somebody who recently lost their life. And, man, it hit me hard. In a moment when I felt absolutely frozen, I had to run to the gate. I had to cope with this information that just came in while rushing to get on my flight. I am an empathetic person, but at that moment, I was empathizing at an even higher level than I normally would. The news affected me so much that I could barely walk.

I had to stop for a moment to pause and process the information. I had to think of the right way to respond while also dealing with the chaos that normally ensues at a gate before boarding. All I could think about was the person’s family and about the people I love and how news like that would impact our family. For me, that was a breakdown moment. It was too much, even though nothing was happening to me personally. It was happening to the loved ones of someone I cared about a lot, and that was too much.

Once I got seated on the plane, I began listening to a business book, and I genuinely started to zone out. After the first three paragraphs, I stopped Audible and started listening instead to the book Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. At that moment, I was able to separate myself from the stressful event and feel calm. At that point, iIt was a completely relaxing ride.

Looking back on this experience, I realized a couple of facts. First, everybody experiences these breakdown moments. They blindside us and take us down, and we can no longer continue at the pace at which we were going. And second, I realized that these moments happen for a reason. To explain how they actually benefit us, I like to use the analogy of a car.

Breakdowns in life are like the “Check engine” light in your car

Let’s say your gas light comes on, but you are super busy and just haven’t had time to stop and fill up with gas. That light coming on is a constant reminder that you need to refill your tank or you’ll end up on the side of the road. We are all like that. We need daily or weekly reminders to fill up on whatever it is that we need to function. And sometimes, something malfunctions with your engine, and your “Check engine” light comes on. It could be simply a reminder that you need to change the oil in your car, or it could indicate something more serious.

Now, if you have a Tesla or another model of electric car, I don’t know how that works because I don’t have one. But let’s assume your car needs maintenance. If you drive your car with no oil in it, your engine is going to break down pretty quickly. And if your head gasket is blown, you’re not going to get much farther down the road. But when that “Check engine” light comes on, you probably won’t know at that moment whether it’s a simple problem or a more serious issue. To be safe, you’d be smart to get the car to a mechanic right away. That warning light has let you know that something is wrong, so you need to make it a priority. Once you do that, you can get everything fixed and get back on the road with a high level of confidence that your vehicle is in good condition again.

Breakdowns are the “Check engine” lights in our lives. They tell us when it’s time to stop, reflect and change our priorities. For that reason, the reality is that breakdowns are an important component of success. They let us know when we’ve gotten our lives out of balance. They serve as constant reminders for us to evaluate what we are doing and what we might need to change.

Three steps to take when you experience a breakdown

Here are three steps to take when you get those reality checks in the form of breakdowns. They work for me, and I hope they work for you as well.

1. Acknowledge the “warning”

When I was reading that shocking and sad text I received in the airport, I knew I had to just stop, be present in the moment and process the news. I needed to think of the person who had sent me that text and the other family members who were impacted, I needed to acknowledge what had just happened, and I needed to empathize at a level that went beyond what I had time to do. Acknowledging a breakdown allows us to begin to process it.

• When was the last time you experienced a breakdown in your life — a time when something stopped you in your tracks? Looking back, what was happening in your life that you needed to gain control of or reprioritize?
• If you were to have a breakdown today, how might the “warning” prompt you to make changes in your daily routine, in your communications with others or in some other area of your life?

2. Stop and listen to your mind and body

Once we acknowledge the breakdown, we have to listen to what our minds and bodies are telling us. That pause gives us a chance to process what is happening and how we need to react and feel. It makes us check our priorities and change them, if necessary — and to do a “hard reset.”

Breakdowns tell us, “Stop working for a moment and just listen.” When I feel overwhelmed, I often put on my Hallow app for Catholic meditation and prayer. I use it almost every day. I listen to some meditation and Scripture to get my head in a good spot. By the time I get home, I feel great again. I feel recharged. I’m no longer running on empty. I gain the energy and focus I need to process what’s happening.

Just like with our vehicles, our breakdowns don’t have to end up being serious if we will just acknowledge them as soon as they happen and take a moment to determine what we need to do next. It’s important to make the right choice in these situations, and the right choice might not be the easiest one. Also, as you are determining how to respond during a breakdown, ask for help. It’s not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength.

• When things go wrong around you, pay attention. If you are experiencing problems with your family members, friends, colleagues, team members or clients, acknowledge what’s happening. Pause. Examine the situation. What do you need to do to correct it?
• If you are having financial difficulties, acknowledge them. Pause. Examine the situation. Again, what do you need to do to resolve the issues?

3. Remember LIFE balance every day

By now, you are probably familiar with my focus on LIFE optimization — daily prioritization of what I believe are the four most important components of life: love, impact, faith and energy, which form the acronym LIFE. When you make a habit of honoring these four critical components every single day, those breakdowns will probably become less frequent in your life.

Focusing on LIFE optimization enables me to focus on what’s really important every single day so I can get and stay ahead. It keeps me from breaking down on the side of the road. I believe it can help you, too.

• Think about your life today. How well are you honoring love (the people who are most important in your life), impact (the ways you are contributing to the world around you), faith (the higher power in your life) and energy (how you are showing up in the world — your health)? Which area might you be ignoring? What will you do to honor that component of your life more?
• Make it a priority to honor all four of those life components every single day. This can help you avoid breakdowns.

When we learn to cope with the small “warning signals” in our lives, it becomes easier to cope with the bigger ones. When we are better prepared for them, we will feel less overwhelmed.

I have shared here some of the ways I have found to cope with these events. I also enjoy learning how other people cope with challenges. How do you handle breakdowns in your life?

You are probably cheating yourself and don’t even know it. Maybe you’ve set goals for yourself but keep failing to reach them. Your goal might be to lose weight, train for a marathon or develop the body you’ve always dreamed of having. Or maybe your goal is to be a better and more-present parent. Maybe you want to reach new heights in your career. If you have set goals and fallen short of reaching them, it could be because of a lack of discipline.

Many people believe discipline is the enemy of success. The opposite is actually true. I want to show you four ways to fall in love with discipline and help you get control of your life. Discipline has gotten a bad rap, but it can actually drive your success.

When I think about my first experiences with discipline, what comes to mind is going to Catholic school, with the hallways feeling tight and the nuns telling me what I was and wasn’t allowed to do. Also, my dad put pressure on me to follow a routine every morning, and he set a curfew that I, of course, thought was way too early. As a young person, it was tough to live by those rules. I couldn’t wait to get to high school so I could have what I thought was real freedom. That regimented life in my early years gave me a negative view of discipline, until my mid-twenties.

At that point, I began to realize that a disciplined approach enhances my productivity and my everyday living. It’s funny how your perspective changes over time. Now that I’m an adult, I look back on what I thought were the worst things in the world and see that they were some of the greatest parts of what I’ve become.

I feel better when I have structure. The more discipline I impose on my life, the more freedom I have. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. For example, I feel better when I get my workout done in the morning. I look better and feel better, and I feel more focused throughout the day.

So, how do you gain discipline and turn it into something you love? Here are four ways to get there.

1. Have a compelling “why”

The first element of effective discipline is a big, compelling “why,” or purpose. The stronger your reason for wanting to achieve a goal, the more likely you will be to reach it.

If your goal is to lose weight, and your reason for setting that goal is that you just want to drop three to five pounds so your pants fit better, that’s not a compelling, strong “why.” It’s just not big enough. Pick a bigger “why” — maybe your doctor has told you that you are prediabetic, and you are dangerously close to being diagnosed with diabetes. You have young children and want to be healthy so you can be around for them for years to come and enjoy doing things with them. That’s a compelling “why,” a strong purpose.

When you have a strong purpose for wanting to achieve a goal, you will be more inspired to achieve it. You’ll also be more disciplined about taking the steps necessary to make it happen. If you have a weak, empty goal, it will be easy to forget why you’re even pursuing it, and you will lose steam. You might even quit. You’ll say, “I’ll ease off today and get back to it tomorrow.” That’s cheating, and we don’t want you to cheat.

Even though I resisted discipline as a kid, I now have a morning routine that is extremely disciplined. As soon as I wake up, I do all the things that are included in that routine. But some mornings, I don’t want to do those things; I just want to go downstairs and get a cup of coffee. There was a time when I had that cup of coffee as soon as I woke up. But when I realized that discipline is a key to being a high performer, I established my new morning routine and committed to meditating, reading Scripture and working out before drinking my coffee.

Once you become disciplined about building good habits, and you don’t cheat yourself, you will actually start to realize that you feel cheated when you don’t follow your routine. I was talking to someone I know recently who said he had started running two miles a day. I asked, “How did that feel?”

He said, “It hurt a lot. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t feel good. But then I started feeling great. And then it got to the point where I needed to run, and if I didn’t, I missed it. I had to do it. It became a habit, something I love.”

Back to the dieting example, it’s fun to have “cheat days.” After avoiding junk food for a few days, it can be fun to indulge in a slice or two of pizza. But the danger with cheat days is that it can be easy to just keep doing them, to the point where you’re no longer exercising discipline to eat healthier food. When you allow yourself cheat days, you are actually focusing on what you can’t have on most days.

• What is a goal you want to pursue? Why do you want to reach that goal — how will it change your life for the better? How strong is that “why”? Is it enough to motivate you to follow the discipline needed to achieve the goal?
• Think of someone you know who reached an impressive goal. What was his or her “why,” or purpose for pursuing it? Was it a strong, compelling “why”?

2. Visualize your success

The second way to love discipline is to visualize the success you want now and later.

If you want to fall in love with discipline, you have to love what is going on now. When you love the now in your life, it will be easier to get up in the morning and follow your routine. You will visualize what your day will look like. And then when you wake up, you will feel ready to execute what you visualized the day before. Visualizing your success helps you achieve it.

You also have to visualize what you want later so you can focus on your final outcome — whatever you are working to achieve. When you picture yourself achieving your goal, it will inspire you to practice the habits that will help you get there.

• Think of a goal you are pursuing or want to pursue. Visualize what it looks like for you to start following a routine that will help you reach that goal. What will tomorrow look like? What habits will you form to reach that goal?
• Now visualize yourself reaching the goal. What does that look like? How does it make you feel?

3. Focus on the positive

A third way to fall in love with discipline is to focus on the positive and push away the negative. This is absolutely crucial. You cannot succeed if you focus only on negative thoughts, influences and feelings. For example, if you’re dieting, it is not going to inspire you to focus only on what you’re not able to eat anymore. Focus instead on the healthy foods you do get to eat and, more importantly, on the incredible way you’re going to look and feel at some point in the future.

Negativity kills motivation. Negativity kills discipline. If I associate motivation with discipline, I succeed. But if I associate deprivation with discipline, I will constantly be angry and frustrated with discipline.

When you are pursuing a goal, remind yourself of all the positive things you’re working toward and how much better your life will be when you reach your goal. Begin with the end in mind, and then work backward.

Back to when I was a kid, little Scott was mad because he had to follow rules that he thought were infringing on his freedom. The truth is, those rules were not infringing on my freedom; instead, they were providing the foundation for me to be successful.

• Looking back at your life, do you see the benefit of discipline that someone — maybe a parent, teacher or coach — imposed on you? Can you see how that discipline and structure helped you succeed, even though you may have resisted it at that time?
• Think of a goal you are pursuing. To what extent do you focus on the positive aspects of the discipline you need to follow to achieve that goal? What negative aspects do you allow yourself to think about? Be aware of them, and as soon as a negative thought enters your mind, replace it with a positive thought.

4. Create a circle of accountability

Sometimes, the people around us feel uncomfortable, or even threatened, when we set ambitious goals and set out to pursue them. They might not realize they are trying to sabotage us, but it happens all the time. This is why it’s important to surround yourself with people who want only the best for you and will cheer you on, every step of the way. It’s called creating “a “circle of accountability.”

If you have always gone out on Saturday for pizza with your friends, and all of a sudden you tell them you’re not eating pizza anymore and you’re going to go train for your marathon, some of them are not going to be OK with that., They want you to do what they’re doing because it makes them feel better. And they feel threatened when they see that you are determined to become better.

So when you lay out a disciplined approach to succeed at something, and you share it with them, be prepared to experience some pushback and criticism. If that happens, you’ve got to change your circle. You need to spend time with people who share your goals and want you to succeed. Start hanging out with others who are training for a marathon.

Sometimes, our own family members are the ones who criticize our dreams and goals the most. If every time you walk into your mom’s house, she says, “You’ve got to eat this cake; I made it just for you,” you have to stay disciplined. Tell her, “Mom, I appreciate that so much, and your cakes are the best, but I’m trying to get healthier. I’m trying to lose twenty pounds. My doctor told me I’m in danger of becoming diabetic.”

I am incredibly lucky because my family, especially my mom, bends over backward to help me follow my discipline. My mom will make anything for me or do anything to help me achieve my goals. She goes overboard with it.

If you want to fall in love with discipline, surround yourself with people who are excited about your goal and will do everything they can to help you reach it. Create a circle of accountability, a group of people who love you enough to tell you the truth, people who will hold you accountable, people who will listen and encourage you when you’re struggling to stay on track. We all struggle with whatever we’re trying to do. When you do this long enough, you will experience success, and with success comes freedom. Discipline leads to freedom. They work together.

That discipline my parents imposed on me when I was growing up laid the foundation for me to embrace, and even love, discipline at this point in my life. When I was young, the “ultimate freedom” I longed for was really just laziness. It’s a trap. That kind of “freedom” is empty, and it does nothing to help you become a high performer. Discipline is the path to real freedom. Fall in love with discipline. I think you’ll be happy you did.

• Have you ever set a goal, only to discover that the people around you wanted to sabotage your efforts? How did you handle that situation?
• If you want to set a new goal, which of the people around you do you anticipate will try to sabotage your efforts? What will you do to distance yourself from them, even if they are family members?

The days always seem to slip by so fast, and we feel frustrated that we haven’t yet accomplished what we wanted. Why does that happen? This seems to be a universal struggle. When I was younger, I failed and failed and failed at this. I consistently watched each day go by too fast without feeling like I was accomplishing much.

Recently, I talked to my brother about this. He reminded me that in the past, when it came to my health, I would say, “Oh, I don’t need to work out; I play soccer.” I was playing soccer once or twice a week. But I was still tired. The truth is, I needed to work out a lot more often and do other types of exercise, including strength training. But I was making excuses about why I didn’t need to do what I knew I needed to do.

But a beautiful thing happens with age — we gain wisdom.

I set out to find a way to keep the days from slipping by without much to show for them. I discovered that the answer lies in being intentional and disciplined about how we spend our time. Winners need discipline, not motivation!

Below, I describe the simple but powerful routine I follow to feel like I’ve accomplished what really matters every single day. I hope you find it useful, too; it is an important part of every high performer’s day.

Build the four components of LIFE into every day

First, when you wake up each morning, identify the activities you must do for that day to be successful. What will you not negotiate about the success of the day? What are the most important things that need to get done so you can feel good and sleep peacefully at night?

What are the most important things in your life? What is the key to having a great life? For me, the four most important aspects of life form the acronym LIFE: love, impact, faith and energy. You can determine your priorities by honoring these four components of your life every day.

• Love: Who do you love? How can you show up for those loved ones? Maybe you just need to communicate with them, whether it’s via a text, an email, a phone call or a visit. Or maybe you need to help them with something specific. When I connect with my mom, I feel like I have accomplished something important. I’ll call her and say, “Hey, Mom, how are you? I love you. I’m happy. I’m healthy. Life is good.” That’s what she wants to know. I also want to know how she’s doing, so I will ask, “Are you doing OK? Do you need anything?” It’s a simple conversation that takes less than five minutes. Well, because both my mom and I have severe ADHD, it’s more like 11 minutes. But that call is really important.

When I’m out of town, I make sure I connect my kids and my wife. I will send my kids a text and ask them about soccer practice or whatever else they’re doing. I want to keep my finger on the pulse on what’s most important to them, even if I’m not there.

• Impact: What actions can you take to make the most positive impact on the world around you? This is important. Are you doing something good for someone else every single day? It can be something simple, but often, even simple gestures carry a lot of impact.

Who did you help, and how? Did you help someone carry something? Did you open a door? Did you smile at someone who needed compassion? Did you pick something up for lunch to help a friend who was too busy to get it? How did you make a difference? What impact did you make, ? What impact did you make, no matter how minute? I reflect on this every night before I go to sleep.

• Faith: What do you need to do to practice and strengthen your faith? What is bigger than yourself, and how can you honor it?

Faith has always been a huge part of my life. I serve God, and because of that, I am better off every day. Each day, I figure out how I can put my faith into action.

• Energy: And finally, what do you need to do to increase your energy? That’s how you show up to the world. To me, energy is health. It’s what you eat, what you put into your body. It’s how you exercise your mind, your body and your spirit. Do you meditate? How are you showing up every day? Is it the best version of yourself? Are you really taking care of yourself?

These four components are foundational to a successful day.

What my typical day looks like

When I wake up, I start with spirituality. The first thing I do is to listen to a few Scripture readings, and then I say prayers. That sets the tone for my day.

Then I get out of bed and have a cup of coffee and interact with my wife and children. We are not rushed; we’re focused. Next, I head to my home gym to work out. For years, I had a personal trainer and worked out at a gym. But now, I just walk into the garage and work out and spend a little time in the sauna, while praying and meditating. That’s when I prepare mentally for my day.

Next I drive to work. By the time I arrive at my office, typically the only key component I haven’t addressed yet is impact. So during the day, I look for opportunities to make an impact in someone else’s day and life. It is extremely important for me to address all four components so that by the time I head home for the day, I feel like I have accomplished everything I need to. I can go home and feel really good about my day.

Figure out what works for you

It can take some trial and error to figure out how to fit these four components into your day.

For example, when I first started following this routine, I found it very hard to work out in the afternoon or evening. By then, I was mentally exhausted. I had already spent all my energy going to work, taking my kids to soccer practice, and taking care of chores around the house. It worked out much better for me to exercise in the morning. I started doing that more than 15 years ago, and it became a daily habit.

To feel a sense of accomplishment, you have to own your day. And to do that, you have to identify the who, what, why and how of your daily activities. It’s going to be the best thing you ever did in your life. It will make each day worth remembering when you lay your head on that pillow.

Take a moment to think about how you can build the four LIFE components into your day tomorrow.

• Love: Who do you love? How can you show up for those loved ones? To whom will you send a text or email just to check in? Who will you call? Who will you visit? Who can you help by running an errand or helping out in some other way?
• Impact: What actions can you take to make the most positive impact on the world around you? What gesture can you make, even if it’s simple, to help someone outside your home? Who around you seems to be struggling and in need of a smile or a few minutes to talk?
• Faith: What do you need to do to practice and strengthen your faith? What is bigger than yourself, and in what specific ways can you honor it?
• Energy: What will you do tomorrow to increase your energy? How will you take care of yourself? Be specific. Will you work out in the morning, go for a walk at lunch time or go for a swim after work?

If you’re like me and everybody else in the world, you face constant interruptions every day. In fact, one study reports that employees are interrupted at work every three minutes! Interruptions are just part of the high-performance life. It would be unrealistic to expect that we can stop them from happening; instead, the key to minimizing the disruption they cause lies in how we respond to those interruptions.

We can even use them to our advantage. Managed properly, they can help us become the very best version of ourselves.

Here are four strategies I’ve found to manage those constant interruptions. Plus, I am going to give you a bonus idea, and it might be your favorite tip of all.

First, let’s look at the four strategies I consider foundational to managing interruptions.

1. Acknowledge that interruptions will happen

Why is this important? If you acknowledge and accept that interruptions are going to be a part of your day, you won’t be surprised when they come up. Plus, they will be less likely to throw you off your game. See, the emotional response you have to an interruption can sometimes derail your efforts to complete the work you were engaged in when the interruption happened. It can be tough to control our emotions, but by acknowledging that interruptions will happen, we can minimize the effect they have on our progress.

It’s kind of like traffic. If your destination is a 15-minute drive, and you leave exactly 15 minutes before you need to arrive, you’ll be OK — unless you encounter an accident, a road block, construction or some other delay. To ease your stress level and ensure you arrive on time, just assume you might encounter a delay of some sort, and leave a few minutes early. Then, if you do experience a delay, you won’t have to panic!

• Know that every single day, you are going to be interrupted at certain times. If you’re aware of that, you won’t get emotionally derailed when you are interrupted. There were times in my career, a long time ago, when the constant interruptions I was getting hammered with made it a challenge for me to achieve my goals. But once I learned to acknowledge them as a mere fact of life, it was a huge step forward for me.
• Build extra “margin” into your life regarding time, money and other resources. Pushing everything to the very edge often results in deficits and is extremely stressful.

2. Build the right team

Your team is the key to high performance. Whether it’s at work, in your personal life or in your volunteer activities, it is essential that you surround yourself with the right team. That way, you can all work together to acknowledge interruptions and manage them in the best way possible. When you have the right team, it’s amazing how successfully you can deal with constant interruptions. If an unexpected situation causes one team member to halt progress on a project for a little while, it’s important that other team members can jump in and keep the ball rolling.

For the first 14 years of my career, I had staff to support me all the time. In fact, I had two people supporting our team for 8 of those 14 years. But then I went several years without having any support staff. It was distracting, difficult, and challenging. I almost forgot how I operate best. I knew I couldn’t optimize my ability to live the high-performance life like that, so I hired a great assistant. Once I hired the right human to help manage all the things that happen in the day — to organize the scheduling, gather all the data, and help me be better organized and prepared than I was even before — the constant interruptions no longer halted my progress.

We do this in our office, and it is extremely effective. When possible, our front-line team members handle interruptions. If they cannot do so, they escalate it to an executive assistant. If that person cannot handle it, then the next highest level of management will get involved. So, by the time an unexpected situation gets to me, I know I need to deal with it.

Now, this streamlined approach won’t happen automatically; you’ll need to meet with your team to set the parameters, discuss the process and practice the strategy. It also requires that you empower your team members to make certain decisions on their own. If you tend to be a micromanager, requiring on-the-spot approval for every move your team members make, then this process won’t work! Not only that — micromanaging has no place in the high-performance life!

• Prioritize getting the right humans, operations and systematic processes in place. Then your interruptions will get sifted through the colander of crazy much more effectively!
• Handle interruptions in a specific order of staff-member succession. Knowing that your team is doing everything possible to handle interruptions before they get to you will give you a huge sense of confidence and peace of mind as you work on the tasks that only you, the leader, can do.
• Empower your team members to make decisions on their own. The more your team has the power and accountability to succeed, as well as your faith in them, the better able they will be to get things done without having to escalate situations to you. If situations aren’t coming to you, you’re less likely to get interrupted. This is a valuable lesson when it comes to teams. High-performing teams are essential to being a high-performance leader.
• Embrace discipline, systems and processes. I’m not always the best at organizing these essential ingredients for success on my own, but I am great at working with them on a team.
• Talk through the process with your support staff. If I can talk through an idea with one person, I can gather all the data and all the parameters that will lead to success. Having a highly competent person working with me, I can work through a situation in my brain and figure out the path forward. The other person’s job is to help me execute those ideas and solutions. Typically, leaders are visionaries, not implementers. It’s difficult for one person to excel in both roles.
• Work with every team member on optimizing his or her best work methods. For the highest level of success, you and every member of your team must establish parameters for success and manage barriers.

3. Qualify and prioritize

If you execute the first two strategies well — acknowledge that you will get interrupted and then build the right team — you will be able to execute the third strategy: qualify and prioritize the interruptions. You cannot do this well without executing those strategies first.

In this step, you are assessing the importance and urgency of an interruption. Does it need to be handled now, later today or tomorrow? Do you need to handle it, or can you delegate it to someone else? When you qualify how urgent an interruption is, then you can prioritize it according to your available resources.

I don’t really mind interruptions, but I love to be focused and disciplined, and I love the success that comes from performing at a high level. So of course I perform better without interruptions. However, a lot of people with high energy or with ADHD actually enjoy some distraction to break up their routines. What you have to be careful of is that the disruptions are not derailing you.

• The next time you’re interrupted, pause, think and process. When an interruption comes your way, stop what you’re doing — pause. Then think about how to qualify the interruption and how to prioritize it based on the data you have before you. Finally, process what needs to happen to execute that decision.
• Delegate effectively. This is a skill that many leaders struggle with at first. You can’t handle all your strategic planning and high-level work while also handling every interruption that surfaces. It is critical that you become effective at delegating work that others can handle well — maybe even better than you!

4. Find pockets of time when you can welcome interruptions

This might sound crazy, and counterintuitive to managing interruptions, but it’s not. There are pockets of time in every day when you will be between projects, calls and meetings. Seize those opportunities to speak with your staff members about the best way to handle an interruption that surfaced earlier.

One day, as I was preparing to record a YouTube video, an emergency came up that needed my attention; my staff was not able to address it. I needed 10 minutes to pause, think and process and to make some decisions. So I started and stopped recording a little late. By handling the interruption quickly, I prevented it from spiraling into a bigger interruption later in the day.

• Build a buffer of time into your schedule. Leave pockets of time available in your day to handle unexpected situations. Use those pockets of time to build and action plan and steps to solve the interruption soon, rather than waiting until the end of the day. This can prevent the situation from getting worse.
• Use that time to delegate. If it’s a situation you can delegate, discuss the execution strategy with your team members, and give them a chance to ask questions and clarify your intended outcome.

Bonus tip: Do your most important activities when you’re less likely to be interrupted

This bonus tip might be the most important strategy I’m discussing here — that is, to do your most important activities at the time of day when you are least likely to be interrupted.

Let’s say you’re taking an afternoon nap that you feel you deserve after a challenging week, and you are getting interrupted constantly. That is going to be really annoying, and your period of rest won’t be restful at all.

The key is to figure out when you are the least likely to be interrupted, and then plan your high-focus activities — like your nap! — during that time. During a 24-hour period, what is the least likely time you’ll be interrupted? If you’re a new mom or dad, guess what? You’re probably going to be interrupted all night long by your children. So you will want to avoid scheduling your high-focus priorities during the time when you’re trying to get the children to sleep.

I have found high success with early-morning time. I start my day slowly and enjoy early mornings to prepare myself for the day. This is a time when my family is the least active. I know that once I get into the office, I won’t be able to have quiet time to think and plan.

• Determine what times of day you are least likely to be interrupted. Then use those times to handle your most important high-focus work. At what time of day can you get the most done? This might not look the same every day. Guard those times closely!
• Encourage every member of your team to do the same. And then communicate that information so everyone knows when each team member’s high-focus time. That way, the entire team can try to honor each individual’s high-focus time.

________

What types of interruptions have knocked you off course recently? To what extent would the strategies discussed here have helped you minimize their level of disruption to your day? If you are a high performer, or striving to be one, managing interruptions well is one way you can become exceptional — better than most. If you have strategies for managing interruptions that I didn’t mention here, I’d love to hear them!

Everybody wants to be a high performer. Everybody wants to be the best of the best and to have the success that comes with it. So, what’s keeping most people from attaining that level of success? What makes Tom Brady and Simone Biles the best of the best? What common threads do they share? The answer: high-performance habits.

Top performers develop and practice habits that set them apart from everybody else. Here are five habits of high performers that you can adopt.

1. Build mental muscle

Building high-performance habits starts with your mindset. To me, this is the most important requirement to be the GOAT (greatest of all time) in any field. This requires that you understand that hard work is the path toward being the best — and then work hard consistently.

Once you make hard work a habit, doing the tough things other people don’t want to do, you build mental muscle. If you want to be a high performer and achieve things that most people do not, you need to be the exception, to be exceptional. So if you say you want to be the best at something, you have to be willing to work harder than anyone else. To me, it’s infuriating when someone says they want to be great, yet they don’t want to work hard.

Now, working harder than everyone else doesn’t necessarily mean you have to work more hours. Often, it requires that you work smarter. This might mean you learn and grow every day, focusing on what you learned and how you grew and then documenting your improvement. When you do this, you are building another positive habit — the habit of learning — which further strengthens your mental muscle.

At times, especially in the beginning, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. It’s going to hurt. You’re going to have calluses on your hands and on your brain. You’re going to be worn out. There will be days when you feel like quitting. But if you remember why you are pursuing your goal — to rise to the top of the game — then you will continue working. You will build the muscle memory that’s required to go back and do it all over again and to level up consistently. It’s all a matter of creating habits of daily impact.

• What is a goal you want to pursue? Why do you want to achieve that goal? What will it take to achieve the goal? Write all this down, and break the required hard work into daily tasks. Pursue them doggedly. Work harder than anyone else you know to achieve your goal.
• Think of a time when you had a goal, but you quit when you encountered an obstacle. What could you have achieved if you had pushed past that roadblock and kept going?

2. Take responsibility

The second habit required to become a top performer is to accept responsibility for your own actions.

Blaming someone else or something else is a common reaction when we’re not where we want to be. This is not a productive habit, and it has to stop. When you end the blame game, it will take you to a new level. Making excuses will prevent you from rising to a high-performance level. Blaming your parents, your situation, your environment or anything else will keep you from developing the proper mindset for success. Making excuses is a sign of weakness and has no place in the life of a high performer.

We all can find excuses for why we haven’t risen to our full potential. My parents did not give me the life I needed to get to where I am. I grew up poor, while other people grew up rich. Other people have a better education than me. They graduated from better colleges than the one I attended. Their dads gave them money. They drive better cars. Their computers are newer. I can think of a hundred reasons why someone else might be more successful than I am. But I don’t focus on those things. Instead, I set my goals and then pursue them daily.

This is a simple concept, but it is crucial. Excuses are a sign of weakness, while action is a sign of strength.

• Have you ever blamed something or someone else when things did not go as you expected? Watch for this tendency, and stop it in its tracks if it surfaces.
• Take the energy that goes into finding someone or something else to blame, and put it toward working hard and accepting responsibility for your outcome.

3. Work toward meaningful goals

Working toward an empty goal is the worst thing anybody can do. Working toward an empty goal is like getting in an airplane without knowing the destination and just seeing where you end up. Maybe you’ll get lucky and end up in a place you like, but it could go the other way, too. You could end up in a place you don’t like at all. You arrive there and ask yourself, “What am I doing here? This is a waste of time, effort and money.”

High performers establish effective, efficient, concrete goals that will take them where they want to go. They stay focused on those goals, and they measure their progress. Once you have decided what your goal is, what do you need to do to get there? What does that look like? What does it feel like? Who is in your life, helping you get there? What are the daily habits you’re following to get better? What is the hard work you’re putting in every day? Once you know these details, your plan toward becoming a high performer will become clearer. And that will keep you from “moving the goalposts.”

Back to the airplane example, maybe you want to go to San Diego. So you buy a ticket for San Diego. Maybe you want to walk on the beach, taste the salt in the air and feel the ocean breeze on your face. And if you want to rise to the top in your business, define that goal, and determine why that is your goal. Visualize what it will feel like when you reach that goal. Again, the mindset part of the equation is just as important as the tactical part.

• Once you have defined your goal, find a coach or a mentor who will guide you and help you recognize your strengths and weaknesses and stay on track. All the GOATs have coaches, whether in sports or business.
• Keep a daily log of the way you spend your time for at least a week. Identify activities you’re spending time on that are not moving you toward your goal. Replace them with more productive activities that will help you become a high performer.

4. Celebrate even the small wins

When you’re working harder than everyone else, your motivation and your goal will fuel your journey. But we’re all human, and sometimes we get tired. Burned out. Distracted. We might question whether it’s all worth it. This is why it’s important to celebrate your wins along the way — even the small ones.

This is important for yourself as an individual and also for your family and for your team. Celebrate your own personal wins, and also lead the celebration when those around you experience victories.

• To what extent do you celebrate your wins in life? Most of us are quick to beat ourselves up when we don’t do something well, but we all could use more celebrations. What is a recent victory that warrants a celebration?
• Think about your family, friends and colleagues. Has someone experienced a victory recently, even a small one, that needs to be celebrated? Lead the way. Let the person — and others, if appropriate — know that you noticed their win. The celebration doesn’t have to be a big deal. A simple acknowledgment will make their day.

5. Have fun along the way

In addition to celebrating your wins, it’s also important to have fun during your journey. Getting to the top of your game should be exciting, not drudgery. No one can work hard all the time. And even if we could work hard every moment of every day, I think that would make us pretty boring to the people around us.

Building fun into your life is a key ingredient in the recipe of high performance. You have to build fun into your day, your week, your month, your quarter and your year. You have to prioritize the things you love.

Recently, I was getting ready to travel for business, to attend a company conference. The couple of weeks before the trip were extremely busy as I prepared to be out of the office for an extended period. And then at the conference site, I had a packed schedule. I was getting up earlier than usual, spending long days in meetings and having dinner with colleagues. These were all great and necessary activities, but during these times, I felt like I didn’t have much control over my time. And then, you know how it is — after you get back from a conference, you have a lot of catching up to do back at the office.

After that conference, I bought tickets to a Jack Johnson concert. I really love his music. I love the calming way he plays the guitar. It makes me think of the ocean, which is something I love. Jack Johnson actually was a surfer before he made it big as a singer and songwriter. I feel a bond with his music. My schedule, as usual, was packed, but I made the concert a priority.

During the pandemic, we were all deprived of concerts and other events. And that took a toll on all of us. For about two years, I didn’t hear any live music. I’ve been going to concerts since I was 16 years old. I have attended live performances of every band and every musician I’ve ever wanted to see. It’s a big part of my life. And all of a sudden, during COVID, I couldn’t go. I remember what that felt like, and I didn’t want to feel that again. So I made a conscious effort to find every act I wanted to see and buy the tickets. It didn’t matter where the concerts were; I found a way to fit them into my schedule.

I want to enjoy the ride. I love my work, and I love performing at a high level, but I know that it is really important to build in some fun along the way.

Recently, I traveled to Boston, and I had three hours free. I had not eaten lunch. I had three hours to feel normal, to feel human. One of my partners and I went and had a late lunch/early dinner. I had a glass of rosé. We sat there and talked about stuff that had nothing to do with work.

When we make it a point to do things like this — to build fun into our lives — it’s part of the payoff for the hard work. It makes the effort feel even more valuable, and makes the ride more enjoyable. If you want to be a high performer, you’ve got to remember to enjoy the ride. Love the people you’re around, and build in moments of fun along makes the way. Build in dinners with people you like. If you’re going to be in a new city, find friends and family members you haven’t seen in a while, and visit them.

I do these types of things every single month. No matter where I am, I make time for fun. I love my life. And I love working hard. I get overwhelmed like everybody else does. When that happens, I just need to do something I enjoy.

• When was the last time you did something fun? If it has been a while, schedule something. It will give you something to look forward to, and it will improve the balance in your life between work and enjoyment.
• If you have any trips coming up, either for personal or business reasons, are there people you can visit while you’re in the destination city? Or, if you’re taking a road trip, who can you visit along the way, even if you have to go out of your way a little? Making time for activities like this improves relationships and makes life more enjoyable.

Sometimes we come across a situation, either in our personal or professional lives, that we just can’t figure out. It’s a roadblock to our progress and productivity, and we try everything we know to solve the issue. As high performers, we pride ourselves on being productive, getting things done the right way, and then moving on. Being faced with a perplexing problem that seems insurmountable is incredibly frustrating!

That problem we can’t solve becomes our main focus — at the expense of other issues that need our attention. It becomes so big that it keeps us up at night, for weeks on end. We draw it out on paper 10 times and still can’t solve it.

Focus on Who, Not How or What

If this has happened to you, you might be overlooking the most important way to be more productive.

In these situations, we tend to focus on the how and the what. How do I solve this problem? What am I missing? Whether it’s a computer glitch, a mechanical issue with a vehicle, a kitchen appliance that has stopped working or even a situation involving our kids at school, we run in circles, trying to discover how to fix the problem, what we’re missing. We attack it from every angle. We Google it. We get lost in the weeds, the details. We start over.

The thing is, if we knew how to fix it, we would have already done so. The key is simply to call on an expert for help, to focus on who — Who specializes in solving that type of problem?

Each one of us has a set of God-given skills and talents. But none of us excels at everything. This is why teams are so powerful. When you create a team, the sum is greater than the parts. Each individual brings unique skills, talents and experience — and a unique perspective — to the table. The collective expertise of the team is greater than the sum of its parts.

So, when you are faced with a problem that seems insurmountable, don’t spend hours, days or weeks trying to figure it out. Call an expert whose special talent is solving that type of problem.

One day recently, I was with a couple of friends/colleagues. We were discussing a big challenge that we had been dealing with in our business for several months. We spent all day trying to figure out a solution that we had tried to solve individually for quite some time. We were in a board room for nine hours, and I was at the whiteboard, writing things down. We were going in circles: How do we fix this? If we do this, what happens here? We were so lost in the weeds. Finally, when we saw team members starting to leave for the day, we said, “Hey, who do we know that can help us solve this problem?”

The next morning, we called someone we knew could solve the problem. After an hour-long meeting, we had more clarity on the situation than we ever had. And within a couple of days, the problem was solved. I was embarrassed about the amount of time, energy and focus we had wasted. Why did we wait so long, trying to figure it out ourselves? If we had called that expert months earlier, imagine how productive we could have been in other areas!

• Think of a problem you’ve faced in the past. How long did you try to solve it yourself before you finally asked an expert for help (if you asked at all!). How much productivity did you lose as a result of continuing to solve it on your own?
• If you tend to try solving problems on your own and are reluctant to call an expert, why do you wait so long to ask for help? What is holding you back? Exploring the answer to this question can lead you to greater productivity, and less stress, in the future.

Why Are Many Leaders Reluctant to Ask for Help?

Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Yet many people — especially high-performing leaders — have a really hard time asking for help. Why is that?

One reason is that our society places high value on being self-reliant. We applaud people who “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” and overcame all kinds of odds to become successful. But there’s no need to punish our own health and productivity just so we can be considered self-reliant! There’s a fine line between being autonomous and stubborn.

One psychoanalyst and executive coach says many leaders fail to ask for help because they are afraid of looking vulnerable or incompetent, or they fear losing control.

Imagine a leader who is facing a huge business challenge in two different scenarios. In the first scenario, he drags his team through weeks of strategy sessions, meetings and discussions, trying solutions that don’t work. His team members become frustrated with the lack of progress and productivity. They actually begin to question his leadership skills and resent his stubbornness.

Now imagine that the same leader, early on, says to his team, “It’s clear that this problem is beyond the scope of our individual and collective expertise. I have called on a highly respected expert in this area who has solved this type of problem for many Fortune 500 companies in the past. We’re all going to meet with her tomorrow at 10 a.m.” The expert walks the team through the problem and the solution. Do you think the team members question the leader’s competence now? No! They respect and appreciate his approach.

And in the process, he is showing them that it’s OK to ask for help. This is important as a parent, too. If you are quick to recognize when you don’t have a solution to a problem and you readily call on an expert to help, it shows your children that it’s OK for them to ask for help when they need it. That is a valuable life skill.

No one likes a know-it-all, yet many business leaders think they need to act like they know everything to be effective in leading others. It simply isn’t true.

When you reach out and ask for help, it shows that you recognize your own limitations and that you respect the talents other people bring to the table. It shows humility and authenticity. Humility is a highly desirable trait among leaders.

• Think of someone you know — maybe a supervisor — who likes everyone to believe he or she has all the answers. To what extent would you consider that person a better leader if he or she asked for help more readily?
• If you are a leader, to what extent do you ask for help readily when you don’t have the answers? Is there a situation you are facing right now that could use the help of an expert? If so, call the expert!

Doing Everything Yourself Isn’t Productive

When you launch your own business and build it up from nothing, you want everything associated with your business to reflect your high standards, values and character. That’s understandable. It’s admirable. However, as your business grows, at some point, it’s going to be impossible for you to control every detail. At some point, you have to begin delegating tasks to other people and training them to do things the way you like. When you trust others to do great work, you are empowering them to be the best version of themselves.

Leaders who are reluctant to ask for help run the risk of being tied to their businesses forever. The true measure of a successful business is how well it runs when you’re not there. If you want to take your family on a dream vacation for two weeks, how well will your business run while you’re gone? And how much will you worry about it? How often will you be ducking out of your family activities to call the office?

If you are still trying to “touch” and control, or at least influence, every decision anyone makes in your organization, that’s probably a sign that you need to start letting go. Start delegating. Spend your time doing only the tasks you can do. Be the visionary, and let your team members do the execution. This requires that you learn to ask for help!

Type A leaders are often unwilling to delegate tasks to others. This often results in failed projects, lost revenue and high employee turnover. One person’s capacity cannot exceed the capacity of many. By not delegating, you put your company in jeopardy. You have to discipline yourself to let go of your firm grip on unnecessary tasks.

Let’s say you are experiencing challenges in any type of relationship, and you’ve tried everything, but nothing has worked. Do you really think continuing to solve it yourself is the best solution? Do you consult with someone who has no experience in successful relationships? No! Find someone who has a proven track record in solving relationship issues.

• How good are you at delegating tasks to other people? If you struggle with this, please recognize that doing everything yourself isn’t good for you, your team or your business.
• In what areas do you excel? What are the tasks that only you can do? Write them down. Then write down all the other tasks, and delegate them to other team members. Explain why you are doing so. Explain that you want to supercharge everyone’s productivity, and you want to let everyone excel in his or her individual area of expertise.

It’s mind-boggling how simple this is. Yet we often get in our own way and, in the process, lose valuable productivity while also increasing our personal levels of stress and frustration.

We get lost in the weeds because we focus on what we know right now. We think we have the tools to solve the problem, but we don’t. We have to remember that somebody else has the solution. Somebody else may at least spark our interest enough to move us in the right direction.

Make your life easy. Find out who can solve your problem. And ask that person some questions. Don’t be afraid to bring someone else into the room. Don’t be afraid to help yourself. Be stronger, be better, be more efficient — and most of all, be more productive.

Winners need discipline, not motivation.

This is contrary to what a lot of people think. They think the more we motivate or inspire people, the better off they’re going to be and the more freedom they’re going to have. But here’s the truth: freedom without discipline is a trap. When you take the discipline away from freedom, it’s empty. It’s a lie.

I’m going to give you a great example of this — parenting. There are plenty of examples of how this plays out in our professional lives, but just for a moment, let’s think about parenting. If you don’t have kids, think of people you know who do.

Discipline Solved Our Chaotic Mornings at Home

When our kids were young, my wife and I were both working. We would get up in the morning, get ready for work, and get our two kids ready to go where they needed to go. Our boys were three and six at the time — one in preschool and one in the first grade. Our older son had to catch the school bus at a certain time, and it was always a challenge getting him out the door.

Every morning was absolute chaos. One kid would do the opposite of what we told him to do, not wanting to eat what we were having for breakfast. The other kid would change his outfit 17 times.

But we dealt with it because we wanted to provide freedom for our kids. We wanted them to wake up, eat a nice breakfast, have some iPad time, relax, and not feel the stress that we feel every day. So we would try to motivate them and encourage them to do what we needed them to do.

But we were lying to ourselves. We were caught in the freedom trap.

Motivation didn’t work; we tried it. Motivation starts like this: “Hey, if you get up tomorrow and do all these good things, we’ll make you a special breakfast” or “We’ll take you somewhere fun this weekend.” We said all the dumb things parents say that rarely work.

The truth is, you can’t give someone enough motivation to make them do anything. You can provide them with the structure and the discipline to succeed, but you can’t motivate them to get where you want them to be. This is true in the workforce, too: “If you do this, you’ll get this benefit.” With both kids and team members, you have to provide them with discipline. Discipline is the path to freedom.

In our house, it got to the point where I was at my wit’s end. I couldn’t focus anymore. If you have kids, you know that they know exactly what they’re doing. I don’t care how young they are, they know how to manipulate us every day.

• If you have children at home, how could discipline improve your life? What would it look like to instill discipline into your children’s lives?
• How will you explain your expectations to your children?

Begin with the End in Mind

To put an end to our chaotic mornings, I took the advice Stephen Covey shares in his book 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Habit no. 2 is to begin with the end in mind.

I asked myself, “What would a perfect morning look like?” To me, a perfect morning would start out with both boys waking up to an alarm, getting up and getting dressed, and brushing their hair and teeth on their own. This was certainly doable for our six-year-old son, and for the three-year-old, we would just expect him to do these things to the best of his ability. Ideally, both boys would come downstairs fully ready to leave, except for putting their shoes on. If the only thing I had to focus on was their shoes, it would be easy. And we would leave on time.

My wife and I sat our boys down and told them what we expected of them and why. We explained exactly what they needed to do each morning. We knew they wouldn’t fully understand, or appreciate, this life lesson until years later. But we needed to develop the structure, habits and discipline at that time so our lives wouldn’t be so chaotic.

• What would the ideal morning, or day, look like for you and your family?
• What needs to change before you can achieve that vision?

Motivation Comes After Discipline

The first night, I set the alarm. The next morning, both kids woke up to the alarm. Both kids got up, brushed their teeth and hair, and went downstairs. But, as I expected, they weren’t consistent. When they tried to get away with skipping a step or two, I did not budge.

Our kids go to Catholic school. At that time, our older son wore a uniform to school, but the younger one didn’t have to wear a uniform yet. He loved to change outfits, and that took a lot of time in the morning, so we had to alter his routine a little bit. We began requiring him to lay out his clothes the night before because getting up when the alarm went off was hard enough. It took two or three weeks, but he finally developed the discipline to choose his clothes at night for the next day.

Now, on the weekends, our boys didn’t have to follow these rules. They woke up and lived in a chaotic state. There was nothing they had to do when they woke up on a Saturday or Sunday morning. But Monday through Friday, when we had to be somewhere, we were all ready to go at the same time.

And you know what? It changed our mornings, it changed our lives. It changed everything about the way we felt about each other in the morning. Plus, the morning ride to school was a more joyful experience. They were in a better mood. When they gave us a goodbye kiss or hug, it was genuine. They weren’t carrying the frustration of the chaotic morning into the day.

When they got downstairs, they were ready. And they got iPad time — which, to them, meant freedom. Freedom arrived when discipline was started. When they started their day with discipline, they now received freedom. And that’s where their motivation came from.

Their motivation came after the discipline. The motivation said, “If I do everything Dad says to do in the morning, I’m going to get free time in the morning to watch my show and to eat the breakfast I want.”

Some days were challenging. There were days when one child didn’t feel well. There were times when we had to make some exceptions, but I did not build a structure around exceptions. The discipline that my wife and I instilled in our sons provided them with the motivation for them to have more freedom to succeed.

• How could you gain more freedom by building discipline into your routine, specifically in the most important aspects of your life — love, impact, faith, and energy?
• What practical benefits can you envision for yourself by becoming more disciplined?

Discipline Is an Important Life Lesson, Both at Home and at Work

I know there are moms and dads out there who can relate to this message, but they are scared about providing discipline in any capacity. They think it’s not worth it or that it’s going to be too hard. The thing is, it isn’t hard at all to build discipline into your kids’ routine. What’s hard is not doing it — and dealing with the chaos, day in and day out.

All it takes is your willingness to put in the hard work on the front end to get results on the back end. Teaching your kids to be disciplined is an important life lesson that can impact their capacity for success in all aspects of life. In sports, coaches instill discipline in their players. We can do the same for our children and for our team members. We can develop people into winners by building discipline into their lives.

This works in the professional world, too. I cannot motivate people to be more than they want to be. No matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. I love to be the kind of leader who helps people see the greatness inside themselves. But I can’t motivate them. But what I can do is, I can provide them with structure, resources, guidance and discipline to create the perfect scenario they see in their lives. I can help them build their best lives — starting with the end in mind, just like I did with my kids.

I don’t have it all figured out, I have struggled on many days. If our lives hadn’t been crazy and chaotic when our kids were young, I might not have figured out this solution the way I did. We all struggle. We all face challenges, both in our personal and professional lives. But often, that’s how the best ideas are born — because something isn’t working and we need a solution. As the old saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

• In any scenario, remember that you can turn chaos into order with discipline, and discipline leads to freedom. You can’t have the freedom without the discipline. Without discipline, freedom is an empty promise.
• Execute! Stop worrying about motivation, and start focusing on the discipline that is going to change your life.

In any work environment, you have a mixture of the super-achievers who always go above and beyond, the solid performers you can always count on, those who are meeting expectations, and finally, that group who is disgruntled, disengaged, and doing as little work as possible.

From “quiet quitting” to “grumpy staying”

Researchers like those at Gallup have studied “engagement” in the workplace for decades. Not surprisingly, “disengagement” surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Gallup study found that in the second half of 2022, the ratio of “engaged” to “actively disengaged” employees was 1.8 to 1, the lowest in almost a decade. The proportion of “engaged” workers remained at 32 percent, but the proportion of “actively disengaged” employees rose to 18 percent.

During the pandemic, a growing number of people realized they were not being paid appropriately for their efforts. Many of them decided to put in only the amount of effort they perceived they were being paid for and began doing the bare minimum. Some analysts began using the term “quiet quitting” to describe these newly disengaged workers. They didn’t actually quit their jobs; they just quit giving their best efforts. They do just enough to meet the requirements. In 2022, Gallup estimated that “quiet quitters” made up at least 50 percent of the U.S. workforce.

More recently, analysts say the “quiet quitting” is getting louder and giving way to what they call “grumpy staying.”

• To what extent have you been a quiet quitter in some area of your life? What caused you to stop over-achieving and start doing the bare minimum?
• Looking back on that situation, what might have been a more productive, effective way to handle your dissatisfaction?

Yes, high performers can be quiet quitters

Average is as average does. Since the beginning of time, there have been people who put in only the most basic effort, with zero passion. They’re just going through the motions.

High performers would never be quiet quitters, would they? How is it possible that the term “quiet quitting” could be applied to high performers? How could high performers ever be quietly quitting anything in their lives?

Actually, it happens all the time.

Why? Because they’re overwhelmed. They have too many things on their plates. Every single day, they have to choose what to prioritize and what to put on the back burner, yet they want to accomplish it all. For people who are performing at a high level, things are flying every which way. They are trying to give every aspect of life everything they’ve got.

As a high performer, you make an immense impact on the people and environments around you every day. You constantly bring unbelievable contributions to the table. You are making a difference in the world and driving success, moving everything forward. But are you doing so in every box of your life? As a LIFE Optimization specialist, I believe we make the biggest impact when we focus on LIFE — love, impact, faith and energy — the most critical components of our lives.

• When was the last time you felt overwhelmed about your life? Do you feel overwhelmed right now? If so, what steps can you take to create more balance in your life?
• If you have too much “stuff” on your plate, what can you eliminate? Write down all your responsibilities and priorities. What can you delegate to someone else? What can you change to make something less of a priority?
• Take these steps before you reach crisis mode!

A three-step process to end quiet quitting in your life

There are so many boxes of our lives that are constantly in motion. We can quietly quit one or more of them and not even know it’s happening. But the good news is, we can fix it.

Here are three things you can do to make sure quiet quitting is reserved for everybody else, and not you.

1. Reflect

It’s important to stop and reflect on those four most important aspects of life, which I call the four quadrants — love, impact, faith and energy — to discover areas you might be neglecting.

Think about the people you love. Are you giving them the attention they need? Or are you quietly quitting them? What about the impact you want to make in your community? Are you continuing to devote your time and energy to the causes you care about? Or are you quietly quitting them? What about your faith? Are you nurturing and strengthening your faith every day, or are you quietly quitting it? And what about your energy? Are you taking care of your physical, mental and emotional health? Or have you been so busy with everything else that you’ve stopped taking care of yourself?

Many times, I get lost. Everybody can get lost. Reflection gives you a chance to identify how to get better. We won’t know where we should increase our efforts until we’ve identified where the gaps are, where we might be quiet quitting.

• In what areas of your life are you just killing it right now?
• In what areas of life are you just showing up? Where are you quiet quitting? Who or what are you neglecting, for whatever reason?

2. Prioritize

One you have identified where you are quiet quitting in your life, the next step is prioritization. Identify the area or areas that need your attention, the areas where you are not showing up the way you’d like to. The areas you are neglecting today will become your priorities for the day. And your priorities are always going to be shifting, changing.

• Now that you’ve identified the areas you are neglecting, prioritize how you will provide more focus in those areas.
• Establish a system for yourself that helps you make a habit of prioritizing what’s being neglected in your life.

3. Execute

If there’s one thing high performers excel at, it’s execution. Once you have done reflection to identify which areas of your life are being neglected, and then you prioritize the areas that need your attention, the next step is to execute — take action to make that part of your life a priority.

Thinking about it and talking about it don’t count; you have to make it happen.

For example, let’s say you just returned from work-related travel, which caused you to neglect your family. So your current priority is to spend quality time with your family. What does that look like, in a practical sense? Will you plan a “date night” for your wife and each of your children and do something they each love doing? Will you plan a family outing to a game, festival or other event?

Or maybe you have been so busy outside work that you are quietly quitting a project. Your new priority is to move that project forward. How can you do that? If you can’t get to it right away, maybe you can delegate it to someone else who can execute it.

• What actions will you take to give more focus and attention to the parts of your life you have been neglecting?
• Write these actions down. Make them goals. Commit yourself to them. Delegate them to someone else, where possible. (This probably isn’t possible in the areas of family and faith.)

________

This three-step process is something you need to go through often — at least once a day: reflect, prioritize, execute.

This exercise is going to help you be better today and in the future. And it can actually help you discover your next passion project. Sometimes, shedding the stuff that isn’t working in your life that you have been quietly quitting helps you identify what you really want to do. So this exercise actually helps the good stuff rise to the top.

Let’s stop quietly quitting as high performers. Let’s figure out a way to get better together, let’s reflect, prioritize and execute — both individually and as a team, and let’s work on making quiet quitting something reserved for other people, not us.

Our minds are incredibly powerful. What we think affects our behavior, our actions and our results. If your mindset gets caught up in a loop of negative thinking, it can hold you back from achieving your potential.

It is incredibly frustrating to have your mind hijacked with thoughts like, “The world is not molding to me. The people around me don’t understand me. I’m unseen. No one appreciates what I contribute.”

Negative thoughts like these go hand in hand with the feeling that the people around you don’t understand you, like they aren’t noticing the success you bring to the organization, like nobody sees you the way you should be seen.

This mindset has no place in anyone’s life, especially that of a high performer.

I was caught up in this type of loop years ago, and it affected every aspect of my life in a negative way. So I made a conscious effort to change it. It improved my life exponentially. My confidence and productivity shot upward once I stopped wasting my valuable time and energy on unhealthy, negative thoughts and actions

Self-awareness is the first step in reversing this damaging mindset. Here are four simple steps for achieving this powerful mindset shift.

1. End the blame game

When something goes wrong, it’s easy to point the finger at someone else. That’s not useful. I know people who blame everything wrong in their lives on how they grew up. They assume their lives have been harder than other people’s, and they complain about how life never gives them a break.

We’ve all had both negative and positive experiences. We could dwell on the bad ones all day, but that’s not productive, and it stifles our creativity and confidence. The truth is, in many cases, our own poor choices are responsible for our tough times. This is hard to accept, but taking responsibility for our lives is the hallmark of a mature, high-performing individual.

Stop making yourself the victim. When you see yourself as a victim, you blame everybody else for whatever is wrong in your life. You see them as the problem when, in reality, you are the problem. You will be victorious when you change that mindset.

• When things go wrong, are you more likely to blame yourself or others? If you tend to blame something or someone else, commit to changing that dynamic. Notice when you begin assigning blame, and make a conscious effort to accept responsibility for it. Then take the actions required to turn the situation around.
• Think of a situation in your life that has caused you pain. Even if you could assign blame to someone else, what aspect of that situation might you have created, whether consciously or not? Was it a choice you made that ended up having negative consequences? Assess the situations in your life this way. See if you can discover a pattern of choices you’ve made in the past that you can avoid in the future.

2. Change your focus from “I” to “you” and “us”

One of the most common causes of frustration is when people expect the world to mold to them and their needs and wants. That mentality is weak. It’s wrong. It only gets you so far. In fact, it keeps you empty, dishonest, uncomfortable and always lost. That’s not who we want to be.

When I first went into business, I felt like I was lying on my back, punching upward at the world. Everybody was just getting in my way, and I needed to show them how great I could be.

I once took a leadership development course. I delivered what I thought was a great presentation. However, the instructors didn’t share my assessment! In fact, I became somewhat of an example of what not to do — I used the word “I” so many times that they actually counted the instances of “I” in my presentation! That annoyed me. I thought, “Well, why didn’t they tell me the rules?”

That was an early lesson for me on the importance of changing my focus from “I” and “me” to “you,” “us” and “we.”

When I choose to focus on you instead of on me, everything in my life gets better. When I’m lying down on the ground punching upward, I can’t be walking hand in hand with somebody, accomplishing the goal at hand together. It means I’m alone. It means I’m blaming everybody else. It’s a defensive position — everything is coming down at me, and I’m constantly fighting, resisting. But when I focus on others, I can lift them up.

It’s an extremely powerful concept, even though it requires just a simple shift in your brain. Now, the change wasn’t immediate for me, and it won’t be for you, either. It doesn’t happen overnight.

• Assess yourself honestly. Do you tend to focus more on “I” and “me” than on “us” and “we”? If so, leverage this awareness into action. Notice when you do this, and make the conscious choice to shift your focus off yourself and onto others.
• To make this fundamental shift in your mindset, you first have to be aware of it. It’s a frequency that you tune in to daily. And then you have to make a conscious choice to change your self-talk and the way you interact with others. This requires transforming a negative habit into a positive one, and it takes time and repetition.

3. Change the way you talk to yourself and others

A significant part of my mindset shift involved changing my self-talk. Then I had to shift the way I interacted with, and talked to, others. I stopped being defensive and saying or thinking things like, “I’m not going to ever do that” “and “I don’t do this” or “I won’t do that.” Now that language sounds more like, “It’s not my preference to do that, but how can we work this out? What do you think we could do together to make this better?”

Any challenge is so much easier if we work through it together. Now I view other people not as obstacles to my own progress but rather as people who are trying to help me.

Words are extremely powerful, both when you say them and when someone else says them. And your inner thoughts are just as powerful as the words you say out loud. So I changed both my self-talk and the way I communicate with other people.

• Begin paying close attention to the way you talk to yourself. Do you tend to use negative self-talk? Each time you notice it, stop — and change the self-talk to a more positive tone.
• Think of an example of negative self-talk you used recently. What was the situation? Why did you criticize yourself? What can you say to yourself in similar situations in the future that is more positive?
• To what extent could positive self-talk improve your confidence and your ability to function more optimally?

4. Choose not to be offended

There are times when other people are far from helpful and pleasant to us. People can be really ugly sometimes. But in those situations — just like in any life situation — we have a choice about the way we respond. In the end, there’s nothing to be gained from returning an insult or escalating an already tense situation. The best reaction is to simply choose not to be offended. This mindset shift also takes time, and you can adopt this outlook only after you have abandoned the victim mentality.

If someone walks up to me and says, “Nice hair,” I can get angry that they’re making fun of my baldness, but where will that get me? I choose not to be offended, even if the person’s intent was to offend me. So I can simply respond by saying, “Thank you” or ignoring the comment.

Sometimes, people say something neutral, not intending to offend us at all, but because we have such a negative mindset, we interpret the comment as an insult. They are choosing to receive the comment as an insult. Again, turning this around requires a keen awareness and a conscious change in your mindset. Notice what’s happening, and then choose a neutral reaction. The choice in how to react is always yours.

Life gets easier when you let perceived, or even actual, slights roll off your back. And when you refuse to let these things rattle you, people can’t take you down anymore. The truth is, most people aren’t there to take you down in the first place. If they’re not against you, they’re with you. And if they are against you, you will be much better off just choosing not to let them get to you. Conduct yourself with self-confidence. Communicate with them using “you” and “we.” And if they continue to try to walk all over you and it’s real, step outside of it and move on. Walking away isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength. You are choosing to rise above it.

When you take the high road, you are going inward and choosing to empower yourself. You are choosing to focus on your unique abilities and to help others focus on theirs.

• Think of a time when someone said something that sounded like an insult to you. How did you react? Now that you are aware of the importance of shifting your mindset, how might you react in a similar situation in the future?
• Have you ever perceived something that someone said to you as an insult, only to find out later that the person didn’t mean to insult you at all? Do some self-exploration. Why do you think you chose to perceive the comment as an insult? How could shifting your mindset improve your outlook and the way you interact with others?

________

Once you achieve this tectonic mindset shift, you will grow exponentially, both personally and professionally. You will be on your path to becoming the best version of yourself, you will be able to become the person you are meant to be. You will be better able to truly reach your human potential, you will no longer worry about what others think of you. You will be focused on the people around you and your team’s collective success.

A new mind-shift will lead to new (better) results.

As a LIFE Optimization specialist, I am deeply committed to living life in a way that honors and strengthens what I believe are the four most important aspects of our lives: love, impact, faith and energy. Shifting your mindset from others to you, and from blame to personal responsibility, is one powerful way to accomplish that.

Although this starts as a mental shift, it becomes a physical and spiritual shift as well. All aspects of your life become aligned. They all start to center on other people, on servant leadership, not on serving ourselves. What a powerful shift this is! What an unbelievable change it makes in your life!

How would that change your life? What would that do for you? How would that put you in a position where you could be a better version of yourself for your family, for your team and for the world? For whomever you’re serving? You will go from empty to fulfilled. You will feel like you have more to give the world because you’ll have more energy. You’ll feel better about yourself. Words from another person will no longer pierce you. If they do, you have to remind yourself that you’re better than that. Over time, you will become more resilient and confident.

This mindset shift has been life-changing for me, and I hope it can be for you, too.

Everybody in the world wants to have better relationships. You are likely no different — you want a better relationship with your family, your partner, your business colleagues, and everyone else. Strong, healthy relationships are the key to everything we want to accomplish. But how do we get better at nurturing our relationships?

I believe there are four golden rules of relationships. Adopt these strategies, and watch your relationships deepen and grow!

1. Love who you are first

The first golden rule of relationships is to love yourself. It is impossible to be the best version of yourself, and to connect meaningfully with others, if you don’t love who you are. You must first become comfortable with who you are. That often means we have to take a close look at ourselves and then do away with some bad habits and adopt some healthy habits.

We often hear psychologists say that it’s difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with a significant other if we don’t love ourselves first. I believe this is true. If you don’t love yourself, you cannot be the partner you should be. Why? Because nothing the other person ever does will be enough for you. You will always be unsatisfied, regardless of what the other person does for you, because you are unhappy in general.

But when you love who you are, your confidence attracts other people. That confidence also makes it easier to navigate the ups and downs of a close relationship.

It’s the same with any business relationship. If you don’t have confidence in who you are and what you bring to the table, you will inevitably think someone across from the table is either better than you or inferior to you. That will prevent you from building a successful, mutually beneficial business relationship.

• To what extent do you love yourself and have confidence in yourself? If you want to improve in this area, what steps will you take to boost your self-image and confidence?
• Take a close look at the people around you. Whom do you need to separate yourself from? What do you need to do more of? Less of?
• With your renewed confidence, you won’t become mortally wounded when someone makes a suggestion to you. You will welcome feedback and new ideas. And, as a result, you will grow, both personally and professionally.

2. Give more, take less

A lot of people struggle in relationships because they are focused on what they are going to get out of it. They surround themselves with people who can give them what they want and need, without ever considering what those other people might want or need. It’s all about them. If you know people like this, you probably aren’t inclined to spend much time around them.

I strongly believe that the more you give, the more you get. If you go into relationships with a giving mentality, that mindset of abundance will end up benefiting not just others, but also you. When you help people, most of them will want to help you in return. (Those who do not feel compelled to return your kindness with kindness are those people who are focused on taking. Simply avoid those people!)

This is true in personal as well as professional relationships. When you give the best of yourself, your personal value will increase, and you will attract more goodness into your life.

In his book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, Gary Chapman advises that if you are not getting what you want out of a marriage or other relationship, take a look at yourself and find out are you giving the other person what he or she needs. Most of the time, we are not focused on giving to others the way we could. We tend to get so wrapped up in getting what we want and need that we forget to give.

Chapman further advises that we discover the way the people who are important to us like to receive from us. He identifies five important love languages as gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service and quality time.

• Focus on giving more and taking less, and I believe you will experience exponential results.
• What would this look like for you with your significant other? With your family? With your colleagues?
• What is your significant other’s love language? Your children’s? Your colleagues’? And what is your love language? Discuss this concept with the people who are important in your life. Once you all understand one another’s love languages, imagine how much more meaningful your interactions can be.

3. Be authentic

So many people feel compelled to, in both business and personal relationships, present a fake version of themselves — the version they think others want them to be. They’ll go into a business situation or into a potential new relationship pretending to be someone they’re not. That is a strategy destined for disappointment!

Be authentic! Be true to your own values, interests and personality, and you will attract people into your life who will complement your uniqueness. It’s impossible to lay down the foundation of a solid relationship while pretending to be someone else. People can see through fakeness — if not right away, then eventually.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a networking event, and someone will shake my hand and look me in the eye, yet they have no interest in what I’m going to say or what’s going to come up next. Their handshake and eye contact come across to me as fake and inauthentic — an attempt to get my attention so they can try to obtain what they want and need from me.

And I have no interest in getting to know people like that. They’re the same people who walk up and ask, “So, what do you do?” They want to know how they can benefit from being associated with me. They are not attempting to connect with me or tell me about themselves or ask me about myself.

When you present your genuine self to others, you will attract people who are meant to be in your life.

• Have you ever felt the need to present a version of yourself to others that is not authentically you? Why? What are you afraid you will lose by presenting your authentic self to others?
• On the other hand, what can you gain by presenting an authentic version of yourself? Consciously focus on this the next time you meet someone new.

4. Be vulnerable

When we are authentic, it forces us to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is uncomfortable. But it’s only when we get out of our comfort zone that we can perform optimally!

We are all human. We all say the wrong thing sometimes or overstep a boundary, and yes, it’s embarrassing. But when we are vulnerable and human is when others can relate to us the most because, guess what? They’ve done the same things! When you are vulnerable with people, they often become your true friends, your real allies in life.

I am so blessed that my wife has allowed me to fail so many times in our lives. I’m so blessed that I’ve been able to be vulnerable with her and be the true version of myself.

In business, too, we all make mistakes. It’s upsetting when people try to hide their mistakes or blame them on someone else, isn’t it? I always admire the rare leaders who own up to their mistakes, accept responsibility and vow to make things right. That’s leadership. That’s the path to high performance.

Recently I had a conversation along these lines with a longtime friend and client. I said, “Hey, we dropped the ball on that one thing years ago, and I just want to make sure we talk about that.” I apologized to him. He said, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” But I know he appreciated my bringing it up. Looking back now, I wish I had addressed it as soon as it happened.

Being vulnerable extends the value and the foundational structure of true friendships and true love, and it gives us the opportunity to deepen our relationships.

Everybody talks about wanting a deep relationship. But most people just go wide; they don’t go deep. They don’t really know the humans behind the connections. If you want to have deep relationships, if you want to feel more, more fulfilled, you have to give all of yourself — 100 percent of who you are, how you are and what you want to be all the time.

• To what extent are you okay with being vulnerable? If it is uncomfortable for you, try letting your guard down. Be willing to be imperfectly human. Doing so will help you grow, and it will enable you to deepen your relationships.
• If you have been vulnerable with someone and did not get the support and compassion you expected, that can be a sign that the person you were interacting with was not a genuine friend or ally. Be vulnerable to identify who your true allies are.

________

When we love ourselves, give instead of taking and allow ourselves to be authentic and vulnerable with others, we are going to grow. We are going to learn. In fact, the more mistakes we make, the more we learn. We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Failures are the pillars of success!

When you are vulnerable with someone and you fail at something, your relationship will grow and deepen. The strongest relationships come from growing together. Failure increases trust, and relationships built on trust last the longest.

Try abiding by these four golden rules of relationships. I believe they will help you become a better friend, partner and parent — and a better and happier person in general.

Sometimes I just feel lazy. Do you feel that way sometimes? High performers want to feel productive all the time, so we tend to fight that urge to be lazy. Our workaholic American society frowns on laziness, and we never want to get a reputation for being lazy.

Laziness is when you have the tools, energy, and resources to do whatever you want or need to do, but you just don’t feel like doing anything, so you end up just sitting around all day long. That long to-do list is in the back of your mind, but those tasks just don’t feel worth doing.

Now, there are two possibilities here. Sometimes, people really are lazy! They aren’t just taking a breather or stepping back from the busy pace of life to re-energize themselves. Some people really do succumb to laziness, whether for a brief time or longer. But in other cases, laziness is simply a mindset, not a physical reality.

Self-awareness is key here. If you take a close look at what’s happening, chances are, you aren’t being lazy at all. It’s highly likely that you simply need a break from your constant push toward being productive and being all things to everyone around you.

As high performers, we tend to be hard on ourselves. I encourage you to give yourself a break. When you feel unmotivated and need to step back from the hustle and bustle for a while, it’s OK. That’s perfectly normal. That’s your mind and body signaling you that you need to take care of yourself. If you ignore those signals, you could end up burning yourself out.

Devon Price, author of Laziness Does Not Exist, says that often, when we think we’re being lazy, we need to, instead, embrace what our bodies are telling us and accept that it’s OK to relax and be lazy sometimes. Price recommends that we “embrace ideas of solitude and savor the importance of life experiences.”

Rather than a sign of inefficiency and unproductivity, some experts say laziness is often the result of smart work freeing up time for well-deserved idleness. Furthermore, laziness can be the trigger for smart work in and of itself.

Many of my friends are, at one time or another, attempting to lose weight. They pick a goal weight and start eating differently and exercising more. Many of them start working with personal trainers. And every time they get on the scale, if they’re not at that goal weight, they feel defeated. They feel like they’ve failed themselves. They feel uncomfortable and chide themselves for being fat.

This is one of the most common struggles among people in our society. They are constantly striving and constantly beating themselves up for not making more progress. They tell their trainers, “I’m not losing any weight.”

And the trainer says, “Well, muscle weighs more than fat.”

The battle continues, and people make little progress. The longer this goes on, the more they berate themselves. Every time they step on the scale, they are assessing themselves — usually too harshly. The truth is, they are overthinking the reality of the situation and being too self-critical.

It’s the same with perceived laziness. When busy, typically productive high performers take a moment to breathe and relax, many times they are thinking, “I’m lazy.” It’s a negative mindset.

So, how do you solve this tendency to judge yourself too harshly? Here are three strategies that have worked for me.

1. Maintain discipline

Let’s say you aren’t just taking a break from your busy schedule. You have become bona fide lazy! What can you do about it? First, exercise discipline.

If you’ve fallen into the laziness habit, you can get yourself out of it by replacing that negative habit of avoiding your responsibilities with the positive habit of achieving a minimum standard of productivity. Once you exercise discipline enough, over time, it becomes easier to make that positive habit a part of your routine. Building, and maintaining positive habits is a key to sustained success.

I’ll use a vacation as an example. I go on vacation with my family all the time. And during that time away from work, I don’t want to do anything. I just want to take a break. I want to breathe, I want to relax. We just went to Spain. I walked 18,000 to 20,000 steps each day, I walked so much that didn’t need to go to the gym in the morning. I felt good. But there are times when we go to the Caribbean, and I sit around all day on a beautiful beach. I watch the sunrise and the sunset. I have lots of drinks in between, and I fill my belly with food. And I feel lazy all week.

When we get back home and that first Monday comes, I have a choice. Do I go to the gym and keep my regular schedule? Do I discipline myself to keep my workout habit? Or do I continue my vacation mindset and skip the gym?

We all face these choices every day. Sometimes we make the right choice, and sometimes we don’t. Many times, I’ve come back from vacation and told myself, “I’m going to give myself another week off. My body needs it.” So I start making excuses. I get out of the discipline habit, off my schedule and off my normal routine. And I start to get lazy. At that point, laziness becomes real and true to me because now, one week turns into two or three weeks. And before I know it, I’ve lost forward momentum completely, and I’m out of the habit of taking care of myself. Now I’ve actually defeated myself in a way that I never intended — all because I didn’t keep the discipline.

We have to stop and ask ourselves, “Am I really being lazy here, or do I just need a breather? Am I taking a couple of hours to regroup, or am I in day ten of doing absolutely nothing?” That’s the self-assessment, the evaluation.

• When was the last time you felt like doing nothing? How long did you allow yourself to step back and take a break?
• Have you ever succumbed to actual laziness? How do you tell the difference? What have you done to get back on track? What type of discipline do you engage in to resume your high level of productivity?

2. Reboot

You use your phone all the time, and sometimes it gets overwhelmed. You have too many screens open, too many pages, too many texts. Everything’s coming in, and the phone just freezes because it can’t do anymore. It needs to be rebooted or reset. Every computer has a moment where it needs to be rebooted.

We’re the same way. We become overwhelmed. To resume our full strength again, we have to reboot.

A reboot can mean taking a moment, a brief pause, to reprioritize your tasks, figure out what can wait and what can’t, delegate something to someone else, and figure out what you need at that moment to regain your strength and momentum. Or a reboot can be an entire day off to recenter yourself. You are the only one who knows what type of reboot you need at any given time.

Regardless of how brief or extended your reboot is, you will feel better. Once you regroup and reassess, discipline becomes easier. Your stress subsides. When you’re in a rut, you cannot get out of it by continuing to step on the gas. You have to stop, reassess and determine your next best step.

• How often do you reboot? Do you tend to take brief moments throughout the day to regain your energy and focus, or do you find more benefit in scheduling a vacation?
• When your stress level increases, what do you do to relieve it? What can you do more of to ease your stress?
• Do you tend to judge yourself harshly when you take a much-needed break? I encourage you to avoid that. Know that taking a breather is an important part of your self-care.

3. Look at your life from the 30,000-foot view

As high performers, we get so involved and so busy that we often lose sight of the big picture. When that happens, we have to step back and look at the 30,000-foot view. The treetop view. The bird’s-eye view. This is really important as leaders. If we get too deep into the weeds, we can lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish overall.

When you step back and look at the 30,000-foot view, not only are you prioritizing what’s most important at that moment; you’re also evaluating what’s to come in the future. This is incredibly important to staying agile and being prepared to react to the changes that happen in our environment when we least expect them.

The 30,000-foot view clarifies what you need to be focusing on.

As a LIFE Optimization specialist, I always encourage high performers to focus on LIFE — love, impact, faith and energy. We all can make a greater impact when we focus on these four critical components of our lives. We can become lazy in all these areas, without even realizing it. When I am evaluating those four parts of life, I often realize that I’m being lazy in one area and overactive and another. When I step back and look at that 30,000-foot view, It helps me prioritize what needs to come next.

• When you look at the four most important components of your LIFE (love, impact, faith and energy) right now, which area is somewhat neglected? What can you do to place more focus on that part of your life?
• Look at your life from the 30,000-foot view. What do you see that you could not see when you were focused on the minutiae, the details? What needs to change?

If it’s a sprint, then I prepare myself for the sprint — a brief but intense effort. And in that case, maybe I don’t need to shake up too many things. But if what’s coming next is a marathon, then I need to prepare for that. If I’m going to travel for work for a couple of weeks, I know I need to spend some time with my family and get them ready for my being gone. So I need to invest more time and effort in the people I love most.

Taking the 30,000-foot view allows you to see things more clearly — and it helps you shake the laziness out of your life.

________

Give yourself grace. Know that it’s OK to take some breaks. Just don’t let them become the norm. You know you’re better than that, and you have the tools to succeed at the level you want.

If you follow these three simple strategies, you will never feel lazy again!

High performers are always striving, always trying to achieve even more. If you’re a high performer, it’s likely that you have looked at yourself and said, “This is not where I want to be. This is not who I am, this is not what I want to look like, this is not the me I see in my brain.” And then you begin to feel anxious, frustrated and uncomfortable with your lack of current success.

When I was in high school, I remember begging my mom to let me go to France with my French class. I wanted to travel and see the world so badly. I thought that if my mom just knew more about the trip, she would agree to let me go — and also agree to be a chaperone on the trip. We were in the car when I brought it up to her. She replied, “It sounds like a great trip. I can definitely see how fun it would be.”

I have had that feeling many times. But I discovered a simple way to leverage those negative thoughts into positivity, discipline and forward progress. It’s all about having a winner’s mindset. I like to refer to it as how I “brainwashed” myself into being successful. So, what does that mean?

Years ago, I was focusing on what I didn’t want in life. As a younger person, I did not want to grow up poor. But at the same time, I didn’t want to have to ride my bike or the bus to work. I didn’t want to have to beg people to help me out or to lean on people constantly. Yet I didn’t have enough opportunities or resources to achieve what I wanted. I knew that wasn’t the way I wanted to go through life, so I turned it around — simply by turning negative thoughts into positive ones.

Here are four steps you can follow to flip a negative mindset into a positive one — and brainwash yourself into being successful.

1. Recognize what you don’t want in life to discover what you do want

To reconcile that gap, I had to stop my negative loop of thinking and start focusing instead of what I did want in life.

Excited about her apparent interest, I said, “Mom, you could be a chaperone. You took French, and you love it.”

I was in a dream world, imagining the two of us in France, experiencing a vastly different culture, eating sophisticated cuisine, meeting worldly Europeans and having something to compare everyday life to, far away from home. Mom let me stay in the dream world for a minute. And then she said, “But you know we can’t do that.”

I don’t remember what she said after that. I just remember feeling completely deflated. Suddenly, I felt like I had no options. I saw my classmates getting ready to go on the trip, so why couldn’t I be doing the same? An overwhelming feeling of helplessness and hopelessness consumed me.

I wasn’t able to go on the trip, but deep down in my soul, I resolved never to feel that way again. I told myself that the next time I had an opportunity, I would do whatever it took to make it happen. 

If we stay in a negative mindset, feeling sorry for ourselves and lamenting our bad fortune, it can cause us to spiral downward. It can be difficult to turn that negative loop around.

But the great news is that we can use those feelings of hopelessness to propel ourselves forward. All that’s required is simply to recognize how you’re feeling and then leverage the power of that negative emotion to propel yourself beyond it. This is a hallmark of high performers — they transform disappointment into a personal mission and goal to achieve the optimum outcome. This is why people who fail are the pillars of success — they transform their desire to avoid failing again into superhuman, successful attempts to achieve their dreams.

After that, I used my disappointment to drive myself to success. I discovered that I could tap into that negativity and then be purposeful about flipping the script. I used my unpleasant vision of what I didn’t want to get a clearer picture of what I did want in life.

Once I became a husband and father, what I didn’t want was to have to tell my kids they didn’t have options. I didn’t want my kids to have to beg their friends’ parents to go with them on soccer trips and then have to sleep on the floor in the hotel room. I didn’t want my kids to feel that sense of disappointment I had felt as a teenager, worried that the world would pass me by because I didn’t have the means to go out and seize opportunities.

Transforming that negativity into a determination to succeed has driven me to become who I am today.

2. Visualize a negative outcome, and then reframe it as a positive outcome

Self-awareness is important for this step. It is critical for us to be hyper-conscious, especially in the face of adversity. Just visualize the negative outcome you do not want, and then flip the script that’s playing in your mind to focus on what you do want. Here are some examples:

Transform this negative thought:                                    Into this positive thought:

“I’m going to have to miss this trip to France.”        “I will do whatever it takes to go on this trip.”

“I can’t afford to send my kids to camp.”                 “I will start a side hustle so they can go.”

“I’m stuck in this dead-end job forever.”                  “I will further my education and obtain certifications so I can get a promotion or a new job.”

Negative thoughts are powerful and debilitating. If we allow them to continue, we can feel like we’re drowning, like we can’t breathe.

• Constantly assess your mindset. The moment you realize you are caught in a loop of negative thinking, consciously transform that negative thought into a positive thought.

3. Adopt an abundance mindset

In his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey says one of the character traits essential to “Win/Win” is having an abundance mentality — the belief that there is plenty out there for everybody. In contrast, a scarcity mentality is the belief that if one person wins, another person has to lose. This is an important mindset difference. If you believe there is enough out there for everyone, you will believe you can win without diminishing someone else’s ability to win.

• Allow your negative thoughts to fuel your drive to succeed.
• It’s human nature to default to a scarcity mindset at times. Use that scarcity mindset to fuel a transformation to an abundance mindset.

4. Discipline yourself to take the steps needed to achieve success

Once you know what you want, figure out what steps you need to take to get there, and equip yourself with the discipline to follow through. Become disciplined about building good habits.

When I was starting out in my business, I had to knock on doors and make cold calls — miserable! What a challenging way to make a living. But I wanted to succeed in the business, so I developed discipline and created habits out of the steps I needed to succeed. Every day, I created a game out of it. I took the negative mindset of hating the process and not wanting to do it every day and then turned my focus to the rewards I would receive at the end of the day, week, month, quarter, etc. I knew I had to succeed at those beginning steps of the business before I could rise above them.

I focused on the sense of accomplishment I would feel and a fun reward I could give myself. I knew what I didn’t want, and I knew the result I was aiming for. But it took discipline and habits, and even gamifying the process well before gamification apps became prevalent. I was doing my own low-tech version of gamification. It really helped me through the worst moments. I was using negativity to brainwash myself into getting through them. The negativity was driving me to move far past what I didn’t want in my life.

I would tell myself, “I am not my thoughts. I do not have to stay trapped in this negative thought process. What I am doing today is not what I will be doing forever. I am doing what I need to do to get to the next step.”

The lessons we learn on this journey toward achieving our desired outcome will help us rise to the next level. We have to learn them before we can progress to the next level.

Negativity is a cancer in your mind, eating away your ability to function. I can’t stand that, so I constantly reminded myself, “You are not the role you’re in now. You are not the income level you have now.” I still do this today. I consciously switch negativity to positivity and pessimism to optimism.

• The steps it takes you to move from Point A to Point B are typically different than the steps you’ll need to take to move from Point B to Point C, and so on. Identify the steps you need to take to achieve your desired outcome, and encourage yourself to keep moving. Remind yourself that your current station in life is temporary.
• Fuel your transformation from negative to positive thoughts by reminding yourself that you are not what you are thinking. Do not allow yourself to get lost in that that negative loop. Don’t get dragged under by letting negative thoughts rob you of your future joy.
• As you work your way toward your desired outcome, remind yourself, “I might not be there yet, but I will be soon. I am where I need to be right now. I am taking the steps needed to achieve my desired outcome.” That will restore your hope and optimism.
• If you don’t like where you are headed, change it today — simply by changing the way you think.

If you are struggling with negative thoughts, I understand. I empathize. I’ve been there. And I assure you that, simply by flipping your negative thoughts into positive ones, you can change your outlook and your outcome!