Why I Refuse to Settle (and How You Can Too)

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 One to One with James Laughlin. I'm a former world champion and now I work with and coach professional athletes, entrepreneurs and CEOs of billion dollar companies. I'm going to share with you in this episode some of the insights and strategies, some of the tools that I use with my clients. Every week I'll bring you an insight, an action or a tool that will help you go from great to to greatest. My mission is to cut through the noise and help give you the tools that truly transform your mindset and help you to take the right actions towards your desired outcome. So let's dive in. Welcome back. These are our longer form conversations and I tried this last month, got great feedback from you amazing humans where I just kind of share with you lots of things that have been unfolding over the last month in my life. From the conversations that I'm sitting down with world leaders to high performers, to the stages that I'm standing on all around the country and around the world. The things I'm learning from people and seeing patterns and trends. And I want to share some of that stuff with you to help you in your life with your mission. Because we're all on our unique missions right in our own industries, with our own goals. But there are certain things I'm learning and seeing that I feel could really support you on your mission. So we'll get into. There's a few things I want to cover off, but I guess the first thing is gratitude. Starting with a big thank you to each of you if you went and bought my book Habits of High Performers. Thank you. For those that are watching rather than listening right now, I'm holding it in my hands. As you see, it's hard to hide this book. It's bright orange. But Habits of High Performers went to number one best selling book in its first week and then the Nielsen list, which is like the gold standard for measuring book sales, they've just reported this past weekend that it's the number one best selling book across the last four weeks, up against other big sellers like the Amazing Jacinda Ardern, if you like her, and others like Grant Robertson. So, yeah, feeling pretty humbled and deeply appreciative to you guys for supporting the book. It's a book that's practical, pragmatic, applicable to our everyday lives or work. And so the feedback I've been getting from you guys is that you're getting stuck into it, you're applying it, you're using it with your teams. I even had a guy say, james, I've read a quarter of it this weekend and I want you to come in, work with 300 of my team. I want them all to get a copy and I want to go through each of those seven habits and actually integrate it into their lives and work. And I'll tell you what, that's exactly what I geek out on. So it's been a great time. We've had three big book launches in V Cargill, thanks to Tony Miles. The Southland Business Chamber Ice House hosted us up for an amazing event in Auckland and of course the Irish Business Network here in Christchurch. And that was a really special one because Finn and Caroline were there, my family and friends and clients. Really, really special one. They were all amazing book launchers, but that one was particularly special and close to my heart. So I guess a couple of things to reflect on is get radically clear on what it is you want. That's probably the one thing with the book. People say, how did you write the book? I was like, just get radically clear on what I wanted. And I'm going to encourage you all to do exactly the same thing. Look, I wanted to share some insights from keynotes. So often when I'm speaking with people, they share insights. They share, even afterwards, when Q and A is finished, they come up quietly and they share some intimate challenges or problems or goals that they've got. And I start to see these rhythms turn up and I want to share those with you. Because you're here, because you invest in your personal growth, you're committed to personal mastery. So the first thing I wrote down here was mindset. Like, I get asked a lot about mindset. Well, first things first, let's define it. Mindset, in my view, is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world around you. So if you're struggling with day to day life or work, if you're having troubles getting motivated, often it starts with your bs, your belief systems. And so taking the time to rewire your beliefs will help you rewire your mindset. But often people say, oh, adopt a motivational mindset, adopt a growth mindset. It starts with beliefs. What are those? Beliefs that shape how you make sense of everything else around you. So that's the first thing I always challenge my clients to do. Whether it's a one to one client or working with a team, like, what do we believe about our chances of success? What do we believe about success itself? What do we believe about failure? What do we believe about money? So those things are, I would say, global beliefs that we've all got to take the time to get clear on. In the book, as you'll know, for those that are reading it or have read it, there's a whole exercise I've got in there for you to rewire your BS to set you up for success. So take a look. Next thing I wrote down here is mediocrity. Mediocrity is arguably the thing that we're all fighting. If we don't do anything, we will fall back to mediocrity. So if we choose to not go to the gym, if we choose to not eat well, if we choose to not read the books, if we choose to not do the work, if we choose to not uphold the standards, we. We fall back to mediocrity. How would you feel if someone said when you walked out of the room, you know what? You are so mediocre. They're so mediocre at what they do. I don't know about you, but I would be pretty unhappy. I wouldn't want that to be the case. We all want to be high performers, but high performance isn't a birthright. It's a choice. It's a habit. So I want you to really think about this idea of mediocrity. Which parts of your work or your life are mediocre? You know it. You don't need me to tell you, you don't need me to point it out. You don't need a coach to help you find which parts are mediocre. You already know. Identify those and ask yourself what would better look like, what would better in that area look like? And you'll already know. And if you struggle with that, that's where you can engage a mentor or a coach or someone that could just be a sounding board. But we have to fight mediocrity as individuals, as teams, organizations, and as a country. If we let mediocrity become acceptable, that's when we see whole nations go backwards. We must not settle for mediocrity. And there'll Be certain parts of your life where you may be less disciplined, but there's certain key things like your health, your wealth, your mindset, your relationships, your deeply important work. You cannot accept mediocrity. The reason I wrote the book was I wanted it to be an antidote to mediocrity. I wanted to take the greatest lessons from the greatest people I've worked with and help everyday humans implement that in their lives. So that's the one thing I'm hearing more and more as I go around speaking at different events and speaking for different companies is this idea of how do we not settle for mediocrity? In fact, up in Auckland, the Deputy Prime Minister showed up to my book launch and was deeply engaged and so curious. And in fact, he had a cheeky question, very cheeky question at the end that he said, hey, James, what makes your book any better than Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? I thought, what a great question. And I think everyone else appreciated it as well. And I said, look, awesome question. Look, the book was written many years ago with a very different context and a different world. A few things have changed. The expectations on males have changed and expectations on females have changed in terms of gender norms, gender roles, all of us are expected to do a lot more and so we should. I think it's great that we all share the load, but there's challenges that come with that. This book that I've written has been written with that in mind. Also, this book has been written with holistic high performance in mind. How do we perform above the standard norms whilst maintaining healthy relationships and wellbeing? Because as you know, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, that's something I didn't always do well. I might have been a seven time world champion, but my marriage ended in divorce, my health was average, I had a really strong relationship with alcohol. That's not high performance. So this book was written as an antidote to that. To go, how do we consistently exceed the norms, be high performers while still having a really good life? Not perfect, but a really good life in those other key areas. So that was my answer and I think you liked it. So I want you to think about that. For you, what is it that you're trying to battle the mediocrity with? Which part of your life are you not 100% satisfied with? Let's get radically clear on what better looks like there. That's what the greats do. What else have we got down here? Oh yeah, I've got a wee trip I'll tell you about, but hpl, I know some of you are coming to hpl. If you are coming and you listen to the podcast, please come up and tell me you do. So I want to see you, I want to meet you. I want to thank you for doing that. HPL is my annual event. I only host one a year. I only do it in Christchurch. Here in the south island of New Zealand, we get people from all over Australasia coming in for it. It's 400 high performers, aspiring high performers, leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, founders, parents, teenager. I think the youngest we've had is 14 there, right up to late 70s. It's a day of personal mastery, a day of personal growth. Next month, October 10th in Christchurch. If you want more details or do you want to grab one of the last few tickets, there's going to be a link in the show notes here or go to my website, jjlochlund.com and you'll be able to see live event. Grab yourself a ticket. All the Early Bird tickets have gone. They flew out the door. Tier 1 tickets are about to go as well, so if you want to get them, get in soon. We've got Sam Whitelock, most capped, all black of all time. As one of our special guests, we've got Dr. Ali Abushilova, who was the former lead psychologist of the New Zealand sas. And my God, does she have an epic story to tell. And I mean, phenomenal. She was taken hostage in Syria. I'm not going to tell any more of her story. You've got to come and listen. Phenomenal. And of course, the amazing Dom Harvey, broadcaster, athlete, authority, talking about his life and how we apply the lessons he's learned throughout the years. 31 years in the business and how we apply that. So it's going to be an amazing day. The people you'll rub shoulders with as fellow attendees, I promise you, you will love. It's just a day of high performance, a day of learning and growth. So love to see you there. And if you've got a book, bring it along. Love to sign it. If you don't, I'm sure we'll have a bookseller there, a local bookstore. I love to support local bookstores. We'll have a local bookstore there with some books. If you want to grab one or grab one for some of your friends, I'm happy to sign it, but yeah, very much looking forward to it. And for you Aussies, if there's any Aussies listening, I'm heading your way. Very, very shortly. Going to go over there for a week with Caroline. And the book has taken off in Australia, number one on Amazon. And it's stocked in lots of the good bookstores. So we're doing a bit of a media tour. Tons of podcasts, tv, radio. Yep, radio. Still alive. So looking forward to that. So if any of you are over there, please say hello. I'll be in Sydney for the bulk of the trip, but we'd love to see you. So I want you to think about, you know, as you look at the week ahead, look at the month ahead. What's your mvp, your most valued priority? High performers say no a lot. They say no to the noise. What are you going to say no to this week? I'd really love to know. And for those of you that are wanting to take their performance to the next level or their team, let me know. I've got a few spaces next year for keynotes. It's already booking up first half of the year already. I would say close to Chaka, but if anybody wants, I've got any big events coming up, any celebrations, any annual conferences, let me know. I love speaking to audiences, connecting with them, speaking about high performance and particularly the habits of high performing cultures and individuals. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. Thanks for tuning in to Lead On Purpose. If you find this episode valuable, please share it with one person that you think might benefit from it. And if you're serious about leveling up, please make sure you're subscribed to the show and continue to lead your life on purpose.