The #1 Trait of High Performers

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

Look, over the years, I've been so fortunate to interview some of the best leaders on the planet. Whether they're running countries, Fortune 500 companies, Formula One teams, large philanthropic organizations, neuroscientists, bestselling authors, it doesn't matter. The one thing. There's one thing they all shared, and I hope you have it in your life and you'll have it somewhere, but you might not have it in a place that's really, really crucially important. This. If there's one superpower that high performers and leaders have, this is it. And in every single person that I've interviewed, you can go back and listen to any of these interviews. You will hear it come up again and again and again. And I like to verify things from my own experiences. And I go back and go, okay, in my life, whether it was in business, in leadership, in performance, in relationships, did I have this thing? And where I did have it, things really reflected that. And where I lacked it, things also reflected that. This is the one thing that will make a crucial difference in your life, in your hobby, in your career, in your wealth, in your health. And that is the D word. What do you think it is? What's that magic D word? That is the superpower of leaders, the superpower of the highest performers. Discipline. Yeah, I know you got it. Discipline. Where in your life have you got great discipline? And you will. Maybe it's cleaning your teeth. You're super disciplined. You'd never forget it. Maybe it's always having a salad at Lunch. You're super disciplined with it. Maybe it's that workout that you do six days a week, maybe seven. Maybe it's the water that you drink every day. Maybe it's not drinking alcohol during the week and just having a few cheeky ones in the weekend. Where's your discipline? Good. Now let's get raw and real. Where do you lack discipline? I want to share this with you from the late, great Jim Rohn. Discipline is the bridge between goals, accomplishment. I'll repeat that. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Goals are one thing, but accomplishment, that's the other end of the spectrum between goals and accomplishment. What is there? Your goals are here, let's say right in front of you at chess level. And your accomplishment is up around head level. What's in between? Three letter word beginning with G. Gap. There's a big old gap there. When you look at the world of positive psychology and executive coaching, life coaching, the play is in the gap. That's where a great coach will play. They will help you find your gap and then they will help you figure out what do we do to close the gap. And when you close that gap, what do you do? You open up another one to get to your next goal so that you can accomplish that goal. Writing your goals, Good, good start. But actually accomplishing them. Discipline is the bridge. That's going to be the difference maker. You know, what does it look like for you? Is discipline something that you need more of? Pick an area in your life right now. What is that area that you know you need more? Discipline.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. See the difference? It's the difference between what you want now and what you want most. Do you want the large bar of chocolate now? Yeah, you probably do now that I've said it. You're probably thinking about it. But do you want, in 30 years time, coronary artery challenges, or do you want superb health?

I bet you want superb health. So you don't actually want the chocolate bar. You most want the health, but right now it's easy to go chocolate bar. I'll repeat that. Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. So what is it that you want most? Do you want deep relationships? Do you want abundant health? Do you want financial freedom? What you want and what person sitting beside you at the office wants. That's totally different. But what is it that you want most? If you're leading a team, what is it that you want most? Not what you want now? Maybe you Want great cash flow right now, security, certainty right now. But what you want most is succession, is exponential growth, is market share. So have a list on the left hand side of the page, what is it that I want now? On the right hand side of the page, what is it that I actually want most? And look, with self discipline, almost anything is possible. I was sitting with an athlete in recent years, chatting and having lunch, and I was like talking about their discipline and I was admiring their level of discipline. And they kind of smirked, said, look, in certain areas of my life, I'm disciplined where I need to be, where I need to be. At my best, I show up as my best and I'm disciplined there. But in other areas I'm not. They proceeded to order a double cheeseburger and fries and a pint of Coke. But they can because they're disciplined 999 other times throughout the week with their training, with their nutrition, with their focus. So discipline doesn't mean boring.

Discipline doesn't mean that you don't live a life of variety or joy. Discipline just means, you know, what if I want to get the uncommon thing I'm going to have to do Uncommon practices and habits and traits.

Discipline is the fuel of achievement. If you want to achieve, what's going to fuel you to get there is your commitment to doing what needs to get done. You know, the only discipline that lasts is self discipline. So where does it show up in your life? And again, you can write down a goal and then accomplish it or not. The difference between you doing that is your commitment to that discipline. You know, for me, as a youngster, I remember, you know, at 9 years old, 10 years old, I was incredibly passionate about trying to become a world champion drummer. That's all I wanted to be, a world champion champion drummer. I was very competitive, but it was something I aspired to do. And I constantly watched the world's best players and idolized them and mimicked them and pestered them for goodness sake as calling them and asking them to fax me music and exercises to practice. I was fanatical. But the one thing I was disciplined with was my daily practice. I would do a minimum of two hours, sometimes up to six hours during the week, per day and on the weekends. Some weekends it was eight hours, some weekends it was 10, 15, even more hours. Why was I disciplined? You know, why was I not out having fun with my friends like most other kids that age were doing? Most normal kids? Well, I was disciplined because I was very clear on my goal and I wanted to accomplish it, I wanted to close the gap. And I'll tell you what, there was a hell of a gap between where I was and, and becoming the world solo juvenile champion. Massive gap. And I was up against some incredible performers. So how did I have to close the gap? I had to be disciplined with the simple things. We call them rudiments in drumming. So back when I was a drummer, these rudiments were the basics. You know, if that was health related, that would be your push ups, your stretching, your sit ups, your 5k warm up run. That was the rudiments. Those things had to be non negotiable. Now the discipline now is very different. My discipline, you know, is focused on being a dad. My discipline is focused on my clients. My discipline is focused on preparation for events and keynotes that I'm speaking at around the country and around the world. Where is it that you need to be more disciplined as a performer, as a leader, or anywhere in your life? Because if you can get clear on your discipline and double down on it, I promise you, anything is achievable. Zig Ziglar once said it was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through. To me, that says it all. Character gets you out of bed. Let's go. Let's get up. Commitment moves you to action and discipline actually enables you to follow through. So my hope in today's episode is just to get you to think about the one superpower that is the golden thread that runs through every great leader and performer on the planet. No matter what their background, age, stage, ethnicity, gender, the. The one thing that unites them all is the shared discipline and the doubling down on that discipline. I love watching documentaries with great, disciplined people. It's inspiring, but you've got it in you. And if you want to go from mediocrity to something that's magnificent, it doesn't come down to magic sauce. It doesn't come down to inside secrets. It doesn't come down to anything other than being clear on where you want to get to and harnessing massive amounts of self discipline. So please, if there's somebody out there that you know that needs to hear this today, that's aiming for some goals or something that's meaningful, or they're leading teams, please send it through to them. I'd greatly appreciate it, but for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'D love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.