Making Success a MUST

Foreign hey, everybody, it's brendon Burchard. And welcome back to another episode of the brendon show. Hey, it's Brendon. And this is a special episode of the brendon show because I'm going to teach you a concept that is so important to your high performance, which is your ability to succeed over the long, long term. It's one topic. It's one concept. And it kind of blew my mind. I mean, you know, I've been teaching personal professional development for 20 years of my life. I mean, 10 years full time teaching about high performance. So I kind of know a lot about it. But we conducted the world's largest study of high performers and I learned one new concept. I didn't know how important it was. And this concept is called raising your psychological necessity. Big fancy phrase. Let me tell you what it means and why it's so important for you to be basically awesome in everything that you do. Okay, I'll give you a story about it. To explain the concept. I was working with this gold medalist olympic sprinter. So this person is just absolutely elite at what they do. And we were out on the track and the person was kind of getting ready for their warmup and everything. And we're just talking about competition like, you know, the competitors. And a sprinter isn't a sport where, you know, the difference between first and second place might be a tenth of a second or a hundredth of a second. It's really close. So I said, you know, when you're thinking about your competition, how do you even know who's going to win? I mean, when you go down to the blocks and you put your hands down, your foot in the block, you're getting ready to go. You're waiting for that gun to go off and you're looking across the other people or thinking about the other people. How do you know who's going to win that race? And he says, I'm going to bet on the person who looks at the finish line and says, I'm going to do this for my mom. And I was like, wow. And that kind of explains the concept of performance necessity. Performance necessity is using your mind and priming your mind in a way that makes you doing a good job in that specific activity a must and not a preference. There's a lot of things that people would like to do or want to do, but they don't do it because the psychological necessity is not there. Meaning it's not necessary for, for them to perform well. It's not necessary for them to Excel or to win there. So they don't. But what I found in this huge study was that high performers like to a T, they all kind of psych themselves up going into the major activities. If they're walking into work that day, they're gonna go, I'm gonna crush it today. And then they say things to themselves with their self talk that make them crush it that day. I know that sounds like common sense, but here, here. One, it's not always common practice. And two, there's distinctions that can help you that we learn from high performers. I talk all about it in my book High Performance Habits. How extraordinary people become that way. It's out right now and I want to tell you right now here the distinctions that make the difference. Like how do you develop that kind of psychological necessity? Because lots of, I mean, maybe one time you thought I want to lose some weight, but you didn't because it wasn't a must. How do we get you to that must category where your performance is so important, like whether that's you becoming a great dad or a great mom, or it's you crushing it in the next meeting, or you doing the sales video just right, or you're doing really your photo shoot and you show up in your best amazing energy. Like whatever you're trying to do, how do you do it with exceptional excellence. What we call high performance. Because what we know about high performers is they're able to achieve long term success more than other people. And one of the primary reasons is psychological necessity. So let me tell you, how do you develop it? There's four things about psychological necessity. Number one, the reason it's a must and not a preference for them is because high performers have kind of allowed themselves to associate their identity with doing well in that specific thing. And that's scary for most people. We don't want to put our hearts and our minds, our identity on all in to something because what if we do bad? You know, if you want to be a poker player and you say, I'm a poker player and I'm being a world class poker player and you lose a bunch of games, there's a lot of psychological risk there, right? Most people never go all in with their identity to something because it's scary. You know, I remember when I became an author. I mean, putting a book out can be terrifying. When I say to people, they say, what do you do, Brendan? I say, I'm a writer and I'm a trainer. I remember the day that I owned that. I'm a writer. I Mean, I literally remember the day I owned it. Like, this is who I am and what I do. So now imagine when I go to launch a book, if that book, you know, didn't do as well as I wanted, how bad I could feel. I mean, so there's risk there, right? But that's the risk that high performers take. They're allowing themselves to associate their identity with doing well in that specific area. Like I was saying, I'm going to become a great writer one day. I will do the research, I will write lots of different styles. So if you ever read in my books, they're all different life's golden tickets. Different than motivational manifesto, different than the charge, different than high performance habits. I'm doing that as a writer because I'm trying to get better. I'm willing to say I'm a writer. I'm going to become excellent at it. And that's why it's important for me to write well. You see, if your identity says you're an amazing mom, you treat your kids differently than if you don't think about how you are as a mom, right? If you're gonna go into that meeting, I've got two guys going in the meeting, and one says, I'm going to be present and deliver just exceptional in this meeting. And another dude just kind of strolls in from Starbucks, you know, I'm gonna bet on the guy who goes in with high intention for being exceptional. There's. So you have to say that. You have to allow yourself to say, I'm going to deliver here with excellence. It's important to who I am as a person. When I interviewed these high performers from around the world in these structured, deep psychological interviews, here's what was amazing almost to a T. Every single one of them, every single one of them allowed themselves that association of their identity. Most of the general public, they don't do that. Underperformers never do. It's too much risk, right? They might get disappointed. So I'm just here. If you want to be exceptional at what you're doing, you need to adopt the identity that says it is important to who I am to do well here. And here's what high performers also do. They not only say, it's important to who I am to do well here because it's part of their identity. When I talked with them in the interviews, they all said, I can't imagine doing anything else. They all said it. This, this is my thing. I love this thing. It's who I am, Brendan, to do this, that's why they're succeeding at. It's who they are to do it. If it's who you are to do it, then you don't have to force it. It's just who you are. You're doing the thing. That is who you are. You follow? That's why they become high performers. Because everyone else is faking it till they're making it, they're forcing it. They're not following who they are. They're not congruent, right? High performers are doing what they feel is congruent to who they really are. And that's why they outperform everybody else around them. And that's just one element of psychological necessity we talk about in the book. The second one is also an internal game. And that is how to explain this. High performers allow obsession as well. They allow association with identity, doing well, but they also allow obsession. Meaning all high performers tend to be obsessed with a topic. I mean like dork out about it, like geek out about it. Like they get obsessed. And an obsession is different than a passion. Okay? Passions are okay. The whole world wants you to be passionate, right? Live with passion, follow your passions. Do your passions be passionate at work? Everyone wants you to be passionate. Passion is safe, Passion is accepted and passion is expected. But here's the difference between a passion and an obsession. When you're obsessed with something, people think you're crazy. You know, when you're passionate, they congratulate, oh, passion. When you're obsessed, they warn you, they say, why? You're spending too much time on that. You know, why are you so. Why do you care so much about it? They think you're weird for liking it. That's how you know the difference. Now, of course, there's unhealthy obsessions when you do it and focus on it so much that you wreck a relationship that you can't stop thinking about it. You come so compulsive. But I always share that. High performers, they are obsessive about their topic. And what I mean by that is they're obsessive about mastering that topic. They want to get good at it, like a high performing chess player. They want to master that game. They don't want to just, you know, play the game. They want to be known for the game. Like they want to develop a high level of mastery at that same thing in any other given genre. The high performers always stand out because you can tell people they do more research on it. Why? Because they're obsessed with it, right? They pay attention to their numbers. Why they're obsessed with it. They want that feedback. Why? They're obsessed with getting better at that specific topic. So they do. Deliberate practice. We know this of high performers, that internally, they generate this necessity by saying, this is who I am, and I love this topic so much, I'm gonna obsess on it. Then that's just the internal game. There's an external game of necessity, too. Sometimes you perform at your highest levels because you feel a sense of social duty or social obligation or even maybe spiritual purpose, meaning there's something outside of you. So it's not just your identity or what you like to do or are obsessed with doing. It's that there's something that you feel called to do or obligated to do, and you do it because of that. You've heard that phrase that we'll often do more for other people than we'll do for ourselves. That comes true with high performers. When I interview them, they say, you know what? I had to do that. I said, why are you so amazing? You know, I'm doing it for my family. Why are you so amazing? Well, you know, my wife and I were. Our backs were against the wall financially, so I'm showing up each day. Why are you so amazing? Well, you know, because I know that my team or my fans or my students or the kids across the street, they're watching. They're seeing me. I want to be a role model for them. Right? Why are you so amazing? Well, my parents are struggling right now, and I know that they need me to show up and bring my A game. Who needs you to bring your A game? That's a question high performers ask themselves, you know, when they sit down at their desk. I didn't know this, by the way. This is one of the things I said to you. This was a surprise to me. Now, at my house, at my desk, there's a little postcard because a high performer told me about this. That right next to my desk, I sit down and it says, who needs your A game? And it makes me. Instead of just jumping into my inbox or starting my day or getting hooked on social media or some distraction, I go, who needs me to show up today? It's that sprinter from the beginning of this video saying that I'm gonna bet on the person who says, I need to win this race for my mom. That's psychological necessity. An external drive, right? Social duty, obligation, purpose. Doing well for other people is a drive. And then the last element of these four, remember, number one, is they associate their identity with doing well, right. That's why it becomes a must. They're obsessed with it. That's why it becomes a must. They're doing it for others or for a calling or a spiritual purpose or for an obligation. Right? Some. I mean, I think it's important to say that high performers don't do it just because it's, you know, rainbows and airy fairy and everything's perfect. Sometimes it's obligation. It's the CEO who's outperforming the other people in their competition or their industry. Not because they want to, because there's pressure from the other, you know, from Wall street, from their investors, from the competition itself. So sometimes, you know, bringing your A game, you don't bring your A game just because it's amazing and you want to be awesome. You bring your A game because you have to. Right? You have to. You have to deliver. And this last one is so important. The fourth one has a lot to do with that. It's get ready. You're going to hate it. Sorry. Deadlines, High performers, it's necessary for them to bring their A game because there's usually an external deadline. Let me tell you, writing this book took me three years of my life. Almost a million dollars in research spending went into this book. I mean, there's 50 pages of cited reference material on the back. I read every one of those research studies. I read every one of those books. I obsessed about this myself. I am a writer. I wanted to get this book out to you guys. So I had it. All right. Identity. Yes. Good job. Obsession. Oh, I love this topic. Social obligation. Duty. Purpose. Calling. I want to give this to you. And you know what? I. I wasn't getting the book done because it wasn't complete. Necessity wasn't complete until you hit me with a deadline. And it was like, dang, that last element, Wham. As soon as I had that deadline, guess what happened. Output per hour increased. More pages were getting done, baby. Because necessity, sometimes you need that external pressure. Maybe you don't like it. No one likes being forced on a deadline. But hey, Olympians don't choose when and where the Olympics are. CEOs don't choose when and where the quarterly call or the meeting is. Right. We don't get to choose these things. Entrepreneurs don't get to choose when and where and how much their customers are going to buy. We have to show up for others and to others. Timelines in life sometimes, too. So here's what high performers do. They remind themselves of the deadlines and the times and why it is necessary, why there are consequences to doing it by then, right? And they remind themselves, they psychologically giving themselves that self talk, they go, I need to get this done now. And here is why. And being connected with that too is really important. I need to win this race at this stage of my career. I need better for my relationship right now at this stage of our marriage. Like they tell themselves about the timing and why it's important to do well. So how do you tie us together the next time you're going to go do some important activity, where that important activity for you is walking onto a stage, Whether it's putting a good PowerPoint together, whether it's doing the video, whether it's just being awesome in a meeting or your home life. Before you walk into the situation, raise your psychological necessity to be awesome in that situation. That's your job, that's your goal. This is what high performers do. Before they walk into that activity, they raise the necessity. They say, I, I need to do well in this situation because. And the answer is usually because this is who I am, I excel, I bring excellence. I care about doing well here. It's because I love this stuff. I love, I'm walking the situation because I chose it. I want to be here, I want to deliver, I want to be great. I want to get better at it. Because I want to get better at it. I'm going to obsess about it, I'm going to pay attention. If I'm getting better, I'm going to take that feedback, I'm going to improve. They say I got to do well in this meeting for these people, for, for that person, for this cause. And you know what? I better do it now. Cause you know what, life is short or I've got this deadline. But all these things, when these come together more and more and more and often for you, then what happens? You start achieving that necessity, that mindset of necessity to become exceptional at what you do. And then you do that over and over and you get this tagline, how extraordinary people become that way. Extraordinary people become that way because they choose to be that way. They choose to psych themselves up, to deliver, to do a good job. They raise that necessity. And because they raise the necessity, they raise their performance. They raise their performance, they change their lives and they achieve long term success. If you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book, High Performance Habits How Extraordinary People Become that way. It's available on Amazon right now. And when you order your copy. You're really supporting my channel and the message. And you're also getting a book that will reveal to you 20 years of my research into what is it that helps people go to a new level of success in their life? What does it really take? What habits are proven to help you reach long term success in your career, your health, your personal life, your relationships? It's called High Performance Habits. How Extraordinary People Become that way. It's available on Amazon right now.