High-performing leaders should create their own pressure instead of waiting for it. Demand more of yourself than anyone else does, seek coaches and peers with higher standards, and deliberately design challenges to stretch into who you want to become.
Your best self demands a lot of you. Your future self demands a lot of you. I'm not just supposed to sit around. I'm supposed to earn life. I believe that. That's part of my default mode is demand mode. It doesn't mean demand has to stress you out. I know a lot of people, they're like, I don't like being demanded upon. I don't like obligation. I don't like challenge, Brendon. I don't like any of this. I'm like, well, I don't think I'm speaking to those people. I'm thinking I'm talking to high performers. I think I'm talking to a leader. I'm thinking, I'm talking to somebody who loves growth. Sometimes we have to demand more of ourselves than anybody else would. We have to get coaches who demand more of ourselves than we think our potential is even capable of. We've got to be in groups that have expectations that are higher for us than we had from where we grew up, the people that we were around, what we've achieved so far. If the only challenges are challenges that life has thrown at you, then you haven't started consciously living life. What I've learned is that some people, they design challenge into their life so they have more success than everybody else. They don't run from challenge. They're creating their own challenges to hit that next KPI or goal at work. They're the ones who's setting higher standards. They're setting up their own challenge to stretch themselves into an aspirational character while most people are sitting in comfort and complaining about difficulty. They take on difficulty and their brain loves it.
