James Laughlin 00:00
Welcome to lead on purpose. I'm James Laughlin, a former seven-time world champion musician and now an executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week, I'll publish a solocast, 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.
James Laughlin 00:48
What is the secret to high performance for you, it could be in the office of the boardroom, it could be at home as a parent, it could be in a relationship, it could be with your health. We're not only to be Olympians striving for high performance, because when we're not high performers, we're low performers. It's one or the other. It's black or white. You're either in high performance mode, or you're in a low performance mode. Now we can beat ourselves up for the sorry for ourselves justify shoulda, woulda coulda. But actually, let's just get clear on, you know, what is the secret to high performance, I get asked all the time. And I work with some of the high performers in sport, and business, people that are at the very top of their game, internationally, people that are doing multi-million-dollar deals day in day out day traders, people who are dealing with stressful situations. You know, it's the same thing no matter what. High performance to me is defined by one thing, and I'm going to share that definition for you. And I want you to really think about this definition. This is something I share a lot at my events, something I share a lot, one to one with my clients. And I'm writing about this quite a bit now as well in terms of how I define high performance. Now before I share that definition with you, I want to just remind you that we've opened the doors for the HPL 2023 Live event. I do one large public live event every year. Tickets are limited, we just launched today. And the doors are open. So, if you'd like to come and join us, our former prime minister, Sir John Key will be there. The amazing Amy Carter, CEO of the Christchurch foundation will be there. And also, then inimitable, Matt Brown will be there. There are three special guests this year, the participants are ranging in all ages and stages and industries and backgrounds. But people who want to grow personally and professionally, people who want to lead themselves on purpose HPL is for you. So, if you want to go and grab one of those tickets before it sells out, which it does, every year we hold it, head over to JJ lachlan.com forward slash HPL 2023. And the HPL is in uppercase JJ lockeland.com forward slash HP l 2023. Go check it out. You'll be able to see a highlight video from the last year or two to see what it's all about. And see if HPL is for you. Now, let's get back to that definition. What is high performance? Well, I always believe when you're trying to find out answers to what you do want. Start with what you don't want. So, what is high performance? What's the opposite of high performance? What isn't high performance? Well, 100-hour weeks week, on week on week, that's not high performance. Succeeding on the field or with your chosen sport or business. But having awful relationships that's not high performance. Winning all the gold medals but being a mental wreck. It's not high performance. I really feel that you need to define what is happening in your life. That's high performance. And what is low performance. Here's the definition. Please write this down. If you can think about this definition, and everything that you do around relationships, career contribution, whether you're in sport, whatever it might be, if you can apply this definition. This will allow you to go Oh, yeah, I'm heading as an upward trajectory as a high performer or no. I'm going to burn out. I'm not doing everything right. We look at people that are just incredible at what they do. Anthony Bourdain Robin Williams, incredible people, but in the end took their own lives. They killed themselves. To me, nothing is worth pushing ourselves or sacrificing key things, and we'll talk about it in this definition in a moment, nothing is worth, that. We want to work on our mental well-being. Right? There's so much mental sickness out there. Let's focus on how we nurture our mental well-being, whilst being a high performer, being a high performer in one specific area of our life, whilst everything else suffers to me, it's just failure. And has been there, like, I'm not preaching here. I've been there. You know, back in my younger days, when I was a competitive drummer and very fortunate to win world titles, so many other aspects of my life for suffering, I was drinking a lot of alcohol, traveling the world on plan, staying in hotels. Alcohol was a huge part of my life. You know, sitting in the sun day in day out, topping my turnip, yes, I was very vain. But you know, that's not high performance, I was suffering. My relationships were fleeting. In my younger years, things weren't good. I wasn't working out, I was just relying on the fact that I was young, and hey, my body still is fine. I can eat and drink what I want. But we all know that can't last forever. So, I want to share with you the definition of high performance. And I know I've kept your wedding and I know; I've dragged that I but I wanted to add context and frame it. So, you can think, hmm, am I a high performer? Or am I the opposite. So here it is. The definition of high performance is performing above the standard norms over the long term, whilst maintaining positive relationships, and well-being. I'm going to repeat that, and I'm going to explain that high performance is performing above the standard norms over the long term, whilst maintaining positive relationships, and well-being. Now, to be a high performer, you can't just perform at the norm. You know, at the average level, that's not high performance. That's okay, medium performance. That's what everyone does. But if you're 1%, above the standard norm, then you're a high performer. If the standard and a test, the average is 80, out of 100, and you get 81, you're a high performer, you get at your average 81, you're above average. Now, doing something above the norms once. Yeah, that's maybe luck. That's maybe just good fortune. But to do it consistently over the long term. That's a sign that you're a high performer, high performers don't do things once they do them again, and again. And again, consistently. There is behavioral trait that that comes out and a high performer there's that behavioral trait of excellence of consistency of persistency. So performing above the standard norms over the long term, next bit, whilst maintaining positive relationships, right, so the people around you, the people, you work with the people you coach, the people in your family, or maybe if you've got an intimate partner, maybe if you've got kids, your parents, your siblings, your aunties, your uncle's, when you're performing above the standard norms, are you maintaining positive relationships with the people you want to maintain those relationships with? And lastly, whilst maintaining positive well-being, so being a world's best or being the richest person in the zoo, like, that's great, but if you're a mess, mentally and emotionally, surely that's not success. To me, it's definitely not high performance, it's not sustainable, you will burn out, you will implode. So, I want you to write that definition down and go, am I a high performer, and you get to decide where you perform. So, if you're a parent high-performance would be performing above the standard norms. So, you have to decide what is the norm as apparent. And what would I do if I was performing a bit above that? If that if you were an investor, okay, what would the norm be for an investor maybe that's a percentage of a return. Okay, the average investor would get 6.7% Okay, well, if I get 9%, I'm a high performer. You need to define what area you want to be a high performer in. You need to define what the norm is, and then decide what would above the standard normal look like Then ask yourself, Okay, what would positive relationships look like? It doesn't mean that you need to have 150 Positive relationships, you need to have a small handful of meaningful.
James Laughlin 10:12
trust centered relationships, it could be 315 10. It doesn't need to be hundreds, right? But a small number of really positive relationships with people that you trust and respect and love. And then you need to define Well, what does positive wellbeing look like? Well, just ask yourself, when was I not in a good place mentally? And emotionally? What when was that? What did it look like? What did it feel like? What were the things I was doing thinking saying, what was I carrying myself with my body language? The opposite of that is positive, right? So, I want you to really think about that. And to me, what you've just done is you've taken out 10 minutes of your day to really define the secret to high performance, the secret high performance is not winning at all costs. The secret to high performance is not burning every bridge to get to the destination. So, I'm going to reiterate, the definition of high performance is performing above the standard norms over the long term, whilst maintaining positive relationships, and well-being, I really hope that this has served you. And before I go, I just want to remind you that recently, I've decided to remove all ads, advertising promotions, here on lead on purpose, to really enhance your listening experience. But for me to continue running the show, I've got a whole team that helped me put the show out. And we have three episodes a week that go out. So, there's quite a lot involved in it. So, for it to continue to thrive. I'm going to ask you for a favor. Can you please share this podcast with three people today? Please think of three people that could benefit people that want to grow. People that want to listen to incredible guests, I bring in some of the world's top performers, top leaders, top parenting experts. If you can share this with three people that allows me to get into the ears of new listeners, which allows me to continue to Choate on Apple podcasts and Spotify. Recently, we got top 10 In Canada, on Apple podcasts, were a top one to five and New Zealand and Australia often and in the UK. But that all comes down to you, you helping you listening, you are engaging, and you really appreciate the great guests. So, I just want to say thank you. But please, if you'd like to continue having an ad free experience, I would love just did it help me by just sharing this with three people right now copy the link for the podcast and send it to him lead on purpose they can listen to on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, whatever way they want to listen to it. But I want to thank you for taking the time to invest in yourself, leveling up your mindset, your skill set, and your heart set. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.
James Laughlin
Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love it 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.