Get Insanely Good at Key Skills

Foreign hey, my friend. It's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to a special episode of the Brendan show. In this episode, I'm going to play for you a section of the audiobook of my book high performance habits. How extraordinary people become that way. And I'm going to play for you a practice that will ultimately help you become a higher performer in anything that you're doing, whether it's related to your health or your career or other positive life outcomes. This is a practice that will really serve you. And I'm going to be releasing a series of these so that you can get a taste of the book. But also whether you have the book or you don't have the book, you can put these practices into your life to develop the habits that matter the most. That's ultimately what my book is about. Has become so well known for high performance habits is the result and the findings of the world's largest study of high performers ever done. Over 190 countries reporting in over 2 million data points an unbelievable amount of research over a three year period with me and academic research teams to find the strongest correlations we could of which habits led to long term success. And they were also healthy, they were also happy, they also had positive relationships. And that's the magic of it. All right? High performance isn't just about getting ahead for achievement's sake. It's ultimately about a distinction of a new way to strive so that you do reach the next level of success. But this time you do it more sane, healthier, more happier and you enjoy the process. You can succeed long term. That is what this book is about. It tells you exactly which habit make the most difference. And we break it down, each habit into three different practices. Now, this audio excerpt today for you is one of those practices. And please just listen, follow the prompts, put this either mindset or philosophy or tactic into your life and you'll see a total change. So I'll be releasing a series of these for you in upcoming weeks and months right here on the Brendon show. And tell you what, if you like this, you're welcome to go get the audiobook on audible or anywhere else where you download your audio books and you know, it's whatever it is, 1216 bucks for that. Or if you want the deluxe audiobook version which comes with additional training, additional interviews and an online course along with it. If you want that, you can actually get it for free when you order a hard copy book from us@Brendon.com habits. So just listen to the practice. If it resonates with you, put it into play. If not, no worries. Keep listening to Brendan show you'll find something that's useful. But if it really resonates, go to brendon.com habits and get your copy of the book from that site so that we can give you the free deluxe audio edition of the audiobook. I think you're really going to enjoy this and as always I want to thank you all for supporting my message. I deeply believe that as each of us develops deeper motivation and starts practicing these high performance habits, not only can we change our life, not only can we reach longer term success and be less stressed and crazy and enjoy the process this time, but we can change the world. The right habits changes your world, ultimately changes other people's world. Without further ado, please enjoy this excerpt of high performance habits. How extraordinary people become that way.

Practice three Get Insanely Good at Key Skills I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line. Andrew Carnegie to become more productive, become more competent, you have to master the primary skills needed to win in your primary fields of interest. Mastery of key skills has long been associated with better productivity and performance at both macro and individual levels. Increased skill is often the goal of educational and economic policy because it tends to promote increased economic growth. Skill is also considered the silver bullet for individual workers since those with deeper skills typically earn higher incomes and experience greater work satisfaction. That's not always the case though. Skilled workers are sometimes undermined by bad strategy, leadership, job design, or human resource practices. We all know someone who had a lot of skills but wasn't given a chance at work. One thing is certain, not having the requisite skills to reach success in your field is a serious deficit. Without greater skill acquisition, there's no progress in your career. So it's essential that you identify the major skills you need to develop so you can win today and and in the future. When we say skill, we often mean a broad range of knowledge and capabilities that allow you to perform adequately in any given area. General skills might include communication, problem solving, systems thinking, project management, teamwork, and conflict management. There are also specific skills for any given task or company, such as coding, video production, finance, and computational skills. And of course, the there are personal skills such as self control, resilience, and other forms of emotional intelligence. My goal here is for you to determine the five major skills you need to develop over the next three years to grow into the person you hope to become. One principle lies at the heart of this effort. Everything is trainable. No matter what skill you want to learn. With enough training and practice and intention, you can become more proficient at it. If you don't believe this, your journey to high performance stops here. Perhaps the three best findings of contemporary research tell us that you can get better at practically anything if you keep a growth mindset, the belief that you can improve with effort, focus on your goals with passion and perseverance and practice with excellence. When people say I can't, it's usually code for I'm unwilling to do the long term training and conditioning necessary to achieve that. Remember, everything is trainable. Those three words change my life forever. I know I've shared plenty of examples from my own career. At the risk of making this book overly personal, however, this example is perhaps the number one question I'm always asked about so let's talk about public speaking because so many people fear it 20 years ago, I returned to college after my car accident. I talked with my close friends about the wreck. I shared how I wanted to be a more intentional man so that the next time I faced my life's last questions. Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? I would be happy with the answers. Not everyone cared to hear about my lessons and experience, but some of my friends encouraged me to tell my story to their friends. It's inspiring, they said. Though my friends might have called me extroverted at the time, in my life, in reality, I I was a very private person. I could joke and kid around with the guys. I was fairly comfortable talking to new acquaintances because I wanted to know people and connect and have a good time. But sharing personal matters was another thing. I rarely shared my real thoughts, needs, or dreams with others. About the same time I began studying psychology, philosophy, and self help, I was looking for answers. I wanted to know how to live a better life. As I read more of these topics, I discovered that many of the author's journeys were much like mine. Something had happened to them that inspired them to improve their life, explore how to become a better person, and want to help others on that journey. Reading their stories, I felt more compared to share my own. I also noticed that many of these authors listed lecturer or professional speaker or workshop facilitator and in their bios. These authors tended to be speakers, so I sought out their audiobooks or speeches online. I began to realize that the better they could speak, the better they could impart their message and inspire others to change. And so I decided that mastering the skill of public speaking was a must in my life. Sometimes the desire to serve and to develop the relevant skills to do so outweighs our fears. I got committed and began a process of learning that I call progressive mastery, which quickly changed my life. Whenever you want to master a skill, you have two choices. You can hope to develop that skill with some practice and repetition, or you can ensure that you become world class in that skill through progressive mastery. The concept of progressive mastery is very different from how most people approach skill development. Most people get interested in an idea, try it a few times, and gauge whether they are good at it. If they are not good, they chalk it up to a lack of natural ability or talent. At this point, most quit. And those who carry on think they have to use brute repetition to get better, hoping that simply by doing a thing enough times, they will become proficient and progress. For example, let's imagine you want to get good at swimming. If you're like most people, you'll get some guidance from someone who already knows how to swim. Then you'll start swimming. You'll swim more and more, hoping to increase your stamina and speed. You'll just keep getting in the pool over and over and trying to improve you. Imagine that time in the pool is the secret to becoming a better swimmer. This, it turns out, is one of the least effective ways to master a skill. Repetition rarely leads to high performance, and that's why it's important to understand progressive mastery. These are the steps to progressive mastery. Number one, Determine a skill that you want to master. Number two, Set specific stretch goals on your path to developing that skill. Number three, Attach high levels of emotion and meaning to your journey and your results. Number four, Identify the factors critical to success and develop your strengths in those areas and fix your weaknesses with equal fervor. Number five, Develop visualizations that clearly imagine what success and failure look like. Number six. Schedule challenging practices developed by experts or through careful thought. Number seven, measure your progress and get outside feedback. Number eight, Socialize your learning and efforts by practicing or competing with others. Number nine, Continue setting higher level goals so that you keep improving. Number 10, teach others what you're learning. These 10 principles of progressive mastery are a more nuanced version of what is often called deliberate practice, a term coined by Anders Ericsson. Like deliberate practice, progressive mastery involves getting a coach, challenging yourself beyond your comfort zones, developing mental representations of what success should be, tracking your progress, and fixing your weaknesses. The difference is that progressive mastery places a high emphasis on emotion, socialization and teaching. In other words, you are more strategic and disciplined in how you attach emotion to your journey, enhance your capabilities by training or competing with others, and leverage the extraordinary power of teaching to discover greater insights into your own craft. I find it a more humanistic, social and enjoyable approach to mastering a skill. Let's see how these principles make you a better swimmer much more quickly than mere repetition ever could. Instead of just jumping into the pool once in a while and trying to get better, what if you tried this? Number one. You determined that you specifically wanted to develop your skill as a freestyle swimmer. You decided you weren't going to mess with the backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly. Number two. You set goals for how fast and efficiently you entered the water, swam a lap, executed a turn, finished your last 10 meters. Number three. Before every practice, you reminded yourself why it was so important for you to get better at this, and you talked about your goals with someone who cared about your performance. Maybe your why is to get fitter. Win a swim meet or lap your best friend a few times. Number four. You determined that a critical factor to success was your ability to work your hips efficiently in the water and that your major weakness was a lack of finishing stamina. Number five. Every night you visualize the perfect race, imagining in detail how you would move through the water, kick off the turn, power through fatigue, go for it in the last few strokes. Number six. You worked with an expert swim coach who could give you regular feedback and who helped you design harder and harder practices to reach higher and higher goals. Number seven. You measured your progress in a journal every time you swam and reviewed the journal looking for insights on your performance. Number eight. You consistently swam with people you really enjoyed swimming with, and you entered competitions so that you could face better swimmers than you. 9. After every swim session, you set higher goals for the next session. Number 10. Once per week you formally mentored another swimmer on your team or taught a swim class at the local community center. Can you see how this approach would lead to much better results than just hopping into a pool and trying to get better? Even if you spent exactly the same number of hours in the pool, these principles would help you outperform mindless repetition. This is the same approach I devised for myself when I decided I wanted to become a master level public speaker. I thought, well, I can just start trying to give more speeches and hope I get better, or I can approach the process with real emotion and excellence. Choosing to focus on progressive mastery is one of the greatest decisions of my life. I Simply followed the 10 steps I told you about. The most effective principles for me were 2, 3, and 10. I set a goal to use fewer and fewer notes every time I gave a speech. For example, when I gave my first speech in college, I had the entire thing written out and I basically read it. The next time I gave a speech, I paired the notes down to one page, then half a page of bullets, then just five bullets of sentences, then just five words on a note card. By the time I finished college, I was giving full presentations without any notes. That was setting specific stretch goals on your path to developing the skill. This doesn't mean I was a marvel the first time I was ever paid to speak at a sorority on the topic of relationships. I threw up just before, but I suppose that's because I cared enough to worry about how well I would do. That means I allowed myself to attach high levels of emotion and meaning to my journey and results. When I messed up, I allowed myself to get energized and mad at myself without becoming discouraged. I kept reminding myself how important it was to improve so that I could inspire people with my words. I watched such great orators as Martin Luther King, Jr. John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill and read hundreds of transcripts from what many consider the greatest speeches in history. Principle 10 teach others what you are learning was also a huge factor in my development. In graduate school, I was fortunate to teach a public speaking course for two semesters. Looking back now, I had no idea what I was doing as a teacher, but every day I faced the task with an earnest devotion to helping my students become better, better communicators. I shared with them what I learned, but the reality is they taught me more than I ever taught them. In teaching others, I felt their pain and rejoiced in their breakthroughs. By watching them, I learned what I call vicarious distinctions, which helped me improve my own skills. With the full 10 step progressive mastery habit in place, everything changed for me in just a few years. I went from a kid terrified of public speaking to a confident orator addressing audiences without notes. I teach four and five day seminars with thousands of attendees where I'm often the only trainer on stage for eight to ten hours per day. I've been blessed to share the stage with many of my heroes and with leaders and luminaries from dozens of fields in arenas full of tens of thousands of people. Though I was once painfully awkward in front of a camera, I've faced that dark lens without hesitation over and over again. Since filming more than a dozen online courses and untold numbers of videos, I'm still a long way from where I want to be. I have much to learn. And I love this process of challenging myself to new levels, even though it means taking a hard look at all the places I fall short. But because of progressive mastery, I am no longer scared or an amateur. Had I just tried to be a better speaker without a disciplined approach, I would never have excelled and been blessed to reach so many people. I've used progressive mastery techniques to help Olympians improve their times, NBA stars to hit more jump shots, CEOs set better strategy, and parents organize their schedules more efficiently. There's nothing in your life you can't improve through practicing progressive mastery. You certainly don't have to take on every new skill with such a strategic and disciplined approach. Sometimes it's difficult to find a coach or mentor who can give you the feedback you need. Perhaps you don't have a lot of opportunities to teach others what you're learning. It's hard sometimes to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zones and working so hard to improve. But what if. What if you brought a more thoughtful structure to your next efforts in developing skill? What if you could become world class in your primary field of interest? What if you could create more prolific quality output because you honed your skills?

What if you powered through your five.

Moves faster because you were competent and capable? What if today, right here, you decided to seek that next level of momentum and mastery in your life? Performance prompts on page 213 of high performance habits number one, three skills I could develop that would help me feel more confident and capable are number two. The simple steps I could take to improve those skills include. Number three, the coaches or mentors I could seek out concerning those skills are.

Okay my friend. I hope you enjoyed that audio excerpt of my book High Performance Habits How Extraordinary People Become that Way Again. If you really enjoyed that and you like the deluxe audiobook version for free, go to brendon.com habits get the book through that site and we'll go ahead and give you the deluxe audiobook version of the entire book for free at no cost. As my thanks for ordering through our website, I want to thank you as well for supporting my message. You know, we've really started this worldwide performance conversation. We've got dozens of companies and major organizations who have bought the book in bulk, who are sharing it with their teams and employers, employees who are sending their people through our assessments, who are getting all the tools that we built around this book. We're changing the conversation about performance in major organizations and small businesses around the world. And if you'd like to support that, just pick Up a copy of the book, get some amazing results, tell us your story and we'll try to get out there the best way that we can. It's an honor to serve each and every one of you. I began this journey to decoding what it really takes to become a high performer. Now, gosh, 20 years ago in my life, having it all come together in these set of practices in high performance habits has been quite the journey. The last 10 years of my life being a high performance coach and then this last three years of academic research to prove it all out, at least to find what the data suggests and leads us to in terms of the strongest correlations. I know you're going to love this book. So for those who already got it, thank you. Keep sharing the message because if you post on social media highperformancehabits of you listening to this episode or reading the book every single day and week, we are still out there giving away all expense paid trips, giving away swag t shirts, cups holders, free online courses. It's my students, we're celebrating you. So just go post on social media, tell us what you thought of this episode and just again, use highperformancehabits and the Brendan show so that we know you listen to us on the brendon show and we'll go ahead and try to find you and give you some free gifts. We can't do it for everybody but we're out there consistently doing it and I mean, I've already given away, I don't know, 50 to $100,000 worth of stuff just this month already. So it's been pretty active and I thank you all, all of who've made this the best stellar all of our students who supported the message, all of our students who've committed to their continued education, their personal growth. I'm honored to be on that path with you. So thank you again for supporting the brendon show. Thank you for supporting high performance habits. I look forward to seeing you out on the road someday.

Until then, remember, you can change your.

Habits and change your life. If you're going to practice any new habits, practice the ones in high performance habits and as always, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference. Today.